Within Arm's Reach (11 page)

When I graduated from college it was my father who told me that despite my high test scores, a woman could only pursue one of two careers: nursing or teaching. I didn’t have the patience for teaching and I couldn’t stand the sight of blood, so I got a job as a salesgirl at Bloomingdale’s. I was bored all day long at work, and then at home every night I listened while my father abused Pat and ridiculed me. I watched my mother hurry from one task to another, one child to another. She appeared deaf to what was being said. To the damage that was being done. I met Louis at Bloomingdale’s. I helped him pick out a suit for a friend’s wedding. I liked how physically large he was—I am five foot nine, but I felt petite beside him. His personality was warm and light. He told a lot of silly jokes and laughed at the punch lines along with me. We went out for coffee, and then dinner, and then suddenly we were an item. I was quiet on our dates, letting him do most of the talking. One night, while driving back to New Jersey from seeing a show in Manhattan, we stopped at a red light and I pointed out a house I liked. This small comment caused Louis to bang the steering wheel with his hand and yelp like a dog. I couldn’t understand what he was saying at first because I was so surprised by the clatter of words. “I have been waiting since we got in the car forty-five minutes ago for you to say one word. I promised myself that I wouldn’t start this conversation—you were going to have to. It was a little test. But forty-five minutes! Jeez, Kelly. Didn’t you have anything you wanted to say about the show, about anything?”

I know that I smiled at him at that moment, amused. I know that I didn’t find my voice until after we were married and I had moved one town away from my family and quit my job at Bloomingdale’s. When, shortly after the trip home from New York, Louis told me that he knew I was the one for him and that we were meant to be together, I chose to believe him. We were married a few months later and I moved from my father’s house to my husband’s house. I had Gracie just before our first wedding anniversary.

I never had a place of my own until this room. It has been mine, and mine alone, for six months now. I have told no one about this place: not my husband, not my daughters. I now have somewhere to go when I’ve had another argument with Louis or when I’ve had my feelings hurt by one of the girls. Or when my mother calls and asks me, once again, to be the head of the family, to convince my brothers and sisters to do something they don’t want to do. To do something I don’t want to do, either. I should be used to having my feelings disregarded by now. I don’t understand why my mother can’t be happy with just me, Gracie, Lila, and Ryan. Why can’t we be enough? There is little point in drawing all of my brothers and sisters and their families together. What you get when we are all in the same room is not love. It is a potent combination of our childhood, my father’s anger, and my mother’s deliberate silence and pointless barbed comments. It is the long, thin, thorny end of the rose.

Sometimes I am bored in the motel room. Sometimes, like today, I can’t get comfortable. I stand up, pace, try the rickety armchair in the corner, peek through the curtains at the rush of the highway. I know that this time is important in my journey to know myself, but occasionally it is unpleasant. I remember shaking Vince Carrelli’s warm hand as we said good-bye, and how we each seemed to hold on to the handshake for a second too long. I flip from thoughts of my mother to my siblings to my daughters, and I feel as if each turn sends me into another brick wall. And then at some point I run out of things to think about altogether, I run out of anger, and I am left feeling blank and empty. Swallowed up in some vague darkness. This is the point when I put the pillows back in the closet, switch off the lights, and leave.

THAT VERY night I am pressed into my role of family liaison. My mother has asked me to make sure all of my brothers and sisters agree to show up for the Easter party. Meggy calls to say that she doesn’t understand why she has to be the one to travel here, when she has less money than any of us. I tell her I would be happy to pay the gas money it would take for her to drive from her house in southern New Jersey to northern New Jersey. My sister-in-law Angel calls to say that Johnny’s antidepressant had been changed, and now that his headaches are better, he’s happier about seeing everyone. Theresa phones to let me know she is baking three pies for the event, even though I had told her that Lila and Gracie are planning to make cookies. Ryan calls to say he is worried about Mother. He says she seemed to have a cloud over her head when she last visited. I am tempted to ask him how he could see a cloud what with all the fat, dirty birds flying around his apartment, but I restrain myself. Of course, I don’t tell Ryan about Mother’s accident; there is no point in upsetting him. Pat is the only one of my siblings who doesn’t call. I had known he wouldn’t, but still I had hoped. But Pat knows the time and the location of the party, and he will show up. He will do his duty, and no more.

