Yes. One thing led to the other, the dominos fell—they’d been up, and then they were down. You lost things you thought you couldn’t be without, and you went on anyway. He remembered being Zoe’s age and being given a silver dollar by his favorite uncle. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. He was out in the street, flipping the coin, showing off for a friend, when he dropped it and it rolled down a sewer grate. He lay on top of the grate and saw the coin shining up at him from far away. He stared at it for a long time, wishing he could make time work backward. He wouldn’t have flipped the thing. He would have put it in the cigar box he kept under his bed, maybe in its own leather pouch. He stared at the coin until his friend became impatient and told him to stop looking and come to the baseball field, where they were going to play catch. “It would be better if you couldn’t see it,” his friend said, as they walked away. But Griffin said no, this way he could still have it a little. But the next time he looked the coin was gone.
He picked up Ellen’s picture, stared into her eyes, then put it in his drawer, facedown.
Ellen met Griffin at the door. She looked much better—pretty, in fact. She was wearing an apron over a long brown skirt and a loose-knit white sweater, pearl earrings. She was holding a wooden spoon, stained red. “Spaghetti and meatballs,” she said.
“Uh huh.” Griffin moved past her, hung up his coat. “Where’s Zoe?”
He didn’t want to look at Ellen anymore.
“Upstairs. Would you tell her dinner will be ready in two minutes?”
She couldn’t wait to leave. Well, neither could he. “Yeah, I’ll tell her. By the way, I need the car tonight.”
She looked at him. “This is my night!”
“I know. But I’m taking Zoe out for some things she needs.”
“What things?”
“Her pants are getting too short for her. And she could use a new coat.”
Ellen hesitated, then said, “All right, fine. Take it. I’ll get a ride.” He heard her pick up the phone and start dialing as he went upstairs.
Zoe was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, staring into her lizard cage, which had never once held a lizard, but had been home to frogs, worms, grasshoppers, and a garter snake. Griffin sat on her bed, and she looked up at him briefly. “Hi, Dad.”
“Got something in there?”
“Yeah. An ant. He was on my windowsill. See him? He’s black. He looks like a booger.”
“Zoe.”
“Well, he does! Like two boogers stuck together.” She moved some of the shavings aside, then looked up at Griffin. “There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘booger,’ Dad. It is a natural thing that everyone has.”
“Who told you that?”
“Grandma!”
“Which grandma?”
“Grandma Griffin!”
“…Oh.”
“And it’s true! Plus I know something else, too.”
“What’s that?”
“If you don’t fart when you have to, you can blow a hole in the side of your stomach.”
“Who told you that? Grandma Griffin did not tell you that.”
“No. Andrew Molner. But his dad told him.”
“Well, that is not true, Zoe.”
“But it is true about boogers. The only thing is, you shouldn’t eat them, which that is all that Andrew does. One time he had to go to the principal.” She shifted the shavings again. “Now, where did he go? Oh, there he is. See?”
Griffin got on the floor, peered into the cage. “Well, I see part of a cookie.”
“Yeah, Mommy made chocolate chip.”
“And I see a grape.”
“Right. His dinner.”
“But I don’t see the ant.”
“Well, he is shy with new people. But he’s there, Dad, just look.”
Griffin looked once more. “Oh, yeah. I see him now.”
“He’s pretty, isn’t he?”
“Very pretty. What’s his name?”
She sat back, picked at the toe of one of her socks. “I think…Amos.”
“Terrific name. Amos Ant.”
She giggled. “Yeah, ubcept his last name is not Ant, Dad!”
“Except.”
“Huh?”
“Except, not ubcept. So what is his last name?”
“Griffin, of course! He’s in our family.”
“I see.” Ah, Zoe.
“I’ve been teaching him to sit.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. Do you think you can teach an ant to sit?”
“What do you think?”
She sat back on her heels, sighed. “He’s not so good yet.”
