Cleopatra and Frankenstein(124)

“You and me,” he says. “A fresh start somewhere new. Think about it.”

*

I do think about it. I think about it for a week straight. I find my mother in the garden potting her fall perennials. She looks up at me and rubs soil on her forehead with the back of her gardening glove.

“Do you know how Nietzsche defined a joke?” she says. “As an epigram on the death of a feeling.”

“Ma,” I say. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“Isn’t that brilliant? Nietzsche rocks my world.”

“It’s about my living situation.”

“I gave you Thus Spoke Zarathustra when you were fifteen and having your first existential crisis,” she says. “Do you still have it?”

“Frank asked me something the other day.”

“Nietzsche had a poet’s soul,” she says. “Like you.”

I grab a trowel and start digging. I am never leaving.

*

A group of owls is called a parliament. A group of emus is called a mob. A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of doves is call a piteousness. A group of ravens is called an unkindness. A group of flamingos is called a flamboyance. A group of peafowl is called an ostentation. A group of parrots is called a pandemonium. A group of starlings is called a descent. A group of turtledoves is called a pitying. A group of finches is called a charm. All of these words can also describe a group of Jewish women.

*

I go pick Frank up from his evening AA meeting on Perry Street. Outside, people are smoking and laughing. They look pretty normal to me. A couple of suits, a couple of older Village artist types. One person appears to be in surgical scrubs.

We go to the Italian restaurant on Tenth Street where the terrible service is inversely commensurate to the excellent food. Frank tucks his napkin into his shirt before the meal begins, as is his way, and pulls off a hunk of bread from the plate that is plonked in front of us.

“Best bread in the city,” he says, swirling it in olive oil.

“How was the meeting?” I ask.

“Incredible. So moving. The speaker had twenty-five years and was so spiritually fit. And grateful, you know? His prayer and meditation practice was off the hook.”

I raise an eyebrow. Frank rubs his forehead and laughs. “I sound insane,” he says.

“You sound happy,” I say.

“I am,” he says. “Still feels weird even saying it.”

“Well, get used to it, baby,” I say. “You are not, thank the heavens, going to be your family’s Uncle Bernie.”

“My family’s who?”

“My Uncle Bernie has a drinking problem,” I say. “And, apparently, an extra female chromosome.”

“Right,” says Frank. “You want to share a starter?”

“The tomato salad looks good,” I say.

“How about the asparagus?”

“You need to go see Cleo,” I say.

Frank swallows the mouthful of bread in his mouth with difficulty. “I need to what?”

“You need to go see Cleo,” I say again. “Your wife.”

“I know who she is.”

“First of all. You’re still married, which makes what we’re doing right now technically an extramarital affair.”

“I had no idea you were so puritanical.”

“And second of all. You need to make sure she’s being taken care of over there.”

“Cleo can take care of herself,” he says.

“If she could do that,” I say quietly, “what happened would not have happened.”

He looks at me, and I see how that experience has brought a sadness to his eyes that was never there before. “Go on.”

“She’s still very young, and she doesn’t have much family, which means you and I are her family. We have a responsibility to make sure she’s set up.”

“You mean financially? I can send her money.”

“Some things take a little more than money.”

“I never knew you were so concerned with her well-being. Is this some First Wives Club stuff?”

I try not to look at him like he’s the stupidest man on the planet.

“No, Frank,” I say very slowly. “It’s sisterhood.”

Frank takes my hand gently in his across the table.

“Eleanor,” he says. “You are a good woman.”

“We’re getting the tomato salad,” I say.

*

My mother and I spend an evening watching an old season of Sing Your Heart Out. We have become, I think, perhaps overly invested in the success of young Harold, who put his singing aspirations on hold to look after his ailing, diabetic mother. Every time he performs, they replay the same footage of the two of them together in their small, shambolic home in New Orleans.

“He is my only pride,” the mother says in her big floral dress. “My heart beats for him.”

My mother turns to me and puts her hand on mine.

“Frank called me,” she says. “Go.”

*

Frank has come over to help my mother prepare a farewell meal. Incredibly, it does not seem to involve a wok. I’ve spent the whole day packing and need some air, so I throw on a coat and head out into the garden. It is very quiet, dark and still. My breath makes little gray clouds in front of me. Above my head, the stars are just barely visible. I can smell the earth. I can hear Frank and my mother laughing in the kitchen. Somewhere, a dog barks. I can feel the night pressing against my skin. It is cold, but I am warm. My breath meets the air.