Within Arm's Reach (29 page)

I think of Gram giving up driving, and wonder if this is how she felt before she handed over her keys, just barely in control. The thought of Gram makes my back ache and I have to work to stay upright and in contact with the wheel. You’ll see her this afternoon, I tell myself. She is the reason you didn’t fight the idea of this ridiculous shower. This will mean something to Gram. She will want to give the baby a gift. It might be money.

I pull into my parents’ driveway and park behind my mother’s convertible. I get out of the car and then lean back in for the homemade cake. When I am upright with my purse looped around my elbow and the cake balanced on my palms, I notice how humid and sticky the day is. The sky is overcast and after two minutes I feel sweat run down my back between my shoulder blades. I am not dressed for the party yet, thank goodness. I am wearing shorts and a huge T-shirt. I have set aside my one maternity sundress for the event. It is light blue and clean, so I figure it should make my mother happy and keep Meggy quiet and kill Angel’s last hopes. Not that I should be scared of them anymore. For God’s sake, I am getting married. I will be giving this child a mother and a father, and that is all I need in order to fight my family off, right?

I walk around to the back of the house with cautious steps, wondering how to break the news to my mother. Remember Grayson? He’s one of my ex-boyfriends who you did know about, remember? Well, he’s asked me to marry him and I’ve said yes.

I think she will be happy. This is good, solid, presentable news that she can share with her women’s group and her family. I think this should go all right. I open the back door and then pause to kick off my flip-flops. I leave them on the tile floor next to my mother’s favorite sandals and a pair of my father’s shoes that I’ve never seen before. I place the cake on the kitchen counter and then, out of habit, look in their refrigerator. There is not much normal food to pick at, because the space is filled with plastic catering platters filled with crudités and bite-size sandwiches and three different kinds of cookies. I grab a bottle of water off the door of the refrigerator and walk into the hall. I am just about to call out my mother’s name when I see movement and a flash of color from the corner of my eye. I unscrew the water bottle as I look into the living room. I expect to see my mother walking toward me, or to see her reading in one of the chairs. I take a deep breath, and tell myself that I can have an adult conversation with her. I can do this.

But what I see is my mother standing in the middle of the living room pressed up against a man who is not my father. This man is shorter than my father, and he is overweight with dark slicked-back hair. My mother’s hands are on the nape of this man’s neck; she has her fingers in his hair. As I watch, she lifts her face off his chest. It is my mother, but she looks different than I have ever seen her. She has a changed, softened face. She is crying, her cheeks are wet, and then she is kissing this man. Her lips are pressed against his. His hands are moving around the small of her back. I know kisses, and this is the unhurried, soft kind that leads straight to the nearest bed.

My heart is beating so hard I can hear it in my ears. I am afraid the couple in the living room can hear it, too. I feel wetness on my stomach and notice that I have spilled half of the water bottle on myself and the floor. There is a dark spot on the beige carpet in front of my feet. I take a few tiptoed steps backward, until I am safely in the kitchen. I stand there in the half-dark for a full minute. I am shaking, and I wonder what I should do.

No answers come, except that I have to leave. I am certain that if my mother knew I saw her, she would never forgive me. I know that in this moment, as well as I know anything. I reach into my purse and pull out the Happy Anniversary card I bought to go with the cake. Still shaking, I pick up the cake and drop it and the card into the garbage bin under the sink. The white icing sticks and slides down the side of the plastic bag. The cake folds in half slowly and deliberately before it comes to rest on top of coffee grounds and a milk container.

I look down at the cake for a minute, amazed that I have done this. I think this may be the most aggressive thing I have ever done, after deciding to keep this baby. The sight makes the crazy giggles start up in my stomach again. I clamp my hand over my mouth, tiptoe to the door, and gather up my flip-flops. Barefoot, I leave the house. But when I turn to close the door behind me, I lose my balance. I reach my hand out to keep myself from falling, and, caught under the full weight of my body, the door slams shut. The noise is amazingly loud. It seems to boom through the entire neighborhood. The giggles rise up through me then, like bubbles swimming for the surface, and I let go.

Hugging my flip-flops to my chest, choking on laughter, I run awkwardly down the back steps, across the top of the back lawn, and down the burning-hot driveway. It occurs to me as I huff and puff and snort, my heart pounding so hard I have to worry about whether this is bad for the baby, that this is the second time I have run today, after months of near complete inactivity. I may well be headed toward a heart attack, or something worse I don’t yet know the name of. With all the grace of a St. Bernard, I hurl myself into the car, turn on the engine, and reverse until I am on the street. I don’t allow myself to look back as I drive away, because I can’t bear to see my mother and Mayor Carrelli staring out at me from the living-room window.

