12
We’ll need witnesses, you said, so we headed north. In your car, as I drove, you rifled through your purse. I have my birth certificate—are you sure she has yours?
Yeah, I said, glancing over my shoulder to change lanes.
I haven’t seen your mom in a long time, you said.
Do you really want her there? Maybe we can call—I don’t know, is there someone else we can call?
Why, you think she’ll freak out?
My mom liked what it said about her son that his best friend was a girl. She liked how you said please and thank you. She liked how your parents sent Christmas cards and invited her to Memorial Day barbeques she never went to.
She’ll be happy, I said, pretty sure it was true. Knowing that even if it wasn’t, she would keep her mouth shut. And she would be happy to see me, regardless of my news. I hadn’t spoken to her in months.
We pulled into her cul-de-sac, at the end of a row of identical one-story subdivision houses. It was a Monday morning but she was home—to an Avon lady, a day of work means someone sitting on your couch applying used lipstick samples. I rolled down my window and let the engine idle, staring at the wide ass of her SUV.
How long are we going to sit here? you said.
Through her open curtains I saw her enormous television. On the screen, the camera homed in on a guy with thick glasses. I could see text at the bottom of the screen—WITNESS CALLED BY THE DEFENSE, I guessed, or CROSS-EXAMINATION; all she watched were jury trials.
This is good news. It’s not like we’re telling her something bad, you said, yawning. God, we’re running on no sleep. We should just go in and tell her. Quick like a Band-Aid.
I’m sorry about last night. I guess I just—
Don’t be, you said quickly.
Frankie! My head snapped toward the driveway, where my mom clomped toward us in her heels. And you brought friends, she said.
My mom was tall and mostly thin—she carried bulges in a few isolated places but had the appearance of a healthy, trim woman. She wore a pressed pantsuit and thick makeup, her lips stained a deep berry. Her hair was a cropped confection of boyish platinum blonde, teased high on top and sleek on the sides: the overall effect was a cross between David Bowie and Dolly Parton.
Hey Mom, I said, stepping out of the car. You followed. You’re looking very corporate today.
I’ve got a client in fifteen, she said, out of breath. She eyed you. Is that little Nora? Give an old lady a hug.
You obeyed, her shoulder pressing into your neck.
I haven’t seen you since Frankie’s eighteenth at the Hungry Hunter. She couldn’t stop touching your hair. God, you’re pretty, she said.
Ma, I said.
She squinted at me. Don’t you have class?
Can we go inside? I said. I have to tell you something.
Her face slumped into a frown as she whipped out her cell phone. I’m canceling. She covered the phone with her palm. She’s cheap anyway. Joanne? she said, bellowing into the mouthpiece, trotting toward the house, motioning for us to follow.
You leaned in, whispering. Did she get along with Greta?
I guess. I brought her up here like twice.
You grimaced. In five years?
Done, my mom said, clapping her phone shut. We positioned ourselves on the taupe leather sectional. She put the television on mute. You have news. I can tell. Frankie, have you told her I’m clairvoyant?
Mom’s clairvoyant, I said.
Okay, news. News news news.
Nora is my girlfriend now.
She squinted. What about—
I dumped her, I said.
She looked at me sideways, smirking.
There’s more, you said.
Nora, I blurted. Don’t. I didn’t want you to tell her what Greta had said—I couldn’t bear hearing it aloud.
Oh, tell me, Mom said. Tell me.
That was when I noticed the tumbler—brown frosted glass, straight out of a seventies airport lounge. There was no coaster, just a series of wet circles in a little Olympiclogo pattern beneath the drink that—at twenty to noon—she had nearly finished.
What? you said. We have to tell her if she’s going to be a witness. You turned toward my mom. We’re getting married. Today.
Oh, can I come? Mom said. You’ll let me come, right?
I nodded toward her glass. I’ll drive.
Oh my God, she said, rounding the coffee table, kissing me on the forehead and then settling next to you. Oh, hi! she said, like you had just walked in the room. Did you already tell your dad? she asked me.
No. We came here first.
Oh! she said again, happy to have won.
I drove my mom’s car to the freeway, heading for the county clerk’s office on Texas Street. The two of you rode in the backseat so she could do your makeup. I glanced at you in the rearview, your eyes closed obediently as her brushes swept across your face. She explained each item as she used it, and I dreaded her inevitable sales pitch.
