Flesh and Blood (34 page)

“We eat a lot more grains these days,” Ben’s mother said. “I’ve tried to cut our fat intake by at least half.”

Aunt Zoe looked at the boiling lobsters with an expression of appetite and regret.

“Lately I’ve been on a couscous kick,” Ben’s mother said. “It’s easy, and you can do a lot of different things with it.”

“I know,” Aunt Zoe said. “Proper nutrition is a good thing, I know that. I just had to—I don’t know. Release myself from the obsession, I guess.”

“You don’t have to turn everything into an obsession, you know,” Ben’s mother said.

Aunt Zoe laughed. “Balance,” she said. “It’s the hardest thing.”

She looked at Jamal, humorously, helplessly. She was getting ready to let him be the one who worried and measured and said, Just this much and no more. Eleven years of motherhood had been enough for her. She wanted to be a child again.

Jamal didn’t let anything happen on his face. He left the room, walked out the screen door onto the porch. Ben could see him through the window, stretching his long thin arms, looking up at the sky.

His mother followed his eyes, saw Jamal, winked at Ben. Had she felt the movement of his thoughts when she smoothed his hair?

“Ben, honey,” she said. “Maybe you could set the table.”

“Sure, Mom.” He got plates and silverware, went into the dining room. The dining room had a long blue table, flying fish painted on its bare wood walls. From the living room, an announcer talked about a wall of fire marching to the ocean. As Ben set the table, he made sure the knives and forks and spoons were perfectly straight.

Uncle Will arrived the next morning, with his boyfriend. Ben’s stomach heaved at the thought. He watched from an upstairs window. He chipped away scabs of paint with his fingernail.

They came in the boyfriend’s car, an old MG Ben wouldn’t have minded taking out himself. But he wouldn’t get in their car, he wouldn’t want his ass on their upholstery. He watched as they got out, were met in the yard by his mother and Aunt Zoe. Hugs, kisses. Uncle Will was tall, rabbit-faced, too clever, wearing cutoffs and a white muscle shirt to show that he owned one of those cut-up unathletic bodies guys could hack out with free weights. An invented body, hefty without being fit. He looked like he’d trained for the decathlon and probably couldn’t run ten yards. His boyfriend was a professor type, with a boxy head and a distracted attitude, as if music he hadn’t chosen was playing inside his head. His skinny legs ended in a pair of high-top sneakers, which he wore without socks.

Ben’s mother and Aunt Zoe loved Uncle Will with the hypnotized steadiness of feminine blood. They were sisters and they were women. They had no choice. Men were the ones who decided; women could only say yes or no to the love that lived inside them. Men were responsible for their devotions. Women were pulled through the world. Only the most powerful disappointment could make them stop loving, and once they’d stopped they couldn’t decide to love again. Inner valves would close. Their body chemistry would change. It wouldn’t be what they wanted.

“—thought you weren’t coming,” he heard his mother say through the glass.

“Hate to miss all the fun,” Uncle Will answered. He spoke in wit, a private language. Everything meant something else.

Ben watched them walk up the porch stairs. Uncle Will carried two suitcases, and Ben’s mother and Aunt Zoe crowded around him. They let the boyfriend straggle behind, listening to his silent, unfamiliar music.

Ben heard them come in the front door. He heard his grandfather trying to navigate between courtesy and outrage.

“Hello, Billy,” his grandfather said. The voice came up the stairwell, patient and powerful as the house itself, this wooden fortress that had stood here looking at the bay for almost a hundred years.

“Hello, Dad. You remember Harry.”

Uncle Will’s voice was skittish, piping, delighted with itself. A flute of a voice. Ben got up, ran downstairs. He didn’t want to stay in the house anymore. He didn’t want to listen.

He’d have to see them on his way out.

They were in the living room, all of them except Jamal, who had a talent for being elsewhere. As Ben came down the stairs, Uncle Will looked up, arranged his face into a witty parody of surprise.

“Ben?” he said.

Ben said a soft hello, got himself down to floor level.

