Signs of Life (24 page)

“Well, why can’t they just work hard and save money and buy a house like my parents did?” Eva Carmen says from the third row of Honors English. We are talking about the availability of certain opportunities in twenty-first-century America and if they really are as available as we think. Are dreams really possibilities for all Americans? All of the girls in my baby-mama group chose to have sex with a man who was not their husband. They did it without taking into account their financial situations or the status of their own romantic relationships. They made a choice. But now, because of the place where they started, everything is more challenging for them. People judge them. I judged them. Their surroundings don’t support them in a way a mother should be supported. They have dozens of external factors working against them and their children. Their children, who have made no choices at all, have already inherited a tough situation.

It’s so painful to read
Of Mice and Men
again because when Lennie and George talk about their dream, it’s so vivid for them. You know they can see it dangling in front of them. But you also know that it will never happen. It will never happen because of
the world they were born into and because of the characteristics they can never shake. I wonder if Steinbeck would look at us the same way or, more appropriately, look at our children the same way. Part of me thinks sadly, yes, he would.

•  •  •

In Michigan, the month of March is when the weather starts to turn. Right now winter is receding just slightly and spring is getting ready to scoot in. The gross brown snow is slowly melting. The air feels different. I love when this happens. I begin to remember that I don’t live in the Arctic Circle and soon there will be a morning when I don’t have to scrape my windshield before work, and maybe someday it will even be warm outside again.

There seems to be a similar thaw happening between my in-laws and me. Deedee and Ashley are great about coming over so I can have a little time to do stuff on my own. We are getting more used to being around each other and communicating. Actually, I think I am getting used to how they communicate.

Today Deedee comes over around six in the evening. When she gets here, Kai is sleeping. I hand him to her and head to the grocery store. When I get back, they are still sitting on the couch together. He is still sleeping. A few minutes after I walk in the door, he wakes up and starts to cry. Deedee immediately stands up, starts rocking him in a severe and abrupt manner, and says the following in a loud, alarmed tone. Keep in mind she is yelling this over a screaming baby.

“Oh! Oh! Well what’s wrong? You were just so quiet and content the whole time your mom was gone! You were just as quiet as a mouse and now this! What’s wrong? You didn’t make a sound while Mom was gone, you were just perfect with
Grandma and now this! What’s wrong?” Kai keeps crying. She realizes that heaving him up and down is not going to do the trick. “Okay, okay, okay, okay, not that, not that, don’t want that.” She puts him over her shoulder and starts patting him on the back. “Do you have gas? Is that what you have? A little gas? A little gas? Is that it? You were just so quiet and then all of the sudden, and then all of the sudden? You must have gas. Nat! Nat! He’s got a little gas! He must have a little gas because he was just fine and then this. So it must be gas! It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s just a little gas. You must not be feeling well. Does your tummy hurt? Your tummy must hurt. Oh, does that tummy hurt!” After patting him and shushing him, he is still screaming. She then sits back down on the couch, now even more worried and anxious than before. “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, are you wet? You must be wet, you must be a little wet. Are you wet? Is that why you’re so mad?” She undoes his onesie and checks his diaper. “Oh
look!
Oh, you’re wet! You’re wet! Well, that must be why you are so mad, you have a wet diaper! That’s it, just a wet diaper!” She picks him up and marches frantically to the nursery. She undoes his diaper; he is still screaming. His face is bright red. He is clearly very upset about something. Deedee picks up a plastic butterfly from his toy bin. The butterfly makes a clicking noise when its wings move. She puts the butterfly right over his face and starts clicking it incessantly. So now, Kai is screaming, Deedee is yelling over the scream, and the butterfly sounds like a New Year’s Eve noisemaker. She shouts, “Watch this while I change you! Watch this while I change you! Do you like the butterfly? Do you like the butterfly!” Obviously, it is not working. “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, you don’t like the butterfly, okay, okay, okay, let’s get this wet diaper off. Let’s get this wet diaper off.” She changes him. He is still screaming.

