The Practical Navigator (27 page)

“You still there?”

“Michael?”

“Yes?”

“Would you change him? Would you change him if you could?”

He finds himself nodding into the phone. “Yes,” he says. “But I can't. And if I could, would it still be him?”

“Michael?”

“Yes.”

“I love the way you love our son.”

She hangs up so softly it's a moment before he realizes she's gone.

*   *   *

“I'm pregnant,” she tells him.

They are in the living room. He has just arrived home, filthy and exhausted from work, to find her sitting on the couch, a blanket around her as if cold, staring into space. The look on her face suggests terminal cancer not impending motherhood. She has never wanted children, has told him so more than once.

“I said, I'm pregnant, Michael.”

“I know. I mean … did you stop taking something?” He doesn't know what birth control method she uses. He
should
but doesn't. He just
assumes
. This has never happened before, not even so much as a scare.

“I don't take anything,” Anita says. “I never have.”

They are in their twenties. They are mad for each other. They make love as much as they eat, breathe, and drink water. It seems impossible.

“Why now then?”

“I don't know,” she moans. “I didn't think I could.”

“Wow,” he says. Thinking it but not saying it—
divine intervention
.

“Yeah.
Wow.
” Nothing heavenly or divine about it.

Michael realizes he's still standing and he sits down on the couch. Close to her but careful not to look at her until he can judge the place she's in. It's harder than ever to do these days. It's like loving someone who alternates between two seasons. You adore the spring with its light and warmth. You're not so much afraid as you are sad for the winter with its darkness and frozen silence. It was easier when they were traveling. Her with not so much time to think, him with not so much time to notice. Coming back to the day-to-day existence of one place, the part-time college classes, working for an antiques dealer friend of her mother's to stay busy, has created an inertia in her. She gets lost in unexplainable places, places he can't go with her to and doesn't understand. It makes him ache for her.

“Nothing. Not you. Not your fault,” she'll say. “Now go away.” Or even, “Just leave me the fuck alone!”

But then the veil suddenly lifting. To come home and find her humming to herself, glowing and happy, eyes bright with humor and intelligence, arms and bed welcoming. It's the equivalent, his mother would say, of the kettle being on.

“What would you do without me?” she'll say to him as if confident he'd be lost.

“Which you we talking about?” he'll respond, teasing her back.

“This one, definitely.”

Both of them knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this one is the real one, both of them hoping against hope that this one will stay awhile.

“You're happy about it, aren't you,” she says now, looking at him. “You want this baby.”

“I think it could be a good thing,” he says carefully.

“Oh, God, Michael.”

“I know.”

“I don't think I can.”

“I know.”

“I barely hold it together as it is.”

“You do fine,” Michael says. “You do just great.” Turning and reaching for her as she comes into his arms in a rush, beginning to cry now.

“I am so afraid of being pinned down,” she says.

“Do I do that?” he asks.

“No. But a baby…”

“Would be beautiful like her mom,” he says.

“Her?”

“I don't know why I said that.”

“You want somebody to take care of you in your old age.”

“Don't we all? You're smiling.”

“No, I'm not,” she says. “Stop making me.”

“Since when can anyone make you do anything?”

“You can. You're the only one.”

“I won't, Anita.”

“Won't what?” she asks.

“Make you do anything you don't want to do.”

“But you want to, don't you.”

“Yes,” he whispers. “And I'm not trying to talk you into anything but I think we should get married.”

“Oh, God.” A deep sigh. Holding her, he feels it course through her entire body. “Okay,” she finally says. “In for an inch, in for a mile.” Making both distances sound like a marathon. “Just remember one thing, Michael.”

“What's that?” he asks.

“This isn't a fairy tale.”

“So warned.”

Not remotely understanding what it meant.

