Sand in My Eyes, page 23
“Yes, and brew some more coffee while you’re at it, will you?” I asked, and was glad when he went upstairs. I found it easier to warm my face into a smile and walk over in friendly mode to Fedelina, who was flipping through a box of photo frames.
“The orchid you gave me hasn’t bloomed,” I told her. “It hasn’t opened at all.”
“Give it more time,” she said. “It will.”
“What if it doesn’t?” I asked. “Nothing in my life is blooming.”
She let out a loud sigh. “What are you saying to it?”
“To what?”
“The flower that you want to bloom, how are you talking to it?”
“I’m saying, ‘What’s wrong with you, you’ll never open, will you?’”
“There you go,” she said. “You have to be careful in what you are saying to yourself, Anna, what messages you are giving you! Talk to yourself as if you were a flower, wanting it to bloom. Talk to the flower, too, and it will bloom!”
“I think I’ve got a buyer for a lamp over there,” I told her. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ve got to get going, dear. I’m taking my son to the airport,” she said.
“Are you going to be okay? It’s a long drive home.”
“My God, Anna,” she gasped. “I live for these moments when my grown children need me. I spent most of my life training them to solve problems, handle their own needs, and I guess I did a darn good job as a mother, sending them into the world as fully capable, independent adults, because, believe me, they don’t need me often. So when they do—even if it’s just a ride to the airport—I see it as a selfish opportunity.”
By now the sale had picked up again, and the area under my stilted house was swarming with people. After answering questions, taking money, helping load things into bags, Fedelina was gone, but her car was still there. I watched in the direction of her house like a woman actively birding, determined to spot some rare species before it flies off for the season. They wouldn’t leave—he wouldn’t—without coming to say goodbye, and all I kept thinking about in my mixed-up mind was how I might go on without him.
“Life is a pilgrimage,” I thought to myself, wishing I could find my journal once more to write it all down, the ideas that were coming as I handed over a stuffed toy turkey to a man, giving it to him for free so I wouldn’t have to count money and disrupt my parade of thoughts. “And I am a woman capable of enduring, but also of leaving certain hardships behind should leaving become necessary, journeying toward a better life, one of true love.”
And then another man came up to me with my music box in the palm of his hand, the one Liam and I had danced to.
“‘It’s a Wonderful World,’” he exclaimed when it stared to play.
“That’s right,” I told him. “But it’s not for sale. I don’t know how it got down here—my husband, maybe.”
“Oh come on,” the man said. “It’s my favorite song.”
“It’s everyone’s favorite song,” I told him. “And it’s not for sale.”
“I’ll give you fifty dollars.”
“Nope.”
“Seventy?” he offered.
I shook my head. “It has sentimental value. It’s priceless,” I told him, taking it from his hand. It was then that I spotted the man who had made it sentimental and priceless to me in the first place—Liam! He was kneeling on the ground, flipping through the pages of an encyclopedia set I had as a schoolgirl.
I walked over to the man I happened to love and knelt down beside him, pretending I cared about the page he had opened in the encyclopedia—a page about leaves. I tried focusing on all that was written about them, that when they fall off annually they are called deciduous, whereas, when they remain for two or more years, they are persistent, and the plant is evergreen. But after reading more than I wanted to know about the arrangement of leaves on a stem, I said to him, no pun intended, “You’re leaving today.”
He didn’t say anything, but kept on reading and, because I would go anywhere with him if I could, I kept going, reading about the intricate parts of a leaf, and how the arrangements of them on a stem seem to form a mosaic, in which each leaf fits into the space between neighboring leaves without overlapping. The leaves are placed that way to prevent overshading.
“If I were to close my eyes right now and wish for something,” I told him when we reached the bottom of the page, “I’d wish to leave with you.”
“Is there any way?” he asked.
I thought for a moment and told him, “When I was a little girl, I’d flip through the pages of these encyclopedias, looking at all the pictures and reading all the fascinating facts.”
“Nice, simple reading for a little girl,” he said.
“The pictures, and the facts, became possibilities I saw for myself in the world, and I believed! I believed I would one day do it all, everything from walking through the Amazon to becoming a zoologist.”
“I think it’s wonderful that a set of books gave you an ability to aspire.”
“Well,” I said, “unlike you, I don’t think I’ll see most of the places I once looked at on the pages of these books, or be all the interesting things I read about, but my children will do more, be more. That’s what every mother wants—for her children to do more than her!”
“Then why are you selling these books?”
“I’m not,” I said then. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“What about your husband? Have you changed your mind about him?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because if you are, if you’re planning to leave him, it would give me something to aspire toward, the possibility that someday soon we could be together—that’s why I asked.”
I shook my head and looked back down at the page still open, the page having to do with leaves, but I saw no facts that told me decisively whether I should leave my husband or not. Then my mind roamed the four corners of the Earth, searching the possibilities for how it might become a realistic option in my life, a choice that was sound, an opportunity worth taking—me flying off with Liam to faraway places, like two migrating birds, stopping to rest at refuges as we went. But I was no flying creature with wings. I was a mother and a wife.
