Nan's Story (17 page)

Her retreat to Elsie and Joe’s after CJ was born stretched from days into weeks, weeks into months. Nan spent hours on end locked in her room more or less loathing herself, leaving only to use the bathroom or to grab oyster crackers and bottles of warm Coca Cola from the pantry downstairs. It wasn’t a broken heart that stole her appetite along with her self respect. She had cared for Eddie, but the truth being what it was, she knew from the start that he wasn’t
the one.
Nan wasn’t sure if
the one
was a concept that carried any weight in the real world, but if it did, she knew Eddie was definitely not it. No, what locked her in the fetal position day in and day out was the painful redheaded reminder of Eddie’s betrayal.

She tried telling herself that there hadn’t been any reason for her to suspect Eddie, at least until the very end, and by then it would have been too late anyway. Her lame attempts to throw herself a life preserver always died a quick death though. The reality was, she concluded, that what had happened with her husband did so because she was foolish enough to have let it. This was confirmed to her by the expressions on her family’s faces in the aftermath. It was a stew of pity, condescension and fulfilled expectations, burning her raw every single time she saw it.

Perhaps if she’d had the chance to look Eddie in the eye, and maybe spit in it for good measure, Nan might have been able to place blame squarely where it belonged. However she would never be given the opportunity. She would never know what became of him because legally, as the Navy had informed her, she had no right to know. She’d in no way ever been his wife, and the baby they shared was nothing more than a bastard child that she was now stuck raising.

CJ grew quickly from newborn to crawler, though through the lens of her depression Nan viewed him as if from a great distance and always enveloped in a haze of resentment. A part of her knew that he was no more responsible for what Eddie had done than she, but it didn’t ease the wave of nausea she felt whenever he flashed his father’s smile in her direction.

During the first few months, Elsie tried her best to get Nan to respond to her son. The few times she’d asked Nan to hold him while she heated his bottle, it felt as if she’d been asked to hold a bucket of writhing snakes. The look on her face must have told Elsie all she needed to know because the requests came further and further apart and eventually stopped altogether.

Nan’s apathy greased the skids for Elsie’s evolution from grandmother to mother. The baby’s budding dependency on her mother was obvious to everyone, including Nan, but at the time, she couldn’t find the energy to care. The sight of CJ’s red curls as they grew in made Nan’s insides knot up and the less she had to do with him, the better.

Somewhere in the middle of Nan’s breakdown, Elsie resurrected the farce of Sunday brunch. It was something she started right after marrying Joe in an attempt to reconcile her new life and new husband with the remains of her previous one. What Nan’s mother failed to understand was that the two were like mixing tuna with chocolate ice cream. They had no business in the same bowl together. When Sunday brunch petered out the first time, less than a year after it started, Nan hadn’t been sorry. Now Nan’s mother was determined to try again.

Elsie didn’t dabble in normal things like pancakes and bacon, but instead preferred to lay out a spread of buttery croissants, fresh passion fruit salad and hand-squeezed orange juice. Additionally, there was always an array of pastries from Harvey’s Bakery. None of this sounded appealing, nor was it motivation enough for Nan to want to be part of it.

“I don’t want to mama,” Nan mumbled, face down in her pillow.

“Nancy, you will get out of this bed and come down to the table even if I have to throw you over my shoulder,” Elsie responded.

“Why? I don’t feel like it today. Can’t I wait and do it next week?”

“You have been in this room for the better part of eight months. It’s time for you to pick yourself up and move on. You can’t stay in here forever, and in case you’ve forgotten, there is a little boy downstairs who needs you.”

Nan tensed at the mention of her son. She flipped over onto her back and looked up at her mother.

“I can’t.” Nan stated simply. She wanted to say more, to beg her mother not to make her as if she were five and being told to get in the tub.

Elsie sighed and ran a hand through her unusually mussed hair. Nan noticed the formula stains on her mother’s shirt and the tired look in her eyes. Elsie’s appearance epitomized the look of new motherhood while Nan’s equally disheveled state resulted from her avoidance of it.

