Vanna turns another letter. Me and Ma weren’t expecting that. We’re not sure how to respond. We’re not used to arguing where someone says so much without yelling. No one speaks for a minute. Ma, surprised by Harry’s boldness but pretending not to be, rasps, “Alright, alright, gay boy, don’t get your panties in a bunch. You’ll need ’em for your big day.” She takes another drag, another sip, pretending, like always, that she’s won.
Harry puts his arms around me. We breathe in unison. I let the back of my head fall to his chest. He sighs into my hair. I know he didn’t want to do that. He was there for the worst day of Ma’s life too. He’s never forgotten that. But he’s put me first and maybe that’s what’s so hard for her. She’s never been first for anyone.
I say, “Alright, Ma, we’re leaving. Johnny, let’s go, Granma’s busy and we need to get ready for tomorrow. OK, buddy?”
I pull Johnny up off the floor. “Jeej, where’s Shit City?”
“Don’t say that, baby, that’s just a pretend place Granma made up.” She doesn’t look when Johnny gets up, her eyes focused on Pat and Vanna as she takes a last drag. She crushes the empty beer can and leans forward in her chair with a grunt to put out her cigarette in Niagara Falls.
I get our stuff together and notice the laminate paneling, see how the boards have warped and cracked with age and the pressure of all the dysfunction they’ve had to contain. Harry takes Johnny to the bathroom and I wait for them in the kitchen. I put my hand on Frankie’s framed high-school graduation photo, still hanging by the phone on the wall. I whisper to my brother’s smiling face, “Keep us safe.”
“Jeej, who you talking to?” Johnny comes out of the bathroom, his jeans all twisted. I kneel down to straighten him out and I say, “I’m just talking to your uncle, up in heaven.”
“Can he hear us?”
“I hope so.”
“Hi, Uncle Frankie!” Johnny shouts and waves at the photo, smiling. “Can I take him with us? When we go to London?”
Ma’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen. I catch her eye and I know she heard that so before she can say anything that’ll hurt Johnny I quickly lie, “You know what, baby, I have a copy of that picture, I’ll put it in a frame for you, OK? Let’s go or we’ll miss the ferry.”
“Bye, Granma! I love you!” Johnny shouts, as Harry helps him with his jacket. He knows she won’t hug him so he just waves.
Then Harry says, “Goodbye, Donna. I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn. I care very deeply for your daughter. I hope you know that. If you change your mind about attending tomorrow you’ll be very welcome.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” she says as she walks past him into the kitchen. Harry nods and waits in the doorway with his hands on Johnny’s shoulders, keeping him still. Ma says to me over her shoulder, “I don’t know how you listen to this guy. Does he ever talk like a regular person?”
I try to move past her to get to the doorway and I say, “Bye, Ma.”
She says, “Wait, Eugenia.”
“Ma, we got to catch the ferry.”
“I know,” she says. The air is thick with smoke and all the words we aren’t saying. The ancient olive-green fridge clicks on, hums in the corner.
She moves past me to the kitchen table and picks up her denim purse with the fringe and gold studs. It’s faded now and ragged, the denim brown on the bottom, almost black with dirt and age. I remember when she bought it on a back-to-school shopping trip at Kmart when we were kids. It was two bucks from the last-chance bin. My mother was never a denim-fringe-and-gold-studs kind of woman. But maybe that’s why she bought it, to feel like someone else, some sassy stylish lady of the eighties with a different kind of life. My father lost his shit when he looked at the receipt and saw that she bought something for herself when money was so tight. They argued all night but she still kept it. She still uses it.
She rifles through the bag, looking for something. Harry’s not sure whether to leave us alone but my eyes tell him to stay. Johnny shifts his weight from one foot to the other but stays quiet. In a movie this would be our last chance to say something so that this scene isn’t added to her lifetime of regrets. I’m supposed to bear the weight of this time for her but I don’t know how. I’ve never known how to do anything but love and hate her at the same time. Watching her search through that sad, old, dirty bag, I feel sorry for her too. So I reach forward to touch her hand: “Ma?”
She pulls a $5 bill out of her bag and says, “Here, take this for the kid. Buy him a donut or somethin’.”
I take the bill and look at her hand. Swollen with thick fingers, stiff and arthritic. Our hands brush each other in the exchange. Her skin is like wax. It feels old. Her life wasn’t easy.
I put the five bucks in my pocket. I swallow hard so I don’t cry and whisper, “Thanks, Ma,” and I walk to the door, to my family, and Ma watches me from the kitchen.
Manhattan, March 2014
Harry’s hungover, unshaven, wearing yesterday’s suit. He’s chugging a Snapple Iced Tea, the last one he’ll have for a long time because he’s flying to London tonight and there’s no Snapple there. Or iced tea. Before he goes, he has to prove to the British government that he really loves me and that I didn’t just marry him for a visa. That’s hard to do, though, because I