I calmly walk into the kitchen to get a pacifier. I walk into the room, because I feel bad for both of them, and I put my arms out. I hold Kai in my arms and I move toward the window where it’s a little cooler. I hold his pacifier in his mouth and gently start rocking him a little. A few minutes later he is quiet. Eventually, he falls asleep. Deedee stares at me through this entire process. I don’t say a word. Finally, she says, “A mother’s touch. He always knows his mother’s touch. He knows. He just knows. You can’t do anything when he knows his mother’s touch. What can you do when he wants his mother’s touch?”

She sits down and wipes the sweat off her forehead.

This moment makes me smile. It doesn’t make me bitter or angry or frustrated or any of those negative things that I typically associate with having in-laws and no husband. She is trying so hard, she’s trying hard to make Kai happy and to make me happy, and I hardly ever give her credit for that. I like this feeling of watching a situation unfold with my mother-in-law and son and not being completely saddened by it. I have no control over my in-laws, but I do have control over how I react to things or the degree to which I allow something to get to me. Lately I feel like I’ve been doing a better job at this. I need to keep track of these moments somehow, maybe start drawing tally marks on my wall just to remind myself that darkness doesn’t get to be here all the time.

The next day, Saturday, I have to go to a bridal shower. I need to leave by 2:30 p.m. It is now 12:27. I feed Kai lunch, clean up the kitchen, load the dishwasher, wash the bottles, pick up the living room, fold my laundry, start Kai’s laundry, make my bed, have a lengthy conversation with Deedee about Michelle Arman’s shower. (The one she attended yesterday afternoon. I say I don’t know who Michelle Arman is. She says, “Yes you do, from Elk Lake, J.R. and Tina’s daughter, Amanda’s little
sister.” I have never met any of these people, but I say, “Oh right,
Michelle
, I remember!”) In addition she gives me a long dissertation about why Ashley will be in a bad mood today. I make and eat a plate of frozen lasagna. At 1:57 I say to Kai, “We have thirty-three minutes to make and clean up broccoli white bean soup [made with fresh broccoli] so we have dinner ready by the time I get back.” I am chopping the broccoli when Kai decides that he will not partake in cooking and would rather take a nap. I immediately turn the burner off and take a fifteen-minute pause to gracefully and calmly rock Kai to sleep. I then return to the kitchen (now with seventeen minutes left) to finish cooking the broccoli white bean soup and clean up the kitchen again. Keep in mind, all of these tasks (except for the last seventeen minutes, of course) are performed with a five-and-a-half-month-old baby, a
rowdy
five-and-a-half-month-old baby, in need of constant entertainment. Right now the blender is soaking in the sink, but other than that, the kitchen, along with the rest of the house, is spotless. Snap. (Oh, did I mention the broccoli white bean soup has 11 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, and 94 percent of your daily vitamin C?)

Before I go to my room to get dressed, I call John Steinbeck. A stuffy secretary answers the phone.

“Mr. Steinbeck’s office.”

“Is Mr. Steinbeck available?”

“One moment, please. I will transfer your call.” I know it will take her a while to transfer the call. It’s 1939 on her end. In the meantime, I cue up my iPod. He picks up the line.

“This is Mr. Steinbeck.” I put the phone down next to the iPod. I push play. M. C. Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” comes out of the speakers. I saunter back to my room to get dressed before Kai wakes up.

These small successes are somehow adding up somewhere.
I’m making a small pile of positive moments. I’m slowly filling an empty bucket.

•  •  •

Kai and I clean up breakfast while we listen to the Valentine’s Day episode of
This American Life
. As usual I’m a little behind. The opening prologue is about falling in love. Ira (we’re on a first-name basis) and some psychologist talk about “the bolt of lightning,” which all of us know about. When you see someone or meet someone and you are instantly in love. The psychologist says that this feeling of infatuation can last as long as eighteen months and then the love changes into something different. Ira explains that this week’s
This American Life
will be bringing us stories about love
after
the bolt of lightning. I am so relieved. I knew I could count on
This American Life
to bring me a more realistic view of love.

