Story 12: Deirdre, in Xeriscape: A Cake of Her Own

Sometimes when I give parties I like to stand on the stairs and watch the people who’ve come to my house. For a moment I feel honored and remind myself to call them or write them thank-you notes the next day, but then, I have to be honest, I eavesdrop a little and see who needs what. For me, a party is a chance to take care of people. Everyone else may be relaxing and catching up with friends, but the hostess is the one who makes that possible. No time to relax for me.

A little bit about my apartment now. When Jodi first told me she wasn’t going to live with me, two years ago this spring, I was devastated. I was so mad I couldn’t go look for my own apartment. And then one summer night at dinner, when I was complaining to my parents, my father pointed out to me that Jodi was my best friend. Actually, he said, “Jodi loves you more than anyone else.” I was startled that he had even noticed, though she has been my friend since before we were in two digits. My mother just stared at her food after he said that. We eat at eight because they’re doctors and they work late at the same hospital. After dinner I went out and sat on my bench in the yard. When I got cold enough, I came inside, said goodnight to my parents, and went upstairs. At midnight, I was still thinking. What if he meant, “Jodi loves you more than anyone else loves you”? The next day, I rented this apartment, even though it was a two-bedroom, and got a roommate by the time school started. Natalie and Debbie could barely conceal their amazement. Once I was moved in, I didn’t mind talking to Jodi anymore. And my roommate is a graduate student in philosophy. That’s so sophisticated.

This is a small party for Natalie’s twenty-first birthday. She’s the oldest of our group. Yes, I am part of this group, and it was my turn to have a party. Debbie is here, of course, sitting on one side of Josh on my roommate’s ratty couch. She wouldn’t let me buy a new one. “I want to contribute,” she told me. On the other side of Josh—Jodi. They’ve been friends since the beginning of freshman year. One time, they were lovers. One time, Josh and I slept together, but I still don’t feel I’ve had love. Jodi gets up and goes to the keg, followed by Josh’s beautiful blue eyes. I wish mine were his color. I come down the stairs and sit beside him, waiting until he stops staring after Jodi and notices me.

“Here we all are, still friends,” he shouts near my ear, over the music.

“Does that surprise you?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve seen so many people come and go, but we’re still hangin’.”

It’s true. Things shift among us, but no one has split off yet. Then he stands up and shouts: “A toast!”

Nobody notices ’cause the music is so loud. He shouts “Toast! Toast! Toast!” until everyone hears him. Becky lifts up the needle on the turntable. The Police are still singing somewhere, I suppose, but we can’t hear them.

“Toast,” he says, quietly. All seven of us crowd into the living room, between the couch and the entertainment center and my rocking chair. It’s cozy. “To Natalie, who is the only adult in this group and will have to set an example for all of us.”

We laugh, and then he continues: “I want to tell you how I met her. I was standing in line outside the UMC waiting to buy a poster, and I saw her in front of me in line. All I could see was her profile. She had the unhappiest profile I had ever seen. I said to myself, “‘I’ve got to make that girl smile!’ So I went and said hi.”

“You just wanted to move up in line,” Becky says, and everyone laughs. We all know what an operator Josh is. And he’s shameless. He doesn’t even care.

“That’s how we met. We bought our posters and sat by the fountain and talked. And then Jodi walked by, and I introduced myself to her too. That’s how this group began.”

“Good thing you were there to gather us all in, like a hen herding a flock of chicks,” Jodi says mockingly.

He smiles at her. Then he looks at Debbie. “Your turn.”

Natalie and Debbie laugh their superfriend laugh. “Eighth-grade science class,” Debbie recalls. “Frogs in formaldehyde!”

“Yeah!” Natalie shouts, gesturing with a stirrer as if she wanted to dissect something. They’re both really drunk, and I guess they don’t get Absolut too often because they’re drinking all of mine. My parents let me take whatever liquor I want. I wonder if there’s a shot left for me, but getting it right now would be rude. Now Josh is prompting me.

“I met Natalie in government class,” I tell him, smiling at both of them. If Josh had never seen Jodi at the fountain and introduced her to Natalie, would Jodi and I be roommates now? At least I wouldn’t have lowered her opinion of me by sleeping with him.

“And I met Natalie through you guys. I don’t remember when,” my roommate Robin adds. Thank you, I think. Not everybody has to worship at their shrine.

Becky is last, and as usual she brings us down to a serious level. “Natalie saved me from a racist frat boy at a party,” she says, sounding world-weary. When she says such things I always secretly wonder if I’ve ever thought as that frat boy did. Or acted. I hope not. And then there was the odd way she said the word saved. There is less of a silence than sometimes follows Becky’s pronouncements. Natalie gets some shot glasses and the bottle of Absolut and pours everyone a glass. We down them. Then she asks Robin, “Hey, can you put your stereo out on the porch so we can go out and dance on the lawn? It is just so crowded and hot in here.”

My apartment is the one closest to Goss, so at least we won’t be blasting music past people in my building. After Natalie pours me a couple more shots, I don’t worry about it anymore. We’re dancing to the Talking Heads; some people walking down Goss even joined in for a while, though they were kind of gross. I hate dreadlocks, especially on pasty-faced Boulder hippies. Or Mohawks, for that matter. You should be able to get a comb through your hair, and if your hair is standing straight up, it should be because it grows that way.