“Listen Nan, your brothers are down there. It’ll do you some good to join the living if only for a little while. You don’t even have to get dressed if you don’t want. Just come down,” Elsie pleaded.

Nan grunted noncommittally and rolled back over. She heard the click of the door as her mother left and then began to cry for what felt like the millionth time in the past few months. When she was done, all the snot wiped from her face, she stood up. Her legs felt wobbly and spent, and she seriously doubted she could do this. As Nan descended the stairs, the unfamiliar hum of conversation reached her ears. It sounded so
normal.
The voices hushed abruptly as she reached the doorway of the dining room.

John and Michelle sat on one side of the table. Married almost four years, they were expecting their first child in October and Michelle had to sit a few feet from the table to accommodate the watermelon in her lap. Arthur was sitting across from them, to the left of Elsie’s spot at the foot of the table. Joe occupied his usual place at the other end. There was no sign of Buddy yet.

At first Nan didn’t see CJ, nor did she think to look for him, when he crawled out from under the table near Elsie’s feet. It had been a few weeks since she saw him last and in that short time he seemed to have changed a lot. Nan let her breath go as she looked away from him.

“Nan,” her mother said, standing up quickly, deftly avoiding CJ’s fingers. “Come sit.”

Nan felt uncomfortable at the way they all stared at her as if she were some slow minded kid who’d stumbled and fell. It was on the tip of her tongue to say something snide when Buddy entered the room from the opposite doorway.

“Hey everyone, sorry I’m late.”

He carried a helmet under one arm, which meant his motorcycle was sitting out front. Buddy started to say something else when he caught sight of Nan.

“Well I’ll be damned. If it isn’t Nana-banana in the flesh,” he said, clearly bemused. “Geez, look at
you.
”

Nan could only muster a flat hello.

“Well, we’re all here,” Elsie said looking pleased as she pointed at two empty chairs next to Arthur. “Now we can eat.”

Nan shuffled to the chair left of Arthur and Buddy took the one on the other side of her. Nan noticed that all the plates on the table were empty except for Joe’s. Typical of her stepfather, Joe didn’t dabble in the niceties of life like waiting for everyone to be seated before eating.

Conversation started back up, slowly at first and then picking up speed as Nan stared at her plate. Elsie passed the croissants, which Arthur handed to Buddy after Nan made no effort to take them. Buddy put one of the pastries on her plate and took one for himself before passing it on to Michelle. Nan absentmindedly began shredding her croissant into strips along the buttered creases. She made no move to eat them, instead stacked them in a woven pattern. Under the table she felt CJ crawl over one of her feet and she jumped. He pulled himself into a standing position using her knees for leverage and poked his head through the crook in her arm. He looked curious, as if he’d stumbled on something new and remarkable. It didn’t occur to Nan to reach down and pick him up, but she wouldn’t have had the strength to do it even if it had.

Her family tried to act normal as Nan sat mute in their midst. CJ must have decided that Nan wasn’t so remarkable after all and retreated into the jungle of feet. She went back to destroying her breakfast.

“Hey Nan,” Buddy started carefully. “Some of the guys from work are gonna’ play ball today down at Clough Field. Wanna’ come along?”

It took Nan a moment to comprehend that she should answer.

“I…I don’t think so, Buddy,” she replied. “Thanks though,” she tapered off.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun. Lots of the guys bring their wives and kids. I’ll take mom’s car and leave the bike here so we can bring CJ. It’ll be great!”

Elsie looked alarmed by the thought of Nan caring for CJ in her unfocused state. Nan felt the first of what would go on to be many pangs of resentment toward her mother over CJ.

“Or you could go on your own and leave the baby here with me,” Nan’s mother blurted. “I don’t mind watching him.”

Elsie looked at Nan’s brother, brows knit.

“Buddy, he’s just too young to be entertained by a bunch of drunken wharf rats swinging sticks at a ball,” she said.

Nan felt Buddy stiffen up at his mother’s remark, but she knew there was truth to her statement.

