The Fragile World (22 page)

olivia

Once, when I was a kid, I’d thought about running away. I’d taken a vintage train case, something Mom had picked up at a yard sale, and crammed it full of things from my room—dolls and toys and a blanket and my toothbrush. Mom had interrupted me when I was sitting on top of the case, trying to get it to close. “What’s this?” she’d asked, spotting the edge of my blanket where it was spilling out of the suitcase. “Are you planning a picnic?”

I wasn’t sure exactly what she thought when she saw me crying in her beautiful store, on top of her beautiful couch, but again she played along, true to form. “Why not? That sounds like a great idea!” she said. “We haven’t been to the zoo in—what? I don’t know. Years.”

I didn’t volunteer the information, but I could have told her the exact year of our last visit down to the day. It had been part of our family Christmas trip—Dad and Mom holding gloved hands, Daniel boosting me up at the exhibits to get a better look. We had been a zoo-going family; Daniel and I had been to the Sacramento Zoo and the Oakland Zoo and the San Francisco Zoo—we’d seen monkeys and sloths and giraffes and pandas and penguins. Now that I was older, the realization that these animals were in captivity—that they had not
chosen
to live on this patch of land in San Francisco or Oakland or Sacramento or Omaha—put somewhat of a damper on the experience. Still, I wanted to see the zoo again—to feel happy and carefree as a kid. Somehow, a visit to the zoo felt like the one thing I absolutely wanted at that moment.

“Really? We can go?”

“Of course. We can do whatever you want,” Mom said.

As we drove, I avoided looking at Dad in the rearview mirror, even though I could feel his eyes there, boring into me. At a traffic light, Mom leaned over and smoothed the top of my hair, which was sticking up in stiff peaks where the hairspray had dried. “Maybe we can eat at that little café at the zoo,” she offered. “It’s overpriced, but...”

“That would be great,” I said. “Wouldn’t it, Dad?”

“That’s fine,” he said amiably, still watching me in the mirror. I had the feeling that I could ask him for anything at that moment—a tattoo, a body piercing, a keg of beer—and he would have gone along with it. Not that I wanted a tattoo, a body piercing or a keg of beer, but I wouldn’t have minded watching him wallow in his guilt. I felt whiny and stubborn and unreasonable, like a real teenager for a change. Even though it was cold, I rolled down the passenger-side window and threaded my fingers through the crisp air. In the backseat, Dad must have been cold, but he didn’t mention it.

Mom was telling us about a woman from Seattle who had visited the store and commissioned a half-dozen pieces to be finished by the end of summer; just this morning an order had come in from one of the woman’s friends, and she and Stella were over the moon. Dad asked about the pieces, and Mom mentioned a new wood-staining process. The way they kept up a steady stream of small talk, it was as if we were a happy family on a sitcom, the kind where the
D
word would never be discussed, because it simply wasn’t in the trajectory of the characters.

“That’s really great, Kathleen,” Dad said.

Mom said, “Thank you, Curtis, I appreciate that.”

I glared out the window. It was all so fake. They might have been reading from a script called How Not to Let Your Divorce Royally Fuck up Your Child. Why else would they be calling each other by their names? They had probably planned this whole stupid trip together months ago as a way of manipulating me. They’d known what I wanted—friendly, happy parents, and were just waiting for me to fall into line.

We made our way directly from the zoo entrance to the café behind the Wild Animal Pavilion. Dad picked up the tab for our burgers and fries, and Mom studied the zoo brochure, pointing out the Orangutan Forest and the Gorilla Valley.

Stop!
I wanted to scream.
If you’re getting a divorce, then just come right out with it.
Had they just been dancing around the issue, silently agreeing not to mention it in my presence? It
was
strange that they’d never discussed it with me, despite three years apart.

And if they were getting a divorce, it explained just about everything—from our crazy road trip to Dad all but admitting he was passing me off to Mom. Was that what he was thinking when he was on top of the cafeteria, looking down—that he had only one more cord holding him to the world, and it was time to cut himself free? Or had it been Mom’s doing, arranged in a clandestine phone call? She’d wanted this from the beginning, from that awful day we’d sat in the living room and I’d picked Dad’s side.

