CROWDED BAR WAS IN AN AIRPORT HOTEL, and many of the patrons had their carry-ons beside them. I had to squeeze past a large black overnighter to get into my seat. “Oh, sorry,” a young woman said, pulling it in closer to her.
“No problem.” I said this, though what I wanted to say was Move it!
Pete ordered wine at the bar and brought it back to the table. I said nothing until he reached over and rubbed my shoulder.
“What a mess!” I shook my head.
“Did something else happen?”
“You won’t believe this. Aunt Fran told me—” I stopped talking, aware that the young woman I squeezed past was listening intently. “I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. And then, pointedly, “Maybe we should switch tables.”
With that, the young woman rose, put money down on the table, and stalked off.
Pete watched her go. “What was that all about?”
“She was eavesdropping.”
“Ah.”
“I hate it when people do that.”
He said nothing, but in his silence I could hear his all-too-correct accusation: You do it constantly.
“Anyway, Aunt Fran told me it was Caroline who attacked my mother, not the other way around.”
Pete sat back. “Wow. So what do you think?”
“At first, I was absolutely convinced that Fran was taken in by my mother in the same way Dad always was. But now I don’t know. I can’t think straight. I feel like I need to be doing something, and I have no idea what to do. I mean, I feel weird going home to see my mother, when I don’t know if she . . . I don’t know what to believe, Pete. I honestly don’t.”
“Maybe you just have to let things sit for a while. It’s not like you have to make any decisions about anything right away. Whoever did what, it happened a long time ago. Caroline’s said what she needed to say, and she’s getting help. Your mother’s okay for the time being. I think . . . well, I might as well tell you now, I think she wants to stay with us for a while. Lots of hints about how she feels glad to have company, how she can help with this and help with that.”
“Help with what?”
“Oh, babysitting—”
“We don’t need a babysitter. We finally don’t need one!”
“Shopping, she mentioned grocery shopping.”
“I like to pick out my own things.”
“Laura?”
“What!”
“It’s not my idea. She’s not my mother. You know?”
“I know that!” I stared at him. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just mad. I want to go home and just have it be normal again. I don’t want her there. That’s the truth. And I miss my dad, and I haven’t even been able to take the time to mourn him.” I sighed. “I don’t know, I guess you’re right. There’s nothing to do now but let some time go by. Let’s just go home.”
In the car, with the radio off, the quiet and the darkness and the presence of Pete began to soothe me. “I’m not going back there for a while!”
“You don’t have to.” He took my hand. “So. You want to know my thing that happened today?”
“What?” I turned toward him, nearly giddy with relief.
ROSA, SUBBY, MY MOTHER, PETE, and I were seated at the kitchen table, and the kids were upstairs in their rooms. We were having coffee and the excellent pistachio biscotti that Rosa baked this afternoon, probably fifteen seconds after she set foot in the house. We were all in our pajamas, and despite the strain of everything that had been happening, I felt happy. It was as though I’d awakened from a bad dream, had left behind a pulling darkness to join these familiar faces in this most familiar of settings. Our voices overlapped as we talked; we laughed frequently. What was notable, of course, was my father’s absence, that persistent raw spot: my mother’s smile fading as she rubbed the familiar bump of bone on the outside of her wrist the way she used to rub the knuckles of his hand.
Rosa’s short gray hair was in pin curls, and she wore a black hairnet over them. She was talking about her father, how he used to stuff a sock and call it a cat. “He would hold it in his arms and pet it, Goooood kitty, goooood kitty, and then—MEOW!—he’d make it jump out of his arms. Oh, I’m telling you, we loved it. We used to laugh till we peed our pants.”
“Today, these kids need cyberspace to be entertained,” my mother said.
“They use it