The Reluctant Daughter Part 5

IGNORANCE IS BLISS, ignorance is bliss ... It's twenty past eight and I'm still in my bathrobe, sitting on the couch in my study with my hands clasped in my lap and my eyes closed, the phrase repeating itself inside my head over and over like a mantra. Every so often-usually during times of crisis-I remember the Zen phase I went through years ago after attending a Women and Buddhism conference, and decide that meditation is the answer to all my problems. So I set the timer on the microwave oven for thirteen minutes, sit up tall and straight, and try to quiet my mind.

Ignorance is bliss, ignorance is bliss ... The three words are stuck inside my brain like a song fragment from one of the scratched-up records I listened to as a teenager. Bliss would be nice, serenity would do, I'd even settle for fairly calm at this point, anything to replace the anxiety that has lodged itself in my gut like a stone and won't go away until I find out what has happened to my mother, who I'm sure would be very surprised at my reaction to all this. "Why, Lydia," I can just hear her saying, one perfectly manicured hand fanned across her ample chest. "I didn't know you cared."

Even though my thirteen minutes of meditation aren't over, I open my eyes to peek at the clock hanging over my bookcase. It's half past eight and still my father hasn't called. d.a.m.n. What is wrong with him? How could he leave me hanging like this? I blow a long, loud puff of air out of my mouth and mutter a few expletives under my breath. So much for serenity, acceptance, and being in the moment, I think as I shut my eyes again and try to focus. Thankfully the microwave timer buzzes just as I exhale.

"Are you cooking something?" Allie appears in the doorway dressed in jeans and a brown corduroy shirt, cradling her Monday morning cup of coffee.

"No. Meditating." I open my mouth into a giant yawn. "Or trying to, anyway."

"No word, huh?" Allie and I both glance toward the phone on my desk. "Have you tried calling?"

I nod. "No answer."

"Did you send Jack an email?"

I nod again. "No response."

"Well then, you might as well enjoy the calm before the storm." Allie lifts her mug and, peering over the rim at me, takes a noisy sip. "Why don't you go back to bed and rest a little? It's January, remember? Semester break. You're supposed to be on vacation."

"You're right." I stretch my arms overhead and let out another huge yawn. "Maybe I will get back into bed. If Mishmosh will be kind enough to share it with me. I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Call me if you hear anything." Allie turns and I follow her into the kitchen where she laces up her work boots, zips her jacket, and gives me a kiss good-bye. As soon as she leaves the house I head toward the bedroom, but the moment the door clicks shut I reverse direction and go back into my study just as we both knew I would.

I am incapable of going back to bed once I'm up, or napping during the day; work is how I relax. It's one of the many ways I take after my father. Another trait we have in common is that we are both early birds, up with the sun. Unlike my mother, who is not fully human before ten o'clock in the morning. Growing up, it was my father who greeted me downstairs on school days and made sure I got out the door in time to catch my bus. He danced around the kitchen frying eggs, pouring orange juice, and singing off-key Broadway show tunes, pretending he was Yul Brynner in The King and I or Robert Goulet in Camelot . This was all too much for my mother, who never joined us for breakfast during the week. On Sat.u.r.days and Sundays she managed to drag herself downstairs at a fairly decent hour, groaning, "Coff eeee, " the last syllable dragged out into a desperate moan. "Doris, you made it," my father always cried with delight, happy as a puppy to see her. He'd pull out a chair, help her slump into it, and once she was settled, start singing, "If Ever I Would Leave You," or "Younger than Springtime," further aggravating my mother, who longed for nothing more than dead silence. Which is exactly what I don't want right now.

"Ring, Pavlov," I command the telephone. It doesn't obey. Maybe it will if I start thinking about Allie and me and the things we almost did last night. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to come up with a good s.e.xual fantasy but my heart isn't in it and besides, it doesn't work. Nine o'clock comes and goes. As does nine-fifteen. Where could he possibly be? "Is it too much trouble to pick up the G.o.dd.a.m.n phone and let me know you're okay?" I say aloud. Oh great. Now I'm beginning to sound like him. Whenever I stayed out past my curfew or committed some other infraction against my parents' many rules, which was more often than not, it was my father's job to reprimand me. During my teenage years, "just wait till your father gets home" was my mother's standard greeting whenever I walked through the door.

