28 WEEKS: DREAMING IN OFF-COLOR
New York City, 2011
Jon and I were finishing our Saturday brunch at a Belgian restaurant, imagining how dining would work when the baby arrived—would we bring the stroller to the table? Wear her in a papoose? Would she cry hysterically the whole time, making us take turns walking up and down the aisle like the couple next to us was doing? How would we know what sauce she preferred on her mussels?—when the calls started. “Dad can’t get into the house,” Eli said from L.A. “Mom’s not answering the door. He’s locked out.”
“Dad doesn’t have any keys?”
“No one but Mom has the keys.”
“Where the hell is she?” I asked, thinking that she hadn’t left her house in over a year, trying not to think of her latest spate of panicked suicide calls.
“No idea.”
“Fuck,” I said, my chest tightening. “We have to call a locksmith.”
“Dad doesn’t want to,” Eli said. “He wants to drive to Carlton and wait there.”
“Wait for what?” I wanted to pull my hormonally lush hair out. Someone has to do something. How could he just hide out in his maternal abode? But, combing my strands with my fingers, I also understood his fear. I wouldn’t want to enter that house alone, either, and discover a horror scene. Wasn’t I just hiding out here?
Eli and I made calls. The police would take a missing person report after twenty-four hours. The Vermont border patrol could not disclose who crossed without a medical letter. The bus company had no record of her buying a ticket that day.
Where the hell was she? I’d gotten used to Mom being a shut-in, a permanent anchor lodged in my old home. It meant Kildare was always inhabited. It meant I could monitor her. The idea of her roaming free—or worse—made me feel unhinged, exhausted. My mind whirred. Not sure what to do, Jon and I decided to go ahead with our plans and, after a nap, we walked over to a friend’s garden party. This is what regular people do on weekends, I kept telling myself as we zigzagged across warm city streets, as my two realities zigzagged along each other. “Where the hell could she be?” Jon asked.
“Ha,” I blurted as it hit me. “She’s probably coming here. Get ready!”
We both chuckled, but as the sounds of my words ricocheted through the humid air, it struck me that my joke could be the truth. Of course! That was exactly the kind of thing she’d do. No promises, no commitments, no forewarning; just a spur of the moment decision to come visit, possibly to off-load money so it wasn’t in her name and subject to whatever home-heist she thought was taking place, but also because she wanted to see me pregnant, to bond over this thing that was and wasn’t me, that was and wasn’t her, that was and wasn’t us both, separate and together. I knew it in my stressed bones.
“Where will we put her?” I asked, but had already made plans. She’d stay in the office for now, for the rest of the pregnancy. She’d be there in case I went into labor when Jon was out. I’d take weeks off work and she’d hang out with me in the city—markets, bookstores, doctors’ appointments—telling me stories about when she was pregnant with me as she did on the phone, but instead in the flesh, as we walked along the High Line or nibbled on freshly imported Viennese pastry in the Neue Galerie café.
Jon and I said hello to our hosts, and as guests stood around their lush midtown garden tippling cucumber cocktails and chatting about apartment renovations, I mentally planned the route to pick her up. She’d come into Penn or Port Authority, I worked out. Neither was far.
Then, over the verboten hot dog course, I felt a buzz in my pocket, jumped off the picnic bench and made my way to a corner of the darkening patio, watching a cat dart between the bushes and the back door.
“She called,” Eli said. “She’s in Ottawa.”
“Huh?”
“She’s visiting Barbara.”
“Barbara?” The urban topiary spun, geometric vines jetting in all directions.
She’d spontaneously decided to visit an old family friend.
No one is coming. I stared down at my belly, now occluding my toes, prompting my sciatica. The baby, I could feel, was pushing on all of me, in all of me, ribs, bladder, heart, kicking me senseless from the inside out. “But she hasn’t left the house in years,” was all I could say. She’s alive and fine, I told myself, but instead of feeling relief, envy soaked me like sweat. She had left her house—to visit Barbara?!
