The Unfolding, page 26
“Reparations.”
He doesn’t answer. She picks up a box and shakes it. “What did you get me?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“You should. Christmas is not my holiday. I would be relieved to know what’s in the box.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t get anyone anything.”
“I got something for everyone.”
“You always were very generous.”
“Just because you are going through this doesn’t mean everything has to be shit. Every minute of every day can’t be excruciating,” he says.
“You’d be surprised,” she says, and there’s another long pause. “You know what’s been interesting?”
“What?”
“I’ve learned to live with less. In the old days I couldn’t have done it. But this time I did. No special mattress, no good pillow, everything at the facility was designed to be wiped off and reused. There was nothing personal, nothing pretty, nothing nice in any way. And the food was terrible, flavorless and heavy, as if it were made for an army. I had to learn to let it all go, to accept that I’m not special, that if I don’t sleep with my special pillow I would survive. It was very difficult. I could have pitched a fit. I could have said that I need this for my soul, like when you need things not for your comfort but for your spirit, but I decided not to. At first, I accepted the situation as a kind of self-punishment. I told myself that I deserve to be uncomfortable. I was so mad at myself, at you, at them. And then I moved from being angry to thinking, Fine, I will tough it out; I will show them that I’m not so fragile, that I don’t think I’m so special. If I die, so what? I started looking around and noticed that no one was complaining about their pillow or their blanket and that no one else needed fruit that wasn’t as hard as a rock. I realized that they either didn’t notice or didn’t care, but most important, it seemed easier that way, and I wished I could be like that. I wished it could be easier for me. I practiced just accepting what is. Years ago, I would have thought they were fools for not knowing there was a better version available, and now I realize they’re not stupid; they’re sparing themselves the disappointment, the pain of longing, of desire. They’re not obsessed by perfection. Everything doesn’t need to be perfect. That’s why this is all too much.” She gestures toward all he has done. “It’s perfect.”
“Thank you,” he says. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“But it doesn’t need to be perfect, perfection equals pressure.”
“You could just enjoy it. And decide to feel no pressure. You could just accept that I tried to do something nice for you.”
“If I could do that, I would be a different person. You see, it’s all still a work in progress.” She laughs.
He feels thoroughly confused.
They sit for a while. A beam of sunlight cuts through the glass and moves slowly across the living-room floor, using the Christmas tree like the gnomon of a sundial.
“What time is it?”
“Almost three fifteen,” he says.
“I think I’ll go for a walk.”
“Now? Meghan will be here soon.”
“Yes,” she says, preparing to go. “I trust you can hold down the fort.”
“I can.”
She slides the glass doors open and takes off across the patio, past the pool, and toward the ninth hole of the golf course.
Not long after she leaves, Meghan arrives.
“How’s my big girl?” the Big Guy says, greeting her with a strong hug.
“Good,” she says, hugging back. She inhales deeply. “The house smells like Christmas.”
“It’s a candle.”
“I always associate that smell with the ranch in winter.”
“Rigaud cypress,” he says, carrying her bags into her room.
“Wow. The house is so decorated.”
“Nice, right?”
“It’s Christmas inside out. It’s snowy and there are icicles inside, and outside there’s the desert and palm trees. I like it. It’s wild, with all the white and silver and everything crusted with make-believe snow.”
“They call it flocked.”
“So good,” she says.
“The guy who installed it kept saying he thought Palm Springs was perfect for flocking, and honestly, I thought he was talking about the other F-word.” He laughs. “Apologies for the crudeness but I thought it was very funny. He just kept saying flocking and finally I had to ask.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“She went out for a walk.”
“Before I got home?”
“Just a little while ago. She’s anxious.”
“Should I go look for her?”
“Absolutely. She left a few minutes ago and was headed toward the ninth hole.”
Meghan cuts across the patio in the same direction as Charlotte. A few minutes later, she’s back, looking distressed.
“Did you find her?”
“I saw her . . .”
“And?”
“I hope she didn’t see me.”
The Big Guy is bewildered.
A pause. “She was, uh, uh . . .”
“What?”
“Smoking pot.”
“What?”
“I saw her smoking something skinny and white, and it had the unmistakable scent of a dead skunk. I’m a teenager; I’ve been to parties; I know what marijuana smells like.”
“That makes no sense. Number one, your mother doesn’t smoke, and number two, she’s living in a sober house. It must have been someone else.”
“She was wearing yoga clothes and a pink baseball cap.”
“Jesus. The fun never ends.”
They hear the sound of the screen door scraping open.
“Smell her,” Meghan whispers.
“I’m back,” Charlotte calls out. “Is she home?”