Louis comes home while I’m on the phone with Ryan. I take these kinds of calls at the table in the kitchen, where I can pay bills or sort through the mail at the same time. He sits across from me and finishes the leftover Chinese food that was in the refrigerator. While I talk, I eye him to see if he’s spoken to Vince yet. I wonder what he will say about my haircut, which is very short in the back and on the sides. I haven’t decided yet whether I like it, and I trust Louis’s opinion.

When I hang up with Ryan, he says, “I wish you didn’t have so much stress over this party.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to take care of your mother and all of your brothers and sisters. Let them take care of themselves. They won’t fall apart if you put yourself first for once. You know, you could skip this Easter party entirely if you wanted to.”

I stare at him. Sometimes I envy Louis his family, which started out small and then disappeared. Other times I feel badly for his loss. But it is always clear that he has no idea what having a family really means. The ties that crisscross and bind and trip up my brothers and sisters and my mother and me are invisible pieces of thread to my husband. No matter how closely he looks, even when I push his nose right up against the glass, he does not see it. He does not understand.

I say, “Why are you picking a fight with me? You know I have to go to this party. You’re coming with me, right?” This is a question I would never have even thought to ask six months ago. Of course he would be coming with me. He’s my husband.

He shrugs. I don’t know how it’s possible, but his size is always a surprise to me. His shoulders are so wide, they completely block the back of the chair he is sitting on. “Of course I’m going to the party,” he says. “I’m sorry. I just had a strange day, and I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

“Strange how?”

“Vince Carrelli made me rearrange my schedule tonight to see him, and then he tried to tell
me
what my problems are. I swear to God, Kelly, I almost hit him.”

“Louis!” To hear him even suggest violence is shocking. It is completely out of character. “I’m sure Vince was just trying to be helpful. What did he say?”

He stands up and carries his plate to the sink. “I’ve been taking care of this guy since we were in the fourth grade. He was always picked on as a kid, and I stood up for him. I was the one who kept him from getting beaten to a pulp by his asshole cousin. I tutored him in math throughout high school. If I hadn’t talked him into buying that house by the town pool, he and Cynthia would have thrown away all their savings on rent. And then when he nearly drank himself out of a job this past year, I stopped the board from taking action against him. Jesus, Vince is a career fuck-up. He’s the last person I’d take advice from.”

I shake my head. “Well then, who will you take advice from? Who’s good enough to give you advice? Because you need some, Louis. You sleep on a coffee table every night. When is that going to change? What if people find out what’s going on here?”

He looks very tired, standing on the opposite side of the room. “I don’t mean to make you unhappy, Kelly. Everything is fine. This is only temporary. I’ll be better soon.”

“When is soon? And where do you go every afternoon?” What if he has fallen in love with someone else? What if he is having an affair?

“I never ask you where you go after work or on Saturday afternoons, do I? I trust you. I love you. All I’m asking is that you trust me, too. I’m going through something right now, but it will be fixed soon. Will you just trust me?”

I run my fingers through my new short haircut. It dried naturally in a matter of minutes this afternoon. I think the look will grow on me. It’s fine that my husband, who used to annoy me by noticing every little thing about me, didn’t notice this big change. He is not himself right now. I will cover for him until he comes back to his senses. I will make this household appear the same as always, our marriage unchanged, our habits untouched. I will stick myself in front of his line of vision every chance I get and remind him that I am still here and I am his wife. I can’t say that I trust Louis to pull through this on his own, but I do trust myself to hold everything together. As usual.