Nine-thirty arrives and departs, followed by ten o'clock. I manage to throw a load of laundry into the machine, choke down half a piece of toast, and check in with Allie twice. I download my email hoping for a note from Jack, but finding none, I log onto the Internet to look up all the hospitals within a thirty-mile radius of my parents' house. Many phone calls later I learn that no one by the name of Doris Pinkowitz has been admitted in the past forty-eight hours to any of them.

While I'm sitting at my computer, I decide to go over the syllabus for the new course I'll be teaching this spring: American Women's Contemporary Fiction from 1970 to 1999. The reading list still has some holes in it. I can't decide which book of Toni Morrison's to teach, Sula or Song of Solomon, and there isn't time for both. I wander over to my bookcase where the well-worn novels are leaning against each other on the middle shelf like two old friends. Was it Colette or Virginia Woolf who said that reading a novel before noon was her favorite guilty pleasure? I can't remember. My favorite guilty pleasure is sitting on the couch in my study reading a novel before noon on a weekday in my bathrobe with a large cup of hot chocolate steaming at my side. I indulge myself and it works: after only fifteen minutes I am so involved with Sula and her problems that when the telephone does ring, I almost don't bother answering it. But then with a jolt I remember my own problems and jump up to get the phone.

"Lydia, it's Dad."

"Dad, what's happening? Where are you? Is Mom all right? Why didn't you leave me your number so I could call you back? I was so worried, I didn't sleep all night."

"Lydia, calm down. C'mon now. Your mother is fine. I told you so on the message. And you know if you want to reach me, all you have to do is call the office. They always know where I am."

Oh right, the office. How could I forget? My father's secretary knows his whereabouts but his own daughter doesn't have a clue. And whose fault is that, the little voice in my head named guilt asks. To shut her up, I continue blasting my father as I pace around my study. "Dad, why did you wait so long to call me this morning?"

"Lydia, please. I'm doing the best I can here. And besides, it's barely eight o'clock."

"Eight o'clock?" I stop in my tracks and glance at the clock on the wall which reads two minutes past eleven. Am I dreaming? Or in a time warp? "Dad," I ask, "where are you?"

"We're in Los Angeles," my father answers.

"Los Angeles?" I keep repeating my father's words like a deranged parrot. "What are you doing in Los Angeles?"

"We were on an Elderhostel trip, Lydia. I told you we were going."

"No, you didn't." Has my father forgotten we have not spoken to each other in eight months?

"Sure I did. It's the trip Selma and Harry Appelbaum took last year, remember? They couldn't stop raving about it. Every day they give you a different program: Jewish history, Jewish theatre, Jewish literature, Jewish art...I must have told you about it."

"No, Dad, you didn't tell me about it."

"Lydia, I'm sure I told you. You must have forgotten."

"I didn't forget. You didn't tell me. Never mind." I can't believe we've been on the phone for less than two minutes and already I'm arguing with him. I collapse onto the couch and lean forward, holding my head in my hand. "Dad, just tell me what's going on."

"Your mother caught something."

My father says this casually, as if he and my mother were on a fishing boat and she hooked a bluefish or a flounder. I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn't so I ask, "Dad, what did she catch?"

He sighs as though he isn't sure whether or not it's a good idea to tell me. "Some type of respiratory thing," he finally says. "You know how these trips are. You're with a bunch of alterc.o.c.kers all day long, on the bus, off the bus, everyone coughing, sneezing, spreading their germs around like wildfire. But don't worry, Lydia, the doctors say she's going to make a full recovery. There's nothing to get excited about. Your mother's going to be fine."

"Can I talk to her?"

"We're not at the hospital right now. We're at the hotel."

"Who's we?"

"Jack is with me. Hold on, I'll get him for you."

My head snaps up. "Dad, wait. I don't want to-" But my father has already put down the receiver and gone in search of the last person on earth I feel like talking to right at the moment. Or at any moment.

"Lydia." The way Jack says my name I can tell he's as pleased to be speaking with me as I am to be speaking with him.

"Jack." I answer in kind. He says nothing until I ask the obvious. "What's going on with my mother?"

"Well, for starters, she's in intensive care-"

"What?" I shriek. "I thought my father said she was fine."

"Sure she is, Lydia. As fine as anyone who had to be carried out of a lecture about Jews and musical theatre called 'Give My Regards to Tevye' in front of two hundred and fifty people and rushed to the emergency room-"

"What?" I shriek again. "They had to carry her out of a lecture?"

"Relax, Lydia. It was the best place it could have happened. An auditorium full of Jews, are you kidding? Uncle Max said when he stood up and yelled, 'Is there a doctor in the house?' about ninety-seven people rushed over to help."