“I’m not sure that you fully understand,” I told him, “what I’m going through—the responsibilities that I have here.”
“No, but if I could walk in your shoes for a day, to fully understand, I would,” he said. “But I can’t. I can’t possibly imagine. Despite all of that, what do you want to do?”
“I already told you. I told you exactly what I want to do—fly away with you,” I said with a laugh, and then I grew serious. “My children are coming home. I need to get a grip.”
“Anna,” he said, “you’re more in tune than you think.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m all mixed up.”
“You’re the most contemplative person I know.”
“Then where do I belong?” I asked him, and it was then that I spotted from the corner of my eye my husband coming down the stairs with two cups of coffee. “Because I feel like I belong with you.”
“As much as I don’t want to accept it, you’re right where you need to be, where your children need you, perfect and with a purpose, like a leaf on a stem,” Liam said, hitting the page of the book with his hand. “The problem is—that guy coming toward us is shading you, covering up who you are.”
When my husband spotted us nestled on the ground, sharing one book in both of our hands, I quickly flipped through its pages as if searching for something. “I will never forget,” I quickly whispered to Liam as I pointed to a picture of a wading bird, “how you made me feel—like a bird as beautiful as this.” And when Timothy walked over, I hoped he might think the look of desire in this other man’s eyes was for the set of encyclopedias and not for me.
“Why don’t you give him the entire set for fifteen bucks,” Timothy said to me.
Liam got up and stretched his legs. The two of them were similar in height, just right to stare each other in the eyes. “I do want them,” Liam said, glancing down at me. “I’ve never wanted anything as much, but I think the lady is unsure, and I’ve been brainstorming how to convince her that I might make it all work.”
“They’re worthless in today’s Internet world,” Timothy said. “Take the whole set for ten. You’re only doing us a favor, getting rid of them.”
“Generous of you,” Liam told Timothy, and then looked back at me, still on the ground holding the book. “But encyclopedias will never be worthless, not if they can help one boy or girl to think about the world and imagine.”
“Look, I’ve got to tell you,” Timothy said, giving Liam a peculiar stare. “I’d rather go on a business trip and bring pictures home for my kids to see than have them look through these dusty old books. If you want them, they’re yours and you can have them for five bucks.”
“No, thanks,” said Liam. “What I’m really interested in is that music box over there.” He walked over to the table where it sat.
“Timothy,” I said, following him. “I didn’t bring that down.”
“No, I did,” he said. “What do we have it for? It’s a piece of junk.”
“Doesn’t it work?” Liam asked.
“It works,” I declared, trying not to look him in the eyes out of fear it might give away our secret.
Liam picked it up and wound it gently. I stayed where I was, at a comfortable distance from these two men—one I would grow grumpy and old with, and the other I would soar through the sky with every single night for the rest of my life in my mind.
“I’ll take it,” Liam said. “How much do you want for it?”
Timothy looked over at me. “Don’t ask me,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “To me, it’s priceless.”
“Okay, then, a dollar,” Timothy told him.
Liam already had his wallet open and was pulling out a bill. “Here,” he said, handing it to my husband.
“You’re killing me—this is a yard sale. I don’t have change for a hundred! Take the piece of junk. It’s yours for free.”
Liam picked the music box up, winked at me, and said to my husband, “You know what they say.”
“What?” Timothy asked.
“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”
I wanted to wink back, blow a kiss to this man I had only known for one week out of my entire life, this man that I loved, but I had to let him go, let him get on with his life, leaving my yard for the far corners of the Earth.
“I have to get on, too,” I muttered to myself, returning to the yard sale, gathering the pieces of my marriage, falling down, falling down, while building it up with silver and gold, silver and gold, working overtime trying to love the man I had vowed to stay with until death do us part. As I held my hand out, letting a woman drop dimes into my palm as payment for a set of old wineglasses, I knew it was time for me to accept the choices I had made in life, and the circumstances to which they have brought me. It was time for me to find beauty in my own yard, I thought to myself, time to spot the daisies.
But as I carried the box of glasses out to the woman’s car, I tried to figure which of us might have it harder—Liam, encountering and falling for countless women from around the world, or me, trying to love one man for the rest of my life. I went about the rest of the sale feeling sorry for myself—growing old with someone who, by default, is there in my life—and feeling sorry for my husband, the one who would have to grow old with me. It was agonizing, trying not to think about Liam and what might have been.
But I never wanted to beat myself up, give myself a black eye someday, over the memory of our week together, thinking that my love for him was a mistake.
At the end of the day I hurried over to a pile of junk and retrieved my brown leather journal that never sold, the one that I bought long ago in Northern California. Late that night, after my husband was asleep and snoring on the sofa, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning writing fast and furiously, so as never to forget the details leading up to why I did the things that I did and why I fell in love with another man.
