paper mache privacy
holds back no coldness
poison words seep
uninhibited into
unintended ears
everything and nothing
a touch to dust
collapsing
i dont know how to forget
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The Bay House
During one of our yearly pilgrimages to visit my grandfather in Maryland, my mother pulled me outside for a talk. I went willing, suspecting that this talk had something to do with the woman whose house we were going to for dinner. My grandfather was a quiet, introverted man, and I’d never even seen him talk to his neighbors. I didn’t even know that my grandfather knew any women, so I was dying to know what was going on.
It was July, and the Maryland sun was scalding. I had been too stubborn to put on shoes, so I had to run across the pavement to keep the bottoms of my feet from being burned. I waited on the far side for my mother, who had taken the time to slip on her L.L.Bean sandals before leaving the house.
We walked two lots toward the end of the cul-de-sac before my mother came to a stop. I stood in the grass next to the sidewalk, shielding my eyes with my hand and trying to be patient.
“Your grandfather is getting married,” my mother finally told me. It had never occurred to me that old people got married too. “This is where they are going to live. They are both going to sell their houses and move into a new one together.”
I squinted through the bright sun, shifting from one foot to another, regretting my decision to forego shoes. The empty lot was blanketed with dandelions, which seemed to glow gold in the bright sun.
At the wedding, my grandfather’s wife did not wear white. I was eight, and I came to understand that I understood very little.
A full year went by before I returned to Maryland. In my absence, a house had sprung up. I had not seen any of the construction, just that it had not been there, and then it was: a magical appearance. It was the largest house I had ever seen, stained a deep mahogany and built into the side of a hill. The front yard, where the dandelions had been the year before, was level, but in the back it sloped down at a sixty-degree angle to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay.
There was a rope between two trees at chest height that ran the length of the hill. To get to the water, we had to belay down a steep dirt path. It was best to go second, and allow my brother to walk face first through the numerous spider webs that appeared across the path overnight.
My new grandmother owned a section of beach. It was no more than seventy feet of reed-covered sand at a narrowing of the bay called Kinnaird’s Point. The bottom of the bay had been carved out to allow large boats to pass through. The water was neck-deep four steps in from the edge.
We loved that beach. I think we would have loved it even if it had been strewn with rocks and the water never got deeper than our bellybuttons. The words private beach spelled us into love before we had even seen the place.
The house was the first thing to magically appear in Maryland, but it certainly wasn’t the last. My memories of those summers all mix together, and I can no longer say for certain in what order things appeared, or how old I was when each happened.
Some things appeared permanently. A dock appeared, allowing us to cast our lines out into the channel when we fished and to perform sloppy cannonballs into the deep water. A set of stairs replaced our belaying rope, to my parent’s relief and my secret disappointment. The stairs had five flights and a bench halfway down. The bench had been intended to give people a place to rest, but was more frequently used to wait for slow adults. Baby cousins, who grew far too quickly and whose names I could never keep straight, were also added to the mix, along with some dogs to bark excitedly whenever we caught a fish.
Some things only appeared for a single summer. During a particularly bad drought, the usually brackish water became salt water. With the shift of the salt-water line came new salt-water creatures. For the first time, we were able to catch crabs off the end of the dock by tying raw chicken to the end of long pieces of tine and lowering them to the bay floor. After an hour, the chicken was slowly brought to the surface and scooped up with a net when it was six inches from the surface. The crabs would skitter sideways around the dock with their claws above their heads, before running off the side and plunging back into the water. Jellyfish were also a novelty, but only for the first day. Most were only the size of a quarter, and pulsed along with the current. I thought they were adorable, until one stung me. I spent the rest of the trip hauling them out of the water with a net to die a slow and painful death on the sand.
During the same summer as the drought, my father took it upon himself to try to clear some of the reeds, and ended up with a terrible case of poison ivy for his troubles. I glimpsed my father sitting in the bathroom in his underwear, his skin raw from itching. It made the jellyfish-shaped welt on my leg feel insignificant by comparison.
There were also people who appeared for a single summer. There was a pair of Irish soccer players, whose accents were so thick that I could not understand them, but they sounded pretty. An exchange student also visited us from Germany. She was fascinated by the one-legged heron that stood on the other side of the bay every morning.
I never saw Maryland in a state of transition; things appeared and disappeared between summers, but I never saw them changing. Somehow, not seeing things change allowed me to delude myself into believing that things weren’t changing, that I wasn’t changing. Maryland seemed to be beyond time, a paradise that was not subject to the laws of the real world.
Except it wasn’t.
I was seventeen, and I was walking beside my grandfather up the five flights of stairs to the house. He was going painfully slow, and I felt awkward beside him, waiting for him to take each step. His breathing was harsh and heavy, and each step was more faltering than the last. We were two thirds of the way up when his balance suddenly shifted backward, not a lot, but enough. In slow motion, I saw him begin to topple, and before my mind had even caught up with what was happening my hand was on his arm, steadying him.
He looked at me, and his face was red with exertion. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or an illusion created by his red face, or even my imagination, but in that moment my grandfather’s eyes looked like a child’s: bluer than any contact and surprised by his own helplessness. I was struck by a flash of vertigo, of a half memory of a time when I was the one going slowly up the stairs and he was the one reaching out to steady me. His arm trembled under my hand, and I was no longer sure who was steadying who.
I didn’t tell my mother or my grandmother about the almost-fall right away, though I probably should have. The encounter had scared me, and I needed time to taste the words before I said them.
That night, my grandmother showed me a stash of treasures I had hidden in a drawer the first time I visited the Bay House. They were silly, childish treasures that I could barely remember owning: a glittery lip gloss on a red lanyard, hooker-red lipstick and some chunky bracelets. I had left them there nine years earlier, when I had been someone else, an eight-year-old who now felt as foreign to me as the treasures in the drawer.
Time had dehydrated the lip gloss, reducing it to some powdery glitter at the bottom of the tube. I was struck with the childish notion that I could add water to the lip gloss, and make it like it used to be. I got as far as the bathroom door before realizing it was silly and stopping.
With the lanyard clutched between my fingers, I finally found the courage to tell my mother about the almost-fall. I whispered it like a secret, but she already knew. I realized that she had always known. Maryland had never been free of time. That had been an illusion of my creation.
It was July, and the Maryland sun was scalding. I had been too stubborn to put on shoes, so I had to run across the pavement to keep the bottoms of my feet from being burned. I waited on the far side for my mother, who had taken the time to slip on her L.L.Bean sandals before leaving the house.
We walked two lots toward the end of the cul-de-sac before my mother came to a stop. I stood in the grass next to the sidewalk, shielding my eyes with my hand and trying to be patient.
“Your grandfather is getting married,” my mother finally told me. It had never occurred to me that old people got married too. “This is where they are going to live. They are both going to sell their houses and move into a new one together.”
I squinted through the bright sun, shifting from one foot to another, regretting my decision to forego shoes. The empty lot was blanketed with dandelions, which seemed to glow gold in the bright sun.
At the wedding, my grandfather’s wife did not wear white. I was eight, and I came to understand that I understood very little.
* * *
A full year went by before I returned to Maryland. In my absence, a house had sprung up. I had not seen any of the construction, just that it had not been there, and then it was: a magical appearance. It was the largest house I had ever seen, stained a deep mahogany and built into the side of a hill. The front yard, where the dandelions had been the year before, was level, but in the back it sloped down at a sixty-degree angle to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay.
There was a rope between two trees at chest height that ran the length of the hill. To get to the water, we had to belay down a steep dirt path. It was best to go second, and allow my brother to walk face first through the numerous spider webs that appeared across the path overnight.
My new grandmother owned a section of beach. It was no more than seventy feet of reed-covered sand at a narrowing of the bay called Kinnaird’s Point. The bottom of the bay had been carved out to allow large boats to pass through. The water was neck-deep four steps in from the edge.
We loved that beach. I think we would have loved it even if it had been strewn with rocks and the water never got deeper than our bellybuttons. The words private beach spelled us into love before we had even seen the place.
