Home Leave: A Novel (9 page)
Read Home Leave: A Novel Online
Authors: Brittani Sonnenberg
“Hold me?” he asks. He hates the strangled tone in his voice, hates himself for asking anything of her now. Wimp, he hears in his head: from his father, from his coach, from that Singaporean Indian jerk on the park bench in Bombay.
But the request softens Elise. She turns to him and spoons his back, her small breasts pressed flat against his skin, both of their bodies still moist.
“Good night,” she says again after a while, more gently.
“Good night.”
He can’t sleep, of course. Typical jet lag—you enter the point of pure weariness and stay there, as if it were a cruising altitude. His thoughts are in several time zones, feverish. He keeps seeing the Indian hotel attendant with the flowers, bringing him good news. He pictures Elise on her “trips” with a shadowy stranger, and he tosses in bed, trying to erase the stranger from his thoughts, wanting to trust Elise, telling himself that he is lucky to be married to someone so independent. But by the time he falls asleep, at six a.m., as the neighbors’ sprinklers go on and dogs are being taken out for early walks, luck seems like its reverse, and he desperately wants something dire to happen, to bring them back together.
* * *
Two weeks later, sitting down at breakfast, Elise tries to coax Leah to eat her Cheerios. Chris has chosen to take off the morning from work. Wearing a UGA Bulldogs T-shirt and boxers, he luxuriates in this domestic scene. Finally Leah has swallowed enough cereal to satisfy Elise, and she is permitted to go watch
Sesame Street
in the living room. Elise and Chris turn to each other with strange, secretive expressions.
“What?” Elise asks.
“What?” says Chris.
“You go first,” Elise says.
“No, you.”
“I’m pregnant again,” Elise says after a long pause, looking out the window. “Let’s hope your news is better.”
Chris decides to ignore this last sentiment and lifts her up off her feet, swings her around, inadvertently banging her ankle on the kitchen counter. “That’s incredible,” he says. “I’m so happy to hear it.” He looks at her, concerned. “How about you?”
“Sure,” she says, rubbing her ankle. “I just need some time to get used to it.” Something in her drains away as she says this. Earlier that morning, making coffee, she had contemplated a new kind of field trip: to the gynecologist’s office, to get an abortion, without telling Chris. He would never agree to it, she knows. She forces a smile and allows herself to admit that she is, somewhere, excited about a second child.
“What’s your news?” she asks.
“England.” Chris says. “I’ve been promoted. They want me in London as soon as Jason Raleigh retires.”
Singapore, October 1996
Elise Kriegstein: 42, mother
Chris Kriegstein: 42, father
Leah Kriegstein: 15, elder daughter
Sophie Kriegstein: 13, younger daughter
James Alderman: 45, therapist
Setting
: Therapist’s office in downtown Singapore. Neutral hues. A few framed watercolors on the wall depict local scenes with a distinctly colonial vibe, including a traditional “black and white” villa (the former residences of British civil servants), the Raffles hotel, and one amateurish botanical print of a Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid. Chris and Elise are seated on opposite ends of a camel-colored couch. Elise is scribbling something in a notebook; Chris is shuffling through papers, reviewing notes for an upcoming meeting. Leah is sitting on an overstuffed chocolate leather chair to their left, with a blanket over her goose-bumped knees (like most interior spaces in Singapore, the air-conditioning is going full blast). Sophie is perched on an office chair with wheels. The therapist is nowhere to be seen.
Sophie swivels around in the office chair, going faster and faster. There is something slightly wild and desperate about her movements, like those of a much younger child misbehaving to gain adult attention. But none of the other Kriegsteins react. Leah, in stark contrast to Sophie, is sitting incredibly still, holding herself tightly, so tightly she is unconsciously pinching her upper arms with her fingernails. The family’s silence is interrupted by the hurried entry of a slightly portly British therapist in a light blue shirt and a mint green sweater vest, who looks badly sunburned.
Therapist
: Thank you all for waiting. Apologies on my part for the interruption—a client was confused. Thought it was Wednesday.
(Opens his notebook, composes himself.)
Well, let’s not waste any more time, shall we?
