I'll Stay Page 14

  “But this isn’t fair!”

  “Fair, Eleanor? What does fairness have to do with it? Your editor had problems with what you wrote and gave you specific revision recommendations. I suggest you think hard about them and get back to work.”

  My mother sighed loudly but I heard the resignation and maybe a bit of relief. Dad was taking control. And he said the magic words. Get back to work.

  I walked to my room and pulled the letter out of my pocket. My mother was much too upset to deal with this. That didn’t mean I believed Lucy’s accusations. Because a few things had occurred to me while on the T coming over here. Why would my mother steal from an undergrad with no writing experience? Wasn’t it a little too convenient that Lucy’s short story was lost and no one else had read it? And if she wanted to be a writer, why let one negative critique ruin her dream?

  I slipped the letter into my desk drawer. I’d give it to my mother when we returned from Chicago. Then I stood in front of the mirror and held the dress against me. I looked good in it. It put me, as Elise said, out of your comfort zone and there was nothing wrong with that. Why not take it to Chicago? I wouldn’t wear the dress just because of Christopher.

  Would I?

  My relationship with him had been so flimsy that we hadn’t even said goodbye. He’d probably had dozens of girls since then and maybe he was even engaged or married. It would be nice to talk to him. That was all.

  Because Ben and I were solid now. At least I thought we were. Well, maybe we weren’t quite solid yet but things between us were certainly better than when he started law school and I went down there that first October. Staying with him for three days in his tiny apartment, I’d been overwhelmed by his dedication and goodness. The rice and vegetable dinner he’d tried to make but burned that first night. The groceries he’d carried up four flights for his elderly neighbor. His focus, day and night, on his studies. I sat there watching him, trying to study, too, and feeling smaller and smaller—so small, in fact, that I was terrified that I’d disappear altogether—until finally I picked a stupid fight that sent me home a day early. We broke up over the phone, angry and yelling at each other, the following week.

  Over the next two years, I went out with a few guys including John from my biology class who I slept with a number of times. But that didn’t work out and I began to miss Ben and his predictability, his confidence, the way he was so certain about how he felt about me. We began sending postcards and letters, followed by lengthy phone calls, and so by the time we saw each other last Christmas, we were ready to get back together.

  I turned from one side to the next. The dress fabric fell across my jeans and my blouse, clinging to my body. No, I’d bring this dress not for Christopher, but for me. As a confidence booster. I flung it over my arm, took the back stairs to the kitchen, and put it into my bag. I hurried to the living room, where my parents were exactly as I’d left them. I felt angry again, that they hadn’t budged, hadn’t even crossed a leg.

  “I’m leaving.” My voice was sharp and certain.

  “Oh!” Dad said. “How are you getting to the station?”

  “The T.” If he offered to take me, I’d refuse. He needed to stay here.

  I turned to the fireplace mantel, where a first edition of Listen rested against the wood. Everything in this house was always about my mother and her writing and legacy and that goddam book. I hated it for what it had done to her.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, although I wanted to add that Lee and I might not show up for dinner. But I wanted to see Elise, who was coming with Logan, and when I looked at my mother I felt a slight sting in my chest. She looked so small curled up like that, her bony hand gripping my dad’s thigh, the folds of skin on her neck hanging like an unfurled flag. Why wasn’t I more sympathetic and patient? Why was I so angry? Why was I so bad?

  My dad followed me into the foyer. After I put on my backpack and slung my bag over my shoulder, he cupped my face in his hands and kissed my forehead, just as he used to do when I left for school each morning. “Travel safely, my dear.”

  I pulled away. I wasn’t a child and wanted to stay angry. But as I glanced back at the living room again, I wondered how I could leave her. What was I doing? I whispered, “She was a mess when I got here. She was saying crazy things.”

  When he raised his bushy eyebrows, his entire face seemed to rise with them. How many times in my life had I seen him angry with her, twice? Three times? He took care of her. He covered for her and made excuses, too.