* * *
The house was the first thing to magically appear in Maryland, but it certainly wasn’t the last. My memories of those summers all mix together, and I can no longer say for certain in what order things appeared, or how old I was when each happened.
Some things appeared permanently. A dock appeared, allowing us to cast our lines out into the channel when we fished and to perform sloppy cannonballs into the deep water. A set of stairs replaced our belaying rope, to my parent’s relief and my secret disappointment. The stairs had five flights and a bench halfway down. The bench had been intended to give people a place to rest, but was more frequently used to wait for slow adults. Baby cousins, who grew far too quickly and whose names I could never keep straight, were also added to the mix, along with some dogs to bark excitedly whenever we caught a fish.
Some things only appeared for a single summer. During a particularly bad drought, the usually brackish water became salt water. With the shift of the salt-water line came new salt-water creatures. For the first time, we were able to catch crabs off the end of the dock by tying raw chicken to the end of long pieces of tine and lowering them to the bay floor. After an hour, the chicken was slowly brought to the surface and scooped up with a net when it was six inches from the surface. The crabs would skitter sideways around the dock with their claws above their heads, before running off the side and plunging back into the water. Jellyfish were also a novelty, but only for the first day. Most were only the size of a quarter, and pulsed along with the current. I thought they were adorable, until one stung me. I spent the rest of the trip hauling them out of the water with a net to die a slow and painful death on the sand.
During the same summer as the drought, my father took it upon himself to try to clear some of the reeds, and ended up with a terrible case of poison ivy for his troubles. I glimpsed my father sitting in the bathroom in his underwear, his skin raw from itching. It made the jellyfish-shaped welt on my leg feel insignificant by comparison.
There were also people who appeared for a single summer. There was a pair of Irish soccer players, whose accents were so thick that I could not understand them, but they sounded pretty. An exchange student also visited us from Germany. She was fascinated by the one-legged heron that stood on the other side of the bay every morning.
* * *
I never saw Maryland in a state of transition; things appeared and disappeared between summers, but I never saw them changing. Somehow, not seeing things change allowed me to delude myself into believing that things weren’t changing, that I wasn’t changing. Maryland seemed to be beyond time, a paradise that was not subject to the laws of the real world.
Except it wasn’t.
I was seventeen, and I was walking beside my grandfather up the five flights of stairs to the house. He was going painfully slow, and I felt awkward beside him, waiting for him to take each step. His breathing was harsh and heavy, and each step was more faltering than the last. We were two thirds of the way up when his balance suddenly shifted backward, not a lot, but enough. In slow motion, I saw him begin to topple, and before my mind had even caught up with what was happening my hand was on his arm, steadying him.
He looked at me, and his face was red with exertion. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or an illusion created by his red face, or even my imagination, but in that moment my grandfather’s eyes looked like a child’s: bluer than any contact and surprised by his own helplessness. I was struck by a flash of vertigo, of a half memory of a time when I was the one going slowly up the stairs and he was the one reaching out to steady me. His arm trembled under my hand, and I was no longer sure who was steadying who.
* * *
I didn’t tell my mother or my grandmother about the almost-fall right away, though I probably should have. The encounter had scared me, and I needed time to taste the words before I said them.
That night, my grandmother showed me a stash of treasures I had hidden in a drawer the first time I visited the Bay House. They were silly, childish treasures that I could barely remember owning: a glittery lip gloss on a red lanyard, hooker-red lipstick and some chunky bracelets. I had left them there nine years earlier, when I had been someone else, an eight-year-old who now felt as foreign to me as the treasures in the drawer.
Time had dehydrated the lip gloss, reducing it to some powdery glitter at the bottom of the tube. I was struck with the childish notion that I could add water to the lip gloss, and make it like it used to be. I got as far as the bathroom door before realizing it was silly and stopping.
With the lanyard clutched between my fingers, I finally found the courage to tell my mother about the almost-fall. I whispered it like a secret, but she already knew. I realized that she had always known. Maryland had never been free of time. That had been an illusion of my creation.
Thanksgiving Company
The entire house was hot. It was a dry heat, the sort that results from having the oven running all day. The food had been assembled on a table in the room next to the dining room. The table was dressed in a white lacy runner, a gift from Germany that Mrs. Wagner had insisted would never be used, but had somehow found its way onto the table anyhow. The turkey sat on a massive platter in the center, with the stuffed acorn squash to its right. The squash had needed to be cooked in the neighbor's oven, because they would not fit in the Wagner's oven beside the turkey. The mashed potatoes sat to the turkey's left, a gravy boat and the dish of cranberry sauce perched perilously between them. The stuffing flanked the mashed potatoes, along with the fruit salad, the five bean salad and the regular salad. The right side of the table was dominated by a three gallon punch bowl that had been filled to the brim with lemon-lime punch and scoops of orange sherbet.
Dinner at the Wagner house was a serve-yourself affair. Most of the family gathered round the serving table, serving themselves generous portions. Mrs. Wagner, who had spent all day in the kitchen with her daughter, took the opportunity to sit down and pour herself a glass of white wine. She was a graceful woman, whose dark hair had been streaked with silver as she aged. She was wearing a sophisticated navy-blue blouse and white dress pants. She had dressed carefully, knowing that her in-laws would be present for dinner. As she watched Grandpa Stag and Grandma Joan circle the serving table, she knew that she had not only met, but exceeded their expectations. As Mrs. Wagner watched, Grandpa Stag turned to throw her an admiring look.
Grandpa Stag was a short, wiry man in his seventies, who had been married three times in his life. His most recent wife was a blonde woman in her fifties named Joan. As Mrs. Wagner watched, Mr. Wagner came up behind his father, and engaged him in a lively conversation. Glancing between her husband and his father, Mrs. Wagner observed that they were a great deal alike. Mr. Wagner was taller and had not yet gone totally gray, but their manner of expression was strikingly similar.
Mrs. Wagner finished her glass of wine and lit the candle in the center of the table. It was pumpkin pie scented and sent wafts of spiced aroma into the overly warm air.
“Boy, I sure am looking forward to that pumpkin pie later; it smells delicious!"” Grandma Joan commented, pronouncing the words like they were themselves were a delicacy.
Mrs. Wagner glanced at the candle, then at her mother-in-law.
“That's actually just the can—” Mr. Wagner began.
Mrs. Wagner stomped on his foot, effectively silencing him. “Thank you, Joan!” she finished, smiling.
As Grandma Joan and Grandpa Stag finished loading their plates and took their seats at the table, Mr. Wagner and Shelly, the Wagner’s daughter, took their place at the serving table. Once they had their food, they too took a seat at the table.
Mrs. Wagner noticed that her son, Greg, and his girlfriend Stephanie stood slightly apart from the rest of the family with Stephanie’s two daughters and had made no move toward the food, despite the obvious social cues. Mrs. Wagner served herself and took a seat at the table with her family, leaving them standing.
The Greg that stood in the dining room looked nothing like the Greg in the pictures Mrs. Wagner had hung on the walls. He had gained at least a hundred pounds and grown his hair out into a long, scraggly, greasy ponytail. About an inch down the hair strands, his hair took on a grayish tinge, from when he’d tried and failed to dye his hair blue a couple of months earlier. There were purplish semicircles under his eyes that made Mrs. Wagner wonder whether Greg ever slept.
Stephanie leaned into him, clinging in a way that was almost obscene. She was short, only about five feet tall, but she was far from petite. Stephanie weighed close to three hundred pounds and had nearly every health problem known to man, though Mrs. Wagner suspected that there was at least some hypochondria at work. Stephanie was dressed from head to toe in black, and had even taken the time to apply a thick layer of black eyeliner to her eyes.
Stephanie’s daughters, Elisha and Alana, were three and nine, respectively. The girls looked strikingly different: Alana had straight brown hair, while Elisha’s hair hung in golden ringlets. It didn’t surprise Mrs. Wagner that the girls looked different, since they had different fathers. Stephanie had been married twice before meeting Greg, with a child resulting from each aborted match. Mrs. Wagner was glad that Stephanie had had a hysterectomy, and that Greg wouldn’t become the third man to father a child by Stephanie.
