“Uncle Chuck?” Tommy says into his.
“Speaking. Who is this?”
“Tommy!”
“Tommy who?”
“Tommy your nephew.”
“That’s an incredibly weird last name, Mr. Your-Nephew. Is it Greek?”
Tommy laughs and laughs and then says, “It’s Tommy Bass.”
“Oh, Tommy Bass, my nephew. I get it now. Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I did!”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What is the purpose of your call?”
“To talk.”
“Okay, then talk away.”
“I know a secret you’re not supposed to know,” Tommy says, and suddenly the laughter has left his voice.
“What’s that, Tommy, my nephew?”
“Mom’s not working at the Crystal Lake Diner anymore.”
“Really? Why?”
“I don’t know. She told me not to tell you.”
I swallow once. “Okay, Tommy. We’ll find her another job.”
Tommy hangs up his flip phone.
When we get to the Oaklyn apartment, I tell Danielle I purchased Tommy a cell phone so we can talk more. He shows it to her, and she says to me, “Um, do you think that maybe, just maybe you should have talked to me about this first?”
Sensing the tension, the little man retreats to his room.
It hits me that I definitely should have talked to Danielle about Tommy having a cell phone, but instead of admitting that, I say, “Went to the diner for lunch. Heard you lost your job.” I glance down at her long sleeves. “What happened?”
“Jesus, Dad,” she says, shaking her head. “I had the flu and called out a few days. My boss fired me. Does he really want me serving food when I have a virus, coughing on people’s eggs and making everyone sick?”
“Tommy seems worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You using again?” I say, before I can stop myself.
“What?”
“I haven’t seen your arms in months.”
She squints at me and says, “Are you even serious?”
“If you’re using again, I’d be happy to take you to a meeting or—”
“I’m not using.”
“Danielle, listen. I just want to—”
I’m shocked when she pulls her shirt over her head and then, in her black bra, holds both of her arms out for me to inspect.
My eyes speed up and down the soft white undersides of her wrists and biceps, but I see no fresh track marks, nor anything at all to suggest that she has been shooting heroin, other than the fact that her ribs are sticking out and she’s lost quite a bit of weight. I wonder about other drugs, but am rather relieved to see that she at least isn’t shooting junk. She never shot up anywhere else, back in the day—just in her arms. And my sister is a creature of habit, if nothing else.
“Are we good now?” she says. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though I’m only looking out for my little sister.
Danielle puts her shirt back on. “Just because my boyfriend has tattoos and no college diploma—”
“I’m concerned. That’s all. I love you.”
“Well, maybe I’m concerned that Tommy’s too young to have a cell phone. Now if I take it away, I’ll be cast as the bitch mom. So thanks for that.”
“I told him we could talk during my commute.”
“You have no Bluetooth in your truck, and you’re not supposed to use cell phones when you drive. You could get into an accident. That would traumatize Tommy—scar him for life.”
Her concern feels reassuring—like the old days—and so I say, “You’re right. I’m sorry. Do you want me to take Tommy’s cell phone back to the store?”
“What’s done is done,” she says, just like our mother used to, imitating Mom pretty well—lifting her palms above her head and shrugging her shoulders—and we both smile. “Is the interrogation over now?”
I nod. “Sorry you lost your job.”
“Something will turn up. Randall’s helping out with the bills too.”
“What is it that he does?” I say, finally getting up the courage to ask what I’ve been wondering for months.
“He collects for bookies.”
“Oh. Like—is he . . . an enforcer?” I ask, surprised, because he doesn’t look all that tough or intimidating.
“No. Nothing that dramatic.”
“Is it safe to have him around Tommy?”
“Please. The bookies he works for are regular guys with nine-to-five jobs and families. Randall just makes cash deliveries and pickups. He’s like a UPS guy, only without the brown uniform.”
“So. You’re all right?”
“Yep. I’m dandy, big brother.”
“Well, okay then.”
I relay all of the above to Portia over dinner, and she says, “Danielle’s a big girl, Chuck. And being a waitress sucks. Believe me. I know. Maybe it’s the best thing that could have happened.”
“I should have talked to her about getting Tommy a cell phone before I took him to the Verizon store. Right?”
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
“I would have been furious.”
“Thanks,” I say, but then my phone rings. “It’s Tommy.”
“Well, pick up,” Portia says, and then starts to clear the table.
“Hey, buddy, what’s up?” I say.
“Just wanted to make sure this phone works.”
“You keeping it charged?”
“Got it plugged in next to my bed.”
“Good man.”
“Are we going to hang out this weekend?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Mom cried after you left.”
I watch Portia load the dishwasher for a second. “I’m sorry about that.”
Tommy lowers his voice to a whisper. “Then she came in my room and promised to get a new job and make lots of money and take me to Disney World. Do you think she’s telling the truth? I’d like to go. My friend Shawn at school has already gone twice.”
