thirty-six

This is how the truth comes out. In traffic, at night, in her Barnard sweatshirt, in a car I can’t even drive. She takes one trembling hand off the wheel and looks for mine, and then she holds it tight so the sweat won’t let it slip, and I cry. I cry so hard my head hurts for the next three days, so hard I have to blow my nose in the sleeve of my favorite shirt, so hard the lights blur into a mess of white and blue and red and green, and I let them. I don’t force my eyes to focus, like I would the camera.

My mother does not say a word. She just squeezes my hand tighter every time I sob, making every effort not to stop me or talk me out of it, knowing that if she opens her mouth, she might run us into the World War II Memorial. We pass the monuments on the Mall, and she finally turns into the parking lot next to the Albert Einstein statue. She lets my hand go, gets out, and waits for me on the sidewalk. When I peek through the bushes, I see the genius is still smiling. I used to climb on his bronze pants, step on his bronze papers, pet his bronze mustache. When I learned to read, I would trace the letters carved on the granite bench. This is what they say: “The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.”

Perhaps that’s right, but truth is a motherfucker sometimes, selective and cruel. We walk to the stoplight and wait for the crossing man to turn green. It’s chilly out. The air bites where the tears have dried, on my neck and cheeks. My nose must be enormous. It always swells after I cry. The cold has scared most other people back into their hotels. Tomorrow is Halloween.

I struggle to keep up with my mom, and wonder if I should grab her hand again, or if she wants to be alone, if she even wants me here. We walk under the trees toward a bright yellow light, until we’ve crossed the concrete barricades and are facing the Lincoln Memorial. There’s no moon in the reflecting pool.

We walk all the way up to the top, where Lincoln sits like a wise giant in his temple. My dad would kill us if he knew we came here without him. As my mom reads (or pretends to read) the inaugural address, I lean on a yellow column. I am only a mortal. My mother is neither sad nor pissed. She’s lost, and she’s looking for strength in a man made of marble. When I’ve had enough of the tension, I walk down the stairs, letting all my weight fall with every step, hoping it will startle me into something real. You have a dream. I have a dream too, an impossible one.

This moment is beautiful, even if it’s scary, even if it’s sad. It’s our détente. I know it will all be spoiled, that it will be real by sunrise. I will have to look my mother in the face, and she will have to say something uglier than the Gettysburg Address. Her words will not fix anything. It will have to be something about what comes next.

When I get to the bottom of the steps, a couple asks me to take their picture, and I’m too tired to say no. One, two, three and take a picture of their two matching grins. They’re having a good time. I have to give Adam his camera. I have to get Bogart back from Eva. I’m going to have to explain everything.

When we get back in the car, my mother turns on the heat and says: “You are telling your father.”

I nod and swallow. My angry-girl mask dropped as soon as I told her the news. Someone has to tell him, so I will.

Back in the city (ours, not hers), when we cross the Buffalo Bridge over Rock Creek, I tell her I’m sorry, and she tells me I don’t need to apologize; we just need to deal with it. We. I let the plural go, since I’m too exhausted to fight. I feel like I’ve run a hundred marathons but never once crossed the finish line. Like I can’t get to the end. It’s past nine thirty, and although we’re both tired and my mother might appreciate some time to herself, it seems wrong for me to fall asleep right now. Tonight, she will cry when I close my bedroom door. She has not cried yet. My eyes are losing focus.

“Maybe she just didn’t want to go to California,” I say, super drowsy.

“Who?”

“Ari. Maybe she just didn’t want to leave New York.”

“Yes,” my mother says. “Maybe.”

“Or maybe she didn’t want to be with him.”

“I doubt that.”

My mom gives me a sideways glance, her eyes puffy and tired, her hands gripping the wheel to make it home.

“Do you think she’s happy?” I ask.

“I think she’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine. Good. Great. She has a good life, beautiful kids, funny friends, a husband who says yes most of the time.”

The leather squeaks under my sinking body.

“You think she should’ve gone.”

“I think she should’ve been a dancer. She was a wonderful dancer, one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

“You smell terrible, Ma. You shouldn’t smoke.”

“I know.”

When we get home, I’m asleep and it’s my father who comes back to the car to wake me up. He can’t carry me anymore, but he keeps his hand on my back as we walk to the door. Inside, across the hall, he’s strung the prints of the night pictures, with pins, on an old clothesline. It’s overwhelming. Sometimes he’s so far away and in his head, and then he just comes close, or notices something, or pays attention, and it always overwhelms me.

“Thanks Dad.”

“Sure. They’re pretty. I don’t know when the hell … ”

“I just need to go to sleep.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Good night, bean.”

“Good night.”

I duck under the pictures to go up the stairs. I can hear the shower on in the master bathroom. Eva’s key is nowhere to be found. Today was Shabbat and nobody said a word.