The Return of Jonah Gray (27 page)

“Do I?”

“I hope you didn't get your hopes up about the bone-marrow match. It's a real long shot.”

“That's not it.”

“Everything okay with Jeff?”

“That's not it either.”

“Fair enough,” he said, backing off.

“Seems like you and my mother are getting along better,” I said.

He laughed. “I caught her, out on the patio, smoking one of my cigarettes. It's been better since then.”

“Strange bedfellows,” I said.

“I'm not—there's nothing like that—”

“Oh, I know. I just meant, stressful times can throw people together.”

“Kurt still takes exception to me.”

“My older brother takes exception to any number of things. This is it,” I said.

“Big house.”

Inside, I recognized a few neighbors and introduced Marcus when I could, but it was true, I was a little off.

Ellen Maselin met us as I was getting a beer from the bartender. “Sasha, you made it. Is Lola coming?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “She's home with Dad.”

“Of course. And you're Marcus. I didn't realize you were family. Here I was thinking you were the help. It's nice to finally meet you. I'm sure you're a wonderful help to Jacob.”

“I'm trying to be,” he said.

“Have you seen Ian yet?” Ellen said, casting around for her husband.

“I'm sure we'll run into him,” I said, leading Marcus away. I figured Ian was probably in the kitchen, trying to grope the wait-staff.

“She seems nice,” Marcus said.

“She's fine.”

“What do you have against the Maselins?” he asked. “Is it the house? It's a little gaudy.”

I shook my head. “That's Ian, over there.”

“The one who looks like an older Blake?”

I froze. Did Marcus know already? I looked back at Ian. Indeed, I could see a resemblance. I forced a laugh. “That's the one.”

“Well, if it isn't the ever-radiant Sasha Gardner!” Ian had spotted us. “And who is this? You're not the same young man I met before.”

“This is Marcus.”

“Sasha, I didn't realize you were such a girl-about-town,” I an said to me, winking.

“I'm not.”

He ignored my dour answer. “I expect to see you around the piano, later. I'm sorry your tone-deaf father couldn't join us tonight.”

“Jacob's tone-deaf?” Marcus asked. “I didn't realize that.”

“It's a shame, but the man can't carry a tune to save his life,” Ian said. “Ever since I've known him.”

“I'm tone-deaf, too,” Marcus said.

“Then you're excused, as well,” Ian said. “Hey, did you see the tree Ellen got us this year? Isn't it hilarious?” He pointed to a diminutive Christmas tree in a pot in the corner of the room. It stood about three feet tall.

“It's taller than ours,” Marcus said.

“At least it's taller than someone's,” Ian said. “I'd better mingle. Nice to meet you, Mark.”

We sat on a couch, eating canapés and watching people socialize. I powered through my second beer, than began another.

“Thirsty tonight?” Marcus asked. “Good thing I'm the designated walker.”

“I guess.”

“Let me ask you something. Have you noticed that your mother's first instinct is to keep Blake away from your father's illness? The blood test is only the most recent thing.”

“He's her baby,” I said.

“Sure, but he's not
a
baby.”

“Well, he got his way. He was tested. For all the good that did.”

“What do you mean?” Marcus asked.

Though my mother had made it clear that she didn't want to tell either my father or Blake about the day's revelation, I felt as though I had to tell someone. And I'd had three beers, which made it easier. So I told Marcus.

“Him?” Marcus asked, pointing to Mr. Maselin, who by then was belting out tunes at the piano.

“Him,” I said.

“So that's where he gets the musical ability.”

“And maybe his way with the ladies. Please don't tell anyone yet. I shouldn't have said anything. It'll all get worked out, but it can wait, can't it?”

He nodded.

“You must be so pissed at her,” I said.

“Yeah,” Marcus said, but he didn't sound like his heart was in it.

“The way she treated you. She's been acting like she's got this moral superiority. She's got no superiority.”

“Yeah,” he said again.

“Is that all you're going to say?”

“What do you want me to say? What am I supposed to do about it now? Sure, I'm pissed off. You think I don't get the hypocrisy? But now what? I'm not going to take it out on Blake.”

“Of course not. He didn't do anything to cause this.”

“Yeah, well, neither did I,” Marcus said.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“We're a mess of a family, aren't we? You're probably sorry you decided to spend time with us,” I said.

“Not at all.”

I smiled at him for answering so quickly. “What do you think I should do?” I asked.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because I trust your opinion. And because you're family.”

Marcus smiled. He reached out and grabbed hold of my hand. “You're one of the good ones, Sasha Gardner.”

I almost started to cry. “Oh, God, do you really think so?”

“WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?” MY BROTHER BARKED AS
soon as I picked up my office phone.

“Hello, Kurt,” I said.

“Mom said you're not talking to her.”

“Did she say why she thought that was?”

“No. Why?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“She's going through a difficult time right now. Whatever it is, you should cut her a little slack.”

“Typical you. Did you guilt-trip Lori into cutting you some slack, too? Was the anniversary party just your way of blowing off a little steam? No big deal?” I asked.

