The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

  8 At around five-thirty, after George and I had thoroughly plundered the refrigerator, Mom came home from her first day at the carpentry studio. Her cheeks were red, as if she’d been jogging. It was wonderful! she said, grasping my hand. She looked for Joseph but he was reading in his room. George had gone home. We’ll just do a quick tour of the neighborhood trees, Mom said in a confiding voice, tugging me out the front of the house. So this is a fir, she said, pointing at a dark evergreen growing in the middle of someone’s yard. Softwood, she said. This one: sycamore, she said, tapping on the bark of the next. She frowned. I don’t think they build furniture from sycamore, she said, but I’m not sure why not.

  I peeled a gray jigsaw-shaped piece of bark right off the trunk. I recognized her enthusiasm as phase one of a new interest. Phase two was usually three or four months later, when she hit the wall after her natural first ability rush faded and she had to struggle along with the regularly skilled people. Phase three was a lot of head shaking and talking about why that particular skill—sociology, ceramics, computers, French—wasn’t for her after all. Phase four was the uneasy long waiting period, which I knew by the series of 2 a.m. wake-ups where I stumbled down the hallway into her lap.

  Too peely, I said, folding the bark in two.

  I leaned on her arm a little as we walked down the shady side of Martel. Waving at some neighbors out on their lawn with a hose. By five-thirty, the heat was light, pleasurable, and the air seemed to glisten and hone around us. She asked if I was feeling better and I said a little, pushing the upcoming dinner out of my head and trying to concentrate on what she was saying next, something about worrying she could not keep up with the others at the studio. Which made no sense. My mother had trouble choosing and sticking but she was initially good at everything, particularly anything involving her hands; the bed she made was so perfect that for years I slept on top of the sheets because I did not want to wreck her amazing exactness by putting a body inside it.

  I think you’ll be good, I said.

  She tucked a stray hair behind my ear. Thank you, she said. Such a sweet supporter you are. Much nicer than your father.

  She did seem lighter, in a newly good mood, as we toured the trees up and down Gardner and Vista and then steered ourselves back inside.

  Leftovers at dinner was a whole repeat of the previous night’s upset, just softened by the one day of time and the kindness from George. I kept the nurse’s advice in mind, looking to see if it was going around, but no one else seemed bothered by any of it. Dad asked about the studio, and Mom told us her first assignment would be to cut a board.

  A board! he said, clinking his glass to hers. How about that.

  She frowned at him. Don’t be mean, she said.

  Did I say anything? he said, widening his eyes. I can’t build anything. I can only re-build stools that are already built, he said.

  He winked at her. She cleared her glass.

  You know that story, Rose? he said.

  A hundred times, I said.

  Joseph picked up the pepper pillar and shook it over his food in a rain of black specks. Like our mother, he too had long beautiful hands, like a pianist’s, fingers able to sharpen and focus like eyes.

  Too bland? Mom asked.

  Joseph shook his head. Just experimenting, he said.

  Today, Dad announced, patting his place mat, I saw a man walking a monkey. True story.

  Where? I said.

  Pershing Square, he said.

  Why?

  He shrugged. I have no idea, he said, wiping his mouth. That was my day. Next.

  Joseph put down the pepper. Fine, he said.

  Half good, half awful, I said.

  Half awful! said Dad, waiting.

  My head, I said, is off.

  Looks on to me, Dad said. Very on.

  Oh, Rosie, no! Mom said. She sprinkled some pepper onto her dish too and then leaned over to hug my forehead into her side. You have a beautiful head, she said. A fine beautiful girl in there.

  Food is full of feelings, I said, pushing away my plate.

  Feelings? Dad said. For a second, he peered at me, close.

  I couldn’t eat my sandwich, I said, voice wobbling. I can’t eat the cake.

  Oh, like that, Dad said, leaning back. Sure. I was a picky eater too. Spent a whole year once just eating French fries.