“Good god, you’ve grown, like, three feet.”

Ben shrugged. His size was his own, his right, not something he’d invented. Not something to be clever about.

“These days you’ve got to check in at least once a week if you want to keep up,” Ben’s mother said.

Don’t help him. Don’t give him anything.

Uncle Will came over, put out his soft hand. Ben let him perform a parody of a manly shake.

“How’ve you been?” Uncle Will asked. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Ben said.

“You look good.”

Don’t touch it. Just leave me alone, don’t look at me.

“Hey, Ben,” Uncle Will said, “this is Harry.” Ben didn’t know where to look. He looked down at his side, where sunlight stretched over the rag rug. Then he looked at his grandfather. His grandfather’s face was clouded as a mountain’s.

The boyfriend shook his hand. The boyfriend’s hand was harder than he’d expected it to be, dryer. The boyfriend had a talcumed smell, not flowery, more like chalk.

“Hello, Ben,” the boyfriend said.

For his own sake and because his grandfather was watching, Ben didn’t look at the boyfriend’s face. He let his hand be shaken, took it back.

“I’m going out,” he said to his mother.

“Don’t you want to stick around for a little while?” his mother asked.

“No,” he told her. And he left, knowing his grandfather would respect him for not being polite.

Outside, the light hung languidly, heavy white in the August air. It was a dead-calm day, close as a held breath, no good for sailing, though Connie wouldn’t be coming around for a few more hours and things could pick up by then. Ben walked down to the bay along the short stretch of road that was graveled in pulverized clamshells, bone-white in the whitened air. The water of the bay glowed green. It foamed listlessly around the domed heads of the rocks.

He found Jamal lying on the dock, face down on the boards. Jamal wore loose purple trunks. Ben stood for a moment, watching him. He didn’t think about beauty. He walked onto the dock.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“There’s a big fish under here,” Jamal said.

“Where?”

Ben lay beside Jamal, put his eye to the gap between the boards.

“You have to wait for him to move,” Jamal said.

Ben saw only still green water that reflected, unsteadily, the boards of the dock, like a rope ladder fluttered by the wind. He was aware of Jamal’s body beside his own, the innocent pressure of Jamal’s elbow against his elbow and of Jamal’s bare knee against his thigh. He looked for the fish. He thought of nothing else.

“He’s down there,” Jamal said. “He’s a really big one.”

“I don’t see any fish,” Ben said.

“There. There he goes.”

Ben saw the sweep of a fin, spined and flat, broad as his hand. Then an eye. One staring yellow eye, big as a poker chip. Rising toward the surface. Ben sat up quickly. His heart pounded.

“Shit,” he said.

“What’s the matter?” Jamal asked.

“It’s huge,” he said.

“Pretty big. I bet he’s two or three feet long.”

“Bigger than that,” Ben said.

“No.”

“It’s
huge.
¹¹

“Are you afraid of it?” Jamal asked.

“No.”

But his heart still pounded. He fought an urge to run back to land, scramble up the road to a high place.

“It’s just a fish,” Jamal said. “It can’t hurt you. It’s just a fish.”

1993/
Zoe lived in the sickness now. She could speak as herself, she could make the usual jokes. But she was going somewhere else. She felt herself changing away even as the dinners were cooked, as stars appeared in the windows and the television played its familiar music. She watched from a place she’d never been.

Will ran up the porch stairs, shining. Harry sat with the newspaper in a metal chair shaped like a clamshell.

“Right,” Harry said. “Run ten miles in August. On your vacation.”

“I love it,” Will said. His chest heaved. He wore a do-rag on his head. He was cheerful and smelly and he carried with him a small, barely visible angel of hope. Zoe remembered his nipples from when he was a boy.

“And Zoe and I have enjoyed watching you,” Harry said. He laid his hand on the back of Zoe’s chair. He propped his feet, sockless in dirty white high-tops, on the railing.

“Hey, Zo,” Will said. He stood behind Zoe and Harry. He bent over to kiss the top of Harry’s head.

