This Lullaby(52)

I waited. But that appeared to be all she would tell me, as now she’d grabbed a nail file from the mug stuffed with pens and pencils and was at work on a pinkie, shaping it deftly.

“Swans,” I said finally.

She chucked the nail file down on the desk and stretched her arms over her head. “You know,” she said, tucking a stray hair behind her ear, “they’re dreadful creatures, really. Beautiful to look at but mean. The Romans used them instead of guard dogs.”

I nodded, drinking my coffee. Across the room, I could hear the cat snoring.

“So,” she went on, “it got me thinking about what cost beauty. Or for that matter, what cost anything? Would you trade love for beauty? Or happiness for beauty? Could a gorgeous person with a mean streak be a worthy trade? And if you did make the trade, decide you’d take that beautiful swan and hope it wouldn’t turn on you, what would you do if it did?”

These were rhetorical questions. I thought.

“I just couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she said, shaking her head. “And then I couldn’t sleep, either. I think it’s that ridiculous tapestry Don insisted we hang on the wall. I can’t relax looking at all these carefully stitched depictions of military battles and people being crucified.”

“It is a little much,” I agreed. Every time I went into her room to get anything I found myself somewhat transfixed by it. It was hard to tear your eyes away from the panel that illustrated the beheading of John the Baptist.

“So I came down here,” she said, “thinking I’d just tinker, and now it’s eight in the A.M. and I’m still not sure what the answer is. How can that be?”

The music faded out now, and it was very, very quiet. I was sure I could feel my ulcer stirring, but it might have just been the coffee. My mother was always very dramatic when she was writing. At least once during every novel she’d fling herself into the kitchen, near tears, hysterical that she’d lost any talent she ever possessed, the book was a quagmire, a disaster, the end of her career, and Chris and I would just sit there, silent, until she wailed out again. After a few minutes, or hours, or—in bad times—days, she’d be right back in the study, curtain closed, typing away. And when the books arrived months later, smelling so new with their smooth, not-yet-cracked spines, she always forgot about the breakdowns that played a part in creating them. If I reminded her, she said writing novels was like childbirth: if you truly remembered how awful it got, you’d never do it again.

“You’ll work it out,” I said now. “You always do.”

She bit her lip and glanced down at the page in the typewriter, then out the window. The sunlight was spilling in, and I realized she did look tired, even sad, in a way I hadn’t noticed before. “I know,” she said, as if only agreeing with me to move past this. And then, after a quiet second or two, she switched gears completely and asked, “How’s Dexter?”

“Okay, I guess,” I said.

“I like him very much.” She yawned, then smiled at me apologetically. “He’s not like the other boys you’ve dated.”

“I had a no-musician rule,” I explained.

She sighed. “So did I.”

I laughed, and she did too. Then I said, “Okay, so why’d you break it?”

“Oh, the reason anyone does anything,” she said. “I was in love.”

I heard the front door swing shut as Chris left for work, yelling a good-bye behind him. We watched as he walked down the driveway to his car, a Mountain Dew—his version of coffee—in one hand.

“I think he’s going to buy her a ring, if he hasn’t already,” my mother said thoughtfully. “I just have this feeling.”

Chris started the engine, then pulled out into neighborhood traffic, turning around slowly in the cul-de-sac. He was swigging the Mountain Dew as he drove past.

“Well,” I said, “you would know.”

She finished her coffee, then reached over and brushed her fingers over my cheek, tracing the shape of my face. A dramatic gesture, like most of hers, but it was comforting in that she’d done it for as long as I could remember. Her fingers, as always, were cool.

“Oh, my Remy,” she said. “Only you understand.”

I knew what she meant, and yet I didn’t. I was a lot like my mother, but not in ways I was proud of. If my parents had stayed together and grown to be old hippies singing protest songs as they washed dishes after dinner, maybe I would have been different. If I’d ever seen what love really could do, or was, maybe I’d have believed in it from the start. But too much of my life had been spent watching marriages come together and then fall apart. So I understood, yes. But sometimes, like lately, I wished that I didn’t, not at all.





“But it’s filling up.”

“Filling up but not full.” I took the Tide from him and unscrewed the cap. “It has to be full.” “I always put the soap in right when it starts,” he said.

“Which is why,” I said, pouring a bit of detergent in as the water level rose, “your clothes don’t ever get truly clean. There is a chemistry involved here, Dexter.”

“It’s laundry,” he said.

“Exactly.”

He sighed. “You know,” he said as I poured in the rest of the Tide and eased the lid shut, “the rest of the guys are even worse. They hardly ever even do laundry, much less separate their colors and brights.”