So we dance off some of the alcohol, and then Natalie starts her favorite game: truth or dare. I don’t know why she likes it so much. She asks me if I’m in love with Josh, I guess because it was just too interesting to her that I sat down next to him. I am, but I won’t admit it to her. While I say no Jodi stares at me, which just exasperates me further: she doesn’t love Josh, but apparently nobody else can either. Josh stands there staring at his beer bottle. When it’s my turn, I try to embarrass Natalie.

“Have you ever been pregnant?”

She glares at me. I’m pleased that I’ve hit a nerve. The silence grows really uncomfortable, and finally I say, “You have to answer!”

She says, really sarcastically, “Ye-ah!”

“Really? When?”

Jodi looks at me. I say, “I can ask a follow-up question.”

“It’s Josh’s turn,” Debbie says.

We go around and around, Natalie trying to upset me, but nothing she asks gets under my skin. Then my favorite song comes on: “Over My Head” by Fleetwood Mac. Every time that song comes on, I can’t help myself. I have to dance, and I do, away from these people who may or may not be my friends and into the street. The music is really loud. Even when I dance down the street to the corner, I can still hear it. I’m so into it that I don’t stop dancing and open my eyes until the music stops, and then I discover I’m standing in front of a cop car and since I’ve been flipping my skirt around, I’ve probably flashed the cop. Luckily, the officer is female. She gets out of the car and surveys me and my friends. She gestures that we should walk back to the group, so I do.

“We received a noise complaint,” she says. Big surprise. Then she asks for our driver’s licenses, which we have to go back to the house to get. Becky turns off the music. Of course, only Natalie is old enough to drink. The cop stands there in the doorway to the kitchen, surveying the bottles on the counter and the cakes covering the table.

“Do you want some cake?” I ask, pointing. “This one’s mine.”

She stares at me while Natalie and Debbie snicker. Then she pours out my Absolut and the rest of the bottles but doesn’t look any further.

“Keep the music down,” she says as she leaves. “And don’t take open containers outside.”

I pretend I don’t feel stupid. This is my house, after all. I can offer cake to whomever I please. I get myself a piece of cake, made especially for me by Natalie’s aunt, and sit down to listen to the rest of the Fleetwood Mac album. Debbie and Natalie try to smirk it up, but cake wins. Everyone has a piece of their very own cake, and then we sample each other’s. That’s how the party ends, quietly, with everyone eating. Becky told me later that on her way home she saw that cop again, accosting some frat boys. Maybe she was on her way back to check on us and bothered them instead.

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This Title

I thought "The Price of Silence" was so cool when I picked it for a title. Didn't bother to research it; just settled on it. In fact, I may have had it in mind from the beginning--I can't remember now.

When I searched for it on the Internet, I found out how popular it was. There are several books with that title, a movie from 1959, and even a movie from 1916 with Lon Chaney. A band called Discharge has a song by that name.

But in the early part of this millennium (Isn't it so cool that we can say that?) I was thinking about how Natalie didn't make any efforts to use birth control on that night she got pregnant. That's the most obvious meaning of the title. But it could also refer to her reaction to her rape, or the way she concealed both rape and pregnancy from her family, only revealing them well after they occurred.

In an even broader sense, "silence" encapsulates the way Ashley and Natalie deal with problems in their lives (when Ashley learns of Natalie's abortion, she doesn't tell her parents, saying to her sister, "It would only cause problems"), and silence is the opposite of the strategies Teddy, Natalie's father, uses when confronted with something he doesn't like. In fact, as a professor, he can't afford silence--he has to talk to eat.

Anyway, I could go on, but I think I'm over the title now. I think I'd like to change it to "The Northern End of My Heart," which doesn't seem to be popular on Google. And it's a line from the title story. I've always liked happening upon the title of a book, buried in a paragraph somewhere. It's like a little secret.


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Story 11: Birthday Cakes

My niece came over one afternoon on Christmas break of her junior year in college, a warm day for January. Sometimes when Natalie’s back in Kansas City for the summer or Christmas, she just shows up. I figured she wanted to talk about the party for her twenty-first birthday in February. She was having two: one with her family and one the next night with her friends, both in Boulder. I had promised to drive to Boulder a few days beforehand and make her the best cake a girl ever had for a party. I hadn’t told her that I planned to make special individual cakes for her friends, based on what she’d said about them over the years and what they’d said to me whenever I saw them. They were all turning twenty-one this year. But she didn’t say anything about cakes or birthdays, just dithered around for a while, then turned to me and raised her chin to me, the way she does sometimes—she got that from her mother. Whenever my sister has finally reached her limit with a person, which takes her about twice as long as it does anyone else, she raises her chin just that way and tells that person to stop. It always works. I try to get her to do this more often, but she never takes my advice. So up came that chin, my sister’s bones imprinted on a twenty-year-old, and she said plaintively, “Aunt Jennie? There’s something I need to tell you.”

Anyone could tell from that tone that something big and hairy was coming down the road. I got us both a coke and sat down at the round table in my kitchen, where walls, ceiling, furniture, and appliances are shades of light blue or cream. A room so open and airy that every morning when I come down here to have breakfast, drink coffee, and read the paper, I swear that I could just fly out like the birds in the trees beyond the windows. I made her sit down with me. It’s good to be close when you say important things.

“What is it, honey?”

She twisted her fingers around each other for a while. “Two years ago about this time, I had an abortion.” She didn’t look at me.

