Things Unsaid: A Novel (11 page)

Nuzzling for a kiss, Mike’s breath smelled like bourbon. His favorite. She muttered, hoping her speech wasn’t as slurred as his: “Where have you been tonight? I was worried, and stayed up waiting. You could have called.”

“I did. But you must have slept through the call. Just went out with some of the guys after a long hassle over some compliance issue. To discharge stress. You know. Did you miss me?”

Jules rolled over, too tired to answer.

“Hey, hon, what’s wrong? Is it that asshole Schlepp again? We shouldn’t let his ghost be in our bed, you know what I mean?”

“That isn’t even funny. The man’s dead,” Jules said.

Mike’s face remained as impassive as a Buddha’s. Not like him at all. Not when Schlepp’s name was mentioned, that was for certain. Maybe because he’d had too much to drink, Jules thought. Now she was wide awake.

“Don’t you want to know more about it?” she asked, touching his arm.

“I don’t give a damn about the old geezer. How about me?” Mike’s voice was slurred, thick, unappealing.

Jules got up from the couch and went to the bathroom to pee. She wasn’t in the mood. Too much to think about tomorrow.

“At least now we don’t have to go mad worrying about whether he’s
going to deliver on his promise, groping you and getting erections whenever he feels like it!” Mike shouted from the bedroom. Jules heard him throw his clothes and belt on the floor. She waited in the bathroom until it was quiet. Then she made her way to bed and slid in beside Mike. He had already passed out.

Jules’s office in the Palo Alto School District Administrative Building was actually a cubicle, shared with three other part-time psychologists. Jules, initially upset to no longer be an academic, was somewhat surprised that she loved her new job. Her desk overflowed with diagnostic tests for kids who had difficulty learning how to read or do math. There were no file cabinets to store anything in her cubicle, so every night she had to stuff all the tests into her well-worn black leather briefcase for reviewing at home. Sometimes the papers got crumpled, or fell out of the file folders. She knew she was dispensable to the administration.

Palo Alto was considered the holy grail for education assignments, although she knew that was more myth than reality. One parent actually told her that children in their school were the most beautiful in the county, perhaps the state. Looking at his affable, middle-aged face, she thought he was joking at first. His expression didn’t waver. He was serious. Still, the parents were always attentive and engaged—perhaps overly so, but at least she knew that when she tested children for learning disabilities in this district, follow-up support was guaranteed. None of the parents wanted their children to fall behind, not in this school system that some parents would sell their mother to get their kids into.

They had bought a fixer-upper when they first moved to Palo Alto with a small life insurance policy Mike had inherited from his parents. It never was fixed up, and they struggled every month to meet the payment.

What stupid mistakes she had made. Mistake after mistake. She was a practicing Zen Buddhist, and though she was often grateful she had adopted Buddhism, her Zen practice didn’t seem to help now. She
felt broken and stupid. Ahimsa—noninjury and compassion for sentient beings—was one of the essential tenets of Buddhism. But all she seemed to do was harm others, the ones she most loved. It had to stop.

Jules was supposedly an expert in the psychology of parenting. But her publish-or-perish book,
The Narcissistic Mother
, was still unfinished. It was a cliché that psychologists gravitated to specialize in neuroses and other mental disorders they were struggling with themselves. But in Jules’s case, the cliché was true. She knew nothing about motherhood. And she had regrets. As a mother. Terrible, terrible regrets. She felt ashamed, felt that her abandonment of her daughter—and Mike—was unforgivable.

Motherhood could be dangerous. Of that she was certain. Not everyone should be a parent. Her own mother was a good example. But perhaps motherhood had been forced on her mother; maybe she didn’t believe she had any other choice. It was a different time then. Besides, Jules wasn’t one to talk. She herself had screwed things up big-time.

According to Buddhism, the good mother gives up her own ego and desires in order to be a mother. But until she knows what she needs, she can’t become enlightened. Jules now felt desperate. Happy times with Mike and Zoë still were too far away. The sacrifices they both had made for her. And she had distanced herself from them.

Mike—what he had sacrificed for her, squelching his anger, swallowing his own needs. She would tell her parents they were on their own now. She had had enough. No more guilt and obligation.

She had disappointed Zoë. Again. Yesterday. And oh, how she had wanted to be there! Career Day at Carmel High School for graduating seniors. All the banners. Students so excited to meet “experts” in different fields: pilots, a screenwriter, an actress (former girlfriend of Clint Eastwood), doctors, research scientists, winemakers, to name only the most popular career presenters. And Zoë had asked her to talk about child psychology.

“Mom, you are amazing. You know that, don’t you? All my friends think so. How you taught at Stanford. Are writing a book. Have your
own part-time practice and still try to be there for your family. For Dad and me. We’re all thinking about how to combine career and motherhood. Can you come? Can you? Please?”