“You might want to start with something easier.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Eating from your hand, maybe.”
“I tried. He won’t. Hey, Dad, can I really get any game I want tonight?”
“Yes.”
“The one I want costs fifty dollars. Frankie Anziletti just got it, and he thinks he’s so hot.”
“Fifty bucks!”
“Yeah, but you said.”
“You’re right.” Griffin stood up. “Time for dinner, sweetie. Go wash your hands.”
She looked at them. “Actually, I don’t need to.”
“You do need to. Wash, and then, after dinner, we’ll go get that game. Did you do your homework?”
“Yeah, stupid spelling sentences.”
“What’s stupid about that?”
“All homework is stupid.”
“Why?”
Zoe picked up the cage, put it carefully beside her Tinkerbell perfume and lotion set, never opened since she’d gotten it on her last birthday, but she liked the bottles. “Sit,” she said, and prodded the ant. Then, to Griffin, “What did you say?”
“I asked why homework was stupid.”
“Because kids need to play after school. Teachers always forget what it feels like to be a kid. They don’t remember anything. Don’t even get me going.”
Griffin smiled. In the old days, he would have shared this with Ellen.
Ellen was subdued at dinner, but friendly. “I hear you’re going out for some clothes with Dad tonight,” she told Zoe.
Zoe looked at Griffin. “Clothes!”
“And a game, too,” Griffin added hastily.
“I don’t need clothes!”
“A coat you need, Zoe. And maybe some pants.”
“Okay, but don’t make me try anything on.”
“We’ll see.” The marinara was delicious. “This is good,” he told Ellen. “Better than what you usually make.”
“Yes, it’s a new recipe.” She wouldn’t look at him, saying this. Ah. It had come from him. Lube Chef.
“I’ll be going out tonight, too,” Ellen told Zoe. “And I won’t be here until after you go to bed. But you get to sleep on time, okay?”
Zoe popped a forkful of spaghetti into her mouth, talked around it. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth, Zoe.”
She swallowed. “To your quilting class?”
Ellen nodded. “Yes.”
He thought, for a moment, about saying, “Bullshit. Pass the cheese,” but didn’t. Instead, he sat still, staring at his plate.
“I’m done; can we go?” Zoe asked.
Before he could answer, she was halfway down the hall. “I’ll get our coats.”
“Did you get a ride?” Griffin asked Ellen quietly.
“Yes.”
“When is he coming?”
“After you leave.”
He stood, pushed his chair in. “This is very weird, Ellen.”
“DAD!” Zoe called.
“Coming!”
He started for the hall, then turned back. “Don’t you let him in here.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I said I wouldn’t!”
“‘BYE, MOMMY!”
“Goodbye, sweetheart!” Sm
ooth as silk.
The game was fifty-five dollars. In the car on the way home, Griffin said, “You know, I don’t think I ever had a toy that cost more than ten dollars.”
Zoe groaned. “Oh, no. Don’t start telling me that.”
“What?”
“About how hard it was when you were a kid and you got spanked with a belt and all that stuff.” She yawned mightily.
“Are you sleepy?” He’d kept her out past her bedtime.
“No. Can I play one game before bed?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
Silence.
That was it? But then Zoe said, “Dad, that yawn was not because I’m tired. I’m not tired at all.”
“No, Zoe.”
There. Three usually did it.
After they got home and Zoe was tucked in, Griffin brought her a glass of water, then sat beside her. “Guess where I’m going tomorrow?” he said.
“Where?”
“To a class to learn how to be a Santa.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Nope.”
“What for?”
Griffin shrugged. “For fun!”
“Do you get any free toys?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well, good night.” She turned over.
Griffin sat still for a while, then said, “Zoe?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought you’d think it was pretty cool. Me being a Santa.”
She turned over. “Actually, Dad, it’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Well, if any of your classmates come, I won’t reveal myself as being your father.”