  Did they taste like people? I said.

  People? he said, wrinkling his nose. No. Potato.

  You look well, Mom said. She tried a careful bite of her chicken. Better with pepper, she said, nodding. Much better, yes.

  Joseph folded his arms. It was just an experiment, he said.

  I’m going out with George and Joseph on Saturday, I said.

  Only because it’s your birthday, said Joseph.

  Her birthday, Mom echoed. Nine years old. Can you believe it?

  She stood and went to the recipe page and wrote on it in big capital letters: ADD PEPPER!

  There! she said.

  I stacked my plate on Dad’s. He stacked our plates on Joseph’s.

  Don’t you see? I said to Dad.

  See what?

  I pointed at Mom.

  Lane, he said. Yes. I see a beautiful woman.

  I kept my eyes fixed on him.

  What? he said again.

  Her, I said.

  Me? Mom said.

  What is it, Lane? Dad asked. Is something going on?

  Nothing, Mom said, shaking her head, capping her pen. She laughed. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Rose?

  She said she wants support, I said.

  Oh no, no, said Mom, blushing. I was just teasing, earlier. I feel very supported, by all of you.

  Can I go? asked Joseph.

  She’s making a board, Dad said, bringing the stacks of plates to the sink. What else is there to say about that? She’ll make a perfect board. Any dessert?

  I didn’t move. Mom kept smoothing her hair behind her ears. Smooth, smooth. Joseph stood, at his spot.

  Can I go? he said again.

  What do you want to do on Saturday, Rose? Mom asked. We could dress up and walk around in the park together. There are a couple more pieces of lemon cake, Paul, she said. Over there.

  I have an important plan with George, I said.

  Joseph squeezed out of his end of the table. After Saturday, nothing, he said to me. Got it?

  George? Mom said. Joe’s George?

  I’d know if she needed support! said Dad, at the sink.

  Joseph left the room. My parents turned to me, with bright, light faces. We stood in front of empty place mats.

  Do we say grace? I said.

  Grace is what people say before the meal, said Mom. She moved to the piles in the sink. It’s to give thanks for the food we are about to eat, she said.

  I closed my eyes.

  For the food that is gone, I whispered. Grace.

  Due to his role as moneymaker, my father was excused from doing the dishes, and Joseph was so overly meticulous with dish-doing that it was easier when he was off in his room, so it was my mother and me in front of the soapy sink: her washing, me drying. I zipped through the silverware using my new worn rose dish towel from Grandma. Mom seemed in good spirits, squeezing my shoulder, asking me a series of fast questions about school, but the aftertaste of the spiraled craving chicken was still in my mouth and I was having trouble trusting her cheer, a split of information I could hardly hold in my head. I circled the dish towel over wet plates, stacking each one in the cabinet. Dug the dish towel into the mouths of mugs. Strung it through the metal ring on the drawer when I was done.

  Afterwards, I heaved my book bag onto my shoulder and headed down the hall towards my room. I kept my walking slow, like my brain was a full glass of water I needed to carefully balance down the corridor.

  To my surprise, the door to Joseph’s room was propped half open. This was as rare and good as a written invitation since he’d recently installed a lock on his door, bought from the
same hardware store with his allowance. He kept the new key also on that elegant silver circle keychain.

  There was still a wisp of daylight outside, but his window shades were pulled, and he had clicked on the desk lamp instead. He was lying on his bed, feet crossed, reading Discover next to a clump of silvery radio innards.

  Hi, I said. He looked up, over his magazine. His eyes did not reach out to say hello but instead formed a loose wall between us.

  Sorry for hogging George, I said.

  He blinked at me.

  You don’t have to get me anything for my birthday, I said. Saturday can be my birthday present. You feeling better? I asked.

  What do you mean?

  Just earlier, with the toast?

  He returned to his magazine.

  Jesus, he said. You think everyone is in bad shape. I was fine all day, he said, into the pages. I just didn’t want to spend my afternoon watching my little sister eat snacks, okay?

