While I'm Falling Part 23

My father nodded and sipped his coffee. "That's very funny, Elise. If you ever decide to go back to work, you could be a comedienne."

Looking at her face, you wouldn't think she had heard him. She leaned forward and tapped my knee. "Don't knit yourself any socks, sweetie. If you're going to be pregnant, you'll want to be barefoot, too."

He took another sip and gave her a weary look. "That's right," he said. "Laugh. Make fun of the guy who paid for college."

She brought Miles back down to her lap and bounced him a little, cooing soothing words. She was different than she'd been before the baby. She no longer had to have the last word with our father. They would fight the way they always had, and then, right in the middle of it, she would stop as if suddenly bored; and whenever she did this, there was often something in her expression, and the way she tilted her head, that made me think of our mother. Elise was picking up gestures and habits, maybe; she and my mother talked more often these days. Elise called her several times a week, asking what to do for a diaper rash, or a fever, or on a long, cold day with no distractions.

My father leaned forward, looking at Miles. "You need anything?" he asked. "Do you want me to get him a bottle?"

"He just had one. He's just fussy this morning. He was up three times last night." She looked at me. "Did you hear him?"

I shook my head. The guest room was on the first floor, and Miles's room was on the second.

"Huh," she said, shifting him to her other arm. "Neither you nor my husband. What heavy sleepers you both are."

Miles quieted, looking up at her face, one small hand pressed over his mouth as if trying to hide his awe. He had my mother's eyes, and he already smiled with just one side of his mouth, the exact way Charlie did. For a few minutes, we all stared at him, entranced, as if he were a fire in a fireplace.

"Susan should be here soon." My father walked around the tree and settled himself onto the couch, tugging at the turtleneck. He looked over his shoulder and pulled back the curtain from the window. He seemed nervous. He hadn't given Susan her present yet, but he'd shown it to us: a diamond engagement ring, beautifully cut. He had proposed to her before Thanksgiving; they planned to get married on a beach somewhere the first week they could both get off work.

My father had told me and Elise about their plans the day after Thanksgiving, when Susan wasn't around. He'd sat both of us down in his dining room, his face stern, his hands pressed flat against the gla.s.s table as if he were holding it down. He'd been defensive, ready for a fight. Neither of us gave him one. We both liked Susan. When he had chest pains the last week of October, it was Susan who made him go to an emergency room, where it was decided that he was not yet having the heart attack that he would soon have if he did not make some changes. It was Susan who made him take his medication, and it was Susan who actually got him to go to a yoga cla.s.s with her twice a week after work. Also, she laughed at his jokes. She listened attentively to the stories-the new ones as well as the old ones we had already heard too many times. Elise and I saw Susan as fresh troops, a whole new person who was not at all tired of him, who was ready to absorb his energy.

"I know it's only been a year," he said. "Or not quite a year," he added, seeing that Elise was about to correct him. "But I'm not a kid. And I want to be happy. I deserve to be happy, don't I?"

We were only quiet for a moment. "As much as anyone," Elise said, with a lilt in her voice that made her sound happy as she went to hug him. I hugged him as well, my congratulations sincere. I did want him to be happy, whether he deserved it or not. I ignored the nagging sadness that Elise did not seem to feel, and focused on the pulse of his heartbeat against the side of my face.

As soon as he left the room, whistling down the hallway, Elise's smile faded. She looked at her reflection in the gla.s.s table and tucked her hair behind her ears.

"There's an expression," she said, and I was surprised to see tears in her eyes. "Women mourn. Men replace." She laughed a little, meeting my gaze only for a moment. "You know? He hasn't even gotten a new dog yet."

My father tugged again on the turtleneck, squinting at the Christmas tree. "I'm going to take this off," he said. "I'm just going to tell Susan that I don't like them. Okay? She's going to have to deal with it." He reached down and yanked off the sweater, revealing a T-shirt with a credit card logo written in neon across the front. It was the kind of thing you got for free for filling out an application. "Otherwise I'll be getting turtlenecks for the rest of my life. I'm sorry if it'll hurt her feelings. Okay? If we get married, she'll have to know the truth."

Elise pointed Miles's rattle at him and nodded. My father stared at her grimly.

