Dating Big Bird (13 page)

“I think you need to figure out what you want.”

“I want you,” I said.
You healed. Fixed. Normal
.

“But you also want children.”

“I want both.”

“I can’t give you both. And I don’t know if I could live with myself knowing that I was depriving you of something so important. I care about you too much to do that to you.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked. Until now, I’d thought we’d been making progress, getting closer—but maybe not.

“I’m saying that you need to decide which you want more.”

“That’s some choice.” I turned away. He was right, and I knew it.

“Yes, it is. But it’s a choice you have to make, and one that shouldn’t be made by default. If you do that, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

He came over and sat down on the couch and put his arm around me, and we sat there for a few minutes, in silence, in stillness. When he reached for my hand, I held it tightly.

“Come on. It’s late,” he whispered. “Let’s go to bed.”

The Sky was still an opaque blue-gray when we left early that morning. I didn’t sleep during the drive, and neither of us said much, save for an occasional comment about an errant driver or the clouds giving way to clear sky. I felt numb somehow—as if everything with Malcolm had to be examined and reexamined. I knew I would soon have to make decisions I had long avoided making—decisions I didn’t want to make because in the process of making them, I knew, something would inevitably have to be lost.

Usually going to Malcolm’s beach house on the weekend was the perfect antidote to the established rhythm of our week together—the leisurely conversations about my work or his teaching while we sat on the screened-in porch reading the
Sunday papers. Packing up to go, loading his old Volvo station wagon in the garage below his building with our bags and our books and our magazines and, for Malcolm, always a dogeared cookbook or a fistful of recipes clipped from the
Times
for some new soup or curry or stew he wanted to try—heading crosstown and through the Midtown Tunnel and then out to the Long Island Expressway at dusk as night was falling, I would feel something deep inside of me relax. Malcolm’s quiet house, the smell of saltwater that blew in from the harbor, the easy hours of being together—seductive as narcotics—were close at hand.

Malcolm always drove, and sometimes if we were on the road at night, I’d fall asleep in the passenger seat next to him. I’d lean my head against the window and feel the smooth steady stream of heat or air conditioning coming through the vents depending on the season or the weather, listening to the low hum of the engine and the static-filled sound of the radio playing NPR or something classical turned down low so it wouldn’t wake me. Those times I’d open my eyes and see him in silhouette, staring at the darkened road ahead of us. I’d turn to him, and he’d turn to me, and for a brief instant I’d feel a wave of absolute calm, of connection, of something that, while unnamed early on, I would later come to know as love. Alone in the car with him, in the quiet of that moment, with only the dim yellow lights of the dashboard to break the darkness, I’d feel safe, and certain, though safe from what and certain of what I didn’t know, and before I could form a question or a thought, his eyes would return to the road, and soon mine would, too. And while we never talked during those moments, the rest of the ride would be different. A feeling, a current, had passed between us, and like everything else that was silent and invisible with us, it left us each somehow changed.

It was just past eleven when we got to his house, and some of the tension I’d been feeling had lifted. I carried the bag of vegetables we’d bought at a roadside stand into the kitchen, while Malcolm dropped our bags in the front hall next to the stairs. A few envelopes and a weekly supermarket circular from the local IGA were scattered, as usual, on the floor under the mail slot. But when Malcolm picked them up, I saw the telltale muscles in his jaw tense.

“What is it?” I asked, leaning lightly against his right arm. From there I could see it was a handwritten note—with lively script—a woman’s script—covering the creamy white stationery.

Malcolm looked at me absently, then refolded the note and put it, along with the rest of the unopened mail, on the side table. “It’s a note from Ted and Florence. Inviting me to have Thanksgiving with them.”

“Who are Ted and Florence?” I asked.

“Ted and I were at the
Times
together. He is—or was, actually—one of my closest friends.”

“So what happened?” I asked, following him. “I mean, why aren’t you friends anymore?”

Malcolm unpacked the vegetables into the refrigerator in silence, then shut the door and leaned against it, his arms folded tightly across his chest. He was wearing a faded navy T-shirt and over it an old blue plaid flannel shirt that had two buttons missing at the bottom. “They have a son, Sam, who was—who is—the same age as Benjamin. As Benjamin would have been. The two used to play together out here”—he motioned his head toward the kitchen window and the small patch of grass in the backyard—“and in the city. After Benjamin died, we stayed in touch for a while. Jean and Florence and Ted and I would have dinner occasionally during the week in the city, or out here on a weekend once in a while. But it was never the same. Especially
after Jean left me. I couldn’t—” He turned away from the window and looked down at the floor. “I couldn’t handle seeing Sam. I couldn’t help thinking how unfair it was, how—” He shook his head and held his hand, palm open, over his mouth. “I just couldn’t handle it.”

“I can understand that.”

He looked at me. “You can?”

“Of course I can,” I said softly. “Of course it would be hard for you, painful for you, to see him. It would be torture.” I looked at the kitchen window, then remembered the pictures of Benjamin I’d seen in Malcolm’s apartment—mouth wide open, full of baby teeth, lips wet with mischief and glee—and tried to imagine the voices of two little boys playing in the summer dusk. “When was the last time you saw them?”

“Ted and Florence?” He looked past me, thinking. “Oh, I don’t know. Two years ago. Maybe three. Someone, I can’t remember who now, had a cocktail party out here during the summer, and they were there. Not Sam, of course. I haven’t seen him since—since whenever. They’ve always kept in touch, though, or tried to, anyway—Christmas cards, birthday cards—my birthday and Ted’s are two days apart. But this invitation, inviting me for Thanksgiving”—he shrugged, seemingly at a loss—“that’s what we used to do. That’s what we did for five years—spend it together out here, at our house one year, then at theirs, switching off every year. I’m surprised they’ve asked me now.”

