Hope and Other Luxuries (44 page)

She was right. But as I watched Dylan drift majestically through his watery realm, I felt happy. “
Such
a beauty you are!” I crooned to him. “You're
such
a blingy boy!”

Three weeks after our earlier visit, the campus lawyer called us back, and Elena and I went to his office for a meeting.

“Here's the thing: I can't pursue this under EEO,” he said. “There's precedent right now that's not allowing it. But I called in the manager who fired you and questioned her anyway, and I'm positive she was telling me lies. She told me she fired you because you had failed to report a suicide attempt.”

“That's not true,” Elena said. “I told them about a suicidal RA
before
he made an attempt.”

“That's what I told her you had reported to me, and then I asked her if that RA was still working for her. She couldn't explain to me why she had fired
you
for not reporting an attempt but hadn't fired
him
for making an attempt. She was very uncomfortable during the interview,” he added.

This brought a smile to Elena's face. It wasn't a pleasant smile, but at least it was there. And it probably matched the one on my own.

“I'm sure you can win if you take this to the university employment office,” he said. “If she's going to use that rationale, then there's no excuse for her firing one of you but not both of you. I hope you
do
pursue it,” he concluded as he gave us a copy of his written report.

Good
, I thought as we walked back to the car.
The plan is working. It's going well
.

“So,” I said, “we can call the employment office when we get home.” And my mind was already filling up with lists:
phone call to the employment office; best times for a face-to-face meeting; where did I put those copies of the reports and letters we collected?

“No, Mom,” Elena said. “I don't want to do it.”

This stopped my list-making cold.

“Why not?” I said. “You heard him say you'll probably win.”

“Win what?” she said. “My job is already gone. They put somebody else in my place. So what are they going to do if we pin them to the wall? They'll get rid of the RA who has my floor now, or they'll fire that other RA. Mom, he's a pathetic loser. Without that job, he can't finish school.”

“That pathetic loser probably did all he could to get
you
fired.”

“So?” Elena's voice was sad. “He's fat, and he's ugly, and his parents control his whole life. I was his only friend. I know he's evil, but his world is very small—I knew that when I spent time with him. I don't want to be what he is—I don't want to be the kind of person who works to get somebody else fired. Honestly, Mom, I just want to forget about it.”

I fell silent. I had encouraged Elena to pursue this appeal because I had hoped to force the university into giving her the job back. But it hadn't occurred to me that some other enterprising RA now had her floor. And it hadn't occurred to me to think about how the bottom would drop out for that other student if he or she suddenly lost the income and the free room and board.

It had occurred to Elena, though. In the middle of her own pain, she could feel compassion for that unknown RA. She could even feel compassion for the scummy RA who had probably contributed to getting her fired—and who undoubtedly would pay the price if her appeal succeeded.

My daughter is a better person than I am
, I thought.
She's better in so many ways
.

But stopping the appeal didn't just mean taking the high road. It also meant accepting defeat. It meant reliving the pain and rejection of that hard, bitter day.

As we reached the parking lot, Elena pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. I looked away. Filth and dirt and slow destruction, all the worst aspects of self-indulgence and self-contempt . . . And now, after having fought it in Valerie's life, I was having to watch it sink its teeth into Elena.

For the sake of her unborn baby, Valerie had immediately stopped smoking cigarettes. I'd had exactly one week to celebrate. Then Elena had
told me that she had taken up the habit. She'd started it during the stress of the summer, as a way to handle the pressure of three jobs.

The weeks passed. Joe and Elena and I settled into a pleasant rhythm together in the house. Once again, we had her lively company to brighten our days and make us laugh. And I certainly didn't get lonely now when Joe needed to go on long business trips.

But Elena lived on a different schedule than Joe and I did. Thanks to the gym job, she had gotten used to staying up at night, so she went to bed when she got home from class. Then, late at night, when Joe and I were heading to bed, she got up to study or go out with friends.

This should have been good for me. It meant that I had all afternoon to do quiet things, like writing and updating web pages. But I quickly figured out that it also meant Elena was skipping lunch
and
dinner. And that started up the worries again.

“I eat when I get up, after you're in bed,” she told me. I wanted to believe her, but I couldn't. I was the one who bought groceries and cleaned the kitchen, and I didn't see any food disappearing. So I started developing strategies to keep Elena awake in the afternoon long enough to get her to eat.

“Hey, do you want to watch
Gilmore Girls
with me?” I said when she got home from school. “I'm working my way through the series.”

“Sure thing,” Elena answered, and she curled up in her fuzzy blanket on the media room floor while I put in the DVD.

“I'm getting some ice cream,” I added casually. “You want some? Rocky road . . .”

“Sure! I'll take a scoop,” Elena answered.

Day after day, I filled two cups with rocky road ice cream, or butter pecan, or chocolate fudge, and we ate it while we watched old movies and television shows. It was the perfect plan. While they were on, Elena couldn't use talking to block the food.

Elena and I had a great time together. After the show, we would sit and talk for hours sometimes. I started to put on a few more pounds from the rich snacks, but I could always lose them later. And it was good to see Elena having a good time and eating a little ice cream, even if she never seemed to finish her cup.

After a couple of hours, Elena would get up, blinking sleepily, wrap the fuzzy blanket around her middle, and shamble off to smoke a prenap cigarette on the patio.

“Mom!” she would call about half the time. “Simon and Tor got out
again
!”

At first, I chased them down and brought them back inside. But then I gave up.

Would the cats be okay? It was just one more thing to worry about, but I couldn't fight on every front at once. Joe, Martin, Elena, Simon and Tor, Valerie and Clint and the grandbaby . . . I was starting to have to pick my priorities, and Martin and the cats were losing.