The room didn’t seem so airy anymore. It had imploded and filled with all sorts of dangerous edges. And I felt immediately guilty, as if my life had somehow moved the two of us toward this moment. Was it because everyone thinks I’m the wild one? Was that why Natalie told me, instead of her mother?

“Michael got you pregnant?” I asked and then berated myself. I didn’t know why I phrased it that way. Despite how fast I’d kept moving all my life, my old-fashioned upbringing could still catch up to me.

But she was nodding. “Yes.” She didn’t say anything for a minute, then took a deep breath.

“Did you tell him?”

“I told Debbie first.”

I was getting the picture here, and it wasn’t pretty. I had always prided myself on being honest with men, but Natalie obviously had different standards. I got up and paced around the room. I found myself at the refrigerator, took out the potato salad, and ate from the bowl.

She straightened up and caught my stare. “I did eventually tell Michael,” she said.

“That’s good,” I told her. I tried to think of the correct thing to say at this juncture, but then Natalie started looking at me expectantly, and I thought to myself, Oh, no. She wants me to tell Ashley.

“I want to get this out in the open, Aunt Jennie,” she said. “I want to tell Mom and Dad; I just don’t know how.”

I stared at her. “The same way you’ve told me, I guess.”

“No.” She turned pale. “I can’t tell Mom all by myself.”

She had a point. My big sister Ashley had been bounded all her life by desires for what she couldn’t have, the principal desire being for a large family, wild and loud. The complete opposite of our family and something I decided against when I was in my twenties—when I was young enough to think that relationships might last long enough to raise a child but old enough to understand the difficulty women in my family had in conceiving.

All my knowledge of Ashley warned me against telling her myself. She’d be terribly wounded that Natalie, her only child, had told me first. But another part of me felt flattered that Natalie had come to me first, and that part of me wanted to make this situation a success.

“Let me think about it,” I told Natalie. “Then I’ll give you a call.”

She sat there for a while afterward, drinking her coke, but I felt desperate to be alone. Finally I sent her on her way. She walked out to her car in a daze. I hoped the traffic was light for her drive home. Why did she want to tell us this? I would never have dreamed of telling my parents, but that was another time, when abortion was illegal. After I sat in the kitchen and ate all the potato salad, I got up and checked the orders I’d brought home from my bakery last night. I began to bake some cupcakes. Then I made three braids of bread from the dough that had been rising since that morning. It felt good to mix things and twist them and pound them down until they were a manageable size. In the middle of all this, Mom called with a question about the party. All Natalie’s grandparents were going to be there; Mom had forgotten where we were all staying, and a friend of hers in Boulder wanted to know. I told her we were staying at Gold Hill Inn and having the party there, since in February it might be troublesome to drive from Boulder to the party and back on account of snow. Talking to her gave me an idea.

I thought it best that Natalie air this issue before the party, so that she could use that occasion to smooth over any hurt feelings. I called Ashley and told her that Natalie and I needed to discuss something with her, something important. She said two days from now would be best. Then I called Natalie and told her that I had talked to Ashley and that the three of us would meet in two days. She agreed, not that she had any choice.

**

I’ve always loved triangles. My favorite cakes have been shaped that way, and I always like my relationships triangular too. Especially with men. If I have someone waiting in the wings, it helps to keep my main man on his toes until he makes his inevitable exit. So when Natalie and Ashley and I were sitting in my living room two days later—each of us in one chair, each by herself—I knew I could make this explanation go smoothly. It was just a matter of playing my sister off my niece.

Natalie eyed me as if she wanted to protest. Or bolt.

Ashley said, “You two have a very mysterious air about you. What did you want to tell me?”

“It’s about Natalie,” I told her. She glanced at her daughter.

“About your party?”

“No, Mom,” Natalie said.

“Natalie has something to tell you that’s really hard to say,” I said. “She asked for my help.” I tried to keep too much pride out of my voice.

“Two years ago…” Natalie began. Then her voice caught.

“Yes?” Ashley said.

Natalie coughed a little. “I had an abortion.”

There, the words were out. And so was my sister. She leapt up and advanced toward Natalie, saying, “You were pregnant and you didn’t tell me?”

At first Natalie shrank back into her chair. Then she stared up at her mother, tears in her eyes. “I was afraid to.”

That comment stopped Ashley. She began to cry too. Soon there was a regular tearfest drowning my living room—three women with cutesy names crying their eyes out. I knew I would feel disgusted with myself later, but I could never resist crying when everyone else was doing it.

Finally I got up and fetched Kleenex and some mint cookies. Ashley sat on the floor by Natalie’s chair, eating cookies and asking her questions. I returned to my chair, maintaining the triangle, but congratulating myself that I had brought them closer.

“Was it Michael’s?” Ashley asked. I already knew the answer, but I had no intention of volunteering any more information. It was Natalie’s show now. I would stay in the background.

“Yes,” Natalie said.

“He would have helped you,” Ashley said. “He would have been a good father. Why didn’t you keep it?”

Natalie shifted impatiently. “I didn’t want to marry him,” she said softly. Then more firmly: “I won’t have a child with a man I don’t want to marry.” From the tone in her voice, I knew she wasn’t just talking about Michael. In saying those words, Natalie had just exorcised the family demon of infertility. She had just as much as said to her mother, “Unlike you, I can get pregnant whenever I want to.” She knew she had more choices than her mother, and she intended to use them any way she saw fit. For a moment, I felt jealous.

Ashley persisted. “One of us could have taken care of the baby.”

