All the Good Parts (6 page)

“I know you think it’s crazy, but I do.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” she said. “I think it’s irresponsible. Think about it as something other than a fairy tale for just a minute. Even if you found some guy to help you out, you
know
how hard it is to raise a kid when there’s not enough money. You witness it every single day. That’s what I don’t understand. How could you possibly think this decision is a good one for you or a baby?”

“I’m not ashamed of my financial situation because I’m working to improve it.” I hugged a pillow to my stomach. “Do you really think I’m being irresponsible?”

She thought for a moment. “What you’re contemplating is irresponsible.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“It’s there, but slight.”

“Is this supposed to be the embarrassing part?”

“Isn’t all of it embarrassing?” Carly said, turning away when she realized I wasn’t going to agree. Her profile reminded me of Sargent’s
Madame X
, beautiful and haughty and so certain of her superiority, and it rankled me. Why was it when someone wanted to do something out of the ordinary, others countered the impulse with shame?

“You’re jealous,” I blurted out.

She faced me, her expression blank. “There is not one single thing I’ve said to substantiate that accusation. Why would I be jealous of you?”

“If I want to change my life, I don’t have to answer to anyone but myself.” Which was honestly terrifying—I hadn’t trusted myself with much more than my own basic survival—but I wasn’t about to discuss that with Carly.

“We aren’t talking about what I can and can’t do,” she countered. “But if I wanted to change my life, I would.” She snapped her fingers. “That quick. I’m capable of making a decision and following through.”

“And I’m not?” I said, knowing I was walking straight into a trap but unable to help myself.

Carly took a breath, gearing up. “You’ve never made a decision in your life. Think about it. Things happen
to
you and you react. You let people steer you one way, and then another, and then another, like you’re a shopping cart with a wonky wheel. Don’t fool yourself, Lee, that’s not making a decision.”

“That isn’t true,” I said weakly, my will faltering because I knew what she still had in her arsenal. When she hit me with it, it would hurt.

“How can you deny it? When we were in high school, I thought the sun rose and set on your spiky-haired head. You were so cool, so different, so talented. You had opportunities, and you floated past them without ever stopping long enough to give yourself a shot. And then you left college, and Andrew—”

“Stop. Please, just stop. If you start listing my failures, we’ll be up until dawn.”

Surprisingly, she fell silent. I concentrated on the light sound of her breathing, searching for something to soothe my jumpy nerves. When my eyes began to drift shut, Carly spoke again.

“This can be about choice, but it doesn’t have to be about that particular one,” she said, her tone more measured. “I want you to have options, and I want you to pursue them with everything you’ve got. You can argue with me, but I’ve never seen you actually make a choice and follow through. I’ve never seen you put in the effort.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not right and I can prove it.”

She sighed. “How?”

“Nursing school. I’m almost done, and when I am, I’ll have something for myself. I’ll have
done
something for myself.”

“Nursing school was Dad’s idea,” Carly said. “And even then you chose to study online. You never had to leave this basement, never had to put yourself out there.”

“I have a job,” I said, my voice breaking.

“Yeah,” Carly said. “You’ve got a job.” She tossed the pillow from my lap and grasped my hands. “Answer quickly—why do you want a baby? Are you lonely? Bored? Worried about getting old?”

“Are those bad reasons?”

“No, they’re just things that can be fixed more simply.”

“Don’t make it sound so superficial,” I said, trying to grab hold of my squirming thoughts. “I just feel, deep down, in my bones, that I’m meant—”

“Don’t give me that internal-voice bullshit,” Carly interrupted. “It’s not your intuition, that voice whispering in your ear. It’s past regret trying to glom on to your future, plain and simple. It’s a furry little weasel who messes with your head and makes you do irrational things in the desperate hope that you can make up for whatever you lost.” She squeezed my fingers. “This baby is not going to happen, Lee, and that’s okay. You’ve got to give yourself that message so you can let
other
things happen.”

“What if this is what I want? Shouldn’t I try?”

Her eyes softened. “Oh, babe. With who? An amputee? A homeless guy?”

“I thought you liked Garrett.”

“I do like him, but he’s one of those people who comes into your life to play a role and then departs when he’s finished the job. He’s not father material.”

“Doesn’t that make him perfect?”

“You’re not seeing the point.”

“What I see is pretty clear. You don’t think I’m mother material.”

