Walking on Broken Glass (36 page)

By the time the dampness settled on us like a second skin, we’d finished eating. I held the back door open for Carl who’d volunteered to carry in the wobbling stack of dirty plates, silverware, and glasses. He stepped over the threshold, paused, and turned to me. “This was nice. Our talking to one another.”

My heart heard a whisper of trust in his words. “For me, too. It's been a long time since …” I stared at my hand on the doorknob. The unspoken floated between us like a bloated balloon that waited for the truth to explode it.

I looked at Carl. I whispered what I hoped his heart could hear, “… since I was sober enough to do this.”

Later, I spooned my body inside Carl's, felt the length of him against me. His arm stretched down the side of my body. He lifted my hair, and covered the back of my neck in butterfly kisses. He reached over and patted our child, God's work-in-progress. “Good night, Leah. Good night, baby. I love you both.” And we slept.

We’d been transformed by prayers answered, dreams lived, and promises fulfilled. We traveled the road of our shared lives, the markers along the way built by memory. I recalled that night whenever I thought of being held in the cleft of God's hand. Of the simple joy of a generous life.

Carl, my watch, and I waited for dad's plane to land at Fairway Airport. It was the smaller of the two airports in the city, but closer to the country club where we were meeting Carl's parents. Tonight was the dinner recognizing Carl's becoming a part of his father's business.

Somehow, I managed to squeeze myself into the black dress Carl had bought for the anniversary party. Thanks to the baby, I filled out the top of the dress. The horizontal pleats across the waistline left space for maybe half a slice of cheesecake for dessert. Carl's suit was also the same one he’d worn. A maddeningly unfair advantage men have, being able to not only recycle their suits, but to have anyone barely notice.

The days since Carl announced his news passed so smoothly they could have been lyrics in a richly mellow song. He didn’t pressure me with expectations either inside or outside the bedroom. And his willingness to wait increased my willingness to take small, steady steps in the direction of trust. I continued my 90/90 AA meetings, and I called Rebecca every day. Molly and I talked again, but only briefly. She told me she was busy with doctor appointments. She and Devin were human boomerangs during the
in vitro
procedures and checkups. We made a walk date for the next weekend. I told her if I didn’t start exercising again, people wouldn’t know which end of me carried the baby.

My brother Peter and I talked a few times. The attorneys had kept him busy preparing their trial notebooks for an upcoming asbestos suit. He had to finish before court, so he was going to the office early and leaving late, checking filings and evidence. Well compensated as a litigation paralegal, he rarely complained about his work schedule. The last time I’d spoken to Peter he asked if I’d check my calendar to see if I could squeeze in a weekend or longer in New Orleans. “I’ll check on AA meetings close to my house. I wouldn’t think we have a shortage of alcoholics in this city. Well, maybe of recovering ones,” he’d said.

I hadn’t mentioned the idea of marriage counseling to Carl yet. Whether he decided to go or not, I knew I needed to. Ron told me before I’d left Brookforest I had to start dealing with issues that came out during our sessions. “This is the scratch on the scratch. You know what that means, right? You’ve shared some intense situations. No way were we going to be able to process those in just a few days,” he’d cautioned.

I asked Rebecca when I saw her at my next meeting, “Do I ask Carl now with the comings and the goings between Morgan and his dad's company? It might be better to wait until that settles down. Then he’ll have out-of-town trips, setting up his new office.” I looked at her. “I just answered my own question, didn’t I?”

“Good for you,” she said. “I bet you’ll be talking to him real soon.”

“After the dinner this weekend,” I said. “I’ll talk to him on the way home from dropping my father off at the airport. It's tough to ignore someone sitting in the seat next to you.”

For now, Carl and I attempted to pick Dad up from the airport. The flight hadn’t been delayed; we’d already checked. He had carry-on baggage, so we didn’t have to swarm around the luggage carousel. But with my father, possibilities abounded. The most likely scenario was his having found someone he knew. For Bob Adair, “knew” was defined as sharing space with someone for five minutes. Peter and I used to play “name the state Dad's been to where he hasn’t bumped into anyone he knew.” We stumped ourselves.

“Don’t forget. We’re not telling him about the baby until we’re all at dinner. I know how you are around my father. Secrets are not your forte,” I said, attempting playful seriousness.

Carl spotted him first. Tall people have that advantage. “Bob! Bob! Over here.” He waved his arm. I don’t think Carl realized tall men's baldness alone equaled visibility in airport crowds.

Dad walked behind a petite woman, with a liquid honey complexion and a close-cropped Afro. She rolled a suitcase behind her with one hand, and with the other, she clutched the hand of a little boy, probably four or five, with the same smooth honey skin and close-cut hair. He twisted over his right shoulder like soft taffy, laughing at my dad who entertained him making smushy faces. The child tried to walk forward while he looked backward. His mom was as oblivious to what caused his slowness as my dad was to the fact that he caused it.

As the little boy plip-plopped past, Dad made one last fish mouth face and was rewarded with a snorting grin.