“Huh. As if.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nobody in my class still believes! Except for Sarah Kimball, who brings a doll to school every day!”
“Well. Maybe it will turn out to be fun for both of us. Somehow. But right now, you’d better start snoring. It’s late.”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Dad? When Mommy comes home, tell her to tuck me in, too.”
“She will. She always does.”
“I know. But tell her, too.”
“Okay. I’ll remind her.”
He’d forgotten. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d been thinking that he’d go downstairs and Ellen would be there in the living room, curled up in an armchair, reading, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. Now, remembering, reoriented, he felt a dull ache in his stomach.
He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of milk, got two more cookies. He’d spent too much on that game. But he’d wanted to buy it for Zoe. Why? Was he trying to get her on his side? Well, so was Ellen. Chocolate chip cookies, indeed. Although she did do this often, bake things from scratch. Cakes, pies, apple strudel. She was a good mother, he didn’t deny that. Whatever demons she suffered within herself, she put them aside to care for her daughter properly. They’d agreed before Zoe was born that a parent needed to be there for a child, and Ellen volunteered, having no real career plans, anyway, having worked listlessly at a bookstore before they were married. There were times staying home had been difficult for her—once, when Zoe was two, Ellen had sat on their bed weeping, saying she never read anything but the back of cereal boxes anymore. But she was committed to honoring her pledge. “I’ll take the bad with the good,” she’d said, later that night. “It’s worth it.”
Griffin went to the message pad by the telephone, and wrote,
Ellen,
I’ll always appreciate what a good mother you are. Not everything has to change.
Griffin
He reread the note, thought for a moment about throwing it away, but left it there. Then he turned out all of the lights but a small one on the hall table, and went to bed.
Chapter 11
He dreamed he was walking alongside the ocean. Ellen was with him. They were holding hands; she was smiling. He picked up a luminescent purple shell and gave it to her. She admired it, turning it over and over to look at it from this angle and that. But then she dropped it, and it disappeared into the sand. She fell to her knees and dug for it, but couldn’t find it. “Well, it can’t just be gone,” she said. But it was. She looked for a long time, then put her hands to her face and burst into tears. “Hey, this is no big deal,” Griffin said. “There’s lots more—I’ll find you another one.” But she was shaking her head, saying, no, that was the only one. He knelt down to put his arms around her, to comfort her, to show her the shells that lay on the beach ahead of them. As he held her, he felt her grow smaller. He pulled away from her and, astonished, watched as she became the size of his thumb. “Don’t drop me,” she said. She was looking up at him, her sweater clutched tightly around her, her voice barely audible. Her face was full of fear.
He startled awake, opened his eyes to the empty space in the bed beside him—no matter how determinedly he started out in the middle, he always gravitated back to his old outside half. His mouth was dry; he was perspiring slightly.
In the old days, he’d have awakened Ellen to tell her about the dream. She was good at analyzing them, at making sense of things that seemed not to. She liked to be told dreams as soon as they happened; it didn’t matter what time it was. She would always tell Griffin to say what he thought his dreams meant, first; she said that the dreamer knew best what his own dreams meant. But Griffin didn’t think so. He thought Ellen knew best what his dreams meant, and he assigned that part of himself to her.
He closed his eyes to try to go to sleep again, but it was pointless: He was wide awake. He checked the clock: 2:14. He wondered if Ellen had come home yet. Well, what if she hadn’t? It wasn’t his business any longer.
Still.
He got up, put on his robe and slippers, and went downstairs. He would say that he’d forgotten to turn the heat down, which was true. No wonder he’d awakened perspiring.
She was asleep on the sofa, her purse gaping open on the floor beside her. Why? What had she been doing? Looking to see if there was enough in the checking account to pay for first and last month’s rent for some apartment she and the Oil Pan King had looked at?