She shook her head vehemently. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. If how you treat my children is any indication, you’d be a wonderful mother. But that’s beside the point. Don’t you get that? Dr. Bridge recklessly planted that baby seed. You’re watering it and weeding out other goals because you don’t see yourself as capable of achieving them, but you are! Apply to grad school, take a trip, find a man—you can do
whatever
you want. You have never allowed yourself to pursue that kind of freedom, Lee, and you can’t blow that chance by getting knocked up. A baby is just one more person to lead you around life by the nose. You’re almost forty. Aren’t you done with that shit?”

The silence Carly left in her wake felt heavy but agitated, and I didn’t go back to sleep right away. I propped my pillow against the headboard and leaned back while trying to mentally re-create our conversation. Arguments with Carly always required some postgame analysis and armchair psychologizing. Was she really saying what she meant? Was I being honest with myself? Underneath our words lay the fossils of past battles, hardened and immovable and revealing of our core selves. Carly was bold and smart and convinced she was right. I was introverted and emotional and usually willing to accept her rightness. Was it time we finally evolved into something different?

I did have to admit she wasn’t out of line to question me. Was I being honest about why I wanted a baby? I
was
lonely. The thought of growing old alone made me twitchy and nauseous. Activity kept boredom from edging into the unfilled cracks in my life, but only temporarily. Those reasons weren’t shameful, but they did strike of narcissism. The decision to bring a child into the world had to mean more to me than that.

I want a baby.
Just thinking it put me on the defensive. Was there anything so fraught with conflicted emotion as wanting something just for yourself? Was I so used to camouflaging my impulses that I couldn’t recognize their merit?

Why had I said yes to Dr. Bridge? What was it I’d felt in her office?

Sure.

I’d felt sure.

Maybe my internal voice wasn’t the zombielike past reaching out to grab hold of my brain, but my future self, doing her best to shove me down the right path. She didn’t speak in a whisper, but shouted like a passenger on a plane spiraling downward. She said what people usually did when they thought they might not make it—she talked about what was important. She talked about love.

And that’s why I’d said yes to Dr. Bridge. I had to remember—the end goal of this whole thing was love.

I propped the notebook on my lap and studied the four names on our list:

Garrett the tutor

Jerry Pietrowski

Paul (asshole)

Darryl

Ridiculous,
I thought.
Unrealistic. Pathetic. Desperate. And, in Jerry’s case, unethical.

But those words, even if they were true, tumbled through me without leaving a mark. Donal’s words were the ones that stuck, the ones that etched themselves onto the marrow of my bones—
I don’t think it’s wrong for you to pursue this love. I almost think it’s necessary . . .

I was looking for permission to proceed, and now I’d gotten it twice, from my brother-in-law and Jerry Pietrowski.

Could I grant it to myself?

I studied the list again. Garrett. Jerry. Paul. Darryl. Four men who had no clue I existed six months ago, and might not remember me in a year. It didn’t matter. They were a start. They could—and probably would—say no if I asked, but in even considering them I’d be telling the universe, out loud, that I was ready to make some changes.

Pursue this love . . .

I would.

CHAPTER 7

Nursing 320 (Online): Community Health

Private Message—Leona A to Darryl K

Leona A:
Did you finish the quiz?

Darryl K:
Are you kidding? It isn’t due until tonight at midnight. Why? Don’t tell me you’re done.

Leona A:
Turned it in last night, sucka!

Darryl K:
Brownnose. Don’t you know that you should never appear too eager, in any situation? People will question your confidence.

Leona A:
Or they’ll think I’m supremely organized, ambitious, and hardworking. (I am none of these things. But I am very good at giving the appearance of such online.)

Darryl K:
I like the rush of getting it in just under the wire. 11:59 p.m. it is.

Leona A:
Thrill seeker.

Darryl K:
You don’t know the half of it, sweets.

I thought about Darryl while driving to the Goodwill, an errand I was squeezing in before my appointment with Suspicious Estelle.

I’d never been one for online dating. The whole idea seemed too fraught with uncertainty, and here I was, wondering if this stranger I met on the Internet might be amenable to giving me his sperm.

Yeah.

But Darryl didn’t seem like a stranger (said every Lifetime movie heroine before falling into the arms of a charming psychopath). Yes, it was stupid, but our connection felt real, our blossoming friendship unforced. I liked the possibility of his words waiting for me when I logged on to the computer. Darryl was funny and smart and, apparently, a thrill seeker—all attractive traits.