I couldn’t see the point of this discussion, since we were talking about events two years in the past, so I tried to steer my sister in another direction. “Natalie always talks about having children,” I told Ashley. “She wasn’t ready. And how could it work anyway, for one of us to take the baby? A child can’t just be passed around.”

Ashley glared at me, even while she was nibbling at one of my mint cookies. I wanted to shove it right down her throat, make her swallow something whole, gorge herself for once. But she wasn’t willing to move on from this subject. She turned back to Natalie. “Just for a few years. Until you were settled enough to make a home for a child.”

“No,” Natalie said. I silently cheered her on. “Nobody but me will raise my children.”

My living room fell silent for a moment, and I noticed most of the cookies were gone. Had I eaten that many? I was mentally searching my refrigerator for another snack, when Ashley changed the subject, asking Natalie, “When you found out you were pregnant, why didn’t you tell us then?”

Natalie stared ahead blindly, searching for an answer to that question but finding none. I’d never been able to explain my own silences; why should a college girl do any better? Finally, she said, “I knew how much you wanted a big family, Mom. I was afraid of that.”

“I did,” Ashley said. “I wanted to have four children, maybe more. But then I got cervical cancer and had to have a hysterectomy.”

I could tell, watching Natalie’s face, that my sister’s grief had become my niece’s guilt. Myself, I thought it was time for Ashley to leave that grief behind. But then, I had chosen not to have children—her choice had been made for her.

Ashley continued, “What you mean by ‘afraid’ is, you were afraid we’d make the decision for you.”

Natalie nodded, a look of relief on her face. “Growing up,” she said, “I heard so often how women in my family had a difficult time getting pregnant. Being pregnant in college was hard enough—I didn’t want to take on family history too.”

Ashley combed her auburn hair back with her fingers, something she did when she couldn’t immediately think of an answer. Unconsciously, Natalie did the same thing. Again, I felt envious, but I wasn’t sure of what: of having a daughter that might as well be your mirror image, except that she had her father’s hair color? Or of the inability to escape family when they’re your children?

“Just one more thing,” Ashley said, glancing at me and then back at her daughter. “You went to Jennie in this case. Not to me or your father. Why?”

All of a sudden, my triangle fell apart. I had been excluded, by my own sister. I wanted Ashley to pay for that remark about telling me first; I wanted Natalie to come down hard on her. But of course she didn’t. Natalie tried to put everything back together. “I wanted to ask her advice,” she told her mother. “She’s known you longer than I have, after all.” She smiled at me.

“Promise me,” Ashley said, putting her hand on Natalie’s, “that you’ll come to us for help in the future.”

“Of course,” Natalie said. I was secretly pleased that she had avoided the word “promise.”

**

Picture two sets of grandparents, two parents, and an aunt, all surrounding Natalie, standing in front of the fire. She was saying that this would be the cold spell for the year, and she was having a hard time getting through it. Outside, it was snowing again. I hoped that next time I went outside I wouldn’t see mysterious tracks in the snow. They were smaller than my hand, so they couldn’t have been left by a mountain lion, right? Or so I assured myself. My sister and our parents gave one toast, and then Teddy and his parents stood up to perform theirs. Ceremonies like this always made me sad. My parents never threw us parties, but Ashley and Teddy were insistent to a fault about them. I think Natalie was enjoying the occasion.

Teddy mentioned that Natalie had never had a sweet sixteen party because they had had to go to his uncle Theo’s funeral, but “she never complained.” I stood there, drink hoisted, thinking of those, like me, who didn’t get more than one present on any birthday and who had complained, vociferously. My parents told me they held back to build our characters. I’d always thought they were cheap. Only later in life had I met people whose families couldn’t afford any presents at all. I should have gained more perspective from them, but I still had regrets. Oh well. I could always throw a humdinger of a birthday party for myself when I turned fifty.

My mother spoke of how Natalie reminded her of her mother. I could see that. My grandma was a character, always saying the silliest, funniest things. I could listen to her for hours. She loved to make fun of human foibles. Sometimes people in our family seem to alternate through the generations: Grandma, sweet and tolerant, Mom and Dad, restrictive and quick to judge.

Then Dad took his turn. Not much of a talker, he simply held up his large wine glass and said to Natalie, “You’re an adult in the family now. Here’s to family far and near, close and scattered, the family that was, the family that is, and the family you’ll have.” He said it with such resonance that we all cheered.

But later, after I had served everyone a piece of Natalie’s cake, I wondered if Ashley had told him. I caught her eye across the room, and she picked up her empty plate and came over to the cake table, where I was standing, debating whether to have seconds then or wait until someone else did first. Ashley closed her hand over mine, the one holding the cake knife.

“Feeling a little sentimental?” I asked her.

“No, grateful,” she said. “To you.”

I frowned at her.

“I was so angry at first,” she confessed. “It felt like things kept getting taken away.” She took some Kleenex out of her pocket and wiped her face. “First I had a hysterectomy. Then I had to leave my family because of my husband’s job. Then my daughter didn’t even tell me when she got pregnant.”

“If you had gotten pregnant in college, would you have told our parents?” I asked her.

She considered that. “Mom told me she had friends who had abortions. I might have.”

“But friends having abortions—that’s different from your own daughter,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ashley said, lifting my hand, cake knife and all, and cutting a piece of cake. Then she lifted the plate and popped a piece of cake in her mouth, eyeing me.

“I didn’t tell Mom or Dad,” she said. “I didn’t see why they needed to know.”

“I didn’t think you would,” I told her.