 

Carefully planning a route and using various methods to monitor the ship's position as the trip proceeds are fundamental to safe navigation and are the marks of a navigator. When the situation demands more resources than are immediately available to the navigator, a dangerous condition exists. In maritime law the responsibility of the navigator for his ship is paramount no matter what its condition. The navigator's chief responsibility is the safety of the vessel and its crew.

 

43

For as long as Michael has known him, Leo has lived in a modest, Cape Cod–style guest cottage, high on a bluff above the beach in Del Mar. It is the smallest in a compound of four secluded houses and Leo provides his landlord, the elderly matron in the big main house, with yard and maintenance service, from painting to plumbing to pruning, and in return is charged a well-below-market rent. He is the first to admit he lives far beyond his means. It's not just the cottage's small stone fireplace or the shaded sitting area of wood posts and vined, sturdy, open lattice he's built just off the back door, where Michael sits waiting for him. The kitchen has an old Crown stove from the early eighties with four gas burners and two ovens and Leo prizes it more than the view.

A door closes behind him and Michael glances back to see Donald Duck approaching on a background of purple and red plaid. The baggy boxer shorts, along with a huge white T-shirt, are Leo's sleeping attire. He's carrying two big mugs of coffee. Leo grinds his own estate-grown beans, uses water poured through a charcoal-carbon filter, and steams the milk.

“No sugar, right?”

“No sugar,” says Michael, knowing that Leo considers spooning sugar into good coffee an insult to the coffee.

“All right then.”

Leo hands Michael a mug and sits. Michael sips. He notices now there is a huge, circular purple welt on the back of Leo's calf.

“Nice. What happened?”

“Spider bite,” says Leo, casually. “Brown recluse. Got up my pants. He won the battle, I won the war.”

“Step on'm?”

Leo laughs. “Sat on'm.”

Reaching into his pocket, Michael takes out an envelope and places it on the small table between them.

“What's that?”

“An extra two hundred.”

“Only if you can afford it.”

“I wouldn't give it to you if I couldn't.”

“'Cause you know I'm gonna pay you back.”

“I know.”

Leo is suddenly blinking tears and Michael looks away, not embarrassed for him but wanting to give him his privacy.

“It's crazy, Mike. It's really crazy.”

“I know.”

“I mean, it's not like Denise needs alimony. Her husband sells insurance, he prints money. But I don't pay up, I don't get to see the girls, so…”

“You don't have to explain a thing.”

“Yeah, well…”

“I'll tell you one thing though.”

“What's that?”

“You must have really pissed her off.”

It's an old joke and they laugh. Michael knowing that Leo's ex, Denise, was an impossible woman, status conscious and demanding, wanting much more out of life than Leo could ever provide. That two months pregnant, she met, ensnared, and married the hapless Leo and that Leo gave not just his name to the twin girls but with them formed a mutual adoration society that very much excluded their mother. Which, yes, pissed her off so completely she packed her bags and girls and left, citing emotional cruelty. The girls still doting on Leo and he on them. Certainly worth any amount of money.

They've grown quiet.

“So what really brings you here on a Sunday morning, Mike? Not my problems, I hope.”

“Anita's dad offered me a job, Leo. Supervising a development up near Oceanside. Hundred and fifty units.”

Leo just about jumps out of his chair. “Whoa! This is fantastic. When do we start?”

“No we, Leo. Just me.”

Arrrooo!
Just over the bluff, a train, horn sounding, flies by on the tracks that are between the houses and the cliffs. It's a pain-in-the-ass sound, Leo has said, but one that you get used to, even begin to enjoy after a while. Certainly one you miss when it's gone.

“I haven't said yes yet but—”

“Take it.”

“I'm just thinking about it.”

“Take it. Me and the guys can always find work. We're good.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts. You got other things to worry about. I'm happy for ya, Mike. So come on, I'll make us some breakfast. Ya like chorizo?”

“I like anything you make, Leo.”

Nodding, Leo rises and lumbers back into the house, Michael not knowing how proud and pleased he is, Leo feeling that like a badly wounded man on a battleground, he has had the courage to tell his friend to leave him.

