A Scatter of Light, page 26
But he didn’t cry. We stood there in silence for what felt like several minutes. He finally raised his head and looked at me. His eyes were dry, but his face was grave, all the lines around his eyes and mouth drawn down.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said. “Are you alone up there?”
“No, my dad and my aunt are here.”
He nodded. “I’ll come and pay my respects later. I’m so sorry.”
And then he turned around and went back inside. Goldie gave me a glance that could only be described as anxious, and followed him into the house.
* * *
—
I drove to the garden center. I knew Steph was working and she might not be able to take a lunch break with me, but I had to see her. She’d want to know about Joan, and it wasn’t something I wanted to tell her in a text message.
I found her outside the stockroom, where she was dealing with a pallet of potting soil. She was surprised to see me. “Hi! What are you doing here?”
I didn’t know how else to say it. “Joan died this morning.”
She looked at me blankly for a second, then put down her clipboard on top of the potting soil and pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my face in the crook of her neck. I took a deep breath. She smelled like plants and soil, alive. Joan should still be alive. She hadn’t finished whatever she was making in Grandpa’s old office. When Grandpa had died, it had been awful but expected. He’d had cancer and we had time to say goodbye. This was different. It felt like a mistake. How could she be dead? I hadn’t seen her body. I couldn’t think of her as a body.
Steph’s hand stroked my hair and I pressed myself closer to her. I was crying, my tears dampening the material of her T-shirt. There was a deep ache in the pit of my stomach, and I knew it would become a convulsion, a retching up of my disbelief if I didn’t control it. I had to control it; I was in public. I crumpled the back of Steph’s T-shirt in my hand. I shuddered in her arms, and she held me tighter until the shuddering stopped. I raised my head from her neck and she ran her thumb across my tear-streaked cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. Her eyes were wet. She kissed me gently.
I kissed her back. Softly at first, and then I became aware of the pressure of her breasts against mine and the slightest suggestion of her tongue against my lips. The kiss deepened. I felt as if kissing her were the most vital thing in the world. I needed to do it, to taste her open mouth, and I only had to push the tiniest bit for her to respond.
It became a hungry kiss. My teeth on her lips. Her hands in my hair, holding me to her. The world disappeared, and there was only this connection between us, so real it felt like a physical creature, ravenous. All we could do was feed it.
And then like an ax shattering glass, Lisa’s voice behind us: “What the fuck are you doing?”
Steph pulled away first, her face flushed, her eyes panicked. The connection between us felt like a phantom limb. I was still reaching for her as she said, “Lisa—”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Lisa demanded again.
Steph jerked away from me. I snapped back into this world.
Lisa was standing ten feet away in her Safeway vest, one hand gripping her car keys, the other her phone. Her face was red, and it only grew redder as she looked from me to Steph.
“Joan died,” Steph said, and I knew as soon as she spoke that those words were the wrong ones.
“You were comforting her?” Lisa demanded.
“No, I—” Steph stepped between me and Lisa as if to defend me.
I saw the rage on Lisa’s face change into something much worse. Pain.
“I’m so sorry,” Steph said, reaching out to her.
Lisa stepped back, her bottom lip quivering. Fat tears began to leak out of her eyes. “Get away from me,” Lisa said. “Don’t touch me.”
“Please, let me explain.”
“What could you possibly explain? Are you sleeping with her?”
Steph didn’t answer, and Lisa’s face was beet red now.
“I can’t believe I trusted you. You said you were just friends.” Lisa looked beyond Steph at me. “Do you know what she told me? She said you were confused, that you needed some help dealing with coming out. I felt sorry for you! I guess she helped you.”
I still couldn’t seem to speak. In the background I saw some customers glancing in our direction.
Lisa suddenly advanced toward me. “You were in our house.” She looked at Steph. “Did you fuck her in our house?”
I flinched.
“No, no, we never—I would never do that,” Steph said.
Lisa came closer and Steph stopped her, grabbing her arms. “Let go of me!” Lisa screamed.
“Please, let’s go home. Let’s talk about it at home,” Steph pleaded. Lisa’s arms were flailing and Steph was flailing with her in a bizarre interpretation of patty-cake.
“Get the fuck away from my girlfriend,” Lisa snarled at me.
“Lisa,” Steph said. “Lisa, please.”
All of a sudden Lisa backed away, raising her hands as if she were surrendering. “Whatever,” she said. Tears were running freely down her face now. She turned around and stalked out of the garden center, leaving Steph and me behind.
I reached for Steph, but she rebuffed me. “We can’t do this now,” she said curtly. She went after Lisa, running through the garden center.
I was left standing beside the pallet of potting soil. A woman with a baby stroller was staring at me, and when she realized I had seen her she turned away, her face reddening. I didn’t know what to do. I sank down onto an overturned pot. I was shaking. I was hot and freezing at the same time. I dropped my head into my hands, forcing myself to take several breaths. I was in public. I was mortified.