Oh, well. At least the cats loved it outside. And Martin—

Martin was having to grow up.

Last year had been the most successful writing year I'd had. I had brought in almost as much money as Joe did. But this year had been completely miserable. Martin's first adventure had come out, but the publishing house had shoved it down a hole. They had done no marketing at all. Almost no one knew that his first book even existed.

I didn't feel it as a blow to me personally. I had never felt like a real author. But the thought of Martin and his dog, Chip, out there on their own, having the adventure of a lifetime . . . They should have had reader friends to go with them on that journey.

First, I had failed to help Elena. Now I'd failed Martin, too, and my sadness over these failures soaked into his world. They didn't change who Martin was, but they changed what happened to him.

One afternoon, I sat at the kitchen table and sipped my coffee. My laptop was open, and I was rereading a marked-up Word file, working on some last-minute revisions. But I wasn't seeing words. I was seeing what Martin was seeing. He was face-to-face with heartbreak and loss.

Martin couldn't make up his mind about the skeleton slumped over the table. One second, it seemed small and pitiful. The next, it seemed uncanny and horribly
inhuman, and he wanted to smash it with the nearest heavy object he could find.

Rudy had told him that the people who hadn't gotten picked for the domed suburbs had lined up to be given euthanasia shots.

“I guess I'd want to die at home too,” Martin murmured to Chip. “You know, have a little peace and quiet.”

Because skeletons were only people, after all—people who had faced the ultimate rejection and experienced the ultimate failure.

Martin plucked up the courage to come closer. Dry brown skin encased the bony hand in a glove of its own making. It lay in that flattish nest of fur that was piled up in the basket. A pet basket to match the little paw print bowls in the kitchen. A cat bed. The pale fur belonged to a cat.

A vision wove itself together in Martin's mind of the house before the dust, when the neat row of potted plants in the kitchen had been green and flourishing. The world was ending, and people were forming long lines to get their shot. But this man with the paw print bowls couldn't do that. What would happen to his cat? He couldn't just put her outside and not come back. He loved her too much. So he gave his cat poison and stroked her until she lay still, and then he took poison himself. And the soft fur of his cat was the last thing he felt as he drifted away into death.

Martin's throat ached. He knelt down and buried his face in his dog's shaggy fur. “I wouldn't leave you, either, Chip,” he said. “Not ever.”

The door banged open, and I turned away from the laptop screen with relief. Thank goodness! An interruption.

“Oh. My. God!” Elena said as she dropped her purse and books on the piano bench. “I've
got
to play you this song. It's a-
maz
-ing! Here, let me see your laptop.”

“Wait! I have to save my file. How'd you do on your statistics test?”

“Kicked
ass
! Best grade in the class.”

I was in no hurry to get back to Martin and his skeleton. Sadness and worry seemed to be all around me these days. “Which song is it?” I asked as I pulled up YouTube.

Elena and I sat and chatted and swapped favorite songs and YouTube videos for a happy half hour or so. Then she gave a yawn. “I'm going to go lie down,” she said. “I've been up since four, studying.”

“How about letting me fix you a little lunch,” I offered. But I already knew what the answer would be.

“Nah, not right now. Later.”

Later
 . . .

That meant
never
.

“I could do with a break,” I said, following her across the living room. “How about a
Sherlock Holmes
?”

Elena and I both adored Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. As far as we were concerned, he had been genetically engineered to play that role.

“Okay,” she said. “But I get to pick which one.”

“Caramel corn?” I offered, turning back to the kitchen.

“Hells yeah!” she answered.

Yes!
I thought.
A win!
And I sprinkled the caramel corn into two bowls with a generous hand—even though I knew I would be the only one to finish mine.

Sometime later, my daughter finally headed off to bed, and I returned with the stacked bowls to the kitchen. I snacked on the rest of her caramel corn while I opened up my laptop again. Martin's story was going through final edits, under deadline. I
had
to do my writing!

I opened up the file again, stared at the black letters against white, and waited for my imagination to bring me the right film. I waited while
it flitted through scenes of YouTube kittens and the
Sherlock Holmes
episode. He was brilliant! That nervous twitch, the sudden turn of the head away from the villain . . .

Now I was seeing the interior of the pantry. Was there anything in there that maybe Elena would eat later tonight?

I closed my eyes and took a long, calming breath.

Finally, the turbulent rush of images stilled, and I could focus on the text again. I was in a dusty room. Martin had a lump in his throat. He was hugging his dog . . .

“Mom!” Elena yelled from her bedroom. “The cat peed in here again, all over my pillows!”

And
poof
! Martin was gone.

“You've
got
to keep your door shut!” I called back.

“I
do
keep my door shut! They sneak in!” Which was certainly true. And they
were
my cats, after all.

I set aside my laptop to go retrieve the pillows and wash them.
That's a good use of time, too
, I thought, perking up.
I'll separate the laundry. It's starting to pile up. I'll wait to work on this file until the house quiets down tonight
.

Anything to put it off. Anything to keep from living through Martin's sadness as well as my own.

“Close the door,” Elena murmured as I carried the offending pillows out of her room.

My phone buzzed as I was loading the washer. Valerie had sent me an ultrasound. And there she was, in black and white: my granddaughter.

I felt joy. And I felt pain. The two were mixed together so that they couldn't possibly be separated. Joyful pain. Painful joy. The gift of every child to every mother.

That new life opens up a door—a door to feelings so wonderful and so agonizing that we can't imagine them ahead of time. No matter what happens, that door can't be closed again.

Valerie didn't know this yet. She was still invincible. But I already knew what waited for her. As happy as I was over this precious new life, I felt worry and pain for my daughter.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her when she called a few minutes later.