“She’s home,” Meghan says, coming out to greet Charlotte. “I’m so glad to see you.” Meghan goes to hug Charlotte, who is thin, as flat as a board, and doesn’t so much hug back as brace herself. The image in Meghan’s mind is that her mother is crispy like a saltine. “Are you doing okay?” Meghan asks.
“Truthfully, I have no idea,” Charlotte says, going into the kitchen to pour herself some water.
“Do you want me to get that for you?” the Big Guy says, following her and trying to sniff her without being obvious.
“Why are you following me?”
“I was just being solicitous,” he says, backing off. “Meghan, how about you? A drink?”
“Sure,” Meghan says. “Travel is so dehydrating. I don’t really understand how people do it as a career.”
“Some people don’t have as many choices,” Charlotte says, coming back with a club soda and lime. “It used to be a way to meet a man with a good job.”
“I think it’s unhealthy to be up there where the air is bad, going back and forth, and having to deal with drunk people.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“Uh, sorry,” Meghan says.
“I’m not drunk,” Charlotte says. “I stopped drinking. And I was certainly never drunk on an airplane.”
Neither the Big Guy nor Meghan says anything.
“You look very thin,” Meghan finally says to her mother.
“Thank you,” Charlotte says, because there is nothing else to say.
“It’s been a while,” her father says to Meghan.
“Not so long,” Meghan says. “November fifth until now is seven weeks.”
“Well, it’s felt like a long stretch.”
“What did you do for Thanksgiving?” Charlotte asks. “Where’d you go? I didn’t hear anything about it.”
“Tony took me to someone’s house in Georgetown. It was fine but I kept thinking how much I missed our Thanksgivings. I love going to those old hotels and how decorated and festive it is. Remember the stuffing in those individual pewter pans, the bread pudding, and that crazy peanut pie?”
“Pecan pie,” the Big Guy says.
“It always felt like a party at some grand old house in England.”
“There is no Thanksgiving in England,” Charlotte says. “Thanksgiving is about the Pilgrims who escaped from England.”
“I didn’t mean Thanksgiving in the literal sense but the feeling of a grand party.” What Meghan doesn’t tell them is how much of Thanksgiving Day she spent alone thinking about the murdered girl from her school and how she wrote letters to the girl’s parents.
“Do you remember whose house you went to?”
She shakes her head. “Peggy somebody. I had a funny encounter. I was sitting next to a very nice woman who told me all kinds of things about how her father was a preacher and a football coach, and how she had been a Democrat until she was twenty-eight and then became a Republican. It was so interesting.”
“What was the funny part?” Charlotte asks.
“After we left, Tony asked what I thought of her. I said that she was very nice and Tony said, ‘She’s the secretary of state.’ ‘What state?’ I asked. ‘The United States,’ he said.”
“Seriously?” Charlotte says.
“Uh, yep. Tony didn’t want to tell me ahead of time in case I froze up.”
“Condi Rice?” the Big Guy asks.
“That’s the one.”
“It was also funny because the man sitting on the other side of me told me that there were Secret Service agents in the house and I didn’t understand why. One of them stayed in the kitchen the whole time. I thought he was helping the cook.”
“Making sure the cook didn’t poison anyone,” the Big Guy says.
“Exactly,” Meghan says. “Thanksgiving in Georgetown. The secretary of state, a couple of people from the TV news, one guy out on a special weekend pass from prison, and a bunch of kooks.” She wants to say something about meeting William but is distracted by the tension in the room. She pauses.
The three of them are sitting in the living room; the beam of sunlight has crossed the living-room floor entirely; and the autotimer on the Christmas tree has activated, and the lights are twinkling.
“Can I ask a question?” Meghan says. “Is something wrong?”
No one answers.
“Do you have cancer?” she asks Charlotte.
Charlotte looks stricken; that’s the last thing that would have occurred to her.
“It’s been a difficult time,” the Big Guy says.
“I brought your mugs,” Meghan says, handing Charlotte a box. “The annual painted pottery mugs. This year I did an Americana political theme on them.”
“Lovely,” Charlotte says. “Perfect for tea.”
“You certainly haven’t lost your wits,” the Big Guy says to his wife. “Political theme, tea . . .”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I gave up caffeine along with the liquor.”
“Oh.”
“It’s hard to know where to begin,” Charlotte says. “There is something I need to tell you.”
“Now?” the Big Guy asks. “Right now?”
“I can’t breathe until I do it,” she says.
“What?” Meghan says. “Do what?”
“Let the cat out of the bag,” the Big Guy mumbles.
“Before you were born,” Charlotte says, “we had a baby.”
“I have a sibling?” Meghan asks excitedly.
“The baby had problems,” the Big Guy adds.
“Is the baby coming home? Is he like in a wheelchair or something?”
“We did everything we could. Medical technology was different from what it is today,” her father says.
“How long ago?”
“Twenty-one years.”