  He turned another page, reading.

  I waited there, in his doorway, for a while. I poked at the O in the Keep Out sign on his door.

  He raised his eyebrows: Anything else?

  That’s all, I said.

  Good night, he said.

  I turned to go and was almost out the door when something blurred in my peripheral vision near where he lay on the bed. As if for half a second the comforter pattern grew brighter or the whites whiter. Then I turned back to look and everything was the same, perfectly still, him reading away.

  Are you okay? I said, shaking my head clear.

  He glanced up again. Didn’t we just go through this?

  Just—

  His eyes wide, looking. Half interested.

  Did the colors change? I said. Is George coming by?

  Now? he said. No. It’s nighttime.

  Did you just move, or something?

  Me?

  Yeah, like did you move from the bed?

  He laughed, short and brusque.

  I’ve been here, the whole time, he said.

  Sorry, I said. Never mind. Good night.

  9 Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn’t love me—I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.

  He was not the expected choice for favorite. Dad, who claimed no favorites, sometimes looked at Joseph as if he’d dropped from a tree, and very few people reached out naturally to Joe except for George. He’d always been remote—I had a vague memory, from when I was two, of finding Joseph sitting in his room in the dark, so that even my baby toddler brain associated him with caves—but sometime in his third-grade year Mom started taking him out of school. He was bored in class, outrageously so, and the teacher had taken to giving him her purse to sort through and organize while the rest of the class did beginning addition. Mom would pick him up and he’d have made some kind of chain-link out of Tic Tacs, threading each one with a needle he’d dug from the classroom sewing kit. Look, Mom, he said, holding up the mint-green linked cord. Bacteria, he said. The teacher flinched, embarrassed. He is so smart, she whispered, as if he had hurt her with it.

  One afternoon, Mom showed up with me on her hip, told the office Joseph had a doctor’s appointment, and took him out, right in the middle of the gym lesson on how to throw a ball. So he never learned to throw a ball. The office did not question the doctor’s appointment, and neither did the other students, because Joseph was skinny and pale and hunched and looked like he needed a lot of medical care. Mom walked us to the car and strapped me into my car seat.

  What doctor are we going to? Joseph asked. Am I sick?

  Not a bit, she said, driving out of the school parking lot and turning up the radio. Trumpets blared. You are perfect and perfectly healthy, she said. We’re going to the market.

  What was he supposed to do, string mints all day? she asked me later, when remembering that year.

  I was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant.

  That afternoon, the three of us went to the dress store, the farmers’ market, the dry cleaner. We drove the full length of Wilshire Boulevard, from the ocean to the heart of downtown, winding our way back home on 6th through the palaces of Hancock Park. Beneath tall graceful pines, planted in 1932 by the bigwigs of the movie industry. We stopped by the market to pick up ravioli and spinach for dinner. My mother was in between jobs that year, and she did not like to drive alone. Sometimes the two of them talked about how trees grew, or why we needed rain; sometimes they just sat silently while I threw cracker bits around the back seat. Mom loved to listen to Joseph—she nodded with encouragement at every single word he said. Occasionally, we’d pull over to the curb and she’d ask him advice on her life, and even at eight, he’d answer her questions in a slow, low monologue. She would hold tightly on to the band of her seatbelt and fix her eyes onto his, listening.

  All this happened for many months, and no one mentioned anything to Dad, and all was fine until one afternoon when Joseph was at school, staying in during recess because he did not like to play dodgeball. The teacher was cleaning the blackboard with a damp cloth. Joseph was crouching on the floor of the classroom, analyzing the color gradation of the carpet fibers, when the teacher asked him, with great concern, if he was feeling any better. Joseph said he was feeling fine.

  But the doctors must be giving you a lot of medicine? the teacher said. She was kind of a dumb teacher. I met her later and she cried a little when she met me, like I was going to torture her again with the Edelstein brilliance. When I told her that I wasn’t a genius, she visibly relaxed.