Where’s Jess? I said. Does she still work at the cell phone place?
Oh, God no, Mom said. She works at the Chevy’s in Emeryville. She blew on your eyelids, your eyelashes fluttering. Your sister comes home smelling like grilled beef, Francis. I have to wash her clothes separately.
We came to a stoplight. You look pretty, I told your reflection.
Of course she does, Mom said. I waited for you to catch my eye in the mirror, but you just closed them again as she commanded that you purse your lips.
Do you think Jess could make it here in time? I said.
She’s working a double, Mom said, dusting silver powder across your eyelids. What time are your parents getting here? she said to you.
You began to answer, but I had taken a wrong turn and the GPS started to freak out: Turn. Around. Turn. Around.
Mom, why does this thing have a British accent?
It’s Australian. I changed the setting. The Australian boy sounds so cute.
Recalculating, it said, addled. Recalculating.
What the fuck do you need this for? You barely leave your house.
She dug around in her bag, and I knew she was fishing for her thousand-dollar camera. You look so gorgeous, little girl. Welcome to the happiest day of your life.
Mrs. Mason, my parents died. They’re not coming.
Her hand went still, the bag’s contents no longer rattling. Frankie, she said distractedly, did I know about this?
It just happened, Mom.
Don’t call me Mrs. Mason, Mom told you. I’m Jill.
Recalculating, the Aussie said. Make a ... LEFT ... onto ... Texas Street.
She kissed your powdered forehead. I’m sorry, kiddo. That’s just too damn much.
We’re here, I said, parking.
We stepped into the searing air and it was hard to breathe; the atmosphere was suddenly inhospitable, like we had stepped onto some distant planet.
The woman in the glass booth slipped us our license application through a slot, and even through that tiny opening I smelled her bad breath. I filled in my name and address, putting down your house. My parents’ names, the state where they were born—that was easy to remember, since they had never left it. I started to hand the form to you but pulled it back.
What? you asked.
It’s okay, I said. I’ll just finish it up.
I wrote Sandra where it asked for your mother, Jack where it said “Father.” I didn’t know their middle names, so I made some up. Sandra Ruth Lucas, I wrote. Jack Ray Lucas. I got to the bottom of the page and saw the fee: filing the application was $75. I looked over the other costs—$36 for the ceremony, $15 for an extra witness, since we needed two and only had one. I had negative $112 in my checking. You had paid for our coffee that morning, had covered the bridge toll when we left the city. You were giggling at a pamphlet: Getting a Clue Before You Say I Do. Your face was thick with cosmetics, like a topographic map.
I can’t pay this, I told Mom.
She peered at me, her breath sweet and sharp. You’re getting married and you don’t have a spare hundred?
I’m getting married and I don’t have a spare ten, I said.
She pulled out her checkbook.
Technically, you have to do these things by appointment, so because there were two couples ahead of us, we had two hours to kill. The three of us drove to the twenty-fourhour taco place, installing ourselves in a red vinyl booth.
Are you going to call your dad? you said.
I don’t know, I said nervously. I sopped up some grease with a tortilla. He’s probably on a conference call or something. We don’t really need to call him, I think.
What does he do?
He’s a consultant, Mom said. Or, wait ... no, that’s right. A consultant.
He’s not in sales? I said. I thought he was in sales.
Maybe we can all go out to dinner or something, you said.
Yes! Mom said. You have to have a reception. He’ll come to the reception.
No, I said abruptly. Both of you stared at me. I made my voice as calm as possible. We don’t have to do that, Mom. It’s not—
Mom took your hand. Oh my God, she said, I just figured it out. You’re pregnant.
Fuck me, I said.
I’m not, Jill, you said.
You threw me a look that nearly stopped my heart, because I knew Mom saw it—she looked between us rapidly, reading our faces. In honor of the occasion she gave me a grace period, but I prayed she wasn’t keeping a tally of questions she would later lob my way.
That was how it started—We’ll need witnesses. Maybe if we had never told my family, everything would have been okay. Another $15, and the two witnesses could have been total strangers. Another $15 and we could have gone home to our house that night, floated our livers in champagne. We might have awoken the next morning to say, Good morning, Mr. Mason and Good morning, Mrs. Mason, giddy with a simple kind of hope.
