The Practical Navigator (6 page)

 

10

In front of his mother's house, Michael's truck pulls to a fast stop. He gets out and hurries through the open gate. Penelope is waiting for him.

“There was no need to rush,” she says, “he's feeling fine now.”

“Think he was faking it?”

“You did. What difference does it make? He's home.”

They enter the house. In the living room, Jamie sits in front of the TV, naked, watching
Teletubbies,
as always seemingly transfixed by the bright colors, unchanging faces, and repetitive nonverbal dialogue of the sacklike creatures.

“Give us a second,” Michael says to his mother.

“Be sweet.”

“I'm always sweet.”

“No, not always.”

Jamie looks up as Michael crosses the living room, turns off the TV, and sits down on the couch, saying nothing. Jamie looks away.

“Hi, Dad.”

“How you feeling, little man?”

“Good.”

“Not so good at school though, huh?”

“My stomach was sick.”

“Bad enough you had to go to the nurse?”

“Yes.”

“But it's okay now.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because I know if your stomach still felt sick, you'd tell me. And if it wasn't sick to begin with, you'd tell me that too. Because you and I always tell one another the truth, don't we.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Michael waits, watching the tender quiet in his son's face. He feels what's coming before knowing what it is.

“I want Tisha to miss me.”

Oh, shit, thinks Michael. How could he have been so stupid. Not to listen.
Really
listen. He knows better. Or should. Still, there are lessons that must be taught. There is a future to prepare for. Isn't there?

“You can't just come home when you don't like things, Jamie.”

“I'll get in a car,” says Jamie. “I'll drive away. I'll drive!”

“Even worse. Where would you go?”

“Away.”

“I would be very unhappy without you. So would Nana.”

“I hate Tisha,” says Jamie, staring at the floor, his mouth trembling. “I hate that house.”

“Come here,” Michael says.

Jamie stands and moves to him. When Michael puts an arm around him and pulls him close, Jamie buries his face into Michael's shoulder. He's too big to be held like this but at the moment, Michael doesn't care. Out in the world anything could happen to his son. Here he's safe.

“You don't ever have to go to Tisha's again.”

The future will take care of itself.

 

11

Sitting at her mother's kitchen table, Anita finds herself flashing on a Hollywood party where a famous movie moment was explained to her by a drunken wannabe film director. Pinned into a corner, a woman crouches as if trying to hide. The camera's point of view hovers. Behind her, the corner joint of the walls has been purposely rebuilt, stretched up and out of normal proportion. The resulting skewed perspective traps and overwhelms the woman. There is nowhere to go. The director then cuts to a close-up of the woman's face to capture an expression not so much of terror as of speechless guilt.

“He's not comfortable coming over here.”

Anita can hear their voices as they approach through the dining room and into the pantry.

“Nonsense. He was here at Christmas with all the grandchildren. He had a wonderful time.”

“That's because I was with him.”

“And you didn't stay long, did you. Whose fault was that?”

Anita wants to rise from her chair, wants to turn for the back stairs, wants to run, but just like in the movie, the ceiling above her head is a weight pressing her down, squashing her.

“It's nobody's fault. This isn't about fault. It's about Jamie. Routines are important to him.”

“Well, I think that's silly. How's he going to get to know any of us, if he doesn't make the attempt?”

She should have left when her mother got off the phone. She should have run then.

“That was Michael,” Tisha Beacham had said.

“What?”

“Jamie went home early from school today.”

“What are you
talking
about?”

“I was supposed to pick him up and bring him over here.” Matter-of-fact about it, as if talking about the weather.

“Without
telling
me?”

“Well, he's not coming now, is he.”

“Thank God!”

“Michael is.”

“Mother—!”

She should have run then, run like crazy, because the first meeting wasn't supposed to happen like this, it wasn't supposed to
be
like this, wasn't supposed to—

As if jabbed by a bolt of electricity, Anita half rises out of her chair as they enter the kitchen. Her mother, Tisha, is a tall, slim woman in her sixties, still more beautiful than she has any right to be. Her hair, never dyed, is ash blond and her skin is flawless. She rarely wears makeup, not needing it. Her expression, as always, is severe.

The better to bully you with, my dear.

Michael, Anita sees, is still Michael. A bit more flesh on his strong, lanky frame. A real haircut. A button-down shirt and shoes with actual laces. But still him.

It's still him.

Michael stops in his tracks at the sight of her, too stunned to even speak.

“Hello, Michael,” Anita murmurs. A million charming things she'd planned to say and hello is the best she can do. Hardly audible at that, sounding as if she's swallowed her own tongue.

Oh, and Michael—Michael, according to her mother, one of the seven archangels in heaven and the leader of heaven's armies …

Thanks, Mom, I'll remember that!

 … Michael is looking at her as if he'd mistakenly been told she'd died.

I did.

“Well,” says Tisha Beacham, as if it's all just a pleasantly anticipated get-together of old friends. “Shall I make us some coffee or tea?”

Us.

Michael's jaw tightens. His expression turns from one of uncertainty to ugly contempt. “Don't bother.” And just like that he's out of the kitchen and gone, somehow taking the horrible weight in the room with him.

Anita, finally able to move, rises fully from the chair and pushes past her mother. “I told you,” she hisses. She hurries after him.

*   *   *

Michael comes out of the house into the open courtyard. The Beacham house is off Scenic Drive on a fenced and secluded half acre of land. The neighborhood is old and exclusive and, when the Spanish-style house was built some eighty-five years ago, virulently anti-Semitic. The cars in the driveway are not new. Old money doesn't like ostentation. Michael made note of the Christian fish symbol on the bumper of the Escalade when coming in. This last Christmas, Tisha had insisted on taking Jamie to church services. Some assembly of born-agains out in Lemon Grove. Just another thing the poor kid had hated.