The strains of eighties pop wafted through the garden center, a man singing about jumping. A voice said over the intercom: “Jennifer to checkout. Jennifer to checkout.” I pushed my hair back from my face, trying to smooth it out. I wiped my eyes; to my surprise they were dry. I picked up my purse from where I had dropped it on the ground near the potting soil. I put on my sunglasses and left.
My mom called while Dad was out picking up dinner.
“Your father told me,” she said over the phone. “I’m so sorry.”
In Hong Kong, it was tomorrow, just after nine in the morning. I was in my room, where I’d been hiding since I got back from the garden center.
“Your grandmother was a great artist,” Mom said.
I remembered Joan saying Your mother is an artist, and for a split second the connection between Joan, my mother, and me seemed crystal clear, revelatory. I knew I should understand who they were and who I was and why all this had happened—but the moment vanished as quickly as it came, and I was in the guest room in Woodacre, and Mom was in Hong Kong, and Joan was gone.
On Friday morning, I learned that Steph had called very early and told Aunt Tammy she was sorry about Joan, and she could no longer do the yard work.
I called her, but it went straight to voicemail. I left a brief message, trying to sound rational, cool. “Please call me back. We need to talk.”
Dad changed my plane ticket to leave after the memorial service, so now I had an extra four days in California. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Steph hadn’t called me, so I texted her.
I just wanted to check in on you. Are you okay?
If you don’t want to talk, just tell me.
Eventually, Steph responded: I can’t talk right now. I’m really sorry for your loss. I need some space please.
I stared at her message. There was no opening for me to follow up. I deleted it.
Tasha told me I was in shock. “You do this,” she said over the phone. “After the thing with Jacob, remember? You went to class and acted like everything was fine. Have you ever even admitted that it wasn’t fine?”
I didn’t remember.
“This is going to come back to kick you in the ass,” Tasha said. “You need to talk about it.”
“I don’t have anything to say.” I was blank inside, erased.
I went to the studio, where I pulled down the unfinished painting and stared at the bare wall beneath it.
I went back to bed. The sheets were cool against my bare legs. I hadn’t opened the curtains and sunlight glowed around the edges. I remembered being here with Steph, the warm skin of her body against mine. Her mouth on my breasts, between my legs. Her fingers in me, curved like an invitation.
My feelings had shut off, but my body had not. My hand slid beneath my underwear. She was with me, her face a ghost above.
Guilt is a shape-shifter. It can fester like a sore, burning for attention, or it can lurk like a beast in the dark, always there but never clearly visible. If you don’t look at it directly, it can seem as if it’s gone, and the only proof that it remains is the shadow it casts in the corner.
My guilt comes out late at night or early in the morning, a specter that hovers over me as I drift into or out of sleep. Sometimes I like to see it. It can be seductive if it wants to. It knows exactly what I like. It knows precisely which memories to recall.
Sometimes I hope it will never go away.
I called Mel. When she answered the phone, it sounded as if she had done so reluctantly. “What’s up?”
It had been one week since Lisa found me and Steph at the garden center.
“Steph won’t take my calls,” I said. My voice was cool, as if I were an aggrieved secretary.
Mel knew what I was talking about. “You’ve got to give her some time.”
“I’m leaving soon. We have to talk now.”
“I can’t make her do anything.”
“You’re her best friend.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not her boss. Look, I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”
“Why not?”
Mel sighed. “Because I was Steph’s friend first.”
I played my last card. “Tell her my grandma’s memorial is on Saturday at two. At the Fairfax Women’s Club. Please tell her. Joan would’ve wanted her there.”
Mel didn’t respond at first. I didn’t push her. Finally, she said, “I’m really sorry this happened.”
I knew I should be sorry, too.
My mom called again the night before the memorial service. I took my phone into my room and closed the door, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“How’s your father?” she asked. “Are you watching out for him? I know he takes things hard.”
“He’s okay,” I said, even though he wasn’t. He had taken to writing late into the night on the living room couch. I could see the light from beneath my door while I lay awake well past midnight, checking my phone repeatedly as if I were a rat trained to push a button. In the morning when I came out to the kitchen after a few hours of restless sleep, my dad was often drinking coffee alone, red-eyed and drained, and I wondered whether he’d slept at all.
“Promise me you’ll keep an eye on him,” Mom said. “He’s not like you and me. He needs people like us to keep him grounded.”
“People like us?” I said stiffly.
“You know what I mean,” she said, as if we shared a secret. “We get things done when we have to. Make sure he gets something to eat besides coffee.”
How had she known he wasn’t eating?
A memory rose: Mom rolling out scallion pancakes. I was small enough that I needed to stand on a chair to reach the counter. She poured oil over the dough and sprinkled on salt, telling me to spread it out with my fingers. It felt like slippery sandpaper. The scallions smelled fresh and sharp. These are your dad’s favorite, she said.