  I should let it go. But how awful if one day she hurt herself and he could have stopped her if only I’d said something. Maybe this was it, the moment I’d tell him about ending it and explain what happened at the North American Book Award ceremony. I didn’t know why I hadn’t told him about it. I hadn’t told anyone.

  “Yes, crazy things,” I said. “That it wasn’t worth it and she might end it and—”

  “Your mom’s upset.” He shook his head. “She’ll get back to writing and everything will be fine.”

  “She scared me,” I said.

  “Don’t let it bother you. We’ll get a revision plan in order. And tomorrow we’ll meet and have a whale of a dinner. With good wine, too. You’ve turned into quite a fretter, Clare. You don’t have to worry so much.”

  I worried too much or he avoided real conversations about her? “You’re a good daughter. I know she counts on you.”

  I grimaced. Yes, she counted on me. I made food and tea and told her she was a great writer. But if it came down to something life threatening, if I had to save her, could she count on me? This all felt so confusing. “But how am I—”

  “Have fun!” he said as he reached for the door. “Go on, I’ll stay with her.”

  Let her go, I’ll stay.

  I stumbled down the steps outside and felt that familiar yet awful sense of paralysis. It was as if I were suspended over the sidewalk—tethered to the trees and held in place—not growing or changing, not moving forward or backward. Cars and people rushed by. The T trolley at the end of the street rumbled over the tracks. Put one foot in front of the other and breathe. In and out, in and out. Yes, now I was moving away from the house. But it wasn’t until I got onto the T that I began to relax. My dad would make dinner and reread Janice’s comments. Those were the kinds of practical things he always did for her. I could count on this.

  “Saint Anders,” my dad’s sister, Aunt Denise, called him. Growing up, he looked after his siblings while their dad went wandering and their mom succumbed to MS at a ridiculously young age. Dad took us to visit her while she was still alive. Logan barely said hello before bolting for the nursing home lounge. But not me. I stayed at my dad’s side. Despite being terrified of her shriveled body that someone had stuffed into a wheelchair for our visits, I was in awe of him. He was patient and kind as he talked to her, held her hand and wiped drool from her chin.

  By God, I wanted to be that good, too.

  I thought of Lorenzo and his advice: Use this travel time to think of the past. Remember who people were. But I just wanted to try to remember who I was.

  CHAPTER 10

  After the train cut through Providence, it hugged the coast of Connecticut before approaching New York. I liked the views of Long Island Sound and the marshy shoreline, birds and herons. It was beautiful and peaceful, although I often thought of it as the calm before the storm. Because later, as the train made that sharp turn and the marshes had changed to apartment buildings and industry and the New York skyline stretched miles across the horizon, my heartbeat quickened and I pulled my bags closer. The city was dangerous. You had to be ready.

  I didn’t always feel this way. When I was younger my parents often brought Logan and me down here to Christmas shop or see a show. It was fun. I sometimes felt this way with Lee, too. Over the years we’d done so much together; explored new neighborhoods and browsed through thrift shops and bookstores. One night last summer, drinking beer on the Circle Line, we laughed so hard a
t the man on the loudspeaker with his New York accent that the entire upper deck stared at us.

  I smiled, thinking about Lee’s crooked grin and how her shoulders shook as she laughed. It was in these moments (how about that time at the diner in Chelsea? Or the comedy club in the West Village? Or drinking beer that cold Saturday with the cute guys we’d met at the Red Sox game?) when I knew we were free and neither of us thinking about what happened in Florida. Sometimes this ease, this not remembering, lasted an entire weekend. And then I’d let myself imagine that we were on our way. Everything would be better from then on.

  But it never lasted for long. Despite these reprieves, what happened was always lurking, even if we didn’t talk about it. For Lee, remembering didn’t seem to be triggered by anything predictable or specific. But I knew when she stared into space, or cried at random, inexplicable moments or her mood darkened that she was remembering. Then I’d remember, too.

  I didn’t want to keep remembering.

  The train slowed as it approached the tunnel that would take us under the city and into Penn Station. The man next to me snickered and turned the page of his magazine. I closed Sons and Lovers and looked out the window. The sun had gone down but it wasn’t dark enough for streetlights. Instead the sky was a strange mix of light and dark, day and night. As if it couldn’t make up its mind which way to go.

