Within Arm's Reach (9 page)

Of course, it wasn’t. It was a humid day, and after we ate our turkey and Brie sandwiches, I complained that my hair was beginning to frizz. I walked over to the water’s edge to check my reflection, and while I was leaning over, Lila beaned me in the back of the head with her Frisbee. Caught off balance, I took a step forward and lost my right sneaker in the watery muck of the pond. I was mortified, because there were other kids from my school at Sarachi’s Pond who might have seen me get hit in the head, and because my sneakers were brand new. It took ten minutes for Dad to convince me that if I took off my other sneaker I would look fine, and I calmed down enough to return to the blanket.

Our parents sat between Lila and me while we played Monopoly. There were strong and sudden gusts of wind, so we had to tuck our cards under our feet, and clutch the fake money in our fists. Silence fell over us, and the game dragged on and on. I began to think I would turn fourteen still sitting on that blanket. Lila kept pulling her favorite article of the day, about a car wreck in South Jersey, out of her sock and then sliding it back in. At one point, just before I threw down my cards and begged to go home, I grew aware of what we must look like to other families, couples, and children in the park. Unhappy, and ill-suited to one another. I realized, in that moment, that even though we were a family, we did not necessarily belong together. We did not necessarily work.

I LAY my hand on my stomach and watch the ducks flap their wings and quack. I visited Sarachi’s Pond often as a teenager and then later during college vacations. I lost my virginity here, to Billy Goodwin, when I was sixteen. Soon after, I became an expert on having sex in cars. I knew how to do it in the front passenger seat, with the guy on the bottom, me sitting facing him, pelvis to pelvis, my legs spread as wide as they’d go. I learned, after a few bad bruises, how to avoid the stick shift.

But sex in the backseat was always the best, my head against one door and my feet propped against the other. That was my locked-in position, where I shimmied and quaked beneath the boys. “Free Fallin” or “Brown Eyed Girl” or something from Billy Joel’s
Glass Houses
album played on the radio. The inside of the car smelled like an overripe mixture of Naugahyde seats, sweaty towels from wrestling or football practice, and a sweet hint of the red Slurpee we’d shared earlier at 7-Eleven. I would bury my face in the plush seat and breathe that smell in. I have to say that having sex in bed is overrated. Sometimes it is better to have less space, less range of motion, fewer options. Cramped spaces lead to greater acts of creativity and a special kind of intensity. I had some very good evenings at Sarachi’s Pond.

I slide my hand down and touch myself, through the fabric of my pants. Just a soft pressure to say, I haven’t forgotten about you. I miss you. Then I pull my hand away, and cross my arms over my chest. Unborn little girls or insanely jealous redheads could approach my car at any moment. Even alone, I’m not safe.

I suddenly hear Grayson’s question,
Why do you want to have a baby?

His voice, in the still car, is inescapable.

I don’t try to come up with an answer. I don’t have one. I am obviously good at getting pregnant, no one can argue with that. Maybe I have found my gift. Maybe this is what I am meant to do. Maybe I will be like Gram and spend the rest of my premenopausal life bearing children.

The problem is, I am not as uninformed as that reasoning sounds. For my own peace of mind, I wish I were. After all, I have written numerous Dear Abby responses to teenage girls telling them that having a baby is not an answer. When the girls complain of a feeling of emptiness inside, I have told them in no uncertain terms to find another way to fill the void. Join a team. Be the creator of something— an art project, or a play. Write in your journal. Try to have a conversation with your parents. Wait until you have grown up and into yourself.

That is what I would have told my teenage self as she was steaming up Billy Goodwin’s mother’s Volvo at Sarachi’s Pond. But I needn’t have bothered. I knew better back then. I was vigilant with birth control. I went on the Pill three days after I lost my virginity, and took it religiously every morning for thirteen years. I also insisted that the guys I was with wear condoms. I relaxed my doubled-up birth-control regimen with Grayson—maybe because we were together for so long— and that’s how I got in trouble the first time. And then, even before Joel, I began to grow forgetful. In the middle of the week I’d remember that I had forgotten to take my pill for a few days. I grew tired of reminding guys to put on a condom.

