The Birthday Party

He had been sitting by her bed for a couple of hours, reading, when she finally stirred. She emerged from her sleep slowly, with long, ponderous blinks, then stared at him blearily, blankly. He got up to stand beside her.

“Hi, Mom. How are you feeling?”

She merely looked at him, through him.

“Do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?”

She shook her head slowly. She said in a rasping whisper, “I don’t know who you are. But you do seem familiar. Are you my brother Joseph?”

He grimaced. “No, Mom. Uncle Joe died more than five years ago. I’m your son, Jeremy.”

She said nothing, and presently closed her eyes once again.

* * *

“She’s about where we expect her to be. The memory loss – it’s a toss-up if that’s from the Alzheimer’s or the astrocytoma. However, she’s been having more frequent hallucinatory episodes, and that’s almost certainly from the tumor pressing on her temporal lobes and causing dream-like seizures.”

Jeremy sat slumped in his chair in Dr. Samuel Kyle’s office. He said, “She keeps seeing faces, people then?”

Dr. Kyle said, “Yes. Some of them frighten her, some confuse her. The nurses sometimes catch her talking to herself, questioning people who aren’t there. And she's starting to suffer from misperceptions, misidentifications; sometimes she mistakes the nurses for other people, people from her past.”

Jeremy looked at the neurologist balefully. “I know. She thought I was her brother just now.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jeremy stood up heavily. Dr. Kyle observed him with a clinical eye. He said, “Are you taking care of yourself, Jeremy? I’m sure you got that talk about how caregivers have to make sure to see to their own needs.”

Jeremy smiled wanly. “I’m fine. I’m just a little worn out. It’s just been a long couple of years, you know?” He shook Dr. Kyle’s hand. “I’ll be back tomorrow. It’s her birthday.”

“Yes, I’d heard you wanted to give her a party.”

Jeremy’s smile faded. “Well, that was the plan. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find anyone to come.” He shrugged. “Most of her friends are gone or not in good health themselves. It’ll just be me, most likely.”

“What about your family?”

Jeremy shook his head. “My father’s passed away. Her brother and sister are both gone, too. Maybe my sister, if I can convince her.”

Dr. Kyle leaned back in his chair. “Well, a small, quiet celebration might be for the best. This may sound terrible, but it’s not likely she would appreciate a party… or remember it afterwards, really. Her short-term memory is almost gone.”

Jeremy looked grim as he left.

* * *

“It’s her 78^th birthday, Shannon,” Jeremy said to his sister over the phone. “Are you really sure you can’t make it?” He had thought of reminding her that with the tumor slowly growing in her brain, their mother likely wouldn’t have a 79^th – but he decided against playing that card.

A short silence over the line. “I told you before, tomorrow’s a really busy day for me. We’re doing inventory at the store, I can’t take the day off. And it’s an hour and a half drive to the home.”

“But if you…”

“Besides, it’s not as if she’ll even know it’s her birthday,” she continued, talking over him, echoing Dr. Kyle’s line of reasoning. “She won’t even remember it the next day.” He let the justification, the excuse of their mother’s mental deterioration – which he had heard a number of times from people he had tried to invite to the party – pass. He understood it to be cover for the reluctance, the fear, the sadness of dealing with someone who wasn’t all there, who was all but gone.

Shannon went on, “My shifts will lighten up in a few weeks, after we get through our busy season. I’ll try to visit her next month.”

“Okay.”

“You let me know if anything changes with her, all right?”

“Okay.”

* * *

One last try.

Jeremy stood beside his parked car in front of the college hall steps, scanning the young men and women as they streamed out the front door. Finally he saw his son emerge with a small group of friends. Jake spotted him, and, with a quick word to his friends, went down the steps to Jeremy.

Jake looked confused. “Hey, Pops. What’s up? What are you doing here?”

“I was wondering if you got my invitation to your grandmother’s birthday party tomorrow.”

“Um, yeah. Or Mom told me about it. Didn’t she get back to you?”

“Well, yes. I know your Mom doesn’t want to come; I understand if it’s still too soon after the divorce. But I was hoping you would change your mind and join us. It’ll just be an hour or two for lunch.”

Jake glanced back at his friends, who were watching them from the steps. “Um, yeah. I don’t know. It’s such a long way. And I have a study group tomorrow.”

Jeremy nodded. “I understand.”