"Good plan," I said. I reached under the tree for his gift and handed it up to him. "While we're being honest about gifts, here's yours. It's a hat," I said. "I knit it."

He put his coffee mug on the carpet. "Thanks," he said, with no sarcasm at all. He unwrapped the hat and immediately stretched it over his head. The ball was definitely lopsided. He looked silly, but if he knew it, he didn't let on.

"Feels warm," he said. "I like it."

Elise nodded, eyebrows raised. "I think I like you more in that hat."

"Thanks." He looked at me. "So. How's the engineer?"

Now it was my turn to be annoyed. My father knew Tim's name by now. Tim had spent Thanksgiving break with us, staying with me at Elise's house and gamely eating Thanksgiving dinner with my father and then my mother so no one would have hurt feelings. My father took us out for Indian food. My mother had ordered pizza. They had both liked Tim very much, which did not surprise me. What did surprise me was that each of them had later asked if the other one had liked him as well.

"He's good," I said. "He's with his family. He just called, actually. He sends greetings from Illinois."

My father nodded, impatient. That wasn't what he wanted to know. "Is he getting offers?"

"Not yet." I focused on picking pieces of tinsel out of the carpet. Tim would start getting offers soon. He was going to a job fair in February, where he would interview with recruiters from all over the country. He would need to make a decision, and whatever he decided wouldn't have much to do with me. It couldn't. I didn't even know where I was headed for grad school. I still wouldn't know in February. "It's only for two years," Tim had said, though we both knew it might be longer. "And they have these things called airplanes." Still, we both knew the odds, and the potential Clydes and Clydettes in our future, or futures.

Elise looked up when the front door opened, a cool breeze rustling the ornaments and tinsel on the tree. Charlie appeared in the doorway, wearing a light jacket and running pants, his blond hair covered by the hat I'd knit him, his cheekbones glistening with sweat.

"How lucky am I?" he asked, still breathing hard. "Out of the office for two whole days, and the weather is downright balmy." He pointed back at the door. "It's already at least fifty degrees out there." He stopped walking and pointed both hands at his head. "Or maybe I just felt warm in my new amazing hat."

I liked Charlie. I always forgot that he was a lawyer, too. He was energetic and loud, but not combative like Elise and my father. He'd told me that when he was young, it had really never occurred to him that he would be anything other than a professional skateboarder. After his father died, he put himself through college waiting tables at a restaurant that specialized in children's birthday parties. He still knew the words, and the accompanying hand gestures, to the restaurant's theme song, and when he was a little tipsy, you could get him to sing them in English and also in Spanish.

"Good for you!" my father said. "Out for a run on Christmas morning!" He liked Charlie, too.

Charlie put his hands on his slim hips and peered over Elise's shoulder. "How's the show runner?" he asked.

"Fussy. He's been fussy all morning." She reached back to touch Charlie's cheek, and pulled her hand back quickly. "Yuck," she said, laughing a little. "Don't get sweat on the baby."

"I'll take a shower." He kissed her ear and stood. "And then I was going to run out for a bit. We're having brunch at eleven, right? And then we're going to your mother's? What time do I need to be back here?"

She turned around, looking up. I couldn't see her face. But he raised both his hands.

"On Christmas morning? Where do you have to go?"

"Why do I have to say?"

My father and I both stared at the twinkling tree, feigning sudden deafness. Two nights ago, after coming home from the Christmas party at Charlie's firm, he and Elise had gotten into an actual fight, loud enough for me to hear in the guest room. She said she wasn't going to his stupid parties anymore if everyone was going to treat her as if she weren't a person, as if there were nothing interesting about her at all. He said something to her that I couldn't hear, and she walked out of their bedroom, slamming the door behind her. He opened the door and said, "Elise, don't slam the door." She said she didn't slam it, and for a while, they argued about that. The next day, when Charlie came home from work, I watched the baby while they went on a walk together. When they came back, they were in a good mood, smiling and holding hands, their cheeks pink from the cold.

Charlie crouched on the floor, between Elise and the Christmas tree. "Okay, I admit it," he whispered. "I have to go buy presents."

There was another pause.

"What? I've been busy."