  Years ago when my mother and I had traveled here for the North American Book Award ceremony, she’d turned to me as we entered this tunnel and said, “Hold on tightly to your bag. You don’t want to lose your shoes.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to do. The week before we’d gone shopping on Newbery Street—usually it was too expensive—and bought black patent leather shoes for each of us. Mine were shiny and stiff, no heel, and a half size too small although I didn’t admit this because the store didn’t have a larger size. My mother also bought an expensive black dress, no sleeves and low across the front, made by someone named Halston. Altogether, we spent a fortune.

  My dad was angry when we got home—it was one of the few times I heard my parents argue—but my mother insisted, “I have to play the part.” I was never sure what this meant. Successful author? Glamorous author?

  I couldn’t wait for the trip. My mother never took Logan or me with her to author events, but this was special, she’d said. She promised a visit to the Central Park Zoo (this was during my animal phase) and a carriage ride.

  But back to those amazing shoes. After school I walked around my room, trying to break them in. They were too tight to wear socks and so my bare toes and heel rubbed against the leather until I’d formed blisters. I didn’t care. With my peach-colored dress, the one we’d bought for Logan’s eighth-grade graduation the year before, I liked how I looked. I’d play a part, too. Famous Author’s Daughter.

  The lights in the train car flickered and suddenly we were in the dark as the train lurched into the tunnel. I squeezed my bags against my thigh.

  How was my mother now? I imagined she and my dad would spend the rest of today devising a revision plan, preparing for her book talk, looking forward, not backward. I should do that, too. I didn’t want to worry about her. But she’d scared me, and now I couldn’t help but think about what had happened years ago.

  Standing in the toilet stall doorway and seeing my mother on the marble floor in her expensive Halston dress and new shoes, her head in the toilet, I knew she didn’t have the flu or food poisoning. I knew when she moaned, “it’s not worth it, this agony,” that she was talking about something graver. Was it intuition, a Phoebe-like knowledge of the world that led me to believe this?

  It certainly wasn’t Phoebe-like to pee myself. I just stood there, terrified, as warm urine streamed down my legs, stung the blisters on my heels, and pooled in the arches of my new shoes. After I got my mother cleaned up, I poured out the pee, wiped my shoes and feet with toilet paper, and wadded my underwear into a fancy cloth hand towel. Back at the table, I kicked the towel under our table and prayed that people wouldn’t see that I was naked under my dress.

  But it was excruciating, my dress tickling my bottom and my legs stinging from dried pee. As I watched my mother walk to the podium, I made a desperate plea: Please, Dad, magically appear! Help me! But I kept my face and body still. I showed no emotion. This ability to appear one way when I felt another taught me a valuable skill that day: how to hide my true feelings, especially from my mother.

  And by the way, she gave her speech (Phoebe’s innocence was a metaphor for our nation’s) just fine.

  Once home, I put my shoes, which had begun to smell, in a bag and buried it in the back of my closet. Weeks later I came home from school one day to find all the closets in our house neat and rearranged. My mother had gone on a cleaning frenzy, something she did when she had writer’s block. The shoes were gone.

  I was so afraid that I wouldn’t allow myself to be angry with her for going through my closet. After a while, when nothing had been said, I wondered if she’d thrown the shoes away by accident. Later, I realized that the shoes were just part of the entire experience about which we were never to speak.

  My mother’s denial began immediately. After her speech that day, and after the congratulations, book signing, wine, and whispering about how great she was, how brave Phoebe was, how important her book was, we rode the elevator to our room in silence. Once inside, she called Dad, who’d stayed behind with Logan, who was in the hospital. As I watched her, phone to her ear, black dress spotless, ink stains on the callus on her right middle finger, I relaxed. Surely she’d tell Dad about those crazy things she’d said and how she couldn’t get off the bathroom floor. And then she’d tell him how I’d helped her.