On the last day of the last week I knew you, we bounded toward a 7-Eleven to find your Something New. My mom had you by the hand, head ducked as she traversed the empty aisles. You were wearing blue underwear, so that was done; she wiggled her emerald ring over her swollen knuckle and put it on your thumb—There, she had said, something borrowed.
It was finally hitting me: you were going to marry me. All I had wanted, for almost a decade, was for you to like me back—I had aimed low and landed hugely, improbably high. This is crazy, I said, trying to catch up with you.
No, my mom called over her shoulder. It’s tradition; you guys should start out with all your bases covered!
This, you said. I want this. You held it out to me: a Dr. Pepper–flavored lip balm.
I took it to the counter and pulled out a card I knew would be declined.
It’s a dollar twenty-nine, the girl said. You don’t have any cash? But she ran the card through, and I watched in disbelief as the receipt began to print. I signed it, knowing full well that, including fees, I had just bought you a thirtyseven-dollar chapstick. But we ran out of there beaming, headed toward the next thing.
Though all civil ceremonies were supposed to take place in the small antechamber off the main lobby, ours was the last of the day and Mom begged. So we stood facing each other beneath the grand, mammary dome of the building, listening to the whir of the floor buffer down the hall. You wore jeans and a cable-knit sweater. I was in gray work pants and the faded black sweatshirt I had worn since high school—the same clothes I had worn the night before. Our sneakers matched. The official began her call-and-response routine, bowing toward each of us when it was our turn to speak. Marriage is a promise that takes a lifetime to fulfill, she said; I guess she was embellishing the boilerplate. She was smiling, and I knew it was because we looked young and giddy. She had a wedding ring of her own.
Who gives their blessings to this union? she said.
I do, my mom said.
I do, said the witness we had paid for, smiling stiffly, hands clasped at his crotch.
Who has the rings? the woman said.
There were none, so we mimed them, slipping nothing over each other’s fingers.
Mazel tov, she said, using my back to sign her name on the license.
We drove back to Mom’s and she told us to go ahead of her to Chevy’s—to include my sister in the festivities, she had set up an impromptu reception there without asking either of us. Mom said we should drive alone: Pretend there’s tin cans on the back, she said, pointing to my car.
I can’t believe we’re going to Chevy’s, I said, after we dropped Mom off at home.
I don’t mind. I want to see your sister. And your dad.
I pulled into the parking lot of a supermarket near the air force base. Listen, Nora, I don’t want to call him.
You’re worried he’ll be mad?
My wife, I thought, looking at you. That’s my wife.
He’s not ... you don’t know what he’s like.
What do you mean?
I struggled for the words. He’s an inconsistent man.
You frowned. I’m confused.
I don’t want him to be—I don’t know.
How bad can he be? you said. Your mom is so lovely.
I shook my head. I don’t know.
Say yes, you said.
I sighed. What do I say? ‘Hey Dad, come pay for my wedding reception?’
Your eyes lit up. I should call him! I should call and say, ‘Mr. Mason, this is your daughter-in-law.’
Yeah, right. I imagined him, gruff and distracted, a golf cart or chattering caddy audible in the background. No, wait, that could work, I said. I remember thinking, Maybe he’ll be nice to you.
You took two quarters out of your purse and grabbed my father’s business card from my hand, heading toward the pay phone not far from where I had parked. I watched you hold the receiver between your neck and shoulder as you dialed. There was something on your ass. I squinted, looked down at the passenger seat: you had sat, somewhere, in gum. Oh shit, I said.
When I looked back up, you were speaking into the phone. Your face was pinched, worried. Oh shit, I said again. Why had I let you do this? This was the guy who called Jess a whore when he found out she had pierced her belly button, who rescinded a donation to my middle school after finding out my male science teacher had a ponytail. I rolled down the window but all I could hear was the drone of the air force planes, the nasal whine as they took off or landed. You were nodding into the phone, smiling. Oh, thank God, I thought, remembering the dad who took me to Rockland Park on our bikes, how we rode damn near to Lake Berryessa. I had forgotten about the dad that showed up now and again to congratulate me for things, slip me a twenty or a gift card or a beer. That was who you had called. It was going to be okay.
