Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) (34 page)

I went inside, and miraculously, there was a small amount of urine in the cup, a few tablespoons, perhaps. I helped him pull up his pants, then carried the sacred specimen to the lab technician.

“Please tell me this is enough,” I begged. “We’ll be here till midnight.”

She smiled and looked at it skeptically. Then, “I think it will do,” she said. “Have a nice afternoon, Mrs. Long.”

“Can I have my ice cream?” Tyler asked as we walked to the car.

“Indeed you may, the minute we get home. Thank you, Tyler. That was a big help.”

I had barely pried Patricia away from her play with a neighbor and walked back in our house when the phone rang and I answered. It was the pediatric office.

“Mrs. Long, the doctor wants to know if you could bring Tyler right back? His urine specimen was a little unusual, and he’d like to talk with you.”

I felt the blood draining from my face, my chest tightening. “W-What does he suspect?” I asked, barely audible.

“I think he just has some questions, but he wants to see both you and Tyler. Could you come?”

“All right,” I said. “We’ll be right there.”

I let Tyler eat his ice-cream bar on the way, Patricia assigned the job of wiping his hands and face when he had finished. I tried to drive extra carefully because I knew my mind wasn’t completely engaged in what I was doing. What could a urine specimen show? I thought of my mother. Leukemia? Sepsis? Kidney failure?

“Why do we have to go back?” Tyler complained when we parked.

“Honey, the doctor forgot something and he wants to see you again,” I said. “I’m sorry. Patricia, do you want to bring your book with you?” Reluctantly, the children followed me inside.

In the doctor’s office Tyler sensed my worry.

“Why does the doctor have to see me? Do I have to pee again?” he asked.

“You might.”

“Is he mad?”

“Mad at you? Of course not. Why would he be mad?” I asked, putting one arm around my little boy, who might have only a few more years to live.

“Mommy . . .” Tyler looked up at me. “I ax-i-dentally got some spit in it,” he said.

I stared down at him. As gently as possible, I said, “You spit in the cup?” I could imagine it now. A little boy impatient to get home, figuring that one body fluid was as good as another.

The doctor stepped into the waiting room, and I realized we were the last patients of the day.

“Dr. Freeman, he spit in it,” I said. “He just told me.”

The doctor stared at Tyler, who had his head buried against my arm, and suddenly he began to laugh. “That explains everything,” he said. “There were things in that urine that never should be, but I’ll give Tyler an A plus for creativity.”

Dinner was late and no one cared, Patrick as relieved as I was. It seemed like such a small thing to happen now that we knew Tyler had been spared the unimaginable, whatever that might have been, but that I had imagined anyway.

*  *  *

A week later we took the children to Cumberland Falls, first to hike in the woods, then wade and splash and climb over the rocks at the base of the falls.

On the long drive home again in clean clothes, their bodies dry, their tummies full of the picnic lunch we’d had afterward, Patricia softly began a song she’d learned in summer camp. I stole a glimpse of her over my shoulder, reclining there in her corner of the backseat, eyes half closed, her voice hitting every high note. And Tyler, occasionally recognizing a tune, would sometimes sleepily join in.

Patrick and I exchanged smiles.
What I would give to bottle this moment forever,
I thought, if only to celebrate the fact that
my children-of-a-tone-deaf-mother could, miraculously, sing. And how that pleased their grandfather, who was already giving Patricia piano lessons.

Maybe this day would be even more precious than the day at the orchard, I thought. But then, what about Tyler’s performance at the day-care center he occasionally attended—the boys dressed up as bees, the girls as flowers? As they’d lined up to recite the bee poem for their parents, Tyler had seen us in the audience and stood there smiling his shy, delighted little smile, waving one small hand slowly in front of him, oblivious of his classmates reciting in chorus.

There were so many of these moments that could never be captured accurately, even on the camcorder, only in the heart.

*  *  *

As much as I loved my children and enjoyed being with them, I also felt torn when I saw other people getting on with their careers, and then I doubted both my ability to advance in my profession and my sincerity as a mother. How could there be any question which was more important?