She raised her eyebrows. “Why say something that might cause trouble?”

I laughed at her. “You’re asking me? You know I like to cause trouble.”

“I didn’t get that impression last month,” she said.

Just then I realized how much I wanted her to apologize for thinking me unfit to be her daughter’s confidante. I turned away and helped myself to seconds too. I figured if I cried into the cake, she might not notice.

“Thank you,” Ashley said.

“For the cake?” I asked her.

“For being there when Natalie told me. It stopped me from saying things I’d be regretting now.”

It wasn’t really an apology. But then, Ashley was seldom direct.

“I’m your sister,” I said simply. “I know what you need.”

She nodded and rejoined the group by the fire.

I put down my plate and tidied up the table, admiring the small cakes that I had made for Debbie, Deirdre, Josh, Jodi, and Becky. All Natalie’s friends with whom I’d spent many an afternoon when I visited Boulder. Sometimes I showed up without calling first, just to give Natalie a dose of her own medicine. She never minded. I had put all my heart into making those cakes. I’d mixed Debbie’s cake extra rich because I’ve had friends like her, but then they’ve moved away and we’ve let the distance matter. Deirdre’s cake had a pattern like grass and flowers in a meadow and some aspen leaves. She was always going on about plants. I covered Josh’s with faces made of marzipan; they were all talking to each other. That man could charm anyone. If only I were younger … Becky’s was shaped like a fedora because she was wearing a hat every time I saw her, and Jodi got a cat face. She might not be a cat person, but she always struck me that way. And then my niece. Who was my only niece by blood and would have been my favorite even if she weren’t. I dotted Natalie’s pale yellow cake with white flowers. Hovering over them, hummingbirds and moths and bumblebees, all in shimmering shades of silver or green. Everyone could have a piece with a flower and a pollinator. Whether they got the point or not, I don’t know. It was my way of saying that there are many ways to be fertile. I knew Natalie had always wanted children. I just wanted her to remember what I could make.


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Story 10: The Gathering

Ashley was watching Lydia’s intense conversation with her husband when both of them turned toward her. Ashley retreated into the long, narrow kitchen and wiped her face on the inside of one of the cupboards, then hoped her tears wouldn’t spot the glasses.

“If the punch bowl were a drain,” Lydia said drily as she came into the kitchen, “our in-laws would be going down it.”

Another fencing move by Lydia. What to do when your sister-in-law always drew back after just a touch but wouldn’t let you leave the field? Ashley waited. Sometimes she ferreted out Lydia’s motives so that she could laugh at them, but it was Christmastime, and her mother would no doubt say at least once before the day itself: “Let’s all be nice to each other.” But could they comfort each other? Lydia was waiting too.

Ashley decided to begin a conversation that had been weighing on her for months. “There’s something I’m afraid of,” she told her sister-in-law.

Lydia leaned against the counter, her suit and pumps and hair all the same shade of black. “What’s that?”

“That we’ll start to go our separate ways now that Tom is gone.” Lydia frowned, and for a moment Ashley’s stomach knotted, but she kept talking. “He just seemed to have radar. He could tell when people were about to fight. I used to watch him when we were in college. He could always smooth things over.”

“No one in this family fights,” Lydia pointed out.

“I suppose you’re right,” Ashley said. “When one person in this family gets angry, all the others go off on tangents or bring up the past instead of sticking to the issue. Teddy says that’s why nothing gets resolved.”

“Oh, Teddy,” Lydia shot back. “God knows how long resolving Teddy would take.”

They laughed, but Ashley could sense an undercurrent of anger in Lydia’s voice. “If we do drift apart,” Lydia said, taking a small black leather notebook out of her jacket pocket, “it won’t be because of fights.” She handed the book to Ashley, who opened it wonderingly. It had Tom’s name on the first page and was dated more than twenty years ago.

“Think of it as my late husband’s last gift to you.” Lydia turned abruptly and strode out of the kitchen.

Ashley paged through the book, deciphering Tom’s scrawl about pre-med classes and college activities, especially anything that Teddy, Tom’s big brother, had been involved in. Then she came to a page that had her name on it. As she read, she began to cry again. She put the book down and sobbed softly, hoping no one in the living room would hear. Finally she wiped her face, hid the book in the placemats drawer, and left the kitchen in search of Lydia. She found her talking to Teddy again. The highlights in Lydia’s hair gleamed in the lights from the Christmas tree. When she smiled, all Ashley could see was dark red lipstick stretching. Maybe she’d had too much punch, but the bowl was still half full.

“Tom was the one driving the boat that day,” Lydia said. “That was the day Natalie learned to slalom.”

“That’s right,” Teddy laughed. “Nothing like a snake in the water to help you learn to stand up on a ski.”

“And then that night we roasted marshmallows in the fireplace, and you told ghost stories,” Lydia said. “Between the snakes and the ghosts, Natalie couldn’t sleep and came into our bedroom ’cause it was closer.”

“That’s right, she did. Do you remember, Ash?”

She nodded at his old nickname for her. The shadows the tree cast on the walls mesmerized her. She’d rented a sprayer and applied the orange peel texture when nobody else had wanted to, the first summer they’d spent here. The curtains were also her handiwork. Ashley could go through the house and remember the last few years by what she had sewn and reconstructed and hung on the walls. Everyone else in her family had markers outside, on a road or in a body of water. But she put hers inside, where they kept better.

Teddy kissed her. “You were swaying,” he said, looking at her quizzically. “Are you all right?”