You came back and opened the passenger door.
What’d he say?
He didn’t, you said. He’s playing squash with a client, so I talked to his secretary. She said she’d tell him.
That we got married, or to come to dinner?
What is this on my seat? What is this on my ass!
Gum, I said. What did you tell her?
I told her everything, you said, picking at the thick green wad. I have to change.
We can’t make it to the city and back in time.
I want to get you home so bad, you said suddenly. I can’t wait to get you home. You leaned in, natural as anything.
We’ll go buy you something to wear, I said, my eyes closing as you put your hand up my shirt, whimpering in my ear.
In the Solano Mall there were a few elderly couples power-walking, some moms with strollers. Here, you said, pointing to a shop. It was a cheap jewelry store for teenagers, fully stocked with ill-made prom gear—badly sewn evening gloves, useless tiny purses, sub-CZ faux-diamond studs. I just realized I need to look cute, you said, grabbing some four-dollar pearl earrings, a thin strand of beads. In the Mervyn’s you zeroed in on a strapless white dress. It smelled like overheated polyester in there, like scorched carpet fibers and unchanged diaper. You grabbed your size in the white dress and barreled toward the dressing room. It was Tuesday afternoon in a low-traffic department store: there was nobody around, nobody working the fitting rooms. You grinned, motioning toward the handicapped cubicle.
You can’t be serious.
Can’t I?
Can’t you what? Get arrested for lewd conduct?
But when you went in, I followed you.
You had barely locked the door before I had you pinned against the mirrored wall. We attacked the buckles and zippers that impeded us. When I lifted you, you were light. I shut my eyes to avoid my reflection in the mirror behind you, but then I didn’t have to; you took my glasses off and I couldn’t see. You gripped the back of my T-shirt in little fists, preparing yourself. Are you sure? I whispered, hesitating. But before you could answer I had decided for you, the hangers on the hooks above us rattling. It was happening, despite every one of my failures. Are you okay? I said, my chin pressed against your jaw. From the way your face wrenched, from the sounds that you made, I knew the answer.
Did I do alright? I said.
It took a long time for you to open your eyes.
The dress fit so well you wore it out of the store. I paid for it at the counter—you had to lean funny so the guy could scan the tag still attached to your hip, all three of us laughing—and we left. I suppose these shoes will do, you said, pointing at your Chuck Taylor’s. I think it works, I said. I couldn’t breathe right. You had folded the gum-tacked jeans neatly before leaving them on the fitting room floor.
Listen, my mom said over the mariachi music, I talked to Jess and it sounds like she can keep the ice cream cake in the freezer until it’s time.
Okay, Mom. Good work.
You leaned into me, my arm around you. Ice cream cake, you said. You looked like a cat in the sun.
Your dad will probably bring Carolyn along, Mom said, sipping her margarita. If he can make it, I mean.
I don’t care if he shows up, I said.
Jess is taking her break as soon as everybody gets here, Mom said. Did I tell you she’s looking at Cal for next year?
For what? What does she want to do?
Ask her, Mom said. She’s your sister, Frankie.
I felt a presence draw near me, but before I could turn around I was in a half nelson. Hey, Mister Matrimony, Jess said. Congratulations. She offered you her hand and you clasped it, beaming.
Jess turned to me, suddenly serious. Hey, can you make sure my seat isn’t by Dad?
You laughed, thinking this was a joke.
Francis, someone bellowed. And there he was, trailed by my stepmother, Carolyn—a stubby, rounded brunette who knew how to cook only tuna casserole and adored Barbara Streisand.
I gotta get back, Jess said, scurrying toward the kitchen.
Stand up, he said. Shake your old man’s hand. I stood, and you did too.
Fiery little redhead, he said.
I watched your smile go from genuine to fake.
Jess arranged for the little band of waiters to come by with their sombreros and Spanish guitars, wishing us a happy birthday. We don’t have any wedding songs, she said. Then they brought out a bottle of Cuervo.
I’m still a little queasy from last night, you whispered.
Seconded, I said.
What were you guys for Halloween? Mom said.
Hasty, my dad shouted.
We weren’t anything, you said. We went to this awful party and got really drunk.
Shut up, I thought.