I watched the cat jet behind the garden wall, spurred on by the scent of rodents, the thrill of the catch. Even after all these years, after all my running, I just wanted to be with her. I still dreamed of her coming over. I was waiting for her, like she was waiting for me, each of us expecting the other to deliver things that we just didn’t, couldn’t.
• • •
“SORRY. I CAN’T meet you for dinner tonight,” Jon says. We are at a fancy hotel in London, with a grand bar and white barstools. I know it’s a bad sign, even before I notice that he is holding hands with—wait—a team of Russian prostitutes?
That night I woke up and found myself drenched in hormonal sweat. I was used to first trimester dreams of nursing coyotes and rekindling old flames, second trimester ones in which I had to manage streams of cats attached to me with long umbilical leashes or steer race cars from the backseat, and even the sporadic insane nightmare where I found myself on an NFL team in front of TV cameras with no understanding of how to be a quarterback, letting down my team, guilty that I used pregnancy as an excuse to get out of scrimmaging. But lately, I’d entered an even more troubling nocturnal world than that of professional sports: the land of deception and Lifetime movies. A world in which Jon died of brain cancer, or changed his mind about wanting children, or simply left me because I was no fun anymore.
I turned over to his side of the bed. It was empty.
Oh God. How would I do this alone? Having a baby was not my thing, it was our thing. It wasn’t just the physical reality that wouldn’t exist without Jon, but the possibility. I couldn’t do it—practically, emotionally, spiritually—alone. I just couldn’t. Where the hell was he?
I found him in the den. “What are you doing in here?”
“Um, you threw me out. Snoring.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.” I left the room so he could go back to sleep. But how do I know he will stay? I felt palpitations. Jon’s greatest gift to me had been consistency, but what if life was never consistent again? People flip, turn wildly at the drop of a wrong word, a cry. Each time I let someone in, I opened myself to the risk that they’d make a mess and then walk back out, run away to unpredictable places. Even the baby could turn on me. She was in my stomach for now, but what would happen when she inched into the world, no longer relying on our connection? When this part of me, my literal flesh and fluid, was free-floating in the universe? The cord was thick, but was snipped off in a second.
SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET, AND EVERYWHERE ELSE
London, 2007
I was more nervous than I cared to admit as I stepped over the footbridge to the Tate Modern, focusing on placing one appendage in front of the other, on not looking down or thinking about how flimsy the structure was or about my general fears of suspension and deep waters and, well, dates. The bridge swayed and I reminded myself that it was supposed to. The side-to-side motion was its net; the give would save me.
It had been nearly two months since Jon and I had seen each other; one month since his crustacean message. He’d surprised me by texting two weeks after I returned from Scotland, asking how my show had gone and saying he’d love to get together. I hadn’t chased him, and yet, he’d remembered me. I was about to type back a snarky reply about his awakening from the dead, but my mind flashed with my mother’s advice: “Be nice and straightforward. Show men clearly that you are interested. Make it easy for them.” I’d replied that I’d like to see him too, anticipating we’d meet for romantic drinks that evening. Jon suggested “next Friday.”
Next Friday? Why not next year? At this rate, I thought, it would take a decade before we got to second base. This guy might drive like a meshuggener, but he was a slow mover. Or perhaps, I suspected, he wasn’t all that into me. Oy, I wanted an indication of where this was going! I’d suggested we go to a global cities exhibit since I knew he loved travel and figured it would give us material to discuss. But as I hit the museum’s lawn, for the millionth time fiddling with my hair, pants, mind, I saw Jon approach, shaking his head. “The show closed yesterday.”
He leaned in to hug me, his warm body soft and familiar. “I don’t know this area,” he said, “but I saw a tapas place on the way.”
My high-art plans did not seem to be serving me well in this relationship, but at least my knowledge of East London could help. “Let’s go to Baltic,” I said. “It’s Russian.” Would he like it?
He did. The dim, cavernous restaurant with its Soviet-inspired menu and jazz soundtrack was modern and romantic. The waitstaff was mildly nice. “I find this place normal,” I said. “Like New York.”
“I love New York,” Jon said. “I used to live there.”