Elicia grabbed Stephanie’s thumb, tugging insistently. “Momma, I wanna watch Wizard of Oz. Why‘ren’t we watching Wizard of Oz?”
Stephanie smiled indulgently down at her daughter, “Greg’ll fix it, Elicia.” She then turned toward Greg, glancing up through her lashes. She leaned up to give him a slow kiss, their bodies forming around each other in a mass of quivering blubber to allow their mouths to meet. As they pulled apart, Mrs. Wagner saw the glint of Stephanie’s tongue stud and shuddered with revulsion. There is a time and a place for everything, and in front of the entire family is not the place for a plus-sized make-out session.
Greg lumbered toward the TV, switching off the football game and popping in the Wizard of Oz. The rest of the family watched slack-jawed. Grandpa Stag’s mouth was working like a fish, wanting to protest but not knowing how. In the end, it was Mrs. Wagner who said something.
“Greg? What are you doing?” Mrs. Wagner asked politely.
“Elicia wants to watch Wizard of Oz, so I’m putting it on for her,” He promptly turned back to the task of working the remote with his stubby fingers.
“No, you aren’t,” Mrs. Wagner replied.
“What?”
“No, you aren’t,” Mrs. Wagner repeated. “We always watch the Thanksgiving Day football game as a family.”
Greg had the decency to blush. “Mom, Elicia will throw a tantrum if she doesn’t get her way. We have to watch Wizard of Oz.”
“She throws tantrums because she knows she’ll get her way if she does. Give her something else to play with and tell her no. She can watch it when you get home,” Mrs. Wagner said, with finality.
Greg’s chin jutted out, and he ground his teeth. He turned the football game back on and stomped back toward Stephanie and Elicia.
“Aren’t we gonna watch Wizard of Oz? Momma?” Elicia asked, resuming tugging on her mother’s hand.
“Mrs. Wagner said no,” Stephanie told her daughter. “You have to watch football like everyone else.
Elicia let out a deafening shriek, like an angry teapot. Her face flushed maroon and her eyes welled up with tears. “WANNA WATCH WIZARD OF OZ! NOT FAIR!!! GREG, FIX IT!! FIX IT NOW!” She grabbed the lacy runner and tugged, sliding all the food toward her as she collapsed to the floor, sobbing. The punch bowl lurched precariously, hanging out over the edge and sloshing some of its contents across the floor and into Elisha’s golden curls.
“Elicia, honey, would you like to play with some blocks instead?” asked Mrs. Wagner, hopping up to try to salvage the situation. The effect was instantaneous: the sun came out from behind a cloud and the tears dried away to nothing.
“I never would have thought of that,” Greg said, awed.
“Can we have those blocks to keep her quiet at home?” asked Stephanie.
“No, they’re to keep her quiet while she’s here,” Mrs. Wagner replied, rearranging the things on the table and setting the punch bowl away from the edge. As she stooped to mop the punch off the floor with a rag, Stephanie pulled Greg into the next room, whispering in his ear. Alana, who had been her mother’s silent shadow the entire night, went with them, leaving her sister to play with the blocks.
“Mom?” Greg called around the corner. “Steph forgot some important medicine in the car, we’re going to run out and grab it.”
As the outer door squeaked shut, Shelly got up from the table and came to join her mother, bringing paper towels. Shelly was a sophomore in college, and had come home for the holiday to visit with family and help cook. Her long, blonde hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and she wore a black button-up shirt.
“Mom, when are they going to leave?” Shelly asked.
“Not for a while, Shelly. Dinner is only just starting,” Mrs. Wagner replied, taking the paper towels and continuing to mop up the liquid.
“Stephanie was asking me to be her bridesmaid, and I didn’t even know Greg had proposed. She was asking me what color dresses I thought would be best.”
“She’s planning a wedding?” Mrs. Wagner asked in disbelief. “She hasn’t said anything to me about it. Is there anything else she’s said to you?”
“You mean other than when she pulled me aside to give me advice on how to put Velcro between the buttons on my blouse so they wouldn’t pucker at all? She was making comments about how us big-busted women needing to stick together. I don’t get it, I mean, proportionally speaking, compared to the rest of her, her boobs are not that big.” Shelly wrinkled her nose in distaste, gathering up the soiled paper towels.
Mrs. Wagner pushed a wayward strand of blond hair behind her daughter’s ear. “Sweetheart, you’re beautiful just as you are. Don’t worry about what she has to say.”
Shelly threw away the paper towels and returned to the table, just as Greg and Stephanie returned, chomping gum and reeking of cigarette smoke. The atmosphere twisted and stiffened.
Greg and Stephanie finally served themselves and the girls. Once everyone was seated at the table, Grandpa Stag gave a brief blessing. No one closed their eyes.
Mrs. Wagner took her first bite of turkey, gazing speculatively at Stephanie. "So, Steph, I heard something about you planning a wedding. How come you didn't say anything about it to me?"
"Oh, yes, Ma'am. I asked your daughter to be our bridesmaid this afternoon, since she's Greg's sister, and we were really hoping that you guys could be a part of our marriage, since Greg didn’t invite you to his last wedding, and weddings are so wonderful, and I was thinking that Greg could wear a ducktail suit and that the bridesmaid dresses would be blue, since that's a color that looks good on everyone...”
Mrs. Wagner tuned out for a moment, watching Stephanie speak rather than listening to what she was saying. Stephanie’s mouth was still half-full of broccoli, which sprayed out of her mouth with each syllable and fell down the front of her blouse. Mrs. Wagner looked back at her plate.
“...and we were thinking about November, since that's when my best friend Nicole's coming home from Norway, where she's living with her fiance, but she has to come back to the states because she had a rubber band put on her stomach and it slipped, and she can't even eat, and so she needs emergency surgery--"
"Oh God, enough! I'm gonna be sick!" Grandpa Stag exclaimed, clutching his stomach.
Stephanie, glowing with the limelight, paused uncertainly at Grandpa Stag's exclamation.
"Go on, Steph," Mrs. Wagner urged, trying to move the conversation forward.
"Apparently they only do rubber bands on stomach in America, and they use staples in Europe since it's safer, so they won't even operate on the rubber bands, and--"
"You were saying November?" Mrs. Wagner prompted.
"Yes, because the weather in November is so lovely for weddings, and I think it would be perfect, and Greg will be able wear his suit comfortably, and the girls will be able to wear long dresses, and I really like fall weddings best."
"When were you planning on inviting us?" Mrs. Wagner asked.
"Of course you're invited! We were planning on you being there, since you are
Greg's family, and of course we want him to have people there too, and of course I'm going to invite my parents."
“Then is your divorce with Elicia’s father finalized?” Mrs. Wagner queried.
“No, Ma’am,” Stephanie answered. “since he doesn’t want to let me go, and his mother has always hated me, so she’s waited years to be rid of me. My divorce with Alanna’s father went so much smoother, and we were able to still be friends afterword, but I don’t think that’ll happen with Elicia’s father since he’s being such a jerk, and he resents Greg moving in with us, which I don’t understand since I love Greg, and just because we’d only known each other for five weeks before he moved in with me doesn’t mean we’re moving too fast, and--”
“What about you, Greg? Has your divorce with Liz gone through?” Mrs. Wagner asked, hoping to draw her son into the conversation.
Greg grunted, his mouth still half full and his neck angled forward like a vulture, allowing him to shovel food into his mouth quicker. He had hardly even glanced up from his mashed potatoes, and Stephanie was already answering. “No, Ma’am, since you have to have been separated a year under Australian law before you can officially get divorced, and I think that’s really a stupid law, since I’ve been married and divorced twice already and I’m only twenty-six, so people should be able to get married and divorced as they choose.”
“Wow, two already at twenty-six? You must really chew through ‘em! I’ve had three wives, and it took me fifty years to work my way through!” Grandpa Stag exclaimed, throwing back the last of his third glass of scotch. Grandma Joan winced at the reminder that she was his third wife and twenty years his junior, a blond bombshell seated beside a gray-haired older man. It was bad enough that the children accidentally called her “aunt” sometimes.