“The baby was a boy,” Charlotte says. “When the baby was born, we were told not to bring him home, that he was too ill, but I wasn’t about to leave my child behind. We brought the baby home and cared for it for a very long time.”
“The baby didn’t grow or develop. It just kept getting sicker and sicker despite everything we did,” the Big Guy says.
“The baby died,” Charlotte says. “That’s what happened.”
“That’s awful. Such a sad story,” Meghan says. “But why are you telling me now?”
“Because we need to,” Charlotte says. “You need to know. I need you to know.”
“There’s more,” the Big Guy says.
Meghan looks baffled.
“I’m not your biological mother,” Charlotte says.
“Like I’m adopted?”
“No.”
“Donor egg?”
Charlotte shakes her head no.
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t give birth to you.”
“Does that mean you’re not my mother?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte says.
“Of course she is your mother and I am your father. Maybe we could have handled this better, but we did the best we could, the best we knew how.”
“Daddy is your daddy but I am not your mother.”
“It’s my fault,” the Big Guy says. “The onus is on me.”
“What are you talking about?” Meghan cries. “Why are you saying this?”
“Because I can’t live with the secret any longer,” Charlotte says.
“You’ve known all along?” Meghan asks.
Both Charlotte and the Big Guy are a little startled.
“Well, of course I’ve known. I would have known if I’d given birth to you, wouldn’t I?”
“I heard some people forget that it’s so awful, that after it’s over all memory of it goes away, which is why people keep having children,” Meghan says.
“I didn’t give birth to you.”
“Well then, where did I come from?” She starts to cry. “I don’t understand.”
“On some level you do,” Charlotte says.
When Meghan finds out that her mother is not her mother, she vomits into her own mouth without warning. She swallows. The hot bile burns in both directions. There is a pause. A blank. Then she vomits again, the contents of her stomach, her soul, emptying onto the gray terrazzo floor.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
She has to stop the impulse to get down on her knees, shove the vomit back in her mouth, and eat it. She knows that her parents don’t like a mess.
“I’ll get some paper towels,” her father says.
“I’m sorry,” Meghan says again.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have told you,” the Big Guy says.
“That wasn’t an option,” Charlotte says. She is sitting in the living room doing breathing exercises. If Meghan hadn’t vomited, she would have.
Covered in hot, sour, pink vomit going cold, Meghan runs into the bathroom. She takes off her sweater and throws it in the garbage. She looks at herself in the mirror.
“Can I come in?” her father asks.
“No,” she says. “No. I don’t know who you are. Whose house is this? Where am I? Where did my family go?”
“We’re right here,” he says through the door.
“Oh my god, I am losing my mind. I’m losing my mind. I just came home for Christmas. All I wanted was a normal vacation. It’s so messed up. I thought my life was one way. I thought I was a certain kind of person with a certain kind of a family, and it turns out none of it is true.”
“Some of it is true,” he says. “You are who you know yourself to be.”
There’s the sound of crying, nose blowing, sniffling. “Is this why we don’t visit Mom’s family?”
“No,” Charlotte calls out from the living room. Both Meghan and the Big Guy are surprised she can hear what they’re talking about. “The problem with my family is unrelated.”
“They’re Texans,” the Big Guy says. “Not easy folks.”
“Well, who else knows?” Meghan asks.
“No one knows.”
“Tony?”
“Yes, Tony knows.”
“Great. No one knows but someone knows. You cheated on Mom. That’s disgusting.”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“I’m sure that’s why she drinks. That’s the big news that she wanted me to know? You replaced a dead kid with one you had with a hooker.”
“Not a hooker.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Look, Meghan, I don’t know how to have this conversation, neither does your mother. We’re not people who deal in the business of emotions. None of this is your fault.”
“Of course it’s not my fault,” she says. “I would never have done these things.”
“None of it has anything to do with you except it’s at the core of what your mother has been dealing with all these years; she’s been sitting with these very difficult feelings.”
“You say it’s not my fault and that it has nothing to do with me, but it’s about me. It’s about where I came from. My creation. Somewhere out there is a lady who is actually my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Is that another surprise I should prepare myself for? Is she in the garage waiting to meet me?”
“All your mother ever wanted was children. She had a terrible time with the baby. We should have told you long ago, but we didn’t want to burden you with all that had come before. We wanted you to have a good life. I hope this helps you understand how she’s been overprotective at times and distant at times. It’s my mistake for not telling you sooner.”
In the living room, Charlotte, who can hear everything he’s saying, has started to cry.
“Do you even know who my real mother is?”
“I certainly do.”
“Does she know that I know?”
“No,” he says. “I’ve not spoken with her in many years.”
“You’re going to have to now,” Meghan says.
The Big Guy says nothing. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d have to call her, but Meghan’s right.
