“But—don’t get mad, Dad, okay?” Anthony said. “I just wish you’d tell me why you think it’s so bad.”
Pete faced forward and rubbed the back of his neck. “Just . . . don’t. Okay? I tell you again, don’t do it around me. Period.” He started the engine.
“Do you want me to drive for a while?” I asked.
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll drive,” Hannah said, and I was relieved to see Pete’s small smile. I too once asked Pete why it was so terribly offensive to him when people swore. It had been many years ago; we’d only been dating a few months. We were out walking in a park, and I’d asked more or less the same question, and Pete had stopped to examine a leaf on a tree. He’d been turned away from me when he’d said, “It’s just . . . it’s a need I have. It doesn’t matter why.”
“Okay,” I’d said. And I thought maybe I’d have to stop seeing him—his answer had made me really uncomfortable, and I had a habit of swearing a lot. But there’d been nothing else so tightly wound about him. Anyway, by then it was too late: I loved the planes of his face, his black hair and blue eyes, his elegant table manners, his deep voice, his love of animals and children, his otherwise easygoing manner. I loved him. I would forgive him this and hope he would forgive my own irritating mannerisms.
“They have sixty-five rides,” Anthony said, reading again from the newspaper.
Silence.
“In 1965,” he said, “Princess Kay of the Milky Way wore a formal gown made of butter wrappers.”
“All right,” Hannah said. “Just be quiet, now, I’m trying to read.”
“Okay, but just one more thing. You know what else?”
She sighed. “What?”
“You know how they make those sculptures out of butter? The head of Princess Kay of the Milky Way?”
“Yeah. And her court.”
“Right. Well, most of them freeze their heads. But this one princess? She melted hers down for a corn feed.”
“Let me see,” Hannah said.
I leaned my head against the window and tried to doze while peace reigned, but I couldn’t. First I imagined that practical Princess Kay dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt and loafers, hair in a ponytail, standing over a Dutch oven in some farm kitchen, watching her likeness melt down into nothing. Then I thought of my parents, waiting for us. My mother would be wearing some new outfit she’d purchased for the occasion, and she’d meet us at the door, chatting a mile a minute. My father would be puttering in the basement, and when we arrived he would solemnly come into the kitchen to offer his muted greeting. Standing in that familiar place, I believed I would feel the usual odd mix of sensations. Some of it would have to do with the inescapable nostalgia and apprehension—even preemptive irritation—that accompanies any visit home once you’ve moved out. The rest would be because of something I’d always felt but could never name. My mother, smiling brightly, looking directly into your eyes before she embraced you tightly, would feel a million miles away. My father, averting his gaze before he took you into his arms, would be the one who felt close.
5
MY MOTHER WAS OUT CUTTING FLOWERS WHEN WE arrived, bent over roses such a deep red color they looked black. She turned when she heard our car doors slam and shaded her eyes. She was wearing a white linen blouse, black linen pants cut to just above the ankle, and red strappy sandals. Cute. “Look who’s here!” she cried, and, removing her gardening gloves, headed toward us, arms open wide. “You’re the first ones. I’m so excited!” She hugged Pete and me, then the kids. “You’ve grown!” she told Hannah.
“You always say that,” Hannah said, smiling.
“I know. But it’s always true. You’ve become a lovely young lady.” She turned to Anthony. “And you! You’re gorgeous!”
Anthony laughed, embarrassed, then took his bags and headed for the back door. “Grandpa inside?”
“Down at his workbench,” my mother said. She started to take one of the suitcases, but Pete took it from her. “Save your strength, Barbara,” he told her.
As we headed indoors, we heard a car honk. It was Steve, pulling up to the curb, and then we saw Caroline’s car pulling up right behind him.
“Well!” my mother said.
“Good timing,” Pete said, but my mother seemed more unsettled than pleased. She smoothed down the collar of her blouse. Raised her chin. It seemed to me that there was, in these movements, a strange sense of preparation for battle. But then I decided my perspective was skewed by what Caroline had told me the night before. I waved at her and Steve and headed inside.
IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT. Pete and I were lying in bed in the basement guest room, a room my parents used mainly for storage of out-of-season clothes. Beside us, in the dim light of the moon coming through the tiny, high windows, I could see our makeshift nightstand: a TV tray holding an alarm clock, a tiny lamp, a box of Kleenex, and a small porcelain dish, put there, I knew, for holding Pete’s change. There was a cozy completeness to this utilitarian still life. It occurred to me that one of the values of going away was that you saw that something far less complex than what you were used to would do just fine. More and more, I looked at my house, at my life, and thought, Why do I need all this stuff? Maggie and I had been talking about this need to simplify, about what it might mean; she’d been feeling it, too. “It’s the first step in getting ready to die,” Maggie had said, in her usual no-nonsense way. “It is not!” I’d said, but I thought she was probably right.
Upstairs, I could hear the muted conversation of my parents, still up and sitting in the TV room. Soon they’d go to bed and then continue talking quietly, I knew, until they fell asleep.