Stephanie opened her mouth to answer. Mrs. Wagner kicked Mr. Wagner under the table, frantically mouthing, “Do something!”
Mr. Wagner said the only thing he could think of that would prevent Grandpa Stag and Stephanie from having a drawn-out and awkward comparison of past conquests: "So, Greg, how did you propose?"
Greg was on his second plate of mashed potatoes. His neck had seemingly extended, allowing him to put his mouth closer to his plate and shovel even faster. He swallowed, and paused long enough to say, "I didn't." He immediately went back to eating.
Mr. and Mrs. Wagner glanced at one another, unsure. Stephanie continued prattling on about weddings, dresses, and how certain she was that she and Greg had been made for each other. Greg continued eating.
As Stephanie continued to talk, a rather large glob of gravy fell from her fork into her cleavage. For the first time since he had seated himself at the table, Greg stopped eating and sat up. He took a napkin and reached into his girlfriend’s shirt to clean the gravy away. Stephanie giggled flirtatiously, gazing up at him through her lashes as Greg’s hand lingered longer than necessary.
Dessert was served on Mrs. Wagner’s grandmother’s nice china, as it was every year. Stephanie insisted that she didn’t want dessert, and that she could just have some of Greg’s slice instead. It soon became obvious that she was lying, as Mrs. Wagner watched Greg and Stephanie work together to polish off four whole pieces of pie.
As Stephanie cleaned off the last of the fourth piece of pie, she asked, “This is a lovely piece of china, and it looks very old, like what my grandparents have. Is it worth a lot?”
“I really don’t know, Stephanie. I’ve never wanted to sell it.” Mrs. Wagner replied tersely.
“Well, I think it would be, since it’s so pretty and so old and in such good shape, and I bet you could sell it for a couple hundred dollars.” Stephanie paused in her examination of the plate, suddenly serious. “What time does the last person leaves for work in the morning?”
“You have no need to know something like that.” Mrs. Wagner answered sharply. “I think the girls are getting tired, and that you guys should head home now that you’ve had dessert.”
“I was thinking that we could maybe stay the night, since it’s late and I don’t know if we really feel up to driving, and I’d really like to see more of your lovely home,” Stephanie answered, suddenly eyeing the silverware intently.
“You are not welcome to stay the night without invitation, Stephanie.” Mrs. Wagner replied, bristling.
“You’re Greg’s mother, and you should be supportive of us, and my mother would have let us stay the night without an invitation! You’re a terrible mother, and I want you to know that Greg and my love is too strong to be broke apart. It doesn’t matter if you approve, ‘cause we’re going to be together forever,” Stephanie stood up suddenly, her stomach colliding with the table and rippling from the impact. “Elisha, Alana, get your coats. We’re taking the moral higher road!”
“Aren’t we getting pie to go?” Greg asked.
“I’ll make you all the pie you want, Schnookums,” Stephanie replied leaning over the back of his chair to kiss him before dragging him out the door.
Before Mr. Wagner could answer, Grandpa Stag turned to his daughter-in-law, his eyes glassy. “A drink? An excellent idea, my dear!” He reached around his wife to reclaim his scotch glass, and promptly refilled it, despite Joan’s protests. “Have I mentioned how lovely you are? Greg’s got a winner of a mother, yet he’s choosing to date a whale!” Grandpa Stag paused to drain half his glass. “I know! The nine-year-old! She’s quiet, and her father went to MIT, so she must be smart! Greg should marry her instead of the mother!”
The entire family gaped.
Mr. Wagner jumped in, trying to make light of the situation. “How like you, Dad! Always trying to rob the cradle!” The family let out a collective nervous chuckle, and Grandma Joan shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“Well, my boy, we can’t all get lucky like you and marry such a beauty on the first try!” Grandpa Stag grabbed Mrs. Wagner’s arm. “Really, my dear! You have such a pretty face! I would expect to see it when I open up a catalogue, not when I come to have dinner with my son’s family--”
“Dad, I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Mr. Wagner said sternly, stepping forward to shield his wife and pulling the glass from his father’s fingers. “Perhaps it’s time for bed?” Mr. Wagner shot a look at Grandma Joan, who hurried to her feet and took her husband by the arm.
It took several minutes for Grandpa Stag to make his way up the stairs, his wife leading him the entire way. He rambled under his breath about whales, Greg and catalogue models the entire way. Grandma Joan said nothing, recognizing that he probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning, and making a mental note to have a long talk with him about his drinking in the morning.
Now that they were finally alone, Mr. Wagner turned to Mrs. Wagner. “I’m sorry about my father. I should have made him stop drinking sooner.”
Mrs. Wagner made a choked noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a cry, and reached out to squeeze her husband’s hand. “Matt, let’s not have any company for Thanksgiving next year.”
Mr. Wagner laughed humorlessly, and then leaned over to give his wife a kiss. “All right.”
* * *
Dinner at the Wagner house was a serve-yourself affair. Most of the family gathered round the serving table, serving themselves generous portions. Mrs. Wagner, who had spent all day in the kitchen with her daughter, took the opportunity to sit down and pour herself a glass of white wine. She was a graceful woman, whose dark hair had been streaked with silver as she aged. She was wearing a sophisticated navy-blue blouse and white dress pants. She had dressed carefully, knowing that her in-laws would be present for dinner. As she watched Grandpa Stag and Grandma Joan circle the serving table, she knew that she had not only met, but exceeded their expectations. As Mrs. Wagner watched, Grandpa Stag turned to throw her an admiring look.
Grandpa Stag was a short, wiry man in his seventies, who had been married three times in his life. His most recent wife was a blonde woman in her fifties named Joan. As Mrs. Wagner watched, Mr. Wagner came up behind his father, and engaged him in a lively conversation. Glancing between her husband and his father, Mrs. Wagner observed that they were a great deal alike. Mr. Wagner was taller and had not yet gone totally gray, but their manner of expression was strikingly similar.
Mrs. Wagner finished her glass of wine and lit the candle in the center of the table. It was pumpkin pie scented and sent wafts of spiced aroma into the overly warm air.
“Boy, I sure am looking forward to that pumpkin pie later; it smells delicious!"” Grandma Joan commented, pronouncing the words like they were themselves were a delicacy.
Mrs. Wagner glanced at the candle, then at her mother-in-law.
“That's actually just the can—” Mr. Wagner began.
Mrs. Wagner stomped on his foot, effectively silencing him. “Thank you, Joan!” she finished, smiling.
As Grandma Joan and Grandpa Stag finished loading their plates and took their seats at the table, Mr. Wagner and Shelly, the Wagner’s daughter, took their place at the serving table. Once they had their food, they too took a seat at the table.
Mrs. Wagner noticed that her son, Greg, and his girlfriend Stephanie stood slightly apart from the rest of the family with Stephanie’s two daughters and had made no move toward the food, despite the obvious social cues. Mrs. Wagner served herself and took a seat at the table with her family, leaving them standing.
The Greg that stood in the dining room looked nothing like the Greg in the pictures Mrs. Wagner had hung on the walls. He had gained at least a hundred pounds and grown his hair out into a long, scraggly, greasy ponytail. About an inch down the hair strands, his hair took on a grayish tinge, from when he’d tried and failed to dye his hair blue a couple of months earlier. There were purplish semicircles under his eyes that made Mrs. Wagner wonder whether Greg ever slept.
Stephanie leaned into him, clinging in a way that was almost obscene. She was short, only about five feet tall, but she was far from petite. Stephanie weighed close to three hundred pounds and had nearly every health problem known to man, though Mrs. Wagner suspected that there was at least some hypochondria at work. Stephanie was dressed from head to toe in black, and had even taken the time to apply a thick layer of black eyeliner to her eyes.
Stephanie’s daughters, Elisha and Alana, were three and nine, respectively. The girls looked strikingly different: Alana had straight brown hair, while Elisha’s hair hung in golden ringlets. It didn’t surprise Mrs. Wagner that the girls looked different, since they had different fathers. Stephanie had been married twice before meeting Greg, with a child resulting from each aborted match. Mrs. Wagner was glad that Stephanie had had a hysterectomy, and that Greg wouldn’t become the third man to father a child by Stephanie.
