Where You End (16 page)

Neither one of us wants to be the first to leave, but Ms. K has more practice at this, so she smiles broadly, wishes me a good evening, and unlocks her car. She tucks her skirt under her thighs as she slides into the driver's seat. She has a workshop to go to, a car she can steer in the direction she pleases, a job, and a niece to take pictures of. She still has time to have her own children, whenever she's ready. She's not my mother, but she's an adult. I try to reach for that in my future, but it's too far ahead to get a good grip. She rolls down the window and sticks her hand out to say goodbye, or to warn me she is backing out.

“Ms. K?”

She switches out of reverse and hits the brake, looking for my voice. I walk to her window.

“What's she going to be?” I ask.

Ms. K looks confused. There are at least three paper cups on the floor by the passenger seat.

“Who?”

“Your niece … tomorrow … what's she going to be for Halloween?”

Ms. K smiles in relief. “A butterfly.”

“Of course,” I say, “of course.”

“I'll see you on Monday, Miriam.”

“Yep.”

She drives away, and I check my phone: two missed calls, one text. All from Adam.

Where r u? Are u coming? Where is my camera?

I shut my phone and start walking home. Eva's key must be there. This will take me less than two hours, and that's counting a soggy bagel from the Greek coffee place.

thirty-three

did you go back home?

thirty-four

Mom presumably stopped smoking when she got pregnant with me. I've seen her pull out a cigarette occasionally, when Dad is really getting to her, but never ever in the house. She always says the pregnancy was a great excuse to quit. Hence the surprise, when I walk in and she's chain-smoking Lucky Strikes on our living room couch.

The smell belongs to another era, a time before cookbooks and NPR, and Mom looks like she's stepped into the time machine herself. She's lying on the couch in her Barnard sweatshirt, her hair like a newly made nest sitting inside the hood. The pack of poison is on the coffee table, where my mother has spread dozens of pictures. She is looking at a print very closely, holding it up to her eyes, while her other hand holds a glass of something the color of pale wood. Switch the setting and she could be twenty. Something tells me I should not interrupt.

“I can't decide if this one is my favorite,” she says without looking up.

“Hi Mom,” I say, trying not to breathe in the smoke.

“It's the saddest, for sure. With the sweater on the chair, and the mug.”

I walk closer. It's definitely whiskey in the glass.

“What are you looking at?” I say.

Mom puts down the Scotch, sits up and picks another print from the coffee table. She examines both closely, not the least bit distracted by my question.

“It's a close call. You are a master at composition, much better than I ever was. You spend so much time in that darkroom, but you've got your eyes open from the start. I can tell these things, you know. It's my job.”

“Are those my pictures?” I ask.

“The dog is perfect in this other one. I don't know how you got him to sit so still. It's like he can smell you, but he can't find you. Great use of foreground. Maybe this one wins.
”

I stomp over and snatch the photo out of her hand. I've seen it before. This is my stuff. I took this picture.

“Why are you looking at these?” I ask.

Mom goes to light another cigarette and finally looks at me and smiles.

“These are my pictures. They are private.”

She inhales and shrugs. “They weren't in your darkroom.”

“No. They were in my
bed
room. Since when do you go through my stuff?”

This makes her laugh, but not with the same abandon as in Ms. K's room. This laugh is more evil, more condescending.

“What stuff?” she says when she catches her breath. “You got rid of everything you had up there.” She looks at the table. “Except for these … ”

“This is none of your business.”

“This is entirely my business.”

“I don't go in your room and look through your shit.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“Watch my mouth? You're the one who's, like, the rebel, smoking cigarettes and drinking.”

She smiles. “You're funny.”

“I'm glad you think so. Give me my pictures back.”

“I spent all this time talking to you, never pushing you or asking you questions, avoiding power struggles, trusting you.”

I start piling up the night pictures, but they're all over the place. She must have been looking at them for a while before I got here. I find a couple on the armchair, three under the table, one on the end table under the lamp.

“Don't do that,” she frets. “They're organized. They're in categories.”

“They're mine.”

Mom rolls her eyes.
“I was trying to find a system, to group them by season, by emotion. I was looking for clues. I haven
't had this much fun in a while, playing detective with my own daughter.”

“You are acting crazy. You shouldn't have taken these.”

“I didn't take them.”

I've gathered them all except for the one in her hand. “Yes you did.”

“Nope.”

