“I remember the time you bought the new coat—the Chesterfield,” she said, looking away again, as if watching the birds that weren’t there. “That lovely coat with the velvet collar. Black, it was. Stylish. Remember that, Mike? It was hard times, but you could never resist the glitter.”
I was about to protest—I had never heard of a Chesterfield, for crying out loud. But I stopped. Be patient with her, my mother had said. Humor her. Be gentle.
We were interrupted by an attendant who pushed a wheeled cart into the room. “Time for juices, dear,” the woman said. She was the standard forty- or fifty-year-old woman: glasses, nothing hair, plump cheeks. Her manner was cheerful but a businesslike kind of cheerfulness. I’d hate to be called “dear” by someone getting paid to do it. “Orange or grape or cranberry, dear? Cranberry is good for the bones, you know.”
My grandmother ignored the interruption. She didn’t even bother to answer, having turned away at the woman’s arrival, as if angry about her appearance.
The woman looked at me and winked. A conspiratorial kind of wink. It was kind of horrible. I didn’t think people winked like that anymore. In fact, I hadn’t seen a wink in years.
“She doesn’t care much for juices,” the woman said, talking to me as if my grandmother weren’t even there. “But she loves her coffee. With lots of cream and two lumps of sugar. But this is juice time, not coffee time.” Addressing my grandmother again, she said, “Orange or grape or cranberry, dear?”
“Tell her I want no juices, Mike,” my grandmother commanded regally, her eyes still watching invisible birds.
The woman smiled, patience like a label on her face. “That’s all right, dear. I’ll just leave some cranberry for you. Drink it at your leisure. It’s good for the bones.”
She wheeled herself out of the room. My grandmother was still absorbed in the view. Somewhere a toilet flushed. A wheelchair passed the doorway—probably that same old driver fleeing a hit-run accident. A television set exploded with sound somewhere, soap-opera voices filling the air. You can always tell soap-opera voices.
I turned back to find my grandmother staring at me. Her hands cupped her face, her index fingers curled around her cheeks like parenthesis marks.
“But you know, Mike, looking back, I think you were right,” she said, continuing our conversation as if there had been no interruption. “You always said, ‘It’s the things of the spirit that count, Meg.’ The spirit! And so you bought the baby-grand piano—a baby grand in the middle of the Depression. A knock came on the door and it was the deliveryman. It took five of them to get it into the house.” She leaned back, closing her eyes. “How I loved that piano, Mike. I was never that fine a player, but you loved to sit there in the parlor, on Sunday evenings, Ellie on your lap, listening to me play and sing.” She hummed a bit, a fragment of melody I didn’t recognize. Then she drifted into silence. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. My mother’s name is Ellen, but everyone always calls her Ellie. “Take my hand, Mike,” my grandmother said suddenly. Then I remembered—my grandfather’s name was Michael. I had been named for him.
“Ah, Mike,” she said, pressing my hands with all her feeble strength. “I thought I’d lost you forever. And here you are, back with me again.…”
Her expression scared me. I don’t mean scared as if I were in danger but scared because of what could happen to her when she realized the mistake she had made. My mother always said I favored her side of the family. Thinking back to the pictures in the old family albums, I recalled my grandfather as tall and thin. Like me. But the resemblance ended there. He was thirty-five when he died, almost forty years ago. And he wore a moustache. I brought my hand to my face. I also wore a moustache now, of course.
“I sit here these days, Mike,” she said, her voice a lullaby, her hand still holding mine, “and I drift and dream. The days are fuzzy sometimes, merging together. Sometimes it’s like I’m not here at all but somewhere else altogether. And I always think of you. Those years we had. Not enough years, Mike, not enough.…”
Her voice was so sad, so mournful that I made sounds of sympathy, not words exactly but the kind of soothings that mothers murmur to their children when they awaken from bad dreams.
“And I think of that terrible night, Mike, that terrible night. Have you ever really forgiven me for that night?”