(Pause in which none of the Kriesgsteins speak. Therapist glances around, trying to gauge the mood.)
Let’s continue where we left off before the doorbell rang. Elise, you had just brought up the subject of your pregnancy with Sophie and the family’s move to England three years later. I would like to hear a bit more now from Leah about that time. Leah. What would you call your…most salient memories of England? You would have been five at that time, correct?
Leah
(guarded): Yes, that’s right. You mean, what can I remember?
Therapist
: Precisely.
Leah
(considers the question for a beat): Not much. The raspberry bush out back. The plum tree. Lavender everywhere, leaning over sidewalks. Liverwurst. Ribena. Picnics with taramasolata. Pizza Express.
Elise
: And what about your friends? Edith Norrell? Nigel Slater?
Leah
: Nigel Slater? Mom, that’s the famous cook. I obviously wasn’t friends with him.
Elise
: Nigel Saunders. That’s who I meant.
Leah
: No, I don’t remember them. I remember trees in bloom in the park, and learning to read.
Therapist
: Learning to read?
Leah
: I kept mispronouncing “island” as “iz-land.” And fish and chips. And…the feeling.
Therapist
: Of?
Leah
: Of living in England.
Therapist
: And what are your memories of Sophie from that time? How do you think she liked it there?
Sophie
(jumping in):
I can’t remember England at all.
The therapist does not react to Sophie’s response but continues waiting on Leah, intent on her answer. Oddly, his manner is not that of a therapist ignoring a client who has spoken out of turn (as Sophie just has), but rather that of someone who has not heard the client at all. It becomes apparent that Sophie’s presence is invisible to everyone else in the room, and her voice is equally undetectable.
Leah
: My memories of Sophie? (Blanches.) I don’t know how she liked it there.
Sophie
:
I was just a baby, really.
Leah
(voice overlapping): She was just a baby, really.
At the coincidence of their having said the same thing at the same time, Sophie looks at Leah in joyful astonishment and laughs out loud.
Sophie
(shouting):
Jinx! Personal jinx! One, two, three, four, five!
At Leah’s continued silence, Sophie rises from her chair, suddenly looking much older, graver, and goes to her sister, puts her arms around her neck, leaning her cheek against Leah’s. It is a consoling, sisterly gesture, yet one that Sophie never would have performed when she was alive: it is the gesture from one adult sister to another. At Sophie’s touch, tears begin flowing silently from Leah’s eyes.
Therapist
: What is it?
Leah shrugs a grumpy teenager shrug, furious that her emotions are on such gaudy display for her parents and the therapist. Her voice, when she speaks, is heavy with sarcasm.
Leah
: “What is it?” What do you think? Why do you think we’re sitting here? Because we miss London or Philadelphia or Atlanta? No. We’re here because Sophie’s dead. Or, to be more precise, that’s why they’re here (gesturing at Chris and Elise). I’m here because they made me come.
Sophie, sensing that her touch is overwhelming Leah, withdraws slowly and goes back to her chair. Leah shivers at Sophie’s departure and draws the blanket around her shoulders, calming herself. She looks out the window. Her face goes numb, distant.
Therapist
(turns to Elise): What do you remember of the girls in England?
Elise
(eager to speak, to smooth over the awkward silence): That’s where Sophie refused to wear anything but dresses. Every day. She would throw a fit if we tried to put her in overalls. And then, two years later, as soon as we moved to Atlanta, she was a tomboy who would have thrown every last dress in the trash if I’d let her. Those beautiful Laura Ashley patterns…
Sophie
(looking at Elise):
I can’t remember…
Elise
: That’s where they both learned to ride a bike. Sophie nailed it in two seconds. And Leah, you took a lot longer, but you never gave up. You just picked yourself up again, and—
Leah
(still looking out the window, her voice cold): I get it. I lacked coordination. I wasn’t “a natural.”
Elise
: It was a compliment about being persistent, for God’s sake!
Chris
(nearly growling, but with a note of pleading): Leah, come on.
Therapist
: Chris, what do you remember of England?
Chris
: The rain. My boss—he was a real asshole. Jordan Bark.
