If You Could See What I See (7 page)

“And I need a beer. The sooner you’re in the car, the sooner you’re home and I’m having a beer.”

I thought of him drinking a beer naked. I liked his body, liked that thick hair, liked those sharp gray-blue eyes that did not miss a thing.

“Here. I’ll escort you.” He held out a hand.

I smiled, couldn’t help it. I put my hand in his and there it was: fire and electricity, all blended up together. He blinked. I saw his eyes change. They were friendly at first, now there was something more.

Mutual lust.
Hello, mutual lust.

I kept smiling at him, couldn’t help it. Sparks were careening off him, to me, back to him. Whizzing, dizzying sparks.

I climbed in the car when I could gather myself together.

He closed the door, walked around to his side, and climbed in. For a moment, I didn’t move. I could feel him, feel all of him, so close to me.

I turned my head away and did not look at the man who was trouble. He would be warm in bed. I bet I could forget a whole lot with his arms around me, my legs around him, mouth to mouth. Yep, I could forget for a few minutes.

And then I’d be where I am now.

Was it worth it?

Maybe. Maybe not. Would it be worth it to him?

Probably not. “Dang it.”

“Dang what?” He had not restarted the car.

“I mean, dang . . . uh, I forgot to do something at work. It came to me that second . . .”

“Ah.” He asked it first. “Meggie, are you married?”

That hurt. I winced. I tried not to show it. “No.” I waited in that thick silence. “Are you?”

“No. I was once, when I was twenty three. Lasted two years. I was in the army, and we hardly saw each other. It would be me to blame for that. She found someone else who was home.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She was a great lady, no I am not still pining for her, and we were way too young.”

“Do you still talk to her?”

“No. We divorced, and that was it.”

I knew that he was noting that I had offered no explanation of my own marital status.

We were quiet for a while. He was waiting for me to speak. I could tell he was comfortable in the silence.

“What do you like to do, Blake?”

“I like to kayak.”

That sounded fun.

“I like to fly-fish. I like to camp. I like to be outside. I like to ski.”

Ah, skiing.

“What do you like to do?” he asked.

“I don’t like to do anything at this particular moment, but I’ll try to think of something and tell you another time so I can make myself sound interesting.”

“You don’t like to do anything?”

I shook my head. “Not much. I work.”

“That’s not a good sign.”

“It’s a poor sign. People should like to do things.” I did not tell him that I think I would like to hophop into bed with him.

“Why don’t you like to do things?”

I used to like to do things. I liked to film, travel, meet new people, shop for ethnic food and ethnic clothes in whatever country I was in for my work. I liked to explore. I liked hanging out with my family, skiing the fast runs, and walking through the woods. That stopped after him.

“Have you ever felt like you’re wrapped in black?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that your life is wrapped in black. It’s heavy, it’s dark. You’re trying to find the one pinprick of bright light, but you can’t. That’s about where I am.” I stuck my hands in my sweatshirt pockets. I had no idea why I’d even said that to him. Why on earth had I told him, the giant, the neighbor, a man whose car I’d bashed,
that?
Why?

“Okay, you can drive now,” I told him. “Please do. Or I might yet again regale you about black and tiny lights.” I rested my head on my hands, then brought it back up. No need to look totally pathetic.

“Yes,” he said. “I do know what it’s like to have a life wrapped in black.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “And I know what it’s like to be searching for light in there, too.”

“Did you find it?”

“I did. Eventually.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

He wasn’t smiling now. His face was serious, contemplative. “I think it’s a good question. I can relate to people better when I know that at some point, or at many points, their life was wrapped in black. The black brings depth.”

“Yes, it does. Only I didn’t want quite this much depth.”

“Why are you wrapped in black now?”

“I think I’ll save that splendid story for another time.”

“I have time now.”

“No, not now.” No, never will I tell it. From you I want only a short and brief affair and then I’ll move on. No need to add a whole bunch of emotional entanglements that I can’t handle and you shouldn’t have to attempt to handle.

“Later?”

“Actually, no.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about it.”