Sometimes I thought of Pamela and wondered if she had any problems balancing the various facets of her life. She was advancing in her job and seemed to have plenty of time for her friends. Her dad had remarried, and that was going well. Still, with a mom like Pamela’s, even with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, there were worries I probably knew nothing about.

As for Gwen, Charlie had moved to Baltimore and found a place for them to live. And Gwen got married without any of
her friends present. She told us about it later. Her grandmother, now a centenarian, was in kidney failure, and the one thing she had wanted was to see her granddaughter married.

So on a Sunday that Gwen had off, close relatives had gathered in the Wheeler home. Granny had been wheeled into the living room and carried to a recliner. And Gwen, in a white, filmy, floor-length dress and a bridal veil that her grandmother had worn, said her vows in front of the fireplace with Charlie, who, Gwen said, recited his with tears in his eyes, never letting go of her hands.

“We took pictures,” Gwen said, and then they had a good old Southern dinner that Granny would have loved if she could have eaten it. But she sat there enjoying the people and the music until she fell asleep. “I’m so glad she lived to see me married, because she died the following week.”

That’s Gwen. She has no trouble figuring out
her
priorities. A month later her parents gave a reception for her and Charlie so they could celebrate with friends. About a hundred invitations went out to come celebrate with the Wheelers at the Cosmos Club in DC, where Mrs. Wheeler was a member.

We all came bearing gifts to make up for the shower Gwen never had, the bachelorette party that never was, the church wedding that wasn’t there. And for a woman who had been in medical school practically all her life, it seemed, Gwen sure remembered how to dance.

She had the most shapely legs of the four of us, and in the white filmy dress with the swishy skirt she’d worn for her
vows, she whirled and swiveled like a college freshman as we applauded and cheered from the sidelines.

Charlie, only an inch or two taller than Gwen, was almost a one-man show in himself. He had taught ballroom dancing at an Arthur Murray studio part-time to put himself through college and grad school, and he outdid Gwen in the rumba. But it was when they did the tango that we knew Gwen hadn’t spent
all
her nights in medical school studying.

They flew off to Hawaii for a five-day honeymoon, and Liz, Pam, and I helped the Wheelers take all the gifts back to their house and do whatever else her would-be bridesmaids might have done to be helpful.

“Three down, one to go,” we told Pamela.

“It’ll never happen,” she said.

*  *  *

Patrick, too, was advancing. He’d been offered a position in a nonprofit branch of IBM. He would be based in Bethesda, only a short distance away, but there would be more travel involved. No matter where he worked, it seemed as though he was bound for a promotion every year. That was Patrick.

We talked about the job offer before he decided. I loved living in my old area—only twenty minutes from Dad and Sylvia, a couple hours away from Les and Stacy. We weren’t far from Liz and Moe or Gwen and Charlie, and I could see Val and Abby when they came back to visit in Maryland. I was grateful that Patrick had taken a job here to begin with and had known in my heart of hearts that it might not last forever.

But if Patrick accepted this new job offer, there was the possibility that he would be transferred later on, and how could I give up this house I loved? In any case, there would be more travel, and he might be gone one week out of every four. How would I feel about that? How would he? And how would it affect the children?

I played it over and over in my mind. I knew that Patrick could have had at least two other jobs when he joined the Washington think tank before we married. A man with his scholarship and linguistic abilities could almost write his own ticket, but he had taken a job near my hometown because he knew it meant a lot to me, especially once we had children. To be away so much, though?

“How much do you really want this job, Patrick?” I asked. “On a scale of one to ten?”

“Eleven,” he said. “But I would do everything in my power to be home for the big occasions and to make my time home count.”

“Then take it,” I said. And he did.

*  *  *

I’d lie in bed sometimes in the mornings when Patrick had an early meeting, watching him loop his tie in front of the mirror. The same slim body I’d always known, the orange hair. I knew his profile as well as I knew every little mole on his body.

I’d smile to myself, thinking how this was the same Patrick who used to hold my hand as we walked around the block on a summer evening back in sixth and seventh grades. Who
French-kissed me once in a school broom closet. And here he was in our bedroom, the father of my children. He didn’t play the drums anymore—he’d sold them after college—but he still liked to run, and that’s how he stayed slim.