For a second I felt the wooziness that typically preceded a major hyperventilation attack, and then I realized I wasn’t scared, not at all. I was mad.

“We’re taking a few of our pieces to a show in Minneapolis this fall,” Mom continued, picking apart her hamburger, and Dad nodded, sucking it all up. “The great thing is that we’ve taken on a few interns, mostly unpaid, but they’re able to help us out and learn at the same time....” Mom’s face was practically gleaming from happiness, or maybe just from the glow of a pendant light over our table. Then she must have noticed that I wasn’t returning her smile, because her lips wavered.

Did she really need to rub her success in my face? She didn’t need to prove how much she didn’t need us—not Dad’s advice, not my companionship. In fact, if I’d been there all along, if I’d packed up my stuff three years ago and come east with Mom, maybe she wouldn’t have been successful at all. Her whole life would have been consumed with me and my
teenagerness,
my needs, my five million irrational fears and my rational ones, too. There would have been no time for her to woo clients or construct fabulous pieces or plan trips to Minneapolis. She’d been a million times better off without me, but now Dad had had enough, and it was time for the big trade-off. Clearly I’d failed there, not holding him together the way I should have, not being able to keep him from going up on that roof, not being reason enough for him to come down on his own. He would be better off without having to worry about me and everything I was worried about.

It was a fairly shitty thought, but it was true: both of my parents would be happier without me.

“You okay, Liv?” Mom asked.

“Did we come to the zoo to sit in a restaurant, or what?” I demanded, standing up with my half-full tray. I waited outside so they could have that parent talk, where one parent says, “Did you say something to her?” and the other says, “No, but I think she knows.”

I took off ahead of them, leading the way through the Lied Jungle, which claimed to be the world’s largest indoor rain forest. It was difficult to stay angry and disappointed and anxious when there were gibbons swinging past, branch to branch, and pygmy hippos near the water’s edge. I hadn’t realized it was a Saturday until I had to elbow myself into position for an unobstructed view of the Cat Complex. Coming out of the Bear Canyon, I was nearly trampled by a horde of seven-or eight-year-olds moving in a pack, and the human-to-stroller ratio did seem completely skewed. I peered into the strollers to see sleepy babies inside, blissfully sucking on fingers or pacifiers or the giant rubber nipples of their bottles. Nothing had gone wrong for them yet—not that they knew.

Dad and Mom were close by; every now and then I turned around, and Dad bumped straight into me, or I overheard Mom say “Look over there! A lemur!” But somehow, I felt desperately alone. If Daniel had been there... No. If Daniel were alive, he would be twenty-three, and that would be way too old to wander through a zoo on a Saturday, even to humor his little sister. He’d be off in London or Tokyo, giving a concert that I would later see on YouTube.

I pressed on, determinedly, my feet beginning to ache in my combat boots, not that I would have mentioned this fact. We passed the okapi, the gazelles, the zebras, the warty pigs, the bongos, the swift herds of antelopes. I could pretend, too. I could act as if this were a happy family outing, and we were just normal Omahans enjoying a normal Saturday at the zoo.

Mom caught my arm in the Simmons Aviary, using her free hand to point out the magnificent plume on a crowned crane. It
was
sort of beautiful—a tiny golden crown perched on top of a not-so-special bird head. I reached into my pocket for my cell phone to take a picture, but Dad jumped in like some kind of photographing superhero, insisting he would get a picture of both of us. Instead of getting a picture of the crowned crane, I ended up with a picture of Mom and me standing a foot apart with a not-very-special tree in the background.

I tried to corner Mom while we waited in line for the women’s restroom, but unlike lines for women’s restrooms the world over, this one moved too quickly. “So, what’s next?” I asked.

“Hmm, what do you think?” She pulled the folded brochure from her pocket. “Maybe the Desert Dome? They’ve got iguanas, a meerkat...”

“I meant after the zoo,” I said pointedly. “After today. After tomorrow. What’s next?”