“I bet she’s going to do her best,” I say.
“She also said I can call you as much as I want, even though she doesn’t want to hang out with you for a while. Do you want to know why she doesn’t want to be around you now?”
“Why?”
“She said she has to make you proud first.”
I swallow hard, and then Tommy and I discuss maybe going to the Camden Aquarium this weekend and touring the battleship New Jersey before we hang up and I relay to Portia what Tommy said.
“I’ll say it again,” Portia says. “It’s really fucking hard to be a single mother with only a high school diploma in this country.” I make a note to remember that.
CHAPTER 27
Portia goes to see her mom a few times a week, but she never takes me, and I start to feel really strange about it, especially when we don’t get together with her at all for Christmas or New Year’s. Once in a while I casually suggest maybe introducing us, but Portia continues to visit her mother solo.
One night after dinner, I get up the courage to be more direct. “So what’s up with you hiding me from your mother?”
“I’m not hiding you from anyone,” Portia says.
“Then why have I never met her?”
“Because it’s not necessary. I’ve never met your mother.”
“She’s dead,” I say.
“But I’ll never meet her, and it doesn’t affect our relationship.”
“Do you think your mom won’t like me?”
“She’s insane, Chuck. And I really don’t want to get my worlds mixed up right now.”
“Your worlds mi
xed up?”
“Things are going really well with us, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, “except you won’t introduce me to your mom. Does she even know about me?”
“We actually talk about you all the time,” she says. “But she’s sick. New things. Change is really hard for her.”
“I want to meet her, because she’s a part of your life, and I want the full Portia Kane experience.”
Portia laughs. “You really want to meet my mother?”
“Yeah, I do. Are we there yet?”
“We’ve been there for a long time, and that’s why I’ve been protecting you from Mom. I don’t want us to not be there after you meet her. You might run away screaming.”
“She can’t be that bad.”
“You sure?” The look in her eyes seems like a challenge.
“Let’s take this relationship to the next level. Bring on your mom!”
It takes a few weeks for Portia to talk her mother into letting me visit, and I’m a little hurt at first, even though Portia explains that no one has visited her mother for decades, and so we are asking a lot of her. “And whatever you do,” Portia says on the ride over there, “don’t touch anything. We won’t be able to sit down because there is so much shit everywhere, and it’s important that my mother doesn’t feel like you might want to alter the state of her home, which I must warn you will be absolutely frightening.”
When we enter the row home, even though Portia said it would be bad, I’m shocked by the number of boxes and things that Portia’s mother has fit into the small building. Endless piles of crap fill the rooms, leaving maybe only a two-foot-wide walking path to navigate. Every other inch of space is stacked almost floor-to-ceiling with boxes and junk.
Mrs. Kane is sitting in a recliner watching some home shopping program on TV. Her body odor is hard to ignore. She’s wearing a very old pink terrycloth sweat suit covered in stains, and she doesn’t even look over at us when Portia says, “Hi, Mom, this is the man I’ve told you so much about. Chuck Bass.”
Portia gives me an I-told-you-so glance. “Mom, don’t pretend to be invisible again, because I want you to meet my boyfriend. He’s become a very big part of my life. I love him, and he wants to be part of your life too.”
Her mother doesn’t look away from the television, which is eerie, and I start to wonder if she isn’t a little slow in addition to being eccentric.
“Hello, Mrs. Kane. Nice to meet you.” I wave, but get no response.
“We’re going to get some Diet Coke,” Portia says.
“With lime!” Mrs. Kane says without taking her eyes off the man in the television who is trying to sell burn-proof potholders made with “NASA technology.”
I follow Portia into the next room, where we are forced to navigate our way around an enormous pile of magazines, and I notice the photos of Portia taped to the wall. I scan the pics of her when she was an adorable little girl and then the awkward school photos and prom dates—“Hey, isn’t that Jason Malta?” I say, and Portia nods. Then I make my way to the other side of the room, where I see a rather handsome man wearing a throwback mustache.
“Is this Ken?”
“Yep,” Portia says.
The infamous Ken Humes.
He looks confident and rich and accomplished and used to getting what he wants out of life—and I burn with hatred and jealousy.
“Why does she still have these pictures of him up?” I ask.
Portia gives me a hurt or maybe perturbed look. “Seriously?” Then she whispers, “Did you not see the state my mother is in?”
When Portia opens the refrigerator, I see that at least half of it is stacked full with soda cans.
“Your mom must really love Diet Coke with Lime,” I say.
“She doesn’t drink it. These are all for me.”
It takes almost ten more visits before Portia’s mother acknowledges my existence, but she eventually does, and then she shows me the pictures that cover the walls of her dining room, narrating each and every one, even the shots of Portia with her husband, who Mrs. Kane says will be returning someday, and after spending so much time with Mrs. Kane it doesn’t even really bother me anymore, because I can tell that my being acknowledged in this house by name means something.