My interest surged. We talked about cities, but not based on an exhibition. He told me about his summer in the Balkans and his various solo trips around the globe. Jon wanted to see everything, meet everyone. He could analyze a joke, but his conversation ranged wide, his political opinions fluid and not necessarily popular. While I moaned about how my local crafts market was shutting down, he thought it was best to see the positive in gentrification, to accept that change was inevitable and newness was exciting. He was up for discussion and debate, which I appreciated. His eyes twinkled and his smile became ever more attractive as the evening went on. I was glad our plan was improvised, that I hadn’t donned a costume, rehearsed.
Over sweet blini, he held my hands. I used the restroom, cleaning my teeth, straightening my bra. Tonight, I finally felt a real connection, that sizzling energy, sprouting between us. Tonight, I knew, was it.
I returned to the table to find that Jon had paid (we simultaneously joked about me slipping out at the right time—we could even joke about our fights!) and was grabbing our coats. I followed him outside, waiting for him to suggest the next move.
“Let’s find a cab,” he said.
“I thought you didn’t do cabs,” I teased.
“For you, I do.”
“Ah, your inner Romeo finally makes its appearance.”
“I can do gentleman. Especially when specifically asked.” He winked.
“Touché,” I said as he flagged down a black car.
He opened the back door, and I crawled into the large passenger area.
Then he shut it.
Before I even had a chance to gasp in surprise, he explained through the window: “I need to take my friend Kate’s two kids to buy rabbits in the morning.”
Who? What? Rabbits?
“Why don’t you stay over for the night?” he offered.
I was about to say, well, yes, but to do that you have to get into the cab, when he continued: “Next Sunday?”
Wait, I thought. You’re asking me to have sex with you, for the first time, a week in advance?
He leaned all the way in the window, and gave me a final peck on the cheek, before telling the cabbie my address and exactly how to drive there.
• • •
I WASN’T FEELING well that Sunday, but I certainly wasn’t going to cancel. After months of confusing rapport with Jon, the ambiguousness was causing me serious existential itchiness. I wanted a yes or no answer.
I arrived at his apartment with my packed overnight bag only to be confronted by a massive bronze cow door-knocker. “This is quite something,” I said. The flat was the type of Victorian shabby chic conversion that everyone swooned over, but never appealed to me with its crowded rooms and quirky detailing, its stained glass and heavy drapes. Jon’s was spacious with large windows, but modest, Britishly filled with mismatched heirlooms, oddly stacked books, an alarming number of CDs, French country tables, and awkward empty spaces, seemingly unfinished. Upper-middle class, I assessed. At least it’s clean, I thought as I smelled fresh lemon.
Jon said a curt hello and took my bag, then invited me to sit on one of the two couches (or was that sofas?) that made an L-shape. He sat down on the other one, on the other side of the room.
“So,” I bellowed across the echoing space. “How were the rabbits?”
As he spoke I slowly inched my way along the couch so that at least I could be closer to his piece of furniture. He didn’t budge. I turned to glimpse my tattered overnight bag on the shiny floor and suddenly a panic arose in me: he didn’t really want me there. I remembered my friend Claire who I’d worked on a play with years before. “Sure, you can store the entire set in my basement!” she’d offered. A friend and I rented a truck, only to turn up and find out that she had no basement. “You should have told me you hadn’t seen the basement,” my English companion explained on the way back. “English people offer. We offer to have you over for dinner, to make you tea, to store your furniture. We don’t mean it.” She chuckled at my naivety. “It’s just our way of saying we like you.” Did Jon—English Jon—like me?
“What would you like to do tonight?” he asked.
Um, you, I wanted to answer. “My stomach isn’t feeling great,” I blurted out.
“Let’s go to Golders Green and get you kosher chicken soup.”
Granted, a nice offer, but he seemed a bit too eager to get me out of his house.
“Why don’t we go for a walk first?” he suggested. “I want to show you the architectural detailing in the neighborhood.”
