Aloft (13 page)

young as they were, both always heading to their rooms before and after supper, both always shutting the doors.

After the lifting hubbub of the news and the subsequent enervation, people start to leave, I walk by and see Paul sitting alone in the empty-shelved library, swirling a glass of white wine. I've already hugged and kissed Theresa, who hugged me quite vigorously back, whispering that we'd all talk later on, tomorrow maybe. Before I could ask what about, she begged off for a quick ride to the 7-Eleven with Jadie and Alice to buy bridal magazines, for what reason she wasn't sure, though citing her interest in cultural fodder and ritual. Yeah, yeah. She said she'd be back after dinner, as they were going to hang out for a while, and it struck me how pleased I was to see her acting so plainly girlish and silly.

Paul says, "Pull up a chair, Jerry. You want some?"

He pours me a glass of Eunice's "house" chardonnay, which it literally is, as a winery out on the North Fork sticks her own handmade labels on her annual ten-case order. We clink and sip and sit without talking, which is unusual for us. Paul is one of the few people who can always draw me out, and not just in a social, good-guy kind of way. I don't know why exactly; though perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he's not like me at all, that we come from dissimilar peoples and times and tradi-tions and hold nearly opposite views on politics and the world, and so have neither the subtle pressure nor the dulling effect of instant concord, an ease and comfort I've enjoyed all my life but find increasingly wanting now Maybe I'm a racialist (or racist?) and simply like the fact that he's different, that he's short and yellow and brainy (his words, originally), and that he makes
me
somehow different, whether I really wish to be or not.

98

C H A N G - R A E L E E

"You're probably wondering what's going on with us," Paul says.

"Not really," I say. "You kids can get married whenever the hell you want, in my book. And I was going to tell Theresa but I might as well tell you. I'm going to give you twenty-five thousand for the wedding, which I set aside a while ago."

"You know we'll probably just go to a justice, of the peace."

"Doesn't matter to me. The money's yours, to use as you please."

"Well, thanks. But it's not necessary."

"Listen. Maybe you want to use it for a down payment on a real house—you know, one that'll be big enough for all of you."

"We've never needed much room."

"Little ones take up a lot more space than you think," I say.

"I suppose that's so," he replies, though not in a way that inspires a load of confidence, and I'm reminded that these two have very narrow expertise, like probably only knowing how to prepare milk for cappuccinos.

"I'm just suggesting that you keep in mind where you two will be three or four years from now What you might want. I'll always help you out, you know. Jack's doing better than fine, and so I figure I can give you and Theresa whatever you need, funds included. Kids are expensive, too."

Paul has a funny look on his face, a sort of smile if a smile weren't necessarily a wonderful thing, as though I've definitely said something awkward, and suddenly he's got his head in his hands, and barely shuddering with what must be joy, still holding his glass just now sloshing over with wine. I half expect this, given the combination of bardic and new age male sensitivity, and I reach over and pat him on the back, saying how eager I am to be a grandfather again, how happy, though wish-A L O F T

99

ing now that they weren't living clear on the other side of the country.

"Is it that obvious?" Paul says, looking up at me now, his eyes red.

"No, but this shotgun wedding announcement is a clue."

He chuckles, and we tip our glasses. I say, "You're welcome to stay with me until the wedding, if you like. Unless you have to go right back to Oregon."

"No, we're not doing that," Paul says, a bit uncomfortably.

"We were hoping to hang around for a while, actually. Theresa has the fall term off, and she misses being back East." "I'm happy to hear that."

"Eunice wants us to stay here but I know Theresa would prefer being back at your house."

"Really?"

"Sure," Paul says, "as long as it's all right with you."

"I said you're welcome, didn't I?"

"Just want to make sure."

"It'll be great, like summer vacation again," I say, warmed instantly by the idea that Theresa might ever choose to stay with me at 1 Cold Creek Lane. "Hey, the three of us can take an old-fashioned car trip somewhere."

"Okay," Paul says. "But can't we all fit in your plane?"

"It'd be a little tight. And I'm not sure I like the pressure, of piloting the next generations."

"I thought going by car was the most dangerous way to travel."

"Private planes are probably a close second."

