A Home At The End Of The World Part 31

One morning a few weeks later I was in bed with Rebecca, Bobby, and Jonathan. It was an ordinary morning. Rebecca had woken up in a good humor, and was telling herself an elaborate story about Bunny and a flying elephant. In a moment Bobby would shuffle downstairs to start the coffee. Erich was still asleep down the hall and Jonathan sat beside me with the sheet pulled over his chest.

Bobby said, "After work I've got to replace some shingles. Did you see how many have blown off? That roof has about, like, had it."

"We should just get a new one," I said. "Let's start calling roofers."

"When the place is more or less in shape," Jonathan said, "I want to have my mother out again. I figure she'd have an easier time believing in my life if she saw more of it."

"Parents, parents," I said. "You know, I've been thinking. I should really take Miss Rebecca to Washington for a few days, to see my mother."

Bobby got up to make the coffee, a half second before I knew he was going to. "Why not, you know, invite her up here?" he said.

"Because she's sixty-five and not the least bit liberal. Believe me, you don't want Amelia up here, going on about our life-style. That's what she thinks we have. Not a life. A life-style."

"Don't you think she'd better get used to it?" Jonathan said.

"Sweetheart, my mother hasn't gotten used to my having b.r.e.a.s.t.s b.r.e.a.s.t.s yet. The sight of me naked still makes her uneasy. Trust me. It's better to take Rebecca down there for a few days." yet. The sight of me naked still makes her uneasy. Trust me. It's better to take Rebecca down there for a few days."

"Well, you know, if you need to," Bobby said, and went off on his morning errand.

"Only a few days," Jonathan said. "Right? Like two or three?"

I nodded, and stroked Rebecca's hair. I wondered if she might feel the tension in my hand, and start crying. But she babbled on, undisturbed. Our inner deceits don't create much residue in this world.

I only half knew what I was up to. It didn't become a plan until I found myself doing it, and then it seemed I was following a procedure I'd known about for months or even years. I packed Rebecca's things: her clothes and a few essential toys, her stroller and high chair. As Jonathan helped me load the car he said, "Honey, you're only going for a few days. Not till the millennium."

"I want to be prepared," I said. "It's important to avoid shopping with my mother at all costs. If I run out of diapers, she'll take me to Saks."

"Doesn't sound so bad to me," Jonathan said. He wore a denim jacket with Albert Einstein's gentle white face pinned to the lapel. A swarm of reddish-black tulips had sprouted on the lawn. A crazy meadowlark whose nest was nearby raged at us from the lowest branches of the oak. I lifted the stroller into the trunk, and Jonathan arranged the diaper bag around it.

"Guilt," I said. "Even my guilt over my mother's money feels decadent sometimes. It's better to just avoid it. Not get myself into a position where she can buy me a five-hundred-dollar dress that makes me look like an astronaut's wife. It's better to just lay in supplies and stay home with her."

I wondered if I was explaining too much. I didn't want to sound like a criminal whose alibi is suspiciously perfect, her movements too intricately accounted for.

"Whatever you say," he answered. There was no mistrust in his voice.

He closed the lid of the trunk. "I'll miss you," he said.

In another moment, Bobby would come out of the house with Rebecca. I reached over and took hold of Jonathan's sleeve.

"Listen," I said. "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"Oh, you know. I'm sorry I'm such a coward about my mother. Next time I'll bring her up here. You're right. She's going to have to get used to it."

"Well, parents are tough. Believe me, I know about that," he said.

"I'm just really sorry," I said. I could hear the possibility of tears in my own voice.

"Honey, what's the matter?"

At that moment, I felt sure he knew. I shook my head. "Nothing," I said.

He gave me a rea.s.suring little squeeze. "Silly old Clare," he said. "Good old crazy thing." In fact, he didn't know. He still hadn't developed the habit of loss. He believed his life would get fatter and fatter. Maybe that was the fundamental flaw in his perception. Maybe that's what prevented him from falling in love.

"Oh, quit with that 'good old crazy thing' s.h.i.t, all right? I'm an adult. I'm not some playmate of yours."

"Oops. Sorry."

"Really, Jonathan, I just wish you'd-"

"What? You wish I'd what?"

"I don't know. How long do you plan on being a boy? All your life?"

"As opposed to becoming a girl?" he said.

"As opposed to...oh, never mind. I'm being a b.i.t.c.h today. I could feel it the minute I woke up."

"Listen, will you call me when you get there? So I know you're okay?"

"Sure. Of course I will."

We stood for a moment, looking around at the scenery as if we were new to it. As if we had just stepped out of our Winnebago to stretch our legs and marvel at this particular stretch of a national park.

"Aren't things supposed to be simpler than this?" I asked.