“Just tired. I think I’ll go sit on the dock where it’s cooler.” She turned to Lydia. “Will you come with me?”

Lydia nodded. Teddy fetched their coats, and they went outside, through the porch where all the cousins, Natalie included, had squeezed in and around the glider. They didn’t notice them, too busy with their plans for Christmas break. “Will we have a white Christmas?” someone asked, the eternal Kansas City question, but when Ashley looked back she couldn’t tell who was speaking from the mass of red and gold and green sweaters and wool skirts and pants at the other end of the room. It was cold on the dock but quiet, with just a murmur of voices coming from the porch. Once she heard the glider squeak. She sat on the ladder and leaned against the railing, closing her eyes. Lydia sat down behind her, on a bench.

“It was just a kiss,” Ashley said. “That was all.”

**

A kiss. From Tom, one afternoon more than twenty years ago. Before she was engaged to Teddy, before she’d put anything on the walls in this house. She and Teddy had been about to graduate from the University of Missouri, in May in the heat of Columbia. Even now, only a matter of days before Christmas and years distant, the thought of Missouri heat could keep her warm.

Tom was only a freshman and Teddy’s little brother, but he knew more people than she did at school. People greeted him wherever he went. He was at Teddy’s apartment, helping her prepare for a graduation party. They were the entertainers. Teddy had gone out, talking about politics. She and Tom had made everything they could; no one would arrive for two hours. They were sitting on the apartment patio, on a scruffy couch that only students could love, and he said, “There’s something I want to ask you.”

“What?” she said, turning toward him.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her until she pushed him away so that she could breathe, but his hands still framed her face. She even stopped worrying about bugs in the couch.

“You seem to be immune to the heat,” he said, but his hands on her were not sweaty, just warm and soft. They smelled of avocado and bread. His eyes were a darker brown than Teddy’s, but his hair was lighter, and his face always looked a little hollow.

“It’s because I’m so pale,” she told him. One thing she admired about Teddy’s family was how they could stand in the sun for a moment or two and get a tan. Like flowers that absorbed sunlight and turned it into something colorful and full of life. She could never tolerate the sun for more than half an hour at a time.

“Perhaps,” he said, taking her hands and turning them this way and that to look at her skin.

“What did you want to know?”

He smiled a little ruefully. “Whether you think you’ve been with Teddy long enough.”

A question on the minds of everyone, apparently: she and Teddy, her friends, their parents—though the parents were considerably more subtle about it than the friends. And she and Teddy thought about it often, but they pretended that graduation was all that mattered.

She didn’t want to answer any of them, so she kissed him again, let him maneuver her closer, and stayed there for a while. Only when they stood up and he brushed couch fuzz off her dress did she feel sweat trickling down her back. People would be arriving soon.

“Let me know,” he said to her as they went inside.

And she had decided two weeks later, when Teddy asked her a question, she could never remember exactly what, and offered a ring. For a moment she had stood immobile at the Rose Garden fountain in Loose Park, but then she had begun to reach—for him and a lifetime of more than warmth and softness, for the energy he possessed. Once the ring was on, he tipped them both into the fountain, where they lay shrieking and laughing. Amazing, how many different ways there are to ask.

**

“Just one?” Lydia asked. Her voice was ragged.

Ashley opened her eyes and turned her head. It was so dark on the dock that Lydia’s red lipstick looked black, although her dangling earrings sparkled a little as she shivered.

“Yes, just that one afternoon.”

“You didn’t love him?”

“No,” Ashley said, “I did love him.”

“Then why did you marry Teddy?”

Why? Ashley asked herself now, with icy water lapping at her red holiday shoes, the brilliance of stars in the dark water. Why did I say yes to Teddy and not Tom?

“I think I must have been afraid of too much quiet,” she told Lydia. “Of being bored by comfort.”

For a moment she amused herself by switching lives, putting Lydia in her place. She began to giggle and wanted some more punch. Lydia could never have handled Teddy. He would have worn her out. She must be made of stronger stuff than anyone imagined because after two decades of marriage, he could still surprise her just by coming into a room. She must be as strong as the wall between the lake and the house.

“Tom’s not boring,” Lydia said.

“No, he wasn’t,” Ashley agreed. “But the two of us together—that would have been boring.”

Up at the house, the screen door banged, and shoes came scratching down the path.

Natalie and Lydia’s youngest daughter ventured onto the dock. “You two have been out here a while.”

“Just talking about Tom,” Ashley told them.

Natalie handed her a rum ball. “Don’t stay out here all night, Mom. It’s already below freezing.” Shivering, she raced back to the porch, calling, “She’s on the dock.”

Ashley didn’t know why that should be a revelation to anyone. They’d walked past the entire party to leave the house. After she’d spent the whole day preparing, couldn’t they allow her a little peace, a little conversation?

Lydia’s daughter held out her hand, and slowly Lydia took it and stood up. They walked up the path together. Ignoring them, Ashley turned back to the water.

She and Tom had talked about it at the engagement party his parents had thrown. Needing quiet then as she did now, she had escaped the party to sit outside for a moment, and he had followed her.

“I should have asked sooner,” he said.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Ashley told him.

He put his hand up to her face, and she didn’t move away. “But we’re so comfortable together.”

“Exactly,” she said. “No passion.”

“And you think Teddy can give you that?” he asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m certain of it.”

