If there were two boats
by Paula Bomer
[ fiction - january 07 ]
He was not Edie's favorite son; regardless, it pained her that he married such a woman and lived such a life. Her favorite son, Thomas, lived in Los Angeles and was a very successful producer and had been divorced twice. She loved visiting Thomas - he lived in an enormous house near the beach in Santa Monica and had tons of staff and there was no horrible daughter-in-law to ruin things. Thomas usually took Edie out for an expensive, fabulous dinner (almost always there was a movie star, or television star at the restaurant, it was so fun, so silly, but so fun) and then, the rest of the time in LA - Edie almost always went for a long weekend - she visited with an old friend from Smith who'd lived there forever and her half sister, Veronica. Visiting Thomas was just pure joy! The sun, the wonderful surroundings, the nice dinners (and gifts, too, jewelry, a piece of furniture that he'd have shipped to her). Perhaps it was true that she wished he'd meet someone with whom to share his life. The only thing was that Thomas didn't seem as if he were missing anything or anyone, for that matter, and so it was hard to worry about him. He was rich, he loved his work and he had some good friends, interesting, successful friends, (even a few of those aforementioned movie stars, which Edie thought was just wonderfully amusing and great). The two women he married had been more trouble than they were worth and he figured that out quickly. Maybe that was the problem, women today. Women today were just dreadful, or so it seemed. He was smart, her Thomas. And handsome. He'd always been her smarter and more handsome boy.
Michael, on the other hand, still lived nearby. Well, sort of. He lived in Brooklyn. She lived upstate, in Millbrook, in a six-bedroom house, well off of any road, on eighty acres. After her husband died, she sold the apartment on the East Side and moved to the country permanently. This was hard on Michael. Thomas, of course, didn't care one way or the other. Why would he care? He was in LA, he had his own life and worries. Michael (this was before he married) called twice a week, came out almost every weekend, and fretted over her. She was fine. He, apparently, was not, but the charade was that she was out there alone and he had to come visit his poor old lonely mother. The weekend visits became such a drag (he was there for her to cook for him and to wash the dishes afterward, despite his whining on about how he worried about her being isolated, lonely, etc... ) that finally she had to put an end to them. She did that by always being at least twenty minutes late to pick him up from the train station, by scheduling dinners and lunches with friends (that eliminated the meals for him) and by not changing the sheets in the guest room, ever, even when the whole room began to smell, frankly, disgusting. Finally, Michael stopped coming out every weekend (although he still came out). And then he got married.
This was all six years ago. He married so quickly. She was from Minnesota and spoke using a horrific, Midwestern dialect - all drawn out vowels and dangling participles and strange non-words and mispronunciations. She had small eyes and a large, obscene mouth. A country girl. A Midwesterner, with dubious schooling from some state university. She was... she was, beyond disappointing. She was not a small girl, not petite like Edie herself. She struck Edie as truly unappealing. She was, in every respect, unsuitable for her son. Even her least favorite son, the one who cried too much as an infant, the one who was uncoordinated, who needed glasses, who clung to her as a boy too big to be clinging to his mother, who had terrible acne as a teenager. Yes, not even for Michael, the son she never understood or even liked very much, although he was her son, and there was something there, some sort of maternal feeling. He was her son! He was something to her.
His wife's name was Jane. He met her at work, when he still worked in publishing (he'd since moved onto the internet world). They eloped, which was a relief for Edie, because the last thing she wanted was to "celebrate" this union or be forced to buy expensive tickets to Minnesota. Or have to talk to Jane's low class (let's just be honest), Midwestern family. After they married, they moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, which Edie was sure to be the end of the world. Brooklyn! Good lord, her ancestors were rolling over in their graves. Yet, truthfully, Park Slope wasn't so bad. And this was a relief to Edie. She hadn't known what to expect and she didn't want a horrible life for Michael. She didn't. She didn't want to be ashamed of him.
She had visited them only twice. That was enough. They visited her every few months for awhile there, which was better than her trying to navigate herself around Brooklyn; she preferred to see them in Millbrook. She visited them the first time because Jane, at the time, was pregnant. It all happened so quickly - the marriage, the pregnancy - and that wasn't a good thing, of course. Having children is so stressful, it's such a huge event, and it's always better to have been married for awhile first. Get to know one another, get over the disappointments that a marriage inevitably brings, and God knows in their marriage there had to be a lot of those.