"Bobby says it's a new world. He says we can do anything we can imagine."

"That's because Bobby's a deluded a.s.shole. I mean that only in the most complimentary sense."

I realized I was still holding on to the sleeve of Jonathan's jacket. When I let go, the denim held the shape of my grip.

"I'm going to go see what's keeping him," I said. "If Rebecca and I don't get moving soon, we'll hit the New York traffic."

"Okay."

Jonathan waited by the car, hands deep in the pockets of his khakis, sun glinting on his pale hair. I turned to him when I reached the porch. He gave me an ironic, sisterly smile and I went into the house.

Bobby was coming down the stairs with Rebecca. "I just about gave up on you," I said. "If we're not past Manhattan by one o'clock-"

He put his fingers to his lips. "Erich's sleeping," he said. "He's had a hard morning."

I took Rebecca from him. She was having a bad morning, too. "I don't want want to," she said. to," she said.

"You got everything together?" Bobby whispered.

"Mm-hm. Car's all packed. Say goodbye to Erich for me, okay?"

"Okay."

"I don't want don't want to," Rebecca said. to," Rebecca said.

Bobby stood on the bottom stair, his paunch slightly straining the fabric of his T-shirt. At that moment he looked so innocent and well-meaning. I could have slugged him for being such a sap; such a guileless optimistic character. I could see him old, shuffling along in bedroom slippers. Claiming that the convalescent home was really fine and perfect. They had chocolate pudding on Fridays, he'd say. The maid's name is Harriet, she brings me pictures of her kids.

"Listen," I said. "I've got a wild idea. Do you want to come with me?"

"Huh?"

"Right now. Just throw a few things in a bag and come along."

"I thought, you know, your mother didn't approve of me. Of us."

"f.u.c.k my mother. Do you want to come?"

"We've got to take care of Erich," he said.

"Jonathan can take care of Erich. It's time he started to take more responsibility, don't you think? The two of them will manage all right together. They'll be fine on their own."

"Clare, what's up? What's got into you?"

I held the baby. I said, "Nothing. Never mind. I'm just a good old crazy thing."

I carried Rebecca out the door, and Bobby followed me to the car. As I strapped Rebecca into her car seat she began fussing and whimpering. Eventually the motion of the car would lull her but for a while she'd be inconsolable. I braced myself for her wails.

"Bye, boys," I said.

"No," Rebecca said from her car seat. "No, no, no, no, no."

They both kissed me, told me to drive carefully. They kissed Rebecca. Their attentions were all it took to push her over the edge. She opened her mouth, nearly gagging on a howl she'd been building up to since breakfast.

"Bye, Miss Rebecca," Jonathan said through the window. "Oh, we love you even if you are sporadically monstrous. Have fun with your horrible grandmother."

"Take care of yourselves," I said. I backed the car out of the drive. I waved, and the boys waved back. They stood close together, in front of the dilapidated house. As I pulled away, Jonathan suddenly came running toward the car. I thought for a moment he had something to tell me, but then I realized he was only going to run alongside for a few yards, foolish and faithful as a dog. I drove on. He caught up and briefly kept pace, blowing kisses. I waved again, one last time. Before I reached the turn I looked in the rearview mirror and saw both of them. Jonathan and Bobby, standing in the middle of the road. They looked like a pair of beatniks, sloppily dressed in a remote, unimportant place. In their sungla.s.ses and T-shirts and unruly hair they looked like they were standing at the brink of the old cycle: the 1960s about to explode around them, a long storm of love and rage and thwarted expectations. Bobby put his arm over Jonathan's shoulder. They both waved.

The road was silver in the morning sun. It was a perfect day for traveling. Rebecca kept up her wails in the back seat. Miles ticked away under the wheels. I knew our lives wouldn't be easy. I pictured us together in San Francisco or Seattle, moving into an apartment where strangers argued on the other side of the wall. I'd push her stroller down unfamiliar streets, looking for the grocery store. She wouldn't think of our lives as odd-not until she got older, and began to realize that other girls lived differently. Then she'd start hating me for being alone, for being old and eccentric, for having failed to raise her with a back yard and a rec room and a father. For a moment, I thought of turning back. The impulse pa.s.sed through me, and if I'd been able to make a U-turn I might have done it. But we were on a straight stretch of highway. I followed the double yellow line until the impulse was absorbed by gathering distance. I kept my hands on the wheel, and didn't think of anything but the next mile and the next. I glanced back at Rebecca. She was finally calming with the motion of the car. Before she went under, she looked at me balefully, her nose running and her cotton hat askew, and said one word. She said, "Mommy." She p.r.o.nounced it with a distinct edge of despair.