We were silent together. The night wrapped all around the truck, soft and secretive, as the moon glowed.

“Maybe you’ll want to someday.”

“Nope. I won’t. Thanks for the ride.”

He took the hint. He drove to my tree house.

I opened the car door when we arrived, wanting to charge up the steps and hide inside by the trunk of my maple tree. He grabbed my hand, gently. I turned back.

I could tell he was going to say something, then changed his mind. “Don’t walk so late at night anymore, Meggie. It’s not safe.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Thank you. See you soon.”

See you soon?

I sucked in a breath, then turned and, none too gracefully, dumped myself out of the car.

I did not look back because I didn’t think I could handle staring at that handsome, tough and square-jawed, high-cheekboned face anymore.

I could crawl on that man’s lap and enjoy him for hours, but I could not handle any more problems in my life. I could certainly not handle a relationship. It wasn’t even fair to him to inflict myself on him. I was a mini tornado of emotions, out of control of my own self.

The moon lit the way to my tree house.

 

He found me hiding in the bathtub. I was under the boiling red water, hoping he wouldn’t discover me. He yanked me out, studied my wet nakedness, then lifted me up and wrapped my legs around his body. He kissed my neck, then moved lower to my nipples and back up again, biting me here and there.

When his lips reached my lips, a rat climbed out of his mouth and into mine and bit my throat. The blood flowed, and I tasted its hot violence. He laughed.

“I won’t let you go, Meggie,” he whispered, his mouth on my ear, caught between his teeth as he tried to bite through. “I can’t.”

I struggled to get away, but he held me tight, until I was inside of his body, trapped, invisible, even to myself. His body filled with smoke and blood, choking me, then a black feather floated down and that’s how I knew I was dead in the blood.

My own piercing scream woke me up. I struggled and fought, the comforter wrapped around me like a cocoon. I tried to run, couldn’t, tripped, and fell straight down. When I realized I had endured another ragged nightmare, that the black feather wasn’t there, I stumbled back to bed, panting, sweat dripping off my forehead.

I tasted blood and wiped my lip where I’d bitten down too hard. I used a Kleenex to stop the flow, then put one hand on my heart to slow its racing beat. I ran a hand down my body to make sure I was in one piece. I was losing it. Totally losing it.

Through the skylight I could see the moon, full, almost orange, the maple tree leaves floating in the shadows. I tried to still my breathing.

I sleep naked.

I didn’t used to, but I do now. I don’t even have pajamas anymore. They feel too tight, too restrictive. My nightmares squeeze me enough.

And I sleep alone, too.

Always alone.

 

I heard the knock on my door at six o’clock on Sunday night. I was wearing my ripped University of Oregon sweatshirt and blue sweatpants. I had on one pink sock and one red. I couldn’t find a matching pair. My horse-tail hair was wrapped in a messy bun on top of my head.

I peeped through the peephole and smiled. It was my fifteen-year-old nephew, Regan Donnelly. Regan, named, obviously, after Grandma, and Donnelly for his dad’s mother’s maiden name.

Regan is fifteen, six feet tall, and a total jock. He is an outstanding athlete. His green eyes are exactly the same shade as my mother’s and my grandma’s. It’s absolutely uncanny.

Regan’s a mess. His blond hair’s a mess, his clothes are a mess, and he usually wears mismatched socks. He’s disorganized and often seems confused. Lacey has said many times, with worry, that Regan is “not too smart. He has a light, but it doesn’t shine too bright.”

Yet somehow Regan can pull it together on the field. He’s always the starting quarterback. He always plays most of every basketball game. He hits home runs in baseball. It’s effortless. He loves sports, he loves his family, and he loves animals. Not in that order.

“Hi, Aunt Meggie. I want you to meet my lizard. His name is Mrs. Friendly.” Regan held up a lizard. I was nose to nose with it. It stuck out his tongue.

“His name is Mrs. Friendly? He’s a boy?” I opened the door, and he and the lizard came on in.

“Yes. I renamed him Mrs. Friendly.” He pushed his hair off his forehead. He was sweating, probably ran here from his house. He runs even when he doesn’t need to run.

