Life #6. Diana Wagman

Then some new man would come along and we’d be fine. We were always fine. Harry and I would be fine too. We were educated people. We had gone to college and done everything right. Of course we’d be okay. Yes, next month we would have to cash out our 401k, but I was looking for full time work and had asked my boss at the Getty for more days. I pushed the thought of cancer away. Plenty of people with cancer worked full time.

      The telephone rang and Harry answered it. Through the bedroom door, I could hear his voice, but not what he was saying. I crossed my fingers, hoping it was the hemp journal offering him the job. I turned on the TV to my favorite, The Weather Channel.

       A stalled front over the Midwest set the stage for severe thunderstorm complexes from Nebraska to the Ohio Valley.

      Shots of Iowans scurrying along the Des Moines streets under their umbrellas, frowning up at the sky as if it had betrayed them. I pulled a pillow into my lap, ran my fingernails along the seams, back and forth, back and forth.

       Some of these storms were significant with damaging wind gusts the main threat. Heavy rainfall is also an ongoing concern. Downpours of one to three inches or more in a very short time caused dangerous flash flooding. Two people were found dead in a ravine where they were apparently fishing, while Marilyn Hobart was trapped on top of her car for almost five hours.

      I watched the footage of Marilyn Hobart being lifted to safety by helicopter. Harry opened the bedroom door. I could see on his face he was sorry. I was too.

      “Look at this,” I said. “Flash flood. This woman was stuck on top of her car for five hours.”

      “Jack’s coming over.”

      “That’s a nice surprise.”

      Harry sat down beside me on the bed. I leaned against my husband of twenty-two years and put my hand on his back. It had been more than a year since we had made love. At first, I admit I didn’t miss it. But eventually I began to crave his touch, his full weight on me. I would snuggle against him in bed and he would turn over and tell me to go to sleep. Once he yelled at me to leave him alone, stop pawing at him. Since Jack had gone back to school, Harry had been sleeping in his room.

      I opened my mouth to tell Harry my bad news. He stood up. “Harry.” I reached for him. He stepped away from me and opened the closet door to change out of his interview clothes.

      “I’ll make dinner.” I slipped past him to the kitchen.

      I made fresh pesto, Jack’s favorite. Harry opened a bottle of wine and clinked my glass in a toast to hemp. The rain was coming down even harder, and I was relieved when I heard Jack pull up.

      I went out on the front porch to greet him. He jogged up the driveway carrying a bag of laundry over his head. Inside, he gave his one-sided grin, dropped his bag and hugged me. I could smell the rain on him and his boy scent of French fries and minty deodorant. It was impossible to tell him I had cancer. I didn’t want him to be one of those brave kids with a sick parent and a haunted look, coping and grown up before his time. He pushed his dark blond hair off his smooth forehead. Handsome as the day is long. Another of my mother’s phrases. And this day had been long and I was so glad to see him I almost cried.

      He wiped his wet hands on his jeans. “Has it ever rained this much before?”

      “Global climate change,” Harry said from the couch. “People need to take it seriously.”

      I nodded. “After dinner we’re building an ark.”

      Jack followed me into the kitchen and I poured him a glass of wine. He was such a good kid, so much better than his mother. By the time I was his age I had snorted plenty of coke, dropped many tabs of acid, spent whole days stoned. Wake and bake had been my high school motto. Jack grimaced after his first sip, so I poured the rest of his glass into mine. I made a salad and we talked about school and his music.

      “It is really a big storm,” he said. For a moment he looked six-years-old, frightened by the wind and rumbling thunder.

      “Maybe you should spend the night.”

      “Yeah right, Mom.”

      The chimes on the front porch clanged. I smelled the rain, felt the tremble of our old house, and remembered the screech of the fiberglass boat straining in the storm. Once again I was at sea.

      Harry started shouting from the living room. He was obsessed with the Najibullah Zazi arrest. The press said Zazi was another Islamic terrorist who wanted to blow up America. Harry didn’t believe it. He thought the government was framing him, making Zazi a scapegoat so Homeland Security would look good. Harry thought our country had gone to hell.

      “Listen to this!” he yelled to me, to us. “They’re calling him the Beauty Parlor Bomber. Catchy, don’t you think?”

      Jack went in to watch with him.

      I drank the rest of my wine. I put the big pasta pot in the sink and turned on the faucet. The water came out, clear and clean and exquisite, as if I’d never seen water before. The pot filled and I watched the water run over the sides, fascinated by the waterfalls and eddies in the sink. I plunged my hands in and shivered from the cold.

      What was I doing? I emptied the pot and dried my hands. Filled the pot again, put it on the stove and turned on the flame. Concentrate, I told myself. Stay with the program.

      My computer dinged from the corner where I’d stuck it. I opened it and everything—water, pasta, cancer, even Jack—fell away:

       Io (you still use that name?) Io, Io—

       Jesus, I’ve missed you. I can’t help it, but your name falls from my lips at all hours. At work, at home, with my kids. I married Beth. Remember her? She helped me when I needed it. I have three kids: two girls, Lily, from my first marriage, and Sophie, and a boy, Jack. He is spoiled rotten by his sister, just like me. Are you really thinking about Newport? Can you meet me there? When, when, when? Tell me you can go to Newport on Thursday, November 5th and go back Sunday. Tell me you can do that. Can you? Please. Can I see you?

       I wrote back immediately, before I could think:

       My son’s name is also Jack. Okay. Thursday to Sunday. I’ll be there.

      Jack shouted from the other room, “You have no idea what I’m doing!” Harry yelled back. They were fighting. Again. I had left them alone too long. Since Harry had lost his job he was angry with Jack all the time. Jack wasn’t working hard enough. Music was a ludicrous major. He needed to think about his future.

      “That’s the way things are done!” Harry roared.

      “Not for me!” Jack banged the coffee table in frustration.

      I came into the living room. “Dinner’s ready.”

      “Fiona, please.”

      “I’m not hungry,” Jack said. “I have to go.”

      “I saw on TV,” I began, “about a flash flood. A woman who needed to be rescued from the roof of her car.”

      “Mom.”

      Harry rolled his eyes. “We’re talking about something else.”

      “You’re shouting.”

      “I AM NOT!”

      Jack gave some excuse and escaped. I ran after him through the drizzle to his car with a Tupperware container of pasta and pesto.

      “Sorry, Mom.”

      “Your dad just needs a job.” I leaned in his open window to give him a kiss. I kept my hand on the door. I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want to go back inside. Take me, I almost whispered. “Drive carefully,” I said. “Are your tires okay? Do your wipers work?”

      “Bye, Mom. Tell Dad I love him.”

      “Even if he is an asshole.”

      He laughed and drove away and before he was out of sight I missed