Not get myself into a position where she can buy me a five-hundred-dollar dress that makes me look like an astronaut’s wife. It’s better to just lay in supplies and stay home with her.”
I wondered if I was explaining too much. I didn’t want to sound like a criminal whose alibi is suspiciously perfect, her movements too intricately accounted for.
“Whatever you say,” he answered. There was no mistrust in his voice.
He closed the lid of the trunk. “I’ll miss you,” he said.
In another moment, Bobby would come out of the house with Rebecca. I reached over and took hold of Jonathan’s sleeve.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“Oh, you know. I’m sorry I’m such a coward about my mother. Next time I’ll bring her up here. You’re right. She’s going to have to get used to it.”
“Well, parents are tough. Believe me, I know about that,” he said.
“I’m just really sorry,” I said. I could hear the possibility of tears in my own voice.
“Honey, what’s the matter?”
At that moment, I felt sure he knew. I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said.
He gave me a reassuring little squeeze. “Silly old Clare,” he said. “Good old crazy thing.” In fact, he didn’t know. He still hadn’t developed the habit of loss. He believed his life would get fatter and fatter. Maybe that was the fundamental flaw in his perception. Maybe that’s what prevented him from falling in love.
“Oh, quit with that ‘good old crazy thing’ shit, all right? I’m an adult. I’m not some playmate of yours.”
“Oops. Sorry.”
“Really, Jonathan, I just wish you’d—”
“What? You wish I’d what?”
“I don’t know. How long do you plan on being a boy? All your life?”
“As opposed to becoming a girl?” he said.
“As opposed to…oh, never mind. I’m being a bitch today. I could feel it the minute I woke up.”
“Listen, will you call me when you get there? So I know you’re okay?”
“Sure. Of course I will.”
We stood for a moment, looking around at the scenery as if we were new to it. As if we had just stepped out of our Winnebago to stretch our legs and marvel at this particular stretch of a national park.
“Aren’t things supposed to be simpler than this?” I asked.
“Bobby says it’s a new world. He says we can do anything we can imagine.”
“That’s because Bobby’s a deluded asshole. I mean that only in the most complimentary sense.”
I realized I was still holding on to the sleeve of Jonathan’s jacket. When I let go, the denim held the shape of my grip.
“I’m going to go see what’s keeping him,” I said. “If Rebecca and I don’t get moving soon, we’ll hit the New York traffic.”
“Okay.”
Jonathan waited by the car, hands deep in the pockets of his khakis, sun glinting on his pale hair. I turned to him when I reached the porch. He gave me an ironic, sisterly smile and I went into the house.
Bobby was coming down the stairs with Rebecca. “I just about gave up on you,” I said. “If we’re not past Manhattan by one o’clock—”
He put his fingers to his lips. “Erich’s sleeping,” he said. “He’s had a hard morning.”
I took Rebecca from him. She was having a bad morning, too. “I don’t
“You got everything together?” Bobby whispered.
“Mm-hm. Car’s all packed. Say goodbye to Erich for me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I
Bobby stood on the bottom stair, his paunch slightly straining the fabric of his T-shirt. At that moment he looked so innocent and well-meaning. I could have slugged him for being such a sap; such a guileless optimistic character. I could see him old, shuffling along in bedroom slippers. Claiming that the convalescent home was really fine and perfect. They had chocolate pudding on Fridays, he’d say. The maid’s name is Harriet, she brings me pictures of her kids.
“Listen,” I said. “I’ve got a wild idea. Do you want to come with me?”
“Huh?”
“Right now. Just throw a few things in a bag and come along.”
“I thought, you know, your mother didn’t approve of me. Of us.”
“Fuck my mother. Do you want to come?”
“We’ve got to take care of Erich,” he said.
“Jonathan can take care of Erich. It’s time he started to take more responsibility, don’t you think? The two of them will manage all right together. They’ll be fine on their own.”
“Clare, what’s up? What’s got into you?”
I held the baby. I said, “Nothing. Never mind. I’m just a good old crazy thing.”
I carried Rebecca out the door, and Bobby followed me to the car. As I strapped Rebecca into her car seat she began fussing and whimpering. Eventually the motion of the car would lull her but for a while she’d be inconsolable. I braced myself for her wails.
“Bye, boys,” I said.
“No,” Rebecca said from her car seat. “No, no, no, no, no.”
They both kissed me, told me to drive carefully. They kissed Rebecca. Their attentions were all it took to push her over the edge. She opened her mouth, nearly gagging on a howl she’d been building up to since breakfast.
“Bye, Miss Rebecca,” Jonathan said through the window. “Oh, we love you even if you are sporadically monstrous. Have fun with your horrible grandmother.”
“Take care of yourselves,” I said. I backed the car out of the drive. I waved, and the boys waved back. They stood close together, in front of the dilapidated house. As I pulled away, Jonathan suddenly came running toward the car. I thought for a moment he had something to tell me, but then I realized he was only going to run alongside for a few yards, foolish and faithful as a dog. I drove on. He caught up and briefly kept pace, blowing kisses. I waved again, one last time. Before I reached the turn I looked in the rearview mirror and saw both of them. Jonathan and Bobby, standing in the middle of the road. They looked like a pair of beatniks, sloppily dressed in a remote, unimportant place. In their sunglasses and T-shirts and unruly hair they looked like they were standing at the brink of the old cycle: the 1960s about to explode around them, a long storm of love and rage and thwarted expectations. Bobby put his arm over Jonathan’s shoulder. They both waved.
The road was silver in the morning sun. It was a perfect day for traveling. Rebecca kept up her wails in the back seat. Miles ticked away under the wheels. I knew our lives wouldn’t be easy. I pictured us together in San Francisco or Seattle, moving into an apartment where strangers argued on the other side of the wall. I’d push her stroller down unfamiliar streets, looking for the grocery store. She wouldn’t think of our lives as odd—not until she got older, and began to realize that other girls lived differently. Then she’d start hating me for being alone, for being old and eccentric, for having failed to raise her with a back yard and a rec room and a father. For a moment, I thought of turning back. The impulse passed through me, and if I’d been able to make a U-turn I might have done it. But we were on a straight stretch of highway. I followed the double yellow line until the impulse was absorbed by gathering distance. I kept my hands on the wheel, and didn’t think of anything but the next mile and the next. I glanced back at Rebecca. She was finally calming with the motion of the car. Before she went under, she looked at me balefully, her nose running and her cotton hat askew, and said one word. She said, “Mommy.” She pronounced it with a distinct edge of despair.
“Someday you’ll thank me, sweetie,” I said. “Or maybe you won’t.”
Now I’m alone with this. This love. The love that cuts like an X-ray, that has no true element of kindness or mercy.
Forgive me, boys. I seem to have gotten what I wanted, after all. A baby of my own, a direction to drive in.