  I listened. I heard every word. But after she told him about the shrimp cocktail, the seventy-seven books signed, and how Mailer had been so welcoming, she hung up. Then she turned to me with a warning look that I might have missed had I not been paying attention.

  I could have told this story to my dad. But he’d been so angry when we bought the shoes that I didn’t want to admit what had happened to them. And I must have known, as I saw today, that he didn’t want to hear negative things about my mother. That he wanted to always look forward, too.

  Let her go, I’ll stay.

  I stretched my palm on the cool window and tried to see the tunnel walls but it was too dark. I closed my eyes and saw Ducky with her pearls and Sarah’s sunburned nose and Lee standing in the bathroom, her bloody lip, her cheek with the strawberry-sized rug burn, her vacant eyes. I felt something grind in my stomach and just knew that Sarah would bring this up over the weekend and maybe Ducky, too, and what in the hell would I say? What would they expect from me?

  Ben and I sometimes talked about this. What happened to Lee was a tragedy, he always said; most people in my situation wouldn’t have been able to handle it differently. “People like to think they’ll be heroes. But in truth, they’ll save themselves. The will to live is a basic biological instinct.”

  Oh, I loved him. He was so smart and practical and good and it was okay that I’d left out a piece of the story, wasn’t it? That I’d still not told him what Lee did? Because when he talked about this logically and insisted that only one person at a time could have possibly gotten through the window and that I was lucky to be the first one, it made sense. Even had Lee tried to follow, Owen would’ve grabbed her after I escaped. It was in these small, rare moments that I felt a glimmer of peace.

  The train slowed and then the lights were on outside and I saw the platform. When the train stopped and the doors opened, people rushed, trying to beat the crowd. I gathered my things and was one of the last off the train. I lingered, pausing to read the signs above the tracks and the headlines from a newspaper thrown on the ground. My feet felt heavy as I slowly climbed the empty stairs to the lobby.

  I saw Lee before she saw me. She stood in front of the Hudson News Stand where we always met. Dressed in jeans, brown clogs, and a simple white button-down, she’
d barely changed her wardrobe since college. Her skin was pale—she said she was never in the sun—and her long black hair had fallen across one side of her face. She seemed to be watching an older woman who stood near her. When we were younger, Lee might have spent the next hour talking about her. What was she doing? Who was she meeting? Let’s follow her!

  I stopped so suddenly that a man from behind ran into me. I apologized but didn’t move. An oppressive feeling settled in my chest and I fought an urge to run the other way. But then Lee looked up, waved, and smiled. She hurried across the walkway and we hugged. She felt thinner, almost frail, and I cried, “Don’t tell me that you’re not eating again because you don’t have enough money!”

  She pulled away and shrugged. “It’s so expensive living here, you know that, and then the deposit on the new apartment was more than I thought and—”

  “We’re getting dinner. I’ll pay. And we’re not going to some dive again.” We’d eat something substantial, like steak or roasted chicken. Mashed potatoes and creamed corn, too. Comfort food. I felt very certain with the task ahead.

  She shook her head. “You’re paying for my flight. And tomorrow night we’re meeting your parents for dinner. I won’t let you pay for everything.”

  “I’m not. Tomorrow night my parents are buying dinner. And I’m loaning you money for the flight. Right? You can pay me back when you have the money.”

  “Did you tell Ben about this?”

  “No!” I laughed, to show her that I was independent. I didn’t need his opinion or approval. She didn’t need to know how much I worried about disappointing him.

  “Okay. Thanks.” She gripped the strap of her backpack—the same backpack she’d had in college—with both hands and began chewing on the inside of her cheek. Then she sighed, her voice soft and slow. “We’re going back to see everyone.”

  I nodded. But when I saw her eyes flicker and felt her mood darken, I grabbed her arm. No way. This wasn’t going to be one of those visits. We weren’t going to sit in some gloomy basement bar, the air thick with her sadness and confusion as we mulled over something that had happened at work or with her roommates. Or worse, I didn’t want to sit there while she zoned out, struggling to answer my questions or simply not speaking at all. No, we were going to have a fun couple of days. We’d laugh and keep it light. “Come on, I’m completely starving.”