"Someday you'll thank me, sweetie," I said. "Or maybe you won't."

Now I'm alone with this. This love. The love that cuts like an X-ray, that has no true element of kindness or mercy.

Forgive me, boys. I seem to have gotten what I wanted, after all. A baby of my own, a direction to drive in. The house and restaurant may not be much to offer in trade but that's what I've got to give you.

I turned off the highway and headed west.

BOBBY.

T HE MOON HE MOON is following us, a white crescent in a powdery blue sky. We are driving home from the grocery store: Erich, Jonathan, and me. Erich these days is a slippery presence. He comes and goes. If I wasn't driving I might hold him to keep him from floating out of the car. Instead, I say to Jonathan, "How's he doing back there?" is following us, a white crescent in a powdery blue sky. We are driving home from the grocery store: Erich, Jonathan, and me. Erich these days is a slippery presence. He comes and goes. If I wasn't driving I might hold him to keep him from floating out of the car. Instead, I say to Jonathan, "How's he doing back there?"

Jonathan looks into the back seat. "You okay, Erich?" he asks.

Erich doesn't answer. He is suffering a fit of absence. Who knows what he hears? "I think he's okay," Jonathan tells me. I nod and drive on. Farms pa.s.s on either side of the road. Cows go about their ordinary business, steady as history itself.

At the house we help Erich out of the car, guide him up the porch stairs. He smiles with the confused beat.i.tude of the ancient. He could be pleased that we're home again. He could be remembering a toy given him when he was four. We put the groceries away in the kitchen.

"How about a bath?" I say.

"Do you think he needs one?" Jonathan asks.

"I think he'd like one," I answer.

We guide him upstairs, start the bathwater. Steam puts a sparkle on the chipped white tile. While we wait for the tub to fill we help Erich off with his clothes. He neither resists nor partic.i.p.ates. His face takes on its boggled look, something different from expressionless. When he loses track of himself he drifts into this look of mute incomprehension, as if he can't quite believe the emptiness he sees. It is astonishment divorced from dread and wonder. It is nothing like a newborn's face.

When he's naked we sit him down on the toilet lid. The tub fills slowly. Erich sits with quiet obedience, hands hung limp between the stalks of his thighs. Jonathan reaches over and touches his hair.

"I'm going to put some music on," I say.

"Okay." Jonathan stays beside Erich, supporting his shoulder bones with one hand. With the other he keeps administering ginger, comforting little swipes at Erich's hair.

I turn on the radio in the bedroom. It is tuned to an oldies station, the music of our childhood. Right now, Van Morrison sings "Madame George." I turn the volume up so it will carry into the bathroom.

When I get back Jonathan says, "This is a great song. This has always been one of my favorites."

"Care to dance?" I ask him.

He looks at me uncertainly, wondering if I'm making a joke.

"Come on," I say, and I hold my arms out. "Erich won't fall. Will you, Erich?"

Erich stares in the direction of his own bare feet. Cautiously, Jonathan pulls his hands away. Erich does not tip over. After a moment Jonathan walks into my arms and we do a waltz. Our shoes clop on the bare tiles. I can feel the agitation of Jonathan's continuing life. It quivers along his skin like a network of plucked wires. I run my hand up and down the b.u.t.tons of his spine. Van sings, "Say goodbye to Madame George. Dry your eyes for Madame George."

"Bobby?" Jonathan says.

"Uh-huh?"

"Oh, never mind. I was going to say something stupid like 'I'm scared,' but of course I am. We all are."

"Well, yes. I mean, I guess we are."

We dance to the end of the song. I would like to say that Erich smiles, or nods his head in rhythm. It would be good to think he joins us in that small way. But he is lost in his own mystery, staring into a hole that keeps opening and opening. When we're through dancing we help him up, and lower him into the bath. Together, we scrub his head and his skinny neck. We wash the hollow of his chest, and the deep sockets under his arms. Briefly, he smiles. At the sensation of bathing, or at something more private than that.

After his bath, we put him to bed. It's late afternoon. Jonathan says, "I'll buzz down to the restaurant and do the reordering, all right?" I tell him I'll replace the missing shingles.

We go about our errands. It's a normal afternoon, steaming along toward evening. Jonathan drives to town, I prop the ladder against the house and climb up with an armload of new cedar shingles. They will look raw and yellow against the old coffee-colored ones. The old shingles, strewn with pine needles, are crisp and splintery under my hands and feet.

From the roof I can see a distance. I can see our small holdings, and the fields and mountains beyond. I can see a red convertible gliding past. In the gra.s.s near the porch lies a toy of Rebecca's, a doll named Baby Lou. It lies grinning with stony rapture at the sky. I can't believe Clare forgot to pack it.