“Listen …” I began. I wanted to say: “Nana, this is Mike your grandson, not Mike your husband.”
“Sh … sh …” she whispered, placing a finger as long and cold as a candle against my lips. “Don’t say anything. I’ve waited so long for this moment. To be here. With you. I wondered what I would say if suddenly you walked in that door like other people have done. I’ve thought and thought about it. And I finally made up my mind—I’d ask you to forgive me. I was too proud to ask before.” Her fingers tried to mask her face. “But I’m not proud anymore, Mike.” That great voice quivered and then grew strong again. “I hate you to see me this way—you always said I was beautiful. I didn’t believe it. The Charity Ball when we led the grand march and you said I was the most beautiful girl there …”
“Nana,” I said. I couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer, adding one more burden to my load of guilt, leading her on this way, playing a pathetic game of make-believe with an old woman clinging to memories. She didn’t seem to hear me.
“But that other night, Mike. The terrible one. The terrible accusations I made. Even Ellie woke up and began to cry. I went to her and rocked her in my arms and you came into the room and said I was wrong. You were whispering, an awful whisper, not wanting to upset little Ellie but wanting to make me see the truth. And I didn’t answer you, Mike. I was too proud. I’ve even forgotten the name of the girl. I sit here, wondering now—was it Laura or Evelyn? I can’t remember. Later, I learned that you were telling the truth all the time, Mike. That I’d been wrong …” Her eyes were brighter than ever as she looked at me now, but tear-bright, the tears gathering. “It was never the same after that night, was it, Mike? The glitter was gone. From you. From us. And then the accident … and I never had the chance to ask you to forgive me …”
My grandmother. My poor, poor grandmother. Old people aren’t supposed to have those kinds of memories. You see their pictures in the family albums and that’s what they are: pictures. They’re not supposed to come to life. You drive out in your father’s Le Mans doing seventy-five on the pike and all you’re doing is visiting an old lady in a nursing home. A duty call. And then you find out that she’s a person. She’s somebody. She’s my grandmother, all right, but she’s also herself. Like my own mother and father. They exist outside of their relationship to me. I was scared again. I wanted to get out of there.
“Mike, Mike,” my grandmother said. “Say it, Mike.”
I felt as if my cheeks would crack if I uttered a word.
“Say you forgive me, Mike. I’ve waited all these years …”
I was surprised at how strong her fingers were. “Say, ‘I forgive you, Meg.’ ”
I said it. My voice sounded funny, as if I were talking in a huge tunnel. “I forgive you, Meg.”
Her eyes studied me. Her hands pressed mine. For the first time in my life, I saw love at work. Not movie love. Not Cindy’s sparkling eyes when I tell her that we’re going to the beach on a Sunday afternoon. But love like something alive and tender, asking nothing in return. She raised her face, and I knew what she wanted me to do. I bent and brushed my lips against her cheek. Her flesh was like a leaf in autumn, crisp and dry.
She closed her eyes and I stood up. The sun wasn’t glinting on the cars any longer. Somebody had turned on another television set, and the voices were the show-off voices of the panel shows. At the same time you could still hear the soap-opera dialogue on the other television set.
I waited awhile. She seemed to be sleeping, her breathing serene and regular. I buttoned my raincoat. Suddenly she opened her eyes again and looked at me. Her eyes were still bright, but they merely stared at me. Wit
hout recognition or curiosity. Empty eyes. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. She made a kind of moaning sound and turned away on the bed, pulling the blankets around her.
I counted to twenty-five and then to fifty and did it all over again. I cleared my throat and coughed tentatively. She didn’t move; she didn’t respond. I wanted to say, “Nana, it’s me.” But I didn’t. I thought of saying, “Meg, it’s me.” But I couldn’t.
Finally I left. Just like that. I didn’t say goodbye or anything. I stalked through the corridors, looking neither to the right nor the left, not caring whether that wild old man with the wheelchair ran me down or not.