FOR TWENTY minutes I drive up and down the streets in my parents’ neighborhood. The giggles have died away and left me weak but focused. I repeatedly pass the access roads that lead to their block. At first I am not aware of what I’m doing. I’m busy getting my breath and heart under control. I concentrate on the idea that there is someone else in my body and that I have to be cautious for her. My fingers keep sweating, which seems odd. I wipe them off on my T-shirt and return them to the wheel. I study each car that passes. When I am able to think clearly, I know that I am looking for my father. I am watching for his pickup truck. I need to keep him from turning onto his street, into his driveway. I need to stop him at all costs. I decide that if I see my father I will honk and wave and gesture for him to follow me. I don’t know where I will take him, but I can figure that out when the time comes. I have no doubt that he would follow. He would follow Lila or me anywhere. He would think I needed him and he would never disappoint me.

But on one of my swings past my parents’ street, I see a familiar-looking beat-up Honda paused at the entrance as if deciding whether to turn left or right. It is the mayor’s car. I recognize it because sometimes Joel had to drive it on one of his spying missions or to bring it to the shop. I can see the shape of the mayor’s dog in the backseat. I didn’t see the car near my parents’ house while I was there; the mayor must have parked it down the street. Perhaps—now that anything was possible —he and my mother meet like this every afternoon. Maybe part of the thrill for them is getting away with it in the middle of the day, in my mother’s own home, where her husband or her kids could—and finally one did—walk in at any moment.

I drive faster, so the mayor doesn’t recognize me. I see only the blur of his dark hair and white face, his stomach pressed against the steering wheel. I don’t circle back this time. My mother’s lover is gone. There is nothing I can protect my father from now. I keep going, pointed toward home.

When I get there, Lila is still in the oversized sweatshirt and baseball hat, as though she is trying to hide from someone in her own house. She is in the kitchen making iced tea. She points toward the TV room.

“I know,” I say, “I saw his car.” I watch her for a minute, stirring tea and lemon and honey in the big crystal pitcher Gram gave us when she moved into the assisted-living center. She adds the ice cubes last. I am waiting to see if I am going to tell her what I just saw at Mom and Dad’s house. But nothing comes out of my mouth. I can’t even begin to think of the words it would take to explain.

I say, “I wasn’t able to talk to Mom.”

“That’s the problem with Mom,” she says. “Nobody can.”

I watch Lila mix the tea with a big wooden spoon for another moment, then go into the TV room. Grayson is sitting on the couch holding the remote. The TV is not on. I know he was eavesdropping, listening to Lila and me talk, trying to gather information.

“Now’s not a good time,” I say. “I have to get ready.”

He looks me over with stunned eyes. “Look how big you are,” he says.

“Thanks a lot.” I know I look disgusting. I have sweated through my T-shirt in places. My hair has gone flat; it is sticking to my neck.

“I’m not leaving,” he says. “You invited me to the shower on my answering machine. You haven’t returned my calls since I got back from Seattle.”

“What is there to say back to an invitation?”

“We have to talk, Gracie, and not in front of your entire family. We need to make plans.”

When he says that, I have the image of a seat belt being fastened. I hear the final click as metal hits metal. I feel tired, and sit down in the nearest chair.

“Do you need something?” Grayson asks. He leans forward, still holding the remote control. “Some water? You look pale.”

“I could have this baby at any time,” I tell him, but really I am telling myself. I just realized it today for the first time, during birthing class, while driving, in the hallway watching my mother kiss Mayor Carrelli, lowering myself heavily into this chair. Time is moving by so fast, spinning me, flipping me along like a leaf on an empty sidewalk. I need to put my foot down. “We should get married soon,” I say. “Maybe this week.”

“This week? All right . . . sure. We can go down to the county courthouse.” Grayson gathers himself. He is not used to me meeting him anywhere near halfway. I wonder what he will say when I tell him I’ve been sending out my résumé in an effort to get more freelance writing work, to supplement my
Bergen Record
income. I’ve even been looking over the journal I’ve kept while pregnant, wondering whether it might be publishable. I think it might be. I think it might be of interest to other young women.

“I can take care of the license,” he says. “I know someone in the department. We’ll just show up at the courthouse and do this and then you’ll move in with me. We can invite family to the ceremony, or not. But you’re right, it needs to be done. It’s important that we get married before our baby is born.”