My mind skipped back a few terms, to Bio 101 and those little genetic squares meant to determine eye color—all those big
B
s and little
b
s. Carly had inherited our dad’s deep brown eyes, the big, badass dominant
B
s. My mom’s baby blues were the scrappy little
b
s. Mine were hazel, like I couldn’t make up my mind and settled for something in the middle. What about Darryl? Piercing blues? Steady, no-nonsense browns? I hadn’t a clue.

I wondered—did the chart work for predicting all traits?

Carly said that I should find someone to neutralize my less attractive qualities. Darryl believed in embracing risk. Could his adventurous spirit (
A
) cancel out my mild agoraphobia (
a
)? He was also (S)mart and (F)unny and a little (b)rash. I smiled to myself, amazed at what a person could learn from a few online chats. Darryl shot to the top of my short list, pulling ahead in a race he didn’t known he’d entered. Something told me he’d be fine with it.

Darryl was the guy who’d look at the whole thing as a lark. Darryl was the guy who’d have no problem giving his specimen to a courier. Darryl was the guy who might want a photo every year, or maybe one semi-awkward meeting at an interstate rest stop halfway between our homes.

Darryl was the guy.

Or not. I still hadn’t seen him, nor did I know where he lived, how old he was, or if he carried major genetic baggage. Did it matter if he actually took me seriously? If he didn’t think I was a complete nutcase?

Maybe he should. Paranoia set in. What if he reported me to Professor Larmon for harassment? What if I got kicked out of the class, or worse, expelled from the program? What if neither of those things happened, but Darryl turned out to be a rapist or a stalker, or maybe he was sitting in jail, taking online classes to pass the time on a life sentence for triple homicide? He hadn’t revealed much of himself, and though we were constantly told to respect other students’ privacy online, most people couldn’t wait to discuss every dirty detail of their personal lives. Was there something really wrong with him?

You fear too much, Leona.

Wasn’t fear supposed to be a gift?

I walked into the Goodwill store, and the musty-smelling chaos of other people’s discarded stuff put a temporary halt to my internal rumblings. I could never resist the anarchy of a good thrift shop—the clothes had lived harder lives than I ever did, and the stories they told fed something deep and needy in the heart of my oft-neglected imagination. I quickly found a teal silk sweater (with the tags cut out, the fashion version of an untraceable handgun), a lined corduroy miniskirt (lined = old—er—vintage), and a tasseled purple scarf I thought Maura would like. Tucking my treasures under one arm, I wove through the jungle of used furniture in the back of the store, searching for a decent full-length mirror. I found one propped against a dilapidated sofa, but its wood frame was amateurishly stenciled with Disney princesses—Belle, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty winked saucily while I stared at my reflection. Imperfect, but I figured Jerry might get a kick out of it, and at five bucks it was a great fit for my meager budget. I made my purchases and slid the mirror into the backseat of my Honda, threading a quarter of it through the open window.

“Someone’s going to steal that,” warned Suspicious Estelle when she opened her door.

“Maybe I’m a risk taker,” I said, smiling at her, and she shook her tiny silver-tipped head, mumbling about my lack of common sense.

I followed Estelle inside her cramped English Tudor. The house always smelled a little moldy, but today another more pungent scent overpowered the mustiness. I dropped my bag in the foyer, wallpapered claustrophobically in swirling green and brown patterns, and waited. Estelle only let me into the house incrementally.

“Why don’t you come into the kitchen?” she said. “You can make me some coffee.”

My smile hardened. “Perfect.”

Usually, we avoided her kitchen. It was a small, dark cave, last decorated sometime during the Nixon administration, when the middle class finally rejected the dreamy pastels of the Eisenhower era in favor of the earthier, more somber avocado green and mustard yellow. I searched her overstuffed pantry, but the only coffee she had was instant. I filled a kettle and placed it on the burner, and then searched through Estelle’s collection of mugs until I found two without chips. Sitting quietly at her small drop-leaf table, she watched my every movement, blue-veined hands turning on her lap.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked, stirring the coffees with a teaspoon. “Or are you going to make me figure it out myself?”

“You shouldn’t use a silver spoon to do that. The acid will ruin it. That teaspoon was my paternal grandmother’s. A family heirloom.”

I washed the spoon and dried it carefully with a dish towel. “All better?”

“No,” she said, dropping her chin. “It’s not.”

“
Estelle.
What’s the matter?”

She took her coffee and made a face after tasting it. “Go look in the bathroom,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “The downstairs one.”