“. . . emailing you an article from my cousin Eddie,” Mom was saying. “I’m sending it now.”
“What?”
“I’m sending you something from cousin Eddie,” Mom said again, sounding strangely patient. “I thought you might like to see it. I was really surprised because I met them both, but I guess I didn’t understand at the time.”
I had missed something, but before I could ask what it was, Mom was saying goodbye.
“I have to go now. Make sure you eat something, too. I’ll call you after the memorial.”
A moment later my phone vibrated. A surge of hope—but it was just the email from my mom. The subject read: “FWD: Just married . . . finally!”
I opened the email.
Dear friends and family,
Congratulations are in order! I’m happy to share the news that my beloved sister, Lily, has finally married her longtime partner, Kath Miller. They celebrated their nuptials last week in a beautiful small ceremony (photo attached). I’m also forwarding an LA Times story about many of the same-sex marriages that have taken place this summer, which includes Lily and Kath! They have not registered for gifts because as Lily told me, “We already have everything!” But if you’re inclined to give, she invites you to donate in their name to Lambda Legal. Lily advises me that both brides have chosen to keep their names.
With much joy,
Eddie Hu
I clicked through to the LA Times article, which was a long feature about several couples. I scrolled down to the section about Lily, which was subtitled A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN. It began with a photo of two older women—one white, one Asian—standing in front of a small airplane on a sun-drenched tarmac. The white woman, whose silvery hair was cut as short as Steph’s, was dressed in khakis and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and she was giving the Asian woman a fond smile. The Asian woman, wearing a black-and-white wrap dress, had gray hair worn in a retro style, and she looked directly at the camera with a laugh. I felt a little flip in my heart looking at the photo. Lily was so joyful, and Kath obviously loved her. I scrolled down to read the story.
For years in their early twenties, Lily Hu and Kath Miller kept their love alive via monthly flights. Miller would fly a small plane from Oakland, where she worked as a flight mechanic, to Pasadena, where Hu worked as a computer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The couple first started dating in high school, and Lily wasn’t initially sure whether their relationship would last.
“I thought for sure she’d forget me,” Hu notes, laughing.
“I would never forget you,” Miller replies, putting her arm around her lifelong love.
This summer, they celebrate their fifty-third anniversary, although they like to debate about whether several years in the middle count. The couple’s commuting relationship went through some turbulent times in the early 1960s, when Miller focused on training for an experimental program to send women astronauts into space. Hu says she was able to weather the separation because she understood Miller’s dream. After all, Hu was part of the team responsible for building many of JPL’s robotic spacecraft, including Voyager.
“A mutual friend helped us find our way back to each other,” Hu says. The two reconnected in the mid-1960s, and Miller moved to Pasadena in 1968.
“We’ve been together ever since,” Miller says.
They bought a little house in Pasadena, and Miller launched a flight school at a local airport, where she continues to teach a few enthusiastic young pilots today during her retirement. Hu retired from JPL ten years ago after a long career first as a computer and then as an engineer, but she still keeps up with the space program through a network of JPL friends.
Hu says she and Miller never felt the urge to tie the knot before the Supreme Court decision this summer. “We had friends who had commitment ceremonies, but we didn’t feel like we needed it,” she says. “We were committed to each other privately, and it didn’t seem necessary until there were real legal reasons to do it.”
“I bought her a ring in 1969,” Miller says. “And she wore it, but we never made a big fuss about it.”
In early August, the couple held a small wedding ceremony in their own backyard, with just a dozen friends and family members in attendance. But the most meaningful part of the event, Hu says, was going to City Hall to get the marriage certificate.
“I feel recognized by my country,” Hu says. “I never dreamed this was possible when I was younger. I can’t describe how wonderful that feels.”
The photo that Eddie attached showed the two women standing arm in arm in front of a stucco wall covered with climbing vines, surrounded by a number of people I didn’t know. The man next to Lily was probably Eddie, her brother, but the rest of the people I wasn’t sure about. On Kath’s side were several white people who could have been her relatives, and a few children stood in front. Some of them were half Asian, like me. Everyone was smiling, but none looked as happy as Lily and Kath, who were gazing at each other rather than the photographer. I zoomed in on Lily’s and Kath’s faces, feeling an unexpectedly vivid connection to them both, as if I could sense the love between them glowing like a radiant sun. After so many years, they could show their love to the world at last.
I was flying out super early on Sunday morning with my dad after the family memorial service, so I had to pack before. My new boots wouldn’t fit in my suitcase, so I found an old duffel bag in the basement and put them in there. Dad and Aunt Tammy agreed that I could have Joan’s camera and her catalog. I added those to the duffel bag along with my broken telescope. I rolled up my unfinished painting and wedged it in, too.
I almost threw away the Madchen CD and postcard, but at the last minute I slid them into the suitcase’s interior pocket.
I put Steph’s copy of The Dream of a Common Language in my purse so I could give it to her if she came to the memorial.