He sees the look I give him. “We’re getting married, so it is our baby, Gracie. I will be the baby’s father. You know very well that Joel has no interest in being involved.”

“I never asked him,” I say. “Did you?”

He looks down at his hands, and I realize that he did. I should have known. Grayson is thorough; he does his research. He probably felt Joel out before he proposed to me the second time. It is a strange thought. I rarely think of Joel; I don’t want him in my life. But still, it is a different thing altogether to know that he told Grayson he wanted nothing to do with us, the baby and me.

“Gracie?”

“There’s one more thing,” I say. “We’ll live here. I don’t want to move.”

He takes off his glasses and then puts them back on, something I have seen him do during meetings when he is caught off guard. “You want me to move in with you and your sister? I have a great apartment overlooking the Hudson River and the city. We can have our privacy. There’s a second bedroom for the baby.”

“Maybe later,” I say. “I want to bring my baby home to my house.”

“Have you discussed this with your sister?”

I shake my head. “No.”

Grayson studies me. I know he doesn’t understand what is going on in my head and that that excites him. He enjoys the challenge. I know that I have already done the worst thing I can do to him by shutting him out these past few weeks. Nothing I say to him can be as bad as the silence, the absence of information. “So, this week?” he says. “We’re really going to do it?”

His words sound odd to my ears, because there is no question. This is simply the right decision, the safe decision, the only decision. This is my leap forward. The baby thumps hard in my belly. “Yes,” I say. “This week.”

Then, our conversation over, something resolved, I go upstairs. I strip off my clothes and stand under a stream of cold water in the shower. I just stand there at first, eyes shut. My mind flicks past the image of my mother and the mayor kissing, then the sight of me sleeping beside Grayson, then the scary video of a birth I saw at the hospital. None of the images are upsetting; I feel instead as if I’m watching someone else’s life. The pictures fall away as suddenly as they appeared, and all that is left is the cold water against my skin. The patter of drops, the coolness, the wet.

Then, slowly, my hands start moving. It takes a moment for me to realize what I’m doing. My hands have set out to cover the extensive groundwork of my body. Starting first with the face, then moving to the neck, the shoulders, the breasts, then lingering over the swollen belly. No inch of skin is left untouched. It takes a long time. My fingers stroking, memorizing, documenting, greeting, accepting.

LILA

I arrive at my parents’ house an hour before the party, as instructed. I am wearing a sundress, because my mother asked me to. She wanted me to show up early so I could help with last minute setup, but as with all gatherings hosted by my mother, there is nothing to do. She is so organized and prepared that everything has been taken care of. During every Christmas afternoon in my life, while other families raced around the kitchen, passing pots and pans and checking the roast, wondering if they would be ready in time for their guests, my family was silently lounging in our party clothes, flipping through magazines and newspapers and waiting for the doorbell to ring.

The party platters were dropped off this morning by the caterers, and the flowers have been set out. I folded the napkins decoratively yesterday, and my father bought pastel-colored balloons. There is a cake in the shape of a rattle in the downstairs refrigerator. My mother is upstairs taking a shower and my father has disappeared.

I wander through the house. I want to keep moving. I am nervous, with all of the symptoms: butterflies in my stomach, mild diarrhea, dry mouth. I went to the registrar’s office this week and filled out the three forms necessary to drop out of medical school. The head registrar, a square-faced woman in her forties, seemed very happy to tell me that I am the only student in the last decade to drop out at the beginning of the fourth year. It seems that the students in their fine institution who have made it as far as I did—three-quarters of the way—usually manage to hang in there.

I e-mailed Belinda, because it seemed right to let her know that her arch nemesis had left the picture, making her number one by default. I can’t deny that that bothers me, a little. I enjoyed kicking Belinda’s ass. I’ll need to find a new hobby, a new punching bag. I’ll also need to find a job. The registrar has alerted the Office of Student Loans that I am no longer in school, and so I will need to begin paying off my debt. I have no idea what I am going to do.

Lately, I haven’t done much. I’ve watched TV, eaten a lot of Cheddar-flavored Goldfish crackers, and sat on the back porch in the sun. I’ve put on big, shapeless clothes and a hat and gone to birthing classes with Gracie. Those moments in the hospital, incognito, sitting with my legs wrapped around my sister listening to the detailed description—a horror story really—of what it feels like to give birth, have been like an out-of-body experience. How did I end up there? What made me think I could coach Gracie through this? How could I possibly be of any help?