Elicia grabbed Stephanie’s thumb, tugging insistently. “Momma, I wanna watch Wizard of Oz. Why‘ren’t we watching Wizard of Oz?”
Stephanie smiled indulgently down at her daughter, “Greg’ll fix it, Elicia.” She then turned toward Greg, glancing up through her lashes. She leaned up to give him a slow kiss, their bodies forming around each other in a mass of quivering blubber to allow their mouths to meet. As they pulled apart, Mrs. Wagner saw the glint of Stephanie’s tongue stud and shuddered with revulsion. There is a time and a place for everything, and in front of the entire family is not the place for a plus-sized make-out session.
Greg lumbered toward the TV, switching off the football game and popping in the Wizard of Oz. The rest of the family watched slack-jawed. Grandpa Stag’s mouth was working like a fish, wanting to protest but not knowing how. In the end, it was Mrs. Wagner who said something.
“Greg? What are you doing?” Mrs. Wagner asked politely.
“Elicia wants to watch Wizard of Oz, so I’m putting it on for her,” He promptly turned back to the task of working the remote with his stubby fingers.
“No, you aren’t,” Mrs. Wagner replied.
“What?”
“No, you aren’t,” Mrs. Wagner repeated. “We always watch the Thanksgiving Day football game as a family.”
Greg had the decency to blush. “Mom, Elicia will throw a tantrum if she doesn’t get her way. We have to watch Wizard of Oz.”
“She throws tantrums because she knows she’ll get her way if she does. Give her something else to play with and tell her no. She can watch it when you get home,” Mrs. Wagner said, with finality.
Greg’s chin jutted out, and he ground his teeth. He turned the football game back on and stomped back toward Stephanie and Elicia.
“Aren’t we gonna watch Wizard of Oz? Momma?” Elicia asked, resuming tugging on her mother’s hand.
“Mrs. Wagner said no,” Stephanie told her daughter. “You have to watch football like everyone else.
Elicia let out a deafening shriek, like an angry teapot. Her face flushed maroon and her eyes welled up with tears. “WANNA WATCH WIZARD OF OZ! NOT FAIR!!! GREG, FIX IT!! FIX IT NOW!” She grabbed the lacy runner and tugged, sliding all the food toward her as she collapsed to the floor, sobbing. The punch bowl lurched precariously, hanging out over the edge and sloshing some of its contents across the floor and into Elisha’s golden curls.
“Elicia, honey, would you like to play with some blocks instead?” asked Mrs. Wagner, hopping up to try to salvage the situation. The effect was instantaneous: the sun came out from behind a cloud and the tears dried away to nothing.
“I never would have thought of that,” Greg said, awed.
“Can we have those blocks to keep her quiet at home?” asked Stephanie.
“No, they’re to keep her quiet while she’s here,” Mrs. Wagner replied, rearranging the things on the table and setting the punch bowl away from the edge. As she stooped to mop the punch off the floor with a rag, Stephanie pulled Greg into the next room, whispering in his ear. Alana, who had been her mother’s silent shadow the entire night, went with them, leaving her sister to play with the blocks.
“Mom?” Greg called around the corner. “Steph forgot some important medicine in the car, we’re going to run out and grab it.”
As the outer door squeaked shut, Shelly got up from the table and came to join her mother, bringing paper towels. Shelly was a sophomore in college, and had come home for the holiday to visit with family and help cook. Her long, blonde hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and she wore a black button-up shirt.
“Mom, when are they going to leave?” Shelly asked.
“Not for a while, Shelly. Dinner is only just starting,” Mrs. Wagner replied, taking the paper towels and continuing to mop up the liquid.
“Stephanie was asking me to be her bridesmaid, and I didn’t even know Greg had proposed. She was asking me what color dresses I thought would be best.”
“She’s planning a wedding?” Mrs. Wagner asked in disbelief. “She hasn’t said anything to me about it. Is there anything else she’s said to you?”
“You mean other than when she pulled me aside to give me advice on how to put Velcro between the buttons on my blouse so they wouldn’t pucker at all? She was making comments about how us big-busted women needing to stick together. I don’t get it, I mean, proportionally speaking, compared to the rest of her, her boobs are not that big.” Shelly wrinkled her nose in distaste, gathering up the soiled paper towels.
Mrs. Wagner pushed a wayward strand of blond hair behind her daughter’s ear. “Sweetheart, you’re beautiful just as you are. Don’t worry about what she has to say.”
Shelly threw away the paper towels and returned to the table, just as Greg and Stephanie returned, chomping gum and reeking of cigarette smoke. The atmosphere twisted and stiffened.
Greg and Stephanie finally served themselves and the girls. Once everyone was seated at the table, Grandpa Stag gave a brief blessing. No one closed their eyes.
Mrs. Wagner took her first bite of turkey, gazing speculatively at Stephanie. "So, Steph, I heard something about you planning a wedding. How come you didn't say anything about it to me?"
"Oh, yes, Ma'am. I asked your daughter to be our bridesmaid this afternoon, since she's Greg's sister, and we were really hoping that you guys could be a part of our marriage, since Greg didn’t invite you to his last wedding, and weddings are so wonderful, and I was thinking that Greg could wear a ducktail suit and that the bridesmaid dresses would be blue, since that's a color that looks good on everyone...”
Mrs. Wagner tuned out for a moment, watching Stephanie speak rather than listening to what she was saying. Stephanie’s mouth was still half-full of broccoli, which sprayed out of her mouth with each syllable and fell down the front of her blouse. Mrs. Wagner looked back at her plate.
“...and we were thinking about November, since that's when my best friend Nicole's coming home from Norway, where she's living with her fiance, but she has to come back to the states because she had a rubber band put on her stomach and it slipped, and she can't even eat, and so she needs emergency surgery--"
"Oh God, enough! I'm gonna be sick!" Grandpa Stag exclaimed, clutching his stomach.
Stephanie, glowing with the limelight, paused uncertainly at Grandpa Stag's exclamation.
"Go on, Steph," Mrs. Wagner urged, trying to move the conversation forward.
"Apparently they only do rubber bands on stomach in America, and they use staples in Europe since it's safer, so they won't even operate on the rubber bands, and--"
"You were saying November?" Mrs. Wagner prompted.
"Yes, because the weather in November is so lovely for weddings, and I think it would be perfect, and Greg will be able wear his suit comfortably, and the girls will be able to wear long dresses, and I really like fall weddings best."
"When were you planning on inviting us?" Mrs. Wagner asked.
"Of course you're invited! We were planning on you being there, since you are
Greg's family, and of course we want him to have people there too, and of course I'm going to invite my parents."
“Then is your divorce with Elicia’s father finalized?” Mrs. Wagner queried.
“No, Ma’am,” Stephanie answered. “since he doesn’t want to let me go, and his mother has always hated me, so she’s waited years to be rid of me. My divorce with Alanna’s father went so much smoother, and we were able to still be friends afterword, but I don’t think that’ll happen with Elicia’s father since he’s being such a jerk, and he resents Greg moving in with us, which I don’t understand since I love Greg, and just because we’d only known each other for five weeks before he moved in with me doesn’t mean we’re moving too fast, and--”
“What about you, Greg? Has your divorce with Liz gone through?” Mrs. Wagner asked, hoping to draw her son into the conversation.
Greg grunted, his mouth still half full and his neck angled forward like a vulture, allowing him to shovel food into his mouth quicker. He had hardly even glanced up from his mashed potatoes, and Stephanie was already answering. “No, Ma’am, since you have to have been separated a year under Australian law before you can officially get divorced, and I think that’s really a stupid law, since I’ve been married and divorced twice already and I’m only twenty-six, so people should be able to get married and divorced as they choose.”
“Wow, two already at twenty-six? You must really chew through ‘em! I’ve had three wives, and it took me fifty years to work my way through!” Grandpa Stag exclaimed, throwing back the last of his third glass of scotch. Grandma Joan winced at the reminder that she was his third wife and twenty years his junior, a blond bombshell seated beside a gray-haired older man. It was bad enough that the children accidentally called her “aunt” sometimes.