"You waited a little long for that. It's Christmas Day. Nothing will be open."

There was a longer pause. My father looked out the window and announced, maybe to me, that it really did look warm out, especially for December.

"Okay. Go. Fine." Miles gurgled from her lap. "But don't get me anything. I don't want a present from a gas station."

I agreed with my father, facing him. It did look warm outside!

"Elise. I have been very busy. You know that. Why are you giving me a hard time?"

"You could do gift cards." My father pointed at Charlie. "You can find them everywhere, even on a holiday. I've done gift cards for years. Saves time, and everybody likes them."

Charlie nodded, polite and quick, and turned his gaze back to Elise.

"Fine," she whispered. "But just so you know, I've been busy, too. I got about four hours of sleep last night, in case you don't remember. And now I have to prepare brunch for five people. While feeding a sixth. And I still haven't taken a shower. So I'll be a little busy, too."

I leaned forward. She did look tired, the skin beneath her eyes puffed up. "I can help," I said. "You were going to make French toast, right? I can do that. And I'll set the table. I'll tidy up."

They both looked at me. Charlie smiled. "I'll watch Miles when I get back." He smoothed his hand down the back of her hair. "You can take a nap."

My father waved his hand. "Don't worry about cooking for me and Susan. We're still not eating carbs. I brought some almonds. We'll just eat those."

Elise looked at him and said nothing.

"So you'll be okay?" Charlie asked. He was already standing up, but he would wait for her answer before he turned away. From all I knew of him, I believed he would have waited even if my father and I hadn't been there.

She nodded, looking down at Miles, who was peaceful now, happy. Charlie leaned over to kiss the top of her head before he turned and bounded up the stairs.

The dorm was locked up for winter break, of course. When we first saw my mother on the other side of the gla.s.s front door, she mouthed for us to wait, holding up a chain with maybe fifteen keys on it. She slid the biggest key into the lock and, using both hands, turned it until we heard a click. I was the one carrying the bag of presents, but as soon as she pulled the door open, she leaned out and nuzzled Miles, who was wearing a Santa hat and riding face-forward in a carrier strapped to Charlie's chest.

"Welcome to the crypt," she said in her croaky voice, the one she'd used when we were little, when she read us stories about goblins and witches. She was wearing slippers and a bathrobe, and her hair was still wet from the shower.

When we got inside, Elise looked around with a wrinkled nose and clutched a bottle of wine close to her coat. "It is a little spooky in here." She peered past the unmanned front desk into the big lobby, which was only lit by two flickering exit signs. All of the heavy mauve curtains were pulled shut.

"Are you the only one here? In the whole building?"

"I hope I am." My mother tossed the key ring in the air and caught it in both hands. When she saw our anxious faces, she laughed. "It's fine. It's only weird when I have to come in at night. Once I'm in my apartment, it's okay. It feels the same as when the kids are here."

I smiled to myself, looking around. Even an a.s.sistant hall director was not supposed to call the residents in her dorm "kids." She'd been at summer training with me, and she, too, had been strongly encouraged by Student Housing to refer to the college students in her building only as men and women. She probably did call them men and women when she was working. She was every bit as conscientious about the job as Gordon Goodman had thought she would be when he'd advised her to apply for it. But now her guard was down, and the truth came out: in her mind, they were just kids.

"At least it's smaller than my building," I said. I still had on my hat and my coat. It was colder in the entry than it was outside. Apparently, they'd shut off the heat for break. "This one is only half as big, right?"

She nodded, fingering a rope of gold garland that lined the outer edge of the front desk. An easel sat next to the elevator, and the large sheet of paper clipped to it read "HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE HOLIDAY!" in my mother's neat and even handwriting.

"Just four hundred in this one." She smiled, putting the keys in the pocket of her robe. "And I'd say only seven of them regularly cause me trouble." She turned her attention to Charlie, putting her arm through his. "h.e.l.lo, handsome," she said.

"h.e.l.lo, Natalie." He looked down at her and smiled. At Thanksgiving, he'd called her "Mother Von Holten," and she'd told him never to do it again.

She looked at Miles and clicked her tongue. "Let's get the baby into my apartment. It's a lot warmer in there."