“So why the Mrs.?”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. It’s confusing to me, too. A friend of mine is moving to Alaska and his parents say no lizard, so I took him. You’ll like him. I think you’ll be friends.”

I looked at the lizard. I didn’t think we’d be friends. “Want some cookies?”

“Yeah. That’d be good. I need to be fed. Today I’ve only had three bowls of cereal, four eggs, half a pizza, three oranges, and lasagna. I’m starving.” Regan settled down at my kitchen table, still holding the lizard. “Aunt Meggie, I’m glad you live here again.”

“Me too.”

“I missed you in my heart.” He pointed at the lower right side of his chest.

“I missed you, too, Regan.”

He got up and hugged me, Mrs. Friendly hanging in one of his hands. I tried not to touch Mrs. Friendly. Regan sniffled, then wiped his nose and tears on his sleeve.

“These are good cookies for my belly, Aunt Meggie.” His voice wobbled. He is so dear. “Did you make them?”

“Uh, no. You know I’m a terrible cook. Cassidy made them for me.”

“Yeah, you are.” He stopped, caught himself, eyes wide in alarm. “No, no. No. I’m sorry. You’re a
good
cook, and I have a problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

He sniffled, one more tear slipping out of his green eye. “Mom says no more pets since I already have . . . uh . . . I already have a couple.”

“Four cats, three dogs, two mice—except I heard that one escaped and you can’t find it—two hamsters, one hamster is missing, too—your mom told me that maybe it’s with the mouse—and a rabbit.”

“Uh, two rabbits, a gang of frogs, and also we have a bunch of tropical fish, too, but they don’t count because you can’t hug them.”

He said this in all seriousness. I did not laugh. “Only animals who are huggable count, then?”

“All animals count, but fish aren’t furry and can’t give love, so they’re different.” He straightened his shoulders and looked hopeful. “How about it, Aunt Meggie?”

“How about what?”

“I mean, I think Mrs. Friendly wants to live with you.” He held the lizard up so we were face-to-face again. “I think you’d like his company. He’s shy and kind and loving and friendly, and I think the tree house is the perfect home. There are a lot of leaves here he can look at, and I think he’ll like those white lights you have hanging from the ceiling. He’ll think they’re moons.”

Moons? Why would a lizard care about moons? I shook my head. “Hang on, you want me to have Mrs. Friendly?”

“Yes. It’s a gift. From me to you, Aunt Meggie.” He rolled his lips in. I could tell he was about to cry again. “A patient and smart lizard for you. Mom and I think you’ll like having Mrs. Friendly.”

“Does your mom even know you’re here?”

He squirmed. “I’ll tell her tonight, but I know that she thinks that you’ll uh, like, uh, like having Mrs. Friendly.” He choked out, “Please Aunt Meggie, I don’t want to give Mrs. Friendly up. He needs a home and I can’t have more pets and you’ll be a good mom to him. See, you can hug him and stroke him. He likes the attention.”

I stared at Mrs. Friendly’s nose. Or his snout. Or his pokey thing, whatever you call a nose on a lizard.

“See? He smiled at you! He smiled!” Regan declared, peering down at me through his messy blond hair, those mom-grandma eyes so devastated at the thought of giving up the lizard.

I sighed. I have a hard time saying no to my sister’s kids. “Okay, Regan. I’ll take Mrs. Friendly.”

“You will? Oh, great!” He practically tossed Mrs. Friendly at me. I caught him in semi-midair. “See? You’re already best friends! Thanks, Aunt Meggie! I’ll go get the cage. I left it on the ground.” His floppy feet thundered out before I could change my mind.

“You’re welcome,” I said to Mrs. Friendly, nose to nose.

He stuck his tongue out at me.

He didn’t seem that friendly.

5

O
ver the years, I made many different documentary films.

One of the films that seared my heart the most was about homeless kids in Portland. They told me why they left home, almost all bone-shaking stories that will make the hair on the back of your neck not only stand up but actually want to walk off your skin.