"Oh my G.o.d." I can't believe what I'm hearing. "Jack, please tell me-" My voice breaks with sobs that have risen unbidden from my throat and I can't form another word. I cover the mouthpiece of the phone with my hand while I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down.

"I told you we shouldn't have called her," Jack says, presumably to my father. "Lydia, try to keep the hysterics to a minimum, okay? We've got enough to worry about here."

I want to reach my hands through the telephone wires across three thousand miles, wind his greasy white ponytail around his neck several times, and strangle him with it, I really do. But he has important information that I am desperate to find out, so I force myself to remain civil. It's a huge effort. "Jack," I ask in a shaky voice, "can you please tell me exactly what happened? Starting from the beginning?"

Jack lets out a deep sigh to let me know I couldn't be imposing on him more if I were asking him to fly to the moon and back merely by flapping his short, hairy arms. Nevertheless, he's a decent guy, so he'll be kind enough to fill me in. "Lydia, our parents-"

"Whoa." I'm on my feet pacing around the room again. This is too much. When did they become our parents? "h.e.l.lo, they're my parents, Jack, remember? They're your uncle and aunt."

"Oh excuse me, Professor Pinkowitz. I forget how fussy you always get about using just the right word."

"Speaking of the right word, it's Dr. Pinkowitz," I inform him, knowing but not caring that I am being an a.s.shole.

"Whatever." I can practically see Jack rolling his beady little eyes. "Well anyway, Lydia, they're my parents, too. My G.o.dparents. In case you've forgotten, let me refresh your memory: my mother is dead and my father the schmuck is AWOL and has been since I was a teenager. Aunt Doris and Uncle Max are the only family I have."

"They're still not your parents," I say stubbornly.

"Lydia, they think of me as their son."

"Says who?" I can't quite believe we're having this long overdue discussion now of all times, but apparently we are.

"Lydia." Every time Jack says my name he utters the three syllables with a new degree of exaggerated patience, as if the longer this conversation continues, the stupider I get. "Do I have to spell it out for you?"

"Yes, Jack, I guess you do."

"Who did they call when they really needed someone? Not their darling daughter, that's for sure." Jack pauses to let his words sink in. "In case you haven't noticed," he continues, his voice triumphant, "they didn't call you. They called me."

Tears sting the corners of my eyes, and I wipe them away with the sleeve of my bathrobe. Jack knows he just delivered a knockout punch, but I refuse to go down without a fight.

"First of all, it's whom, " I say, unable to stop myself. " Whom did they call. Not who . And second of all, they probably called you because you're so familiar with L.A.," I add, even though my words sound lame, even to me. "You know, because you work in the industry ." I emphasize the irritating phrase my cousin is always throwing in my face.

"Lydia, I haven't worked in Hollywood for a long time. I'm based in New York, remember? And besides, we're not exactly sightseeing here."

"Well, I don't care. They're still not your parents. They're mine," I declare like a two-year-old who has just s.n.a.t.c.hed a box of crayons back from a thieving playmate. I can't believe the words that are coming out of my mouth-me, the champion of chosen families who has actually delivered a paper on the subject ent.i.tled "Creating Families in Creative Ways." I'm eating my words and they're making me sick to my stomach. And to top it all off, I still don't know what's happened to my own flesh and blood.

"Jack, I'm sorry," I say even though I'm not. But I know if Jack gets any madder, he will simply hang up the phone. "Can you just tell me what's happened to her?"

"I accept your apology," Jack says, his voice smug. "Wait, Uncle Max is telling me something. Hold on."

If he were really your parent, you'd call him Dad, not Uncle Max, I think, further proving Jack's point-I am always making a big fuss about using the correct word. Or words. As if in a case like this it really matters.

Jack takes his time coming back to the phone; I know he is enjoying this new power he has over me and wants to milk it for all it's worth by withholding information for as long as he possibly can. I lie back against the couch exhausted, pull a section of hair forward, and examine it strand by strand, searching for split ends.

"We have to go in a minute." Jack's voice reappears, jarring me away from my old habit. "Visiting hours start at eight o'clock, and we want to get over there and grab a quick breakfast in the cafeteria before we go up to see her."

"Jack, I still don't know what's going on. You haven't told me anything and all my father will say is she's going to be fine. Can I get some more information, please? Like, is there a name for what she has?"

"Bronchitis." Jack throws me a bone.

"Oh." I sit forward and breathe a bit easier. "That's not so bad."