I lay there, Pete beside me, and the sound of my parents’ voices seemed to erase him; seemed to erase me too, at least as the middle-aged person I was. I became instead a young child, fresh from the bathtub and smelling of Ivory soap, the doll I’d chosen for the night mummy-wrapped in a receiving blanket and held in the crook of my arm. I was not responsible for anything but my own daily meanderings. The purpose of reading the newspaper was to check up on Nancy and Sluggo. Monetary decisions had to do with what kind of candy to buy with the change I had left over from going to the corner store to buy milk for my mother. My parents were my clock and my calendar; they told me where to go and when. My parents were also the arbiters of judgment, of taste, and of politics; I stepped into their values like an outfit they’d laid out for me on my bed. Later, of course, I forged my own beliefs and rebelled against nearly everything they’d taught me. But every time I came home, some large part of me surrendered itself to the past and relished the sense of being the one who was cared for, if only by a TV tray serving as a bedside table. I was in my mid-fifties, but in my parents’ house I was forever made to feel uniquely safe by the late-night murmurings of the people who were in charge, leaving me free not to be. No matter what anyone said, it seemed to me that not only can you go home again, you are helpless not to.
I dozed lightly, then woke up again. I’d been dreaming of Caroline, or at least thinking of her in the kind of nether land that precedes sleep. She’d been remarkably quiet at dinner and seemed to be trying to catch my eye at odd times. Something was really bothering her.
I looked at the clock: 1 A.M. I leaned over Pete, gently touched the top of his head, whispered his name. “Are you sleeping?” No response except deep breathing. I got out of bed quietly and headed upstairs to the kitchen. I turned on the stove light and went over to inspect the contents of the refrigerator. Here were the things I rarely bought anymore but always wanted to eat: butter, salami, heavy cream, cheese, mayonnaise. In the cupboards were great varieties of cookies and chips. And in the bread drawer, white bread and a box of cinnamon rolls covered by thick frosting. My father had high blood pressure and cholesterol problems, but my mother disbelieved certain tenets of modern medicine. She had a particular disdain for mental health workers. When I once told her about a friend of mine who was in therapy, she’d said, “Psychiatris
ts. They’re crazier than anyone.” There’d been no humor in this remark. There’d been venom in it.
I was sitting at the kitchen table having a salami sandwich when Caroline appeared, ghostlike in this dim light. “Hi,” she whispered. I waved at her, my mouth full. She opened the bread drawer, took out the package of cinnamon rolls, brought it over to the table. “I can’t believe I’m eating again,” she said. “It’s like coming home late at night when we were in high school. Remember how hungry we always were?”
I nodded, smiling. “Yeah. Remember the time you and Steve and I were eating and he dropped that bowlful of spaghetti all over the place?”
Caroline took a huge bite of her roll, talked around it. “And he really wanted it, so he ate a bunch of it off the floor.”
“Right.” I finished my sandwich and went over to the cupboard to take a look around. “Want some Oreos? Oh, boy, they’re double-stuffed.”
She didn’t answer, and when I looked over at her, I saw her face pressed into her hands. “What’s wrong?” I closed the cupboard and came back to the table. “Caroline? What is it?”
She smiled sadly. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about it now. Not here. It was just . . . a moment.”
“They’re asleep,” I said. Amazing how quickly we could lapse into the shorthand of sides: us versus them; kids versus parents.
“We’ll talk when we go out. When Steve’s here too.”
I leaned back in my chair, picked up a cinnamon roll, and started unwinding it. “I was dreaming about you just before I came up here.”
“Were you?”
“Yeah. You were upset.”
“Well, I am upset.”
“Well, I know.”
She stood, tightened the belt on her robe, and put the box of cinnamon rolls back in the drawer. “Anyway . . . I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad we all are.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“So . . . I’ll see you in the morning.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I’m such a wreck. But we’ll talk, okay?”
She turned to go and I grabbed her hand. “Hey, do you want to go out now? Take a car ride?”
“I want Steve to be here too.”
“Want me to wake him up?”
“No. I know you’d love to, though.”
“He used to like it when I woke him up late at night.”
“He’s older now.”
From upstairs, we heard the sound of a toilet flushing. “I’m going back to bed,” Caroline said quickly. The hall light turned on, and she disappeared into the living room, where she was bedded down on the sofa.
Then the overhead kitchen light turned on and my mother was standing there, squinting against the brightness. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, I was just hungry. I had a little snack.”
“Are you the only one up? I thought I heard talking.”
“Caroline was up. But she went back to sleep.”
“Oh?” She looked back toward the living room, then expectantly at me.
“She was just up for a minute. You didn’t miss a thing. Go back to bed.”
I started for the basement steps and she said, “Are you comfortable down there? Cool enough?”
“We’re fine.”
“Because I’ve got another fan if you need it.”
“We’re all right.”
“Maybe that little revolving one. You could put it on the night table.”
“Mom!”
She raised her hands in surrender. Then she turned to exit the room, that old runway spin.
“Mom?”
She turned back.
“Thanks, though.”
“You’re welcome.”
Pete awakened as I climbed back into bed. “Hi,” he said sleepily, pulling me close to him. He kissed my neck, started caressing my breast.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“Why?”
“It’s my parents’ house.”
“And?”
