The Middlesteins(30)

Let me tell you a story about your father, she said.

Out back, through the screen door, an empty bird feeder, old, forgotten, spotted with mold, swung from a white oak tree in the spring wind.

But Robin had heard enough of her stories over the past two months.

She had heard about how Edie had married too young, married the first man who came along who asked, and how on their wedding night, after they’d already exchanged the “I do’s” and smashed the glass and danced the hora and shoved cake into each other’s face (“He really got in there,” mused Edie. “I had frosting in my ears.”), after they had posed for pictures with their arms around each other and danced a slow box step to “When a Man Loves a Woman” and had kissed good night Edie’s friends from law school and Richard’s friends from pharmacy school and cousins and aunts and a few high-school friends and neighbors and Edie’s parents and Richard’s parents, every last one of them drunk, after all that sealing-of-the-deal, he had whispered to her in the honeymoon suite of the Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago, “Are you sure about this?” Which of course made her unsure. Great start to a life together, Richard. Nice work.

And today there was more: that terrible trip to Rome, which was supposed to be a fresh start for the two of them after the kids were out of the house, and then he ended up complaining the whole time, from the cab to O’Hare to the Vatican and back again.

“Why did he bring the wrong shoes? Did I have to do everything for him?” said Edie.

“Why didn’t you just buy new shoes? You were in Italy. That’s where they make the best shoes in the world,” said Robin.

“Well, eventually we did, but that’s not the point.”

Robin put her left cheek down on the kitchen table and let out a sigh. The light had turned outside, and dusty yellow dusk approached. Dinnertime.

“Can we just eat?” said Robin. “Let’s go get some food.”

“What kind of food?” said Edie.

“Wherever you go to eat, Mom. I don’t care.”


Edie’s hands, puffed up, ghostly white, twitched on the table. Robin could tell she did not want to eat in front of her. She would rather reveal the inconsistencies of her husband’s lovemaking abilities. She would rather discuss his merely adequate financial planning over the last three decades. Wouldn’t Robin rather hear about how her father had always loved his own mother more than his wife?

“Why don’t you want to eat with me, Mom?” said Robin.

“Fine, you want to eat? Let’s eat.”

“I’ll drive,” said Robin, who’d had one glass of wine.

“I can drive,” said her mother, who’d had three.

“I can’t believe I’m having this discussion with you,” said Robin, and while she was probably talking about how weird it was to argue with her mother, who, up until the last three months of her life, had been the kind of woman who put ice cubes in her wine, about whether or not she was sober enough to drive, she was also talking big picture here, about the life they were having together, mother and daughter swapping authority, her mother ripping open her insides and tossing whatever she felt at her daughter to see what stuck. This new life that was not much fun at all.

Robin won—“Okay, you win.” “What do I win?”—and drove the two of them one town over, and then another, past the highway that went to Woodfield Mall and then farther, to Chicago, until her mother directed her into a tiny, tidy strip mall that housed a windowless sports bar, a 7-Eleven, and a cell-phone store. Robin parked in front of a Chinese restaurant—the Golden Unicorn—which was lit so brightly that the sidewalk outside the front window was a sunny yellow, and some of the light caught on her mother as they walked in through the front door, and Robin saw she was smiling, a genuine, giddy smile.

It was early, not even 5:00 P.M., and the restaurant was empty, except for a young Chinese woman sitting before a giant pile of green beans spread on a table. She stood when the two women entered and rushed toward Edie with open arms, and they quickly embraced.

“We haven’t seen you in so long,” she said. “We missed you.”

“I haven’t been feeling well,” said Edie.

Was that true? Robin didn’t even know if Edie felt worse one day to the next.

“Oh no,” said the girl, young, slim, punkish, with a purple streak in the front of her hair, and thick black, high-laced boots over the bottoms of her tight black jeans. “We can’t have you getting sick. I’ll get you some tea. You sit down, and I’ll get you some right away.”

Robin stood there lamely, watching the two women engaging so brightly with each other, her mother with this stranger.

Edie finally introduced Robin to the woman—Anna was her name—who broke into a broad smile and then shook Robin’s hand with gusto, her slender palm disappearing into Robin’s hand. “The schoolteacher! What an honor to have you here. Your mother talks about you all the time. We love your mother. Just love her. She’s our hero.”

Robin was stunned, and a little stung, too, that she had no idea what was going on at that moment. Why is my mother the hero of a Chinese restaurant?

Anna pointed to a table near the window. “Go on, sit, and I’ll get you some tea and let Dad know you’re here.”