Jane, during her pregnancy, had gained enormous amounts of weight. In Edie's day, her doctor wouldn't have let her get away with that. Jane didn't have a doctor, she had something called a midwife, whatever that was, and when Edie remarked on how quickly Jane had gotten so big (she still had her manners, she tried to address the subject in a polite, round-a-bout sort of way), Jane answered that her midwife said to eat as much as she wanted to. Then there was her son during that visit. Sitting on a drab, sagging beige couch, something they'd bought used they told her excitedly, which of course dismayed Edie. Used tables, used lamps, yes, of course, but a used couch? Disgusting. And that was the word for so much of Michael's life. His wife disgusted her, their couch disgusted her, the smell - sour and musty, with some choking potpourri stink layered on top - in their apartment disgusted her. And there Michael sat on that visit, across the small room, directly across from her, next to his enormous and hideous wife, Michael, who'd never been a pretty sight, now a solid thirty pounds overweight.
"It happens sometimes, we've talked to people about it," he said about his weight gain.
"We've talked to our therapist about it," Jane clarified, much to Edie's embarrassment. "It's a sympathy thing. It's normal, healthy even. Sometimes the husband gains weight and gets indigestion, just like his pregnant wife. It'll all go away when the baby arrives."
"Well I've never heard of such a thing. I'm just concerned about your diet. Your cholesterol and such. Remember your father's heart condition. You just need to take care of yourself."
"Don't worry Mom. Jane and I are taking care of ourselves."
"We are! We just rest a lot and because we are more sedentary, we're gaining weight, that's all. Rest is very important when we're pregnant." Jane added.
"I see. Well I ate like a bird when I was pregnant and smoked a lot so as not to eat too much. I always had a cigarette in my mouth!"
"You could nearly get arrested for that nowadays. Smoking is terrible for the fetus. It can cause miscarriage." Jane's beady eyes focused right on her.
"Well, clearly it didn't in my case. How's work?" She tried to change the subject.
"Work's fine. Jane quit her job. We want her to be home with the baby."
Now it was Edie's turn to look straight at her daughter-in-law. "Can you afford to quit now? Why not wait until maternity leave and then quit? I mean, money is money, no?" This had just made Edie nervous. Michael would never be Thomas, that she knew. But the last thing she wanted was them borrowing money from her. Or worse, sinking deeper into a shabby lifestyle. She just couldn't bear things getting any worse than they were.
"We're fine, mom. We don't need much right now. Right now the baby matters. We'll worry about money later."
That was the end for Edie. She just stopped trying after that. Worrying about the baby is worrying about money and if they didn't know that, then she didn't understand them at all. At all. End of discussion.
Oh, the mystery that is life. The mystery of our own blood, of the thing we carried, or carry, inside of ourselves. And yet, we endure. She wished Thomas had given her a grandchild with one of his wives. That child would have lived in a great big, sunny room, would have had young au pairs looking after him, and would have gone to the best schools in LA. She had even asked Thomas once if he wanted children. She had even gone so far as to suggest that he should have a child. He'd said no. Children were not part of his "plan". Fair enough for him. But the grandchild she didn't have was more fun to think about than the grandchild she did have.
A granddaughter. And here was the truth - she never wanted a daughter, she never had a daughter and she was slightly put off by this grandchild being a girl. (A four year old girl, at this time). They named her after Edie. She knew she should have been grateful. And she was flattered, if nothing else, for a moment. But she also was...distressed. She didn't want to have Michael's child named after her. She didn't want that. Not Michael's child.
The day the baby was born, Michael called her from the hospital. She was excited for them and flattered and yet, there was something in Michael's voice. Something so needy. Even after marriage. Even now that he was a father. He was trying to make her happy, that was how she felt - look here! I have a baby for you! - and it reminded her of when he was an eight year old boy and he would draw her picture after picture and she would pretend to like them (he was no artist). He'd say, "Mommy, won't you hang it up in your room? I made it just for you." And she'd say, "Yes I will! Not right this minute, but later I will." And later, after Michael went to bed, she'd throw the pictures away. One day, she was coming down the hall of their apartment and heading to put away some new shoes in her closet and Michael stood there, in her room, looking at the empty walls (there was of course, a lovely small, early Matisse, that she'd inherited from her mother) with a sullen face. "What are you doing in here? I don't like you in my room. Go on!" She said, as she chased him out. The look her gave her. Edie was not prone to guilt, but it was a fierce look. He stopped making her pictures after that. After that, he made pictures for his second grade teacher.