“Did you see that little boy? Cute one, huh? How are you two? Come here, honey. Give me a hug.” He handed Carl his suitcase and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “Let me look at you. You look terrific! Carl, she looks great, doesn’t she? So, how have you been, my man?” My dad asked and answered his own questions so fluidly that we learned just to ride along until he stopped.

Dad grabbed Carl's hand and pulled him close so that he could reach around and pat him on the back. “Good to see you. Good to see you.” He looked at the floor and swiveled his head. I could tell by the vacant expression on his face, he’d already forgotten where he’d put his suitcase.

“Carl has it,” I said.

“Whew. Great. Let's go.” We started walking in the direction of the car. “Where’d you park? Someplace close?” He patted his jacket pocket, pulled out a pair of glasses, and tapped me excitedly on the shoulder. “Look at his. Smart, huh?” He demonstrated the hinge action of his aluminum-framed glasses. “What’ll they think of next?”

Carl and I shared an eye contact moment when Dad simultaneously shook his head in obvious admiration of the hinge inventor's cleverness and cleaned his lenses with a cotton handkerchief from his back pants’ pocket.

“Honey, how are you? With the, you know, all that stuff in the hospital. It worked, baby? Feeling better?”

I slipped my arm through his as we walked to the parking garage. He was probably one of the last breed of men to slather Aqua Velvet lotion on after every shave.

“Yes, you know, I’ve been out over two weeks, going to meetings—”

“Hey, that's great. She's doing fine, huh, Carl? So good to hear that. Oh, look, is this your car? I’d forgotten you had this one.”

“So, I was telling you about the meetings, I go—”

“Bob, why don’t you sit up front. Leah doesn’t mind. I can catch you up on the business news. And, hey, what's happening with the Saints?”

“Oh, let me tell you this … Is this the seatbelt buckle? Leah, honey, you see the buckle back there?”

“Here, Dad.”

“Oh, thanks. You know, they’ve gotta do something in that running back position. You agree?”

Carl nodded and drove down three levels of the concrete corkscrew, stopped at the parking booth, and we were on our way.

I looked out the side window. My dad and Carl hit words between them like a friendly game of air hockey. After every four or five words from my father, Carl slipped in a few of his own. Sentence completion rarely occurred in conversation with him.

Ron's words, “You loved him because he reminded you of your father,” didn’t ring true tonight. How was Carl anything like my father? I didn’t remember this dismissive side of my father. The token attention to an uncomfortable topic, like my rehab. Once I told him I was fine, he didn’t want details. Not that there's anything wrong with his not wanting me to drone on and on about AA when he just landed. And I didn’t mind sitting in the backseat. It's miles more comfy. Besides, when Mom was alive, we’d always sit women in the back and men in the front.

Don’t compromise yourself, Leah, you’re all you’ve got.

Now where did that come from?

C
arl was Landon and Gloria Thornton's only son when I met him. Their only living son.

Vic, Carl's brother, died in a car accident at the age of eighteen. He and his new Mustang convertible left home one Monday evening so he could start college at Louisiana State University's Baton Rouge campus. Neither one of them made it. The details, over the years, have faded as has the mention of his name. For whatever reason, the song on the radio, the sun in his eyes, Vic didn’t know two lanes had been narrowed to one as he exited the Atchafalaya Bridge. By the time he realized he’d run out of a lane, he’d run out of a life. His Mustang careened into the boggy ditch. They found his body, a crumpled mess, several feet away.

If the subject of Vic or the accident broke hallowed ground, there were two taboos.

Never to be discussed in the Thornton house:

1. That Vic was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident.

2. Empty cans of Amber Beer covered the floor of the car.

Carl was eight years old when he became an only child. His parents, for almost ten years after Vic's death, built their business with a vengeance. By the time Carl was Vic's age, his parents had accumulated lots of stuff purchased by lots of money.

When I first met Carl he told me his parents were in sales. There's in sales and then there's IN SALES. His parents were the second. They appeared entirely too squeamish to be making major drug or weapons runs. I knew people with oodles of money who built Amway businesses, but their products were all over their homes, their faces, their bodies, their cars. I didn’t understand what pipeline the Thorntons had located, and I still don’t. But it worked, and I don’t have to understand how. Now that I’m in AA, I can wrap my brain around that a little better.

Landon sold things to people who needed things—sort of a one-man offline eBay, moving larger commodities. Let's say you have ten thousand whatevers and you need to sell them. Landon found someone who wanted ten thousand whatevers or two people who wanted five thousand each, and he hooked them up. He earned a commission. He never had to touch the products. Personally, I thought it was brilliant. Landon and Gloria did, too; if you asked them, they’d tell you.

Carl graduated from college (not LSU) and thought he would work in his father's business. The machine hummed along, and Carl figured he’d play a tune or two. Landon and Gloria thought Carl needed to serve time in the “real world of work.” I guess for the truly wealthy, that's a sort of prison.

So Carl served his time, and tonight we’d finally be able to celebrate his initiation into his family's business. At least that was the plan.

As usual, the country club dining room was bountifully decorated with candles and brimming with bow-tied waiters. The Thorntons had a table center stage. Landon and Gloria were truly gracious to Dad. Since Mom died, I’d seen a glimmer of something in them that might be called compassion.