She looked at me as if I were speaking her language, but in a different dialect or with such a strong accent that it took a while for my words to make sense. “Um, we’re heading to dinner,” she said. “Uncle Jeff and Aunt Judy can’t wait to see you again.”

“Mom—”

But I was at the front of the line, and a stall became free, and I lost my chance. When I came out, I waited at the sinks for Mom, but she must have peed extremely fast, because I found her waiting outside on a bench with Dad, their heads bent close together. They were planning the hand-off, trying to figure out how to make it seem spontaneous, or worse—trying to figure out how to make it all look like
my
idea in the first place.

We ended our Fake Family Day with dinner at Uncle Jeff and Aunt Judy’s and me still in a bad mood. Even their house made me angry. They had one of those massive, modern, sprawling homes that had a separate space for everything—a music room, a play room, a living room, a family room, a den, a dining room—so that it was sort of like walking through a beige mausoleum. Each room looked more or less the same, which must have driven Mom nuts—tan walls, stone floors, a light brown couch, a cream-colored throw.

Aunt Judy threw her arms around me at the front door. I hadn’t seen her since Daniel’s memorial service, and it surprised me that she was still so much taller than me. Had I not grown at all since then? She’d played basketball in college and had the kind of body that was all hard angles, so that she didn’t so much hug a person as box out everyone else. She gushed, “You know, if you’re still here a few weeks from now, Chelsey will be home for the summer. It would be so nice for you to catch up!”

A few weeks from now
. Apparently, everyone was in on this conspiracy, except me. I forced a smile. It would have been awkward to see Chelsey, anyway; she was closer to Daniel’s age, and other than bumping into her online, we hadn’t seen each other for years.

Uncle Jeff lifted me completely off the ground, swung me around for a bit like a child on an amusement park ride, and deposited me back onto my feet. He was over six feet himself, broad-shouldered like Grandpa had been. “You’re getting so big,” he said. “Course, big is a relative term around here.”

Everyone laughed.

I noticed that no one hugged Dad; it was two quick handshakes, and that was that. Friendly but frosty, the way you said hello to someone you had purposefully been avoiding until you couldn’t avoid them anymore.

Aunt Judy poured wine for the adults and directed me to a massive side-by-side refrigerator in the garage, which was stocked with twenty kinds of soda in long-necked bottles. Who in the world drank all of this? Had it been a last-minute purchase for my benefit, or stocked for Chelsey’s return home from the University of Iowa? Maybe Chelsey still had pool parties and movie nights with her high school friends. If I were being dumped in Omaha, we would probably get to know each other. But right now, if she walked through the door and caught me snooping in her refrigerator, she might think the house was being robbed.

The evening was filled with awkward conversation, reminding me of our long-ago family therapy session, with each of us going around the circle and stating our piece. Uncle Jeff talked about a new commercial development on the north side of town. Aunt Judy was coaching a traveling girls’ basketball team and had a number of trips planned for this summer. Mom rehashed the same tidbit about the woman from Seattle who loved her work, and then it was on to Dad and me. Dad said that teaching had been challenging this year, and he was glad for a little break. Everyone jumped to murmur agreement, and then the conversation fell flat, like a fart at a cocktail party. True, I knew very little about cocktail parties, but it did fit what I knew about farts. Uncle Jeff got up to open another bottle of wine, and Aunt Judy went to check on the dessert. When they came back, they were smiling so hard it might have been family picture day at Olan Mills.

It was my turn.

“What about you, Olivia?” Uncle Jeff asked.

I wondered what they wanted to hear first: that I had filled at least a dozen notebooks with things I was afraid of, that I was once again failing P.E., that although I was sixteen years old, I didn’t even have my driver’s permit, that I’d lost my virginity to someone who didn’t even know my name, that yesterday I’d kissed someone who I wouldn’t at all mind kissing again. And to top it off, neither of my parents particularly wanted me.

Mom smiled at me encouragingly, her teeth stained pink from the wine.

Aunt Judy winked at me. “Oh, she’s probably got a million secrets, just like any teenager. Chelsey was the same way at that age.”

I took a long slug of my grape soda and said, “Actually, my life is fantastic, in an illusory sort of way.”