Outside, we stepped side by side, not touching, the gap between us palpable, reminding me of artist Rachel Whiteread’s solid resin casts of the normally invisible spaces beneath chairs. As Jon pointed out the local aesthetic features, I learnt that he was passionate about domestic design and was involved in house refurbishment projects in various countries. I liked that about him, of course, but what the hell was going on?
“Listen, can I ask you something?” My brashness now shocked me. “I’m not English, as you well know, and so I don’t understand. I mean, do you like me? Like, like me? Are you attracted to me?”
Pause.
Idiot.
“There are two types of women,” Jon finally answered, rounding a corner. I followed, my heart hammering wildly. I hadn’t planned to put him—or myself—on the spot. “The kind that you want to be friends with. And the kind that you like romantically.”
All I could feel was that space between us, my hand unheld, waving free-fall in the evening breeze. I knew what was coming: the “we’re-better-as-friends” soliloquy. Well, I needed to leave England anyway and this would give me the final push out. It doesn’t matter, I told myself.
“And you.” He paused. I held my breath. “You are both.”
I was both? “So you do like me.” I turned away and smiled.
“Yes,” he answered, still marching at a clip. “I’d rather not continue this now.”
“OK.” That was fine. He was English, this was uncomfortable for him, I respected that. Besides, I had my answer and felt good. Great, actually. “Tell me more about the value of Victorian stained glass,” I said to change the topic.
“OK,” he said. “And then let’s go get you that soup.”
That night, I crept (perhaps dashed) over to Jon’s side of the bed, but was rebuffed. “Spending the night doesn’t need to mean sex,” he said. “Let’s take this slowly. I like you.”
Frustrated, still confused, I nestled beside him instead.
“Um, can you move over?” Jon asked.
“Over where?” Was this another Ben, kicking me out?
“To your side.” He gestured to the empty half of the king-size bed. “I need room to sleep.”
I rolled back along the dark blue über-masculine sheets (did I mention the iron metal headboard?) all the way to the other end of the mattress, to my own hemisphere. No snuggling here, but lots of snoring. I listened to Jon’s snuffling, trying to relax to its rhythm, sinking into the soft bed, thinking that this wasn’t that bad. After all, I had a stomachache. Why had I even rushed it?
The next morning, Jon made me coffee and drove me home. I still didn’t know what was going on between us, but for the first time, I felt that that was fine.
The itchiest thing of all, I reminded myself, was the act of healing. I didn’t always need to scratch.
• • •
WHEN I INVITED Jon to my Rosh Hashanah dinner, I expected him to decline. He didn’t.
It would be the first time he’d see my space. And my friends. The first time I would envision “us” through their eyes. Not to mention, the first time he’d try my food. I panicked, and made sure Yolanda, an American performance artist who lived in a semihabitable industrial plant, was coming over to help cook. What did I know from honey-baked chicken and kugel? Yolanda was hands-on, confident at everyday things.
“Your place is cute,” Jon said as soon as he came up the rickety staircase with his overnight bag, which he slung on my bed. I followed his gaze as he gave himself a tour of my triple-cleaned space. “Really cute.” I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping he meant it, that “cute” was good, and that my mismatched cutlery and plates would also fall under its heading.
Yolanda had been busy hacking chicken thighs in my minuscule kitchen while I’d been preparing the one salad I knew how to make. Jon followed me into the room and watched. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said as I sliced pears. “You’ll slash yourself.” He mimed a different cutting technique, then he gave me a peck on the cheek. I blushed in front of Yolanda, whom I’d not told about our courtship.
He stood behind us, peering. “You should really put the cheese in last,” he said. “It’ll get soggy.”
“OK, thanks.” I was curt. Enough with the critique.
Then he turned to Yolanda. “Way too much breading,” he guffawed. “You’re sure that will cook? I’m not in the mood for kosher salmonella.”
She expertly ignored him while rolling her eyes so that I could see. My oven was starting to heat and I too began to fume. Is this how a person acted when invited for dinner? More than that, I was getting whiffs of Evan. Was I once again going to be shunned and dumped for my domestic fallibility?
Fortunately, the doorbell rang with my final guests. “I’ll get it,” Jon said, clearly wanting to be useful.