Jake studied his father, noting the sag of his shoulders, the tight set of his mouth, then said, “You know what? Why not. I haven’t seen Grams in months. What time is it? Would you mind if I rode with you?”

Jeremy’s face brightened. “Of course, not a problem. I’ll pick you up at your house at 10:30.”

Jake patted his father’s arm, then turned to rejoin his friends.

* * *

On the day of the party, a blessing. When Jeremy entered his mother’s room, he noticed at once that she seemed a little stronger, a little more alert than usual. She was propped up on her bed with pillows, and she looked like she had been freshly cleaned up and dressed by the nurses. She peered at Jeremy closely as he came in burdened with take-out food and a small box of cake.

She smiled and said in greeting, “Joseph.”

Jeremy paused just inside the room. She looked past him, and smiled again. Jake had just come in after his father, towing behind him several brightly-colored balloons. “And Jeremy. How nice to see you, son. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Jeremy and Jake exchanged glances. Jake said, “Um, it’s Jake, Grams. Happy Birthday.”

But she had turned back to stare at the open door, her smile widening further. She said, “And Beth, and my good friends Chandra and Pepper and Ward, and Mr. Abe, and Mrs. Woods from down the block, and Mom and Dad. But where’s Shannon? Oh, here she comes. How are you, dear?”

Jeremy and Jake cast about the near empty room as they set the food on the side table and tied the balloons in various spots. She continued looking around beatifically at her phantom guests, nodding to each one in turn.

She said, “My, I don’t know how we’ll all fit in this small room.” Then her face turned anxious, and she waved to Jeremy to come closer. She whispered, “But where’s Tom? Why isn’t he here yet?”

Jeremy shifted uncomfortably, “Um, Mom, Dad’s not coming. He left us, you know, quite a while…”

But she had turned away from him, smiling again, looking at the still open door. “Oh, there he is.”

Jeremy turned to where she was gazing, expecting to see just more empty space. He was startled to see Dr. Kyle standing at the doorway with a bouquet of flowers. He said to Jeremy, “I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by. I just wanted to drop this off for Mrs. –”

She stretched out her thin arms to him, saying, “Thomas, sweetheart.”

Dr. Kyle looked at Jeremy questioningly as he walked in. Jeremy whispered to him hurriedly, “My father. She thinks you’re my father.” Jeremy looked at him with an expression wrought with pleading.

Dr. Kyle returned his stare, momentarily nonplussed, then nodded. He turned to Jeremy’s mother and laid the bouquet beside her. “And how are you today, dear one?”

She took his hands in hers. “I’m very happy. Is this all for me? Is it my birthday?”

Dr. Kyle said, “Yes, it is. Happy Birthday.”

She closed her eyes blissfully. “It was so good of you to surprise me with a party. How did you get everyone to come?”

Dr. Kyle glanced at Jeremy, “Well, actually, it was Jeremy’s idea. He planned the whole thing.”

She turned to Jake and motioned him over. She pulled him slowly to her to clasp him in an embrace. “You are such a thoughtful boy. I am so blessed to have such a thoughtful boy. This is the best party I have ever had. I will never forget it.”

Dr. Kyle sensed Jeremy move away and sit down on the armchair by the window. He turned to look at him, then quickly interposed himself between him and his mother, so that she could not see him as he sat on the chair, his face in his palms, his shoulders heaving silently as he was wracked with soundless sobs.

(January 2013)

Notes on the Previous Six Stories

The latest batch of stories were mostly responses to prompts from Flash Fiction Friday:

“Opening Salvo” came from the cue: “Write a story of gripping suspense, with a ‘ticking bomb’ of some sort. Word limit: 1,500 words.”

“Moira” emerged from the cue: “Use this starter sentence to write your story: ‘We need to talk about Kevin.’ Word limit: 1,300 words.”

“A Valentine Trinket” was the exception: I came up with it cueless. It is, as the title says, just a little doo-dad about Valentine’s Day.

“Falling” arose from the cue: “Write a story that begins with this sentence: ‘Call me Maybe.’ Word limit: 1,000 words.” Went way over the word limit on this one.

“Translation” and “Spells” came from the cue: “Write a story that features a full moon and its effects on characters in the story. Word limit: 1,300 words.” I meant to make this a suite of three stories, but the third one just wouldn’t jell. The second of the stories, “Spells,” also went over the word limit.