That conversation had never really ended. At parties, at family gatherings, they had relived their short moment in looks, in the way he almost kissed her on the mouth in front of their spouses, in the way she would stroke his arm sometimes in passing. Some days she had hoped Teddy or Lydia would notice, but no one had ever said anything. Until now.

When she finally opened the door to the porch, the cousins were still there, wanting to know what she had been thinking about so long. Sometimes the voices of children reminded her of Charlie Brown’s teacher, all sound and no sense. What did they think she could possibly tell them?

“It’s a secret,” she replied very seriously. They were all desperate for more of Tom, but she had nothing to add. “A deep, dark secret for a cold night.”

Her in-laws were sitting down in the living room, conversing in soft tones. She stood there in the doorway for a few seconds, listening to them weave the tapestry of reminiscence. It was nearly ten o’clock, and people began to stir and stretch. A yawn or two. She wanted them to stay longer, have a slumber party. She wanted the distraction of company, just not intense scrutiny. Ashley walked to the punch bowl, filled a glass full enough for her to get tipsy again, and tapped the crystal ladle against the bowl.

“It’s not over yet,” she said. “We haven’t watched The Grinch or A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“Is that a family tradition?” Lydia asked brightly, even though she was slumped down in the middle of the couch, next to Teddy. He looked up at Ashley and smiled.

“I think it should be,” he said and called out to the porch. “Kids! Come in here!” All the cousins slouched resentfully into the living room. From the lake, a welcome breeze blew in the sounds of branches scratching each other’s backs.

“What?”

“We’re going to watch Christmas shows,” Teddy informed them.

“You mean home movies?”

“No way, man, It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“Noooo, not that again!”

Teddy was a big, graceful man. Without bumping the many bodies heating up the living room, he got up and seated Ashley next to Lydia on the couch, smiling at both in turn. “If you’re tired,” he said to the younger ones, “we have pillows. You can sleep on the floor.” In a few minutes he returned with armfuls of pillows and blankets, and the cousins camped around Teddy on the floor. Natalie put in the tape of The Grinch that Ashley had recorded earlier that week.

The adults had their patterns, Ashley thought. No doubt Tom’s death would change things, but they wouldn’t notice except in those moments of revelation that were always immediately followed by dismissal. Or in the middle of the night when some fading noise awoke them while their partners and children slept hoarsely and seemed to whisper directions in their sleep.

When The Grinch was over, Natalie wanted to watch Charlie Brown, but Lydia’s youngest daughter voted for Frosty the Snowman. Teddy sat up between the girls and suggested sleep: “It’s late. We should all go to bed.”

“No way,” Ashley said, laughing. “We’re watching Charlie Brown, and you’re all sleeping over.” She stood up to get more punch.

“Aunt Lydia can sleep in my room,” Natalie suggested. “That way she won’t have to sleep in the single bed in the office.”

“The kids can sleep down here,” Teddy said quickly, glancing at Lydia. “All six of you on the floor.”

Lydia’s son muttered, “Whatever.”

“Just stay away from me,” his sister said. She had just turned fourteen.

Natalie said, “It’ll be cozy!”

“I want to sleep with you, Mommy,” Lydia’s youngest said. She sat down on her mother’s lap.

And so it went, everyone claiming a place. Ashley would have watched Charlie Brown ten times or more, but the cousins began to mock it during the first showing, so she and Teddy went upstairs. As she was taking off her jewelry, he stepped up behind her and enclosed her in his arms, throwing her off balance a little. The punch was still circulating in her blood, making her feel flushed.

“What were you and Lydia talking about for so long?”

“About Tom,” she said.

Teddy kissed the back of her neck. “She found out that he loved you.”

Ashley felt suddenly afraid. “What makes you think that?” she asked him.

“Because he told me,” he said, gently turning her to face him and kissing her for a long time. “He told me the night of the engagement party.”

She looked up at him with wonder. “You never mentioned it.”

Teddy shook his head. “Why should I? I knew you loved me more.”

“Yes,” Ashley said, feeling how that statement remained true after so many years.

“I’ll talk to Lydia again tomorrow,” he said.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Yes,” he said, “because I can tell her that she was the love of my brother’s life.” He smiled down at her. “And I don’t think he told me that later just to save face. He truly meant it. She inspired him.”

“And you inspire me,” she told him, pressing up against him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

Even though they made love well into the morning, Ashley awoke before dawn and climbed up to the attic, where she had put in stairs underneath the small hexagonal window. She could perch on the top stair and look out—the closest thing this house had to a window seat. A few ducks foraged around the edges of the lake, which was otherwise undisturbed. Ashley sat there and dreamed she was a sailor who had to reach harbor before the sun rose. Before the spirits that hovered where land met sea were burned up by the sun.

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The Abortion Conversation Project

When I read that this organization was founded in 2000 by the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, I thought, Hmmm. How much of a conversation can this site really spark with the pro-life folks?

But then I read this on the "Starting the Conversation" portion of the site:


3. "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING AND HOW ARE YOU SAYING IT?"
Is our own language polarizing and judgmental? Are we demonizing the anti-abortion side at the expense of understanding the issue? Are our words "battle bound" and warlike? For example: "Our side is under attack and we have to fight back." "Those anti's are crazy." The "abortion war" has impacted us all and keeps us in an us/them conflict-driven mode which obscures what abortion is really about. Taking responsibility for our own language is a first step to self-awareness on this issue.


I thought that was quite generous. And it really goes to the heart of what I wanted to accomplish with this site--getting away from language that gets people's backs up.

