Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) (35 page)

“Patrick,” I asked him once, “How would you rate me on a scale of one to ten?” We were in bed together and had made love.

I could tell by his voice that he was smiling. “In what department?” he asked, lazily stroking my breasts.

“Uh . . . desirability,” I said.

“Hmmm. Eleven?”

“Be serious.”

“Because?”

“Because I really want to know. You meet exciting, worldly women in gorgeous clothes, and then you come home to me in jeans and a sweatshirt. You’re away a lot, you know.”

“But you always look great in your jeans and sweatshirts,” he said. “Besides, with Tyler in day care, you’re a pretty girl alone all day, and the men
you
meet must find that awfully appealing.” He gave me a playful shake.

I traced one finger down his cheek and around his ear. “I’m not a girl anymore, Patrick.”

“I like you just the way you are,” he said, and we went to sleep after that, but it didn’t really answer my question.

Once Patricia was in first grade, we discussed enrolling Tyler in preschool and my going back to work. While our daughter was a full-steam-ahead kind of child—build it, play it, ride it, float it—Tyler’s head was in the clouds, and his imagination was most active when he was quiet.

He was shy around other children, and while we were ready to accept him as the little introvert of the family, we also felt that being with other children more might make kindergarten a bit easier for him.

At the same time, I longed for adult conversation—about students, not sandwiches—and didn’t want to lose the edge in my professional life. So we decided I would return to work full-time, and each morning either Patrick or I would first drop
Patricia Marie off at her elementary school, where there was a before- and an after-school program for children of parents who worked. Then we would drive Tyler to his preschool class at the Y.

One morning Patricia, true to form, decided she didn’t want to go to the before-school program. Never mind that only two days before, she had loved it.

“It’s borrr-ing!” she said, folding her arms across her chest, refusing to get out of the car.

Seeing his sister object, Tyler became weepy and clingy. “I don’t like it either,” he said of his own preschool.

I tried the objective approach. “That may be true sometimes, but the other day you told me about all the fun you were having. There are games and snacks and stories and—”

“The crackers are awful!” Patricia said, her lower lip jutting out. “They taste like paste.”

“Well, whether you’re bored or not, I’m afraid you two will have to do the best you can,” I said. “Both your dad and I work, and I have to get to my job early.”

Patricia got out of the car then, scowling, and Tyler was sniffling when we got to the Y.

“It’s not fair!” he said. “You don’t
have
to work, Mommy! You didn’t used to. You used to stay home with me.”

That night after the children were in bed, I said to Patrick, “Why is it that everything I do for myself makes me feel guilty? You go off each morning to work you love, but when
I
try it, I get a ton of guilt.”

“Because you’re their mom, that’s why,” Patrick said affectionately.

“Well, I want somebody else to be Mom for a change.
I
want to go to exotic places and meet fascinating people.
I
want to fly around the world without feeling guilty.”

“I could probably ask to be demoted to maintenance supervisor, and you could apply for an exchange counselor position for a year,” he said, not at all helpful.

“You know what I mean, Patrick,” I said sulkily. “I’m tired of feeling guilty.”

“Then don’t,” he said. “Listen, Alice, you stayed home with the kids for six years when they were small, and you were a good mom then. You’ll be an even better mom if you do something for yourself now. If you don’t, you can be sure Patricia will call you on it when she’s a teenager and ask why you sacrificed your own dreams.”

I smiled at him. “Exactly what I wanted to hear,” I said. “What made you think of that?”

“I just didn’t want to have to apply for maintenance supervisor,” he told me.

*  *  *

Aunt Sally died that winter. Carol had called to say that her mother had had a massive stroke and was in intensive care. Dad and I were making arrangements to fly to Chicago when Carol called again to say that Aunt Sally was dead.

Next to Sylvia, I guess Aunt Sally was as close to a mother to me as anyone, because I have only a few memories of my own
mom. And even the few I have get mixed up now and then with memories of Sally.

Patrick was in San Francisco, so Sylvia said she would come over and take care of the children, and Dad and I flew out together. Les and Stacy would meet us there.