I was ultra-cautious as a teenager because I was terrified by the idea of getting pregnant and having my family find out. That was what would wake me up with night sweats. That’s what would make my head hurt while I waited for my period to start each month. I was terrified of the reaction of my mother, grandmother, father, and aunts. Pregnancy without marriage was unthinkable in our family.

I honestly don’t know what changed. My family still scares me. Gram knows now, and somehow her knowing and planning for me is more frightening than her not knowing. I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, heart flip-flopping in my chest, thinking, Why did I do this? Why?

I have told my readers again and again that a baby is not an answer to anything. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t fall into that trap. Keep this in mind: A baby is simply, and decisively, and irreversibly, a baby. To give birth to a child is to take on the responsibility of another human life.

KELLY

My first memory is of the day my sister died. I know that child psychologists would say this isn’t possible, since I was only eighteen months old at the time. They say the brain isn’t developed enough to hold on to images until a child is closer to three years of age. But, in my case at least, they are wrong.

I remember every detail of that day, and no one ever told me about it. There is no one I could have gotten my information from. My sister was gone, my brother Pat would not be born for another week. For the only time in my life, for a few short days, for the wrong reasons, I was the only McLaughlin child. During that time no one spoke to me. My parents were so shocked and numb, they were not aware I was in the house with them. Willie shushed my tears. The deaths in my family, as well as the births, were occurrences that carried a warning with them. They all happened in slow motion, steeped in silence and disapproval. There was the sense that this should not be witnessed. And, if witnessed, should never be spoken of again. Birth and death were too common, too raw, for my self-made father and my properly raised mother. They were beneath our family; their messiness cheated us out of perfection. Death was of course the worse of the two, and it put a terrible pressure on those who survived to make up for what should not have happened.

My sister’s death marked me, both with a sense of shame that I drew from my parents, and with an indelible memory. When she was a little girl, Lila used to wonder aloud who she might have gotten her memory from. I never spoke up and told her that it was me. I wanted to tell her, but somehow I couldn’t. It is a secret I have never shared with anyone, and it is also my curse. I watched with wonder and admiration as Lila grew up touting her memory as a great gift. She used it in school to get top grades. She used it in card games to beat her friends. She used her memory at every step of her life in order to be the best. Until I watched my daughter, it had never even occurred to me to utilize my memory to my own gain. It is something I have always worked to deny, push away, hide, ignore. My memory brings me pain, because everything reminds me of everything. Everything is connected. All it takes is a glimpse, a flash of color, a smell, and I am taken into the past.

A fall day with the colorful leaves turning belly up to a stiff breeze reminds me of going clothes shopping with my mother. The six McLaughlin children would line up in age order (me carrying a list of what each child needed as well as their most recent measurements, Pat in charge of carrying pads of paper and crayons to entertain the smaller children) and we’d follow our mother through the department store until every last pair of pants, skirts, underwear, socks, and shoes had been bought.

A glass of scotch reminds me of my father walking carefully into the dining room, his hands reaching for the walls for balance, starting in on Pat before he has even taken his seat.

The first day of school each year reminds me of dropping Gracie off at kindergarten and her crying silently, tears running down her face, her small head bowed when I refuse to give her another hug good-bye.

Bright blue winter skies remind me of the day I married Louis, and the way my hands shook as I walked down the aisle, dropping petals from my bouquet of white roses.

Horses remind me of a teenaged Lila in competition, her jaw fixed, her face locked in an expression of such intensity that once the event ended, even if she’d won, it took time to relax.

Many things remind me of the day my sister died. A toddler with white-blond hair. My mother’s strong hands, folded in her lap now or gripping her purse after years of raising, holding, bathing, carrying children. My brother Pat’s pale eyes. Lila bragging about her memory, which makes me think about mine, which leads me to think about my first memory. I have no choice but to remember.

