On our mother’s birthday, a Saturday, Ellen was picking me up for the visit. It was a ritual we acted out for every family occasion. We preferred to drive up to Alpine together to visit the parents. This year she was seventy-four. That sounded pretty old. I had this very same thought every year.
While I was waiting for Ellen, I called Diana. I left a message. “Hello, this is Good. Give me a call. Thanks.”
Ellen had bought the present. I gave her half the money, another tradition.
Now I said to Ellen, “Tell me again why we’re giving her walkie-talkies.”
“For the mall,” Ellen said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “And you know, the gardening.”
I looked at her.
“OK, they go to the mall and lose each other all the time. So this way, they can stay in touch as they walk around, arrange a time to meet. You know?”
“Do you think she’ll be able to work them?” Our mother still had trouble with some of the trappings of the modern world. So did I, for that matter.
“I don’t know, Tom. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Let’s see—what was your idea again?”
“No, I didn’t mean—I wasn’t criticizing or anything. I’m just saying that she’s not very technical. It takes a lot of concentration for her to switch channels with the remote.”
“Trouble is, they have pretty much everything they really want. Let’s just hope for the best, OK?”
“We’re not going to stay long, right?”
“Tom, do we have to go over this every single time?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Yeah, we do. How long are we staying?”
“We will stay an hour.”
“Promise?” I had to torture her; there were certain rituals we both found comforting.
We pulled into the driveway, and there was this sour, squeezing feeling in my stomach. Another tradition.
Before I could even open my door, Mom was on the front walk, waving as if greeting an ocean liner docking after a dangerous passage.
We got out.
“Good to see you, dear.” She kissed Ellen on the cheek and hugged her.
Then it was my turn. Fumes from her hairspray and Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion enveloped me. “How’s my boy?” she said, squeezing me. It was one of those questions not requiring an answer, my favorite kind. She stepped back and squinted up at me in the bright sun. Our mother is small and appears to be growing smaller. She is very proud of the fact that she buys most of her clothes in Nordstrom’s children’s department during one of their annual sales. “This sweater,” she’ll say, as if she’s gotten away with something, “was only twelve dollars!” Right now, she was wearing a purple T-shirt with a pair of those pants women are wearing lately that appear way too short, white socks, and a pair of purple sneakers. Sometimes it is all too apparent that our mother buys her clothes in a children’s department.
Our dad lumbered outside. Dad is as large as Mom is small. He favors plaid shirts, gray chinos (the kind a high-school Janitor might wear), and work boots. He always looks as if he is about to go chop something down or weld something together. The top of our mother’s head reaches the top of his shirt pocket. He nodded and shook my hand, hugged my sister briefly.
We went inside and followed Dad into the living room, while our mother made a side trip to the kitchen. It’s one of those living rooms that people hardly ever sit in. You couldn’t relax in there because everything looked too nice. There was a couch and matching love seat covered in white fabric with occasional pale flowers scattered across it. I never sat there. I worried that I would leave some kind of stain on it, a big dark smudge that would ruin it forever. There was a pale pinkish orange chair. That one was covered in velvet. Its fabric had a “memory,” my mother once commented. She meant that your butt leaves a print. Also not for me. I got a ladder-back chair from the dining room, the way I always did.
“Tom, you got about fourteen places to sit in here. What are you bringing that in for?” our father said.
“My back,” I said. I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it; I just said, “My back,” and then I sat down on the unupholstered chair that I was less likely to wreck. Conceivably, it could splinter into small pieces, or I could rip out the wicker seat, but these were unlikely possibilities.
This wasn’t the house we grew up in. The parents sold that one quite a few years ago, and I was glad I would never have to go there ever again. Our parents had lived in five or more houses since then. I had lost track. Each successive house felt as remote and unrelated to me as the previous one.
Our mother brought in a tray. “No coffee for me, Mom,” I said, before she had a chance to ask.
“Oh, all right,” she said, a little pouty, as if I didn’t decline the coffee every single time I came. She offered me a plate of cookies, homemade.
“No, thanks,” I said, “Just had lunch.”
Ellen took a cookie and a cup of coffee.
“So what have you two been up to?”
Ellen groaned softly. “Just work.”
“Now, dear,” said our mother, “you’re doing a wonderful job. Think how many people you’ve helped, all those lives you’ve improved!”
Ellen nodded. She took a bite of her cookie. “Ooh!” she said. “Coconut!”
“Like it?” Our mother smiled. “And, Tom, what’s new in your life?”
I didn’t look at Ellen. “Just, you know, same old stuff, Mom,” I said.
My mom couldn’t say much about the people I’d helped by handing them Heinekens and tequila sunrises and taking their money. So she said, “Well, as long as you’re enjoying yourself!”
I know Ellen was thinking the same thing I was. When confronted with her two mildly miserable adult children, our mother said something upbeat. Our father didn’t talk. He just took a cookie.
Ellen said, “So happy birthday, Mom.” She handed Mom the present.
“Well, now, isn’t this nice? What could this be?” She opened the flowery pink paper. “Oh, heavens, what’s this?”
“Walkie-talkies, Mom. So you and Dad can find each other in the mall.”
“Oh, now, isn’t that something? How thoughtful. Look, Chuck. One for each of us. That’s a lovely gift, kids.” She took them out of the Styrofoam form inside the box. “Now, do they—hmm— do they need batteries? Or what?”
I looked at Ellen. See? “They need batteries,” I said.
