That mystifying “exact science” of compartmentalizing all the pain, sectioning off whole eras of my life, rumbles back like stampeding cattle. I’m powerless over it. As I feared I would be. I’d hoped I could postpone this day indefinitely. Live in this nothingness forever. So I’d be more ready when the magician waved his wand and the two halves of me were rolled back together with an elegant “Ta-da!!!”
chapter five
I walk out to the living room and sit on the bench of my rented piano, my damp body feeling a combination of slippery and sticky—in all the wrong places. I tighten the towel under my arms and settle my fingers on the keys.
Any day now I shall be released…
My voice is whispery quiet.
Trapdoors and bubbles. Chutes and Ladders. All a minefield.
Any day now…
The funny thing is I’d managed to convince myself that the calm I’d felt since then was some sort of evolution. Instead I’d just grown comfortably numb.
I shall be released…
I play the song over and over and over and over again. My fingers pound the keys. My towel hangs on for dear life. The house vibrates around me.
I close my eyes and a slideshow of memories and snapshots speeds past my consciousness like brake lights on a rainy night. The good with the bad. My playing speeds. The rain pummels the windows. I’ve worked so hard to keep these memories and feelings at bay. Amazingly, I’ve only had one slipup in the last five years. And that one wasn’t even my fault.
I just showed up for a root canal.
The receptionist had led unsuspecting me through a dental office decorated with photographs of all of Dr. Waxman’s celebrity patients.
“Grace…” The dentist rounds the corner just as I’m settling into the chair.
“Hi,” I answer, putting my purse on the counter next to countless instruments of torture.
“Dr. Reilly talked to me a little bit about your situation,” Dr. Waxman starts, flipping through my file, putting up little X-rays of my molars and flipping on the backlight. I contort myself in the chair, looking at my teeth, the roots, the gums… the problem.
Dr. Waxman continues, “I’d like to talk to you about the use of nitrous oxide. Dr. Reilly told me that you were a more anxious patient. We can go over the—”
“I’m in,” I interrupt.
“Good decision,” Dr. Waxman says, resting his hand on my arm gently. He motions to the assistant to wheel over the Canister o’ Good Times while I try to make myself more comfortable.
“This is going to take about four hours—two hours for each root canal. Do you have someone picking you up, Grace?” Dr. Waxman asks, pulling over the mask for the nitrous.
“Uh… no. I don’t have anyone,” I say, looking up at him.
“Oh, okay. Well, not a problem. Nitrous oxide wears off rather quickly, so you can drive yourself home as long as you wait about thirty minutes,” Dr. Waxman says, bringing the little pink mask to rest on my nose. It smells like bubble gum. I’m positive I look like a warped version of Mrs. Potato Head.
The nitrous begins to flow. I don’t really feel different. I’m not even sure it’s working.
“Grace? How are you feeling?” Dr. Waxman asks, pulling his chair close.
“Triangles,” I answer.
“Okay… we’re ready,” Dr. Waxman says to his assistant, who passes him the tongue guard. I stare at the lit panels of fish on the ceiling and wonder why that didn’t make perfect sense to him. I try to focus in on the music playing over the drilling. Is that “Life in a Northern Town”? Wait… how did it get to be “Fragile” by Sting so quickly… wait, what happened to the… who… where’s everyone going… are we done… wait… why am I sitting up straight now… when did that happen… am I… how did I get back down… wait… who’s that… is that George Michael… wait… I can feel… no, I mean really feel… choking, wrenching, burning… sadness… loss… emptiness…
“I’ve made you cry,” Dr. Waxman says, gently wiping a tear away.
“I can feel it,” I say through the nitrous haze, tongue guard and dental instruments.
“Feel the drilling?” Dr. Waxman asks, immediately stopping.
“No… no, my bubble is gone… no bubble…” I answer, tears streaming down my face, wondering if those are actual aquariums in the sky.
“Bubble? Grace, I don’t underst—” Dr. Waxman asks, motioning for his assistant.
“Inside my body… I can feel it,” I whisper, as if something almost paranormal is happening to me.
“We’re almost through,” Dr. Waxman assures me. The walls are down. No armor.