“OK,” I answered cheerfully, and waited for the car crash. The arrivals were a couple of reserved and highly intellectual avant-garde Israeli architects. How would brash Jon talk to them? Serves him right. I watched him plop himself down on my futon as if he’d been here a thousand times.
I finished the salad, Yolanda continuing to roll her eyes whenever we heard him make a joke about the chefs taking their time, and my heat grew until I was burning up. Domestic chores were the end of me. I could not do this, could not fail again. I didn’t want to be with someone controlling, condescending, obsessed with home, with cooking, judging me the whole time. I decided: I would end it that very night.
But as I brought out the first course, I saw him talking to the couple. They both seemed so at ease, smiling, drinking in his words and then responding with enthusiasm—about their work, architecture, Jewish identity in the UK. He filled their glasses. Jon’s openness was what had attracted me, I remembered. It comforted me. I loved his frankness, for better and for worse. I had to calm down: it was me, this time, who was shifting moods, black and white. “Delicious,” he said, biting into my salad, into the chicken.
When he went to the bathroom, my Israeli friends gave me the thumbs-up.
When everyone left, I was brash back. “You were rude in the kitchen.”
“Sucks for you,” Jon said. “You’ll have to put up with me.”
“If you’re lucky,” I mumbled. He kissed me, a sweet one, for a sweet new year.
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING, we were woken by his phone. “Sure, I’ll come get them,” Jon offered to someone who I assumed was his mother. I was about to make a crack about being a mama’s boy when he told me he was picking up Kate’s kids from the train station.
Kate? Of the rabbits? “Who is she?” I asked, forcing myself to sound calm.
“Just a friend,” Jon said, then got up to shower. I decided to file away this troubling information for later.
That night, he called to see if I was free. “I’m too tired,” I said, as I walked up Islington High Street. It was the truth. And, it was starting to dawn on me, he wasn’t going anywhere fast. I too could take my time. Jon wouldn’t suddenly forget me, or dive into an incomprehensible mood in which I didn’t exist. He wouldn’t retreat into his head, or turn his caring attention to rage and so I didn’t have to grab and squeeze it hard. “But thanks for coming over,” I said. “I’m glad you liked my flat.”
“It’s sweet,” Jon said. “Very you. I admire that you support yourself. Just one thing. You really need nicer towels.”
“You’re so not English,” I said, noting that I was not offended, did not take his comment as a criticism of my being, just of my linen. I also felt proud: he’d noticed what was probably the most significant accomplishment of my life thus far. Not wild success but self-sufficiency. His frankness made me trust him. His openness made me candid in a way I’d never been—with anyone. I was about to laugh off his request, but then recalled Evan and his desire for comfort. Back then, I hadn’t been able to hear his demands, which seemed selfish, beside the point. But now I could listen. Sure, I couldn’t really afford nice towels, but some things were an investment. I turned around and headed straight for Marks and Spencer.
That night, I noticed that Jon had left a green travel toothbrush on the sunk edge of my sink, in a little toothbrush bed.
• • •
NEARLY TEN DAYS later—the ten days of forgiveness between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the days of cleansing, honesty, renewal—I walked up the stairs to Jon’s flat. I’d been visiting an art historian friend in Spain for a long weekend and Jon had texted me, punctually, reliably, every twenty-four hours. I liked it. It was as if he’d been Ferberizing me, teaching me that he’d return at regular intervals, so I could relax and let go. No surprises. Then, on the last day, I checked my inbox, and found he’d e-mailed a few days earlier, asking me to come over the night I returned to London. He’d signed it “Love Jon.”
It was now that night, and we began to set out tea and cake on his kitchen table, when more words skidded from my mouth. “I need to talk to you about something,” I said, cringing at the girlfriendliness of it, careful about proceeding. How I hated we-have-to-talk talks. “It made me uncomfortable when Kate called the other morning, asking you to pick up her kids.” I braced myself, ready for him to yell, tell me I was being unreasonable, critical, selfish, that in fact, he loved her. “If we’re going to take this seriously, or going to date, then I feel like you need to make some boundaries—”
“OK,” Jon said, cutting me off. “Let me think about it.”
