Black Cake(60)

One of Eleanor’s eyes would usually appear between a screen and the wall. “You know the rules. I do this one month a year and you know the rules.”

“And, now, I’m only home on occasional weekends and you can’t let me get a single cup of coffee?”

Eleanor had always wanted a kitchen with a door that could close off the whole space. In Britain, she had seen her first shuttable kitchens, as she called them, and had periodically talked to Bert about redoing their cooking area once the kids were fully out of the house.

Whenever Bert took Eleanor to a restaurant, she would cast a wistful eye in the direction of the swing doors that led to the cooking area. “Like that,” she would say. “Even a door like that.”

When they first moved to California, no one was selling houses with closed-off kitchens. And Bert and Eleanor didn’t know if they’d be staying here for long, anyway. But sure enough, here they were, years later, still living in a single-story, single-family home on the Pacific coast with an open-plan kitchen, and a man-sized cactus outside their bedroom window, and a Californian boy and girl who had learned to ride ocean waves that dwarfed anything Bert and Eleanor had ever seen growing up.

By the time she turned fifteen, Benny was almost as tall as Bert but she’d still fling her arms around his neck and say Daaaddy in that drawn-out way that made him chuckle. Then she began to change. She was given to moodiness and her school grades tended to go up and down in sync with her humor. Which was particularly disturbing because, generally speaking, all Benny had to do was walk into a schoolroom and sit down to be at the top of her class.

Eleanor said it was just adolescence, but Bert’s baby girl was beginning to worry him.





Thanksgiving Day, 2010





Bert didn’t understand what Benny was saying. Or maybe he did, but he didn’t understand how it could be true of his daughter. It was bad enough that Benny hadn’t gone back to college, bad enough that she couldn’t focus on getting herself into a profession and gaining economic stability. What kind of rubbish was this concept café business, anyway? But it wasn’t the café that was getting Bert agitated, not this time.

In recent years, he and Eleanor had encouraged Benny to bring someone home for Thanksgiving Day, but she’d never done so. Benny lived a day’s drive away in Arizona and they wanted to know more about her friends, wanted to remain part of her life. Finally, Benny was saying that she might bring someone for Christmas, but first she needed to explain something to Bert and Eleanor.

Lord have mercy. Did she really have to tell them all this? What did she expect them to say? Was this why she had left school? Was this why she wanted to lock herself up in some little concept hole? To keep herself from having to function in the real world with real relationships? How was she supposed to live a decent life with this kind of confusion?

Bert, who had begun his law studies all over again in the United States under his new name. Bert, who had cut himself off from his life back in the islands and Britain to protect his wife and children. Bert, who had taught his little girl how to ride a bicycle, how to save money from her allowance, how to write a successful term paper, now felt betrayed. What had he been working for all these years? Who was this woman standing before him now, with her face twisted up in that way and shouting at him?

This was not the daughter he’d raised. This was a person who had walked away from the educational opportunities he’d worked so hard to provide for her. Who kept changing her mind about what she wanted to do and who now was flip-flopping her views on what kind of person she wanted to date. Benny kept complicating her life when he had tried so hard to make things simpler for her. The girl he had raised should have been more grateful. The daughter he had raised should have said Sorry, Daddy and run into his arms.

Bert turned and walked out of the room. His wife came running behind him soon after, her eyes wet. Eleanor put her arms around his middle from behind and placed her head against his back.

“Bert,” she said, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

Then Eleanor did what Eleanor did best in their relationship. She just stayed there, without moving, without speaking, letting him know that she was there, that’s all. Once, a long time ago, they had nearly lost each other for good. They had nearly lost their chance to have this beautiful family they had made together. After that, she had never left his side.

“Just give me a moment, okay?” he said. “Just a moment. Then I’ll go back and talk to her.” But when Bert and Eleanor went back to the living room, Benny was gone and the first Thanksgiving guests were already coming in through the kitchen door. And Bert never did understand much about that day.





If Only





If only Bert had known that he would be gone in six months, he would have stepped out of the car. He would have crossed the street, he would have rapped on the plate-glass window, he would have smiled. Instead, he remained in the back of a taxi outside the restaurant in New York where Benny was working, watching his daughter through the glass. He wanted to talk to her, but to say what? A year had passed and he still didn’t feel comfortable with this life of hers. If it had been anyone else, anyone but his own child, he would have let them be. Would have said, to each his own, love is what counts. But this was his baby girl.

Young people had always wanted to do things their own way, and Bert had been no different. Only nowadays, there seemed to be this compulsion to eat up everything that was available to you and to let everybody know about it in real time, without figuring out things for yourself first. No, love was not the only thing that counted. What people could say or do to hurt you also mattered. This, perhaps, was what he would say to Benny if he could bring himself to do so: What are you willing to do? And is it worth it?