The Unfolding, page 27
“I feel like I’m in a nightmare, like this isn’t real. You’re not real. I want to be back in Virginia. I want to run away.”
“Take some deep breaths.”
In the background there is the sound of the glass doors sliding open. Charlotte steps outside.
“You should have just given me to strangers, to some poor family who didn’t already have a dead kid.”
“History is a funny thing,” he says. “This happened to both of us, to your mother and me. We had a sick child; that was something we did together. When the child died, we buried him and we each dealt with it differently.” This is the part that he’s been telling himself; this is the speech that he’s practiced in his head. “People are not the same; couples are not one person; parents are two separate people who feel things differently.”
“Whatever. I have the worst headache now,” Meghan says. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“There are some headache pills in the cabinet,” he says. “You’re probably dehydrated.”
There is the sound through the door of Meghan opening the cabinet and turning on the water.
“Where’s Mom now?”
“Out by the pool talking on the phone. Maybe she’s calling her sponsor.”
“She has a sponsor, like Nike or Lancôme?”
“No, like an antidrinking coach, a former drunk she calls for support.”
There’s another long pause.
“Does she hate us?” Meghan asks.
“Who?”
“Mom?”
“No.”
“If I were her, I would hate you. You did this.”
“I did.”
“To Mom and to me and to some other poor lady who had to give her baby away. I always thought you were a good guy, the great provider, and it turns out that you’re kind of a jerk.”
“That’s a nice word for it.”
Another long silence passes.
“Did you have a funeral?” Meghan asks.
He’s not sure what she’s asking. “For who?”
“For the baby.”
“No. Your mother didn’t want one. Everywhere we went after that happened, people just looked at her with such sad faces. That’s what started the social anxiety and maybe even the drinking. She stopped going out, couldn’t look at people, couldn’t bear the way they looked at her.”
Meghan opens the bathroom door. Her face is puffy and tear streaked. “While the shit’s hitting the fan,” she says, “I have to ask you something. Is William Tony’s boyfriend?”
“That’s a fair guess.”
“Why did no one ever tell me that Tony’s gay?”
The Big Guy says nothing.
“Do you know William?”
“We’ve met.”
“How long have they been together?”
“A few years. Tony used to go through a lot of boyfriends, but it seems he’s settling down.”
“Tony is over sixty. Why do you call them boyfriends?”
He doesn’t answer.
Charlotte comes back inside. “I had to buy a vowel.”
“What?” the Big Guy asks.
“I needed some advice.”
“Who did you call?” Meghan wants to know.
“A friend.”
There’s a pause.
“I have to go,” Charlotte says.
“Where?” the Big Guy asks.
“Back to where I came from.”
“Are you leaving me?” Meghan asks plaintively.
“I’m not leaving you,” Charlotte says. “I’m just going someplace safe.”
“I need you.”
“I need a moment,” Charlotte says.
“Mommy.”
“A moment.”
“Okay, I’m leaving too,” Meghan says.
“Where are you going?” the Big Guy asks.
“No idea. I just have to get out of here.”
“You’re both leaving?”
“For now,” Charlotte says.
“Can’t you stay here?” the Big Guy asks.
“It’s like a panic attack,” Meghan says. “I have to hurry. I have to go somewhere. Can you call me a cab?”
“We can go wherever you want,” the Big Guy says. “We don’t have to stay here. We can go to Aspen or Paris or Hawaii; we’re already halfway there.”
“No,” Meghan says. “I have to go outside.” Now it is her turn to slide the glass doors open and wander onto the golf course. Meghan has always prided herself on figuring things out on her own. But as her foot slips off the green and she slides into a sand trap, she cries out. She is stuck, trapped in Palm Springs, a living fossil. She pulls herself out of the sand and hurries back into the house. Charlotte is still there; she’s standing in the front hall, clutching her blue suitcase, waiting for her ride.
“We could all go to a meeting together,” the Big Guy suggests.
“I’m sure we will one day,” Charlotte says. “But not yet.”
“You’re both leaving me? What if I freak out?”
“Deal with it,” Charlotte says.
“The way you’re both acting is the reason why women have bad reputations,” the Big Guy says.
“Pardon?” Charlotte says.
“The female of the species is known for being erratic and flying off the handle.”
Both women stare at him.
“What? It’s true. You don’t think that people think women are difficult?”
“When you say people,” Charlotte says, “you don’t mean people, you mean men. Men find women difficult.”
“Yes,” the Big Guy says.
“That’s because women are different from men and men expect them to be the same. Women don’t expect as much from men; they know better,” Charlotte says.
“Women are smarter,” Meghan says.
“Now you’re ganging up on me?” he asks in disbelief.
“Were you smoking pot outside?” Meghan asks Charlotte.