I tell Portia’s mother about the students I teach, and sometimes I show her the pictures my kids paint and samples of their handwriting and other various projects that I assign, and Mrs. Kane begins to pull out Portia’s old elementary school projects. She has them all—nothing was ever thrown away. And while I can tell Portia is embarrassed by her mother, my girlfriend likes the fact that I have made this small connection, and I do too.
It takes some time, but eventually I start to stop by Mrs. Kane’s home without Portia, just to check up on her or say hello or help her count the cars in the Acme parking lot, which she does obsessively almost every waking hour. And during one of these visits, when we finish our count and log it into her notebook, I say, “Mrs. Kane, I’d like to ask your permission to marry Portia. I realize it’s traditional to ask the father, but since he’s out of the picture—”
“Portia’s father was a very kind and gentle man,” she says, and I don’t ask any questions about where he might be now, because Portia has told me the backstory.
“I bet he was. Do you think he would have given me his blessing? Would he have allowed me to marry his daughter?”
“Portia is married to Ken,” Mrs. Kane says, turns on the Buy from Home Network, and plops down in her chair.
“They’ve been separated for a year now,” I say. “And Portia is going to file for a divorce soon. My nephew helped me pick out a ring. Would you like to see it?”
I pull the small box out of my pocket and show it to her.
“Shiny!” she says.
“Don’t tell Portia, because I want to surprise her. I have a trip planned.”
“Do you want a Diet Coke with Lime?”
“I have one already,” I say and lift the can in my hand for emphasis.
“Do you want a colder one from the refrigerator?”
“No, thanks.”
“I’ll go get you a lime Diet Coke.” She stands and makes her way to the kitchen. A minute later she hands me a very cold can. “Here.”
“Thanks,” I say, two-fisting Diet Coke with Lime now. “I love your daughter, Mrs. Kane, and it would mean a lot to have your blessing.”
“Yes,” she says as she sits down in her recliner, but I don’t know whether she is acknowledging the fact that I would really like to have her blessing or if she is actually giving it to me.
“I’ll treat her right,” I say. “I’m going to love her until the day I die.”
“Is your Diet Coke good?”
I ignore her question. “Thank you for bringing Portia into the world. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. You did something amazing, making her.”
“Portia is a good girl,” she says, still staring at the TV. “A very good girl. Portia’s father was a kind and good man.”
The old woman isn’t going to say anything appropriate—or even relevant—about my wanting to marry Portia. I begin to see how hard my future wife’s childhood must have been. It takes patience to maintain dialogue with a woman who offers you Diet Coke with Lime in response to anything and everything you say. In theory, it hadn’t seemed all that unbearable, but in practice, her mother’s inability to engage is crushing.
I don’t say anything else for a while, but just stand there watching a young woman in the TV trying to convince us to buy tennis sneakers in five different colors. “This will be the spring of the rainbow wardrobe,” she says.
“I’m going to be good to your daughter,” I say to Mrs. Kane.
As I look around the ruined house, completely full of one woman’s memories, which are so trivial and unimportan
t to the rest of the world but everything to her, I think that Portia and I owe it to ourselves to be something more than what we came from.
In my truck, I pull my Official Member of the Human Race card out of my wallet and read it:
. . . the right to strive, to reach, to dream,
and to become the person you know
(deep down) you are meant to be. . . .
When I arrive home, Portia says, “Just talked to Mom, and she says you stopped by and told her a secret. Is that true?”
“I stopped by,” I say, “but I’m not sure about the secret part. She gave me two Diet Cokes with Lime and we watched the Buy from Home Network like always.”
Portia chuckles at me and then drains a pot of ziti through a colander in the sink. “I finished my novel today.”
“Really?”
She looks back over her shoulder. “Yeah. It’s done. But I need to revise, still, and that can take some time.”
“Congratulations!” I say.
“Do you want to read it?”
“Hell yes!”
“When?”
“Right now, if you’ll let me.”
“Seriously? Because I’m feeling really paranoid about it, like it’s only going to make sense in my head and no one else’s, and it would be really helpful to know that at least one other person gets what the hell I’m writing about—and if you don’t get it, maybe you could help me work through the kinks?”
“I seriously can’t wait!”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She goes into her office and returns with a stack of paper three inches thick.
“Impressive girth. Can you finally tell me the title?”
She smiles and says, “Love May Fail. Do you like it?”
“It’s a reference to that quote at the beginning of that Vonnegut book Mr. Vernon used to talk about in his class, right? I think he had it hanging on the wall.”
“I am so glad you got that,” she says and kisses me on the mouth. “Can you read it right now, start to finish?”
“The whole book?”
“Yes.”
It’s a Saturday, so I don’t have to get up and teach in the morning. I’m able to read through the night, which is exactly what I end up doing, reclined on the couch with my feet propped up on the armrest, stacking each page on the coffee table after I read it.