Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Itasca, Minnesota
When Molly finally left the hospital and headed south on the main highway out of town to get Caden from George’s house, it was past eight, pitch black, and two below zero. Hoping the heater would take effect soon, she’d just turned up the radio to belt along with “Livin’ on a Prayer” when her cell phone rang in through her Bluetooth and the name Evan Bouchard displayed on the stereo.
Her heart sped up. She hadn’t talked to her ex-husband since Christmas, about Caden’s canceled trip, the impossibility of rescheduling—
Today did not feel like the day to talk to him again.
No sense avoiding him, though. Caden would hear about it and no doubt lecture-tease her in her own tone about facing life head-on and dealing with people in a grown-up, respectful manner.
She clicked the button to answer. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said.
“Hey, you answered!” said the oh-so-familiar voice, the one she’d first heard piping up from the back of her English 120 class, second semester freshman year at Colby; the one that, unfortunately, still caused a tuning fork to vibrate somewhere deep within her. “So, listen, I’ll be quick. Cade said he told you I’m coming into town for his game Friday, right?”
“And none too soon.” Ha, she seemed to have perfected the haughty ex-wife tone instantly, and with no preparation! “This could be their last game, if they lose.”
“I know, Moll. I’ve been hoping to make it all season, but things have been totally nuts at work, so, yeah, now I’m just breaking away. Only trouble is, every single hotel room in town is booked, so I was wondering if I could crash with you.”
The good humor she’d been forcing drained out in an instant, like a stopper had just been pulled. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” he said cheerfully.
She didn’t trust herself to keep driving. She pulled into the Home Depot parking lot—it was nearly empty, this time of night—watching for slick spots on the pavement, steering into a space next to a plowed-up snowbank as tall as a two-story building.
“Moll?”
She shifted into Park—and, to her horror, burst into tears. Noisy ones. She couldn’t hide or stop them.
“Moll?” Evan said again, this time sounding worried. “I guess I didn’t think you’d be happy, but—”
“Oh, stop! Stop. Not everything’s about you.” She wiped her face with her glove, trying to collect herself, feeling his presence in stereo-surround. She’d been trying so hard all day to be cheerful and strong for Liz, not to show how scared she was. Trying not to even think about it.
Because, yes: the thought of losing Grandma Cecily was simply unthinkable.
“What is it, then?” Evan said. Molly was vaguely surprised that he didn’t seem exasperated by her crying. Of course, he’d had a two-year respite from it. That probably helped.
“It’s my grandma,” she said, swallowing back more tears, and she told him what had happened, trying—though it was obviously far too late—for a calm-cool-collected, got-it-under-control tone. “So, she’s got a really long road ahead, they’re saying,” she finished, digging in her purse for a Kleenex. “Rehab and everything. Full recovery could take up to a year.”
“Aw, Moll, I’m so sorry,” Evan said, and it was exactly the same tone he’d used when she’d gotten the call about her dad. That time, it had been in person, in their tiny, sunny Newport kitchen lined with the tile they’d ordered from Italy, with his arms around her. Recognizing that now made her stomach ache. “But, you know,” he said, “things like this were exactly why you moved back out there, right?”
His tone wasn’t unkind, but still. “Salt, wound, Evan. Remember? Didn’t we promise no salt?”
“Moll, come on. I’m just saying it’s good you’re there.” The slight catch in his voice made her remember: the few times he’d visited Itasca with Molly, he and Cecily had hit it off, spending hours together listening to Cecily’s extensive collection of jazz LPs, which Evan had pronounced “classic” and “first-rate.”
It suddenly struck her as so strange to have his oh-so-familiar voice coming through the stereo speakers of her car in the Home Depot parking lot of her old hometown. How did life turn out this way, anyway? That someone you’d once shared the most intimate and precious parts of your life with could be so far gone and far away, and yet, through the miracles of technology and the fact of sharing a child (children), still envelop you, be indelibly connected. As though moments of your past lived on and bound you, regardless of any opposite intent you might have had.
Regardless of how much you’d wanted to leave the pain behind.
“Moll?” he said again. A slight prick with an X-Acto knife, every time; a warm blanket, too.
She yanked off her wool hat and ran a hand through her newly bobbed platinum hair. Just last week, Hilda down at the Cut-n-Curl had laughed with delight when Molly’d shown her the recent picture of Jennifer Lawrence, of the transformation Molly wanted, away from her plain-Jane light brown waves. Oh, yah, that’ll shake the dust right off ya, Hilda had said. That’ll be just the thing.
Now it was a reminder: She was different. She wasn’t who she’d been. Okay, she told herself. Okay. “Listen, Evan, it’s good you’re coming, for Caden’s sake, but I don’t know about you staying with us.” Having six-foot-three Evan in the tiny bungalow would be like putting a bear on a bicycle and telling him it was no sweat to ride. “It’s a two-bedroom. You’d be stuck on the couch.”
A pause. “The couch is fine. I can’t get a hotel. Apparently, the opposing team has a lot of fans coming down for the game.”
Molly squeezed the steering wheel tight in both hands. She should just say no. She should, should, should say no.
But how? She could still hear that lost-little-boy tone of Caden’s voice this morning. “All right, fine,” she said. “Just text me the details. When you’ll be getting in and all that.”
“Cool. Great. Thanks. Oh, and, Moll, listen, I wanted to tell you: I’ll pay for Cade’s honors bio project. The DNA thing? He said it’d be, like, four hundred dollars, but I think it’s a great idea.”
