Untethered (15 page)

“I have to admit,” Char whispered to Ruth, “my brain hurts a little. We don't—I don't—spend a lot of time discussing these kinds of things anymore. I don't want to tell you how uninformed I am about the Beltway these days, or foreign affairs. But I could tell you all about the best brand of shin guards, if you need to know. Which field hockey cleats are best for turf and which are best for grass.”

Ruth laughed. “I'll keep that in mind.”

Char reached for her wineglass. “It would take me a while to catch up. I ran out of contributions to this”—she gestured to the discussions occurring around them—“almost as soon as it started.”

“Let me ask you this,” Ruth said. “Does the thought of getting caught up, of being involved in conversations like this from start to finish, excite you? Or does it make you feel exhausted? Because it's absolutely not the case that you're incapable of catching up. But it might be that you don't have the desire to, after your years away.”

“It excites me,” Char said. “And that . . . terrifies me.”

“Because you don't think you could come back? Be part of all of this, like you were before? The noise and activity and debating and news and politics and . . . everything?”

“Because I know I could.”

O
n Friday morning, two days after Char arrived in South Carolina, she was editing a magazine article at Will's dining room table when Allie called in tears.

“Allie? What's wrong?”

“Everything!” Her mother had been working nonstop since the moment Allie arrived, she said. “I've seen her for a total of about two hours since Saturday.” Lindy was gone when Allie got up on Sunday, her first full day there, and she didn't get home until dinnertime.

“Dinnertime
in LA
,” Allie said. “Which is, like, midnight in Michigan. So, I was practically asleep.” Every day since had been similar, with Lindy leaving at five to get in a workout with her personal trainer before putting in over twelve hours at the office, only to come home and spend more time with her phone than her daughter.

Char didn't know what to say. Her first thought—
“
You've got to be kidding!”
—wouldn't help Allie. “Did you let her know you're upset about it?” she asked. “Maybe she assumes you're sleeping all day anyway, since you're on break.”

“I did,” Allie said. “I told her I thought the whole point of me coming out here was for the two of us to actually see each other. I thought we were going to go get all the shelves for my room, and get the furniture for it, and pick out paint, all of that. I thought this was our big week of getting the place ready.

“She said she took time off work to come to Michigan for Dad's funeral, so now she can't take this week off. I only see her after she's finally finished with work. Well, she invited me to go to her gym with her at five in the morning, but, you know, no thanks. And she said I could go to her office, learn what she does, sit in on meetings. But I want to relax this week.

“So, I spend the day alone, and I only see her when she gets home. She doesn't see what the problem is. She told me, ‘This is how normal families live, Allison. The parents go to work during the day and they don't see their kids until dinner.'”

Char didn't know where to start with that. What part of “normal” did Lindy think applied to the relationship she had with her daughter? “Well, it sounds like you've been having dinner with her, at least,” Char said, trying to focus on the positive.

“Yeah,” Allie said. “I mean, it's hard for me to think about eating when it feels like midnight. And she never cooks. She always wants to go out. But she has to spend all this time figuring out who's got a menu that won't interfere with this vegan thing she's doing. So it's always so late by the time we get our food.

“On Monday night, we went to this new place she's been dying to try. We had to wait forever to get a table, and by the time the waiter came with our green goopy stuff and our quinoa toast or whatever, I couldn't even sit up any longer. She was asking me all these questions, trying to make conversation, but I just lay in the booth with my eyes closed until she was finished eating.

“I think her feelings were hurt because I wasn't really answering her much, but I could barely even think. She wanted to have this big long talk about my future, what I want to do, where I want to go to college. And I kept asking her if we could just take the food home so I could go to bed.

“She hasn't asked about Justin at all. I even let his name slip once, sort of by accident, and she didn't notice. Or if she did, I guess she forgot she doesn't want me hanging out with him. Or she doesn't care about it anymore. I mentioned Morgan, too, and she just nodded and didn't bring up tutoring at all, or the fact she thinks I should drop it since I'm not getting credit anymore. And I know that sounds crazy for me to be upset about those things, since—”

“No,” Char said. “I get it. I'm sorry.”