Stephanie opened her mouth to answer. Mrs. Wagner kicked Mr. Wagner under the table, frantically mouthing, “Do something!”
Mr. Wagner said the only thing he could think of that would prevent Grandpa Stag and Stephanie from having a drawn-out and awkward comparison of past conquests: "So, Greg, how did you propose?"
Greg was on his second plate of mashed potatoes. His neck had seemingly extended, allowing him to put his mouth closer to his plate and shovel even faster. He swallowed, and paused long enough to say, "I didn't." He immediately went back to eating.
Mr. and Mrs. Wagner glanced at one another, unsure. Stephanie continued prattling on about weddings, dresses, and how certain she was that she and Greg had been made for each other. Greg continued eating.
As Stephanie continued to talk, a rather large glob of gravy fell from her fork into her cleavage. For the first time since he had seated himself at the table, Greg stopped eating and sat up. He took a napkin and reached into his girlfriend’s shirt to clean the gravy away. Stephanie giggled flirtatiously, gazing up at him through her lashes as Greg’s hand lingered longer than necessary.
* * *
By the time Mrs. Wagner and Shelly had begun to serve dessert, Grandma Joan had succeeded in wrestling the scotch glass out of Grandpa Stag’s hand, but the damage had already been done. The old man was glassy-eyed and drunk, and Mrs. Wagner doubted he would remember anything come morning. Dessert was served on Mrs. Wagner’s grandmother’s nice china, as it was every year. Stephanie insisted that she didn’t want dessert, and that she could just have some of Greg’s slice instead. It soon became obvious that she was lying, as Mrs. Wagner watched Greg and Stephanie work together to polish off four whole pieces of pie.
As Stephanie cleaned off the last of the fourth piece of pie, she asked, “This is a lovely piece of china, and it looks very old, like what my grandparents have. Is it worth a lot?”
“I really don’t know, Stephanie. I’ve never wanted to sell it.” Mrs. Wagner replied tersely.
“Well, I think it would be, since it’s so pretty and so old and in such good shape, and I bet you could sell it for a couple hundred dollars.” Stephanie paused in her examination of the plate, suddenly serious. “What time does the last person leaves for work in the morning?”
“You have no need to know something like that.” Mrs. Wagner answered sharply. “I think the girls are getting tired, and that you guys should head home now that you’ve had dessert.”
“I was thinking that we could maybe stay the night, since it’s late and I don’t know if we really feel up to driving, and I’d really like to see more of your lovely home,” Stephanie answered, suddenly eyeing the silverware intently.
“You are not welcome to stay the night without invitation, Stephanie.” Mrs. Wagner replied, bristling.
“You’re Greg’s mother, and you should be supportive of us, and my mother would have let us stay the night without an invitation! You’re a terrible mother, and I want you to know that Greg and my love is too strong to be broke apart. It doesn’t matter if you approve, ‘cause we’re going to be together forever,” Stephanie stood up suddenly, her stomach colliding with the table and rippling from the impact. “Elisha, Alana, get your coats. We’re taking the moral higher road!”
“Aren’t we getting pie to go?” Greg asked.
“I’ll make you all the pie you want, Schnookums,” Stephanie replied leaning over the back of his chair to kiss him before dragging him out the door.
* * *
The Wagners watched through the front windows as they got into the car and drove away. After their tail lights had vanished around the corner, Mrs. Wagner turned to her husband and asked, “So, how about a drink?”Before Mr. Wagner could answer, Grandpa Stag turned to his daughter-in-law, his eyes glassy. “A drink? An excellent idea, my dear!” He reached around his wife to reclaim his scotch glass, and promptly refilled it, despite Joan’s protests. “Have I mentioned how lovely you are? Greg’s got a winner of a mother, yet he’s choosing to date a whale!” Grandpa Stag paused to drain half his glass. “I know! The nine-year-old! She’s quiet, and her father went to MIT, so she must be smart! Greg should marry her instead of the mother!”
The entire family gaped.
Mr. Wagner jumped in, trying to make light of the situation. “How like you, Dad! Always trying to rob the cradle!” The family let out a collective nervous chuckle, and Grandma Joan shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“Well, my boy, we can’t all get lucky like you and marry such a beauty on the first try!” Grandpa Stag grabbed Mrs. Wagner’s arm. “Really, my dear! You have such a pretty face! I would expect to see it when I open up a catalogue, not when I come to have dinner with my son’s family--”
“Dad, I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Mr. Wagner said sternly, stepping forward to shield his wife and pulling the glass from his father’s fingers. “Perhaps it’s time for bed?” Mr. Wagner shot a look at Grandma Joan, who hurried to her feet and took her husband by the arm.
It took several minutes for Grandpa Stag to make his way up the stairs, his wife leading him the entire way. He rambled under his breath about whales, Greg and catalogue models the entire way. Grandma Joan said nothing, recognizing that he probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning, and making a mental note to have a long talk with him about his drinking in the morning.
* * *
The Wagners sat downstairs, each nursing at a glass of wine, not knowing what to say. After the door to Grandpa Stag and Grandma Joan’s room finally clicked shut, Shelly excused herself, and headed upstairs to bed.Now that they were finally alone, Mr. Wagner turned to Mrs. Wagner. “I’m sorry about my father. I should have made him stop drinking sooner.”
Mrs. Wagner made a choked noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a cry, and reached out to squeeze her husband’s hand. “Matt, let’s not have any company for Thanksgiving next year.”
Mr. Wagner laughed humorlessly, and then leaned over to give his wife a kiss. “All right.”
Estrangement
Our mother used to come home from parent-teacher night upset. My brother and I were only two years apart, so she had to visit both of our teachers in the same night. Almost invariably, Greg’s teachers revealed that he hadn’t been doing his homework, even though he told Mom he didn’t have any homework, every time that she asked.
When Greg was in middle school, he skipped a project worth 15% of his final grade. That was the last straw. Our mother put a new rule in place: Greg couldn’t play any video games unless he got at least B- in every subject.
Greg used to calculate how many homework assignments he could skip and still get a B-. Sometimes he didn’t do as well on tests as he thought he would, and he ended up with Cs. There were whole summers during which he couldn’t play his video games.
For Greg, losing video games was the worst punishment imaginable. He loved video games enough that he’d lie, cheat and bully me just to play them. Our mother had to lock up the video game console, hiding it from him, to keep him from playing when she left the house. With the video games hidden, Greg’s punishment became mine. Whenever he got a bad grade, I was punished alongside him, even though I had done nothing wrong.
It didn’t really matter to me that I couldn’t play video games; I didn’t like them as much as Greg did. A summer without video games was not the same torment for me that it was for Greg. It upset me on principle, though. It bothered me that I was being punished when I’d done nothing wrong.
Looking back, there’s a part of me that can almost understand Greg, as he was then. He resented our mother for forcing him to do his schoolwork. He resented our father for siding with our mother. He resented me for being the perfect little sister; for setting a standard that he didn’t want to live up to. He resented our family, because he didn’t want to be a part of it.
In hindsight, it’s all clear. Sometimes, I think I should have seen it coming. Greg must have imagined himself to be like the heroes in the comic books I remember seeing lined up across the top of his dresser. He must have imagined himself escaping from the mundane reality of his life, moving toward something bigger and more exciting. He never thought of who he might be hurting by leaving. Of course not. He never thought about anyone but himself.
Maybe the whole thing was predictable. Or maybe I only see it that way because I know what happened. I can’t tell what’s true any more. My memories are too colored by knowledge for me to distinguish the truth.
The first time, he was only 20. He vanished to Australia chasing a woman as old as our mother who he met playing World of Warcraft. Her name was Liz, and she had a daughter older than him. She had the same birthday as me. He spent two weeks visiting her, before deciding to move in with her. I didn’t hear from him until a year later, not even on the birthday that his girlfriend and I shared.