“Oh my God, it happened to us. It happened to me,” I urgently confess.
“It’s okay, Grace… we’re almost done. Turn up the nitrous,” Dr. Waxman instructs his assistant.
More bubble gum… more lit fish… in and… out… how did I get… Sweeeeet Caroline, BUM, bum, bum… wait… there it is… no… choking, wrenching, burning… I miss you… please… don’t leave me… I… I’m nothing… I’ve got no one… please… please… please… I’m all alone.
“Mommmmmmmm,” I call out, as the assistants try to calm me down.
I look up from the piano keys.
My hands ache and my chest hurts. The little half breaths I’ve been taking, the emotion I’ve been swallowing, feel like the worst case of heartburn ever recorded. I look up and down the keyboard, hoping the answer lies there. As I fight to catch my breath, I can’t help but realize how monumental the simple act of breathing has become. So basic. Yet as my emotions straddle that line between my being in control and my being confined to a padded room, I can’t seem to master it. I am nostalgic for the days when my breath was involuntary.
I bite my lip to stop the quivering. I’ve feared this moment for five years. It’s not the chest pain or the bitten lip I’m afraid of. It’s the endlessness of the pain. The final comprehension that this is real. This did happen to our family. Those are Mom’s ashes in that little silver box. I breathe a whole, full breath.
The blur of the last five years floats past. A life embodied by a shrug of the shoulders. Trying not to pop that bubble. The rain continues to pound. How long have I been sitting here?
Any day now I shall be released…
I could… I should be the better man, Charlie Brown. I should go—and be there for Dad, even if he was never there for me. I should be the person he couldn’t. I’m Mom’s kid. I picture Dad finally realizing… knowing he missed out.
Maybe I just can’t lose another parent without saying goodbye. Maybe I just can’t have another parent die alone.
I know where to start.
I am quiet. The house is quiet. No more piano. I squeak the bench back, situating the towel once again tightly under my arms, and walk into the kitchen. I grab the phone and dial. He answers on the first ring. He hasn’t changed a bit.
“Leo?” I say. Out of all four of us, Leo looks the most like Mom. He’s the only one of us with light brown hair and Mom’s mint ice cream eyes. The rest of look like the cast of Children of the Corn: The Adult Years.
“Gracie?” Leo answers, his crumbly voice always bordering on a giggle fit.
Leo was always my charge. The boy genius who graduated from a magnet high school (that none of the rest of us could get into) at fifteen. And off to Cal Tech at sixteen.
“How are you?” I ask. I feel like I should fall on a thousand swords.
“I knew you’d call. I knew it. I knew that once Abigail broke the seal with Evie’s quinceañera that it’d be like this chain reaction, but not like the neutron-fission chain reaction, that’d be ridiculous. We’re more of a sociological example. I’m totally bastardizing it, but you know what I’m talking about—that once Abigail reached out to you… wait… what was I talking about?” Leo speaks quickly.
“Haven’t you been talking to Abigail and Huston since—” I won’t say since when. I can’t. Not yet. Minefield.
“Kinda, but not
really. I’m busy teaching at Cal Tech. They didn’t mind that I had a record, you know. You had said they wouldn’t, remember? Abigail was freaking out, of course. But, come to find out they saw my little run-in with the law as kind of on-the-job training.” Leo laughs and then continues, “They even finessed it so I got security clearance. Imagine that?”
“Oh, we’re bragging about your little stint in the pokey now, are we?” I ask, smiling.
“C’mon, it was fifteen years ago and besides I was only in for three months, thanks to Huston and John’s legal wheeling and dealing,” Leo finishes. John.
One. Trapdoor. At. A. Time.
“They did a great job getting you out.”
“Vanity Fair even did this whole story about the first generation of hackers. It was maybe three years ago… three or four, something like that. It was really well done, they mostly focused on Jobs and Wozniak, but there was like two paragraphs in there about me,” Leo announces proudly.
“Congratulations.”
“It was one of the first times the federal government’s mainframe was hacked and because I was like eighteen at the time, it was a good story or whatever,” Leo explains.