They told me what life on the street was like: cold. Hungry. Lonely. Dangerous. Preyed upon by criminals, pimps, addicts. Many were addicts themselves or seemed to be struggling with a mental illness. So many were able to articulate, pinpointing to the finest detail, their struggle. One girl compared it to being a whisper. “A bad whisper. No one wants to hear us. We’re invisible. We go away after the whisper is over.”

She had stringy hair and was smoking a cigarette. “I think that life is supposed to be more than me wondering if I should jump off the Marquam or the Fremont Bridge, and seriously debating with myself which one would be better.”

In the following years I filmed what life was like in a Haiti orphanage after the quake, profiling the kids but also the staff members, their hope and hopelessness, their despair and joy, their unrelenting struggles and their cherished goals for the children.

I filmed nuns in San Francisco helping the poor. Praying with the dying. Teaching school. Serving meals to the homeless. I interviewed them when the Vatican was critical of their work. The pope and the bishops told them, via a letter, that they needed to be inside more, praying, and should spend more time speaking out against gays and gay marriage.

I juxtaposed the nuns’ work against the extraordinary wealth of the Catholic Church, the opulence of the Vatican, the priceless art within it, the white pointy hats and red shoes.

“Jesus would be with the poor,” one nun said. “We’re to stay inside and pray more? Can we not pray as we’re counseling women in shelters? Can we not pray as we hold the hands of the sick? Can we not pray as we tend to the children from broken homes?”

Another nun said, “I have worked all my life for Jesus, to follow him and his teachings, am I now to stand up and rail against homosexuals and gay marriage? Jesus loved everyone. He says nothing about gays. I want to follow Jesus’s love. I want to stand for what he stands for: love, not hate, patience, and forgiveness. Where does the Bible say it is my place to judge?”

Another nun was blunt. “Are the pope and the bishops, with their pedophile priest scandal, in any position to moralize to nuns out in the trenches and tell them to rail against gays?”

Filming was my life. I took people’s journeys and lives and gave them a voice. My goal was always the same: connect people. Share what life is like for others. Inspire, encourage, emotionally move someone, change their way of thinking, their perceptions, maybe their prejudice.

And, most important, bring invisible people forward, invisible issues forward, to be visible.

If you could see what I see, I would often think when I was filming.

 

I heard my grandma’s heels—
tap, tap, tap
—before she strode into my office the next day.

She was in a sleek black dress, her white hair pulled back. The baubles for the day? Blue topazes. Striking against the black.

“I’ll do it, Meggie. Part of me thinks it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever thought of and the stupidest thing I’ll ever do, but the other part of me, probably the part that’s swimming in the dementia I don’t yet know I have, says that it’s time I talk about the rainbow, the leprechaun, and the owl.”

I stood up and hugged her. “Okay. I’ll bring my cameras in.”

“Good. Can’t give those up, though I still haven’t forgiven you for deserting me for that
other
career, and don’t you ever forget it.”

“I think the story of your life is important, Grandma.”

“Don’t give me that pseudo–psycho–ego-stroking crap. My story is no more important than anyone else’s. You’re going to film the other employees then, too?”

I nodded. “Yes. The ones who have been here the longest. I’m going to ask them about the bra they were wearing during an important moment in their life. I’ll put the stories up on the website. I think it will make our company more personal to our customers. They’ll feel like they know us, as we always try to know them.”

She fingered the blue topazes on her necklace. “People want pretty, people want the gloss and shine when one tells a story, but there’s none of that in my earlier years. It’s more like broken glass and splintered wood.”

I stood quietly as she dabbed at her eyes.

“I don’t need the gloss and shine. I’ll take the raw truth.” I put my arm around her shoulders, so sad that I’d made her sad. Maybe we shouldn’t do it. “It’ll be okay, Grandma.”

“Oh, shut up, Meggie.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “I know it’ll be okay. I was crying because you’re wearing a sloppy beige shirt and large, manly jeans and floppy tennis shoes. Tennis shoes! Strike me down now with a sledgehammer. How come you’re not wearing the clothes I bought you? Perfection—all of them.” She strode toward the door—
tap, tap, tap
. “The day you don’t look like a skinny garbage hauler will be a glorious day indeed.”

