Do or Di (32 page)

“Fine. She went off a ramp with her bike. A real tomboy that one.” He paused. “You understand about today, don’t you? Are you angry with me?”

“Not about the hospital.” I pulled on the thread until it snapped, pulling free and leaving a long run down the length of the blanket.

“Can we talk?”

“Aren’t we talking now?”

“You know what I mean. I want to see you.” His voice sounded smooth.

“What about your wife?”

“I wasn’t going to bring her.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m making a real mess of this. Look can I come over? I want to see you.”

“I don’t know.” I gave a deep sigh. “I’m not sure this is a good time for you to come over.”

“Don’t let me hold you up, darling,” Colin said from behind me and I gave a jump. I clamped my hand over the receiver.

“Look, this is a complicated situation,” I whispered to Colin.

“I’m certain.”

“Then don’t look at me like that. It’s not like we’re dating.” My heart stalled for a minute. A part of me hoped he would say protest, maybe admit that he wished we weren’t making the whole thing up.

“Certainly not.”

“You don’t understand,” I said.

“Now that part is true. You and Jonathon can split the lasagna. It should come out of the oven in thirty minutes.” He turned to the kitchen. “Hey, Di, what do you say we go get something to eat. We can call my Positive Partnership kid and see if he can join us.”

“No lasagna?” she asked, popping her head out of the kitchen.

“No lasagna. Miss Callighan has company coming over. You know what they say. Three’s a crowd.”

“But there would be four. Four counts as more of a party.”

“Could be, princess, but we’re not invited to this particular party.” He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair.

“Now hang on a minute,” I said annoyed.

“I don’t hang around waiting for people. That’s your specialty. Don’t worry, I’ll still meet your mom. I wouldn’t want you to have to try out honesty at this late date.”

The door slammed shut behind them. That is when I heard Jonathon through the phone.

“Erin? Are you still there, Erin?”

“I’m still here.” I looked around the empty apartment. “I’m right where I always am, here by myself.”

“So it is okay if I come over then?”

“You know. It isn’t. It isn’t okay at all.” I slipped the phone gently down into the cradle without waiting for him to answer.

* * *

They say you can’t go home again. What they should add is that you shouldn’t invite either of your parents into your home either. I love my mother, but there was the very real possibility that I would go insane and hack her to death with a meat cleaver before the weekend was over. I think it says a lot about our relationship that I found it easier to live with a slightly neurotic girl who thinks she is Princess Di than my own mother.

I picked my mom up at the airport on Friday. It became clear once we arrived back at the house that there was no way she was going to actually sleep on the inflatable bed. The moment she sat on the edge, she gave a surprised squeal.

“Oh, goodness! It’s so bouncy.” She heaved up and down a few times to demonstrate.

“It isn’t that bouncy. I mean if you aren’t bouncing on it.”

“I thought it would feel like a regular bed.”

“It is a regular bed. It’s just inflatable. I don’t have room for a spare bed. I don’t have guests that often.”

“Honey, it wasn’t a criticism. I was just saying how you could tell it wasn’t a regular bed. The sheets sort of slide around a bit on the rubber. I imagine this is what hospital beds are like. They always have that rubber coating in case of, well you know, fluids.” She put her ear down closer to the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“I was trying to see if the rubber makes a noise.” Her ear was pressed to the bed.

“Tell you what, why don’t you take my bed and I’ll sleep out here.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m fine with bunking down out here. It isn’t at all like a hospital bed.” She gave the bed another tentative bounce. “It’s more like a bed in a nursing home or a mental hospital.”

“Okay. That’s it. You take my bed.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother.” She was already taking her suitcase and moving at a quick rate toward the bedroom. I sat down. The sheets did slide around a bit. I found myself leaning over to see if she was right and if the rubber made a sound.

“Now tell me more about this girl,” my mother said, bustling back into the room now that her territory was safely established. I had told my mom a bit about Diana in the car. I was counting on my mother’s years of volunteering with various charitable organizations, hoping she would give me an idea of how to help Diana in the long term.

“She’s an amazing kid, but drives me nuts. She’s headstrong, does whatever she wants, and she has an opinion on everything.” I had decided to leave out the Princess Diana angle.

“Two peas in a pod. No wonder you like her.”

“I’m nothing like her.”

My mother raised one eyebrow while she bustled around the condo straightening magazines and slipping a coaster under my Diet Coke can. I took a deep breath and told myself she was doing these things because I was injured rather than to make a statement about how the place looked. It was actually cleaner than it had ever been. Diana had helped to whip the place into shape.

“You were always my changeling. Your sisters are more like me, but you had your own course from day one. Do you remember that time you got lost at the mall?”