“You’re dripping on my newspaper,” Harry told him.

“I’m gonna drip on more than that. How’s it going, Zoe?”

“Okay,” she said. “It’s so pretty out here.”

“Yeah.”

They were surrounded by bees and a scoured blue sky, the bright unsteady water of the bay. It seemed that nothing would happen because this existed, bees browsing among beach roses in the August light.

“How would you feel about a swim?” Will asked.

“I’d go for a swim,” Harry said. “How about you, Zoe?”

“Hm?”

“Do you feel like swimming?”

“Oh. I don’t know. How about if I just sat on the beach and watched the two of you?”

“Whatever you like,” Will said.

Zoe took a strand of her hair in her hand. She couldn’t tell whether she was leaving time or entering it more deeply. She held her hair as if for balance.

“What I’d like is to sit on a beach,” she said, “and watch you boys swim.”

“We’re not boys,” Harry said. “Only in our dreams.”

“I think of you that way,” she told him. “That’s what I call you, to myself. The boys.”

“I don’t mind us being thought of as boys,” Will said.

“You wouldn’t,” Harry said.

“Give me a break.”

“Right. The oldest living boy.”

They fell into a false slugging match. Will feinted and parried exaggeratedly, like a boxing kangaroo. Harry slapped his fists away.

“Don’t mess with me,” Harry said to Will’s fists. “I’m in no mood.”

“I haven’t even started messing with you,” Will said.

A bee buzzed onto the porch, hovered over the floorboards.

Zoe watched it in its lush, suspended heaviness of body, the transparent shadow it cast. She watched her brother and his lover move together. Was their affection for each other related to the flight of the bee? No, that was just her habit of seeking connections.

Will said something to her, and she only smiled. These days, she didn’t always worry about the words.

“Earth to Zoe,” Harry said.

“I’m here,” she told them. “Don’t worry, I’m right here.”

Ben and Jamal came up the porch stairs, paused together at the top. The bee made its decision. It angled off the porch and flew east, over Ben’s and Jamal’s heads. Zoe saw—had she known?—that Ben and Jamal were a couple, too. They were a kind of couple. Will and Harry were another couple. The bee had desires of its own. She held on to her hair.

“Hey, guys,” Will said. “What’s up?”

“We saw a fish,” Jamal said.

“Really?”

Ben stood silently in his wounded virtue, all the love he wanted and didn’t want.

“A pretty big one,” Jamal said. “Under the pier.”

“You guys feel like going swimming?” Will said.

“Okay,” Jamal answered.

Ben didn’t speak. He went into the house, banged the screen door behind him. He sent out onto the porch a stale breeze full of the smells of the house. Will looked at Harry. Funny kid, huh?

Jamal came and stood near Zoe. He waited for her to speak or not speak, waited for the next minute of her life.

“So let’s hit the beach,” Harry said.

“Mom?” Jamal said.

“You three go,” Zoe said. “I’ve changed my mind, I’m happy right here.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

When Jamal didn’t move she gently swatted his behind. “Go on,” she said.

“Do you want me to go swimming?”

“Yes. I want you to go swimming.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She sat in her chair as Will and Harry and Jamal went inside the house to change into their bathing suits. There were tiny shifts in the air, intervals of greater and lesser incandescence. Something was gathering, something golden and blue and old. When Jamal and Will and Harry came back out Ben was with them, sleekly muscled in his baggy orange trunks. Will kissed her, and the others said goodbye, even though they’d return in less than an hour. These days, people always said goodbye. She watched them walk toward the bay. As her son and her nephew and her brother and his lover walked away together, Zoe saw that an equipoise had arrived. Here it was, right now: the heart of summer. For months, forces of ripeness and decay had been rising together toward this, an enormous stillness, a slumbering depth of gold and blue that contained no changes or contradictions.

Then she saw it pass. She saw the first descending light arrive, the first infinitesimal click of autumn. She realized she had been holding her hair all this time. When her son and her brother and his lover had passed out of sight, she let go of her hair.

