Ordinary World (9 page)

“Things are different now, Andi. You may find that you and your mother have a lot more in common now. You both lost a spouse.”

“I’d prefer that we both knitted or something.”

She ignored the quip. “Think about it.”

“My mother has always treated me as her rival rather than her daughter.”

“And why is that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Andi, think about it. You were born in the wake of the women’s lib movement, and you had a father and mother who came from a male-dominated society.”

“So?”

“So, think of what that must have been like for your parents. Here is their little girl, precocious and free. Your father wants no part of it. He wants to rein her in, keep her under his thumb. He probably wanted to do the same with your mother. But she was conflicted. She probably wanted to be the good wife and mother that she was instructed to be; but she probably also wanted to be the new, liberated woman that was screaming to get out. You weren’t burdened with that choice. So rather than nurture you, she resented you. You took the path that she likely wanted for herself.

I listened to Melody, astounded.

“Your parents probably had no idea how to raise you. And your brothers got caught in the middle. They tried to protect you from both sides.”

I sat there, dumbfounded. It was as if my entire life had suddenly come into focus, and it all made sense. As if I’d just been absolved of a crime for which I’d been convicted, even though I’d been innocent all along. And then I began to cry like a little girl.

            Later that evening, after a dinner consisting of a grilled cheese sandwich, canned soup, and four handfuls of chocolate chips, I went into the living room. Second only to the kitchen, the living room had been the social center of the house. I remembered the first night Sam and I made out like horny adolescents on the floor in front of the fireplace, when he wanted to wait to have sex, the gentleman. And later, how many times we did make love on that very spot… Since his death, the space had become desolate, like so many other places in the house.

            The last rays of sunlight formed beams across the floor and spotlighted the photographs sitting on the banquet table against the wall. I perused them like paintings at the galleries and museums I used to attend in New York, and stopped at one of our many wedding photos. There I stood between my brothers, who had reluctantly surrendered their ripped jeans and biker jackets that day in exchange for sleek, black tuxedos with white silk shirts and silk ties in Windsor knots. They were clean-shaven, their hair neatly groomed, as if they’d spent a day with the
Queer Eye
guys. They looked so handsome, pinup perfect for a couple of Italian musicians in their forties.

            I’d practically worshipped my brothers while growing up. All my friends had crushes on them. Boys envied their guitars and talent and the fact that they got all the girls, while the girls gushed over their looks. They’d sheltered me to a fault. I know that now. But back then, I reveled in their overprotection and accepted it as a token of the love and attention I so desperately craved from my parents. Could it be that my parents had never wanted me?

            I malingered into my home office and sat at my cluttered desk, digging through the top drawer in search of my address book. It bulged with post-its and envelopes with return addresses circled and MapQuest directions to places that Sam had insisted I save. I opened it and flipped a couple of pages, then picked up the receiver of the vintage, push-button office phone, complete with extension lights at the bottom that still lit up when the phone rang.

            Joey picked up on the second ring.

            “Hey Joey,” my voice wavered; I had expected voice mail.

            “Hey And. Long time.” He sounded happy to hear my voice. “Everything okay?”

            “Yeah. You know. The usual.” I decided to get right to it. “Whattya think about coming out here for a visit? I need an excuse to finish cleaning my house.”

            “That’d be great! I haven’t had a break in ages.”

            “I was thinking of inviting Tony, too. I mean, when was the last time the three of us got together without Mom or spouses?”

            “Geez, I can’t even remember.” He paused for a few beats to mull it over. “I know Tone’s got some gigs in Connecticut in the coming weeks. How about next month? I could meet him and then we could drive up together.”

            “That works. We could barbeque. That poor grill hasn’t seen any action since Sam—” I stopped myself, “—since last summer.”

            Joey ignored the slip. “Let me call Tony and call you back. I gotta ask him about the MIDI files he sent me last week anyway.”

            “Okay. Call me back even if you get his voice mail.”

            “Okay.”

            Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. I was still sitting at the desk.

            “It’s all set,” Joey said.

            We finalized plans. “Bring the guitars,” I said.

            “You got it. This is gonna be fun,” he said after a beat.

            “Yeah. I’m looking forward to it.”

            “Mom is so gonna kill us when she finds out that we left her out.”

“So don’t tell her. See you soon.”

            When I hung up the phone, I glanced at the clock on the desk: 10:14 p.m.

            “What the hell,” I said out loud, and picked up the receiver again. I dialed Melody’s office number. When her voice mail picked up, I spoke with a rather superior tone: “I’ll have you know that I just made plans with my brothers for them to come visit me next month. At my house. So there.” I hung up. Then I cleaned until midnight.

            For the first time in ten months, I had something to look forward to. And for the first time in just as long, I smiled—albeit alone—in mere anticipation.

