While I'm Falling (22 page)

My conversations that night, with Marley and with Tim, blur together in my memory. It is somewhat surprising, since visually, at least, they were very different experiences. When I spoke with Marley, she stood in her doorway, looking up at me with small, piercing eyes. Tim and I talked in his car, parked just outside the dorm; even sitting, I had to look up at him, the top of his head almost grazing the roof. And he was smiling, happy to see me, at first.

I had meant to talk to Tim in my room. But my mother was taking a nap, stretched out on the guest bed with Bowzer at her side, her hat rolled down over her eyes. “Just a catnap,” she’d mumbled, before drifting off, the window still gold with afternoon light. Two hours later, she was still asleep, and I went down to the lobby to wait for Tim.

I told him everything at once: what I’d done, how much I wished I hadn’t; how much I already missed him; and how I had just been scared about moving in. He didn’t say anything. He put his hands on the wheel, hugging it toward him a little. We peered at each other under the orange glow of a parking lot light, our expressions remarkably similar, eyebrows lowered, lips pursed. I told him I still wanted to be with him. I told him I was still having a hard time with my parents’ divorce. I maybe went on a little too long, until finally, he interrupted me and told me, in the nicest way possible, that what he wanted was for me to get out of the car.

And so I did. His reaction was what I’d expected, in my head at least. It was what I deserved.

But I thought things might go better with Marley. I didn’t want to take advantage of her loneliness, but I assumed it would work in my favor. Even after she started to close her door on me, I asked her if she wanted to go to dinner. She said she’d eaten. I have to admit, I was surprised. Up until she actually closed the door in my face, it seemed impossible that even Marley might decide that she didn’t need me around after all.

N
ATALIE WOKE IN DARKNESS,
forgetting, for a moment, where she was. Her knit hat was still rolled down over her eyes, and even after she pulled it off, she couldn’t see. Out of habit, she moved to her left; in her apartment, she’d always slept far to the left on her queen bed, even after a year of sleeping alone. But now, trying to rise, she bumped her forehead on the cool, cement wall of her daughter’s dorm room. She lay back down. Bowzer, lying beside her, sighed from deep in his throat.

She got up, this time on the right side, and groped her way across the room to turn on the overhead light. She didn’t know where Veronica was. Her books and backpack sat on her desk. Her coat was on the hook. There was no note saying where she had gone or when she might be back. Of course, she didn’t need to leave a note for her mother. Veronica was an adult; she could come and go as she pleased.

Natalie cracked open the door, and peeked out in both directions. She hoped Veronica was down the hall, talking with Marley. Earlier, she’d wanted to remind her to do it, but she’d stopped herself. She could still get away with reminding her daughter to take care of her teeth and to sit up straight, but regarding the big things, it seemed to her, the die was already cast.

She closed the door and turned, looking around the room. She was pretty sure Veronica would go talk to Marley. Despite what the incredibly unpleasant Jimmy had said, she did not think her younger daughter was selfish or thoughtless, at least not characteristically so. She’d been careless lately. She’d shown some poor judgment. But she had always been sensitive to other people’s feelings. Elise was, too, under all that bluster, but between the two of them, Natalie thought of Veronica as having the softer heart. She was maybe four the day they were stopped at a railroad crossing, watching a coal train roll past, just the two of them in the old station wagon. For years, they’d spent their days together; Dan was at work, and Elise was in grade school. On the day she and Veronica were stopped for the train, Natalie had just read an article in a parenting magazine that advised her to seize educational moments, so she turned around to explain to Veronica what coal was, what it was used for, and where it came from. Veronica listened patiently in her booster seat, little legs dangling, brown eyes thoughtfully watching the train roll by, until Natalie got to the part about dinosaurs.

And then there were tears. Veronica raised her arms to her mother, like some pleading, painted saint in a Little Mermaid T-shirt. “Why did they all die? Even the moms? Even the kids? Did it hurt?”

Natalie almost laughed, but caught herself: the anguish on her daughter’s face was real. As the train thundered by, she did her best to convince Veronica that extinction, when it came to dinosaurs, wasn’t that sad. For one, she pointed out, dinosaurs weren’t that nice. They sometimes ate each other! They had sharp teeth and claws! More importantly, if they hadn’t all died, they would probably be eating people, if people were even around. She tried to keep her voice cheerful, upbeat.

“They had to make room for us, honey, for everything new. And now we have coal! And oil, honey! It makes the car go!”

Even after the train had passed, and their own car was once again moving forward on the energy of dead dinosaurs, Veronica was in-consolable.

Natalie sat on the guest bed, looking up at the baby blue walls. It was possible, of course, that four-year-olds in general were sensitive, not Veronica in particular. She might be a very different adult. Her dorm room was distressingly bare. Only a science poster hung on one of the walls. There was a calendar pinned to the bulletin board, next to a picture of the tall boyfriend standing on his head. The shelves held only books and notebooks and folders. Natalie shook her head. She would not snoop. She was a guest in this room. She was a guest before she was a mother.