All of these were fun to write!

Two Tales of Love and Loss under the Light of the Full Moon

Spells

They lay on lounge chairs on the rooftop of his apartment building. Cole had brought Dianne home from the party where they had met with the promise of an unrivalled view of the night sky. The clear, cloudless expanse above them – mantle of black dusted with stars and silvered by the insanely brilliant full moon – had made good on his word.

Cole let the silence grow, waiting for it to become just slightly uncomfortable. Then he said softly but clearly, “You know that the moon – more than any other object – is the container of all of our feelings, right? That it’s just bursting with them and is thus the most potent talisman for magic?”

Dianne looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just that for hundreds of thousands of years, it’s hung up there, taking in all of mankind’s fears and dreams and wishes. Just like you and me right now, people have been looking up at it and sending it whatever they were thinking and feeling. Peasants offering up their gratitude that it was giving enough light to harvest by; hunters doing the same for the light with which to see their prey. That’s why the full moon is sometimes called, depending on the season, ‘Hunter’s Moon’ or ‘Harvest Moon.’ And think of all the travelers and sailors and wanderers who have blessed the moon for lighting their way. That’s a hell of a lot of emotions that it’s been absorbing.”

Dianne smiled. “I guess. That’s a nice way to think about it. So you think that an inanimate object like the moon can actually absorb all that?”

He gave her a look with just a shade of condescension – but softened it with a smile of his own. “All objects do. Otherwise seers and sensitives wouldn’t be able to walk into a house and sense strong emotions in the very walls and foundations. Someone died there lonely, perhaps, or terrified; or maybe it was a place where people had lived happily.

“No object is really inanimate; things resonate with the sentiments that we project into them. Haven’t you ever picked up something – a ball, or a pencil, or a… a sandwich – and gotten a tingle of the person who held it before you – an echo of what he or she felt? Or think about holy places – cathedrals, mountains, monasteries. The moment you come to them, you get a sense of their sacredness – because they’re reflecting back to you all the worshipful feelings people have been imbuing them with for years.”

He continued: “Now, most things don’t last very long, and most things don’t continually get bombarded with thoughts and feelings. Balls are lost, sandwiches are eaten“ – he smiled at her again – “houses and churches are torn down. Even mountains shift and crumble, in time. But the moon“ – he pointed up and watched her follow his finger to the incandescent orb – “that’s been there forever, for as long as people have walked the earth. Just imbibing everything.”

He smiled as a thoughtful look came over her face. “And of course, more than any emotion, what the moon’s been taking in are the feelings and wishes of lovers throughout the ages. You don’t even have to try very hard to sense the ardor and longing and heartbreak and love and, yes, the lust” – another smile – “of all the lovers who have gazed at the moon and shone the lights of their hearts on it.”

She turned to him, with a little look of uncertainty now. She said, “And you’re saying you can sense all that?”

He answered, deadpan. “Sure. But then I’m part warlock.”

A slow smile spread on her face. “Sure you are.”

He shrugged. “You know how all women are at least part witches? Well, only some men are part warlock. And of those few, even fewer know that they are part warlock.”

“And you’re one of those very few men.”

“I sure am,” he whispered confidently, in confidence. He made a gesture with his hand as if he was gathering in the light of the moon and then closing his hand around it in a fist. He sat up and opened his hand towards her as if releasing the light he had captured.

She sat up herself, her face a question. “What, did you just cast a spell on me?”

He grinned. “I sure did. I told you: the moon has all this mojo. I thought I’d lay some on you.”

She looked amused. “And what’s it supposed to make me do?”

He stared at her, a slight smile on his lips, not saying anything.

“Really?” She laughed. “Do you pull this routine on every woman you bring up here? All this moon magic stuff?”

He lowered his eyes, then looked up at her sadly. “Sure. Have it your way. I’ve just been bullshitting you.” He smiled and got up. “We’d best get down. I’m getting a little cold anyway.”

He turned and started walking to the stairwell. He heard her get up and follow him a few steps behind. He stopped and waited for her at the door to the stairs and opened it for her, still smiling. She looked a little confused. “You’ll give me a ride home, right? You said you would.”

He gave her a slightly surprised look. “Of course. I said I would.”

“Are you mad?”

He smiled, pleased at her anxiousness. “No, not at all. It was just – a moment that misfired.”