Well, there you have it, Dad said. It was either that or the other explanation.
She’s not pregnant, Steven, Mom said. Have some class.
Nora, you know he wants to be a teacher? Dad said, turning to you. This area isn’t kind to the poverty-stricken. Hope you like living small.
Your face hardened. I own a home, you said. In San Francisco.
Every fork stilled. My father had a one-bedroom condo in Vacaville, near the state prison for the criminally insane. My mother only owned her house because her parents had willed it to her—before that, just after the divorce, she had been forty-four and living in a studio apartment. You might as well have said you were descended from royalty.
Another piece of the puzzle falls into place, my father said. He looked at me and raised his glass, bitterness clouding his expression.
They cleared the ice cream cake and Jess pulled up a chair. All of us watched the waiter set down the bill.
Steve, Carolyn said—the first time she had spoken all evening—let’s get this.
Isn’t it customary, he said, for the father of the bride to cover this kind of thing?
Steven, Mom said. She shook her head.
Where is your family? Jess asked. I didn’t notice until now.
Hey, I said. Who wants to look at our marriage certificate?
I’m talking, Francis, Dad said. I asked a question.
Steven, take a hint, Mom said.
I’m sure my father would love to pay for my wedding, you said.
I remember thinking, Please don’t.
But he and my mother are both dead.
My father nodded solemnly. I was momentarily relieved—even an asshole like him could respect something that big. How could you hear something like that and press on? He couldn’t. He had been shut up, he would be quiet now.
So that’s how you own the house, then, he said.
I stood up and pulled out your chair like a gentleman. You held my arm as we walked toward the door.
Wait, Jess yelled, running after us. Hang on, Frankie.
God, he just gets worse every time, I said, shaking my head.
Here. She handed me a folded piece of paper.
I opened it. Is he fucking serious with this?
It’s five grand, dude, she said. Who cares what he is, just take it.
I put the check in my pocket.
Remember when he used to not be like that? Jess said.
We faced the bay, stretching out in the dark. I made out the restaurant, across the way in Berkeley, where we had gone to the prom.
Not really, I said, giving her a hug. You’re going to Cal?
Are you joking? She smoothed her apron. I’d never get in.
We said our good-byes. On our way back to San Francisco I stopped at an ATM, depositing the check before he could call in a stop payment.
When we had almost reached the Bay Bridge I asked if you were tired.
Yes, you said. Extremely.
We’re almost home.
You looked at me lovingly. You know, I think you’ll be a good teacher, you said. I think you have the kindness for it.
I don’t know, I said. I hope so.
You sat up abruptly. We should go to Colma.
Now? I said.
I want to tell them, you said. I have to tell them.
The cemetery gate was closed, but we managed to wrench it against its chains enough to squeeze through. We walked until we reached the small hill, illuminating the stones with the flashlight on my car keys. As we knelt by their grave it was hard to see your face.
Hi Mom and Dad. You sounded cheerful.
Do you want me to give you a minute? I said.
In the darkness, I could feel you waiting.
Hi Jack, I said, hoarse. Hi, Sandy.
We got married, you said. I wish you could have been there.
My parents would have chased you away pretty quick, I said. They were fucking ghastly tonight.
Don’t say that, you said. Even in the dark I could see how the grass had stained your white dress. When you spoke again it was inevitable: Be glad that you have a family.
I guess, I said. Sometimes it’s hard.
Can we change the subject? you said.
Calm down. Jesus. There was a pause. I knew it scared you—how quickly, how easily I had slipped into anger. It was one of those moments you feel slithering from your grasp—the tone shifts, and you know you won’t be able to wrest it back. No, I remember thinking. Stop. Don’t.
Why are you talking to me like that? you asked.
I’m not talking to you like anything, I lied.
You know, sometimes I feel like you don’t even like me, you said.
I looked into your narrowed eyes. I do like you, I said. You know that already.
You started to speak. You’re really—you paused, shaking your head—you’re kind, and then you’re fucking cruel, Francis. You plucked blades of grass. I wanted to visit my parents’ grave on my wedding day and you couldn’t just let me do that.
How am I stopping you? I drove you here, we’re sitting here right now.
You’re mocking this, you said.
Let’s just start over, I said. Can’t we just start over?
You’re mocking me, you said.
