The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(15)
“Okay.”
“Are you doing anything?”
“Probably not.” She smiled. “I don’t really like New Year’s, it’s sort of an excuse to drink.”
“Fair enough.” We didn’t say anything for a while, both absorbed in the sock pairings. “You know your father didn’t always drink like this, right?” She was looking right at me and I had to make eye contact.
“I know,” I said. “He hasn’t been that bad while I’ve been home, actually. I sort of see him sometimes when you’re already asleep.”
“That’s nice of you to say,” she said, this time not smiling. “I don’t know, Addie.” She let out a sigh. “I just don’t know.” I hated this kind of discussion and I hated myself for hating it. I wondered for a moment who else my mom might confide in but I wasn’t actually sure how close she was with any of her book-group friends. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” She was looking down again.
“Yeah.”
“Having you home, it made me think, and you seem so . . .”
“I didn’t mean . . .” But I trailed off too. I wasn’t sure whether this was different.
She paused. “Now that you guys are almost grown up, I’m not sure there’s a point.”
“I don’t know.” It was a stupid response and I wasn’t sure if I should comfort her.
There wasn’t sadness in her voice, just that same exhaustion I’d seen from my car. My phone vibrated and I flipped it open to a message from Sam.
“You can take that if you want,” my mom said, looking down.
“Oh, no, it’s fine, it’s not a call.”
“A text message?” She took pride in knowing the term.
“Yeah.”
She paused. “What’s it say?” I pressed Open and waited for a second. It was a heart, followed by a message that said “thinking of you.” I couldn’t show her.
“It’s from Sarah,” I said. “She wants to know what I’m doing tonight.” She looked at me again.
“It’s not from Sarah, Addie. It’s from Sam.”
“No, it’s from Sarah, I swear. It says: ‘Hey what are you up to later?’ ”
She smiled for a second but it didn’t reach her eyes. “When are you leaving?” Her tone was different. It was cheery, bright. I looked at my watch. It was 1:40 and Sam was picking me up at two.
“You know, Mom, I don’t have to—” But she cut me off. “Addie, come on.” She pulled her hair back into a bun. “Three more pairs and I’ll let you free.” So I made three more pairs.
Sam and I smoked two joints on the drive, listening to airy playlists titled with combinations of our names. Three miles from Canada, we parked the car in a field and let the smoky air out just to be safe, sitting on the hood and holding hands. The air was crisp and the sky seemed determined to be bluest on this last day of the year. We could see mountains from where we were sitting and climbed back into our seats only when the sun started tilting west.
I made Sam leave our room while I put on the green dress so it would be a surprise when I came out. It did make my legs look good and I had to take it off and put it back on again before dinner. Sam smiled at me while we met aunts and old high school friends, our glances exchanging thousands of inside jokes. The night was a whirl of champagne and stupid hats and explaining why and where I went to school. At midnight, everyone gathered in a room with a fire, counting down in an iconic chant. Sam had one arm on the small of my back and I could smell the alcohol and perfume and fire that filled the room. I looked down at the fingers squeezing mine and something about the noise or his smile filled me with a kind of sick understanding of what our hand-holding had done. Of what she was trying to tell me before I got into his car. I tried to focus on the lights of the dying Christmas tree and the shrieking faces of guests I didn’t know. But in those final seconds my mind wandered to my dad, who was probably sitting alone in the kitchen, drunk and watching the ball drop on TV; my brother, shooting spells from the depths of his bedroom, his small face green with the glow of his computer; and my mother, crunching down the street with a flashlight and my cocker spaniel, moving through the snowy darkness as the clock hit zero.
Reading Aloud
On Mondays and Wednesdays at 4:30 P.M., Anna takes off her clothes and reads to Sam. Reads him cable-box directions and instant-soup instructions, unpaid bills and pages from his textbooks. Each week she peels off her garments one by one, arranging them beside her chair with practiced stealth. Usually, Sam makes an exotic tea and they revel in descriptions from their mutual senses; it smells like cinnamon berries, it tastes like honey smoke, it feels warmer today. Both can hear its soft percolation, but only Anna can see its cloudy mauve whirlpool. Only Anna can see her wilting breasts and her varicose veins. So she looks at him and he looks at nothing. And they let the words lift off the pages of the manuals and brochures and cereal-box backs and float fully formed from the sixty-something naked woman to the twenty-something blind man.
*
Her doctor suggested it. The reading, not her wardrobe choice. Said something about the benefits of purpose or the advantages of routine. Anna was sick and she knew it. Ever since her husband un-retired, she’d had an ache in her left knee joint and she sometimes felt nauseous. For four days last April, she was convinced unquestionably of her pulmonary tuberculosis; for three days in June of her endometrial cancer. She’d taken to leaving an old copy of The Diagnostic Almanac on her bedside table, flipping ardently through its pages. Naturally, she’d verify each hypothesis with recurrent appointments. Anna liked her doctor and his magazines, his lemon drops, and his pristine coats. Liked him enough to forgive his misidentification of her symptoms as “psychologically derivative.” Liked him enough to agree to volunteer at the city library’s Visually Impaired Assistance Program for “purpose and routine.”