The call for help was sudden, unexpected. He called our parents directly. My mother called in all her favors to get him out of trouble. She got our uncle to arrange an emergency flight for him out of Australia because he claimed to feel endangered. He returned a married man, even though we had never even heard of the engagement. Our parents gave him the money they had saved for him to go to college to get himself out of debt. Two weeks later, he was corresponding with her and considering going back using that very money. Our parents informed him that he would have to pay our uncle back for the emergency flight first if that was what he wanted. He decided to remain in the US.
I’ve never even seen a picture of his first wife.
The second disappearance lasted only six months. He called me, instead of our parents, with a long story about how he had never realized that Stephanie was manipulative, and that she was cheating on him and never at home, but that she wouldn’t let him go. He kept me on the phone until six in the morning. He claimed that the only thing he had gotten out of his relationship with her was “more drama with you guys.” He told me he was in debt, and followed the claim directly with the words “I love you.”
When our parents rescued him from Stephanie’s home in Massachusetts, they only relocated him to our grandmother’s house in Michigan to get him away from her, and didn’t give him a cent. He left after two months, throwing all of his belongings into a sheet that he slung over his shoulder, and walking out of our grandmother’s house to a waiting taxi, without telling her where he was going.
This separation feels much more permanent than the first two. He’s vanished: deleted his facebook, his email, and disconnected his phone. He’s completely cut off contact. The first two times he disappeared he merely ignored our messages, now he’s cut off our means of sending them.
Grandma opened his next bank statement. It showed gas stops every ten days heading to Connecticut, where the father of his girlfriend’s younger child lives. She splits custody with him in ten day rotations. That means she’s with him, and he used us to get a fresh start away from the filthy apartment he was being evicted from. He was never sorry, and he never changed.
In hindsight, I realize his story was a mess of contradictions. How could Stephanie have been holding him captive if she was never there? How could he have not noticed that she was manipulative? She wouldn’t let our parents speak to him without her in the room! Greg may be lazy, but he’s not stupid.
His story was a ploy to get money by forcing me to be the intermediary, because he knew our parents didn’t trust him. He cut off contact afterward because we weren’t giving him money anymore, so we had no more use.
The last time we spoke, the night I stayed up until six in the morning, he said the word suicide. He only said it in passing, and I didn’t realize it was like a threat until I woke from a dream of him strung up from the ceiling. He had the body of a chicken, like the ones we used to see strung up from the barn door at Mrs. Kunz’s house. His face was purple.
Maybe he’ll call and ask me for money again, the next time he’s in trouble. He’ll kill himself out of spite when I tell him I don’t want to hear it.
Maybe the call will never come. He’ll wind up dead in a gutter somewhere, and no one will know to contact me. I’ll live out the rest of my life, not knowing that my brother is dead.
Or maybe, sixty years from now, I’ll drive past a funeral procession and never know that it’s his.
When Greg was in middle school, he skipped a project worth 15% of his final grade. That was the last straw. Our mother put a new rule in place: Greg couldn’t play any video games unless he got at least B- in every subject.
Greg used to calculate how many homework assignments he could skip and still get a B-. Sometimes he didn’t do as well on tests as he thought he would, and he ended up with Cs. There were whole summers during which he couldn’t play his video games.
For Greg, losing video games was the worst punishment imaginable. He loved video games enough that he’d lie, cheat and bully me just to play them. Our mother had to lock up the video game console, hiding it from him, to keep him from playing when she left the house. With the video games hidden, Greg’s punishment became mine. Whenever he got a bad grade, I was punished alongside him, even though I had done nothing wrong.
It didn’t really matter to me that I couldn’t play video games; I didn’t like them as much as Greg did. A summer without video games was not the same torment for me that it was for Greg. It upset me on principle, though. It bothered me that I was being punished when I’d done nothing wrong.
* * *
Looking back, there’s a part of me that can almost understand Greg, as he was then. He resented our mother for forcing him to do his schoolwork. He resented our father for siding with our mother. He resented me for being the perfect little sister; for setting a standard that he didn’t want to live up to. He resented our family, because he didn’t want to be a part of it.
In hindsight, it’s all clear. Sometimes, I think I should have seen it coming. Greg must have imagined himself to be like the heroes in the comic books I remember seeing lined up across the top of his dresser. He must have imagined himself escaping from the mundane reality of his life, moving toward something bigger and more exciting. He never thought of who he might be hurting by leaving. Of course not. He never thought about anyone but himself.
Maybe the whole thing was predictable. Or maybe I only see it that way because I know what happened. I can’t tell what’s true any more. My memories are too colored by knowledge for me to distinguish the truth.
* * *
The first time, he was only 20. He vanished to Australia chasing a woman as old as our mother who he met playing World of Warcraft. Her name was Liz, and she had a daughter older than him. She had the same birthday as me. He spent two weeks visiting her, before deciding to move in with her. I didn’t hear from him until a year later, not even on the birthday that his girlfriend and I shared.
The call for help was sudden, unexpected. He called our parents directly. My mother called in all her favors to get him out of trouble. She got our uncle to arrange an emergency flight for him out of Australia because he claimed to feel endangered. He returned a married man, even though we had never even heard of the engagement. Our parents gave him the money they had saved for him to go to college to get himself out of debt. Two weeks later, he was corresponding with her and considering going back using that very money. Our parents informed him that he would have to pay our uncle back for the emergency flight first if that was what he wanted. He decided to remain in the US.
I’ve never even seen a picture of his first wife.
* * *
He met the second woman on Craigslist. Her name was Stephanie. She was 26, had been married twice and had two children from two different fathers, only one of whom had been a husband of hers. She was 300 pounds and she smoked. You did introduce us to Stephanie, unfortunately. She came into our house like a tornado, destroying any sense of peace that might have existed. She scoped out our home like a burglar, even going so far as to act what time the last person left for work in the morning. She then accused our mother of being a negligent parent to him, and informed our parents that they did not have the right to speak to him without her present because their love was too strong for their disapproval to break them apart. He said nothing to contradict her.The second disappearance lasted only six months. He called me, instead of our parents, with a long story about how he had never realized that Stephanie was manipulative, and that she was cheating on him and never at home, but that she wouldn’t let him go. He kept me on the phone until six in the morning. He claimed that the only thing he had gotten out of his relationship with her was “more drama with you guys.” He told me he was in debt, and followed the claim directly with the words “I love you.”
When our parents rescued him from Stephanie’s home in Massachusetts, they only relocated him to our grandmother’s house in Michigan to get him away from her, and didn’t give him a cent. He left after two months, throwing all of his belongings into a sheet that he slung over his shoulder, and walking out of our grandmother’s house to a waiting taxi, without telling her where he was going.
This separation feels much more permanent than the first two. He’s vanished: deleted his facebook, his email, and disconnected his phone. He’s completely cut off contact. The first two times he disappeared he merely ignored our messages, now he’s cut off our means of sending them.
Grandma opened his next bank statement. It showed gas stops every ten days heading to Connecticut, where the father of his girlfriend’s younger child lives. She splits custody with him in ten day rotations. That means she’s with him, and he used us to get a fresh start away from the filthy apartment he was being evicted from. He was never sorry, and he never changed.
In hindsight, I realize his story was a mess of contradictions. How could Stephanie have been holding him captive if she was never there? How could he have not noticed that she was manipulative? She wouldn’t let our parents speak to him without her in the room! Greg may be lazy, but he’s not stupid.
His story was a ploy to get money by forcing me to be the intermediary, because he knew our parents didn’t trust him. He cut off contact afterward because we weren’t giving him money anymore, so we had no more use.
* * *
The last time we spoke, the night I stayed up until six in the morning, he said the word suicide. He only said it in passing, and I didn’t realize it was like a threat until I woke from a dream of him strung up from the ceiling. He had the body of a chicken, like the ones we used to see strung up from the barn door at Mrs. Kunz’s house. His face was purple.
Maybe he’ll call and ask me for money again, the next time he’s in trouble. He’ll kill himself out of spite when I tell him I don’t want to hear it.