“I thought it would be different this time,” Allie said, sniffing. “You know? All the way here, on the plane, I was so excited to see her. I thought that now, after, you know . . . everything . . . things would be different with her . . .” Her voice trailed off and Char heard loud sobs take over.

“Oh, Allie, I'm so sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”

“I miss my dad,” Allie whispered. “Nothing's the same without him. Everything is all . . . wrong.”

“I miss him, too,” Char said.

“Could I come home?”

“I'm at Will's. Remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“And I couldn't agree to that anyway,” Char said. “You know that.”

“Because my mother calls the shots.”

“Well . . . yes.”

“CC?”

“Yeah?”

“How fucked up is that?”

Char laughed. “Language, young lady.”

Allie laughed, too, and Char felt her chest expand as her heart swelled at the sound.

•   •   •

I
don't get it,” Char said to her brother over dinner that night, after repeating the conversation she had had with Allie. “As many times as I've told myself I get it, told you the same thing, and Colleen. I mean, I just bragged to Sarah Crew about how much I get it. But the truth is, sometimes I really don't get it. Why it is that she's still so desperate for that woman's attention. I mean, she's not Morgan Crew. She's not ten years old, living in a fantasy world about a mother she barely remembers. She knows Lindy. So, why—?”

“You know why. Because you do get it. As frustrating as it is sometimes, you get it.”

Char looked at her plate. “You're right. I just find it so aggravating. Especially now. I mean, I've been the one who's been there for her since her dad died, but here she is . . .” She looked from her dish to her hands and back while she considered whether to finish. It made her feel childish, what she was thinking. And dishonest. She had made it sound so final, when she was doling out her advice to Sarah Crew:
I used to think the way you're thinking, but now I'm over it
. What a liar she was. She had been in remission, that's all, yet she had bragged to Sarah about being cured.

“Here she is, caring so much about a woman in California who doesn't appear to give a damn, when there's one in Michigan who does?” Will finished her question for her.

Char said nothing, but made a mental note to tell Sarah never to listen to her advice again.

“You feel like it's a rejection,” he went on, “this loyalty she has to Lindy. Like she's somehow saying you're not enough.”

Char nodded.

“Lindy's her mother.”

“But she hasn't acted like it for years. If ever. And meanwhile, all this time, I've been . . .” Her voice broke and she couldn't finish. Will started to rise, to come to her. “I'm fine,” she said, and he sat and waited patiently while she stood, searched for a tissue, and, finding none, went to the bathroom for a strip of toilet paper. She blew her nose, returned to her seat, and took some deep breaths to compose herself.

When her breathing returned to normal, Will spoke. “Do you remember that school play I was in?” he asked. “You were in fifth grade, I was in third. I had about four lines, and I made you practice with me every night for a month. Remember that?”

Char stared past him, at the wall, calling up the memory. “Yeah, I remember.”

“And then the big night came, and I looked over to where Mom and Dad were sitting. And there was Dad, smiling up at me and nodding. And Mom was turned completely around in her chair, talking to that friend of hers, uh . . .”

“Rita Mixom,” Char said.

Will snapped his fingers. “Right, Mrs. Mixom. She wasn't even looking at me. She was whispering with Mrs. Mixom about something, and she missed every one of my lines. I was so upset, and my friends knew it.

“And someone said, ‘Don't worry about it. She's just a big, stupid old whale.' Before we got into the car to go home, I told you I was going to tell her what they'd called her, to get back at her. You made me promise not to. When we got home, I was lying in bed
crying, and you came into my room, and you sat with me until I stopped. I asked why you wouldn't let me call her a whale, when it was so clear that our mother was a big, stupid old whale. And you said . . . do you remember what you said?”

“I said, ‘Because
that whale is our mother
.'”