He paused for a moment before exploding. “That's none of your damn business. That's between me and my wife.”

“How the hell did you get out of that anyway? The sick-father excuse?” I asked. “Or was it the new-job excuse? Or the ‘I'm miserable in Stockton' excuse?”

“You wouldn't understand. You've never been married,” my brother snapped.

“I've made promises I haven't broken.”

I hated everything about my mother's actions—from the ease with which she had fallen for Ian Maselin's greasy charms to the hypocrisy of her previous treatment of Marcus. But was it the infidelity itself or its imagined effect on Blake that bothered me the most? My mother had had a point: my father was no saint. Then again, neither was she. Nor was Kurt. Was it just a matter of time before it was my turn?

I took refuge that evening in a trip to the mall with Martina. She was trying to find the perfect Christmas gift for Marcus.

“Everyone in my family has been unfaithful,” I said to her. “My mother, my father, my brother.”

“Blake hasn't,” she pointed out. We were wandering the mall in search of a Christmas gift she could buy for Marcus.

“He's gone through four girlfriends this year already. It's not infidelity, but he's sure starting off on an acquisitive track. Not unlike his genetic father.”

“You haven't,” Martina said.

“Maybe it's just a matter of time. Maybe it's my gypsy blood. What if I get the undeniable urge to wander?”

“I don't see it,” she said. “You know what makes you happy. I figure the next time you start dating someone, it's going to stick.”

“I'm dating Jeff,” I reminded her. “He's someone.”

“Shit, you're right,” she said. “Why can't I ever remember that?”

“You think I'm free from the Gardner curse?”

“I'm not saying you don't have issues,” Martina said. “But yeah, I think you might be.” She was sorting through a rack of athletic gear. “You think Marcus would like it if I bought us matching track suits?” she asked.

I stared at her. “Are you serious? You think he's the one? That's great!”

Martina shook her head. “Marcus and I in his-and-her outfits? Oh, Sasha, I was kidding.”

 

I agreed to go to Fresno. I was still worried about leaving my father, but even without a donor, his white blood-cell count had improved, and Dr. Fisher felt that he was stabilizing. So three days before Christmas found Jeff and me just off the highway, halfway between Oakland and Fresno.

Jeff had informed me that whenever he had to relieve himself while on the road, he would try to find a Denny's. “Their bathrooms are perceptibly cleaner,” he said. And so, spotting a sign for a link in that particular chain, he had pulled off the highway and into a parking lot.

“I'll be right out,” Jeff said, locking the car. He gave me a kiss and headed inside.

I spun on my toe on the curb. I looked out at the passing highway, wondering whether we'd make it to Fresno before dinnertime. I looked at the rows of newspaper vending machines that serviced the freeway traffic. The
Wall Street Journal.
The
San Francisco Examiner.
The
Stockton Star.

I took a step closer. The
Stockton Star?
We had to be at the outer reaches of their readership. I crouched down to read the front-page articles—one on a town council meeting and another on immigrant health care. I found myself digging through my change purse for a quarter, but I didn't find any. I knew that Jeff carried a roll for tolls, but the car was locked and he'd kept hold of his keys. I hurried into the restaurant and walked up to the first waitress I saw.

“I need change,” I said.

“They say that recognizing a need is the first step toward making it happen,” she told me.

“No.
Change.
For a dollar.” I held out a bill.

“Oh. That kind. The easy kind. Well, I just got on,” she apologized. “I've only got…let's see. I've got two quarters and a dime.”

“I'll take it. You can keep the rest. That's a forty percent profit in under a minute,” I said.

She looked at me as if I were nuts, but she took my dollar and handed over the coins. I hurried back outside and bought a copy of the
Star.

I scanned the bylines on the front page but none of them interested me. I was opening the paper wide when Jeff came back outside.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

I spun around. I had forgotten, for a moment, where I was. I had forgotten where he was, where we both were, and even that we were there together, on our way to Fresno to meet his family.

“The
Stockton Star,
” I admitted. He was going to find out anyway.

“Why didn't you get the
Journal?
It's a much better paper.”

I faltered. “I tried but the machine was broken.” As I said it, I thought of my family and the infidelity that seemed a more entrenched tradition than any living Christmas tree. Was this how it began? You got away with one lie, and the ones after that came more easily.

Jeff looked unimpressed. “We should get going,” he said. “Are you going to bring that with you?”

“Well, yeah. I just bought it,” I said.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, I looked back, only then considering what the waitress had said to me. Had I actually said “I need change” aloud? What did that mean?

Soon enough, we were pulling up to the Hill residence in Fresno. A tall, thin woman came out to greet us.

“There's Mother,” Jeff said.

“So this is Fresno! I've never been,” I told his mother, as we pulled our luggage from Jeff's car. “It's lovely.”

“We prefer to call it Fres-yes,” she replied.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“What do you think?” I could see that Jeff had inherited her eyes.