I laughed.

She doubled back and kissed both my cheeks. “I love you, Meggie.”

“You too, Grandma.”

Our tears mixed.

I had a feeling that she had a lot more to cry about than I did.

“By the way, I’m planning our first Bust Out and Shake It Adventure Club event. I’ll let you know about it soon.”

Ohhhh boy.

Her heels tapped on out.

Tap, tap, tap
.

 

“Hello, Meeegie!” Kalani grinned at me through my computer.

“Hello, Kalani, how are you?” It’s so automatic to ask “How are you?” in America. The automatic response, especially in a business transaction, is “fine.”

With Kalani, she took it literally. She always told me how she was down to the last detail.

“Oh me me me? I fine, I fine. No, not fine!” All of the sudden, her happy expression changed to anger. “My brother number two wife, she did another curse on me. I got gas now. I curse her, too. Nothing bad happen her. I think I need work on my curses. I need more, what you call? Black Magic. Ya. I need that. But I okay. I like my house! Every day I say, thank you God, I got my own house. I work for you, Meeegie. And your grandma, that good, old woman, that why I have house.

“You good woman, too, Meeegie. Okay, so I have women’s bleeding today, tummy hurt here. That a curse, too. So I say how I am. How you, Meeegie?”

“I’m fine, Kalani. I need to talk to you about the bras I received from you yesterday. The padding is . . .”

“Oh ya! The padding good.” She grabbed her boobs. I bent my head and rolled my eyes. “See! Even me small Asian woman, with that bra, I got the boobies! Big ones!”

“Kalani, I didn’t want that much padding. We talked about how much padding there should be—”

“Ya. I changed my mind, though.” Her smile reached ear to ear.

She changed
her
mind? “Kalani, I need you to change your mind back to what we discussed.”

Her face fell. “You no like bra I sent?”

I could be gentle, but I was stressed and under fire about our catalogue, Web site, products, and going right the heck out of business. “No, Kalani, I don’t. The padding is way too much. It’s like having another full boob over your boob. It looks completely unnatural. It doesn’t look good under a T-shirt. You might as well tell women to stick balled-up socks in their bras. No, I don’t like it. Why did you make it different when I specifically told you, down to the millimeter, what we needed? We talked about it, I e-mailed you, we discussed it.”

Kalani’s eyes started to swim in tears.

“Oh, damn,” I whispered. “Kalani, this isn’t personal. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“I know. I know. I sorry, Meeegie. I thought my idea a good one. More booby, more sales, you know?”

“Kalani, I always like your input.” No, I really didn’t. “I like your ideas.” No, I really didn’t. “You know a lot about designing bras.” Not enough, but okay. “But I already told people here about the bra that you and the women in your factory are making for us, using all your skills and talents, all your knowledge about lingerie . . .” Her expression lifted. “And they’re so excited.”

“They excite?” She wiped her tears.

“Yes.” Heaven help the teeny, tiny white lies I tell sometimes to save someone’s feelings. “People are excited about this new bra.”

“Excite good, that good.” She smiled.

“You’re right. Excite good. If you could stick to the measurements that you and I, Kalani, did together, then that would be perfect.”

She sighed. “You know, you right, Meeegie. I stick to measure. I do again.”

I felt my shoulders slump with relief. “Thank you, Kalani.”

“No, I thank you, Meeegie!” Up came the smile. “I do right this time. I don’t think I do the sexy thing with my boyfriend this weekend. I think next weekend. This weekend I got the cramps, no fun, you know what I mean, Meeegie? Sexy thing better when you don’t have the women’s curses in the ya ya place.”

“You’re right, Kalani. You’re right about the ya ya place.”

“I do the pads good now! Bye-bye, Meeegie. I love you, seeester!”

“Love you, too.”

 

“Hayden says he’s a girl.” Lacey ran her hands through her red curls, then briefly put her head down on my desk. She had shadows under her coffee-colored eyes.