Sophie
(looking around with a wide grin):
Whoa! I can’t believe he said the A word!
Elise
: Chris—please.
Leah
: Mom, after everything we’ve been through in the last six months, I think I can handle a little swearing. In fact, I think it’s a good idea. (Turns to therapist.) How do I remember England? How do I remember Sophie there? I remember it, and all of us, as pre-fucked. As opposed to now. As opposed to all of us now being profoundly fucked.
Elise and Chris
(in one, horrified voice): Leah!
Meanwhile, Sophie is laughing her head off at Leah’s display of
rebellio
n—for any thirteen-year-old, even a dead one, hearing someone swear, particularly her straitlaced older sister, is hilarious.
Therapist
(obviously made nervous by Leah’s dangerous mood): Elise, you haven’t mentioned which memories from London stand out to you in particular, aside from what you remember of Sophie and Leah there—
Elise
(glares once more at Leah before speaking): Where do I start? England always felt right, even when it was raining, even when the woman at Harrods snubbed me because of my American accent. I was worried that I wouldn’t like London as much the second time, but instead it was even better. I was working part-time at a health food store. I was ecstatic. People assumed it was because I was American, the cheerfulness. They should have seen me on my worst days in Philadelphia.
Chris
(mutters): Or here.
Therapist
: Chris, please. Let her continue.
Elise
(folds her arms tightly across her chest, petulant): Now I’ve lost my train of thought…Right, the co-op. Rainbow Foods. I was the only one who regularly showered. I don’t even think the other workers there liked me that much. But I was so happy I didn’t notice.
Therapist
: What do you think the root of this happiness was?
Elise
: Being back in England.
Therapist
: But didn’t you miss the United States?
Elise
: Philadelphia? Those stuck-up, preppy moms looking down on you for not having the right kind of pram? See? I even say “pram,” like the British. What’s the American word for it?
Therapist shrugs.
Chris
: Baby carriage.
Elise
: What a horrible word. Sounds like a baby dragging a carriage behind it. Why was I so happy? I was out again! Free! Free from gossip at the playground, free from the Mississippi guilt trip. Free from trying to save everybody.
Therapist
: But last session, when we were discussing your time in Philadelphia, you had already begun this journey—
Elise
: Then I got pregnant. I got pregnant, Mama came to visit for a week, and then I woke up and I was the old me all over again: addicted to prayer group, checking up on Ivy and Mama with long phone calls every other day, staying at home building Play-Doh castles with Leah.
Chris
: I was relieved.
Leah
: Me too.
Elise
: You were two years old, what did you know?
Leah
(quietly): I remember.
Sophie
:
That’s when you had me!
Elise
(sadly, overlapping): That’s when I had Sophie. I wish—
Therapist
: Be careful.
Elise
: I wish I hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t had all that pain.
Leah
: Nice, Mom.
Sophie
(to Elise):
I don’t mind.
Leah
(to therapist): She just said she wished Sophie had never been born.
Sophie
(to Leah):
No, that’s not what she said.
(To Elise.)
Don’t worry, Mom, I understand.
Elise
(overlapping with Sophie, to Leah): That’s not what I said. You don’t understand.
Therapist
(now piqued and defensive, with an air of a kindergarten teacher speaking to a misbehaving class): Look, I feel we’ve gone quite off topic. I’d like to remind each of you that I’m leading this discussion, that you came to me, after all, for assistance. Any revelations, insights, moments of forgiveness, etcetera, will be brokered by me; otherwise, they don’t count, is that clear?
The Kriegsteins
(Surprised at his violent outburst, the three family members nod sheepishly and respond in a jumble of voices, Elise and Leah avoiding eye contact.) Yes. Okay. I guess so. All right. Clear.
Therapist
(clears his throat): Good. Where were we before all of that? Ah yes. Elise, you say you were profoundly happy in England. So, Chris, while Elise was skipping around the co-op aisles, replacing sacks of millet and giving out free barbecued tofu samples, how were you feeling?
Chris
: Fine. It was fine. I like England. Nice pubs, great history.
Therapist
: Oh, come on, Chris. You can do better than that.