He started going down the stairs but got off at his floor and headed to his apartment. He said to her over his shoulder, “I just need to check on an email I’ve been waiting for before we go.” She followed him to his door. Again, he opened the door for her with a smile. Following her in, he went to his laptop and said, “Feel free to use the bathroom if you need to.” He turned on his laptop and pretended to look at his email account for a few minutes.

When he stood up, he saw that she was staring intently at the painting on his wall of a naked woman caressing the snout of reverent dragon in a moonlit grove. She cast her eyes down to read his signature in the lower right corner of the canvas. Her expression was a little stunned as she turned to him. “This is yours? It’s really good.”

He walked closer to her. “Thanks.” After a moment, he said, “Would you like to see something else that’s really cool? It’s in my bedroom, though, so say No if it makes you feel uncomfortable. We can just go if you want.”

She hesitated. Then said, “No, it’s okay. Show me.”

He led the way to his room and opened the light. She entered and looked around, a little warily. He went to his bed, sat on it, and said, “Okay, close the door and turn off the light.” He laughed at her look of suspicion and said, “Trust me.”

She shut the door behind her and turned off the switch – and gasped.

The wall behind the headboard was suffused with light in the shape of huge, full, gibbous moon. He had painted the moon on the wall with glow-in-the-dark paint, and the painting had absorbed the ceiling light when he turned it on and was now shining it out in a yellow glow. It was a remarkably accurate rendering: a luminous circle pockmarked with maria and craters and mountains. The ceiling and the other walls were sprinkled with stars.

He got up slowly, went to her, and stood before her, playing his gaze from her eyes to her lips, then back to her eyes again. He could see that her pupils were dilated and the sides of her mouth were upturned in a slight smile. “Spells,” he said, and pulled her to him and kissed her. After a moment, her body released all stiffness and yielded, and she started kissing him back.

* * *

She fell asleep afterwards, sweaty and spent. His muscles ached deliciously as well, but he could not fall asleep himself. The phosphorescence was fading away, but his waning moon was still giving off just enough light to allow him to watch the look of peacefulness and satiation on her face, the nimbus emanating dimly from her pale skin, and the soft down on her arms shining golden. Eventually, his eyes grew heavy, and he slid slowly into the dark, his arm lying across her breast, rising and falling softly with her breath.

* * *

The bright glow of the ceiling light woke him. She had nearly finished dressing and was bending down to the floor. He asked her, blinking, “What are you doing?”

She smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. But I had to turn on the light to look for my shoes. Here, I found them.” She sat down on his side chair and started putting them on. “Go back to sleep, I’ll be out of here in a minute.”

He was still groggy. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I’ll just call a cab. No need to bring me home. I don’t want to get you out of bed.”

He rubbed his face. “But – you can stay the night. I’ll take you home in the morning.”

“It’s okay. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“But –“ He wasn’t quite sure what to say.

She sat down on the bed beside him. “That was nice. I had fun.” She leaned down and gave him a quick kiss and made to go.

He grabbed her arm. “Wait.” He sat up. “What’s your number? Can I call you?”

She bit her lower lip. “I don’t think so. I have a boyfriend.”

“But –“ He tried to think of the right words. “It’s okay. That shouldn’t stop us from seeing each other, if we really have a connection –“

She shrugged. She looked down at where he was holding her. He let her go.

She smiled again. “It really was nice. I liked your story about the moon.”

“It – wasn’t a story.”

Her smile widened. “What? You’re saying you meant it? You think you really can cast a spell with moon mojo?”

He didn’t answer.

“It’s nice to think. But the moon’s just a battered rock falling in space. And things are just things. Sometimes nice things – the moon thing you have on the wall is really pretty – but they don’t take in any feelings. There’s no such thing as magic or spells.”

Every sentence she spoke felt like a blow.

She kissed him again, and got up. She stopped at the door and said, “Go back to sleep. And thanks!” She turned off the ceiling light and the moon and stars on the walls started shining again.

He lay back down, shivering once in the cold light, feeling empty.

She was wrong. Before tonight, he would have secretly agreed with her, but he knew better now: there were such things as spells. She had just laid one on him. Or maybe he had been the one who woven it, spinning all those words into that fable about the moon. But if so, he had cast it on the wrong person.