Michael had invited Edie to the hospital but she declined and said she'd rather wait until they got back to Park Slope and then she'd visit. Her daughter-in-law's birth had been a hard one - not that she really needed to know, but there you have it, that was how they were, no proper manners regarding anything. All this therapy! Therapy this, therapy that. And to talk about it! To talk about everything. What Jane needed was a class in social etiquette, not anymore damn therapy. She needed to learn to talk only after she'd finished chewing, she needed to learn how to sit up straight, she needed to learn how not to scowl if she felt like scowling - one doesn't display all emotions whenever one feels like it, dammit! - she needed to learn how to be less of a rude beast. But no, it was more and more therapy, until any semblance of a proper, controlled life had disappeared. Jane and Michael were either in therapy or in their foul apartment, talking about therapy. Edie just tried not to think about them. But that was hard. It was hard not to think about them.
Michael had never been a manly sort of young man, but now, it seemed, his wife had sucked out every last remaining bit of male integrity he had had. Jane had, without a doubt, emasculated him and turned him into a spineless, beaten down, soft eunuch. Damn her.
And so after the baby was home, Edie visited them again. The curtains were filthy and the house smelled like dirty diapers. Michael and Jane were ecstatic and delirious. Edie vaguely remembered those feelings when Thomas had been born. She and her husband had been giddy and overwhelmed and, well, it was quite a moment, the birth of your first child. Edie brought a bottle of champagne, but they refused to drink it.
"Oh, no, Mom. Thanks. But we're not drinking because Jane is breastfeeding and it's just not a good idea."
"Well for goodness sake Michael, you're not, ah, nursing. Why don't you have a glass with me. I have a grandchild! I want to celebrate."
"Ah, no, Mom. I can't. It wouldn't be fair to Jane."
Now was the time for Jane to say, you go ahead! Or something to that effect. But no. Nothing. She sat there on their couch, without even offering Edie a seat, still hugely fat and she lifted her soggy looking gray T-shirt and pulled out an enormous drooping breast, and placed the baby right on it.
"Oh my, Jane, would you like some privacy? Michael and I can go in the kitchen..." Edie was taken aback. She couldn't not look, but she didn't want to look, either. She was repulsed but felt compelled to steal glances, like at a car wreck.
"There's no reason for you two to leave the room," Jane said, fixing her steely little eyes on Edie. She had such a way with glaring right at you.
When Edie thought of her marriage she remembered fondly all that had not been said. She remembered the modesty, the grace of their lives together. All that had been assumed or understood. She thought of how late at night, her husband would do things to her, in the darkness of their room. How he would not so gently grasp her neck or push her face down. But always, in the daylight, in the rooms where people gathered, fully dressed and awake, there had always been such decorum.
That was the last visit. Edie stayed standing and finally Michael asked her to sit down in an armchair and she did and Michael jabbered on about the birth. The episiotomy, the deep moaning, the blood. My God! Edie nearly fainted. "Excuse me," she said, and went into the bathroom. The bathroom, of course, was musty and damp and dirty. Little, dark slimy hairs clung to the sink and the toilet seat was up, revealing a stained, vile bowl of water. She shut it and sat down on the lid. She tried to steady herself. It would all be over soon. This visit, this moment. Like the moment of infancy that Michael and Jane were experiencing; the visit was feeling endless, monumental, and just like the moment of infancy, it felt like the most important thing that could ever be. But really, in hindsight, abruptly, it's over. Just like that. Like waking from a dream that felt so real it takes awhile to shake the feeling that it wasn't. Edie stood to go out, feeling better. She'd say her good-byes and head back to Millbrook. And as she got up to leave she saw a sweater of hers hanging on a hook on the bathroom door. A blue cashmere sweater, one she'd bought years ago at Saks and had left in the guest room to be used on a chilly Spring morning by guests, if they needed something. But there it was. Jane had taken it, without asking. How could Jane fit into that sweater? There was no way, really. Edie picked it up, determined for one moment, to bring it back with her. Then, just as quickly, she changed her mind. She put it back on the hook, and opened the door to leave.