It was. She had a s.p.a.ce heater in her living room, and steam covered the bottom half of the big window. The air smelled spicy and good. A covered dish sat on a hot plate in the middle of the table, which was set for four with matching plates and napkins. Charlie walked over and lifted the lid of the dish to peek inside.

"Lasagna!" He used one of Miles's little hands to give a thumbs-up. I couldn't tell if my brother-in-law was really excited about the lasagna. Just three hours earlier, we'd had brunch with my father and Susan O'Dell. It was possible Charlie was hungry again. I wasn't. But my mother said she wanted to cook for us, so I'd come determined to eat.

"How'd you cook it?" He looked around. "You don't have an oven."

"There's a kitchen on the second floor." She nodded down at the wine Elise was still carrying. "I have a mini-fridge, however. So I'll take that." Elise gave her the bottle, and my mother looked at the label and smiled. "Ah," she said. "Very nice."

She'd gone to a lot of trouble; that was clear. In addition to traveling up and down a flight of stairs who knew how many times to cook the lasagna, she'd done some decorating. Her apartment always looked cozy, though it was really just two dorm rooms linked by a door in the wall between them. The only real difference between her apartment and any other room in the building, besides the extra s.p.a.ce, was that she had her own small bathroom. But in November, she'd gotten herself a nice twill couch that looked like something an adult would have, and she'd put up pretty curtains. I knew the table on which the lasagna sat was just a folding card table she'd found on sale at a drugstore, but today she'd covered it with red fabric that was maybe not meant to be a tablecloth, but looked good anyway. White Christmas lights blinked around her potted ficus, and she'd hung mistletoe by the window. When Charlie accidentally walked under it, she jogged across the room and kissed his cheek, and then ducked to kiss Miles as well.

"Hey." I tapped on the edge of the big salad bowl, which was oddly curved, and painted a beautiful shade of green. "Is this what Gordon's daughter gave you?"

"Yes! Can you believe it?" She was squeezing Miles's dangling feet, making sure they were warm. "I only met her that one time she came to visit. I told her I liked what she did, what I'd seen in Gordon's office. And then she mailed that to me as soon as she got home. Wasn't that nice?"

Elise and I exchanged glances. When my mother wasn't looking, Charlie bobbed his eyebrows and grinned. I had told them both how often I'd seen my mother and Gordon Goodman eating together in the dining hall. Maybe they were just friends, comparing the horror stories and complaints that any two middle-aged people living among the young would have. I asked her about him once, and she'd brushed me off. She said she wasn't thinking of any of that right now. But I had my suspicions, or maybe just hope. Perhaps Gordon's daughter did, too.

"I'm going to hop into my room and get dressed," she said. "It'll take me a minute. Veronica, honey, would you turn on some music? My CD player is behind you on the sill."

She went into the other room, shutting the door behind her. I pushed the b.u.t.ton on her little plastic stereo. It was Christmas music, "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Miles, still suspended from his father's chest, started swinging his arms and legs. Charlie and I started to shimmy, too, trying to egg him on. But Elise seemed somber, staring at the table or, specifically, at the hot plate under the lasagna. She lifted the red fabric and, seeing the card table, pursed her lips.

"Don't say anything about the ring," she whispered. She looked at the s.p.a.ce heater and swallowed. "And definitely don't say anything about a wedding on a beach."

Charlie and I both nodded. There was no reason to bring up my father's engagement, at least not today. At the same time, I wasn't sure my mother would be as upset as Elise seemed to think she would be. News of a beach wedding might annoy her, given her current income, but I just didn't think that she would think about it for very long. Because of our strange circ.u.mstance, living and working so closely to one another, I got to see our mother in the day-today routine of her new life, and I knew more about it than Elise did. My mother and I were not chummy. We had decided that during the school year, we would keep our distance from each other, and live our respective lives. But I often saw her in the dining hall, though we didn't eat together. Sometimes she would set her tray diagonally across from whomever she found sitting alone, striking up conversation, just in case the alone person wanted to talk. Sometimes she sat with Gordon, and sometimes with another woman who was the a.s.sistant hall director from another dorm, who looked even older than my mother.