(August 2012)

Two Tales of Love and Loss under the Light of the Full Moon

Translation

Chandrima had the ill-luck of passing away while still carrying her child within her, of taking her child with her when she was transposed. And she had the further misfortune of passing just as the full moon was climbing into the sky. She would have no time at all to linger with her Aditya, who was still desperately, convulsively clutching her body – the shell she had just shed. She watched him as he sobbed and cried out for the young wife he had barely begun to love and the child he would never even see – the family he had now lost forever.

Mrs. Chauhan stood by her as she stood heart-stricken over Aditya. Mrs. Chauhan had died during the new moon, a fortnight before Chandrima, in a hospital a few blocks away. She at least had the chance to see her family overcome the first shock and the most cutting grief, and to make her silent farewells to them and thus come into a measure of peace. When Chandrima had breathed her last and followed her breath out of her body, Mrs. Chauhan was in the room, waiting, having made it her duty to welcome her and try to ease her transition. Though strangers in life, they had each known who the other was the moment they met.

“Perhaps it is for the best you will be departing so quickly,” Mrs. Chauhan said. “The pain is sharpest now, but perhaps not so bad as when it starts to dull.” She was thinking on how her husband, children, grandchildren, and other loved ones, even in the depths of their bereavement and desolation these past two weeks, had begun picking up their lives again – going back to work, to school; going about their daily tasks; slowly filling the hole she had left behind – once they had withered her body into ashes.

“How can it be that I will never see him again?” Chandrima asked, her eyes still on Aditya. “I am still here. You are here. How can it be that he will not be when his time comes?”

Mrs. Chauhan let a moment pass before answering. “I do not know.”

“Why is it that men have no souls? How could that be?”

An even longer pause. “I do not know.”

Chandrima looked at her naked, swollen belly and quietly voiced her truest, deepest fear: “And what of my child? It is a son I bear inside me. Is he in there? What will happen to him when the moon is full in the sky?”

Mrs. Chauhan pursed her lips tightly. “I do not know.” She was sad; it didn’t seem as if she was of much help after all.

Chandrima had known the answers to her questions even without Mrs. Chauhan’s responses. Some things had been made clear to her the instant she had passed, but most things remained a mystery. She had asked in the forlorn hope that Mrs. Chauhan, who had been dead longer, might have some knowledge that she did not.

Mrs. Chauhan felt the first stirrings inside her. It was almost time. She said, holding out her hand, “Come, child. We’d best get outside.”

Chandrima was desperate to stay, to touch Aditya one last time, but she knew that if she tried, her hands would not rest on his skin or feel his warmth – nor would they ever again. And she, too, was beginning to feel in her body the first intimation of the rising moon; she could sense her growing lightness. After one last longing look at Aditya, she took Mrs. Chauhan’s hand. They left her house.

Outside in the street, they saw here and there others like themselves: women and girls, shorn of their clothes as they had been shorn of their bodies, standing and craning their heads towards the heavens. Some who saw them gave them smiles – knowing, welcoming, sisterly smiles, sweet with anticipation. All seemed to be glad that the waiting – short for some, nearly a month for others – was at an end.

Mrs. Chauhan released Chandrima’s hand and watched the moon with a sad, solemn look as it inched upwards. Chandrima had glanced at the circle of light, but had looked down at once to stare at her belly, in which all her love and anguish lay. When it came time to depart, would her unborn son pass from her, a soulless husk? Would she give birth to him right there in the street and leave him behind at once?

A breathless sigh arose from the waiting women and girls as the moon continued to rise. More and more Chandrima felt lighter on her feet as the moon exerted its pull. She closed her eyes and embraced herself, wrapping her arms around her belly.

The moon moved over them, came to its highest point, and cast its brightest glow. Chandrima felt her feet slowly lift from the ground, felt her toes kiss the earth one last time before pulling away. She opened her eyes in fear – then cried in exultation. Her arms still cradled her belly, which was still round and heavy. She could feel that, as the full moon drew her upwards, so it drew up the child within her. Her joy and relief could not be marred, not even by the sorrow of leaving Aditya behind.

She glanced about her and saw Mrs. Chauhan smiling at her as she rose upwards alongside her. The air that flowed around her and past her was soft and warm and caressing. Bangalore below them was a receding grid of twinkling lights, becoming smaller and smaller, until it was a glimmering smudge on the dark face of the earth.