The first act of the show is a short story called “Letter to the Lady of the House,” by Richard Bausch. The story opens with a man writing a letter to his wife, Marie, after they’ve had an argument. They are both older, well into their seventies, and he explains that the relationship has been deteriorating for some time; after thirty years they have “grown tired” of each other. He says he almost left her that night, but instead he decided to drink whiskey and write her a letter.

He tells Marie a story about his cousin Louise and her husband Charlie, about how when the narrator was younger, he had the opportunity to visit Louise and Charlie shortly after the two were married. It was in 1933, and even in the midst of a trying time the narrator reflects that despite their financial uncertainty and the growing doom that was sweeping over the nation, Louise and Charlie were happy simply to have each other.

The narrator then goes on to say that over time things changed. Charlie ended up suffering from a nearly fatal accident at work, and Louise became his permanent caretaker. Louise later confessed to the narrator that she had grown to hate her husband. She said that every time he was near her, she was “overwhelmed with irritation, suffocation, and anxiety.” She tried to understand how marriage could do such a thing. How undying, powerful love can turn into such contempt.

The narrator then writes to Marie that he brings up the story because upon Louise’s confession he thought it was still worth it because she and Charlie had a moment where they did adore each other. He had witnessed it. There was a time when they felt true love. He remembers hearing Louise’s confession and thinking,
It must have been worth it for such loveliness
. He goes on to tell his wife that even though they do not get along anymore, even though their marriage is “slowly eroding,” they have had wonderful times together, and if he had to go back knowing how he feels about his marriage now, he would still do it all over again, without a second thought. “All of it. Even the sorrow.” “Letter to the Lady of the House” is one of the most beautiful, well-written stories I have ever heard in my entire life.

At the conclusion of the story, I cry. So many of his words are in my brain. Even though I have had the hardest eight months of my life, even though I am living a life that is tragic and difficult, I would have done it all again to be with Josh for as long as I was. I’ve never written that or announced that or even thought about it until I heard this man’s story, but I am relieved that his story prompts this conclusion. Even knowing how much pain I am in at this moment, I would not trade my days with Josh for anything in the entire world.

Part of my reaction is also because I will never get the
chance to bicker with my seventy-year-old husband. I will never get to see Josh grow old and embrace old age. I will never get to know if my marriage would have lasted. But at the same time, my marriage is permanently frozen in time. I have the most wonderful memories with my husband and we were not together long enough to run into the mundaneness that most married couples encounter. We were still in the bolt of lightning phase when Josh died, which is the most tragic fact at times but also one that makes me feel better.

In so many ways, Josh reminds me of Finny from John Knowles’s book
A Separate Peace
. I teach
A Separate Peace
in ninth-grade English. Finny, the idealistic teenager, dies at the end of the book. The first time I read
A Separate Peace
, before I even knew how it ended, I said to Mathews, “Doesn’t Finny remind you of Josh?” Finny is good at every sport. There is nothing he can’t play. When he walks, he walks with this athletic, confident swagger. He loves life, he jokes with his teachers, and he wears pink shirts. Josh wore pink shirts. Maggie’s dad even commented that Josh looked just like a Finny in one of the pictures of him at the funeral home, standing there with his handsome smile in his pink shirt. Leper Lepellier, another character, remarks, “Everything must evolve or else it will perish.” That’s why Finny dies. That is why Piggy from
Lord of the Flies
dies. These characters did not evolve. I’m not saying Josh died because he couldn’t evolve. I don’t think there was any sense in Josh’s death. But sometimes I think that he could never live to see our marriage deteriorate into bickering. He could never live to see his friends’ marriages deteriorate into bickering. He got to experience love in its purest, most wonderful form. Not everyone gets to do that.

I wish I could say something more profound. I wish I could articulate this paradox of feeling tremendous sadness about my
husband’s death at twenty-seven and at the exact same moment being thankful for the years we were together. But I can’t. I can’t think of the words, so I’m going to steal them from “Letter to the Lady of the House.” All I can say is that I too am grateful for such loveliness.