"It is on top of her emphysema."

"She has emphysema? Since when?"

"Since who knows when? She smokes like a chimney, Lydia. Or I should say smoked."

"She stopped smoking?" This is the most shocking news I've ever heard in my entire life. Jack might as well have told me that my mother grew another head or just ran the New York Marathon.

"She quit a few months ago. When she broke her arm. It was too much trouble to light her cigarettes. You know how she is, Lydia." Jack finally acknowledges that I am somewhat familiar with my own mother. "When her mind is made up, her mind is made up. So that's what happened. She quit cold turkey. Just like that."

"Wait a minute. My mother broke her arm?" I keep repeating Jack's words back to him, hoping that by doing so I'll be better able to absorb them. "When did she break her arm? Why didn't anybody call me? What happened?"

"She fell. Her arm's fine now. That's the least of her problems," Jack says curtly.

"Jack." I am gripping the phone so hard, my hand is beginning to cramp. "Why didn't you call me when my mother broke her arm?"

"Because Aunt Doris told me not to. She said she didn't want to bother you."

"Bother me?" I collapse against the back of the sofa again, stunned. "She really said she didn't want to bother me?" Closing my eyes, I swallow hard. "What about my father?" I ask, grasping at straws. "He didn't want you to call me either?"

"Nope," Jack says, not masking the triumph in his voice. "In fact, Uncle Max specifically told me not to call."

"And if he told you to jump off the Empire State Building you'd do that, too?" I leap to my feet, furious again. "Jack, can't you think for yourself for once in your life?"

"Lydia, I'm a trustworthy guy. I work in the industry, remember? People tell me all kinds of things in confidence and that means my trap stays shut. I have never, in my entire life, broken anybody's trust and I don't intend to start doing so now. Especially for you. Uncle Max told me not to call you when your mother broke her arm so I didn't call you when your mother broke her arm. Case closed."

"Jack." I force his name between clenched teeth. "I am not one of your f.u.c.king clients, okay? I'm your..." I pause, searching for the right word. "...relative."

"Lydia, I can see that the only person you care about in this family is you. Oh poor, poor Lydia, she doesn't know what's going on, no one fills her in." Jack's voice drips with sarcasm and I imagine him raising his arms to imitate a violin player in a show of false sympathy. "Well, maybe if you cared a little more, you wouldn't be so left out of the loop. We could have used your help, believe me, when Aunt Doris broke her arm. Crystal was there almost every day cooking, cleaning up..."

"I'm sorry she had to go through that," I say to Jack, but I don't mean Crystal. I mean my mother. I'm sure she was less than thrilled to have Crystal taking over her kitchen. And G.o.d only knows what she served my parents for dinner-Cap'n Crunch cereal with 2% milk and a celery stick on the side?

"You know, Aunt Doris acted kind of strange when Crystal was there," Jack says, his tone of voice a tad less hostile.

"Strange? How so?"

"She acted like someone who knew she was dying."

"Dying? What do you mean?" The contents of my stomach lurch again and I sink back onto the couch.

"I mean one night Crystal came home wearing a mink coat, and this was some piece of fur, let me tell you. Even though the sleeves were too short and it was too big around, it didn't matter. She still looked like a million bucks in it. h.e.l.l, anybody would."

I silently marvel at the way Jack manages to compliment and insult his wife all at the same time.

"So," Jack continues, "I said to her, 'What's with the mink?' and she said, 'Aunt Doris gave it to me. She said it was the most beautiful thing she owned and she wanted me to have it.' Now, Lydia, doesn't that strike you as strange?"

"Very," I say, taking a deep gulp of air. I know that coat. I remember the day my father gave it to my mother; it was a present for their twentieth wedding anniversary. I was fifteen years old and had just become a staunch vegetarian, and it took everything I had not to squirt ketchup all over the gift that made my mother swoon with delight. Why was she giving away her most prized possession now? And to Crystal of all people? Not that I would ever wear a mink coat, which is something my mother knows. But still, if it was the most beautiful thing she owned, the thing she treasured most of all, why wouldn't she save it for me? Am I really such a horrible daughter?

"Yes, yes, yes," Jack says, as if to answer the question floating around my head. But he is talking to my father. "I'll be right there, Uncle Max. Listen, Lydia, I have to go."

"Can you please put my father back on the phone?"

"Mission impossible. Uncle Max has left the building."

"Jack-"

"Lydia, don't bust my chops, all right? I have to go."