Jules smiled, something deep inside her stable and relaxed. Breathing with more solid exhalations. Not jagged and tentative. How could she not make time for her Zoë? Her daughter was so forgiving, so generous of spirit. “I’ll try, sweetheart,” she said. “You know how I love your friends and don’t want to disappoint you. I’ll clear my schedule for you. When is it, exactly?”

Zoë came over to give her a big squeeze. She could feel her daughter’s hands grip her around the ribs, fingers catching on her ribcage, just under the lowest rib. Love handles.

“Stephanie and Kristy both want to be psychologists, too. The three of us are going to apply to the same psychology programs. Stanford is our first choice. Actually my only choice. It’s that or nothing. I know I’m obsessed, but they have the best psychology department ever. And it’s not just about studying rats in cages and statistics either. People to people. That’s what I want to learn about. How people think. What motivates them. How they feel. Why trying their best can still be so awful.”

Jules looked at her daughter’s face. Its certitude. The perfect radiance of youth. And its openness. Frightening at times. Envious at others. Jules looked into those green eyes, flecked with brown, so heavily lashed that her daughter’s glasses had to be curved slightly outward so mascara didn’t leave tracks on the lenses.

“You’ll be the most popular speaker there. And I’ll introduce you, Mom. Only Clint Eastwood’s former lover will get more students.” Zoë looked proud, glowing, savoring this precious thing between them.

The call came on the day of the event, just as school was getting out. Jules was dashing out of her office when the phone rang. She knew she shouldn’t take the call, but she answered anyway.

“Mom, I’ve got to run. I’m late for Zoë’s special day. Have to give a presentation.”
Why did I pick up the phone? What’s wrong with me?

“Now, darling, that’s just going to have to wait. It will only take a second, you hear me? It’s an emergency. Our check for this month’s fees at SafeHarbour bounced. The second time now. I told you at my
birthday dinner that we’d be out on the street if you don’t come through for us. By five o’clock today. You
did
get our message, didn’t you?”

Jules had to think. Maybe Mike had erased it before she got home. Passive-aggressive.

“How much is it? I can go to the bank and wire more funds into your account.”

“Well, hurry, won’t you? Before the bank closes. Once they see the funds are being transferred, we can wait for the clearance.” Pause. Her mother’s silence was always hard for Jules to interpret. “Two months’ rent is better than one. Eleven thousand should do it.”

Jules called Wells Fargo as soon as she hung up. The bank was on the way to the high school. She still had time, she’d just be a few minutes late. She could do both. Her credit line would be exhausted now, and all of this would stop.

But the teller didn’t have the wire ready when Jules got to the bank. It would have been faster, after all, if she had gone to her laptop and made the transaction online.

By the time Jules got to the high school parking lot, it was empty.

Stephanie’s mother, Liz, called her minutes after she arrived home.

“Hope you’re not worried. Zoë’s with us. She’s upset. I’m sure you understand.”

“Let me talk to her. I want Zoë to know that I tried. I really did. An emergency came up.”
Please, please, Zoë, I know you hate me now. I hate me, too
.

“I’ll go get her. Just a second.”

“Please, Zoë, come to the phone,” Jules muttered to herself.

She could hear whispering, raised voices in the background. Her daughter’s and Stephanie’s. Then muffled sounds. Like whimpering. Tears, maybe. She swallowed hard. Then couldn’t anymore.

Again, it was Stephanie’s mom on the phone.

“Sorry, Jules, Zoë’s just a bit under the weather. And tired. She wants to stay for supper and spend the night. Is that all right with you and Mike?” Jules could hear it in her tone: Stephanie’s mother didn’t want to go further. She was ready to be done with this conversation.

“Of course, that’s fine. Zoë and I can always talk tomorrow.” To her own ears, Jules’s voice sounded saccharine. False. Clenched.
Embarrassed. She tried to ignore the sting of it, but couldn’t. What a hopeless fool she was! She didn’t even want to put up with herself. She felt wicked, diseased—something was not right with her. What kind of karma had she created for herself? How was it that she kept making those she loved suffer so!

Zoë stayed at Stephanie’s for a week and didn’t call Jules once.

Jules thought of the little boy she had tested the morning of Career Day at Zoë’s high school. Max reminded her of her own little girl at that age. Same voice. Androgynous—before sexuality took over.

Max was a third grader at El Carmelo Elementary and couldn’t read at grade level. Blond straight hair in a buzz cut, he could have played the starring role in
Dennis the Menace
. He grinned goofily at her, revealing a big gap between his two front teeth on top. “Mrs. Foster, do I have to take more tests? I just don’t feel like it.” He crossed his arms in defiance and grinned again, this time close lipped.

“We’ve been through this drill before, Max. Just thirty more minutes. Then you can pick out a book to read.” It was ironic to Jules that some of the kids with the most difficulty reading loved books the most. They really wanted to read; they just couldn’t fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

After the little boy had struggled with the test, twisting his head down to one shoulder then the other, mimicking the boxes drawn at weird angles to match up with other boxes drawn from a different angle, Jules took him to the shelf with age-appropriate books. She knew which two books he would choose.