“But I already put some in!” Ellen said, “So they’re all set to go. Tom and I will demonstrate.” Ellen grabbed one of the little radios out of our mothers hand. “Tom, go out in the driveway.”
I looked at her; Do I have to?
“Go!” she said, handing me the walkie-talkie.
I got up and walked out of the house. I switched on the walkie-talkie.
“Come in, Tom. Tom, do you read me?”
Oh, God.
“Hi,” I said.
“See that, Mom, it works!” Ellen was saying. “Tom, what is your location?”
“What? I’m out in the driveway, like you told me!”
An older man walked by with a dog on a leash. I didn’t want him to see me talking into the radio in my parents’ driveway. So I turned the thing off and went inside.
Into the radio, Ellen was saying, “Go all the way to the corner and then say something!”
“I’m right here,” I said. Ellen looked up, disappointed. You’d think she’d never seen a walkie-talkie before. “Here.” I gave the radio back to my mother.
She put it back into its place. Then she put the box on the table and stared at it as if the box might explode.
My mother was thinking about Jack. I was sure of it. He and I used to have a pair of walkie-talkies. They were kind of frustrating because you had to hold down a button to talk, but while you were holding down the button you couldn’t hear the other person. We spent most of our time talking simultaneously, missing what the other said, and yelling at each other for doing it wrong. I loved those things. There was nothing better than hearing from my brother from the other side of the house or upstairs, even if I never quite got what he was saying. It seemed miraculous. That was about forty years ago. But our mother was thinking about it now, I could tell. I folded my hands across my knees and looked at them, guiltily, as if I were personally responsible for not keeping track of and maintaining those walkie-talkies in perfect working condition.
“That was just so thoughtful,” said our mother softly.
I wanted to go.
“Tom, you’ve only been here fifteen minutes,” my mother said suddenly.
“What?” Had I accidentally said out loud that I wanted to get out of here?
“Stop looking at your watch!”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”
There was an ugly little pause.
Then our father said, “Let me show you what we’ve been doing in the yard!” Another ritual.
“Great!” Ellen said, as if this were not the most boring part of the whole visit.
We followed our parents outside for a tour of their plants. Their yard was an ever-changing project. Frankly, it always looked about the same to me: bushes, flowers, patio. But they worked on it; every week they did a lot of hard labor to get it the way they wanted it, digging up plants, eradicating pests, weeding, building structures to hold in dirt or elevate flower beds.
Our father was talking about compost, and I wasn’t listening. I tried not to be rude, but honestly, I had heard far more about compost and mulch than any one person should ever be subjected to.
“All right, Tom,” my mother said. “You can go! You’ve put in your time.”
“What?” I said, “I wasn’t—”
“You just looked at your watch again! I understand. You’re busy. And you should be!”
“I did not. Did I?” I turned to Ellen.
Ellen said, “Dad, could I have a couple of lemons?” Always the diplomat.
“Sure, honey!” Our dad walked briskly to the corner of the yard to pick a couple of lemons. Nothing pleased him more than giving away his produce.
“Oh, Mom,” Ellen said. “Look at that rose! It’s perfect.”
“Let me go get my clippers, and I’ll give you that for your desk.”
“No, don’t you want it? I mean, I love it, but you might want it for the dining room or something.”
“I’ve got plenty!” Mom bustled inside the house and got her clippers for the rose. “There you are, dear. Now, do you have something pretty to put it in?”
“I’m sure I’ll find something, Mom.”
“Oh, you’re very resourceful.”
“I’m going to have to get back. I have these two cases I have to review before tomorrow.”
“Do you? On a weekend? Poor you! Well, you know, I have some wonderful soup to give you both. It’s all packed up. It won’t take me a minute.” She hurried off to the kitchen and came out with two containers of soup. She handed them to me because Ellen was driving.
We climbed back into the car, with me in charge of balancing the soup and the flower.
I waited. She was going to say, “Why do you do that? It’s just for an hour. A lousy hour, Tom. Why do you have to make it so clear to them that you don’t want to be there?”
We passed the grocery store. We got on the freeway. She didn’t say it yet. She was waiting to get her stride, and then she would let me have it.
“What kind of soup is it?” she said.
“Lentil.”
“Oh, good.”
We drove some more. “Do you have to work tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Who’s playing?”
I thought. Nothing. “I can’t remember. Want me to find out and call you? Want to come?”
“No,” she said. “Thanks, though.”
When we got all the way down the 8 and she hadn’t said anything about my bad behavior, I knew she wasn’t going to. She didn’t have to. Not necessary. I should have been more patient, let them tell their news, thought up something to tell them. I should have just settled in for a visit. In an hour, hour and a half, I’d be free to go. Was it so hard to do that for them? Yes, it was. Clearly. I was a selfish person.
• • •
At work that night, when I started cutting lemon wedges, they reminded me briefly of my dad. A small burst of guilt fired off in the back of my neck and then faded, a mere aftershock.
I went to the pay phone. “Diana?” I said when she answered. “It’s Good again.” There was a pause. For some reason, it sounded as though I were talking about some situation or condition or maybe even relationship. “As in Tom Good?”
She said, “I got that. And I got all your messages.”
“So I was wondering if you’d had a chance to think about things… if you’d maybe decided to see me, after all.”
“No,” she said. “I haven’t. I’ve been busy.”
She sighed, and somehow I knew there was hope.
“OK,” I said. “Take your time.” I would keep calling until she said yes.