"If there's anybody I'd trust, Jerry, it would be you."

"Oh yeah?" I say, steeling myself for the inevitable warm and fuzzy stage of our conversations, which I in fact have begun
100

C H A N G - R A E L E E

to half look forward to, and probably now nudge along, unconsciously and not.

"Certainly. You're the sort of fellow who's totally reliable, in the mechanical arts. I think you're an engineer in your soul.

You have that beautiful machine expertise, that beautiful machine faith."

"I've just been a dirt-mover, Paul. But thank you."

He raises his glass, and we clink. Suddenly I realize that Paul may be a little drunk, or a lot drunk, I don't know, because he normally doesn't partake of more than a glass, for the reason that many of his brethren seem not to, as they turn beet red in the face after a couple of sips, looking as if they've played three sets of tennis in the tropics, teetering on some sweaty brink.

"Well, we don't have to fly," Paul says, brightly. "How about let's drive to D.C. You can give us the Jerry Battle special tour of the Air and Space."

Now he's talking, and I'm reminded yet again of one of the many reasons that I always enjoy his company: Paul is sensitive to what invigorates a guy like me, the kind of acknowledgment that really makes me levitate with a foursquare satisfaction, which is what you feel when you believe you've been thoroughly understood.

I say, "You know it's going to be great having you guys around for a little while. Just the idea makes me wish you didn't live so damn far away. Maybe you can move back. There are plenty of nice colleges around here. Stonybrook's just a short drive."

"Theresa just started her tenure track at Cascadia State. But we're not against coming back East, if there's an opening for her. It certainly doesn't matter where I live. I can write myself into obscurity just about anywhere."

"Hey, you have to stop talking like that, Paul," I say. "I know A L O F T

101

the literature-making business isn't the sort of thing where you have to be all rah-rah and gung-ho, but it can't help to run yourself down like that."

"You'd be surprised."

"But you're not the miserable angst-ridden writer type. At least not from where I'm sitting. You like the sunlight and kidding around and you genuinely like people. Everybody who knows you knows that. I'm not trying to give you advice, but it seems to me that you could put your easygoing nature to work for you."

"You mean write fluffy coffee-table books?"

"Don't ask me. But hey, come to think of it, Costco is full of them, and people snap them up like they do the twenty-four-count muffin packs. I know you're not in it for the money, but I have to assume the publishers axe."

"You got that right. The one exception is my new publisher.

The patron of my new press does it solely for vanity, so she can lord it over the rest of her Aspen circle that she cultivates boutique international writers."

"See, you're doing it again."

"I'm sorry, Jerry," Paul says, sliding deeper and deeper into the club chair. His face and neck are mottled several shades of lobster red-pink, a pretty clear sign that his genetically challenged liver has begun bucking this unusual overtime shift. I could gently chide him, but what the heck, for it's one of those seriously fortunate pleasures, is it not, to sit down with your (soon-to-be) son-in-law and a bottle of smooth, buttery vino and breezily tie one on and not have to swoop and dodge the baggage-strewn recriminations of a shared past (as you'd have with your own son), but rather wishfully opine on what joys the coming years might bring with unflinching sentimentality that says nothing is beyond our grasp, that the ceiling's limitless.

102

C H A N G - R A E L E E

And in this spirit, I say, unqualified, "Hey, Theresa looks great, really great."

Paul takes a big quaffing gulp. Lets the medicine go down.

He answers, "She does, doesn't she?"

"Her mother got just like that when she was pregnant. I think just before a woman is showing is when she's most beautiful.

Like she's just stepped out of a hot shower. Lucky for me, Daisy showed very late. How far along is she? It can't be too much."

"She's not well, Jerry," Paul says. "I hate to tell you this.

Theresa didn't really want to just yet. But I told her we had to tell you."

"Hold on. There's something wrong with the baby?"

"The baby is fine." Paul tries to smile, or not to, I can't tell.

He says, "It's Theresa."

"Oh yeah? You better tell me."

"She has something."

I don't say anything. I don't want to say anything, but I say, as if I'm out on a job with the crew, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Paul stares down into his wineglass. "It's a cancer, Jerry"

"Jesus, Paul. You're fucking kidding me. Where is it?"