Here's another quote from the site that I liked. You can find the entire story here:


I've been particularly frustrated with the image of abortion providers in the past 10 years. We have been depicted as money-hungry, unethical, and murderous outcasts in the world of medicine. How could we expect the public to know who we really are when our antagonists the anti-abortion folks--were the only ones talking about us? The wrong people have been telling our story for too many years. And, because of very real security issues, most abortion providers have avoided high-profile situations in their communities. Ultimately the only people telling our stories were the people who disagree with us--or worse, actually hate us. I decided that part of my job is to speak up and speak out about our work in this honorable profession.


***

On another note, if you're looking for funding for an abortion, look here.

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Story 9: Deirdre, in Xeriscape: Two Groups

This is Christmas with my parents: several presents from each to each, always beautiful, always something that the receiver mentioned months ago and the giver remembered. Reminding me why they’re such good doctors. Long ago I decided not to be one, ’cause who could compete with these two?

This is the meal I help prepare and clean up, like a good only daughter: Cornish hens, twice-baked potatoes, sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows, crescent rolls, green beans with bits of bacon, key lime pie. It’s our favorite. This is the aftermath of our early dinner: a little music, maybe a collection of arias. Me, lying on the floor, looking up at my parents in their chairs, chatting about college and friends, watching them read the paper. Almost completely quiet, except for footsteps crunching in the snow.

But this year, I think of another night. Two weeks ago. I convinced Josh and Jodi and Natalie to come to Evergreen with me to look at the lights. Lots of people put up lights, of course, but I just think they’re prettier in Evergreen. And this way my friends get to see my house, which is very impressive.

Muffled from head to toe, one hand cold and the other burned by hot cider, we wandered around my neighborhood. It was a long walk because the houses are spread out on the side of a hill, with mine at the top. Natalie surged from me and Jodi, arm in arm, to Josh, like a pool ball trying to escape the rack. And about that brightly dressed too. She began bouncing up and down ahead of us, sputtering, and just then trees netted in turquoise lights appeared around a curve in the road, framing her. For the first and only time, Natalie reminded me of a poem: “She floated, a blue blossom, over the street.” Jodi and I stopped to take it all in.

Usually Natalie inspires other emotions in me than poetry. But Christmas of our junior year will bring Natalie this: family, in the Midwest. Probably no snow. This year, a period of mourning for her uncle. Here, my family is quiet and triangular, balanced just as our house balances on the ridge. There, warmth, loud voices competing, and a door open, a window ajar, a cool absence. At moments like these, something like affection for another only child, but not what you’d call the spirit of the season.

Note: The quote is from "Sappho," by James Wright.

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How forgetful of me

When I posted "Cradle" (Story 7) a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to find that I'd revised it--in fact, that I'd combined it with "Talks with Janie," the story that used to precede it. I had completely forgotten.

The genesis for the revision was a workshop I took with Viet Dinh at Lighthouse Writers in Denver. It was supposed to be an intermediate-level workshop and was, unlike most I've taken, almost all men. It was also one of the worst I've ever had, partly because of the instructor and partly because some of the people in it had no writing experience to speak of.

I'd wanted to workshop two stories together (Cradle and One Summer in Missouri) to see if they should be combined. But Viet didn't want to do that; he wanted to make sure each story "stood alone." Of course, that was the reason I wanted to workshop them at once, because I thought the first might just be background for the second and I wanted other writers to tell me if they agreed. So I was already pissed about that ...

Warning: Rant coming!

while I was sitting in my workshop listening to my characters getting called a "tramp" and a "cad." I don't believe I've ever heard anyone do that before, to me or anyone else. Viet then gives me his opinion of the story, which was helpful, and then runs to the bathroom to pee, so I didn't get a chance to ask questions. In the workshop for the next victim, Viet did something so weird I hardly know how to describe it. He said to the guy, "Angry face on," and then proceeded to critique his story. Then he said "Angry face off," and I truly believe he thought he had done something clever. It's a good thing he didn't do that to me; I would've gone ballistic. WTF!

But that wasn't even...

Warning: Rant keeps going!

the worst of it.

The next week, we workshopped a piece about a bunch of Vietnam vets going to prostitutes in Thailand, I think it was, and nobody called them tramps. I was too much of a wimp to do so, and none of the men in attendance commented about guys fucking women they'd just hired, even though one of the guys in the class thought there was something wrong with my female character sleeping with a new boyfriend after three weeks.

Whatever.

OK. The rant is over. I stayed in that workshop for 3 weeks, I think, and then gave up on feeling comfortable in it. Viet no longer teaches for Lighthouse, which I think is a good thing, because he obviously didn't read the memo on being positive (which has its own drawbacks, of course).

But I realized after reading the comments from that workshop that I had two stories in a row doing essentially the same thing, and they weren't the two stories I thought they were. Both "Talks with Janie" and "Cradle" had to do with Natalie letting go of the past and moving on, but they also had to do with her breaking silence in various ways. (So the title of the book's not subtle; what can I say?) I added Janie as a frame to "Cradle" and took out the long scene in an older version of "Cradle" in which Natalie and Chris meet. So now that meeting is only referenced in a later story; it never takes place on camera.

I like "Cradle" better now that it's been revised. I got to write about a real person in my life (a woman I met at Lake Tapawingo, which is a real place outside Kansas City). But she didn't really need her own story. She's more a kind of local color than even a minor character in her own right.

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