I couldn’t remember it, but the story was family lore. Apparently I had wandered off in a busy shopping mall. An hour later, I calmly walked up to the information booth and informed the staff that my mother was lost. When the security officer asked if I wasn’t the one who was lost, I informed him I knew exactly where I was, so clearly it was my mother who was lost, not me.

“I will always remember the look of disgust you had for that poor security officer. You were so sure of yourself, even at five.” My mom gave a chuckle. “If this girl has some of that same moxie, she’ll do all right in the end. Don’t try and do things for her, just be around. If you try to help, she’s going to move in the other direction. Let her ask for what she needs and act a bit aloof.”

“Ah, the play the hard-to-get option. I think I remember you doing this to me a few times, now that I think about it.”

“It’s possible. I always admired your strength, you know.”

I looked up, surprised.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I did. You always took action. You were never one to sit back and wait.”

“I think the description you were looking for was not looking before you leap.” I paused. I had the sudden urge to tell her about Jonathon. To crawl into her lap like I did when I was a little kid and have her rub my hair and tell me things were going to be okay. I wanted her to tell me how I could stay away from Jonathon. I wanted her to tell me that I wasn’t a bad person.

In our house, my dad was the disciplinarian. He was the kind of man who believed a lesson was best learned by providing it at a loud volume. He would storm around, his face flushed red and yelling out questions like, “What were you thinking?” or “Tell me why you would do such a thing?” If you tried to answer him he would usually yell that he hadn’t asked you a question. There was a pattern all of us had figured out by the time we hit our teens. Dad would yell. The secret to this was to sit quietly. Crying couldn’t hurt. Dad would follow up the lecture with what he determined was a suitable punishment. It was usually something like being grounded for a year. The trick here was not to argue, even though the punishment was always way out of line. In the morning, or if the situation was really foul, like the time my sister dyed the cat black with hair dye for Halloween, it might last two days, and Dad would come back and revise the punishment. Punishment at our house was by the book, predictable and rather comfortable in its routine.

My mom was completely different. She rarely became involved when we were in trouble. She would hand us over to my dad. However, there were a few occasions when she would freeze us with a look and say, “
Y
ou really disappointed me.”
Those four words were worse than anything my dad ever meted out. I would have rather been flogged than have my mom utter that line. It would leave you gutted and crying for real. It never felt right again until she would sit on the side of your bed in the morning and rub your back in slow lazy circles like she was stirring cake batter. It was then you would know she had forgiven you and it felt like the best thing in the world. I knew she would be disappointed, but it’s possible if she knew I was trying to turn things around, she would be the first person to believe I could. I suddenly wanted to tell her about Jonathon, to get her advice.

“You know Mom, there is something I wouldn’t mind talking to you about. One of those not-well–thought-out plans of mine.”

“Nothing wrong with not over-thinking things. I’ve taken a page from your book this time.” Mom paused, staring off into the kitchen. “I’ve left your dad.”

The air in the room was suddenly sucked out as if it were a vacuum. I couldn’t get a breath in.

“Where did you leave him?”

“I didn’t lose him, I left him,” my mother gave a sigh. “I don’t know what I want to do. I needed a bit of time.”

“Time?” I stood, then sat, and then stood again. If I could walk without crutches I would have started pacing. I took a couple of shuddery breathes. Think calm. Think. “Why?”

“He embarrassed me.”

“He embarrassed you?” This whole thing was about my dad doing something that upset my mom in front of her society lady set? What did he do, show up with the wrong kind of tie? Eat his salad with his fish fork?

“Your dad had a friend,” she said.

“Yeah.” I waited, but she didn’t add anything. “You don’t like his friends? Is this about Mr. Sidley? Did he get drunk at one of your dinner parties again? There was that time when he tried to dance with the dog.”

“My problem isn’t Mr. Sidley. Your father had a woman friend.”

I felt my muscles clench. It wasn’t possible.

“It is the twenty-first century, Mom. Men have women friends. It doesn’t have to mean anything.” I leaned back against the sofa, hoping it was a case of misdirected anger. My mom was old-fashioned. She hardly ever wore pants, which she called trousers, unless they were jeans, in which case she called them dungarees. I could see how for her if my dad was having lunch with a female colleague it would upset her, she would make assumptions.

“Don’t treat me like a child, Erin Marie Callighan. Your father had an affair. I know the difference between friends and a mistress. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of time to learn.”

Her words felt like a sock in the gut. I had the feeling I was coming face to face with the meaning of karma.

“You guys have been married a long time,” I stuttered. I tried to think of what Oprah would advise in this kind of situation. “Maybe you two should see a counselor. You wouldn’t want one stupid mistake to ruin a forty year relationship.”