Conundrum (48 page)

“Oh, no!
Nothing
like that.
Lisa, I want us to have kids, but if we can’t, that’s okay. I brought those adoption brochures because I thought it might give you some hope, that we could have a family—”

“And I tho
ught you got those brochures because you didn’t care. Just to mollify me or something.”

“
No, t
hat’s not what I meant. Not at all.”

“
If one, settling a pillow by her head should say,
‘
that is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.
’
”

We both grew quiet, leaving me to think about how I had misunderstood Jeremy. I thought I knew him so well, yet i
t
was as if I didn’t know him at all.

I let the lines of Eliot’s poem slide through my mind, as it so often seemed to do th
o
se days, tagging along on my journey like a cartoon balloon of reminders, like side notes on a manuscript page.
“
And would it have been worth it, after all, would it have been worth while, after the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, after the
novels
, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—and this, and so much more?
.
 
.
 
.
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, and turning toward the window, should say:
‘
That is not it at all,
t
hat is not what I meant, at all.
’
”

The
poet’s
musing about himself
could have been written for me:
“
I am an attendant lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two
.
 
.
 
.
deferential, glad to be of use. Politic, cautious, and meticulous, full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
a
t times, indeed, almost ridiculous—Almost, at times, the Fool.
”

That described me to a T. My role in my family and the way I saw myself, certainly the fool. I had sought to swell a progress, and I had surely started a scene or two.
Always deferring and glad to be of use.
All those other characteristics were true as well
. Almost as if T. S. Eliot knew me inside out.
I had thoughts those traits would well serve me and my family, but they’d all come back to bite me.

Yet, in my headlong foolish rush to find answers for Raff, something good seemed to have come out of the wreckage. More than one thing. I needed to keep reminding myself of that. There was plenty to scavenge from the flotsam and jetsam to build a bigger, better ship to sail the
turbulent
seas of this life.

Jeremy and I held
each
other in comfort. “It’s so hard, isn’t it—to really see another person
?
” he said. “
So easy to misunderstand, even when you’ve been intimate with them for years
.
Things aren’t always as they seem.”

I nodded, my head pressed against his warm, broad chest. I knew Jeremy felt some relief at having let all this out. And I felt deeply moved by his confession.

“Do you know what a conundrum is?” I asked.

Jeremy jerked a little by the strange turn of topic. “You mean a puzzle?”

“It’s a word problem. My brothers and I used to tell them when we were teens. Some are pretty simple, but others are complex, took days to solve.”

“Give me a for-instance.”

“Okay.” I thought for a moment. “A man walks into a bar and approaches the counter. He asks the bartender for a glass of water, and then
leans in close and whispers
something to him. The bartender suddenly pulls a gun out from under the counter and puts it up against the customer’s head. The customer gasps and then waits nervously. After a minute he says, ‘
T
hanks.’ Then the bartender smiles and says, ‘
N
o problem.’ The customer drinks his glass of water and then leaves the bar.”

I wait
ed
until Jeremy ask
ed
, “So what’s the catch?”

“Well, you have to figure out why the bartender pulled a gun out from under the counter.
Why the guy said thanks.
Ask me some yes
-
or
-
no questions.”

“Okay. Do the men know each other?”

“Nope.”

“Uh, is the bartender insane?”

“Nope.” I start
ed
to smile when I notice
d
Jeremy’s serious expression. He look
ed
exactly the way
Raff used to, aiming to find just the right question to get to the answer quickly.

“Did the customer ask him to shoot him?”

“Nope.” Jeremy started fidgeting. I started giggling.

“Come on, give me a clue.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not
?
”

“That’s not how it works. You have to solve the conundrum.”

Jeremy playfully punched me. “But that’s not how real life works. You can’t always figure things out. And
,
” he said, with a poke in my ribs, “there’re ways to cheat!”

“Hey, tickling is not allowed. You get black marks on your report card!”

“Just tell me the answer, okay
?
I have no patience for this kind of thing.” Not like Raff, who would mull a problem over for days and never give up, never relinquish ground in defeat. He had a crown to defend and a kingdom to rule.
In the end h
e
had
always solved every conundrum.
Including the
only
one that really mattered.

“Okay. The guy has the hiccups,” I said evenly.

“Hiccups?”

“Yeah. Don’t you see? He goes into the bar and asks for a glass of water
—
”

“Then whispers to the bartender that he has the hiccups. So the guy pulls a gun out and scares them out of him!”
Jeremy
smacks
his hand on his head in mock stupidity.

“Right.”

“And that’s why the customer thanks him and leaves.
Man, that is so dumb!”

“Dumb?” I reached over and yanked the pillow out from under his head. “
Dumb
?” I whacked him hard on his head. He pushed it away and grabbed me so that I was crushed against his chest.