In the few moments it took to reach the bathroom, my imagination zipped between a thousand different scenarios, all of them involving blood and gore and quick, frantic calls to 911. The reality wasn’t that far off, though apparently I needed a priest instead of an EMT, as an exorcism was in order. Pea-green dried vomit covered every surface of the closet-sized room, including artful Rorschach splatters on the mirrored wallpaper. Fighting a dry heave of my own, I returned to where Estelle sat in the kitchen, calmly sipping coffee.

“Do you feel all right now?” I slipped a palm over the papery skin on her forehead. It was cool.

“Yes, but—” She looked up at me, her eyes swimming with tears. “Do you think it’s a sign of something serious? My brother had stomach cancer. I have it now, don’t I?”

I’m just a home-health aide,
I wanted to say, but anyone even peripherally associated with the medical profession was an expert in the eyes of a borderline hypochondriac, a thought that both horrified and amused me. “There’s probably a more likely explanation,” I said, trying to sound authoritative. “What did you eat before going to bed?”

“I went out to the diner on Thatcher Street,” she reported. “The waitress suggested the eggplant parmesan, but I didn’t want that. Too salty. I had the whitefish with creamed spinach.”

“I’m not a doctor, Estelle, but I think food poisoning is the more likely culprit.”

She thought about this for a moment. “I thought it smelled funny.”

“I can call your doctor and make an appointment,” I offered, though I could tell whatever had bothered her stomach had long since exited. “Or I can call your daughter-in-law. Maybe she can come sit with you for a while?”
And maybe clean up the puke?

Estelle snorted derisively. “She only comes over when she wants something. No need to call anyone. I’ll be fine.”

Okay, then. I dove into the mess under the sink and pulled out some rubber gloves and bleach cleaner. “Guess I’ll get to work.”

“I’d open the window if I were you.”

Twenty minutes later, Estelle’s bathroom was clean and I was feeling an exhilarating mix of self-righteousness and adrenaline as I breathed in bleach fumes. No task was too much for me to handle! I was the ultimate home-health aide, caretaker of the aged, the vulnerable, the emotionally needy—

“Leona?”

I followed Estelle’s voice into her small, mushroom-colored living room. “How can I help you?” I asked, feeling like a minor superhero. Vomit-Cleaning Woman. The Puke Blaster. Super Mega Bleach Babe.

“I was wondering if you’d finished,” she said, interrupting my thoughts as she hauled her feet onto a tasseled ottoman. “I have a list of tasks for you to complete today, and you’re only here for another hour.” She handed a slip of paper to me. Written in neat Catholic schoolgirl handwriting was a lengthy to-do list.
Change the linens. Water the plants. Mop down the basement. Iron the curtains. Dust the—

All thoughts of heroism evaporated into the musty air. I returned the list, heart thumping with indignation. “My job is to assess your health and assist with general living. I am not a maid.”

“All of these requests fall under those parameters,” Estelle said, her voice stiff. “I was told you would help me with the things I had difficulty doing for myself.”

Though barely five feet and suffering from osteoporosis and arthritis, Estelle’s health was relatively decent. I wanted to tell her where she could stick her list, but then I remembered her third malady, loneliness. “I’ll water the plants, change the linens, and clean the floor,” I said, gritting my teeth, “but I’m not ironing. I don’t even do that for myself.”

Estelle nodded, and I got to work. My enthusiasm had waned, and I moved slowly, finishing up just as I needed to leave for Jerry Pietrowski’s house.

“See you on Thursday,” I called to her where she still sat in the living room.

“Wait,” she said. “Your purse.”

She couldn’t be serious. I’d washed her dried vomit from the walls, scrubbed her toilet, and made her bed so tight she could bounce her dentures on it. “What?”

“Come over here and open your purse.”

Hating myself, I dropped my bag onto her lap. She took her time picking through my belongings, providing running commentary on the things I needed to get through the day. “You’re getting too old to chew gum.”

“It’s a vice I can live with,” I said, not bothering to cover up my exasperation. “Are you satisfied I didn’t swipe the silver? I’ve got to get to Mr. Pietrowski’s.”

“You like him better than me.”

“Well, he doesn’t give me a TSA pat down before I leave his home. He
trusts
me.”

“Then he’s a moron,” Estelle said. She stood and ushered me to the door, closing it on my back, dead bolt falling into place with a thunk.

Before I got back into my car, I took the gum out of my aging mouth and stuck it between the flaps of her mailbox.