LILA

Gram, Gracie, Uncle Ryan, and I have been alone in the kitchen for nearly twenty minutes. Mom and Dad have disappeared somewhere. They’re probably fighting. The only one who has spoken—apart from “Will you hand me the sugar?” or “Is the oven at the right temperature?”—is Ryan, and he is not someone you can hold a conversation with. We have been rolling out cookie dough, cutting it into the shapes of eggs and rabbits, and placing it in the oven. I have the most muscle, so I roll the dough. Gram and Ryan sit at the kitchen table wielding cookie cutters. Gracie mans the oven, sliding in and pulling out trays. The room smells of sweetness and holidays and warmth.

Only our silence cuts through that aroma, running from each of us in pointed directions. Gracie hasn’t had much to say to me since I told her I was moving out at the end of the week. Gracie also seems to be avoiding Gram, not looking directly at her, not speaking to her. And Gram is keeping to herself, bent over the trays of dough. It is hard to tell if her silence is deliberate or if she’s just not in the mood to talk. And, as for me, what’s the point of opening my mouth?

I figure it’s to my credit that I’m at least aware that I am in a bad mood, and that it’s probably best that I keep quiet. I’m exhausted because I was on call last night and got only two hours of sleep. Things are getting worse at the hospital. I can’t seem to say the right thing to the patients, no matter how hard I try. And Belinda has been testing what little patience I have left.

Also, I am in no mood for the boredom and the stress of one of these gatherings. The fact that it’s taking place here means Gracie and I had to spend long hours cleaning and that I can’t even leave early. Besides, it’s best to come to these family events feeling focused and sure of yourself because together the McLaughlins tend to shake one another up. You have to be ready, and today I am not. I wish I was already in my new apartment, where I could close and triple-lock the door and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Mom stops just inside the kitchen and raises her hands dramatically in the air. We look over obediently. “Well,” she says, “here you are doing all this work and I found your father napping in front of the TV.”

“I was watching the news,” Dad says. He rubs the back of his neck with his hand. “What can I do to help?”

“Television is evil,” Ryan says.

My father seems to notice Ryan for the first time. His face brightens, and he says, “I just bought your building.”

“What do you mean?” Mom says. “The building Ryan lives in? When?”

Dad is smiling to himself, his arms folded over his chest. His posture is now straight, a change from a few seconds earlier. “I got the place for a song. The structure of the building is decent, but it needs a lot of work. The previous owner hasn’t put a dime into it over the last twenty years.”

“Vince is right,” my mother says, “you are buying up all of Ramsey. Why wouldn’t you tell me that you bought my own brother’s building?”

“That’s Dad’s business, Mom,” I say. “It’s not personal.”

“He’s doing really well,” Gracie says. “You should be happy for him.”

“Girls,” Gram says.

“Girls,” my father says, shaking his head.

Mom looks appropriately squelched. Her skinny shoulders drop and I feel guilty. But the temptation to knock her down comes on so strong, it is almost impossible to resist. I can see from the way Gracie is playing with her hair, twisting and pulling it, that she feels badly, too.

There is a sudden noise in the corner of the room, a tapping sound. Ryan is patting the arms of his wheelchair. As soon as the sound begins, Gram is on her feet and moving around the table toward him. Ryan’s lips have gone white from biting them.

“My building,” he says.

Gram leans over him. She says, “You can stay in your apartment, Ryan, I promise. Can’t he, Louis? Nothing will change. This is good news, actually. Your building will be owned by family. Louis didn’t mean to surprise you like that. Everything is fine.”

We all watch, frozen, as Gram soothes her son.

“Yes,” Dad says, “of course you’ll stay in your apartment. Sorry if there was any misunderstanding, Ryan. I’m just going to fix it up, that’s all. No need for you to worry. Just a little fix-up.”

“A fix-up,” Ryan repeats. “I won’t have to move?”

“No,” Dad says.

“I promise,” Gram says.

The tension in the room diminishes, just in time for the party to start.