“Come on. I can’t do it in my parents’ house.”
“I can,” Pete said. I kissed him quickly, then turned away from him, saying, “Go to sleep.” But then, after a moment, I reached back and put my hand on his thigh, and we both stayed up awhile longer. Sometimes it embarrassed me, how happy we were. Sometimes it seemed like I was making it up.
6
I WAS UP EARLY, STARTING COFFEE IN THE KITCHEN, when my mother appeared. “I don’t think I slept more than three hours last night,” she said.
I turned, coffee measure in my hand, midair. “Why?”
She sat heavily at the table. “Your father. He said he felt dizzy last night, and then early this morning he said his arm felt numb.”
“Oh, my God, it’s his heart!”
“No, no, it’s not. It’s nothing like that. He just had a checkup. I think he slept on it wrong.”
“Let me take a look at him,” I said. As if I’d know anything. But I was the oldest, so I acted like I did.
“He’s asleep again. I’m sure it’s no emergency. Let him be.”
“You’re sure?” I looked toward their bedroom.
“Yes. Believe me, this is not the first time he’s kept me up half the night with one complaint or another that turns out to be absolutely nothing. He’s beginning to become a bit of a hypochondriac. It’s hard not to, at our age, when so many of our friends . . .” She stood, took the coffee measure from me. “Anyway. I’ll do this. And then let me make your breakfast. What would you like, French toast? Pancakes?”
I sat back down at the kitchen table. “Just coffee. The kids will be up soon, and then we’re going right over to the fair.”
“Are you all going together?” She flipped the switch for the coffee and sat down with me. Almost instantly, the satisfying aroma of brewing coffee filled the air. “Are Steve and Caroline going with you too?”
“Yes. And you and Dad are coming too, right?”
“Maybe you should go on ahead of us—he was awake so much last night. Call me in a couple of hours. I’m sure he’ll be up by then, and we’ll figure out a place to meet.”
“Are you’re really sure he’s all right?”
“I’m sure. When he wakes up, he’ll be in better shape than I am.”
Caroline came into the kitchen, yawning. “Is the coffee done?”
“In a minute,” my mother said.
“Yeah, but I need a cup right now. Don’t you have one of those coffee interruptus things?”
“It’ll be done in a minute, Caroline.”
Caroline sat at the table with us. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to go on the roller coaster again,” she told me.
“Don’t I always?”
“Aren’t we too old now? It’ll kill our backs.”
“It didn’t hurt last year,” I said.
“Yeah, it did.”
“Did it hurt just you or both of us?”
She smiled and fastened her long hair up into a twist that she anchored with a barrette she pulled from her robe pocket. “Actually, you complained for hours after we got off.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
My mother got up to put coffee mugs on the table. “I haven’t been on one of those things for thirty years. Your father used to make me go with him, but I always hated it. I kept my eyes shut and gritted my teeth the whole time.”
“Wasn’t your first date with Dad at the fair?” I asked. We grew up hearing stories about my parents’ romance. The most interesting one had to do with the time my father was in the navy and got a letter from my mother, who at that point was his fiancée. He opened the envelope on deck on a windy day, and the letter blew out of his hand. He actually jumped into the ocean after it.
“But that’s crazy!” I’d said, when I head the story. And he’d said, “Yeah, I guess it was. A lot of my shipmates said the same thing. They thought it was wrong for a man to be so much in love with a woman.” He chuckled. “But I was.” Then, leaning closer to m
e, he’d said, “I still am, too.”
I’d said, “Well, that’s great, Dad,” but I wasn’t sure I really meant it. I appreciated the outlandish sentimentality of his diving into the drink, but I thought his friends were right: To love someone that much was a dangerous thing.
The coffeemaker beeped and I got up to pour for all of us. My mother took a sip, then said, “Well, you remember that we met at the movies. And we sat together that night. But, yes, our first official date was going to the fair. We were nineteen years old, can you imagine? Your father had never paid to get into the state fair in his life. It was a matter of honor with him. So he gave me money to get in and told me where to meet him. Then he went and snuck in under the fence.”
“What fence?” I asked. “I’ll send the kids, save a few bucks.”
“It’s not there anymore,” my mother said. “And shame on you.”
“Shame on her?” Caroline said loudly. “Shame on her?”
My mother and I both looked over at her. “It’s a joke,” I said finally.
“No,” Caroline said, “it isn’t.”
“Caroline,” I said, sighing.
“Is it, Mom?”
My mother, flustered, started to answer when the basement door off the kitchen opened and Pete appeared. “Morning!” he said. And then, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” we answered, all three of us together. And then, while my mother poured coffee for Pete, Caroline headed for the bathroom and I went upstairs to tell the kids to get ready.
7
PETE, STEVE, AND THE KIDS WERE ON THE ROLLER coaster for the second time. Caroline and I were sitting on a bench waiting for them. Caroline was right—we were too old to go on that ride. My rib cage hurt from where I’d slammed into the side of the car and Caroline’s knee was bruised from the safety bar. “Tell you what,” Caroline said, “let’s make a deal. Let’s support each other in vowing never to go on that damn ride again. If anyone asks, we stand together in our absolute refusal.”