“It’s too bad it takes a funeral for you and me to find some time just to be alone together,” Dad said as the seat belt light came on and we prepared for takeoff. “How are things going, honey?”

“Busy,” I told him, and related all the things we were doing. “Patrick’s promised us a trip to Quebec this summer. He says he’s always looking for places the family might enjoy when he travels on business.”

“Now, that sounds wonderful! Sylvia and I are talking about Florence and Venice. She’s always wanted to see Florence again, and we might even get to Rome while we’re at it.”

“Oh, Dad, I’m so happy for you!” I said. “She’s made such a difference in your life, hasn’t she?” Dad beamed, and remembering Sylvia’s old flame, I got up the nerve to ask, “Does anyone know what became of Jim Sorringer?”

“He married,” Dad told me.

“The P.E. teacher he was dating after you married Sylvia?”

“No. He went back to California, took a position there, and married the woman he’d met while he was working on his Ph.D.”

“A woman he’d been seeing all the while he was supposed to be serious about Sylvia, I’ll bet,” I said.

“Now, honey, we don’t know that,” said Dad, and laughed.

*  *  *

Uncle Milt just wandered around like a lost soul. I guess Aunt Sally was so good at directing other people’s lives that she had also directed his all these years. Carol stayed right by his side through the funeral and made arrangements with neighbors to look in on him every day with an occasional roast chicken or some homemade bread, but we could see it was going to be hard for him.

We all went out to dinner the following evening, and Dad and Les and Stacy took Milt on a shopping trip the day after that to buy him some clothes he needed and restock his refrigerator. Carol and I sorted through Aunt Sally’s things—the personal stuff that Uncle Milt didn’t feel he could handle—her clothes and jewelry, all the things in her closets and drawers.

She had already, we discovered, put Carol’s name on a few things she wanted her daughter to have. But I was surprised to find a small flat box in a bottom drawer with my name on it as well as Carol’s. We opened it up.

“What
are
they?” Carol wondered, looking at the strange assortment of plastic Baggies filled with bits and pieces. Each Baggie in turn had a label with either the name
MARIE
or
SALLY
on it.

“Baby teeth!” I exclaimed, looking at them more closely. “These must be my mother’s baby teeth. And the others are Sally’s.”

“And infant bracelets . . . the kind they put on newborns,” Carol said.

There were Baggies with locks of hair in them, dime-store photos of both sisters together when they were little, teething rings, hair ribbons . . . all the things my grandmother hadn’t been able to part with as her daughters got older.

Carol cried softly, fingering her mother’s baby teeth, and we hugged. Carol had told me she’d decided not to have children, and I wasn’t sure just what she was feeling at that moment: grief over losing her mother; the fact that she would have no baby teeth of her own children to treasure; or the thought that someday relatives would be looking through her own things, sorting them out, discarding some of her keepsakes.

I carefully wrapped up the relics of my mother and put them in my suitcase.

“Thanks for coming, Alice,” Carol said when it was time for Dad and me to leave. “You were part of the one bright spot in this whole weekend. I’m glad I could share it with you.”

*  *  *

In the next few years, as our own lives became even busier, I tried hard to pay more attention to my dad. Most of the time he was his usual sweet self, but as he aged, he became grumpier, easily irritated over small things that wouldn’t have bothered him before. He often complained he didn’t see enough of his grandchildren, and sometimes I would just pack overnight bags for the kids and let them stay at the old house for the whole weekend. Dad and Sylvia were glad to have them, and it made a nice holiday for Patrick and me. Tyler was still very much a “grandpa’s boy” and loved to cuddle up to my father, but
Patricia was already beginning to pronounce even these events “borrr-ing.”

Does every mother, I wonder, reach a point with her children when she wishes they would grow backward? When Patricia Marie was a baby, we eagerly awaited her first steps. We encouraged her to drink from a straw and brush her own teeth and go down the slide alone.

And then . . . You miss that chortle of delight when the juice comes up the straw the first time. You miss that baby voice singing the alphabet song in the dark.