“Okay then, come without CJ. You can cheer me on,” Buddy clipped.

Nan started to protest, but Arthur and John joined in urging her to go. Joe stayed quiet though, his eyes skipping disinterestedly from one person to the next. If
he
had suggested she go, Nan would have most certainly not. As it was, she was too tired to keep fighting and Joe kept his mouth shut, so finally, she relented.

“Alright,” she groaned. “I’ll go for a little while, but when I’m ready to leave, you promise you’ll bring me home?”

“Sure, no problem,” Buddy replied. “See, no crossies,” he said holding up his hands.

She knew he wanted her to smile but she didn’t. Instead she pushed her chair back, stood up without a word, and left her family behind. Nan returned to the sanctuary of her room and once there, in the midst of an argument with herself about whether or not she should go, she indifferently threw on denim shorts and a white t-shirt and pulled her natty hair into a bun. As she sat down to tie her tennis shoes she caught a glimpse of vacant eyes in the vanity mirror. For a moment it was her father’s face overlaid with hers, wearing the unmistakable beaten look that hung over him during the last few years of his life.

“Daddy,” she whispered. “I can’t do this.”

A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to turn. This was something Sam said many times when Nan was a child. She took a deep breath before embarking on her first steps toward rejoining the living.

John and Michelle were getting ready to leave when Nan slowly walked back down the stairs. They both kissed her cheek, going on about how good it had been to see her. Michelle’s pregnant tummy bumped into Nan’s own flat one as she reached in to hug her and Nan winced as if she’d been slapped. Buddy was trying unsuccessfully to convince Arthur to join them.

“Sorry man, I’ve got to study,” Arthur said. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in education,
Summa Cum Laude
no less, he was now pursuing his teacher’s certification. If Nan could muster up any feelings at all, pride in her brother would have been chief among them.

“Books, schmooks,” Buddy replied. “Only use I’ve ever had for ‘em is for holding up the end of the couch.”

“You know Robert, it wouldn’t kill you to pick up a book once in a while,” Elsie snapped. “At least your brother’s trying to make something of himself. You might try it some time.”

“Don’t you worry about me ma,” said Buddy. “I’ve got all I need to know right up here,” he said, tapping his forehead.

He turned to Nan.

“Ready little sister? CJ’s not going, so let’s take the bike. You can wear my helmet.”

“Okay,” she replied. The internal debate raging in her head about whether to change her mind at the last second was shut down when Buddy steered her by the elbow out the front door. She stood docilely as he adjusted the straps on the helmet so it would fit snug on her head. There was no face plate so he grabbed an extra pair of sunglasses out of his saddlebag and put them on her.

“You look like a bug,” Buddy said laughing. He pointed at one of the long round mirrors that stretched out from each side of the bike. He was right, especially in the distorted reflection where things are always closer than they appear, she did indeed look like a human fly. An unhappy fly, she thought and straddled the seat behind him.

Although the helmet was a little too big for her, it stayed in place for the most part while she held on to Buddy’s waist. As they travelled the fifteen minutes to the ball field, she stared down at the pavement streaming by her feet. She wondered dispassionately what would happen if she lowered her foot and let it drag on the road. The image of her being pulled from the bike and tossed along the highway didn’t bother her as much as it probably should have.

A dozen or so people were already there when Buddy and she pulled up. Several of them recognized her brother and waved as he parked. He helped Nan off the bike and was perturbed by her inability to get the helmet off by herself. Nan’s fingers fumbled around with the strap, but she couldn’t make it budge.

“Here, let me.” Buddy said, exasperation creeping into his voice as he undid the buckle and pulled it off her head. “Why don’t you go sit on that hill,” he said pointing to a slope just past the third baseline. Nan looked over and was relieved to see the patch of green empty. She couldn’t stomach any small talk just now. Walking over, she noticed for the first time how warm the day had grown. She’d forgotten to put on deodorant, but wasn’t all that concerned about starting to smell. Maybe that would keep people away from her.