They were both quiet for a moment. Finally, Char said, “You were such a little brat that night. What kid even considers calling their mother something like that? She struggled all her life with her weight, and you knew that. You even said, at her funeral—”

Will raised his hands, palms out, defending himself. “I know, I know. Tell you what: tomorrow night at dinner, I want you to tell a story that makes me look like the saint and you like the devil.”

“Oh, so you want me to make something up?”

He laughed again, and then became serious. “Charlotte.”

“What?”

“Lindy is Allie's whale.”

“Yeah, Will. I got it.”

O
h, everything's fine,” Sarah said when Char saw her at tutoring the Monday after break and asked how things were going. “Our break was fine. We're all fine.”

“That's so nice to hear,” Char said. “I was worried after we spoke the last time.”

“No need, it's all fine,” Sarah said, in a tone designed to end the discussion.

“Good,” Char said quietly.

Char regarded Sarah as she watched Stevie, who was lying on the floor on his stomach, pushing a toy car through a figure eight he had made with a crumpled piece of paper and a gum wrapper. Char waited for the other woman to snap an order for the boy to get off the dirty floor and come over so she could dust off his pants, clean his hands with wipes.

But Sarah turned to Char without a word to her son. “I mean, the weather wasn't great, but there's nothing to be done about that, right?”

Char struggled for a response while Sarah turned to watch her
son again. He had kicked off his boots now, and was tapping one socked foot into the large puddle his boots had made. Char looked from the boy to his mother expectantly, but again, Sarah didn't react.

It was then that Char noticed the globs of liquid rouge on Sarah's cheek. It looked like she had put it on with her eyes closed—the blotches of pink were too low, and she hadn't taken the time to blend it properly. She wore no eyeliner or earrings—two things Char had never seen her without. Her lips, like her cheeks, were dotted with clumps of color that she hadn't made the effort to even out. Her hair appeared not to have been brushed, or washed, in days.

“Sarah,” Char whispered, putting a hand on the other woman's arm. “Is everything okay? You don't seem like yourself.”

“Everything's fine,” Sarah said, looking down at her hands as Stevie, who had rolled over onto his back, let out a loud burp. Raising his head warily to see if his mother had noticed, he locked eyes with Char, who stifled a smile at his “Uh-oh” expression. But Sarah only wrinkled her nose at him before turning back to her hands.

“Should I call you later?” Char asked. “So we can talk without”—she gestured to the child on the floor—“little ears?”

“No need,” Sarah said, “but thank you. I'm totally . . .”

Fine?
Char wanted to ask. But she smiled instead, though Sarah didn't notice, having apparently lost interest in the conversation, and in Char. Stevie stretched his arms overhead and spread his legs, making a snow angel on the dirty linoleum floor.
Grime angel
, Char thought, and waited for his mother to shriek for him to stop.

Sarah said nothing.

The boy's socks, which had been in the puddle before he started his angels, picked up dirt from the floor as they traveled up in their arc, creating a curved line of gray-black as he opened and shut his
legs again and again. After his third angel, he let his feet rest in the puddle before raising one, then the other, and smacking them down to the wet floor. He giggled as the dirty water splashed onto his light-colored shirt, a few drops hitting him on the chin.

“Don't get that bandage wet,” Sarah said.

Stevie lifted his left arm, which Char now noticed was thicker than his right. A sliver of white gauze stuck out of his shirt cuff. He patted his sleeve gently. “Dra!” he said, raising his chin so he could see his mother.

Sarah didn't answer, and Char wondered if she had even heard. “I think he's telling you it's dry,” Char said. “Poor kid. What did he do to his arm?”

Sarah flapped her hand as though it weren't a story worth telling. Char considered asking Stevie, but she didn't have the energy to interpret, so she went back to observing and said nothing more.

Stevie brought his other arm close to his face, studied the layer of sludge that had built up on his sleeve from the floor, and wiped his mouth, leaving a brown smudge across one cheek and both lips. Before Char could tell him not to, he darted his tongue out and licked the brown off.

“Gross,” Sarah said, more to herself than her son, and Stevie put his arm back on the floor and resumed his grime angels.