When You Were Older (21 page)

‘Wow,’ I said. Truly impressed. ‘That’s a nice offer. That’s a really nice offer. But I don’t think you know how trying he is.’

‘How much time would you need?’

‘Oh. I don’t know. Let me think. Two or three days to pack up the apartment. If I work fast. Most of a day each way to fly. Four days, at least. Maybe five.’

‘I think maybe we could allow ourselves to be tried for four or five days.’

‘You might want to compare notes with the Jesperses first.’

‘The Jesperses? Who are they?’

‘My next-door neighbors. They looked after Ben for most of three days while I tried to get back here. And they were just about at the end of their rope by the time I got back. Ben’s a real creature of habit. I’m not sure how he’d do at anybody else’s house.’

‘Maybe we could come to yours.’

‘Wow. It’s a really nice offer. But … I’m just afraid you’re going to be sorry you ever made it. But … You know what? I’ll feel him out about it. I’ll talk to him and let you know what I think of our chances.’

It was after dinner, and I was going through the mail. So far I’d done nothing with it except bring it in. Throw it
on
the table. After all, it wasn’t my mail. It was clearly addressed to Margaret Ammiano. So, that was not my gas bill. That was my mother’s gas bill. Surely no one expected me to pay it. Right?

Yes, I’m kidding. In a not-funny sort of way.

So there I was sorting through the bills, thinking I’d have to go to the bank and take over her account somehow. Thinking I’d have to find out when Ben got paid and how much, and whether he brought his check home or had it done as a direct deposit. And if there was any money in the account. And if there was – God forbid – a mortgage on the house. There hadn’t been, when I left for college. But you never know what people might have to do to get by.

I’d have to find a way to assess what went out every month. And whether there was any other income. I had to start taking care of business. I’d been ignoring business as long as business could be safely ignored.

It sure would help not to have to pay another month’s rent on my apartment in New York. Then again, there’d be the plane fare. Then again, if I didn’t hurry up, there’d be both.

‘Ben,’ I called.

I suppose it goes without saying that Ben was in the TV room.

He stuck his head around the door frame.

‘What?’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘I’m watching.’

‘It’s important, Buddy.’

‘Two more minutes.’

‘Fine. Two more minutes.’

I sat there and stared at the bills for about another twenty minutes.

Finally I looked up, and there he was. Sitting down across from me.

‘That was more than two minutes,’ I said. My stress over the bills was looking to spill out. And of course Ben was the only available recipient.

‘Sorry.’

‘I need to talk to you about something.’

‘You already said that.’

‘I have to go back to New York to get my stuff. You know. And get it all packed up. And ship it out here. Or put it on a moving van. Or something.’ Jokingly pretending for a moment that I could afford any of those options.

‘OK,’ he said.

I felt genuinely happy. For the first time in a long time. Then a little voice in the back of my head said, That was too easy. It said, Look out.

‘You’re OK with that?’

‘Sure. As soon as Mom comes back.’

My heart fell. That was unexpected. I thought we’d at least gotten beyond that one.

‘Buddy. I’ve told you and told you. Mom’s not coming back. You told me you knew that.’

‘Then don’t go.’

‘But I need to.’

A pause. About long enough to count to three. Then he began to sob quietly. He didn’t pace, or repeat anything. It wasn’t what you might call a tantrum. He just began to cry. Muted. Pathetic. Heartbreaking.

‘I won’t leave you all alone, you know.’

‘Who will I have?’

‘Anat and Nazir will stay with you. You like Anat.’

‘I don’t know her.’

‘You do know her. You told me she’s nice.’

‘I know her for coming in the store. She’s nice for coming in the store. I don’t know her for staying here. I don’t have anybody who can stay here except you.’

His nose began to run, so I handed him a paper napkin left over from dinner.

‘That’s not true, Buddy.’

‘It
is
true, Buddy!’ he said, raising his voice for the first time that evening. ‘You’re my only buddy!’

‘You stayed with the Jesperses.’

‘And it was terrible! They don’t like me.’

‘They said they love you. Mrs Jespers said they love you.’

‘But they don’t like me.’