After having two children, I wasn’t as slim. On my thirtieth birthday I weighed twelve pounds more than I had when we married, but I think I still looked pretty good. I had a great haircut, kept my makeup fresh, my clothes in good shape.

In the years I was home with the children, there was no end to all the things I wanted to do with them before they started school, and one of the things was a visit to the fantastic new elephant enclosure at the National Zoo, with woods and ponds and acres to roam.

Liz had come along with her three girls, and we’d managed to visit the animal each child specifically wanted to see—the giraffes, the tigers, the monkeys—while Liz and I felt closer to the maternal elephants, patiently herding their young.

We had come to the end of the spectators’ walkway, and were getting ready to leave for home when I caught sight of a woman staring at me. After turning away self-consciously, I glanced back again and saw her mouth, which had turned down slightly at the corners, stretching into a smile. She looked to be a sturdy thirtysomething in a National Zoo uniform.

I stopped fussing with Tyler’s backpack and straightened, returning her smile. Something familiar . . .

“Rosalind!” I cried as she came toward me, and we hugged.

When I backed away from her and noticed the “Elephant Trails” pin on her shirt, I grasped her arms.

“You did it!” I cried.

“Yep. Not only do I get to work in an elephant house, but I’m part of the planning for raising herds of Asian elephants here in DC.”

“It’s beautiful,” put in Liz, and I introduced them.

“Rosalind Rodriquez is an old friend from long ago,” I said. “I’m surprised we even recognized each other. I knew her back in grade school.”

“And these are your kids?” Rosalind asked, grinning at Patricia and Tyler.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m married to my elephants, I guess. Right now I’m starting my shift, but e-mail me here at the zoo. We’ll catch up.”

“Of course I will. It was
so good
to see you, Roz.”

“You too. Take care,” she said, and disappeared behind an Employees Only door.

All the way home I entertained the children with tales of Rosalind—all the trouble she got into when she came over.

“She really buried you in a snow cave once?” Tyler asked.

“I guess we could call it ‘accidentally on purpose,’ ” I told him, “but it didn’t keep me from missing her after we‘d moved. Wow! The Elephant House! Good for Rosalind!”

I wasn’t the first mother to discover that everything I’d ever planned ended up taking twice the time I’d expected, of course. But I also had a “bucket list” of things I hoped to accomplish
when the kids were down for their naps: a scrapbook for each child’s primary years; a quilt I had started some time ago; all twenty of the novels on my list, beginning with Dostoyevsky and including D. H. Lawrence and Philip Roth. I wanted to keep up with my professional journals and possibly take a yoga class. . . .

Just remember that the children come first,
I’d tell myself every so often, and not always successfully.
D. H. Lawrence will always be waiting, but you might get only one chance to look at the spider-web Tyler found.

*  *  *

With Patrick’s new job, however, there were more trips overseas, and though he kept his promise and tried to be home for major events, there were so many times—just ordinary times—that I wanted him to be there to hold me, stroke me, talk to me, make love to me. But he wasn’t.

“Sweetheart, you know I want to be here with you as much as you want me to,” he said once as he packed for a trip to Montreal.

“Do you?” I asked. “You fly all around the world, Patrick, and meet fascinating people, and then you come home to meat loaf and car repairs and fixing Tyler’s bike.”

“Sometimes that’s the best kind of life to come back to,” he said, and leaned over the bed to kiss me before he left.

I knew what he meant—a refuge, a place to be himself—but I didn’t want him to see us as dull. Me, in particular. And if I dug even deeper than that, I worried he might find one of his business
associates more interesting and attractive.
“It’s forever, Alice,”
he had whispered on our wedding day. But don’t most couples believe that when they marry? Don’t they all think that the way they feel about each other then is the way they’ll feel forever?

It was a combination, I guess, of facing my early thirties and seeing a photo of the nonprofit group Patrick was working with—seven men and two women. Attractive women, beautifully dressed.