“Yes, editing the FBI’s Most Wanted List to include the President and his cabinet was quite elegant,” I say, laughing.
“Didn’t keep his son from getting elected.”
“Well, crime shouldn’t pay, my little revolutionary.”
“No, seriously. I think that’s what opened the door at Cal Tech. I was finishing up my second PhD at MIT and got the call,” Leo says, rattling off an educational background that still blows me away.
“How did writing an exposé on your crimes and misdemeanors land you a teaching spot at Cal Tech?” I ask.
“Because they outed me.” Leo’s voice is adorably conspiratorial.
“Outed you?” I ask, a smile breaking across my face.
“Yeah, nobody could figure out that I was Griffon Whitebox,” Leo almost whispers.
“Ah, ye olde code name of Griffon Whitebox,” I repeat, wondering why I’m now whispering as well.
“Half lion, half hawk—”
“I told you back then that a Griffon is half lion, half eagle,” I correct.
“Close enough—come on, Leo Hawkes equaling a griffon? You have to admit that’s super cool,” Leo cuts in, taking a bite out of something.
“Fine. And where did Whitebox come from again?” I ask, taking a sip of my now cold Tension Tamer tea. I can’t believe I am having this conversation, but then again—it’s Leo. This is exactly the type of conversation we used to have.
“The first time the griffon was used in Dungeons & Dragons was in the white box edition. It was a highly prized monster.” Leo sighs, frustrated that I don’t just know this information.
“So, how did Vanity Fair figure it out?” I finally ask.
“There’s been speculation for years. I still deny it, though. You know,” Leo says.
“Keepin’ it real.”
“Exactly.”
We are quiet. Actually, I’m quiet. Leo’s chewing.
He continues, “Are you heading up?”
I’m quiet. Oddly stunned. Wrenched out of my delusion that everything hadn’t been reset to normal. Mom isn’t going to take the phone from Leo and tell me to bring chocolate over stat and make a joke about his lack of a sweet tooth.
He continues, “That’s why you called, right? To tell me you’re heading up? I mean, it’d be weird to call and tell me you’re not going to show up. You’re not calling to tell me that, are you—Gracie?” Leo’s mouth is full and his words are quick. I imagine chunks of food falling.
“No, of course not,” I sigh.
“Oh… okay. Phew! If you were leaving now, we could have carpooled. Are you leaving now? Hey, wait, are you still in that apartment on Raymond?” Leo takes another bite.
“No, I’m on California Terrace. Over by the Rose Bowl? I bought a house,” I admit.
“You bought a house? Man, that’s the big leagues. I’m still in that duplex—the one with the smell?” Leo says.
“Ah, yes.” I remember.
“I like the neighborhood, you know?”
“When are you heading up?” I ask.
“I’m just out the door. Abigail called me about an hour ago, I packed a bag and now I’m on my way out. Hopefully, I can find a place to stay once I get up there,” Leo rattles off.
“Just like that?” I blurt, unable to control it.
“Just like what?” Leo asks.
“Dad’s been gone for twenty-two years and now we’re all running back to his bedside just because Abigail says so?” I say.
I feel bad the minute I say it.
“I don’t know about Dad, I just know Abigail said to come,” Leo says, his voice stilted as he tries to work it out. My head drops to my chest. I feel like I just kicked a puppy. But…
“Why don’t we just get together for Evie’s quinceañera?” I try.
“I don’t know, Gracie,” Leo answers, his voice hesitant.
“I don’t understand why we’re all flocking to him after he walked away,” I protest, all my earlier epiphanies and lightning bolts now negated.
Leo is quiet.
“I mean, it’s Dad. We don’t even know the man,” I offer.
“For not knowing him, you’ve sure been acting a whole lot like him for the past however many years,” Leo blurts.
“It’s not th—” I begin to argue. Leo interrupts.
“You walked away, but I still picked up the phone.”
“I…” I stutter.
“I knew it was you. However mad I was or am or I don’t even know anymore, however mad I was—I picked up the phone,” Leo explains.
I am quiet. Ashamed.
Leo continues, “I’d flock to you, if you needed me.” He doesn’t sound angry, not exactly. It’s worse. He’s crushed. Disappointed.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my head in my hands.