“Yeah. Dumb.”

I chuckled. “Well, you couldn’t figure it out, so how dumb was it?”

Jeremy sighed and pulled back to look into my eyes. “It just goes to show that things aren’t always as they appear. A person might do or say something, meaning one thing, but someone else will read it all wrong. Maybe that’s what your conundrums are all about—showing how we completely misread the circumstances.
We m
ake things more complicated, when the answer is often simple.
”

I snuggled up close and
reflected on
how much
Jeremy had been hurting alongside me while I suffered through my pregnancies and lost those babies. I had been so consumed with my own feelings that I had failed to see him clearly. And he had done the same with me
.
If we had just been open and brave enough to face the truth
,
we could have weathe
red the pain together.
Built each other up instead of tearing each other apart.
Simply a
voided all this misunderstanding.

The
answer
was always simple
, once you figured it out.

Chapter 30

Not even a month after Raff’s “episode,” I found myself pregnant again. Jeremy and I discussed it and decided right away to detach ourselves from the outcome. We hadn’t planned it
,
and with my batting average it was safe to say I would probably miscarry. Which sent me back into the hell of rampant hormones, nausea, and lethargy. On top of that
pile
I added my frustration and anger. Why should I have to suffer so
unfairly
for nothing? Jeremy also hated seeing me miserable and agreed
—
as he
’d
watched me lean my head on the toilet in anticipation of another violent heave. If this one didn’t “take,” we would resort to something we hadn’t used in years—birth control. I just couldn’t
deal with
this anymore—though we
were
both behav
ing
a little better
this time
—with more honesty and courage.

Jeremy
pampered
me through the first twelve weeks, then, as I passed the line of demarcation—the fifteenth week, the farthest any of my pregnancies had gone
—
I dared go to my doctor for a check-up. So far, no bleeding. She asked us if we wanted to hear the heartbeat, but I quickly shook my head. I couldn’t allow this pregnan
c
y to dig its claws into me just yet. There was still time for raised hopes to be dashed.
We pretended as if nothing had changed in our lives, as my morning sickness subsided and my pants started getting a little tight.
A
l
though we didn’t make a pact, we had an unspoken understanding: the subject was not to be mentioned.
I eased up on my gardening work, although the winter months were always slower. Jeremy avoided saying anything baby-related, but let it slip that I did seem to glow.

Thanksgiving came and went. Neal and Raff had come over for an early celebration the day before. They
had
still
planned
to
go to
our mother’s the next day, more out of tradition and attempting to keep some sort of truce going with her. Why, I don’t know. I hadn’t spoken to my mother since the day I had screamed at her over the pay phone in the hospital, when Jeremy was lying
inured and
in pain.
Neal had apparently had a few “interesting” discussions with our mother after meeting Ed, but he didn’t go into much detail. I suspect
ed
he wanted to spare me the melodrama and not rile me up, given my tenuous condition and all that.

Frankly, I was glad. Just the mention of my mother sent my blood
b
oiling. As much as I wanted to forgive her and try to understand her, I couldn’t get past the hurt. I didn’t know how my brothers could face her. Raff especially. I knew he made his appearances at her home out of duty and cowardliness. He’d finally gotten on meds that alleviated his misery, but he felt brittle and
weak
. Wh
a
tever it took
to make peace.

I held my tongue. They had to make their own choices. I had made mine. Perhaps one day my mother and I would start over, but at that
moment
in my life, I hoped I never saw her again. A relationship with Ruth Sitteroff came at too great a price. Just look at the price my father
had
paid. And Raff
, and Jeremy
. No thanks.

Jeremy told me he had spoken to the hospital chaplain during his stay at Marin General. As we sat drinking sparkling apple cider and
waiting for
the ball drop in Times Square on TV, ushering in 1987, he shared his thoughts about my mother—the first time we’d mentioned her in months.

“When I told the chaplain what happened—about how your mother was taking away our home and treating you with such contempt,
h
e said some people were toxic. They acted like a cancer in your life, robbing you of health and strength and
injecting
only poison.
He showed me that passage in the Bible, where Jesus says ‘
D
on’t throw your pearls before swine
or give what is holy to the dogs
.’ There’s more after that verse. It says if you throw your pearls before swine, they will trample those pearls under their feet—and then turn and rip you to shreds. I never knew what that meant until he asked me what I felt was holy in my life.
I said, m
y marriage. My health. My dignity and self-esteem. He said these were holy, and we have every right to cherish and protect these things. Jesus didn’t say to roll over and let the swine tear us apart. He said to stay away from them.

“So
n
o matter how much kindness you showed such people, exposure to them would eventually kill you. The effects could be subtle, barely perceptible, but, over time
.
 
.
 
.
”