Charlotte says nothing.
“I saw you and I smelled it.”
“Are you going to tell on me?” Charlotte wants to know.
There’s a pause.
“No, I’m not going to tell on you. But given what you’ve been through with the drinking, it seems odd that you’re smoking pot. And besides, it’s illegal.”
Another pause.
“I find it very difficult to be here,” Charlotte says. “It’s not you personally—it’s the situation. You are terrific,” she says to Meghan. “I couldn’t ask for more.”
“Where’d you get the dope?” the Big Guy asks.
“It won’t happen again,” Charlotte says. Outside, a horn beeps.
Charlotte picks up her bag. “Till soon,” she says as she leaves.
“I feel really weird,” Meghan says.
“Don’t,” the Big Guy says. “Your mother is going through something. It has nothing to do with you.”
“She just told me she’s not my mother; I feel like that definitely has something to do with me.”
“The fact of it is about you. The rest is about her.”
“Can you call me a cab and have them take me somewhere?”
“When you call a cab, they want to know where you’re going.”
“Into town.”
“Where?”
“Where did Mom’s ride take her?”
“Betty Ford? The sober house?”
“Denny’s,” she says.
“I could drive you there. We could have breakfast for dinner.”
“I need to be alone.”
He calls her the cab and waits with her in the driveway. “You know that we’re old for parents. You may have noticed, most of your friends’ parents are much younger.”
Meghan nods.
“We love you very much. There are just some things that are part of a marriage that are very hard to talk about.”
“Are you sure she doesn’t hate us? I’ve never heard her talk like that.”
“Like what? With feeling?”
“With anger.”
“We had lives before we got married.”
“I know Mom almost married some guy named Chet, but you convinced her to call it off.”
“His name was Chip and Papa Willard hated him so I was brought in. Your mother was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. She was spectacular, in full possession of herself.”
“Except she’s apparently not my mother.”
“There’s a sound in your voice.”
“My feelings,” Meghan says.
The cab pulls into the driveway.
“Do you need money?” the Big Guy asks, taking out his wallet.
“No,” she says. “You throw money at people as if it fixes things.”
“It fixes nothing but sometimes it makes things easier.”
“I’m not okay,” Meghan says. “I know I seem sort of okay, like I’m talking coherently, but I’m not. I have no idea what to do with this. Everything I thought I knew is now a fake. I’m applying to colleges as what, the illegitimate replacement baby?”
With that, she gets into the cab. As they drive toward town, she tries to chat with the driver. He’s nothing like Mr. Tooth. She’s upset; tears and snot keep leaking out of her despite her efforts to suck it all back in.
“Hey,” the driver says. “You seem sad.”
“I am,” she says. “Thanks for noticing.”
“Hey, maybe we could do something about it.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I have some friends and we could party or something?”
She doesn’t say anything. Just looks out the window.
“Does that sound good, partying?”
She feels uncomfortable. It’s dark now. She doesn’t know Palm Springs. “In theory,” she says. “But I have to be at Denny’s. I’m meeting a few friends there.”
“We could all party, the more the merrier,” the driver says, looking at her in the rearview mirror.
“No. We made this plan a long time ago. We go to Denny’s, then we go to church. We’re really into church.” She starts to sing. “Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light . . .” Singing not only helps her feel less panicky but she’s breathing more deeply. It’s her favorite song.
“No problem,” he says. “Church. That’s cool. I respect that.” His eyes are back on the road. At Denny’s she thinks of giving him a big tip for not kidnapping her but worries he might take it the wrong way, so she gives him an extra dollar. “Thanks,” he says. “By the way, you have an excellent voice. You shouldn’t party—it might wreck it.”
She goes into Denny’s and orders hot tea and a blueberry muffin. She hasn’t eaten since breakfast unless you count the pack of pretzels on the plane. Two days ago she was singing in the Christmas concert at school, the voices of one hundred girls lifting her—“westward leading, still proceeding”—she hums the song over the steaming cup of tea and starts to cry.
The waitress comes over and asks if she needs anything, and Meghan manages to stop the waterworks. “No. I’m okay,” she lies.
“Do you need help?”
Meghan nods.
“Are you pregnant?”
She shakes her head no.
“In an abusive relationship?”
Again Meghan shakes her head no.
“Struggling with a substance?”
She shakes her head no again. “I want to go to a meeting. How do I find a meeting?”
“Oh, honey, it’s a rough time of year. Hold on. I know who to ask; the guy in the kitchen knows where all the meetings are.”
In a few minutes the waitress comes back with an address scribbled on a napkin and a map of how to walk there from Denny’s.
“Be careful on the corners; the cars really can’t see you at night, so wait until you have the Walk sign. Then if they hit you, they at least have to pay to repair you.”