I didn’t think Tyler would ever be potty trained and wished him to grow up faster. Now I missed the way his small hand used to rest on mine as we read his evening storybook. I missed the feel of his head resting against my shoulder there on the couch.

You blink your eyes, and suddenly your children have teeth too big for their faces. The baby shoes are replaced by smelly sneakers left just inside the front door.
Come back!
you want to call to the little boy of yesterday, at the same time you’re thinking,
Grow up!
of the girl who just angrily slammed the door of her room.

“Enjoy every minute,” Patrick and I always reminded each other. And we really tried.

Now, however, in addition to Patrick’s travels and my counseling, Tyler’s playdates and Patricia’s soccer, there were piano lessons, nature club meetings, and karate classes; there were PTA and parent conferences; there were faculty meetings and
dental appointments, birthday parties and sleepovers. It seemed sometimes that even when Patrick was home, one of us was always off chauffeuring the kids somewhere.

“Hello. Have we met?” Patrick joked one evening as we passed in the front hall. I had eaten early and was preparing to drive Patricia to a play rehearsal, and he was just getting back from a soccer game with Tyler.

I smiled ruefully. “How about a date Friday night?”

“I’ll probably be too tired,” he said. “Saturday?”

“I’ll put it on the calendar,” I laughed.

I got in the car with Patricia Marie. She zipped up her white Windbreaker and fastened her seat belt. Then she turned in my direction and studied me with her green, green eyes.

“Does that mean you’re going to have sex?” she asked.

“W-What?” I said, swallowing quickly.

“Sex. You know.” She rolled her eyes. “Sexual
intercourse
, Mom! Is that what you and Dad do on a date?”

I suddenly saw myself at that age, badgering Dad about his love life. “Sometimes,” I answered. “And sometimes we just watch a video and make popcorn, or listen to music and talk.” I couldn’t help smiling. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

Patricia wrinkled her nose. “It sounds pretty gross,” she said. “When I’m married, can I just watch the video and eat popcorn
without
having sexual intercourse?”

This time I couldn’t help laughing. “Of course,” I said. “But don’t be surprised if you change your mind.”

*  *  *

Phil Kirby was the reading teacher for our school, and his office was next to mine. We shared the same copier and supply cupboard and, in general, kept tabs on each other’s lives.

When I was having a bad day and work piled up, Phil would say, “Here. Let me copy those off for you,” if he saw me heading for the copying machine. And when I knew he had back-to-back sessions that ran into his lunch hour, I’d sometimes bring him a sandwich from the cafeteria.

He was a tall man, like Patrick, but more muscular—he’d played football in college—and he also had a gentle take-charge manner that made you feel like whatever problem you might have, he could solve it. He used the most marvelous aftershave, and he was a spelunker—he liked to explore West Virginia caves with a local club, rappelling into dark holes, not knowing what was down there, and this sounded enormously scary and exciting to me.

More than that, however, I could tell that he was attracted to me. I knew by the way his hand would linger casually on my shoulder or by the quick neck rub he would give me when he knew I was tense—that if I gave him the slightest encouragement, we could have an affair.

And I have to admit his flirtations were flattering. I didn’t encourage him, but I didn’t discourage him, either. He made me feel interesting and alive. Not that my husband didn’t, but Patrick was away so often, and more and more of our spare time
was spent hauling the kids from one activity to the next. I wasn’t thinking of giving in to temptation, but . . . it was another fine line to walk—another balancing act—between enjoying Phil’s attentions as a coworker and leading him on. It was a heady time, actually. I felt loved at home, desired at work, appreciated by the other counselors, and liked by the students. Patrick and I were thirty-five, Patricia was nine, Tyler six and a half, and life was good.

Patricia, in fact, reminded me of myself when I was her age—Patricia and all her questions.

“Mom,” she asked me once, sitting at the table eating a biscuit and jelly and swinging her legs, “what’s a vibrator?”

I was at the counter making a barbecue sauce for spareribs, and I paused, blinking.
Stay calm,
I told myself.
She may have something entirely different in mind.

“Well,” I said, “there are different kinds. Rocking chairs sometimes have them. Mattresses . . .”