Forever, Interrupted(33)

“A week and a half,” I say. I’m rounding up. How sad is that? I’m f*cking rounding up.

“Eleanor, you are going to be okay,” my father tells me.

“Yes,” my mother says. “You will be fine. You will get back up on your feet. I hope you haven’t taken too much time off work at the library. You know with state budget cuts, it really isn’t the time to be compromising your job. Although, I was talking to one of my friends on the board of the hospital, and she mentioned that her daughter is a law librarian. She works directly with some very high-powered attorneys on some really impressive cases. I could call her, or give you her number if you’d like. They are a bicoastal firm.”

I’ve always known that my mother will take any opportunity to remind me that I can be better than I am now. I can be more impressive than I am now. I have the potential to do more with my life than I am doing now. And I didn’t necessarily think she’d waste this opportunity out of fear of being insensitive and gauche, but I don’t think I realized how seamlessly she’d be able to do it. I can hear, as she speaks, how far I have strayed from their plan for me. This is what happens when you are your parents’ only child, when they wanted more but couldn’t have any, when they procreated for the purpose of building mini-versions of themselves. This is what happens when they realize you aren’t going to be like them and they aren’t sure what to do about it.

It always bothered me until I moved out here, away from them, out of sight of their disapproving stares, their condescending voices. It didn’t bother me again until right now. I have to assume it’s because I didn’t need them again until right now. And as much as I may say that nothing will make this better, I’m inclined to think that feeling supported by my parents would have made this just a little bit easier to bear.

“No, thanks, Mom,” I say and hope that the conversation will end there. That she will give up and just resolve to sell harder next time.

“Well,” my dad says. “Is there anything you need from us?”

“Nothing, Dad. I just wanted you guys to know. I hope you have a good rest of your night,” I say.

“Okay, I’m sorry for your loss, Eleanor.” My mother hangs up her end of the line.

“We really wish you the best, Elsie,” my dad says. It catches me off guard, hearing the name out of his mouth. He is trying. It means that he is trying. “We just . . . we don’t know how to . . . ” He breathes audibly and restarts. “You know how your mother is,” he says, and he leaves it at that.

“I know.”

“We love you,” he says, and I say, “I love you too,” out of social convention rather than feeling.

I hang up the phone.

“It’s done now,” Ana says to me. She grabs my hand. She holds it to her heart. “I’m so proud of you for that one. You handled yourself really, really well.” She hugs me, and I throw my face into her body. Ana’s shoulder is a soft place to cry, but I’ve heard urban legends about the safety of a mother’s arms and that sounds pretty good right now.

“Okay,” I say. “I think I’m going to go lie down.”

“Okay,” she says. She cleans the plates from the table. Hers is an empty plate covered in maple syrup. Mine is clean but full of pancake. “If you’re hungry, let me know.”

“Okay,” I say, but I am already in my room, already lying down, and I already know I won’t be hungry. I look up at the ceiling and I don’t know how much time passes. I remember that his cell phone still exists somewhere. That the number didn’t die when he did. And I call it. I listen to him over and over, hanging up and dialing again.





JANUARY


It was a rainy and cold Saturday night. Well, cold for Los Angeles. It was fifty degrees and windy. The wind had started to sway the trees and make the rain fall sideways. It was only five o’clock but the sun had already set. Ben and I decided to go to a wine bar not too far from my house. Neither one of us cared that much about wine, but it had covered valet parking, so it seemed the most dry of the nearby options.

We made our way to the table, taking off our wet coats and mussing with our hair. It had been so cold outside that the inside felt warm and cozy, as if we were sitting at a campfire.

I ordered a caprese salad and a Diet Coke. When Ben ordered a pasta dish and a glass of Pinot Noir, I remembered that the whole point of this place was the wine bar.

“Oh,” I said. “Cancel the Diet Coke. I’ll have the same.” The waiter grabbed our menus and walked away.

“You don’t have to order wine if you don’t want wine,” Ben said.

“Well,” I said to him. “When in Rome!”

Our glasses came shortly after, filled halfway with dark red. We swirled the glasses under our noses, smiling at each other, neither of us having any idea what we were doing.

“Ah,” Ben said. “A faint smell of blackberry and . . . ” He sipped his drink in a reserved, taste-tester sort of way. “It has a woodsy quality to it, don’t you think?”

“Mmmm,” I said, sipping mine and pretending to contemplate. “Very woodsy. Very full-bodied.”

We both laughed. “Yes!” Ben said. “I forgot full-bodied. Wine people love saying things are full-bodied.”