But when I closed the journal and climbed into bed, I could still hear in my mind the music box playing “It’s a Wonderful World” again and again. And I could hardly stop my feet from moving. They wanted to dance.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
BELVEDERE
I STOPPED READING, THEN walked over to the counter, pulled a tissue out of the box and wiped my eyes.
“You’ve never stopped loving him, have you?” Fedelina asked me.
“In all these years not a day has gone by when I haven’t thought of him.” I hesitated and then said, “After he left, I wanted so badly to believe that the love a mother has for her children is strong enough to carry her through life. I didn’t ever again want to think about the other kind of love, between a man and a woman.” I sniffed and blew my nose, then told her the real reason I was crying and couldn’t stop. “In the story, my children are about to come home again, barge through my front door and into my arms. In real life,” I said, “they’re gone. My children are grown and gone. My son called this morning to tell me he wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving. He met a girl at school who lives in California, and he’s spending the holidays with her family.” I took a big breath in and let it all out. “I’d do anything to have them back—pay a million bucks to have them small again. I feel like I have nothing without them.”
I feared she might refer to the falling-out we had years earlier—the one that was still coming in the story—a difference of opinions that made me retreat from her yard, stay out of sight and look the other way when she waved to me, but she didn’t bring that up or tell me, “I told you so.”
“I know it’s hard. It’s an emotional transition at first,” she said instead. “When children start doing what they’re supposed to be doing, what we want them doing—living their own lives—they’re like the seeds of a dandelion. All of a sudden they’re separated from the parent plant and carried off by the wind, but don’t worry, Anna. They’ll be back!”
“You think?” I asked, and could hardly talk. I already felt embarrassed for crying like I was. I didn’t want to cry anymore.
“I had seven, remember? And trust me, one by one, they return. I didn’t always recognize these people knocking at my door at first, the adults my children had become. The world changed them, but a part of them was the same. Make sure you hear that part.”
“What part?”
“The part that has them drifting back as adults, craving a new sort of time with their mother. Listen for it closely.”
“I will,” I said. “But what do I listen for?”
“Their coming back to you,” she said. “It’ll be subtle, like a soft buzzing sound. It’s not like when they were three and falling down at your feet screaming out your name, but they do come buzzing back, even though it’s subtle and brief.”
“I’m not saying I want them moving back home, living with me into their thirties and beyond. I wouldn’t like that.”
“No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about how, when your children turn into adults, your relationship with them starts over, and it’s exciting. You get to know them, and they want to know you, but let me warn you, and I know because I’ve been through it, this is your time, Anna! You need to do special things with your life and yourself now. So when they come back, grown and changed, you, too, have grown and changed.”
“You’re probably right,” I told her, feeling much better. “Maybe this is my time to start something new with my life.”
“Adult children love seeing that,” she went on. “They love seeing their parents out in the garden, doing what is necessary to keep their lives beautiful.”
I wanted then to tell her that I would try. That I wasn’t fond of gardens without children, but that I would try doing something beautiful with this new phase of life I was entering. What exactly, I did not know, and I wanted to ask her more, like, how does a mother with grown children go about pulling herself from the rut she is in?
“Read more to me, Anna,” she said, and I decided I could ask her later.
“Aren’t you feeling tired?”
“A little,” she said, “but I’m curious as to what happened next, after the yard sale.”
“Okay,” I told her. “If you fall asleep, I’ll leave. I’ll come back in the morning.”
I fingered through the pages of the manuscript to where I left off, hoping she would fall asleep and not hear what I had written next, about the disagreement we had long ago, the one that sent us down diverging paths.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
IN THE MORNINGS FOLLOWING the yard sale three little children chit-chattered away as the birds chirped through the windows of the yellow room. The house that was clean the week before was a mess again, and I could no longer see my dreams of writing or hopes for love, or figure out where I had left them. “It’s okay,” I tried telling myself. “The love a mother has for her children is all she needs to sustain her.”
As I sat out on the porch steps early one morning in the middle of spring—a big old book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes opened in my lap—I felt content with the children and challenged by the harebrained questions they were tossing my way, like, why did the farmer’s wife chop off his tail with a carving knife?
“Because she was crazy,” I told them as their eyes grew big. “All the characters in these nursery rhymes are a bit crazy.”
They were fine with my answer, and I turned the page, knowing that one day they would ask me more, like, why do we remember you crying on the kitchen floor, and giving Daddy all those slams of the door?
“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,” my son said next. “Why did he have a wife and couldn’t keep her?”
“That’s a good question,” I said, searching my mind for an answer. I was glad when he turned the page in the book. “She pitters, she patters, oh, what does it matter,” I read, but their attention span was waning, and the boys grew more enthusiastic about catching love bugs in plastic sandwich bags than in hearing me read. I closed the book of rhymes and let them capture as many as they liked, since the state of Florida didn’t need so many love bugs and the circle of life had no use for them—and because Timothy had a work-related conference call, and there was nowhere in our home that a person could go and not hear the ruckus three children make. I left the children outside while I hurried inside and grabbed a pen and piece of paper.