No one had anything to say to that.

curtis

When we were finally back at the house—at Kathleen’s house—Olivia yawned dramatically and announced she was going to bed. Since the confrontation in Kathleen’s store, I’d been on the alert for a major blow-up, but instead, Olivia had been operating on a slow simmer, like a teakettle not quite coming to a boil.

“Hey,” I said, catching her arm as she started up the staircase. “I want to say good-night.”

Kathleen had walked ahead of us with a Tupperware container of leftovers, and I could hear her boots clack on the kitchen tile.

Olivia squirmed out of my grasp. “That’s all you want to say?”

I swallowed. “I want to say that I’m sorry I haven’t done a better job of things.”

She stared at me, and I waited for the apology that didn’t come.
I don’t really hate you, Dad.
Would I have apologized if the tables were turned? Was she waiting for me to apologize?

I reached for her again and gave her a quick, tight hug. “I love you,” I whispered.

“Yup. Night, Dad,” she said, breaking free again.

I watched her walk upstairs, steadying herself with a skinny arm on the banister. It wasn’t a real goodbye, but I hoped she would remember the hug, the I love you. Someday, I hoped at least she would remember the moment.

I found Kathleen in the kitchen, taking our breakfast dishes out of the dishwasher. “Ready for that talk?” I asked.

She nodded, surprised.

By mutual, tacit consent we went down to the basement and sat down on the mattress of the pull-out couch, pushing aside my rumpled bedding.

I ran my palms over my thighs, suddenly nervous as a teenager.

Kathleen said, “I need to know why you’re here.”

This was the moment. I don’t know how I’d envisioned it—maybe over a glass of wine, a toast to old times’ sake. I still felt somewhat waterlogged from the wine at dinner, although its warm effects had worn off.

“Kathleen.” I looked at her,
really
looked at her—this woman I’d met all those years ago, when she was still a girl, really, when I’d been so fascinated by her. She had saved me; she’d taught me to believe that another life was possible, a good one. She’d had our children; I’d loved the feel of her pregnant body, so lovely and round, her belly reverberating with tiny movements as the baby shifted and stretched. If I could go back and do the same things again with the guarantee of different results, I would have.

“Curtis,” she said, pleading now. “Tell me.”

All the anger was gone, all the reproach, all the long silences that had grown between us, that I had allowed to grow. We were just two people, the same two we’d been all those years ago. I took her hand. “Kathleen, I want you to take Olivia.”

“Of course,” she said, not even hesitating. She didn’t say I told you so. She didn’t remind me that this was what she’d wanted from the beginning, that she had known it would be for the best. “But why, Curtis? What is it?”

She didn’t say:
What the hell is wrong with you?
But it would have been a fair question.

I only told her what she already knew, in whole or in part, things that were true enough without being the real truth. I told her that I was barely making it through the school day, could hardly juggle work and home. I said that Olivia needed a female influence in her life more than ever. She needed to be challenged and pushed and encouraged, and I wasn’t sure I was up to the job.

Kathleen listened to me ramble, watching closely. She had always been a good listener, silent when silence was called for, but ready to speak—to pronounce a verdict, to share sympathy—when needed. When I finished, she cleared her throat and said, “Maybe both of you need to move out here.”

I blinked.

“I’m serious. Maybe that’s what needs to happen.”

“That’s not what I was suggesting.” I’d tried to say it gently enough, but she flinched. I could see her trying to rally, trying not to be hurt. Since Daniel, she’d had to keep her guard up. I’d caused that. I’d pretended she was brittle, a hard shell of the woman I loved, someone who could put one foot in front of the other and move right on with life, as if a chasm hadn’t opened up between us. But it wasn’t fair; I was the one who had been brittle, not allowing myself to feel anything but hate. Kathleen had been waiting, warm to the touch, for me to reach out to her. It was my fault for not reaching.

Her voice trembled. “I would love to—”

I cut her off. I knew what it must have taken, for her to make the offer. “Not now,” I said, heart pounding.
Not ever.
I laced her fingers with mine, brought her hand to my lips.