“I don’t want to fight,” Leo pleads.
“No, you’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“I can be sorry if I want to.”
“Okay, then, be sorry.”
“I will.”
We’re quiet. Bursting bubbles.
I continue, “I’ll pack a bag and head up.”
“Good,” Leo answers.
“See you when I see you,” I say.
“See you when I see you,” Leo says at the exact same time.
“JINX!” we both say, quickly counting to ten.
“You owe me a Coke,” Leo blurts first.
“Fine,” I say.
“In Ojai, okay? You’ll get me the Coke in Ojai.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Leo.”
“Good night, Gracie.”
I beep the phone off, still sitting on the granite counter, and look at the clock on the wall.
It’s nine o’clock in the morning.
chapter six
I roll out the suitcase I’ve dubbed “the Pumpkin” and throw my cashmere hoodie into the big orange piece of luggage to get the packing going. Luggage this big scares me. I absently hold a handful of panties while I try to figure out what I should bring. I spot an old backpack at the bottom of the closet. I take the hoodie out of the Pumpkin, grab the backpack and throw the panties into the bottom. Better.
I stand in my kitchen, backpack over both shoulders, and look around my house one more time. I’ll have to use my vacation days. I have seventeen. I think about buying a last-minute ticket to… Tuscany. Call Tim and see if he’s up for a spontaneous rendezvous. I can’t help but laugh. Tim is one of the least spontaneous people I’ve ever known: the one time we vacationed in Hawaii for a week our itinerary would have made Julie, the cruise director, cry uncle. Okay, Australia. I could go to Australia. I don’t want to go to Australia. I just don’
t want to be here. Anywhere but here. No. It’s time to be a family again, whether I like it or not. Sealing the deal, I pick up the phone and dial.
“Hello?”
“Abigail?” I say, knowing full well who it is.
“It took you long enough to call me back.”
“I was in the middle of a 5K when you called,” I say, wanting it to not sound so ridiculous. At least I didn’t call it a fun run.
“Are you on your way?” Abigail presses.
“I have to stop by the office first.”
“No rush.”
“I have to pick up a few files, leave a note for my assistant… that kind of thing.”
“It’s just a stroke. Take your time,” Abigail sighs.
“Wow, this has been such a pleasure. It makes me wonder why I haven’t spoken to you in—”
“Five years.”
“I’d better get going, then. Wouldn’t want to be any later,” I say, fidgeting with my keys.
“Yeah, wouldn’t want that.”
“Do you want to tar and feather me now or can you wait until I get up there?”
“I’ll wait until you get up here.” I’m caught off guard.
“Oh… okay. Tell Huston I’m on my way?” I ask, not able to face him quite yet.
“Yeah, okay. Drive safe. I wouldn’t want you getting injured before I get my hands on you,” Abigail says. Is that humor?
“Okay… see you when I see you,” I say.
“See you when I see you,” Abigail says, one second after me.
We’re quiet. Counting to ten. I’m biting my tongue.
“You owe me a Coke,” Abigail finally says.
Damn, that’s two Cokes. I hate losing, whatever the circumstances. I beep the phone off and set it back into its cradle. I grab my purse and turn the kitchen light off.
I’ll call Tim once I get to the office. I’m going to need the next… wait… how long am I going to be gone? Do I ask someone to pick up the mail for me? I’ve got a couple of days’ leeway because of the holiday. I’m literally pacing back and forth, about to walk out, then walking back in, about to walk out and then back in. I hold my car keys in one hand and a commuter mug of Earl Grey tea in the other.
I shut and lock the door behind me and walk through the courtyard, breathing in the smell of lavender and fresh air as the sky thinks about raining again. I open the gate and walk two houses down, backpack still on, purse hitched at my shoulder, keys held tightly in my hand. I walk up the impeccable pathway, past color-coded perennials and little crafty signs welcoming me, letting me know that what happens at Grandma’s stays at Grandma’s, and that I should, above all, have a happy new year. I approach the red glossy door and hope these people will recognize me from the insignificant waves I begrudgingly throw their way each morning. I knock on the door. And wait. The door whips open.