On the Southwest Turnpike I did seventy-five—no, eighty—most of the way. I turned the radio up as loud as it could go. Rock music—anything to fill the air. When I got home, my mother was vacuuming the living-room rug. She shut off the cleaner, and the silence was deafening. “Well, how was your grandmother?” she asked.
I told her she was fine. I told her a lot of things. How great Nana looked and how she seemed happy and had called me Mike. I wanted to ask her—hey, Mom, you and Dad really love each other, don’t you? I mean—there’s nothing to forgive between you, is there? But I didn’t.
Instead I went upstairs and took out the electric razor Annie had given me for Christmas and shaved off my moustache.
Mine on Thursdays
INTRODUCTION
“Mine on Thursdays” came into being on a Sunday afternoon in the fall of the year when I accompanied my daughter Chris, who was then about ten years old (she is at this writing twenty-two and a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C.) to Whalom Park, an amusement park a short distance from our home.
On this particular Sunday, I was under assault by a migraine headache: a riveting pain in that vulnerable spot above my left eyebrow in partnership with nausea sweeping my stomach. But I’d promised to take her to the park and did so, pretending, to myself and to her, that I felt fine, just fine.
Our forays into the park were almost but not quite timid. She never showed any inclination to go on the more spectacular rides. For which I was grateful, having long ago lost any inclination toward those rides, if any inclination had ever existed.
That day, Chris was content to stroll the park, go on the merry-go-round and some of the other innocent rides while I watched as usual, delighting in her delight. We then wandered toward a new ride, something called the “Trabant,” located near the Ferris wheel and midget motor cars. The Trabant was obviously a popular ride: the line was long. And Chris obviously wanted to try it. She said the kids at school thought it was “super.” “But it’s a little scary,” she said. In repose, the Trabant looked docile enough, although she said the cars went “up, down and around.” I remember thinking that a ride that went up, down and around would devastate me completely that day.
“Want to give it a whirl?” I asked, tentatively.
She looked brave in that heartbreaking way kids look when they are attempting to be brave but aren’t, really.
“Do you want me to go with you?” I asked, hoping she’d say no.
She shook her head. Then, sighing deeply, she took the plunge and we rushed for her ticket. The line had diminished, the attendant called “Hurry, hurry.” We bought her ticket; she took her seat and strapped herself in. I almost joined her at the last minute. But didn’t. Then the ride started.
The next few minutes were excruciating. The ride was a whirling, tilting nightmare. Dizzying, dazzling. And unending. I caught occasional glimpses of Chris’s face as her car shot up and down and around. She held on for dear life. Sometimes her eyes were tightly closed, other times they were wide with horror. I stood helplessly by, trying to hurry time along. Once, our gazes held for a split second, and it seemed to me that I saw betrayal in her eyes. My betrayal of her. A father wasn’t supposed to abandon a child like that. Would she ever forgive me?
The ride finally ended and she disembarked. She came toward me on fragile legs, as if she were walking a tightrope. Her hand trembled as I caught it. Was she avoiding my eyes? I told her I was sorry, that I should have gone with her, that I didn’t think it would be so—so terrible. She assured me that it wasn’t that bad, that, sure, she’d been a little scared but it was nothing, really, nothing. We both knew this was a gentle lie. For my sake.
As we walked along hand in hand, the idea for the story that eventually became “Mine on Thursdays” came forth. I had been thinking how lucky I was that our love for each other was so simple and secure that my betrayal—if that was the word—of her a few moments before did not threaten us. Yet, what if our love wasn’t secure? What if that small betrayal in the park was only one more of many betrayals? What if it had been a final betrayal?