Two days later we sat on a bench in a small park near a gathering of my art historian colleagues. Jon had burst into the awkward crowd boisterously, trying to change the conversation from critical theory and the fluctuating position of the contemporary London art scene to sports cars. At first I cringed in shame, but then I just laughed. That was him. Not me. He wasn’t my spokesperson.
“I talked to Kate,” he now said. “I told her that you were my girlfriend, and it wasn’t appropriate for her to call me at all hours and expect me to care for her kids. I said we had to make boundaries.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“I was so taken by how you told me. You were calm and considered, and not huffy and histrionic. I was able to see that you were right.”
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” I said, inspired by my emotional success, proud of how I’d been handling things, not even realizing I’d been mature, and especially, attractive in my maturity. I had spoken my mind, been honest, and managed the problem. I took his hand. “I can’t stay here.”
“The park?”
“No, London. I just don’t think it’s where I really belong. I can’t see a future for myself here.”
“Good to know,” Jon said. “I’d move to New York in a flash.”
Could this be true? “Speaking of which, I’m going to Montreal in a few weeks,” I added. “I’ll be gone for a month. What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I totally understand if you want to, you know, take a break. I mean, I don’t want to make assumptions—”
Jon laughed. “Let’s just assume we’ll be together until we aren’t. Also, I’ll come to Montreal. I haven’t been in ages and I want to meet your family. Speaking of which, do you want to break the Yom Kippur fast at my parents’ house?”
“Of course,” I said, wondering if this too-good-to-be-true scenario was a joke, a slice of unreality that would disintegrate into crumbs at any second. But then I stopped myself from thinking, and instead, suggested we go get dinner.
• • •
JON PICKED ME up in his convertible, the roof down on an unusually sunny London afternoon. I got in and leaned over to kiss him on the lips.
“Do I look OK?” I asked. I was excited but also nervous. It had been years since I’d been invited to meet the parents. And even longer since I’d been invited to their house, my boyfriend’s childhood abode, the site of his formative years, where his dreams were constructed, his personality crystallized, his perspective honed, his template for intimacy sizzled into his psyche like a panini press.
“You look perfect,” he said. “For someone who claims to be fasting.”
“I am fasting,” I stressed. “Some of us have willpower.”
“Bo-ring.”
We drove up the hilly streets of Hampstead, right past Freud’s house—a shared landmark for us, I thought. Jon, like most British Jews, had spent most of his life living in that neighborhood; I, like most North American Jews, had spent most of my life in psychoanalysis. This was the house Freud had fled to from the Nazis, the house to which he’d brought all his collections. His tchotchkes were still there, but now, displayed as a museum, behind glass, organized, safe.
I took a deep breath and tried to relax in the warmth. But the wind blew into my face, screwing up my eye shadow. Jon was a ridiculous driver. He swerved through the winding roads that barely fit his car, let alone the oncoming traffic. Compared to all my artsy boyfriends, his sports car seemed manly and independent, and so his crazy driving didn’t generally bother me. I liked how he pushed his way through the crowded city. I admired how he wasn’t afraid to take risks—most of the time.
“What the hell are you doing?” I cried as his tires came to a screeching halt in front of a Victorian hedge.
“Listen,” he said, turning to me. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
My heart stopped. This wasn’t like him. He didn’t do drama.
“What?” I was ready for the worst. He was turning around. Taking me somewhere else. He’d changed his mind about sharing this most intimate of relations and spaces. It was over. This was the end. He was dying. He was already dead. I was dead.
“My mother has a lot of stuff,” he said.
“Huh?”
“My mother. She has a lot of stuff.”
“Whatever,” I said loudly. A lot of stuff? Ha. He had no idea how much junk it would take to impress me.
“No, I mean a lot of stuff,” he stressed. “Vases. Plates. Newspapers.”
“Just drive already.” I shivered and cut the conversation short. Was this some kind of joke? I had—for sure—kept my childhood home a secret from him, from everyone. Had he somehow found out? “I’m starving.”