Maybe the call will never come. He’ll wind up dead in a gutter somewhere, and no one will know to contact me. I’ll live out the rest of my life, not knowing that my brother is dead.
Or maybe, sixty years from now, I’ll drive past a funeral procession and never know that it’s his.
Extraterrestrial Life
I am driving to Boston for the first time, dropping my father at the airport. I have never driven to Boston before and I am apprehensive about the airport traffic. I am nowhere near as apprehensive as my father, who sits in the passenger seat clinging to the oh-shit-handle above his right shoulder so tightly that his knuckles are white. I’m a good driver, but you wouldn’t know it based on the look on my father’s face when he rides shotgun.
I am attempting to navigate one of those twenty-lane toll stations where Massachusetts’s drivers feel obligated to drive like maniacs just because there’s space enough. A plane passes low overhead, and the engines rumble, vibrating the car’s windows. It starts out low in pitch as it comes up behind us and then transitions to a higher drone as it passes overhead and becomes a speck in the windshield.
I am no longer a twenty-year-old girl sitting in the car with my terrified father, but a five-year-old who has snuck out of bed in the middle of the night and is peeking out under the window shade to check for UFOs, my brother beside me. We never do more than peek; we are convinced the aliens will abduct us if we actually lift the shade to look properly. It is always just a normal plane, but that doesn’t stop us from sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night, whispering in voices we think are quiet, to make sure. We are so sure that the next one will be a UFO that we lay awake in our bunk beds long after bedtime, waiting for the next rumble of engines so that we can run to the window again.
Our house is not far from the Manchester airport. Every hour, planes pass overhead low enough to rattle the windows in their frames. Whenever we have guests from out of town, they never sleep well because of all the noise. It never bothers me. When we go to visit relatives, I find it too quiet.
When we are awake, the airplanes are a game. In the summer, we pause at the first faraway rumble. We stand there, barefoot, wearing the mismatched t-shirts and shorts we threw on that morning in our haste to be outside, with our necks craned, gazing toward the sky. We try to guess how big the plane will be based on the sound of the engines in the distance. Sometimes we try to guess what company owns the planes, because the planes are low enough to see, and we are old enough to read. Whoever guesses wrong has to run and get the ball the next time it rolls out of bounds or down the hill into the woods.
In the winter, we play hide-and-seek with the planes, running into the trees and burying ourselves with snow to hide until the forces of evil have left the area. The fact that my garish fuchsia snow pants are visible from the air for miles never even occurs to us.
They are especially a game after the sun has set and it is time to be sleeping. The planes pass low enough that we can see their wing lights flashing around the edges of the light blocking shade our mother has hung in our window. The UFOs are not our idea. there is a story about extraterrestrial life on the news. I do not know what the story is about, and it is not important. The square glow of flashing light around our shade and its alien brightness is what’s important.
One night, we actually see a UFO. The lights are so much brighter than any other plane we have ever seen. The noise is so much louder, an entirely different breed of drone. We panic and run straight back to our beds and pull the blankets over our heads, as though that can protect us from anything. It takes me longer to hide, since the top bunk is mine. I slam my knee on the railing as I clamber up the ladder. I’m breathing heavy and shaking when I finally to pull the plush green blanket over my head.
We wait a full minute after the windowpanes stop shaking and the last rumbles of the engine have faded into the distance, before we finally run down the hall, to where our parents are watching television in the living room. We tell them that we just saw a UFO! My father is angry, but he isn’t shouting. His quiet-angry is worse than his shouting. He tells us calmly that it was just a military jet, and to get back in bed now. We are offended by his incredulity, but know better than to argue.
My father is shouting at me to pay attention to the road, damn it. I am no longer a five-year-old peeking under the window shade to check for UFOs. I don’t live in a house near the airport anymore; I haven’t for many years. I’m a twenty-year-old driving through a chaotic toll plaza, and my frantic father’s knuckles are now nearly purple from the strain of clinging to the oh-shit-handle too tightly. I roll my eyes, because, yes, I am paying attention and, yes, I do see the black SUV that is about to cut me off.
Then we’re through the tolls, and my father’s hand is relaxing ever so slightly.
I think back to the UFO that my brother and I saw that night. My father was probably right; it was probably just a military jet. But I want it to be a UFO, even though I don’t believe in UFOs anymore. I glance up again, looking for the plane, but it’s gone. I don’t know whether it has landed or simply passed over the horizon. I wish I had seen where it had gone.
I am attempting to navigate one of those twenty-lane toll stations where Massachusetts’s drivers feel obligated to drive like maniacs just because there’s space enough. A plane passes low overhead, and the engines rumble, vibrating the car’s windows. It starts out low in pitch as it comes up behind us and then transitions to a higher drone as it passes overhead and becomes a speck in the windshield.
I am no longer a twenty-year-old girl sitting in the car with my terrified father, but a five-year-old who has snuck out of bed in the middle of the night and is peeking out under the window shade to check for UFOs, my brother beside me. We never do more than peek; we are convinced the aliens will abduct us if we actually lift the shade to look properly. It is always just a normal plane, but that doesn’t stop us from sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night, whispering in voices we think are quiet, to make sure. We are so sure that the next one will be a UFO that we lay awake in our bunk beds long after bedtime, waiting for the next rumble of engines so that we can run to the window again.
Our house is not far from the Manchester airport. Every hour, planes pass overhead low enough to rattle the windows in their frames. Whenever we have guests from out of town, they never sleep well because of all the noise. It never bothers me. When we go to visit relatives, I find it too quiet.
When we are awake, the airplanes are a game. In the summer, we pause at the first faraway rumble. We stand there, barefoot, wearing the mismatched t-shirts and shorts we threw on that morning in our haste to be outside, with our necks craned, gazing toward the sky. We try to guess how big the plane will be based on the sound of the engines in the distance. Sometimes we try to guess what company owns the planes, because the planes are low enough to see, and we are old enough to read. Whoever guesses wrong has to run and get the ball the next time it rolls out of bounds or down the hill into the woods.
In the winter, we play hide-and-seek with the planes, running into the trees and burying ourselves with snow to hide until the forces of evil have left the area. The fact that my garish fuchsia snow pants are visible from the air for miles never even occurs to us.
They are especially a game after the sun has set and it is time to be sleeping. The planes pass low enough that we can see their wing lights flashing around the edges of the light blocking shade our mother has hung in our window. The UFOs are not our idea. there is a story about extraterrestrial life on the news. I do not know what the story is about, and it is not important. The square glow of flashing light around our shade and its alien brightness is what’s important.
One night, we actually see a UFO. The lights are so much brighter than any other plane we have ever seen. The noise is so much louder, an entirely different breed of drone. We panic and run straight back to our beds and pull the blankets over our heads, as though that can protect us from anything. It takes me longer to hide, since the top bunk is mine. I slam my knee on the railing as I clamber up the ladder. I’m breathing heavy and shaking when I finally to pull the plush green blanket over my head.
We wait a full minute after the windowpanes stop shaking and the last rumbles of the engine have faded into the distance, before we finally run down the hall, to where our parents are watching television in the living room. We tell them that we just saw a UFO! My father is angry, but he isn’t shouting. His quiet-angry is worse than his shouting. He tells us calmly that it was just a military jet, and to get back in bed now. We are offended by his incredulity, but know better than to argue.
My father is shouting at me to pay attention to the road, damn it. I am no longer a five-year-old peeking under the window shade to check for UFOs. I don’t live in a house near the airport anymore; I haven’t for many years. I’m a twenty-year-old driving through a chaotic toll plaza, and my frantic father’s knuckles are now nearly purple from the strain of clinging to the oh-shit-handle too tightly. I roll my eyes, because, yes, I am paying attention and, yes, I do see the black SUV that is about to cut me off.
Then we’re through the tolls, and my father’s hand is relaxing ever so slightly.
I think back to the UFO that my brother and I saw that night. My father was probably right; it was probably just a military jet. But I want it to be a UFO, even though I don’t believe in UFOs anymore. I glance up again, looking for the plane, but it’s gone. I don’t know whether it has landed or simply passed over the horizon. I wish I had seen where it had gone.
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