Chandrima looked up and saw what she and Mrs. Chauhan and all the other women and girls – and the son within her – were flying towards: the shining disk, the round mirror, which for all its blemishes bathed them all in its clear, cool, borrowed light. The glow became brighter and brighter, as they ascended above the earth, rushed through the void, chased the moon as it flew through space, until the light became so radiant that it enveloped them, swallowed them, consumed them, and they disappeared, translated.

(August 2012)

Falling

“Call me, maybe?”

I stared at her – at Jeannette – as I turned the car engine off. Or more precisely, I stared at her even harder, since I had been staring at her all evening. I said, “Did you just pull a line from that Carly Rae Jepsen song?”

She blinked, then smiled, abashed. “Oh, God, you’re right. Sorry. Emma’s been singing and playing that song nonstop. It’s all I can hear in my head nowadays.” Emma was her daughter, whom she was raising by herself. Emma was thirteen, a budding fashion designer, eco-activist, writer, archer, hip-hop dancer, social entrepreneur – she hadn’t quite decided yet which of her interests to pursue and seemed to keep adding to her growing list of passions every week. She was headstrong, mercurial, and bit of a drama princess who was absolutely certain the world had been specifically designed to torment her. She and Jeannette had taken years to come to terms with Jeannette’s divorce and had finally managed to establish a quiet truce in their relationship – only to have Emma hit her teens and have everything blow up again. Amazing how much you can learn about someone in one conversation when she lowers her guard and just decides to tell you everything.

I was dropping Jeannette off after a night of volunteering at the local food pantry, where we had both been assigned with the other adults to the back warehouse putting food bags together, while the teenage volunteers were up front handing them out to low-income families. I had seen her there before, but for some reason this night we had fallen to talking as we worked – and couldn’t stop talking. After we were done, her car wouldn’t start and AAA had to tow it to the shop, so I offered her a ride home.

She looked at me from the passenger seat while we were parked in front of her house. Her eyes narrowed impishly – and I felt myself slipping one more inch down the hole. She said, “Of course, that begs the question: how did you know that? I can’t imagine that an English Lit professor would normally be listening to teen pop songs.”

“My nieces,” I reminded her. I had told her that between the families of my brother and two sisters and various cousins, my family had enough tweens and teenage girls to form a volleyball squad. I was the doting but fuddy-duddy uncle. I had also told her how it was so strange that once my nieces and nephews started reaching puberty, the comments and the subtle pressure from my family for me to get married began to wane. Either they had finally realized that our clan had added enough human beings to the world’s population without my having to make a contribution, or else my siblings and cousins, at least, had laid off me when they finally crossed the point of total exhaustion raising their own kids. Or perhaps everyone had just given up when I passed forty and there was still no one on the horizon.

Amazing how much you end up revealing about yourself when a beautiful, thoughtful, crazy-smart woman pays attention to your every word.

She said, “The tune’s catchy. Sometimes when I’m cleaning, I dance to it with the vacuum cleaner, since you can be sure it’s blasting from her room.”

I cast my eyes down and nodded slowly, pleased with the image. I said, “And the lyrics are not half bad. It’s actually quite serviceable as poetry.”

“Do tell.”

“Sure. The imagery is fairly precise, and the turns of phrase are clever. The line ‘Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad,’ evokes the Platonic notion of soulmates, in which we long for our long-lost other halves and recognize them immediately when we find them. And this stanza…” – and I sang:

You took your time with the call,

I took no time with the fall,

You gave me nothing at all,

But still you’re in my way.

I explained, “Perfect rhyme and scansion, nice juxtaposition – indicative of the asymmetry of desire – and psychologically accurate. The boy is either indifferent or feigning indifference, which makes her want him even more.”

I was suddenly anxious that I was coming across as simultaneously frivolous and pompous – paradoxical as that may sound – but the momentum of my thoughts and an impulsive need to keep talking made me continue. “And that recurring line ‘But now you’re in my way’” – and again I sang the line – “is an exact metaphor for how love can just suddenly loom before you and block everything else, so that… so that nothing else exists.”

And with that piece of insight I stopped dead in my tracks, and a silence fell between us, and it suddenly became impossible to keep looking at each other. We both turned away. Suddenly we were both shy, after having talked nonstop for four or five hours. But our eyes found each other again and locked, and I could feel the joy coursing up in me, vibrating, from all the way down in my toes. I had to stop myself from bending towards her by force of will. In the same moment I imagined I saw a small movement in her, an ever-so-slight lean towards me.