“All right, then,” he said, pounding on the gas. The car jolted back into action. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Warn me? But before I had time to think anymore we arrived at his house, set back off the road. It was much larger and more exquisite than my childhood home, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the circular driveway. It was filled—with three rusted Volvos. From the 1980s.
“I told you,” Jon mumbled as we walked up to the front door. He rang the bell.
His mother answered. She was short and thin, with died pinky-orange hair and svelte lips outlining an angular but large smile. “So nice to meet you, Judy.”
“So nice to meet you too,” I answered, my own lips doing yoga stretches past my ears. But I was no longer paying attention to her face. Instead, my eyes were darting around, taking it all in. Next to her was a human-sized tower of junk mail. Behind her I could make out a long line of Tiffany lamps. Farther back, a whole room piled with wooden dining room tables.
My mother has a lot of stuff.
“It’s time to break the fast,” she said.
“It certainly is,” I barely eked out. My pulse pounded. Everything I’d run away from was now in front of me, closing in on me. I could still run, I thought, catch the bus on the corner. I eyed a heap of yellowing newspapers.
Jon saw my stare. He gestured to the stack. “That pile is structural.”
Huh? In my dizzy state it took me a second to realize he was referring to it as if it was a wall. Ha! It was structural, I thought. The crux. The core.
But more than that, it was a joke. All these years of kidding around, and yet the one thing I never joked about was the home that I came from. Never. Not once.
“Come in,” Jon’s mother said.
I held my breath, inched my way inside, looked around me at a real live version of my childhood angst and, for the first time, exploded into laughter.
• • •
JON’S FAMILY WAS wealthier than mine, so their hoarding comprised a different class of object. The dining room, bigger than any of my parents’ rooms, had antique chairs stacked on their backs, boxes from Sotheby’s, collector toasters, and chandeliers salvaged from synagogues across Europe. But what surprised me even more than the extensive Edwardian decanter collection was Jon’s attitude. Before we sat down to eat, we wandered through their sprawling four-story Victorian detached, as he pointed out a full-sized library card catalogue and a population of ceramic tumblers. “Just in case we have sixty-five guests for dinner,” he joked.
As we explored, I barraged Jon with questions. I wondered if his mother’s hoarding emerged from her immigrant experience (she had come from Africa to London) and if attaching to objects was easier than to foreign English people . . . “Your mother is so petite. Is she afraid of losing her husband and being alone in this big space? Is she filling up her house prophylactically?” Jon chuckled at my blunt overanalysis. He didn’t know why his mother was a hoarder, but what ultimately stood out to me was that he was OK with it, with exposing his family’s craziness, aware and confident that his mother’s mess wasn’t him. Not even ashamed.
I’m not my mother’s house, I remembered. I was here, thirty years old, someone’s girlfriend in London. My mother’s mess isn’t me.
As we walked up the final flight of stairs, I felt amazed at the extraordinary coincidence that two children of hoarders had found each other and could no longer hold myself back. “My mother has stuff too!” I was panting. “Reams of it. Thumbtacks, onesies, laundry baskets bought on sale. Tupperware, Play-Doh sets, wall calendars from the late 1970s. My childhood bed is currently a warehouse for fax machines. My friends complain that their inheritances are being spent on cruises; mine is being spent on hole punchers. My mother’s house,” I confessed, pointing all around me, “is even worse.”
“Worse?” Jon stopped.
“Worse.” Now I worried I’d gone too far, that in coming clean I’d made a mess.
“Wow,” he replied after a pause. “I can’t wait to see it!”
As he opened an attic freezer filled with ten-year-old kosher turkeys, I suddenly understood. Like me, he had grown up in small pockets of affection surrounded by record players and hotel-shampoo collections. Our forthright rapport countered our worlds of hidden secrets. Being open about our past messes, even joking about them, helped clean them up. His successful detachment from his mother’s mishegas could help guide my own. My attraction to Jon was propelled by his ability to face the ugly and the odd, to accept it without judgment or fear.
But most of all, I understood that after three decades, I had finally found someone I could bring home.