THE FIRST hour or two of these family gatherings are always torturous. We see one another once, maybe twice a year. We are family, but we have very little in common except that we are all terrible at small talk. We search one another’s eyes, trying to communicate something of who we really are while we have strained discussions about the weather, politics, our jobs, or absent family members. But today the entire McLaughlin clan is here, so we’ve lost one topic of conversation.

This is the first time we’ve had full attendance in ten years, since Papa died. While he was alive, there was no thought of missing a family gathering. It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone, not even Uncle Pat. His presence removed all choice. But now, with Papa gone, family is an option, and somehow that changes the way we regard one another. At these gatherings we size one another up and glance for the nearest exit and wonder, Why are you here? Why am I here?

We have appetizers outside on the back porch. It’s a nice day, but not warm enough for people to take off their coats. We find seats (the catering company left lots of folding chairs) and eat buffalo wings and Cheddar with crackers and raw vegetables with dip.

I sit with Gracie on one side of me and Angel on the other. Angel is a sad-looking woman in her early forties. As far as I know, she is sad for two reasons: one, because she is married to my uncle Johnny, who is very depressed and hardly ever speaks, and two, because she has been unable to conceive a child despite years of fertility treatments. I usually try to avoid Angel, as I find her sadness contagious. She sighs a lot.

I have barely taken a bite of a cracker before Angel leans in. What I’ve been dreading the most is about to begin. Ever since the moment I declared premed as my major in college, my aunts and uncles have considered me a medical expert. No matter what I say, my family refuses to give up their grossly mistaken belief that wanting to be a doctor is the exact same thing as being one.

“Lila,” Angel says, her voice so soft it is almost a whisper, “I’ve been having these pains in my lower back. What do you think it could be?”

Theresa, seated on the other side of Angel, joins in. Her black Farrah Fawcett waves bounce in my direction as she says, “My Mary’s been suffering from terrible menstrual cramps. Is that normal for someone her age?”

My whole body hurts. My aunts sound like patients, like the men and women whining at me from their hospital beds. I can’t help any of them. There is nothing I can do.

“Mom.” Mary is suddenly nearby, gripping one of the three crosses around her neck. “Don’t talk about that, please. You’re embarrassing me.”

I clear my throat and give them my usual spiel. “I’m not a doctor yet. You should really ask your physician for advice.” But they keep looking at me as if I have a direct line to God. I hear myself give one of Angel’s sighs. “I assume you’ve both tried Advil?”

“Yes,” Angel says.

“Morning and night,” Theresa says, her hand on Mary’s knee.

Meggy passes by on her way to the food. “What’s the point of having a doctor in the family if you can’t get free advice?”

“I’m not a doctor,” I say. “I’m still a fucking student. Will you all please hear that for once?”

“Lila,” my mother says, from the other side of the porch. “Your language!”

“I’m sorry,” I say, but my aunts look unfazed. I expect Travis to add insult to injury and ask me about his bum knee, but he is busy talking to my cousin John.

Aunt Meggy starts to complain to the group at large about the traffic she hit driving up here. She says three times that she will have to head out early in order to be in her bed before midnight. Aunt Theresa reaches out and smoothes Mary’s hair away from her face until Mary stands up and crosses to the opposite side of the porch. Angel, keeping an eye on Uncle Johnny, praises the food while taking small nibbles from a buffalo wing. Mom makes her usual joke about how she has spent hours slaving over a hot stove to make this meal. Dad doesn’t say much; he hardly ever speaks at these family gatherings. He keeps his eyes on Mom to make sure she is okay, but that is his only involvement.

I notice that the porch is already a mess, particularly around Aunt Meggy and Uncle Travis. Travis has somehow managed to drop three entire rolls off his plate, and not bothered to pick any of them up. He has also lost a handful of green beans to the wooden porch floor. He is obviously more concerned with taking care of his beer can than with holding his plate steady. And Aunt Meggy keeps picking food off Aunt Theresa’s plate because she is too lazy to get up and refill her own. While transferring crackers and forkfuls of cheese spread, she has also managed to drop a fair amount of food.