“Michael, please!”

Anita has come out the front door behind him.

“Michael!”

He can't help himself. He turns back. Even to his own ears, his voice sounds ugly. “He was just going to come over after school? Have some milk and cookies and hey, guess who this is? Was that it?”

“I didn't know. She didn't tell me until after you called.”

“Like I believe that.”

“I'm not a liar, Michael. I tell the truth till it hurts.”

He knows this. To her own detriment, she always has.

“I'm not sure I'm even ready to see him. The thought of it scares me to death.”

“It should,” says Michael. “And you can forget about coming anywhere near him.”

“She's watching,” Anita says quietly. Michael follows her gaze. Tisha Beacham is at an upstairs window, looking down over the courtyard at them. Without expression, she turns away. And then Michael's hand is on Anita's shoulder and he's aiming her, pushing her toward the truck.

“Get in.”

“Are we going somewhere?”

“Just
get
—in the
truck
.”

She does. Gratefully.

*   *   *

Stepping to a window in the guest bedroom, Tisha Beacham watches as the pickup starts with a roar and then pulls out of the courtyard and moves down the drive and through the open gate into the street. Her head is pounding and her throat feels swollen. She hopes she isn't coming down with something. There's a lot going around these days.

*   *   *

They drive in silence, not looking at each other. The narrow winding road that takes them out of the Upper Muirlands was originally built for mules not cars and the tires of the truck squeal as they come around a curve. The truck veers into the opposing lane and then back again. A car is approaching. There is some space on the shoulder and etiquette would dictate that Michael pull to the side and let the oncoming car pass. He will have none of it. He hits both the horn and the gas. The truck surges forward. Horn blaring back, the car is forced to swerve hard into a driveway.

“If you're going to kill me,” says Anita, “please don't do it with a truck.”

Ignoring her, Michael runs the red light onto Nautilus.

“So how you been?” Anita says.
Casually.
Michael answers her with a derisive snort. His lips are clenched. He seems to be chewing on his inner cheek. As good a reason as any to answer the question herself. “Why, just fine, Anita, thanks. How have
you
been? Oh, just peachy as well, thank you. Just swell.” She hesitates. “Actually I'm a mess,” she says softly.

“Still?”
Michael, biting the word.

He turns the wheel hard. With a squeal of tires, the truck veers to the side of the road and comes to an abrupt halt. Michael slams the truck into park. He's breathing fast and hard, sucking air as if from the mask in a falling airplane.

“Hit me if it'll make you feel better.” She watches Michael shake his head. “Then tell me about Jamie.” She waits as he puts the palms of his hands to his eyes. He inhales, then exhales deeply. He lowers his hands. His face still looks brittle but there is a semblance of composure now.

“What do you want to know?”

“My mother says he's not quite right.”

“Your mother's the one who's not quite right.” Michael stares straight ahead, not looking at her. “He has Asperger's,” he says quietly.

It's a word that Anita has heard before but doesn't quite recognize. “I don't know what that—”

“It's autism.”

She feels her body clench. She's read about this in newspapers. Children who don't speak, can't function, won't survive alone.

Rain Man.

“He's autistic?”

“Did I say that?” Michael says sharply. Inhale again—exhale again. Control is a good thing. “He's wired different, that's all. He learns different. He has a hard time with people he doesn't know or trust. He doesn't like to play with other kids. When he doesn't want to do something, he screams his head off for help.”

“Sounds pretty normal to me,” says Anita, already convinced it's not.

“He's a great kid,” says Michael, and in doing so, puts Anita's fears momentarily to rest. “If you'd ever been in touch, you'd know that.”

She looks away. “I'd have made things worse.”

“You're so sure of that.”

“It's what I tell myself.”

“You don't want to know what I tell myself.”

“I can guess.” And she can. Derelict mom. Prodigal wife returned.

“I
do
want to see him, Michael.”

“I'm not sure how we're going to handle that.”

“No rush.”

He looks at her. For the very first time, really
looks
at her. His eyes are question marks and she realizes, despite his anger, he is concerned for her. Not what she expected or even knew she wanted.

“I'm tired, Michael. I need to be home for a while. I won't bother you, I promise. I'll wait for you to tell me what to do.”

Michael nods. A moment passes and he puts the truck in gear. He does a U-turn across the lane and heads back up the hill.

*   *   *

“Can I call you?” she says.

Neither of them have spoken on the ride back to the house and now, as she's about to get out of the truck, Anita feels she has to.

“Your mother has my cell.”

“All right.” She hesitates. She has to say it. “It's good to see you, Michael. I've missed you.” He stares straight ahead, not saying a word.

What did you expect?

She opens the door and is halfway out when she hears his voice.

“Anita.”

She turns back. Michael is still looking straight ahead. Anywhere but at her.

“You find what you were looking for?”

“Not even close,” says Anita, trying and failing to make it a joke. Michael nods. Elsewhere. A place where you don't really care about answers.

Anita closes the door of the truck. She stands, watching him drive away, taking her time before turning and going in the house. She has to decide if she'll give her mother an argument or the silent treatment. Arguing feels better but silence is the more effective means of punishment. Decisions, decisions. One should be as certain about anything as her mother is about everything.

 

12

“Well, I think it's insane,” says Penelope Hodge.

It's been hamburgers tonight. Overcooked, bloodless, gray hamburgers, which is how Penelope likes them, and after a hell of a lousy day, Michael isn't sure he has the patience to deal with his mother anymore. Time to just finish washing the dishes and get out of here.

“You'd be mad to let her see him.”