My sister’s crying woke me that morning. I watched her through the bars of my crib. She sat bolt upright in her bed a few feet from me, her hands cupping her throat as if she were trying to protect it from something. “Water,” she said. My mother appeared in the doorway, tying her robe around what was left of her waist since she was eight months pregnant. “Shush now. Your father is sleeping.” Mother looked angry, and my sister hid under her pillow. I went back to sleep. Later, after Father left for work, my sister was curled in a ball on the living-room couch. She whimpered, and my mother sat next to her, her hand on the child’s forehead.
Give her water,
I wanted to say, but I wasn’t able to speak in sentences yet. My sister looked very hot, and I knew that for some reason she could no longer speak for herself. “I can’t,” my mother said, as if she had heard my thought. “You have to let a fever burn itself out. No fluids. That’s what Dr. O’Malley said.”

My mother left us to straighten up the bedrooms and wash the breakfast dishes. While she was gone I watched my sister and her fever burn themselves out. I sat on the floor penned by a square of wooden posts. I ignored my toys. For one minute my close attention paid off— my sister made a face at me. She stuck out her tongue and waggled her hands by her ears and I laughed. This was our own private game, a secret from Mother and Father. Some nights she and I did not go to sleep when we were supposed to. My sister would turn on the light and stand on her bed and make her funny faces while I giggled in my crib.

But after that one face my sister didn’t look at me anymore. Her eyes closed and her face swelled up and she began to make a strange cough in the back of her throat. Mother came back into the room, wiping her hands on her apron, saw my sister, and said, “Dear Lord.” She ran over to the couch. I had never seen my mother run before, and being as pregnant as she was, it was a worrying sight. She gathered my sister up in her arms, turned toward me, and yelled, “Willie.” I had never heard my mother yell before, either. Willie didn’t appear, and my mother ran across the room to me, my sister quiet in her arms. With difficulty, Mother leaned over the fence, and I put my arms out to be picked up. My mother hesitated, then said, “Not now, Kelly. Be good for Mother.” Then she and my sister left the room, the garage door slammed, and the house roared with silence. I waited, perfectly still, for a monster to come and eat me, because that seemed like a completely viable end to this strange morning.

But instead Willie came back, and when she saw me in my cage all alone, she began to bawl, which made me bawl, too. After Willie fed me lunch, my mother and sister came home, which made me cry again, this time with relief, because I thought they had left me for good. But my sister’s skin was bluish now and she was even more swelled up, and when I called her name, she didn’t hear me. My mother took her into our bedroom, so I couldn’t see what was going on. My father came home in the middle of the day and he ran, too, from the kitchen to the bedroom. Then Dr. O’Malley arrived with his black bag in his hand. No one paid any attention to me. I sat in my cage and banged and rattled my toys until they were taken away.

Late in the afternoon it got dark in the house, but it was a long time before anyone thought to turn on the lights. My parents stopped running. Everything grew still and silent. They must have taken my sister out through the front door, because I never saw her again. My father walked in and sat down in his leather chair. He sobbed loudly while he drank a big glass of a liquid the same color as his tears. I thought that was what he was doing, drinking his own tears. The tears seemed to refill the glass as fast as he could gulp them down, and as hard as he could cry. And nobody told me, not my father with his glass of tears, not my mother with her hand on her swollen stomach, that in that afternoon I had become an only child.

This is my first memory. I have wondered, from time to time, what Lila’s first memory is. I wonder how early her remembered life began. It is a comfort to me to know it could not have been anything nearly as unpleasant as mine. My daughters have experienced very little death. They grew up in a happy family, with two stable parents. They had all the clothes and food and money they needed and then some. They did not have to deal with alcoholism or child abuse, or any tragic events. I have managed to give my daughters much more than my parents gave me. And I have spared them a lot, too. Any fights Louis and I had while Gracie and Lila lived at home took place after they were asleep. When the girls fought, I steered them away from each other. When they upset me, I told them so, and then we moved on.