  No, said Joseph.

  But so what do they do, these doctors? the teacher asked, as she cleared the remaining bits of chalk off the board. Joseph was out of the classroom for most of the day, sometimes three times a week at that point. He didn’t answer. He squatted at the foot of her desk now, investigating the grain of the desk wood.

  Joseph?

  We go to the market, he said then.

  You go to the market with the doctors?

  Me and Mom, said Joseph.

  Before the doctors? asked the teacher, slowing her hand.

  It’s what the doctor ordered, said Joseph, looking up for a brief moment to catch her narrowing eye.

  I knew the whole story backwards and forwards, because I heard it told and retold over the phone, to friends, to my father, to anyone, as my mother got investigated. She talked about it for years. A couple of social workers came by and asked her questions in the living room for two hours. The home-schooling contingency in the neighborhood dropped off a stack of handmade pamphlets. When Dad found out what was happening, he brought a notepad to the dinner table to try to understand, asking the same questions over and over while Joseph and I dug through our food. But explain again, he said, lowering his brow. Why were you taking him out? Because he is bored out of his mind, said Mom, waving her fork in the air. Let him discover the world on his own! Dad scribbled jagged lines on the pad. But you didn’t go to a museum, he said. You went to the dry cleaner. Mom gritted her teeth. He liked it, she said. Didn’t you learn something, honey? Joseph sat up straighter. They use liquid solvent but no water, he recited.

  Mom had to be talked to by the president of student affairs and the school principal, and she was on mom probation permanently. A few years later, when she wanted to take me out of school for a real doctor’s appointment to deal with a stubborn flu, I had to wait in the main office, staring at the dark fishtank with the rows of tiny blue fish zigging and zagging, while the secretary called Dr. Horner to confirm my appointment.

  Cough, Rose, Mom had said when we walked into the main office together. I let out a ripping bronchial spasm.

  See? Mom said to the secretary. Can we go?

  The secretary gave me a look of concern. I’m sorry, he said, wincing. School policy, he said. He was on hold at Dr. Horner’s for fifteen minutes, and we almost missed
the slot. In the doctor’s waiting room, Mom flipped through the magazines like the pages needed to be slapped.

  Those months of errands seemed benign: kid and Mom, going to stores together. It was even sweet, in a way. The social workers left the house that day holding slices of Mom’s freshly baked banana bread, calling thank you as they got into their car. As soon as Joseph was back in a regular school routine, Dad forgot all about it. But the one true result of all those absences was that Joseph, who was already unfriendly, made even fewer attachments in the classroom. He’d had a couple friends in earlier years—no one to bring home, but his conversation was peppered with repeated names—Marco, Marco, Marco, Steve, Marco, Steve, Steve. After that third-grade year, it changed to Them and They. They went out to recess. I don’t like them. They all played chess. They have fruit punch in their lunches; can I? Can I stay home? Not like any of this was a problem for Mom—she thought Joseph was perfect, even though he was often in a bad mood, rarely made eye contact, and ignored everyone. She called Joseph the desert, one summer afternoon when we were all walking along the Santa Monica Pier, because, she explained, he was an ecosystem that simply needed less input. Sunshine’ll do it for Joe, she said, beaming upon him. Joseph walked two feet to the side, absorbed in the game booths that lined the south side of the pier.

  He is economical with his resources, Mom told me, since Joseph wasn’t listening.

  And what am I? I asked, as we walked down the rickety wooden pathway that led to the end of the dock, where the fishermen stood all day with their old-style fishing poles.

  You? she said, looking out over the water. Mmm. Rain forest, she said.

  Rain forest, what does that mean? I asked.

  You are lush, she said.

  I need rain?

  Lots of rain.

  Is that good? I asked.

  Not good or bad, she said. Is a rain forest good or bad?

  What are you?