Thank You for Listening(28)

Marvin had been a screenwriter. And Sewanee remembered Henry telling her the rapid tapping of typewriter keys (so like the ticktock of a perfectly balanced pendulum clock) emanating from his father’s office had calmed a young Henry. It made him feel safe because his father was doing something, making something, being productive. But Barbara had been a performer, in the truest sense of that word. Onstage or off, she, herself, was always on. To Henry, she embodied the erratic unpredictability of an overwound clock.

Henry left Brooklyn to return home, to mourn his father, to pick up the reins and help a fiftysomething woman who had never taken care of anything on her own learn to take care of everything for the first time.

But Barbara resisted the help. She would handle it. The problem was, Henry knew she wouldn’t handle it, she’d only pretend to. She’d perform handling it. After all this, everything he’d sacrificed to help her, Barbara was going to be . . . well, Barbara.

Eight months in, after she’d started dating a money manager Henry couldn’t stand, could smell the bullshit wafting off the guy like cologne, he gave up. He’d gone into Marvin’s office, poured some Old Smuggler, fingered the typewriter keys, and envied his father for taking the easy way out.

Within a few years, Eau de Fraud had disappeared, the house was foreclosed, and Barbara moved in with Bitsy and spent the next thirty years rebuilding a savings she’d burn through in four years at Seasons.

Sewanee was more than aware of how all this rankled Henry. She’d grown up with the sighs and the eye rolls and the thrown-up hands after every phone call. She felt bad for her father, but she felt worse for Blah. The time had come, a mere thirty-five years on, for this battle of wills to end. Someone needed to end it. That someone was apparently going to be her.

She could hear the shuffling steps of her beslippered father making his way to the door. Without unbolting the chain, he opened it a crack and peered out. Upon seeing his only child, the morning sleepiness in his eyes slid into concern. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great. I have something to tell you.” Her voice sounded carbonated.

“Did you lose your phone?”

“Just open the door. Please?” Her tone when she said “please” granted her access. It was subservient enough, little girl enough, to persuade him. He closed the door and unlatched the chain with methodical undertaking, as if she were being let into a prisoner’s cell. The door reopened; Henry had already walked away from it.

He was in his tattered bathrobe, as familiar to her as his face. He sat down in a patchy leather recliner that perfectly complemented the disintegrating robe. He was holding a cup of coffee so black it looked like a portal to another dimension. “You want a cup?” he mumbled. “It’s yesterday’s, but help yourself.”

She went into the kitchen, quickly opened and closed the few cabinets looking for a mug. She found a dirty one in the sink and gave it a rinse. She poured some coffee into it and placed it in the small microwave with buttons so worn she had to guess at what she was hitting. As she waited, she looked around.

He hadn’t always lived here. After the divorce three years ago, when they’d sold the family home, Henry had originally moved into a swanky high-rise apartment in the Wilshire corridor befitting a respected UCLA professor. Doorman. Valet. Gym. Sewanee had been so happy for him, for his fresh start. After all, she’d blamed her mother for the divorce (she had initiated it with zero provocation, as far as Sewanee knew) and back then she was daddy’s little girl.

But the following year she’d found out she wasn’t daddy’s only little girl. Everything came out at once: Henry was losing his job, because he’d had an affair with a graduate student, which had started while he was still married.

They’d stood in that bourgie Wilshire apartment on opposite sides of the living room like two reluctant gunfighters. Had Marilyn known? Is that why she left? Yes, Henry admitted. But this whole thing was her fault. She hadn’t been a wife, not really, not for a long time. She never appreciated him, all he’d given up for her, for their family. But the girl–Kelly her name had been–had appreciated him, had revered him. And yes, he’d been taken in, but she’d pursued him ruthlessly, and Sewanee would understand when she was older, how a starving man, etc., etc., etc. Sewanee had rejected this premise, talked about the power imbalance between teacher and student, but Henry had shouted, “Power imbalance?! Who’s getting whom fired?!” She was the one who’d had the power! She’d used him!

Used him.

There was nothing left to say after that.

The ancient microwave’s beep was more of a moan. Sewanee took the marginally warmed mug and walked into the living room. It was a short walk. There was an overflowing bookcase next to a futon couch. There wasn’t a coffee table; there wasn’t a lamp; there wasn’t even a TV because Henry didn’t “believe” in TV. There was just the futon couch, the beaten leather chair, Henry, his tattered robe, his black coffee.

Sewanee did her best to shelve her sarcasm, but it was a low shelf. “Like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Sit.”

She did, lifted the cup to her lips, blew gently, and took a swallow of blackness. She had come here with resolve, with excitement, with answers, and she would not let him diminish it. A significant smile opened up her face.

“Little early to look so chipper, no?” His tone could smother a forest fire.