Whenever I am in my car I go out of my way to drive down Main Street. I pass the hardware store at a slow crawl and look up at Weber’s apartment. During the daytime it is difficult for me to tell if he’s home because the sun is so bright that he has to be standing directly in front of his window for me to be sure. I can check to see if his truck is parked in back, and sometimes I do, but that isn’t a foolproof method of detection. Weber often walks to the firehouse, plus he has this ridiculous habit of lending his truck to anyone who asks to borrow it.

At night it is easier. I just have to look for a light in the window. I have to hope he is in there alone. I know he might not be. After all, he picked me up at the Green Trolley and brought me home even though he disliked me at the time. Now he dislikes me again, so why wouldn’t he bring home a new girl? Is he saying “Waka waka” into someone else’s ear? I know that he hates sleeping alone. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he automatically starts talking, and he likes to have someone there to listen.

I have wondered, sitting in my car parked on the side of Main Street, if seeing me for who I really was depressed Weber. I wondered if he cared enough to feel that intensely about me. I can’t be sure that I made that much of an impact on him. Weber is so sure and complete in himself, with his crazy ideas and his beliefs and his enjoyment of life. I think that to him I was just company, sex, and a sparring partner. He grew more sure of himself, more pleased with himself, less needful of anyone else, in the face of my relative cynicism.

Besides, there’s another reason he could not possibly have cared as much as it turned out I did. The trick is that I don’t have a choice. Since the fire, I have cared more every minute. There is no escaping my memory, and now I know that I was right all those years to avoid anything verging on a relationship, to push the boys away before there was even a chance of one getting close. Because now, with Weber, I remember word for word every conversation we had. I remember everywhere we went, every street we drove down. I remember each time we made love and how the sheets rubbed against my skin and how warm or cold the air was. I remember exactly how it felt when he touched me here, and there, and the goose bumps it gave me when he kissed me in that place. I remember the light in his face after the fire. Every second, every moment is tattooed into my brain.

I need to restart my life and try to experience it this time around. I need to figure out what makes my face light up, and then try to make money doing it. The catch is that I am not good at the here and now. I tried to get out of my car and walk up to Weber’s apartment and approach him, but I couldn’t. It took me two weeks to come up with the idea of sending him the shower invitation with Gram’s return address. I can only hope there aren’t disastrous results.

I TRAIL through my parents’ house wishing there was something for me to do. Something to keep me occupied until Weber either does or does not show up. I spot a crumpled-up napkin under the kitchen table and make a dive for it. I squeeze it in the palm of my hand while I cross the room. I smile at myself, because this level of excitement over this small a task is pathetic. I stop by the garbage pail and drop the napkin into the bag. Even the garbage bins are empty in this house.

“Mom?” I yell. I heard the shower water turn off a few minutes earlier.

“Yes?” Her voice comes from upstairs at the far end of the hall. “Is someone here already? It’s too early!”

“No one’s here. Is there anything I can do to help get ready?”

“To help?” Her voice is closer now. She appears in the kitchen doorway. She is wearing a polka-dot sundress with a belted waist. It’s a dress I haven’t seen before. It looks like a dress from a past era. Occasionally, like now, the sight of my mother is a surprise. I forget that she is in her fifties. I can see the blueprint for her face as an old woman etched in the lines around her eyes and mouth. Someday it will be my responsibility to take care of her in the same way she is now taking care of Gram.

She glances over the kitchen. She looks distracted. “There must be something you can do. Why not take out the cheese platter, so the cheese can soften.”

I go to the refrigerator and take out the plastic catering tray. I take off the lid and place it on the counter. Then my mother and I are left staring at each other again. I can’t think of anything safe to talk about. I have no intention of telling her about medical school today. I won’t drop that bombshell until I have a new life plan to present at the same time.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Buying ice at the supermarket.” Mom gives a small half-smile and says, “Do you know what today is?”

It is August 2, which is her and my father’s wedding anniversary, but I’m sure she isn’t referring to that. My parents haven’t done much to acknowledge or celebrate their anniversary the last few years, and from the way I’ve seen them treat each other lately, I doubt this is the year they’d choose to draw attention to the event. My mother is probably thinking of something corny, like it is the first day in our family’s relationship with the new baby. She has been on a sappy streak since she told me about this shower and asked me to help. She has tears in her eyes right now.

She says, “It’s your father’s and my anniversary.”

“Happy Anniversary,” I say. I wait to see if there’s more.

She sighs heavily, as if I am trying her patience. “I want today to go really well. Can you please help me make
that
happen?”