“Maybe they think enough time has passed.”

“Enough time has passed for what?”

“That maybe you’ll be able to handle it now. Handle seeing them. I’m sure they understood why you couldn’t see them all this time. Maybe now they think reconnecting would do you good. Do you all good.”

He seemed momentarily lost in thought, lost in the
past—in a past I had not been a part of and would never completely understand no matter how much I tried to. The death of a child—of his child—was something I didn’t know about. I crossed the kitchen and put my arm around his waist, then leaned up and kissed him lightly on the throat. And when he didn’t respond, I moved away slowly, back out of the kitchen and into the hallway, into the present; my present.

A week later, as I waited at LaGuardia for my flight to Portland to board, I called Malcolm to say good-bye, but his machine picked up instead. He hadn’t yet decided whether he would spend Thanksgiving with Ted and Florence and Sam, or whether he would accept an invitation from some other friends in Montauk instead. I’d asked him if he wanted to come to Maine with me, but as expected, he’d declined, and I’d left him at his apartment that Wednesday morning with a heaviness that began to abate only when I pulled into Lynn and Paul’s driveway four hours later and saw my Pickle’s face pressed up against the glass of the living-room window, waiting for her Auntie LaLa.

Early the next morning, in bed, the Pickle put her hands on my face and then pulled on my nose. We always slept together when I visited, and usually I’d wake up first, too excited by the chance to see her perfect little face—almond eyes closed, wide mouth slightly turned upward, big fluff of dark curly hair exploding on the pillow—so deep in sleep.

I opened my eyes, hugged her to me, then put my face between her neck and shoulder and swooned from the sweet softness of her skin.

“Auntie LaLa. Auntie
LaLa
.” Her tone got increasingly insistent with every second I kept her trapped in my embrace. “We have to get up.”

Reluctantly I released her from my clutches and got in a quick nose kiss. “Why?”

“Because we
have
to.”

“Because we have to why?”

She pulled on my nose again. “Auntie La
La
. We
have
to get up because we
have
to get up.”

Clearly I wasn’t going to get more of an answer than that, so I stopped asking. Sun was coming through the bedroom window as I marveled at all the dolls and games and toys and books neatly arranged on her bookshelves. I heard voices coming from downstairs and smelled coffee and turkey wafting up from the kitchen. Suddenly I was ravenous. I pulled on my jeans and a white long-sleeved thermal underwear shirt and a pair of thick gray rag wool socks while Nicole tried (unsuccessfully) to dress herself in a pair of black leggings and a pink angora cardigan. After finishing what she’d started, I got on my hands and knees to survey the huge expanse of shoes in her closet—mostly ones that I’d bought and shipped and heard about during my daily conversations with Lynn. It wasn’t long before I spied the yellow jellies in the corner.

Oooooeuf!

“How about these?” I said, reaching for them.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to wear those.”

I let a beat go by, then went back into the closet. “How about these?” This time I offered the pair of bright green suede Hush Puppies I’d bought on sale on Madison Avenue.

She shook her head again. “I don’t want to wear those, either.”

“But why not? I’ve never seen them on you.”

“No.” She was whining now and I wasn’t sure I liked it. And I also wasn’t sure I liked the idea of giving a child too many choices. So I grabbed the pair of Timberland hiking boots and handed them to her.

“You’re wearing these.”

She looked up at me. “Okay.”

Okay?

After she’d gotten them on and I’d tied them, I stood up and gave her a quick pat on the behind, and when I did her Pull-Up made a crinkling sound under my hand.

“Do you have to pee?” I asked, taking her hand as we left her room and going into the hallway. Lynn had started toilet training her a few months ago, and though there’d been some progress—Nicole tugging on Lynn’s arm, telling her she had just peed or pooped, and only once in a great while that she had to go but hadn’t yet—it was too intermittent to trust. So Lynn told me I had to ask Nicole as much as I could, even though it annoyed her.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure.”

“Auntie La
La
. I don’t have to pee.”

“Well, I do,” I said, but we went downstairs anyway.

Lynn and Paul had bought the big old drafty turn-of-the-century stone house almost four years ago, and since then they’d done some structural work on it—installing a new roof and new plumbing and getting all three fireplaces in working order. The bathrooms and the kitchen still needed to be updated, though, but once Nicole was born, they said they didn’t have the energy to deal with contractors and architects and builders. They also didn’t have the money yet for such renovations. But they’d furnished it nicely with a combination of thrift-store antiques and some new slipcovered couches and chairs that looked like thrift-store antiques, so the overall effect was comfortable. And Pickle-friendly.

Nicole and I arrived in the kitchen to find my mother in complete command. Pots were on the stove and the turkey was splayed, legs in the air, on the counter in a huge roasting pan waiting for its first basting, and she had set my father up with a cutting board and a pile of apples to be peeled and cored and sliced for a pie. Gray-haired and both dressed the same—wearing jeans and sweatshirts and little quilted down
vests that left their arms free—they each gave Nicole a big kiss and set about getting her fed.

Or at least talking about getting her fed.

“Do you think she drinks orange juice yet?” my father asked my mother, his hand on the refrigerator door. Before she had a chance to answer, he said, “And cereal? Do you think she eats cereal or”—he opened the refrigerator now and looked inside with obvious confusion—“or eggs? Or oatmeal?” He shut the door and looked helplessly at my mother, who said in rapid staccato succession: “Apple juice. Frozen waffle. She hates eggs, and the only cereal she’d eat is Life, but Lynn’s out of it.” Then they both fanned out around Nicole to open drawers and cabinets, looking for sippy-cups and plastic plates to put her breakfast on.