Extraordinary

“Yes, something fun.” (A hint of postponement?)

“Okay.”

“What’s fun?”

“Well,” I said, “what drink would you order if we were at the Cucaracha in Mexico?”

“A margarita.”

“Have you got the ingredients?”

“I sure as hell do.”

“You tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Hang on,” she said, “I’ll come into the kitchen with you.”

“Stay where you are.”

“I have eternity to sit on my behind. Besides, there’s a stool in there.”

So she came into the kitchen with me and told me how to make a margarita.

And when we were done, we toasted each other. Then I turned off the light and brought the drinks back into the living room and sat hers down by her side.

She said, “Would you get me a glass of water, please. A big one.”

“Cold or warm?”

“Just medium.”

I put it beside her margarita. Then I said, “Is it too late? Can we put some music on?” I found myself thinking of the man in the white jacket in the parking lot, waving. “What would you like to hear?”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I’d like to hear ‘Take Five.’ You know that one. Dave Brubeck. I’ve always loved that drum solo.” (The approach of death, in the same way the prospect of the day’s first drink rejuvenates an alcoholic, had made her chatty). “It’s the only drum solo I’ve ever liked.”

Or perhaps it was nerves, now that we were here, finally, at last.

“I agree.”

“Normally I hate drum solos,” she said.

I clicked through her small CD collection and there it was, the Picasso-like cover. I put it on. We listened to those delicious opening bars, cymbal and crisp snare drum.

“Now listen for the piano, that gorgeous piano,” she said. “My grandparents made me take piano for a while. They knew I was artistic, but they just had the wrong thing. But they meant well.”

The green liquid in her drink tilted to the rim. She reached into the bowl of pills and took one and then another. It dropped from her hand onto the carpet. I got it for her and put it back in the bowl.

She said, “This song makes me nostalgic for a life I never had. Have you ever had a song that does that to you?”

“Yes,” I said, “but with me it’s more to do with smells. Pears soap makes me feel like that.”

“Isn’t that funny. Kyle loved the smell of Pears soap. I think it evoked a life that he wanted, an organized comfort that he lacked the discipline to create for himself and knew it. Even when he was a little boy, he loved it. What do you make of that?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Do you think he intuited, even then, how things were going to go?”

I shook my head and smiled somewhat foolishly, or so it felt. We listened to the music. The saxophone was fading, making way for the drum solo.

“I don’t mean I wish I’d had a different life,” she continued. “I had a decent life. I could have done without that fucking carpet, but all in all, lots of love, a wonderful daughter…” Her eyes clouded for a moment; she was thinking of Kyle. “But when I hear ‘Take Five,’ especially the piano (there, you hear it?), I feel like some part of me grew up in Manhattan and went to great parties. For some reason, I always think of Playboy magazine when I hear this song. Men with tie pins. Hugh Hefner.” She reached into the bowl and, with some difficulty, removed two pills.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

“No, no, I’m fine.” She put one pill then the other in her mouth, threw back her head, her black hair falling to her shoulders, then straightened up and took a sip of water. “You know, when I was a little girl, I used to ride cows. Honest.”

I said, “How come you never came to live with us?”

She thought for a full minute. That’s a long time in real time. I could feel myself sobering up more quickly than I wanted. Then: “I used to think that it was because your father didn’t want to raise another man’s child. For years I believed that. But near the end of her life, when the booze and the pills were starting to make her a little sloppy with her stories, Mother let something slip. I understood suddenly that it was her, she was the one who didn’t want me around.”

“Mother? Really?”

“Really.”

“Did you see much of her?” I said.

“She’d come and go. When she felt like it. When she felt sentimental.”

“But her own daughter, surely—”

“Most of the awful things in life turn out to have quite banal reasons—I’ve learned that. You know what I think? I think she thought her new man might like her more if she didn’t come with so much furniture. It might be even more banal than that. Maybe I was too old; maybe having a daughter my age contradicted something she’d said about her own age. Once she got him, got him married, then it was okay to let the cat out of the bag. I remember going on a holiday with her once, one of the few times. I was all grown up and married by then, and determined to get over what a shitty mother she’d been. We went to a beach resort with black sand in Antigua. First night we were in the hotel, just as we were heading downstairs for dinner, she asked me not to tell anyone I was her daughter, to say that I was a cousin.”

I said, “Why were you determined not to hate her? Why do you have to love everyone in your family just because they’re family?”

“I can see you’re thinking of your brother, Jake, again.”

“He’s just an example.”

She said, “The truth is, sometimes I really loved my mother. When I was a little girl, I used to daydream about falling asleep in her arms. And then she’d turn up at my grandparents’ and be funny and worldly and hug me and tell me I was beautiful and we’d go for these drives and I’d forgive her all over again.”

“And then?”

“And then she’d go away again. Sometimes it looked like she wanted to be sure she still had me. Then she was free to get on with her life, knowing I was still there.”

“But you forgave her in the end.”

“Just before she died, yes, I did.”

“Did she know that?”

“Yes, yes. She let her guard down once. And I got to say everything I needed to say.”

“And what’d she say?”

“She just listened. That’s what I needed her to do. Just listen and not argue; not defend herself; not go on the attack. And then she said, ‘You’re right.’ And then we were okay. I never quite trusted she wouldn’t take off on me—people who do that seldom do it just once—but still, we had some fun. I just kept her a little distant from my heart.”

Sally took another four or five pills and threw her head back and swallowed. “Besides, at some point it seems like we all leave someone we love by the side of the road and drive away. I did it to Kyle when I put him on that bus in Mexico; she did it to me to get a new husband.”

And I did it to you, I thought. I sat up. “It sounds rather grand, but I’m going to say it anyway. All sins are not equal. Putting a self-destructive teenager on a bus is not the same as leaving your daughter to grow up elsewhere. It just isn’t.”

Or not bothering to visit your crippled sister.

The drum solo from “Take Five” concluded and, like a slippered guest entering a room, the saxophone resumed.

“Anyway,” she said, and I could see she didn’t want a debate. That she had arrived at an understanding