He went into the kitchen, turned on the night-light on the microwave. Milk might help him sleep. He poured a glassful, then stood at the sink, looking out the kitchen window as he drank it. He saw his reflection and, beyond that, the leafless branches of the maple tree. Maybe this weekend, he and Zoe would fix that floorboard—it was supposed to be unseasonably mild. And in the spring, he’d paint the tree house, maybe add the rope swing Zoe kept asking for, though he worried about doing that. Zoe was too daring, even for a tomboy. He worried that one of these days, she was going to hurt herself badly. It would be so much safer for her to be more…well, girl-like is what he’d say, though it was probably politically incorrect to do so. But why couldn’t she play with girls once in a while, sit quietly in someone’s pink bedroom playing Barbies instead of having demolition derby day with the “race car” she’d built with her roughneck friends from a discarded red wagon? The only Barbie Zoe owned lay ignored at the bottom of her closet. Once, he and Ellen had talked about whether or not Zoe was gay, and had decided not—not that it mattered, as they Seinfeld-ly agreed. Zoe seemed to have crushes on boys every now and then—Ben Picchiotti was someone she talked about lately. Ben was an older man, a sixth-grader and a superb baseball player—legendary in Little League circles—whom Zoe seemed to admire for reasons beyond his athletic abilities. So why couldn’t she giggle about Ben in the safety of some other girl’s house rather than racing around outside all the time? Grace Woodward, one of the girls in her class, had called her to come over a couple of times, but Zoe always found a reason not to go. Maybe it was Griffin’s fault. Maybe rather than asking her if she’d like to help hammer, he’d ask her to pick out curtains for the tree house. Wallpaper. If Ellen wasn’t going to be around, he’d have to make more of an effort that way. Not that any of Ellen’s love of the domestic and the femini
ne had rubbed off on Zoe yet.
He rinsed out his glass, put it in the sink, and started out of the kitchen. Near the phone, he saw a note, then remembered that he’d left one for Ellen. She hadn’t even bothered to read it. He started to throw it away, then saw that it was not his note, but one from Ellen to him:
Griffin—
Thank you for saying what you did in your note.
I saved it.
It’s funny, what we keep.
Ellen
He read it three times, looking to see if there was something else he could find, something in the slant of her writing, the dotting of the i’s. But he couldn’t find anything. Not what he wanted.
He went into the living room and stood over Ellen, watching her sleep. In her open purse, he saw his note, and the sight of it made for a small leap of happiness inside him.
He went back into the kitchen, got out a pencil, and on the notepad wrote:
Ellen—
It’s two-thirty A.M. I was dreaming of you. Remember once we set the alarm for two-thirty so we could walk around the neighborhood and see what it looked like? You wanted to go right up and look in the windows of the houses, but I was scared we’d get shot. We should have, anyway.
He put Ellen’s note in his robe pocket, then headed back upstairs. He would put it in the dresser drawer where they kept a huge pile of things from Zoe: notes to Santa and the Easter bunny, drawings from the time she could barely hold a pencil. Strange: At the same time Griffin was feeling a conciliatory warmth toward Ellen, he was also feeling that if she tried to take even one of those papers with her when she left, he’d kill her.
He lay back in bed, sighed. Of course he wouldn’t kill her. But he would never give her a single one of Zoe’s papers. They belonged here. In the family Griffin.
* * *
In the morning, Ellen awakened him, saying, “Do you know what time it is? Are you sick?”
He looked at the clock, bolted upright. It was 8:30, an hour and a half past the time he usually got up. Ellen was wearing the multicolored silk robe he and Zoe had picked out for her a few Mother’s Days ago. She had thought about returning it at first, saying that it must have cost a fortune—which it had. But then, at Zoe’s insistence, she’d decided to keep it. She didn’t wear it except on special occasions—Christmas mornings, times when they had guests staying over—fearing that she’d stain it or damage it in some other way. Besides, she’d always liked wearing Griffin’s flannel shirts as robes. He supposed she no longer wanted to do that.