Greta, what do you—
What did you just call me?
I heard it in my head, loud as a bullhorn. I didn’t—I’m sorry.
You breathed heavily. How stupid do you have to be, to get a girl pregnant?
My insides turned to ice. I clenched my fist, wishing for something to punch. I suppose earlier you took some precaution you didn’t mention? The tone of my voice was toxic.
Your lip trembled. I’m sorry.
You should be, I snapped.
Talk to them. Show some respect. Please, for me.
You want me to talk to them?
Yes, you said.
I knocked on the damp earth, not yet marked with a headstone. Hello? Anybody home?
The déjà vu of that moment—every fight I had ever had that went nowhere—created an immediate response that rose inside me. You had been carrying anger around, not bothering to tell me about it. It was like a lie. And I knew about lies. I had been a liar, a deceiver, a willing participant in my own moral debasement, for as long as I could speak. And like any liar, the thing I hated most was being called on my falsehoods. I felt, in the haze of the evening, that you were telling me in so many words that I didn’t really love you. The pure and uncomplicated feeling I had for you was the only truth I had known for years, and it counted for nothing.
Don’t, you said. Now you were crying. I could hear it in your voice.
Can anybody hear me? My mouth hovered above the dirt. Just wanted to say thanks.
Francis, stop. Your hand lurched forward, as though you could block the words before they hit the air.
Thanks for dying, I said, so I could finally fuck your daughter.
Without looking at you, I stood up, brushed the grass from my knees, and trudged toward the car. When I realized it was your car—we had taken your car that morning, that morning when we had gone to get married—I set the keys on the hood. I stood there a moment, and then did the only thing that would show you how indignant I was. I started walking.
I want to tell you what it was like after that.
I waited for you to come to me. It was what I was used to. That night, I got to my apartment after walking for three hours and then flagging down a cab in Daly City; my roommate had to pay the fare. The next day I started to sort things for the move into your house. I went to class, to my student-teaching engagements. If you needed some time, fine. We were married, I thought. That was week one. The second week, I started calling. I put a letter in your mailbox—did you get that? Your car was always gone. The third week I stopped leaving my apartment. By week four, I had undergone the lovelorn makeover: drastic weight loss, facial bags from a sleep deficit that was alternately narcotic and pulverizing.
I went back to Greta somewhere around the fifth week, half alive, to prepare stoically for domestic life, suburbia, fatherhood. I felt certain that she knew where I had been, what I had been doing—that she had intuited at least the flavor of my absence, if not its particulars. And yet she said nothing. So neither did I. I didn’t tell her about the funeral or the wedding, or what you and I had done in the dank dressing room—though not for the reason you think. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her reaction. It was that I feared if I told her, she would swallow her own anguish to comfort me in my time of loss. I may not have loved Greta with much integrity, much honor. But I did love her too much for that.
That week, she and I went out to dinner. I took her to an Italian restaurant and she held my hand in the parking lot after, and we were almost to the car and I was thinking, I’m forgiven. I had been waiting for a punishment, a day of reckoning, and I felt the last of that anxiety lift. She was pregnant. She was scared. I’m forgiven, I thought again. And with that thought the atmosphere shifted—she tightened, winced in such a way that I actually wondered if she had heard me thinking, if my posture had changed in some way she was able to read for what it was—and as we reached the car she turned, looked me square in the face, and said, Don’t do me any favors. I don’t need you to. If you want to go, go.
I held her gaze, let go of her hand. I thought of ways to turn it back on her, or play dumb—Is that what you want, Greta? Why are you saying this now, Greta? But her expression stopped me.
If you want to leave, do it, she said.
My mind cleared. Her face seemed to absorb the ambient light around us, her hair picking up in the wind. She looked radiant and livid. Every particle of me felt sharp and true—like I was a blade, like I was an instrument of death.
I don’t want to leave, I said, meaning it.
About a month after Greta lost the baby, the annulment papers arrived. The documents were accompanied by stationery from the lawyer I had met at your house. I signed and returned them, wondering if I should have withheld consent. Maybe it would have forced you to talk to me in person, though even if you had I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered. You didn’t think of this, of me, as a mere mistake. The document cited California Family Law statute §2210(c) as justification for nullity: Party, it read, was of unsound mind.