What if? What if? My mind raced, and my emotions kept pace at the sidelines, the way it always happens when a story idea arrives, like a small explosion of thought and feeling. What if? What if an incident like that in the park had been crucial to a relationship between father and daughter? What would make it crucial? Well, what if the father, say, was divorced from the child’s mother and the incident happened during one of his visiting days? And what if …
Mine on Thursdays
To begin with, it took more than two hours to drive from Boston to Monument, twice the usual time, because of an accident near Concord that caused a traffic backup that turned a three-mile line of cars into a giant metal caterpillar inching ponderously forward. Meanwhile, I had a splitting headache, my eyes were like raw onions and my stomach lurched on the edge of nausea, for which I fully accepted the blame. Ordinarily, the night before my Thursdays with Holly, I took it easy, avoided involvements and went to bed early. But yesterday afternoon, I’d had a futile clash with McClafflin—all arguments with employers are futile—and had threatened to quit, an empty gesture that caused him to smile because he knew about all my traps. This led to a few solitary and self-pitying drinks at the bar across the street, leaving me vulnerable to an invitation to a party in Cambridge, a party that turned out to be nothing more than pseudo-intellectual talk, plus liquor, the effect of which was pseudo: promising so much and delivering little except a clanging hangover and the familiar and desperate taste of old regrets. Somehow, I managed to survive the morning and left at my usual hour, aware that McClafflin was watching my painful progress through the office. And I thought: “The hell with you, Mac. You think I’m going to leave her waiting uselessly, while I take a cold shower and sleep it off. But Holly expects me and I’ll be there.”
I was there, late maybe but present and accounted for, and Holly leaped with delight when she saw me drive into her street. I made a reckless U-turn, knowing that Alison would be watching from the window, frowning her disapproval. The scarlet convertible in itself was sufficient to insult her cool gray New England eyes and my lateness was an affront to her penchant for punctuality (she’d been a teacher before our marriage and still loved schedules and timetables). Anyway, the brakes squealed as I pulled up in front of the house on the sedate street. On impulse, I blew the horn, long and loud. I always did things like that, to provoke her, killing myself with her, or killing whatever was left of what we’d had together, like a dying man hiding the medicine in the palm of his hand instead of swallowing the pill that might cure him.
Holly came streaking off the porch, dazzling in something pink and lacy and gay. Holly, my true love, the one person who could assuage my hangovers, comfort my aching limbs and give absolution to my sins.
“Oh, Daddy, I knew you’d come. I just knew it,” she said, flinging herself at me.
I dug my face into her shampoo-scented hair and clutched the familiar geography of her bones and flesh. “Did I ever stand you up?” Then, laughing: “Don’t answer that.” Because there had been times, of course, when it had been impossible for me to come.
“Wonder World today, Dad?” she asked.
The sun hurled its rays against my eyeballs, penetrating the dark glasses, and the prospect of those
whirling rides at the amusement park spread sickness through my veins. But aware that Alison was there behind the white curtains, I assured Holly: “Whatever you say, baby, whatever you say.” Wanting Alison to know that somebody loved me. “The sky’s the limit.”
Holly was mine on Thursdays, and during the two years of our Thursdays together, we had made the circuit many times—shopping trips to fancy stores, movie matinees, picnics on Moosock Ridge, bowling, Wonder World in season—all the things an adult can do with a child. I’d always been careful to indulge her, basking in her delight. We shared the unspoken knowledge that we were playing a special kind of hooky, each of us a truant, she from that well-regulated and orderly world of her mother’s and I from the world of too many martinis, too many girls, too many long shots that had never come in.
For some reason, I thought of my father. Occasionally, Holly and I journeyed out to the cemetery where I stood at his grave and tried to recall him. I most often remembered the time, a few weeks before he died, when we sat together at the nursing home. After long minutes of silence, he’d said: “The important thing, Howie, is to be a man.”
He began to cry, tears overflowing his red-rimmed eyes, and I pitied him, pitied all the old people who could only look back, look back. After a while, I asked: “What’s a man, Dad?” Not really curious but wanting to say something.
My poor father. Who’d had too much booze and too little love and no luck at all, at cards or dice or all those jobs. And all the deals that had collapsed.
“To be a man,” my father said, wiping his cheeks, “is to look at the wreckage of your life and to confront it all without pity for yourself. Without alibis. And to go on. To endure—”