“You went into my room and found the pictures.”

My eyes feel full and wet, but I'm incapable of crying. She puts the cigarettes down and sighs.

“I didn't take the pictures, Miriam.”

“Okay. I get it.
I
did.”

“No, I mean I didn't
take
them from you.”

“I don't understand.”

“Adam came by.”

“What?”

“Adam came by looking for you. He seemed really upset.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to talk to you. He said you weren't answering his calls. I told him that you would be home soon and gave him some water. He was really upset, Miriam. He looked like he was about to cry. I asked him if everything was all right, and he said he wasn't sure. He told me he was worried about you, that he didn't know what to do.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I just listened.”

“Did you tell him about Ms. K?”

“Yes. I figured he knew already. I thought you were with him when you skipped class.”

Of course you did.

“Anyway, he started getting uncomfortable. I think he was trying to protect you, so I didn't want to push it. I told him you'd call when you got home.”

I have to sit down.

“Before he left, he asked for his camera. He said he'd left it here. He went up to your room to look for it, but it wasn't there. He wanted to go to your darkroom, but I told him I couldn't let him, that we had an agreement.”

Although I'm pissed at my mother in her college sweatshirt, I'm also a little bit proud. She's trying so hard.

“You didn't go in?” I ask.

“No, Miriam, and neither did he. He looked everywhere for his camera. He said he was sure you had taken it. I told him you had your own, and he said you were using that for something else. I asked him what he meant, and that's when he gave me the pictures. He said they were upstairs.”

“I
cannot
believe it. I can't believe he did that.”

“He was worried, Miriam. We're all worried.”

“Did he tell you anything else?”

“He gave me this,” she says, and hands me a large envelope with my name on it, my full name. It's Adam's handwriting.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I don't know, Miriam. Believe it or not, I do try to respect your privacy. Open it.”

I start to open it and see there's a picture in there. I close it back up.

“Did he say anything else?” I ask.

“Like what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“What was he supposed to tell me?” Mom says.

“Nothing. I'm going over to his house.”

“I'll take you.”

“It's five blocks away.”

“It's cold. Let me take you.”

“These are my pictures, Mom.”

“They're good.”

“I don't know, but you weren't supposed to see them.”

“You took them in the middle of the night,” she says.

“This is why you weren't supposed to see them. I'm
so
mad. I'm so mad.”

“I'm taking you to Adam's.”

“Mom?”

“Miriam?”

“Fine. But you're waiting in the car.”

“Sounds good. Bring his camera.”

“We'll see. Haven't you, like, been drinking?”

“Miriam. I'm your mother. I'm the most responsible person you know. I had a sip of whiskey.”

She takes the pictures from my hand, straightens the corners in the pile, and lays them in the middle of the coffee table. “Let me get the keys.”

When she walks out, I breathe and open the envelope. There she is again, this time in black and white: it's the same picture I saw in his camera. Eva and the sculpture, my two Picassos. One standing, and one lying down, looking at each other for the first time.

thirty-five

It's cold enough to turn the heat on in the car. I know the way to Adam's with my eyes closed. First right, three blocks, speed bump, make a left, semi-circle around the cul-de-sac. I close my eyes to test myself and peek after my mother misses the second turn.

“You're going the wrong way.”

She locks the door. “We're not going to Adam's.”

“What? Where are we going?”

“We're not going to Adam's until you talk.”

“You can't do this.”

“Then talk.”

“Are you kidnapping me? Talk about what ?”

“Whatever you want. I will drive until you tell me what's going on. Something is going on.”

“This is crazy.”

“Possibly.”

“You can't keep me in here. You can't
make
me talk.”

Mom is wearing her glasses now, which makes her look like she's been up all night reading. She used to live in New York, without any money, or car, or children. The city is her most painful ex-boyfriend, her greatest heartbreak, her Elliot. You can tell by the way she dismisses it when people bring up the all-night bodegas, or the energy and the art scene.
The only thing I miss is the subway,
she always says
.
She had a filthy apartment by the Hudson River. I know because, a few years ago, our family froze its collective ass looking for it. When we finally got there, we all stood on the opposite sidewalk and looked up, following the fire escape stairs to the third floor. The wind was ruthless. Mom cried. Dad pulled her close, and nobody said a word until lunch.

We skipped New York the following year.