“Oh. My. God!”

The exclamation took us both by surprise and we turned to the back of the car. Emma was scowling fiercely at us, arms folded across her chest, her face a fascinating mix of shock, consternation, fury, and – I don’t know how else to put it – grossed-outedness. A kind of expression only a young teenage girl can make.

Emma gave me a dirty look, got out of my car, slammed the door, and stomped to the porch of their house and stood there, fuming. Jeannette looked at me, brow furrowed and lips tight with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Well, thanks for the ride,” she said, and got out of the car and started walking to her daughter, fishing for her keys from her bag. Just before she went up the porch steps, she turned around and smiled and waved her cell phone and mouthed the words: Call me.

I grinned and nodded. I waved at Emma and collected a glare in exchange. I started my car, and drove off.

* * *

When I got to my apartment building, I went past the entrance to the parking garage and kept on driving. There was no way my apartment was going to contain my energy, I would be bouncing off the walls if I went in now. I dialed the MP3 player in my car to the Jepsen song and played it over and over, singing along as loudly as I could (“I wasn't looking for this, but now you’re in my way”), feeling foolish and giddy and alive. The bounciness of the song fed my elation in a positive feedback loop, so that it took more than an hour of driving all across town before the charge began to subside and my brain started to function again and I finally decided it was time to head back home.

As I drove home, I thought to myself that if anything was to happen between Jeannette and me, I would have to win Emma over somehow – and make it up to her. Jeannette and I had virtually ignored her half the night, and that had been extremely rude and inconsiderate. I owed her an apology. But not an explanation. I would not explain to her that when you are falling, even when you’re far along in years, you’re always blind and thoughtless and stupid and embarrassing, and you always land back at thirteen. She would learn this herself soon enough.

* * *

Turning Emma around wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. A few rather expensive gifts (strategically chosen with Jeannette’s advice) helped. What helped more was my huge family taking to her instantly, and she taking to my nieces. She quickly found a place among them as a cousin in all but name. In fact, if there was any problem, it was Emma’s tendency to try to lord it over them. As Jeannette said, she could be a little domineering. But my nieces are all good-hearted girls, and they worked it out somehow and managed to keep her exuberance somewhat in check.

She couldn’t be stopped eight months later, though, from leading them dancing down the aisle in a procession of the wedding entourage at my and Jeannette’s wedding. Her expression was priceless: she was positively beaming from all the attention. The video of her dancing and leading the way was a minor YouTube viral hit: nearly 200,000 views last time I checked. They didn’t dance to Carly Rae Jepsen, though, but to Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.” On this point, Jeannette and I put our foot down. It was our wedding, after all.

(July 2012)

 

A Valentine Trinket

My father loves telling this story of me when I was five:

It was Valentine’s Day morning on a Sunday. He woke me up early to help him bring breakfast to my mother in bed. He did the heavy lifting: fried ham, eggs over easy, toast, juice, and coffee on a breakfast tray. My help was nominal: I carried the rose. He basically just wanted to include me in the little celebration.

Nevertheless, I was really proud to be of assistance, he said. After he had carefully lowered the tray on my mother’s lap, I just as ceremoniously gave her the rose. But then he pulled out his Valentine’s present for my mom from the pocket of his robe: a small box wrapped in red foil. My mother opened it and was really happy to find the necklace inside. My father said I was smiling as I looked up at him and my mom from the side of the bed – in sympathetic joy, he thought, but the next words I said let him know that my happiness was, in fact, expectancy.

“What did you get me?” he said I asked.

My father and mother exchanged glances. My father said, “I’m sorry, Ray. It’s Valentine’s Day, so I only got a gift for your mother.”

My father said I was pouting as I said, “But you gave me gifts, too, last time.” “Last time” meaning Christmas, a couple of months before.

“Well… Valentine’s Day is different. Only certain people get gifts on Valentine’s.”

“Like who?”

“Oh, husbands and wives. Sweethearts. People who have boyfriends or girlfriends.”

My father said I looked unconvinced – and a little like I’d been betrayed. “Gina from school is my friend. She’s a girl.”

“Umm… okay?”

“So why didn’t you get me a gift?”

(July 2012)