Whoa. A glimmer of an area in which Ben is not stupid. Mentally, I added that to the time he announced that I ‘liked’ Anat. Two rare random areas in which Ben is not stupid.

‘It would only be for about four days.’

‘Four days!’ He wailed, stretching it out for ever and
making
it sound like four lifetimes. ‘You can’t go. Please don’t go. Don’t go, Buddy. They don’t know what time I go to bed. What if they didn’t drive me to work on time? Mr McCaskill wouldn’t like it if they didn’t drive me to work on time.’

‘I’ll tell them everything they need to know.’

I had been glancing briefly down at the bills as I said it. When I looked up, Ben was in the process of disappearing. He was sliding down off the chair and on to the rug. As if his bones had spontaneously dissolved. I got up and went to him. Got down on my knees beside him. I could hear the hitches between sobs. But barely. He must have been trying to sob as quietly as possible.

‘Please don’t go, Buddy,’ he whispered.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

He whispered it again.

‘Please don’t go, Buddy.’

Thirty-one times. Before I gave up and left the room. After that, I couldn’t say.

I know I shouldn’t have left. I felt like shit for leaving him like that, on the rug, half under the table. I should have stayed with him and tried to make him feel better. But there was only one thing I could possibly have said to make him feel better. Nothing would do but that I promise him I’d never go away, ever, not even for one day. And I wasn’t about to do it.

I took a long, hot bath, purposely soaking until I knew it must be almost eight o’clock.

Then I went back into the dining room. And there he
was.
Right where I’d left him. Still crying quietly.

‘Come on, Buddy. Get up now. It’s almost time for bed. And you have to wash your face. Your face is a mess.’

‘OK,’ he said, in a voice so small it broke my heart. He lumbered to his feet. ‘Are you going away?’

‘I don’t know, Buddy. I don’t know. Let’s just get you to bed. We’ll talk about it another time.’

‘OK,’ he said.

‘You need a haircut, Buddy. You’re looking a little seedy.’

‘OK.’

‘Where did Mom take you to get your hair cut?’

‘She didn’t.’

‘She cut it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t think I could do that. I think I’ll have to take you to the barber.’

‘No!’ He wailed. ‘Please don’t. I don’t know him. I know him for coming in the store, but I don’t know him for cutting my hair. You do it. Please?’

‘OK. Fine. I’ll try.’

It was the only issue before us that I could afford to cede.

I watched him as he moved his uncooperative legs down the hall to his room, sobbing softly the whole way.

THIS MOMENT WAS
unexpected. And somewhat inevitable. All at the same time. All rolled up into one key piece of my life.

It was the next morning. Wednesday, Anat’s first day back from that unbearable chasm of her two days off. And again I hadn’t been able to sleep.

I’d been developing dark circles under my eyes. I’d been feeling on edge. Even by the standards of my horrifying new normal.

I strode across the parking lot at about four fifteen in the morning, cruising like a heat-seeking missile. I can’t say what I was thinking, because I know I wasn’t. I’d flipped the off switch on my poor brain. It was such a relief.

I just remember feeling my heart pound. My heart was getting tired of pounding. Let me tell you.

You can only wrestle with something for just so long. Then you have to break in one direction or another. Just to end the wrestling. Something has to give.

Anat looked up and saw me through the glass of the kitchen door, and her eyes lit up. It fueled me, right at that moment when I might just as easily have lost my nerve.

I let myself in.

‘Hey. You look like hell,’ she said. But cheerfully. ‘You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.’

I walked right up to her. She took two steps back from the table. Maybe a bit unsure about my intentions. My intensity.

That made two of us.

I didn’t stop when I got to her. I just kept walking. Which gave her no real option except to back up.

I backed her all the way into the storeroom. My heart pounding, pounding. Pounding.

‘What are we doing?’ she asked. Laughing.

I kissed her.

It was short but intense. Enthusiastic. Then I knew I needed to check in. Because, well, I mean … finally being sure of yourself is a good thing as far as that goes. But consent is still hugely important in situations like these.