That’s what I want, too. “Sure,” I say. “I’ll try.”

GRAM AND Nurse Ballen arrive first. It is strange to see Gram make her way across the lawn with a walker. It is slow, unsteady work, and Nurse Ballen keeps her hand on the small of Gram’s back. It occurs to me that this is part of what I didn’t like about medicine. I don’t want to put my hand on a stranger’s back. I don’t want to ease a patient through a slow recovery or a slow descent. I am not interested in slow, period.

I watch the sluggish course of Gram and her nurse with something that feels like regret in the pit of my stomach. “Go help them,” my mother hisses. We are both standing awkwardly at the door. Gram has not been here since before her fall, since she was well and able to walk briskly on her own. This is a new sight for us.

“They don’t need my help,” I say, and go back in the house. I am sure Gram doesn’t want my mother and me watching as she maneuvers the three front steps.

I kiss Gram on the cheek once she is safely inside. “What’s up with you?” I say.

She smiles at my informal speech, as I knew she would. Then she looks me over. I haven’t been to see her for a few weeks. She nods at my sundress, then turns her attention to my face. Her eyes scour mine. This is the kind of attention Gram used to show me on a regular basis, before she became preoccupied, first with Gracie’s baby and then with her own health after her fall. It makes me realize how much I have missed being truly seen.

I am not surprised when her response to the once-over is to ask, “How’s school?”

“School’s school,” I say.

“And your classes at the hospital with Gracie?”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“I miss being in the hospital on a daily basis,” Nurse Ballen says. “The hustle and bustle.”

Gram nods in Nurse Ballen’s direction. She says, “You’ll be back there soon enough.”

Her tone is light, and strangely intimate, as if she and this nurse already have inside jokes and shared inferences. Could Gram possibly be joking about her death? All of this seems unlikely, as Gram isn’t a joker and it’s not like her to take the time to get to know someone outside of the family. Even within the family, she has her favorites, her own hierarchy of those deserving attention.

As if she hears my thoughts, Gram says, “I’m so glad you are doing this for your sister, Lila. She’s always needed more help than you.”

I know I made it look that way. But it wasn’t true. It isn’t true.

My mother’s voice rings out from the kitchen. “Lila, did you ask everyone what they would like to drink? Tell them we have wine, lemonade, iced tea, Crystal Light, and sodas.”

I look at Gram and Nurse Ballen. Gram is seated in the big armchair that used to be Papa’s. Nurse Ballen and I are both standing. I say, “We have wine, lemonade, iced tea, Crystal Light, and sodas.”

They both request lemonade, and I head into the kitchen. By the time I walk back out, Meggy and Angel are here. Then, a moment later, Theresa and Mary pull up. I watch each of the women bend down over the sides of the old armchair and kiss Gram. My aunts have dark circles under their eyes and the look of women who only had time to blow-dry part of their hair that morning. I walk to and from the window and watch the street outside.

Meggy says, “Dina was sorry she couldn’t make it today.”

Mary arranges herself into a cross-legged position on the couch and then gives an uncharacteristic laugh. “Yeah, she’d rather be here than in Sunday double detention.”

I look my cousin over. There is something different about her appearance, but it takes me a minute to pick out what it is. She is only wearing one tiny cross instead of her usual three heavy ones. I wonder if Mary is lightening up.

Theresa says, “Has anyone talked to Ryan today? We should stop in and visit him on the way home.”

“That place is crawling with weirdos,” Meggy says. “There was an old man who introduced himself as Dr. Kevorkian when I visited. It’s not somewhere I want to spend a lot of time.”

“Your brother is getting help there,” Gram says. “He’s making friends, which is something he never had, not even as a little boy. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

This shuts everyone up. I swipe a carrot stick through the onion dip and stick it in my mouth. I watch Mary untangle herself from her cross-legged position on the couch. She puts a cracker, some cheese, and a few olives on a napkin and then curls back up in her corner.

My mother calls out from the kitchen, “Gracie should be here any minute.”

Meggy says, “You let her drive here by herself? Shouldn’t someone have picked her up? It’s not exactly safe to be behind the wheel in your ninth month.”

“That’s true,” Angel says. “The belly is too close to the steering wheel at that stage.”

Theresa says, “Jack never let me drive when I was pregnant. He forbade it.”

“Sure, when he was home,” Meggy says. “But what about when he was out God knows where doing God knows what and you had to get to the supermarket?”

“Careful with the name of the Lord,” Gram says.

“Don’t say those things in front of Mary,” Theresa says.