Even when Veronica was still living at home, Natalie had only allowed herself the most benign sort of detective work: she would borrow her daughter’s novels, partly because she wanted to read them, but also so she could see what lines Veronica had underlined. When Natalie sat down to read a book, she just read it. She didn’t use a pen. But Veronica’s copy of
Sense and Sensibility
had had something underlined on almost every page. Natalie paid close attention, searching for significance:
Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distress, no less than in theirs
. It was distressing. Did Veronica think of herself like this? Did she think she had to comfort everyone? Did she think she had to comfort…her mother? Natalie worried. Those years after her own mother had died, and Dan’s mother was still dying, she had maybe leaned on her daughter too much. And what was Veronica’s own distress? Did she have some secret distress her mother didn’t even know about? Other underlined passages perplexed her:
and yet there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions
. What did that mean? It sounded cynical. What amiable prejudices of her daughter’s had already given way?

When Natalie tried to ever-so-casually ask about these lines, Veronica had only shrugged and said she thought they were interesting. Still, alone in the dorm room, Natalie eyed the shelves and stood up from the bed. There were mostly science texts now, but there were a few novels.

When the door opened fast, she jumped.

Veronica stood in the doorway. Her face was pale, her eyes mournful.

“Sorry,” she said. “I should have knocked.” Her eyes were level with her mother’s, and her hair was long enough, even curly again, damp with rain, to reach the shoulders of her green sweater; still, Natalie could clearly see the child in her, especially now with the shiny eyes. Her face hadn’t changed that much.

“Don’t be silly. It’s your room. Honey? You’ve been outside? Without a coat?”

“I was in a car,” she said. “I just ran out to a car to talk with…someone.”

The boyfriend, Natalie assumed. Tom. Tim. She couldn’t remember. There was no excuse. If she said the name wrong now, she was finished. The next time Veronica said his name, Natalie would write it down, keep it in her purse, commit it to memory forever. As soon as her own life calmed down a little, she would pay attention to the details of her daughter’s.

“Honey? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Veronica turned away and let her dark hair fall forward. “But I need a little time by myself.” She leaned against her dresser, her back still turned. “In here,” she added gently.

“Oh yes. Yes. Of course.” Natalie moved in a quick circle, searching for her coat. She had never before been the kind of mother who accepted the first “I’m fine” from one of her daughters. She had been the kind who softly prodded for more information. In her experience, if you poked enough, they would tell, because really, they wanted to tell. But now, although Veronica clearly wasn’t fine, Natalie had no choice but to retreat at the first request. That was the problem, or the main problem, with being both a mother and a charity case. It was Veronica’s room. If she wanted her to leave, Natalie had to go.

She stopped turning. Her coat was in her daughter’s closet, where the robe was supposed to hang. She opened the door and pulled it out quickly. “I’ll step out and run some errands,” she said, which was stupid. What errands could she run? It was after seven, and she was a woman without a refrigerator. She pulled on her hat, avoiding her daughter’s eyes. Had Jimmy called again? Or was it something with the boyfriend? Was the boyfriend mean to her? Maybe the talk with Marley hadn’t gone well.

Bowzer, sensing her imminent departure, whimpered and tried to rise. One of his legs gave way, and he fell back on the bed. He groaned and tried to get back up. He couldn’t be without her at all anymore. It was like having a small child again.

“No. Stay.” She held her palm up to him in hopes he wouldn’t pain himself further. She looked at Veronica. “He can stay here with you?”

Veronica walked across the room to the bed and sat next to him. Her green sweater was nice, and made out of some soft material that looked like it might love dog hair. But she put both arms around the dog and eased him to her lap.

“You don’t want to talk at all?” Natalie asked. She couldn’t help herself. But she was ready to go, one hand on the doorknob. She just wanted to be sure.

Bowzer strained forward. Veronica only shook her head with a fast and unconvincing smile. “I’m okay,” she said.

Call if you need me,
Natalie wanted to say, though she couldn’t. She didn’t have a phone.

She probably should have brought along something to read. She would have to kill time at a coffee shop or a restaurant. It was too cold and dark for walking, and she didn’t want to waste gas just driving around. She could try to find the public library. Or she could do what someone productive and virtuous would do in her situation. She could go get the newspaper and search the classifieds for a better job.

But at the second interview, she’d really tried. Really, she told the very young and dreadlocked principal, the fundamentals of education hadn’t changed that much in a quarter of a century. He’d stared at her skeptically over the tops of wire-framed glasses. Of course they had a little, she was quick to concede, with computers and the new federal laws. She’d kept up with all of that. She read the paper. But
drive
and
caring
and
creativity
were the foundations of good teaching, and she had those traits in spades! She’d used them every day as a stay-at-home mother! No, she didn’t speak Spanish. But she’d always wanted to learn!

The principal had furrowed his young brow and smiled politely, so there seemed no option but to keep talking. She said she’d tried to find records and references from her years as a teacher, but she was having some trouble, as the school where she’d worked had been demolished because of asbestos, and the principal was dead. Not of asbestos, she’d added quickly. Just old. And now dead.

She found a franchise diner on one of the main drags, the dorms visible from the parking lot. Her waitress was young, maybe in high school, with a sweet, wispy voice and blue eyes that looked up at the ceiling as she recounted the evening’s specials. Natalie felt bad for only ordering a bottomless cup of decaf; she’d waitressed in high school, and she remembered the bad luck of having a beverage-sipper parked at one of her tables for much of the night. But the waitress didn’t seem annoyed. Her eyes moved over Natalie’s newspaper, at the one job desciption Natalie had already circled with blue pen. She appeared suspiciously sympathetic.