Chapter Eleven

August

T
HEY HAD ARRIVED IN MID-AUGUST, GUITARS and duffle bags in tow. I unexpectedly bawled like a baby when I saw them pull into the driveway, and practically knocked them over when I ran out to the car to hug them. But they were cool and let me get it out of my system. Neither of them said a word about my weight gain; then again, they had seen me yo-yo with my weight for most of my young life. In fact, the six years with Sam was the only time I’d maintained a decent weight—I’d looked and felt good. What’s more, when I was with Sam, I didn’t think about my body, didn’t have the obsessive preoccupation that took up so much of my time and energy in the past. I’d accepted it as it was.  Besides,
all bodies are beautiful
…

Joey and Tony and I spent most of our time in the kitchen or out on the deck, grilling. One evening, they took out their guitars and started playing all the old Beatle songs we used to sing as kids, in three-part harmony. By the fourth or fifth song, several of the neighbors, including the adolescents, had wandered into the yard or peered over the fence to watch the free show. One of them shouted a request: “You know any Dylan?”

Tony scowled, but acquiesced and the two of them did a flawless Bob Dylan impersonation of “Like a Rolling Stone” without the harmonica part. After that, requests came left and right. And after all the applause and invitations to play at future parties, we looked at each other and knew we were done sharing ourselves with them. My brothers said thanks, packed up, and went into the house, much to the crowd’s disappointment. “What a treat,” I heard an older woman, who lived two doors down, say. It wasn’t until well after midnight, when I lay awake in my bed, Sam’s absence ever omniscient, that I’d realized that during the entire jam session, I’d enjoyed myself so much that I’d forgotten to miss him for the first time. The revelation resulted in a mix of accomplishment and guilt.

Best of all was how much I
laughed
that week. And although there was always a hint of sadness looming in the air, like a cloud of dust, I felt a sense of comfort amidst that cloud. For the first time since Sam’s death, our house felt like
home
to me, the empty bed notwithstanding.

On our last evening together, the three of us sat out on the deck, Joey and Tony drinking Sam Adams while I drank birch beer, the citronella candles casting soft orange glows on our faces and protecting us from the nasty New England mosquitoes. The night air was chilly, and the salty scent of the distant sea wafted occasionally with the breeze.

“Do you guys remember Dad dying?” I asked.

They looked at each other, then back at me, a little wary of indulging me in a heavy topic of conversation, one that could put a damper on the entire week.

“Sure,” they said.

“What do you remember most?”

“The suddenness of it,” Joey said. “It was out of the blue.”

“Me too,” said Tony. “I just remember being in shock.”

“Do you remember grieving it? Because I don’t remember grieving it.”

“Actually, I don’t remember a lot of that time,” Joey said. “But a few years ago, I dug out some songs that I wrote back then. They were all really sad. I must’ve taken it out on the music.”

“Oh, I definitely channeled into the music,” said Tony. “I played so much blues back then. It was the only way to get it out. Mom wouldn’t talk about it. At least not with us.”

“Yeah, mom was just so out of it,” said Joey.

I looked out at the bench swing in the yard, seeing Sam and me sitting on it during summer nights, clasped hands in each other’s laps, saying nothing and looking at the sky, rocking rhythmically. The image then morphed into me at thirteen years old:

 
I come home from school to find both Joey and Tony sitting on the couch in the living room, which we only use for company. Quiet. Pale as ghosts.
“Whose car is in the driveway?” I ask.
“Aunt Jane’s,” either Tony or Joey say.
“Why is Aunt Jane here?” Every fiber of my being already knows that the answer is not something I want to hear.
“Dad had a heart attack at work today.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s, um…”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Upstairs with Aunt Jane.”
He’s dead. I know it.
I couldn’t remember who first said the words. I couldn’t remember the funeral, other than the sea of black—strange, that was just about all I remembered of Sam’s funeral. That and the crappy eulogy, of course. But who eulogized my father?

“They were our age, weren’t they,” said as I came out of my reverie. “I mean, as old as we are now.”

My brothers did the math between them. “He had to be in his mid-forties, I guess. Mom’s a couple years younger,” said Joey. He then added, “Wow” at the realization.

Yeah. Wow.

“My God, he was just a couple of years older than Sam. I never realized how young he was. To die of a heart attack, especially.”

And Mom was my age—
s
he was
me.

“He had hypertension that he ignored. Probably saw it as a sign of weakness if he couldn’t suck it up. He was stubborn that way,” said Tony.

“But don’t you think that’s the type of thing we should talk about? Especially if it’s genetic. You guys see a doctor regularly, don’t you?” I asked.

“You doin’ okay, And?” asked Joey. “In general, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m seeing a therapist, and my friend Jeff is trying to get me to go back to school—he’s the department chair.” I paused. “It’ll be a year, soon.”

“Hard to believe.”

I took a swig of birch beer. “You’re tellin’ me.”

We sat quietly and looked up at the stars.

“Do you think Mom and Dad wanted me?”