“Are you warm enough?” a voice said. For a moment she thought it was the voice of the air itself, deep, with a hint of oboe and kettledrum. Bees could float in a voice like that, little electric sparks flying through the music.

“Yes,” she said.

Her father came and stood beside her. It was his voice. It was his sweet, rank smell.

“You okay?” he asked. “Just sitting by yourself?”

“Everybody was here,” she said. “They all went swimming.”

“Who?”

“Will and Harry and Jamal and Ben.”

He walked to the railing. He frowned out into the day that had begun its long cooling, its descent. Tomorrow would be the first day of autumn, though the calendar wouldn’t acknowledge it for another three weeks. Tomorrow the light would be fatter, more prone to blue.

“Ben and Jamal have a sailing lesson at two,” her father said.

He had love and hatred turning inside him, a system of tides. His hair was going transparent. His skin was freckling with age.

“It’s all right,” Zoe told him.

“Huh?”

“They’ll be back in time.”

“Right.”

He left the railing, reluctantly. He bent over Zoe, put his face next to hers.

“You’re okay here?” he said. “Warm enough?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

He nodded. He sucked on his teeth, pulled in a quarter note of air, and Zoe thought he might have tasted the day, the fading promise of it,

“I’m fine,” she said again. “It’s good to just sit here.”

“My darling,” he whispered. “My little girl.”

That night, because there weren’t enough bedrooms, Will and Harry pitched a tent in the patch of scrubby grass that lay behind the house. They’d bought a tent epecially for the trip, red nylon, bright as candy. Zoe watched them laugh and argue about setting it up. She watched Will’s arms and back as he sunk pegs in the sandy earth. The night was alive with fireflies and mosquitoes, with rustlings of leaves and the restless, invisible presence of the bay. She heard Susan and smelled her and then Susan touched her shoulder.

“How are they doing out there?” Susan asked.

“Hm?”

“How. Are. They. Doing?” Slowly and loudly, as if she was speaking to a foreigner.

“Abbott and Costello go camping,” Zoe said.

Susan massaged Zoe’s shoulder. Her fingers were stronger than anybody knew. “You feeling okay?” she asked.

“Mm-hm.”

“Hey.” Susan called past Zoe, into the night. “If you guys can’t manage it, Zoe and I will pitch the tent for you.”

Susan’s voice was the engine of the family. Her unhappiness only deepened her well-oiled shine.

“We’re doing fine, thank you,” Will answered. His skin was burnished in the darkness. A quarter moon had risen.

“Let’s go help them out,” Susan said to Zoe.

“Okay,” Zoe said.

“Let’s. Go. Help. Them. Out.”

“I heard you, Susie. I’m here.”

Zoe and Susan stepped out of the rectangle of kitchen light, off the small wooden stoop and into the grass. Zoe felt as if she was wading into warm water. She could feel the hidden eyes of animals, watching from the bushes. Susan held Zoe’s elbow, the way she’d guide an old woman.

Harry said, “Thank God, the National Guard is here.”

“We’ve
got
it,” Will said. “Look. All done.”

He stood up. There was the tent, saggy but upright. In its red triangular simplicity it might have been a child’s drawing of a tent.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right out here?” Susan asked.

“Sure we’re sure,” Will said. “We love the outdoors.”

“We think we love the outdoors,” Harry said. “Neither one of us has ever slept outside before.”

“That’s not true,” Will said. “I went camping once, with my best friend’s family, when I was twelve.”

Zoe said, “I want to see what it’s like in there.”

“Be my guest,” Will said,

She parted the nylon flaps and crawled in. The inside of the tent was a slick red-black world, surprisingly separate from the larger world, full of a warm plastic smell.

“It’s nice in here,” Zoe said. “Cozy.”

Will crawled in and crouched beside her. “Not bad, huh?” he said.

“I want to sleep in here, too,” Zoe said.

“Can’t. It’s for men only.”

Susan parted the flaps, knelt in a triangle of black grass and stars. “This looks like it’ll be fine,” she said.