Chris
: What do you want me to say?
Therapist
: Were you satisfied?
Chris
: I was hungry. And sometimes that’s a good way to be. I saw how I needed to bust my ass to get higher up the food chain. And that’s what I did. I was successful. That satisfied me.
Therapist
: I’m not convinced.
Chris
: Well, I’m not convinced this session is worth four hundred Sing dollars an hour.
Therapist
: Interesting that you bring up money at this moment. Do you often estimate how much something is worth? How much is it worth that you’re discussing Sophie again, for example?
Chris
: That’s low. Is that what they teach you in grad school? Low blows?
Therapist
: What would you say to Sophie now, if she were in the room?
Sophie looks pleased at this.
Chris
: What?
Therapist
: Why don’t you let her know how you feel, Chris?
Sophie
(to therapist):
Oh, shut up.
(To her father.)
It’s good to see you, too, Dad. I miss you.
Chris, to everyone’s surprise, including his own, begins weeping, cannot speak. Elise puts a hand on his arm. Leah looks away. As with Leah earlier, Sophie now moves to the couch, snuggles in between her parents (there is ample room between them to do so), and puts her head on Chris’s shoulder.
Leah
(softly, nearly to herself): Does that mean you loved her more? The way you’re crying now? Would you have cried like that if I had been the one that—
Therapist
: Leah. I believe you know the answer to that. After all of our work together over the last two months.
Leah
: Still, I—
Therapist
: Let it go. Let’s return to England. Leah. You were very small. But later, when you thought of London, did you and Sophie have any sense of…how should I put it? Home?
Leah
: It’s hard to remember…
Sophie
(overlapping):
It’s hard to remember…
Therapist
: Yes, I know, you were young—
Leah
: …being five.
Sophie
(overlapping): …
being alive.
Therapist
: Take your time.
Sophie
:
I liked going back to London. We went back there some summers, after we’d moved away, and we took those funny taxis.
Leah
(to Elise): Remember the red line museum?
Sophie
:
Yeah!
Chris and Elise
(confused): The what?
Leah
: The museum, with a red line through it, that would lead you through different exhibits.
Sophie
(exuberant):
I remember!
Elise
: The natural history museum. It was their favorite. Yes, it did have a red line to follow that you girls loved.
Sophie
:
The stuffed boar. The big dinosaur skeleton, right when you walked in.
Therapist
: Splendid. Now. Who of you wants to go back?
Leah
: You mean, hypothetically?
Therapist
: I don’t think that’s important to clarify at this point.
Elise
: Go back, as in, to that time? Or go back, as in, go visit?
Chris
: I have a business trip there next week, actually.
Sophie
:
No.
Leah
: Yes.
Sophie
:
I don’t want to go back.
Leah
: I do.
Elise
: In which sense?
Leah
: In every sense. I want to go back and be British.
Therapist
: What about you, Elise?
Elise
: No, thank you. For years, yes. For years I did. But now? (Shrugs.) I think leaving Singapore would feel like leaving Sophie behind, losing her even more. (Turns to Leah.) What do you mean, you want to become British?
Therapist
(irritated): That was
my
next question, actually.
Leah
: Oh, I don’t know. You know. The way I want to be Chinese, and German, and—
Elise
: Why?
Sophie
: (overlapping)
Why?
Leah
: To fit in.
Sophie
:
Look, you were already kind of weird in Atlanta. I hate to break it to you—
Leah
: I never knew how Sophie did it.
Sophie
:
How I did what?
Leah
: The normalcy. The steadiness.
Sophie
:
I’m normal.
Elise
(overlapping): She was…more normal. But that—
Therapist
(exploding): Again, wildly off track. We are, so to speak, off the highway, off the county road, off the dirt path, plunging willy-nilly through woods, running over rabbits and small pines, our Navi on the blink, hoping we will wind up where we need to be. No. No. Not in my office, not on my clock.
Chris
: Which is ten minutes fast, I noticed.
Therapist
(ignores him): Now, Leah. If you really want to go back to London, I’m going to have to hear a believable accent.
Leah
: Seriously?