“What’s this?” Molly hadn’t heard anything about an honors bio project.
“You know, where he’s going to analyze the four generations of your family’s DNA? Cool, right? He seems so excited about it. I guess he’s really interested in genetics.”
“Oh, yeah!” She pretended to know. Now she was light-headed, suddenly. Too hot. She flicked the heater off, tugged at her scarf.
“Anyway, yeah, I guess we can figure it out this weekend, but definitely know I’m good for it.”
The car’s idle was a soft hum. “It’s going to be weird to see you,” she blurted, even as she was thinking how Caden should’ve asked her about this project first, if it was to be her DNA, plus her mother’s and grandmother’s? And why was it so damn hot in this car? She yanked the zipper of her parka partway down.
“And you,” Evan said. “It’s going to be weird to see you, too.” A pause. She somehow wanted to throw something; had no idea why. Then: “But, you know, I’m the same.”
She didn’t know what to say. Landed on: “How unfortunate.”
He laughed. “I see you’re the same, too.” Then he said he’d text her, and she said sure, and they said goodbye and hung up, leaving her alone in the darkness of the idling Mazda beside the snowbank. She realized she’d forgotten to ask how long he was planning to stay. The weekend? A week? Good Lord, she hoped not.
And—was she really the same? Was he?
She seriously doubted it.
The halos around the Home Depot’s floodlights showed tiny flakes of snow drifting down. It was five miles out to George’s house. She flipped the heat back on and put the car into gear.
“Yeah, well, Mr. Rasmussen suggested I send in my DNA and Great-Grandma Cecily’s DNA, plus maybe the two generations in between, and have it analyzed,” Caden said in the darkness on the drive back into town, after Molly had given him a full report on Cecily, and a not-so-full report on her conversation with Evan, and then, trying not to sound too aggravated, asked him to explain about his honors bio project. “He said we’d be able to see how the genes get passed down that way, and trace our ancestry to other countries and stuff. He said it was unique to have four generations in the same town, and the tests are really easy to do now.”
Well, okay. This was pretty cool. And, also, the first thing all school year she could remember Caden sounding excited about, outside of hockey. Maybe it was even a first step toward getting into a good college! Molly had sudden, dizzying visions of him in a white lab coat, the letters Ph.D. after his name. “That sounds great, bud! Let’s just wait a few days to ask Grandma Cecily. Till she’s feeling better, you know? But we can talk to Mom first. I’m sure she’d give you a sample. You could at least do three generations, that way.”
“K,” he said.
She waited. There was nothing more. And, much as she wanted to, much as she tried, Molly just could not read him one bit these days. Was he upset about Cecily at all? Or simply able to coolly accept, with the hubris of the young, that she was going to be just fine?
Molly gave up trying for the moment and just drove, remembering how out of sorts Liz had seemed by day’s end, too, going on about the coming cold snap: how the pipes would certainly freeze in Cecily’s house; how Liz had to make 114 bowls for the Empty Bowl fundraiser and didn’t know how she’d manage. It was strange, come to think of it: Not once had Liz said she was worried about Cecily. Just the house, the bowls, the weather.
Molly watched the swoop of the headlights through the black night. Caden’s fingertips drummed his knee. He always seemed to have some private rhythm going lately.
She couldn’t help wanting to be let in, and she thought of something. “Hey, bud, you know, this project of yours could be really interesting, because Grandma Cecily was an orphan. Did you know that? She never knew who her parents were, or if she had siblings. So we might have a bunch of relatives out there that we have no idea about.”
“Really? Cool.”
Sudden tears stung Molly’s eyes again; she had no idea why. Beyond her headlights, the stars were pinpricks of light in the black sky. She remembered Evan, shouting once, in one of the bad times: You talk about the importance of family! You’re the one breaking ours! You’re the one who thinks you’re going through all of this alone, when that’s the farthest thing from true!
She thought of something else. “Hey, bud,” she ventured. “Those DNA tests—are they the kind that tell you stuff about your health? Like, can they forecast potential issues, or explain things that have happened?”
“Like why you lost the babies, you mean? I don’t think so.”
He said it so coldly that it was like a fall into ice water. He said it as if he was tired of the subject; as if it had ruined his whole life. And maybe, in some way, it had: Every two years, starting when he was two, she’d had a miscarriage. Four babies, lost. By the time he was ten, she and Evan had been so broken, they hadn’t had the wherewithal to keep trying.
Now Molly was reeling from her son’s cruelty, even as she heard her own voice: Try to understand his pain. In adolescence, every emotion is extreme.
But then he spoke up again: “It was probably your fault, Mom. You’re just going to have to accept it.”
Tears flooded her, blurring her vision as she drove.
No, she thought then. No. Her son was not going to set her healing back five years; he just was not going to be allowed to do that. “How dare you speak to me that way?” she hissed.
“You always tell me we have to accept things the way they are! That’s all I meant!”
She swallowed hard. “I thought,” she managed, through gritted teeth, “that I had also taught you about compassion. Tell me, Caden. Tell me what you say to indicate compassion.”
A sigh. “I see your suffering. I acknowledge your suffering. I am sorry.”
“Caden,” she said, teeth still clenched. “I see your suffering. I acknowledge your suffering. I am sorry.”
“You sound totally sincere, Mom,” he said.
“Well,” she said. “So do you.” Another parenting victory. God help her.
Get me home to the laundry, she thought. At least that I know how to do.