Then Jamal was in the triangle with her. Zoe saw his hair, the indistinct glitter of his eyes.

“Cool,” he said.

“Come on in,” Will told him.

Jamal hesitated, and climbed in. Zoe saw how much like an animal he could be. She thought of a raccoon sneaking into the tent, the sense of ownership it would bring.

“Cool,” Jamal said. He sat close to her. She took a corner of his T-shirt between her fingers.

“Maybe,” she said, “the boys will let you sleep out here with them.”

Will said, “Sure, if you want to. I think there’s room for three of us.”

Jamal looked at Zoe. She felt his desire and his fear. She knew about his need to stay with her and his need to go away.

“Go on,” she said. “It’d be fun, you’ve never slept in a tent before.”

He pulled his knees up to his chin. He made the smallest possible package of himself, sat silendy before Zoe and Will.

“You don’t snore, do you?” Will asked.

“No,” Jamal said.

“Well, you’re invited. You can protect Harry and me if we get scared.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Right. It is. You can stay out here if you want to. If you don’t want to, nobody’s going to be offended.”

“Okay,” Jamal said. “I’ll stay with you.”

Later, in the house, Jamal changed into yellow pajama bottoms. He still wore his Jesus and Mary Chain T-shirt. Zoe stood in the bathroom doorway as he brushed his teeth. “This will be fun,” she said.

Jamal watched his reflection in the speckled mirror. A moth whirred dryly against the painted tin lampshade.

“You like Will and Harry, don’t you?” she said.

He nodded. He might have liked Will and Harry. He might only have wanted to please her.

She said, “Do you want to take something out there with you? One of the Star Trek people?”

“No,”
he said impatiently, through toothpaste. His love of the Star Trek figures had become a secret vice. He believed he was too old for toys. Zoe thought, A mother knows too many secrets. That’s why she has to die.

Jamal spit toothpaste in the sink, rinsed his mouth. Here was the steadiness of his being, as he cupped water in his hands and took it to his mouth. Here were the years to come, a night and another and another.

“Come on,” Zoe said. “I’ll walk out there with you.”

When she and Jamal went outside, she could see that something was wrong. Her father stood near the tent in his fighting posture, feet planted wide apart and hands fisted on his hips. Zoe wondered if he knew how feminine he looked in that position, how much like an indignant queen. Will was talking to him and Harry stood behind Will, neither present nor apart.

“—fucking believe this,” Will said to their father’s angry face.

“Calm down,” their father said. “Just keep cool, here.”

Zoe and Jamal walked through the grass to where her father and Will and Harry stood.

“Zoe,” their father said. His face changed. His face stopped, paused, pulled back a quarter inch.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

Will said, “Dad doesn’t want Jamal to sleep with us.”

Their father did not move. If somebody tipped him over, he’d have fallen with his hands still on his hips and his feet still wide. He’d lie in the grass like a toppled statue of Queen Victoria wearing men’s clothes.

“What?”

“Take Jamal back to the house, Zo,” their father said.

Will said, “No, oh no you don’t. Jamal should hear this, it’s part of his education.”

“You don’t have any shame, do you?” their father said.

‘You ready for this one?” Will said to Zoe. “Dad’s afraid Harry and I will molest Jamal if he stays in the tent with us.”

“Don’t you tell her that. I didn’t say that.”

“Go ahead, deny it.”

“Jamal’s got his own bed in the house,” their father said. “He’s too young for this, that’s all I said.”

“Right,” Will said. “He’s too young to sleep out in the back yard. Dad, you are a piece of work, you know that? You are one fucking piece of work.”

“Watch your language, mister. Zoe, you and Jamal go back in, now.”

“Don’t move,” Will said. “Don’t you move.”

“Dad,” Zoe said. “Please.”

“You evil bastard,” Will said. “You really think—”

“Stop this, now,” their father said.

“Or what? Or you’ll beat me up? I’ve got news, Dad. You can’t do it anymore.”