I pull the handle on our old Volvo. I have been child-locked. We are in the middle of rush hour, so the ride is an awkward dance of stop and go. Mom knows all the shortcuts and back roads, since she has lived in DC for twenty years now. We inch across a major intersection and dip back into the streets lined with houses, most of them covered in sagging spiderwebs, jack-o'-lanterns, bats, and other scary things.

“Where are we going?” I say.

“I don't know. Where do you want to go?”

“Oh, the illusion of choice.”

“Don't get smart with me. I'm actually enjoying this,” she says.

“Oh, good. I'm not.”

That's not the entire truth. Actually, this is the calmest I have felt since my bathroom discovery. Something about being driven somewhere by my mother, something about being warm inside this car.

“Can I turn on the music?” I ask.

“I'd rather not. Thanks for asking.”

“How about the radio?”

“Same.”

We zoom under the Kennedy Center, and I lean my head toward the Potomac.

“It's dark. Won't Dad be worried?”

“You don'
t seem to mind the dark,” she says, “and Dad's already worried.”

Mom crosses the bridge to Virginia and we drive on the GW Parkway, where the traffic gives us time to admire the sights across the river. There is nothing as white as the monuments at night. The whole scene is like a giant clay model. We don't have a skyline here in DC. We have a museum.

“It's pretty,” I say.

“This is where Dad used to take me when I missed New York too much.”

“Do you still miss New York?”

“Rarely. Sometimes I do.”

“When Ari comes to visit?”

“When I listen to music.”

“Why is that?”

“I fell in love with music in college. When Opa and Oma finally agreed that it was best for me stay on campus, instead of commuting from Jersey, I bought myself a Walkman.” She snickers. “Do you even know what that is?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, I got one, to celebrate my independence, you know. We used to trade tapes in the dorms. Nineteen eighty-two was a big year. Madonna had just come out with her first single, Joni Mitchell got married in Malibu. Ozzy Osbourne got arrested for pissing on the Alamo.”

“Watch your mouth,” I say.

Mom smiles.

“But I was in love with Morrissey,” she says.

“I know Morrissey.” I beam. “From the Smiths.”

“Good girl. That's right.”

I wish I could take credit for knowing something about music, but everything remotely interesting has come from my sellout ex-boyfriend.

“Anyway. I had this Smiths tape that one of Ari'
s punk friends had given her.”

Ari is Mom's best college friend. She comes over once every couple of years, and they spend three days eating and drinking and talking. No one is allowed to bother them. If you speak, they don't listen. I can do whatever I want when Ari comes to DC.

“Ari had punk friends?” I say. “She has, like, a million children.”

“Five. She has five children. But, yes, she had a lot of friends you wouldn't necessarily imagine her with. She was a bit of a rebel. A disciplined rebel.”

We are passing the housing projects right before Old Town. After we cross King Street, Mom turns into the quaint cobblestone streets and we bump around between the dark, tiny houses on the historic register list.

“
Their first album had just come out, and only the coolest of the cool knew about it. Ari left it on her desk, and I picked it up one day. Ari was always home on the weekends our first two years. That was before her parents kicked her out of the house.”

“What? Why did they do that?”

“I guess I never told you that story. Ari fell in love with a guy at Columbia. Her parents didn't approve.”

“She couldn't date?”

The streets are deserted. Everybody is saving for tomorrow, when they'll all turn into wizards and witches and bleeding zombies.

“Oh, she could date. She was supposed to find a husband.”

“So what was the issue?”

“The guy was an atheist.”

“Like a reform guy?”

“Like not Jewish. Like did not believe in God.”

“Oh.”

“Right,” she says. “Oh.”

We drive out of town, back to the Parkway, where the cars in front of us start to disappear into their exits until it's just us, as far as I can see. I check the gas meter. We have a half tank. The lights flood the trees as we pass. We're heading to Mount Vernon, George Washington's place. I bet it's really pretty here during the day.

“So what happened?” I ask.

“They stuck together until senior year. She stopped talking to her parents and most of her extended family ignored her. Her sister would occasionally bring food on Friday, or stop by when she was in the city visiting.”

“Where did her family live?”

“Brooklyn.”

“Isn't that in the city?”

“It was different in the eighties. Brooklyn was far in the eighties.”

“Were they Hasids?”

“Not quite, not the way you picture it. They were committed. They were traditional. They didn't have beards, if that's what you are asking.”

I roll my eyes.

“What were they scared of?” I say.