“Thank you.” Meghan leaves Denny’s and walks to the meeting. It’s in an empty store in a strip mall. All the windows have been covered with paper and For Rent signs. When she opens the door, the bell jingles and people turn their heads and look back at her. It’s crowded. She takes a seat on a folding chair.
“First time?” the guy sitting next to her asks.
She nods.
“This one is AA/NA, mostly people who have been around for a while. You don’t have to talk; you can just listen.”
She nods.
“Welcome,” the guy says.
“Thanks.”
The stories she hears are harrowing; one man talks about how he lit a crack pipe and ended up in the burn unit. A woman details living on the streets with her two cats. It’s entirely heartbreaking. Meghan sits there thinking that she’s an asshole for thinking she has problems. Her life is so different from these people’s and that’s on purpose. Maybe her mother sent her to boarding school to free her or to protect her from all of this. Meghan doesn’t even remember how the idea of going away to school came up except that it seemed like her parents wanted the freedom to move around, to travel at will. It was around the time she went through puberty. She remembers her mother trying to have the “talk” with her and how excruciating it was. Maybe that was part of it; men were starting to look at her differently. She saw it; her mother saw it. Meghan thinks about this past week at school. The seniors had tea with the headmistress and the board of directors. The girls all wore twinsets, barrettes, and skirts, and had their hair combed back. Each girl was presented with a single strand of pearls—the school tradition. The girls joked behind her back that the headmistress was still wearing her hair in the same style as when she’d graduated from a similar school about fifty years earlier. Now Meghan’s sitting in an AA/NA meeting, fingering the strand of pearls around her neck, thinking that maybe her mother doesn’t really hate her. Maybe her mother wanted something for her that she didn’t have for herself. Autonomy. Freedom. Maybe Charlotte wants Meghan to go into the world on her own terms, as an independent person not beholden to a marriage or a man.
The meeting ends, and even though she hasn’t said a word, she feels better. Outside, it’s cold. In the parking lot she spots a taxi with its light on. She goes to the driver’s window.
“Are you available?”
“Were you just in the meeting?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Where are you going?”
She tells him the address.
“I can take you,” he says. “No problem.”
She gets into the car; the vinyl seat is cold, which makes her realize that he was also in the meeting. He’s blasting the heat; the car warms up fast, and he’s got nice classical music playing on the radio. He puts on his indicator light, makes a right turn out of the parking lot, and all seems good. She’s so spaced-out, looking at the city at night, the flickering lights along the way, that they’re halfway home before she notices he didn’t put the meter on.
“The meter?” she asks.
“I can’t charge you.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Really, I can’t. It’s just my thing. I’ll drive anyone to or from a meeting.”
“That’s very nice,” she says. “But I can afford to pay you.”
He shakes his head. “It’s something I have to do. I can’t make amends to everyone I hurt. I don’t live near them now. So I do what I can for others. That’s my way forward.”
“But you have to make a living.”
“I do,” he says. “But not from taking people to and from meetings, that’s like chasing ambulances.”
“That’s admirable.”
“I wouldn’t go there. I used to be a bartender; my drinking put me out of work. Then I was a drug dealer and that put me in jail. I like jobs that are self-directed and I like contact with the public. So this seemed like a good option. I own the car; I make my own hours.” He pulls into the driveway. “Stay strong.”
Meghan goes to the front door and realizes she doesn’t have a key.
She presses the doorbell hard. Her father comes in his bathrobe, phone pressed to his ear.
“Well, look who’s back,” he says.
“Who are you talking to?” she asks, as she comes into the house. The Christmas lights glitter like a hypnotists’ convention.
“Who do you think?”
“Mom?”
He shakes his head no.
“Tony?”
He nods. She takes the phone from her father and goes down the hall toward her room.
“I assume you know,” she says.
“Know what?”
“Everything. The story of the nuclear family meltdown and all about me, everything I never knew about myself until tonight.”
Tony does the verbal equivalent of nodding along in conversation. “Um-hum.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, taking the phone into her room. “Why didn’t you tell me that my mother isn’t my mother?”
“It wasn’t my job to tell you,” Tony says.
“What do I do now?”
“You probably don’t want to hear it, but perhaps you should give your parents some credit. They have been dealing with some big stuff for a long time, and it may not be pleasant but at least it’s out there and now there’s no mystery. All your dad wanted for you was the best. He and your mom have done everything to make sure you have every opportunity.”
“At the moment, I’m busy being traumatized. I find out that I’m replacing a dead kid and my identity changed without warning—and you’re telling me that Mom and Dad always wanted the best for me? It does not compute.”
“What are you looking for, pumpkin?”
“A simple ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘that sucks.’ ”
“I am sorry,” Tony says.
“Thanks. On top of everything, you know what really sucks?”