I do not understand why, after this placid and pleasant upbringing, my daughters are angry at me. How can they be so unfair? Do they not recognize everything I’ve given them? I’m not asking them to thank me, for God’s sake. I just want them to be something more than civil. I want to know why I am their enemy and their father is their friend. I want them to be
my
friends, now that I don’t have to parent them anymore. Now that they’ve grown up.

AFTER MY mother’s car accident I called Lila and Gracie, but no one answered the phone. I left a message on Gracie’s machine. It has been three days now and no one has returned my call. This fact is just one more thing that makes a shitty afternoon at work even worse. A little voice in my head says, Just get out of here. So I do, I leave work early. Sarah asks if I am feeling okay, and Giles just stares. God, it makes me feel good, marching out of there with my briefcase, making my own rules. I am the boss, after all. I don’t act like it often enough. I chain myself to my desk because I know I can’t trust anyone to do the work as well as I can.

In the parking lot I close my briefcase in the trunk and put the top down on my BMW. It’s not quite warm out, but the sky is blue and with the heater on I am fine. I decide to take the long way home, winding aimlessly across Ramsey until it occurs to me to visit my daughters. It’s not something I normally do, but I know that my mother used to drop by Gracie’s house and even Lila’s dorm room whenever she felt like it. Maybe I’ve been hanging back too much in my relationship with the girls; perhaps it’s time for me to be more aggressive. I resist calling ahead. After all, I’m their mother. I can just show up, can’t I? The idea makes me smile into the wind.

I turn up the radio. The Beach Boys come on with “California Girls.” I know all the words, and sing along. I feel light, carefree, young. It is so rare for my mind to unclench, for the worrying to stop. I am grateful when it does; I appreciate these moments. I don’t want the song to end. I pass Ramsey High School, the post office, my gynecologist’s office. I pass the road that leads to the Municipal Building, and beyond that, to my brother Ryan’s apartment. I sing loudly right up until I pull into Holly Court and into Gracie’s driveway. When the Beach Boys’ harmony dies away, I turn off the car engine and take off my sunglasses. I look up, and Gracie is standing in front of the car, her arms loose at her sides. She must have just gotten home. She looks beautiful, so grown up.

“Gracie,” I say, laughing, “don’t squint like that. It makes you look like an old lady.”

“What’s wrong? Is it Gram?”

I get out of the car with difficulty. I love my BMW, but it is so low to the ground that it’s a challenge to get out and still be ladylike. I keep smiling, but I heard the chill in my daughter’s voice, and now I have to work at it. “Nothing’s wrong. Can’t a mother stop by and visit her kids?”

Gracie’s face relaxes a little. “Of course. It’s just that you never do.”

“Well, perhaps I should have called first. God knows I hate it when people just show up at my house.” We are standing facing each other.

“Yours and Dad’s.”

“Pardon me?”

“It’s not just your house. It’s yours and Dad’s.”

My shoulders drop. I can’t win.

“I’m sorry,” Gracie says. “I’m just having this really weird day and then you scared me showing up like that.”

I try not to sound affronted. “I certainly didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Please don’t be overdramatic. I’d like to go inside and change. Do you mind?”

I think, I can fix this. I say, “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you keep that lovely suit on? You could put on nicer shoes and then we could all go out to dinner—you, me, and Lila. What do you think about that idea?” I touch her arm lightly, then bend down. Something has caught my eye. “What is that on your pants? Is that chocolate? What in the world—How did you get melted candy on yourself?” I scrape at the fabric with my thumbnail.

“Mother!” Gracie takes a long step away from me.

I straighten up. “You should soak those pants in cool water and take them to the dry cleaners first thing tomorrow morning. I bought you that suit, you’ll remember. You need to take better care of it.”

Gracie is hugging her waist. Her jacket bunches in the shoulders. She looks small and pale and, with the chocolate stain on her knee, like a child wearing grown-up’s clothes. She shakes her head. “How is Gram? Have you seen her since the accident?”

“I went to visit her the other day. She seems fine. A little quiet, maybe, but I think she was still shaken up. She asked me to pick up Ryan and bring him to Easter. Normally she would have brought him with her. But it’s understandable that she would feel less comfortable driving now.”