In fact, Jeff was a lot like the rest of the Hills: tall, thin, fastidious. They were opinionated, but they took turns letting each other speak. They didn't smile much. They remembered details.

“How long has the Hill family been here in town?” I asked at dinner, unable to make myself call it Fres-yes.

“Four generations,” Mrs. Hill said proudly. Jeff's sisters nodded, as if it were a story repeated many times before. “Herbert's grandfather moved here near around 1900,” she said. “My grandmother moved here in 1910, so we're relative newcomers. Jeff is the only Hill to have left, and we're working on getting him back here as soon as we can.” His sisters nodded again.

“It's only a three-hour ride to the Bay area,” I pointed out.

“The way his mother sees it, that's three hours too many,” Herbert Hill said.

Everyone nodded, even Jeff. I wondered what the Hills would have made of Jonah Gray's piece on repotting. I wondered what Jonah Gray would have made of the Hills.

“Jeff mentioned that your father hasn't been feeling well,” one of Jeff's sisters said.

“He's got cancer,” I said.

“That's a shame,” Mrs. Hill said. “I hope it's not too serious.”

I turned to Jeff, wondering what he had told them. “It's very serious. Actually, it's terminal,” I said.

“Your mother must be beside herself.”

“She seems to be handling it all pretty well.”

“That's probably just an act,” Jeff's mother said. “I'm sure it's worse when she's alone.”

“Maybe,” I said. I hadn't spoken to my mother before I left. I knew she was grieving. I believed she was sorry. But I was still angry at her.

Later that night, Jeff emerged from the guest bathroom to find me leafing through the
Stockton Star.

“I didn't see you bring that in,” he said.

“It's something to read.”

“I could get you a copy of the
Fresno Bee.
I'm sure it's a better paper.”

“My brother lives in Stockton. I like to know what's going on out there.”

“Does that guy you were auditing still write for them?” Leave it to Jeff to remember.

I hedged. “I haven't come across any of his articles yet.” I didn't say that I was still hoping to.

“Well, I'm beat,” Jeff said, crawling into bed. “It's so nice to be here with you, in our home. How long do you think you'll keep reading?” He was wearing his come-hither smile and caressed my arm.

I pretended not to notice. “For a little bit,” I said. “Will that keep you awake?”

“No. It's fine.” He closed his eyes and turned over.

I just sat there. For a moment, I didn't read. I didn't look at Jeff. I didn't look at anything.

The bed was comfortable and the guest room was neither too warm nor too cold. The man beside me, I knew that his body would fit nicely along the curves of my own, were I to turn and press up against him.

Is this what I've chosen? I wondered. I looked over at Jeff, curled onto his side. He was a fine man. He wanted to include me in his life. Why was I fighting it? I told myself that I was tired from the drive, and I folded the newspaper. I was about to drop it to the floor when an article caught my eye. I leaned closer to the light.

New Strain of Strawberry Blight Worries Farmers by Jonah Gray.

I brushed my finger over his name. I was glad to see that he was covering agriculture now.

I had never written him back after he'd offered Christmas-tree suggestions. I had intended to, even thought about what I wanted to say. That I'd been thinking of him through the fall. That he had served as an example for me. That I understood why his readers had been so fiercely protective. But instead my workdays had filled with audits and holiday gatherings, and soon a week had passed and then another.

Maybe Martina had been right. Maybe I preferred detachment to diving in and making a change. Maybe Marcus was right. Saying no—or not saying anything—meant staying in the same place.

All the same, I didn't have any actual gardening questions, and I didn't want to make one up just to talk to him. My Jeffrine persona was enough of a lie, even though everything I'd said through her was true. What was I supposed to say now? That though we'd never met, I felt some weird pull to him? That I understood how hard it must have been to give up his life in Tiburon, and that I was drawn to him even more for having done it?

I shook my head. I should listen to the advice I doled out to my auditees. If you're going to gamble, you've got to be prepared to lose. Calling or writing to Jonah Gray at that juncture was a gamble, and I was already in the process of losing someone I held dear.

It was late. I stared at the article a while before dropping the paper to the floor of Jeff's bedroom. I could still see his name when I turned out the light.

 

Two days later, around noon on Christmas Day, we were raking leaves in the Hill's backyard when Jeff's mother called from the kitchen.

“Sasha,” she yelled. “Phone call.”

I hurried inside.

It was Marcus. “I was really hoping I wouldn't have to call,” he said.

“Something's wrong,”

“Things took a turn for the worse.”

“Should I come back?” I asked.

“That's your decision,” he said. “I can't tell you what to do.”

“What would you do?”

He paused. “I would come back.”

I went outside to tell Jeff. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I thought he had stabilized.”

“Do you think Marcus might have been exaggerating?” Jeff asked. “Your family probably just misses having you at Christmas. Mine would feel the same. They'd make up any excuse to get me back here.”

“Marcus is a nurse. He knows the difference between bad and worse. Besides, he wouldn't do that.”

“I think maybe he doesn't approve of me and doesn't like the fact that you're here in Fresno.”

“He's my brother—” I began.