I don't mean to say that my mother looked particularly old. She only did in comparison to almost everyone around her, all of us needy and unknowingly needy kids. She was aware of her age, she said, the clock ticking all the time. She worried about retirement. She would get some money from my father, but not enough to live on indefinitely. She was unsure if she would be able to pull it off, starting again so late in the game. In another year, she would have a master's in counseling and residence life, and then she could be an actual director, and make a little more money, and still get free room and board. Still, she said, she would have to live simply. Saving for her seventies, she called it. She had to make up for lost time.

In some ways, however-to me, at least-almost from the day she started her new job, she looked younger than she had in some time. Or maybe she just seemed happier, now that so much of what she was good at was being put to efficient use. Early one morning in September, a freshman in her dorm had crawled out onto the ledge of the sixth floor, wrapped only in a blanket, shivering, and refused to come back inside. The police had been called, and an ambulance. But it was my mother, leaning out the window, who talked with him for almost an hour, and convinced him to come back in. I don't know what she said to him, or what he said to her. She wasn't allowed to give me the details, or his name, even after his parents arrived to take him home or wherever it was that he went to try to get better.

So maybe it wasn't that my mother seemed happier. It might be more accurate to say she seemed to have found her calling, or at least her second wind.

We exchanged gifts after dinner. Elise got our mother an ice blue cashmere scarf. She had told me in private that she hoped her gift would replace the "icky thing," meaning the cheap red scarf that she didn't know I had bought for our mother the previous winter. The new scarf did look better. My mother wrapped it around her neck and smiled at its softness, rubbing a knotted edge against her cheek.

"It's beautiful. Thank you." A moment later, she looked at me and winked. "I'll keep the old one, too, I think. You know. For around the house."

Charlie gave everybody gift cards, and apologies, and promises that he would get started on present-buying a little earlier next year. I, of course, gave my mother a hat, which she also put on right away, negating any sophistication that Elise's scarf had brought her. My mother gave Miles a teether shaped like a tractor. She gave Elise and Charlie coupons for several nights of babysitting, along with a little calendar for the coming year that showed when she did and didn't have to be in the dorm. I got the same little calendar, a plate of Christmas cookies, and a hand-sized white box with writing across the top: "THESE ARE COPIES. I AM NOT ACTUALLY GIVING IT TO YOU."

I opened the box and found a car key attached to a chain with a silver four-leaf clover.

"I wish I could give you the van," she said, wincing as if embarra.s.sed. "But I still need it from time to time. You can have it whenever I'm on duty. Just check my calendar. You don't even have to ask."

I clapped. I stood up and skipped around the table to hug her. I wanted her to understand that she shouldn't be embarra.s.sed, that it was a wonderful gift. She'd started letting me borrow the van from time to time, and even that had been great. But it would be even better to not have to ask, to just walk over to the parking lot of her dorm, with my own key, and go where I needed to go. My father had talked about getting me a car when I went away to grad school, but I wasn't sure he would go through with it. He occasionally still grumbled about Jimmy's car, about his insurance premiums going up.

"Thank you," I said, my face pressed into her new, soft scarf. "I'll be careful with it." I did not say it, but I thought: because I know it is the only thing, besides the couch because I know it is the only thing, besides the couch, that you own. that you own.

"Okay, good," she said, matter-of-fact. "I was worried you would think I was cheap." I stepped away, and she glanced at her watch. "Oh! It's almost three!" She cleared her throat and grinned. "I have a surprise," she said.

"Cherries flambe?" Elise, who was nursing Miles, her coat draped over her chest, pretended to look under the table. "Geez, Mom. I was impressed with the lasagna. Mine never tastes that good, and I don't need a key to get to our oven."

"It is as good," Charlie said, his voice neutral.

Elise waved him off and looked at my mother. "Back to dessert. What is it?"

My mother shook her head. "I didn't make dessert. But the surprise has to do with dessert." She looked at each of us, one at a time, as if she hoped that someone would guess. When it became clear that no one could, she relented with a sigh. "Mr. Wansing called me this morning."

Only Charlie looked blank. He'd come to the neighborhood pie party just once, two Christmases ago, the first he'd spent with our family, and the last before my parents' divorce.

"He's still alive?" Elise asked.