I thought I had forgotten about beautiful things, but what happened next was the most beautiful déjà vu in the world, the most perfect goodbye.

We had followed a dutiful protocol, those long ago summers when I had stayed at her house. I’d worked construction jobs by day and come back, exhausted, to find Kathleen waiting for me. But we were rarely alone; Owen and Barbara were there, or Jeff, who was out of college and engaged to Judy but still living at home to save for their wedding. All day long, on top of the roof I was helping to shingle, the sun burning against the back of my neck, I’d thought of Kathleen—the nearness of her when we sat side by side in front of the television, her parents in the next room; the coy rub of her calf against mine under the kitchen table.

Every night I had spent on the pull-out couch in that basement, I’d imagined sneaking up two flights of stairs to her bedroom, sliding beneath her sheets to where she was waiting. Out of respect for her parents, in her parents’ house, I had never done more than entertain the idea. At Northwestern, we’d tumbled in and out of each other’s beds, leaving notes for roommates or hanging scarves on our doorknobs, telltale, shameless signs. In Omaha, the waiting became unbearable. When we couldn’t stand it, we’d take my Datsun out on the pretext of shopping for one thing or another, complete the errand in warp speed and drive down to a spot Kathleen knew near the river, where my car was hidden from the road. Usually we made it out to the blanket I kept in my trunk, but sometimes we just slid into the backseat, all hands and elbows, half-clothed, laughing and fumbling. Once, we’d stopped at a McDonald’s afterward to cool off, and I ordered us soft-serve vanilla cones. Sitting across from each other in a booth, I’d asked her to marry me, and she’d said yes. There wouldn’t be a ring for another six months or so, and I’d be teased relentlessly for my lack of romance—
In a McDonald’s, Curt? And she still said yes?—
but I knew I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t asked her, and she hadn’t said yes, right at that moment.

But once—only once, the summer of our impulsive engagement—we had made love inside the house. She had appeared at the bottom of the basement stairs, whispering, “Shhh, Curtis.” Until she pulled the nightgown over her head and stood in front of me naked, I’d thought I was in a dream. She straddled me, her body creamy-white and so beautiful I moaned into her throat. We were quiet, but we didn’t rush. Afterward, we lay side by side, smiling, our bodies coated with a sheen of sweat.
It will always be like this,
I had promised myself.
This will be our forever.

But it was even better this time, maybe because it had a final quality for both of us, maybe because we were both people who liked closure, who wanted to bring things full circle. The mattress on the pull-out bed was as bad as it had been back then, and creaky, too. I thought once of Olivia all the way up on the second floor, but we weren’t as quiet as we’d been when we were twenty.

Kathleen was still beautiful, would always be. I ran my hands slowly over her, neck to toe, her body waiting and welcoming. We had changed in all the expected ways in thirty years, but we came together more gently, weighted down with everything that had happened between us. It was an underwater reverie, a fearless exploration. We fell asleep wrapped in each other’s limbs, Kathleen’s head on my chest. I dreamed that I was tangled in her hair and didn’t want to find my way out.

When I woke, Kathleen was gone and the house was quiet. I fumbled for my cell phone. Four-thirty. Maybe she had wanted to sleep upstairs, to be close in case Olivia needed her, or maybe she was bound by that old sense of propriety, of what could and couldn’t be done under this roof. Or maybe it was something else entirely—she’d gone upstairs because we were done with each other, and that was the gentlest way to say so.

From my suitcase, I removed the box of Daniel’s cremains and held it for a long moment. It was only right that he stay here—not alone in our house in Sacramento, not at the mercy of whatever happened to me in Oberlin. I looked around the basement for the right place, somewhere it wouldn’t be discovered right away. And then I took out the letter I’d written in Lyman and left that, too.

I hadn’t really unpacked, so it was easy to zip my bag and carry it upstairs in a single trip. I winced at the sound of the engine starting in the driveway, but no lights came on upstairs from where Kathleen and Olivia were asleep, and there was no movement behind any curtains. Nevertheless, I waited for a long moment before raising my hand in a grateful goodbye.