That was the last time she went to Park Slope. After that they came out to Millbrook, with the baby, about once a month. And then, eventually, even those visits stopped. When the child was almost a year old, Michael had called her. Yes, it was after that phone call that the monthly visits stopped. She now saw them on Thanksgiving. And Memorial Day. Twice a year, for the day only. They stayed at an inn nearby and left the next morning. Twice a year was just right.
He had called her from work, one Friday afternoon. He called her looking for something she couldn't give him.
"Mom," he'd said, his voice so pained that she closed her eyes so as to try and not imagine the sorrow on his face, "every night she calls and asks me to come home NOW. It'll be five in the evening and no one leaves at five, no one, and other people have kids too, you know. And she sounds as if she's having a breakdown. She goes on and on about how she can't take it. How she needs me to come home. And I'll hear Edie crying in the background and it makes me nervous so I leave. I come home. And when I arrive, little Edie will be happy in her highchair, with food smeared all over her, and Jane will be lovingly spooning some homemade baby food into her."
"Well, what do you say her to her then?" she asked her son.
"She does most of the talking. She thanks me profusely for coming home. She cries a bit sometimes. But everything seems OK by the time I get home. So I did ask her once, or say to her, you know, everything seems OK by the time I get home. And she said, everything is OK, because you're home. "
"Well, are you worried about being fired?"
"I don't know." Silence. A heavy sigh.
"You need to get her a nanny, or at least some kind of part-time help."
"I brought that up once, but she said no. She refused completely." Sigh. "She just wants me around. She's become so demanding."
"Jane was always demanding, sweetheart," Edie said, enjoying it as it came out, even though she knew it was a mistake.
"That's not what I want to hear from you, Mom."
"Well then, Michael, don't talk to me about your wife if you don't want me to at least agree with you about her."
"Who else can I talk to, Mom?" And his voice was entirely cracked now. He was all but sobbing. Her son, her grown son, reduced to this. Was it her fault? "I can't talk to her and if I can't talk to you, then who am I to turn to?"
"Weren't you in therapy? Can't you talk to your therapist?"
"We were in couples therapy. The therapist was always on her side. I always felt disliked by that woman. And you hated that I was in therapy, remember?"
So God help her. Of course she hated that her son was in therapy. For one, it was because his wife was a castrating bitch, and also, it didn't make her feel good about the job she'd done with Michael. But now she was just angry and fed up.
"Listen to you! What I think about therapy, what your wife wants you to do? You need to be your own person Michael and I fear I can't help you anymore with that. And I just don't think I'm the one you should be calling with your marriage problems. Why don't you call your brother, or a friend?"
"I have no friends. Not good friends. I only have work acquaintances, really."
"So call Thomas! For God's Sake! Don't you get it? I can't teach you how to be a man! I'm not one!" And then she hung up on him. He would never call Thomas, they were not close, they never had been. But what else was she to do? Michael, the one she ignored more than pampered, the one she could never look at with true love in her eyes because Thomas was her true love, and after that, well, it had probably been her husband. And after that? She had never appreciated Michael, if for no other reason than she didn't understand what he was. He was, and always had been, completely foreign to her. A stranger, walking around her house and trying to climb up on her lap. How is it that he came from her? An alien creature. A foreigner. A strange little boy looking at her so fiercely, so relentlessly, trying to suck something from her eyes that wasn't there. What else could she do? She would look away. It was her only gift to him, to try and save him from the truth. Because not all mothers love all of their children. Why God made it so, Edie did not know. And actually, looking away all those years had not been her only gift. But it had been a start to a long line of them. Because even if she was not given any love for him, she had made him hers and hers only. If she could not love him, she could still have him. In many ways, more than she had Thomas. Because now, when she saw Michael and his wife and their child on Thanksgiving, or at the end of May, when the sun is just starting to warm things up, she saw that he did not really love his wife. Love had nothing to do with building a life, this Edie knew, of course. Michael would build a life with Jane, a life built around their child. He was with Jane, he obeyed her still, of that Edie was nearly certain, but he did not truly love her. Indeed, that was most likely why he married her. She was no threat. He had married someone who wouldn't disturb his relationship with his mother. He was always going to be Edie's and Edie's only. If there were two boats, one with Edie going in one direction and another with Jane and their daughter going in the opposite direction, and Michael had to make a choice, a final choice, he would jump into Edie's boat. Of this, Edie was certain.
How strange, that a lack of love can be more binding than love itself. She hadn't meant it to be so. But she wasn't in control of everything, was she?