“Can you believe that we have to clean up after these people?” I whisper to Gracie. “I don’t have time to spend a day scrubbing the damn floors. I have work to do.”

Gracie just shakes her head. She seems intent on being quiet to the point of invisibility. She might as well have not shown up. She and I are usually allies at these events. We rarely leave each other’s side. We roll our eyes at each other, and whisper jokes about Uncle Travis and our cousin John. We rescue each other from boring conversations, and from the moments that sometimes arise when one of our aunts or uncles asks a question that is far too personal. But today Gracie has made it clear that she will not engage. I’ve never maneuvered my way through one of these family events without my sister, and I can’t believe she is going to make me start now without so much as an apology.

I turn my back to her and try to pay attention to the stilted group conversation. Uncle Ryan, still patting the arms of his wheelchair, tells us that Dad bought his building, but that it’s all right because he will not have to move out. Uncle Johnny, during the half hour when we are going around the porch giving a sentence or two about how our job/school is going, tells us in excruciating detail about a new super-powered, mega-memoried computer he just bought.

“Mega-memory,” Dina, Meggy’s daughter, says, “just like Lila. A smart computer and a smarty-pants.”

I smile at Dina. This is the other side of our family gathering’s polite conversation—small jabs and burns. Dina is at her third high school in as many years due to disciplinary problems. She is a mean kid, but, by the unspoken rules of the family, she is allowed to cut at me and I’m not allowed to respond. The reason is that I have been more fortunate then she has by drawing Mom as a parent instead of Aunt Meggy. I was raised with money and privileges and Dina was not. So, no matter what Dina says to me, I’m supposed to take it.

To distract myself, I think about the review for my oncology rotation. I give myself thirty seconds to come up with as many different kinds of cancer as possible. Uterine, throat, colon, ovarian, esophageal, cervical, prostate, skin, pancreatic, liver, lung, breast, brain.

The rest of the family gives a forced smile to Dina’s comment, and then the subject is swiftly changed. As in all awkward moments, Mom turns to Uncle Pat, who sits, tall and thin, in the corner of the porch next to Gram, and offers him more food. She doesn’t seem to notice that his plate is still full from the first serving she gave him. Uncle Pat is in his third marriage, to a woman named Louise, but he showed up today alone without an explanation. Gram keeps touching his arm, and Uncle Johnny gives him a wave from the other end of the porch whenever they make eye contact. I think Uncle Pat reminds everyone of Papa, which is ironic since Papa hated Pat. But in a family of nervous, awkward, quiet people, Pat holds his quiet with a kind of peace. I don’t look down on my mom for her idol worship of him. It seems understandable. When I was younger I used to fight my cousins for a seat on Uncle Pat’s lap. I once gave my cousin John three silver dollars out of the silver-dollar collection in my mother’s underwear drawer just so I could sit in the front seat of Uncle Pat’s car when we went for ice cream.

It is Uncle Pat who initiates the next phase in the gathering, which is when the kids separate from the adults. This is a crucial phase because it is when the drinkers start to drink and the mood of the event changes, but I hate this phase. I grew up with my cousins, but we are so different now and unfamiliar with one another.

Pat says, “I thought I saw some cookies in the kitchen that still need to be decorated.”

“Oh yes.” Mom claps her hands. “Why doesn’t everyone under thirty go into the kitchen and take care of that very important job?”

The family smirks at Gracie as she stands up, twenty-nine years old and the one who each year raises the bar for us all. It is a running joke that is not that funny. Last year it was “Why doesn’t everyone under twenty-nine go and do so and so . . .” There is the sense that if only Gracie didn’t keep getting older, then maybe the cousins would all still be little kids, laughing and talking and loving one another before we absorbed the rules of the McLaughlin family and shut up and grew up. During our childhood the family gatherings were very different. Papa was still alive, of course. Gram was young and energetic. Possibility was in the air for all of us. Everyone misses those lost times, in a way. And with that lame joke, each year that loss is pinned on my sister.