"It's sort of not that kind. Besides, right now, she wouldn't want me to say."

"I don't care what she wants: You tell me now."

Paul takes another big gulp. He says, hardly saying it, "It's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma."

"What the hell is that?"

"It's cancer in the lymph nodes."

"But she'll get treatment, she's getting treatment."

He shakes his head. "We've been to every doctor in Oregon and Washington. We're seeing someone at Yale Medical School A I, O F T

103

tomorrow. But I think it's going to be the same story. It's not something they can operate on, and the chemo and radiation would hurt the baby."

"So what the hell are you two doing? What the hell is this?"

"She doesn't want to hurt the baby, Jerry," he says. "We've fought over this and fought over this and I haven't been able to change her mind. She's going to try to wait until after the baby's born. It's due in December."

"She can have another baby!" I say. "She's only
thirty,
for heaven's sake! Am I missing something here? You can have a half dozen more, if you wanted."

"There's the problem of the chemo causing infertility. That's not certain, though. But really, it's that she's decided she wants this one. You talk to her tomorrow. Please talk to her. I can't anymore. Right now I just have to support her, Jerry, because there's no other way."

"Dammit, Paul, this is all fucking crazy. You're both fucking crazy!"

"Don't you think I know that?"

"Oh fuck it!"

We're suddenly shouting at one another, standing toe to toe, and I realize that I've gripped my wineglass so tight that it's snapped at the stem. One of the points is digging into my palm.

I'm stuck and bleeding. I drop the two pieces onto the chair cushion. Paul reaches for a box of tissues and gathers me up a wad, and when I press it I get a sharp, ugly surge of that old feeling again, when Daisy was so lovely and so fragile, the feeling like I want to break or ruin something. Something always need.

f o u r .

HE DAY THAT DAISY DIED was a lot like this one, early July, with the sun seeming stuck right at the top of the sky, T

casting the kind of light and heat that make all the neighborhood kids vault over themselves with pant and glee and then cows everyone else, moms and dads and us older folks and teenagers and the family pets. Daisy liked the heat, and though she didn't know how to swim she'd spend plenty of time in our backyard pool, tanning in her plaid one-piece in the floating lounger or else dog-paddling with an old-fashioned life ring looped under her arms. I tried to teach her how to swim a couple of times, but I'd end up cat-scratched about the neck and shoulders, and then half-drowned besides, Daisy lurching and pulling up on me whenever I let her go, yelling out if her face or scalp got wet. She wasn't so much dainty or persnickety but for some reason hated being submerged or drenched. She always showered with a cap and on alternate days shampooed her hair in the sink, the drain of which I'd have to unclog every A L O F T

105

couple weeks of the thick black strands, using a pair of chop-sticks.

And I swear—I swear, I swear—that I never imagined for a second that the pool was dangerous, at least for her. Sure I jumped in a half-dozen times to pluck out one of my kids or their mangy, booger-streaked friends thrashing fitfully in the deep end, but Daisy was always careful and tentative, even after she started to change and began seeing our family doctor for meds. She always entered the water as if it were as hot as soup, then pushed off from the steps with her float tube and kicked, her taut chin just barely hovering above the surface.

Hey, honey, she'd say to me, the ends of her hair slicked to pencil points, I'm a mermaid.

Sexier than that, I'd say, through the Sunday paper, through the summer haze.

It was nice like that, a lot of the time. I remember how Theresa and Jack would spend pretty much every second between breakfast and dinner in our backyard pool, or else run •

about on the concrete surround and the lawn spraying each other and whatever friends were around with water pistols filled with Hi-C punch or sometimes even pee (I caught.them once in the rickety little cabana I'd built, giggling and pissing all over their hands trying to fill-er-up). If it was the weekend I'd be out there for a good while, too, chuck the kids around in the water and play the monster or buffoon and do a belly flop or two for a finale, then dry off and wrap a towel around my waist and drag a chaise and a beer beneath the maples and snooze until one of the kids got hurt or fell or puked because they drank too much pool water, all of which in the heat and brightness and clamor made for a mighty decent time. This, of course, was dependent, too, on what mood Daisy was in, but in those early
106