I'll Be You(51)

“Too complicated to get into now, I’m exhausted.” I could tell from his expression of disbelief that this wasn’t helping my case. “I swear, Dad.”

“Your mother’s been worried sick,” he said.

“I doubt that. She’s probably been saying ‘I told you so.’?”

He didn’t disabuse me of this. “It might have been a good idea to call, Sam,” he said mildly.

“I sent her a text this morning! I have to leave town, back tonight.”

He shook his head, as if this were entirely irrelevant. He was still wearing his clothes from work but had unbuttoned his shirt to where I could see the top of his undershirt, and a lonely tuft of gray hair in an expanse of pale, puckery skin. I kicked off my sneakers, sat down on the edge of the couch beside him, and stretched my sore legs. The house was utterly silent, all that double-paned glass blocking the sound of the world beyond the windows. I could hear the ticking of the clock in the hallway as we sat there, uncomfortably motionless. My father and I had never been good at talking to each other, even when I was young, and the gulf had only grown with each passing year. I’d never really compensated for all the years that Elli and I had spent on set in Los Angeles, visiting our father only for weekends and summers. Instead, I’d fled the scene entirely. No wonder he felt like a stranger, but it wasn’t necessarily his fault for not trying. At least he’d believed in me enough to ask me to take care of his grandchild.

I sat up straight. “Where’s Charlotte?” I asked.

“With your mother. She’s putting her down to bed.”

I started to stand up to go to them, but my father put up a hand to stop me. “Sam,” he said softly.

I paused. “What?”

“I think you should go back to Los Angeles tomorrow.”

A twist in my stomach, like someone had reached inside me and grabbed a fistful of intestines. “But you’re the one who asked me to come in the first place! I just asked my work for more time off.”

“I know,” he said. “But I think it’s too hard on your mother. All the ups and downs of having you around. The instability. And while I know you’re doing better than you were, the fact is that you can still be…unpredictable.” He swallowed. I knew how much he hated this conversation. “On top of what’s going on with Elli, it’s just too much. Your mom is fragile, you know. She’s not as strong as you. And sometimes when you’re around she feels very…judged.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“I appreciate that. But it doesn’t mean that you’re good at it, I’m sorry to say.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to this. My father wouldn’t look at me. After a moment, he picked up the remote and unmuted the television. A chorus of boos rang out from baseball fans protesting a bad umpire call.

I left him there, watching his hometown team lose to the Dodgers.



* * *



—

My mother was in the guest bedroom with Charlotte. They’d finished reading Llama Llama Red Pajama and now they were snuggling in the big armchair, lights low. Charlotte had her thumb in her mouth, her eyes at half-mast. She wore pajamas with bunnies on the feet that broke my heart.

My mother’s eyes flew to mine as I tiptoed into the room. She stared at me over Charlotte’s hair, her eyes narrowed into question marks. I didn’t know how to answer her unspoken queries. Not tonight. Not yet. As I drew close I could see that my mother’s face was puffy, her eyes watery. Had she just been crying?

“Sorry,” I mouthed at her. She blinked at me and then looked away, resting her cheek atop her granddaughter’s head. Not her granddaughter’s, I thought. How much longer would we have Charlotte? It occurred to me for the first time that this was going to destroy my mother. I tried not to think of what it was going to do to me. Already it felt like the floor was giving way beneath me, and if I looked down I’d see a bottomless abyss. I was trying so hard not to look, but I could sense it there, the familiar black pit of despair.

Charlotte stirred then and opened her eyes, noticed me standing there. She fixed her dark gaze on mine and dropped her thumb from her mouth. Her arms shot out as she heaved herself out of my mother’s lap and toward me. “Mimi.”

Like a royal edict: Pick me up.

I lifted her into my arms and she crumpled against my shoulder, thumb back in her mouth, already half-asleep. My mother, denuded of grandchild, rose from the chair and edged past me. She wouldn’t meet my eyes as she walked stiffly toward the bedroom door.

“Mom,” I whispered urgently, but she was already gone.

I settled into the warm, rump-shaped spot that my mother had left in the seat. Charlotte nestled into my chest, her breath fast and hot on my neck, her hummingbird heartbeat racing against my slow one. The bunnies on her feet twitched as she slid into sleep. She was so much more alive than I felt, and so vulnerable because of it. I imagined her wandering in the desert all by herself, dwarfed by prickly cacti, stalked by coyotes, lost under an unforgiving sky. I imagined her being swept up into a stranger’s arms, crying out with alarm.

I wept into Charlotte’s hair, until we both finally fell asleep.





16




EXHAUSTION KNOCKED ME DOWN, and then anxiety woke me up. I lay in bed, listening to the thrum of the compressor pumping cold air through the vent over my head. In the oak tree outside the window, a songbird pierced the dawn with a plaintive cry for companionship. The sky was the color of wet sand.