I pulled back and looked into her face. She looked surprised. But not unhappy. That’s when it hit me. My heart had finally stopped pounding. I thought, Oh, thank God. I don’t know how much more of that hammering I could have taken. But, I noticed retroactively, when my lips finally touched hers, it stopped. Well, I don’t mean my heart stopped. Well, nearly.
Nearly
stopped. But it mellowed. It turned into a sort of warm, oozing liquid, like gelatin that never set up correctly. Viscous but pourable. And it just started to drip.

It was a major step in the right direction.

‘If I shouldn’t have done that …’ I said, barely over a whisper. But there was really no way to finish that sentence. Unless I was willing to tell her I was sorry.

I wasn’t sorry. Not at all.

Maybe I needed to say, If I shouldn’t have done that, then I won’t do it again. No matter how badly I want to. No matter how sorry I’m not.

But, before I could say any such thing, I felt her hand weave into the back of my hair, and she pulled my face in close and kissed me in return. It was slower this time. Gentler. More heartfelt. This time we both knew it was in no danger of getting away.

She pulled back, and frowned. As if from a distance, I heard her say, ‘Oh, Russell. What am I going to do about you?’ In a way that did not sound entirely affectionate.

I sat down on a sealed bucket of maple icing. Fortunately there was a bucket of maple icing there for me.

I looked at the linoleum for a moment.

My heart had a long way to fall. It was up at the end of a long kite string. In uncharted territory. And when she said that, it felt like it hit the bakery linoleum so hard I thought it would never be of any use to me, or anybody else, ever again.

I didn’t think I’d be able to talk. But I managed.

‘You make me sound like a disease.’

I sounded like Ben to myself. Like Ben saying, ‘Please don’t go, Buddy.’ Abject heartbreak. Unfiltered.

She sat on a bucket of cherry filling, right next to me, her hip touching up against mine.

‘I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t.’

She stroked my hair. Just one stroke, but it helped. Then she took her hand back.

‘What did you mean it like?’

I heard her sigh. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

‘I feel like I’m already halfway down a street I know I can’t go down. But here I am. And I don’t know what to do. Things seem to be doing themselves.’

‘Yeah, things are like that,’ I said, far from occupying my own brain or body. Then I shifted suddenly into a different tack. ‘Explain that to me. Tell me why you can’t go down this street. In your culture, you just have to be alone for ever?’

‘No, of course not. But there’s a right way to do things.’

‘And that is …?’

‘How do I explain? It’s just … different. It isn’t up to only you and me. You would get to know me and my father at the same time. Well. My family. But my father is the only family I have. So … you would ask us over for a meal or to tea. And we would host you in return. Many times, until we all knew each other well. And then …’

I waited. Anxious to hear the end of that sentence. But she never finished.

‘And then … what?’

‘I can’t say that.’

‘But I need to know.’

‘Let me start over. I shouldn’t have started like that. You know. Saying “you” and “me”. So let’s just say, “One would …” Hypothetically. Let’s say the man gets to know the woman and her family for at least a couple of months. Maybe more. There’s no set rule about that. And then, if he still wants to take it to the next level …’

‘Sooner or later you have to say this, you know.’

‘He asks her father for her hand in marriage.’

‘Oh, hell, is that all? I thought it was something terrible.’

‘Russell, we’ve only known each other—’

‘Fine,’ I said, and blasted to my feet, my knees cured. ‘We’ll do it right.’

‘You make it sound easy, Russell. But you don’t know my father.’

‘Your father likes me.’

‘That’s because he didn’t see what just happened.’

I stood a minute, trying that on. Trying to make it fit. Anat stood up and gave me a small, chaste hug.

‘We’ll do it right,’ I said. ‘He wants you to be happy.’

‘Yes.’

‘So in time he’ll understand.’

‘I hope so.’

I grabbed the handle of my bucket and slid it out of
the
storeroom. Hard. It stopped sliding near the baker’s table. Right about where I wanted it. I ducked my head down going by the window. And I sat on the bucket again.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked. As if the whole moment were somehow amusing.

‘This way if someone comes by, they won’t see me in here with you.’

‘Ah,’ she said.

She went back to her work, measuring flour into the mixer.