“Of change, of losing something. Of not honoring having lost something.”

“What happened with the guy?”

“His name was John. He moved to California. She stayed in New York.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing? She gave everything up, after all that trouble?”

“It's not everything. He asked her to go, and she said no, and that was that. That's all she gave up.”

We've reached George Washington's estate. The parking lot is closed, but there are still a few tour buses hanging out with their headlights off. Mom goes around the circle and heads back to the street.

“Why did she say no?”

“He wasn't Jewish.”

On the way back, she takes a less scenic route, past strip malls and mega churches and
pupuserias
. The day laborers are jumping off pick-up trucks, coated in paint and dirt, and walking home to their crammed apartments, making a call to their wives back in El Salvador.

“Can we stop for some food?” I say.

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

“There's some cashews in the glove compartment.”

The cashews look withered and smushed in their bag.

“How about Chinese? Isn't there a decent Chinese restaurant out here?”

“This isn't a date, Miriam.”

“No. It isn't.”

“You want to start talking?”

“About what?”

“Let's start with the pictures. Since when are you taking pictures in the middle of the night?”

Mom moves confidently through the spiderweb of the Metropolitan area, where the cars split toward the South, the North, and the Federal. Georgetown looks like a medieval village on the hill across the river.

“I can't sleep. I couldn't sleep.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. I just
hear
everything.”

“Couldn't you tell me about it? I could have helped you. How long has this been going on? Are you going by yoursel
f
? How do you even get to these places? You'
re a girl. It's the middle of the night. You could've been hurt.”

“Jesus, Mom. If you want me to talk, maybe you should let me.”

“You're right. I'm sorry. Fine. Go on.”

“Well, you shouldn't be worried.”

“Why not?”

“Because the pictures are nothing. They'
re just pictures.”

“So why is Adam so upset?”

“Because Adam is Adam, and he makes big deals.”

“And you don't?”

“I make big deals out of
big
things.”

“Adam is the best friend you've ever had. And the smartest. Unlike other people.”

I decide against slamming her head into the steering wheel, for now. I remember what she doesn'
t know, and it helps me feel sorry for her.

“Whatever,” I say.

“Not whatever, Miriam. I'm your mother. We came to get you at the train station in the middle of your trip this summer, and now you haven't slept for two months. You're going to tell me what happened, or we're going to run out of gas in West Virginia.”

“You're a bully.”

“You can't change this.”

The thing is, she doesn't have to push me because I have been waiting to say something, anything, to anyone for a while now. I want to talk about the fight, and the sculpture, and Adam. I've just gotten used to being silent; silence has become the place I live in, like a room that gets messier and messier, but gradually, so you think it's actually normal. You think this must be what it always looked like.

“He didn't stand up for me,” I say, tentatively.

“Okay … ”

“His dad made a really stupid comment, and he didn't say anything.”

She pauses. “What did his father say?”

“It's so embarrassing. I don't even want to repeat it.”

“I've probably heard it,” she says.

I take a breath. “Something about how art and faith don'
t save lives. How we should stop investing in things we can't count on.”

My eyes start to sting with the same rage and confusion. I watch my mother's face and see no anger, just bones and lines and silence.

“Did
you
say something?”

“Not much. What was I supposed to say?”

“Well, what was
Elliot
supposed to say?”

“Oh my God. You're taking his side.”

She rolls her eyes and almost misses a stop sign in front of Georgetown Hospital. This is where I was born. Six weeks early. July 23rd. Barely a lion.

“I'm not taking any sides, Miriam. I'm just trying to figure out what you wanted.”

“I can't believe you.”

“You can't expect him to feel as strongly as you do about this.”

I think back to the sculpture and Eva. How strongly we both felt, how angry. She was right. She would understand. I promise myself to check for her key again as soon as we get back home. I'
m going to get her that picture. I'm going to find her.

“I do expect that, Mom.”

“Honey … ”

“Mom, I pushed the Picasso at the museum. I did it.”

The stillness, the creepy hum of the truth, the gratitude my body feels at finally letting go. All of that precedes the look of terror on my mother's face. I see, for the first and last time in this story, that I have robbed her of something I don't even understand. For the next few minutes, she gives
me permission to wonder what
she
is thinking, because
she can't call the guards fast enough, she can'
t get her face together in time. That window, that empathy, saves me, in a
Freaky Friday
way, because it makes me look at me.