Run! Save yourself!

Live.

 

44

“Apples, peaches, pears, and plums! Tell me when your birthday comes! January, February, March—”

She is late again. She is late again because—yes, she has to admit it—she is drinking again. Shots of vodka for breakfast. Wine with lunch. It slows everything down, which is a relief, but it makes her too clumsy to parallel park. Which is a problem when you're picking up kids at school. And so, unable to wedge in between a Chevy Tahoe and a Fiat, she has ended up ditching the car a quarter of a mile away in the lot of an old folks home.

And now, hurrying to the sidewalk, she immediately passes an elderly woman, obviously senile, being pushed in a wheelchair by a woman in her fifties. “Isn't it a beautiful day, Mom?” the younger woman is chirping to the blanket-wrapped, wispy-haired, older woman. “You warm enough?” It makes Anita wonder if she will end up like this someday, oblivious and in a wheelchair. Anything's possible, and if it is, who will be walking with her? She reminds herself that drinking can make her morose.

“California oranges, fifty cents a pack. California oranges, tap me on the back!”

On the school playground, the little girls are playing at jump rope. Each one of them a future heartbreaker. Boys and sex, jobs, marriages, and children. And then a wheelchair with one of those children, now grown, pushing you if you're not lucky enough to go first.

Careful.

Anita turns at the sound of shouting. On the other side of the playground, a group of boys, older, probably third-graders, are clamoring. The bodies part and she sees Jamie in the middle, face twisted in tears, clumsily trying to hit them. The boys are laughing and jeering and pushing and Anita is racing across the pavement before she even knows she's moving.

“Hey!” she screams. “Stop it!” The boys turn at the sound of her voice. “You little shits! Get away from him!” They scatter as she approaches, fear in their faces.

You better be afraid.

But one of them doesn't run and Anita sees that Jamie is holding the boy's arm with one hand and is swinging his fist with the other. Each awkward blow elicits a shrill scream from both Jamie and the boy he's hitting. Anita grabs for him, pulls him away from the older, bigger boy.

“Jamie, stop!”

Only he doesn't. Shrieking, he turns and begins throwing his fists at her. “Ahh!—ahh!” He shrieks as she pulls him to her chest, more to protect herself than to give comfort.

“It's me, it's okay, it's Momma. It's me, sweetie.”

Across the playground Anita sees that the little girls have stopped jumping rope and are staring in obvious alarm. What must they think? What would she have thought at that age?

What's with the little freak …

“It's okay, baby, it's okay.” Her son has begun to cry now. Though it seems to calm him, the sound of it kills her. She strokes his head gently. She realizes that she too is crying.

“I hate school. I hate it,” he murmurs.

“Jamie, what happened. Can you tell me what happened?”

“They called me retard,” he moans.

It kills her.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

“I want to go home. I want Dad.”

It all just kills her.

 

45

I curse you again, Leo.

“Mike in?”

Leo has come bustling through the door, all hustle and male body odor, as if he has other places to go, people to see, a busy man, in demand, no time to waste on frivolities, no sir.

“You know he's not,” says Rose, not trusting herself to look up from the computer. Leo has shaved recently, lost the bushy red beard but retained an extravagant Pancho Villa moustache. The shearing has revealed a strong chin and sensitive mouth that Rose finds disconcerting.

“Now how would I know that?”

As matter of fact, Leo knows exactly that. Just twenty minutes ago, Michael has called him from the lumberyard asking if an order of scrap board has been delivered and where they are on tenpenny nails, construction ties, and cement mix.

“Did you see his truck outside?”

“Maybe it's in the shop.”

“Leo, you should be in the shop.”

“Okay, okay, just give this to him, okay?” Leo puts the thick tome down on Rose's desk, cover up, a swirling sun in a burning red sky over a city skyline. What did the librarian tell him? London. As in England. Oh.