Hayden says he’s a girl?
“What?” I dropped the cracker in my hand. Lacey and I were spreading guacamole on crackers, then dipping them in salsa. I was chasing it down with my morning beer. Breakfast.

“He says he’s a girl.”

“I don’t understand. Is he joking?”

Lacey’s hands shook and her voice plunged down to a whisper. “Remember how Hayden always wanted to wear fancy dresses and skirts when he was a little boy, starting before he was two?”

“Yes.”

“And remember that pink bike that he wanted with the white flowered basket?”

“Yes.”

“And remember how he loved playing dolls and thought Cassidy’s dollhouse was the coolest thing ever? How he’s always liked makeup and nail polish?”

“Yes.”

“And remember how he kept trying to sit on the toilet as a little boy, even though Matt told him that men pee standing up and how he cried and refused to do it?”

I nodded.

“He says that he’s not a boy”—her voice cracked—“he’s a girl.”

I thought of Hayden, sweet Hayden. I loved that kid. Funny, witty, gently effeminate. Loves clothes and style. Artsy. An actor in school plays. “I thought he was gay,” I said.

“Me too,” my sister said, the tears falling. “You and I have always thought that. Remember when he was three and he came out all dressed up in pink with Cassidy’s pink parasol and that hat with red roses? You looked at me and said, ‘I hope you like his partner.’ And I agreed. But Hayden says he’s a girl in his head and in his heart. He does like guys. Does that make him gay if he thinks he’s a girl?”

I leaned back in my chair. “I don’t know if it makes him gay. Maybe it makes him straight. He believes he’s a girl and he likes guys. I’m so confused. This is too much. How is he doing?”

“He says he’s known for years.” She put a protective hand on her stomach. “I remember him telling me when he was so young that he wanted to be a girl many times. He just sobbed when he was in boy clothes. He told me when he was three that he didn’t like his penis, that it was ‘wrong.’ That was his word for it, ‘wrong.’ He hit it, like he wanted it off. One time I caught him with scissors. He was going to cut it off.” Lacey and I both shuddered.

“I remember fighting with him in first grade when I told him he wasn’t allowed to wear dresses anymore. I let him in kindergarten, because the kids all dress strange then, but I didn’t want the kids at school to tease him. He insisted on pink socks. The kids teased him, but he kept wearing his pink socks.”

I remembered how brutal that teasing was on Hayden. He refused to change, though. He was true to himself. “When did he tell you this?”

She bent her head, and I held her shaking hand. “On Monday. The reason he told me is because he says he keeps thinking about . . . thinking about . . .” She started gasping. “He says he’s desperate and thinking of kill-kill-killing himself.”

“Oh, my God.” My entire body felt like it was filling with sharp chards of ice.

“He says he’s so depressed and it’s been like this for years. He said, ‘Mom, can you at least try to understand this? I feel like a freak. I’ve got a penis and I know I’m a girl. I don’t have boobs, but I have balls. I am so screwed up. Please, Mom, you have to help me. Please help me. I don’t want to die, but I can’t live like this.’ Then he said . . .” Lacey tried to get a deep, ragged breath in and couldn’t. “He said, ‘Mom I can’t be a boy anymore. I have to be me. A girl.’ ”

“And you said?” My hands were shaking. Oh, Hayden, don’t even think about it.

“I had to get over the shock first. I felt like I’d been hit in the face, but I was looking at my son, my son crying, and I said I would help him, of course I would. He said he’s transgender.
Transgender.
I’ve been blind, Meggie. I thought he was gay. I didn’t want to see the truth, didn’t want to deal with it. He knew it, too. He knew his mother didn’t want to deal with it, that’s why he didn’t talk about the transgender part with me. What kind of mother am I? By being deliberately blind I’ve let my kid hang himself out there all alone. If I’d opened my eyes to the obvious, been a better mother, I could have talked to him about it, been there for him, supported him.”

“Lacey, you’ve been a great mom . . .”

“I’ve never been a great mom,” she wailed. “I’m exhausted all the time. I yell at the kids. I work too much. I’m a blind, in-denial mother whose son can’t talk with her about being transgender, so he’s completely alone and wanting to die!”