Ma.”
I waited until I heard the toilet flush and the faucets shut, and I listened to her walk across her bedroom and heard her robe drop on the floor, and I could even hear her quilt settle down upon her. I drank in a serious way, which I rarely do, until I thought I could sleep. I made to lay my glasses on the rickety nightstand and dropped them on the floor near my clothes. Close enough, I thought, and lay down and had to sit up immediately, my eyes seeming to float out of my head, my stomach rising and falling in great waves of gin and Merlot. Stubbing my toe on the bathroom door, I reached for the light switch and knocked over a water glass. I knew that broken glass lay all around me, although I couldn’t see it, and I toe-danced backward toward the bed, twirling and leaping to safety. I reached for my glasses, hiding on the blue rug near my jeans, and somehow rammed my balls into the pink-and-brown Billie Holiday lamp. I fell to the floor, hoping for no further damage and complete unconsciousness.
My naked mother ran into the room. I was curled up in a ball, I think, my ass at her feet. She knelt beside me and pulled up a handful of hair so she could get a better look atme. Her breasts swung down, half in, half out of the hallway’s dusty light.
“You do not have a scratch on you,” she said, and patted my cheek. “Walk over toward the door, there’s nothing that way. I’ll get a broom.”
I could see her, both more and less clearly than I would have liked. She pushed herself up, and the view of her folded belly and still-dark pubic hair was replaced by the sharp swing of her hips, wider now, tenderly pulled down at the soft bottom edges, but still that same purposeful kick-down-the-door walk.
She came back in her robe and slippers, with a broom and dustpan, and I wrapped a towel around my waist. I stood up straight so that even if she needed glasses as much as I did what she saw of me would look good.
“Quite the event. Is there something, some small thing in this room you didn’t run into?”
“No,” I said. “I think I’ve made contact with almost everything. The armchair stayed out of my way, but otherwise, for a low-key kind of guy, I’d have to say I got the job done.”
My mother dumped the pieces of glass and the light-bulb and the lamp remains into the wastebasket.
“You smell like the whole Napa Valley,” she said, “so I won’t offer you a brandy.”
“I don’t usually drink this way, Ma. I’m sorry for the mess.”
She put down the broom and the dustpan and cameover to me and smiled at my towel. She put her lips to the middle of my chest, over my beating heart.
“I love you past speech.”
We stood there, my long neck bent down to her shoulder, her hands kneading my back. We breathed in and out together.
“I’ll say good night, honey. Quite a day.”
She waved one hand over her shoulder and walked away.
Light into Dark
“I t’s six-fifteen,” Lionel says to his stepmother. “Decent people have started drinking.”
“Maybe I should put out some food,” she says.
Lionel nods, looking around for the little cluster of liquor bottles she had thrown out when his father was alive and trying to stay sober, and replaced on the sideboard as soon as he passed away. Lionel’s not sorry he dragged himself and his stepson from Paris to Massachusetts for their first trip together, but it seems possible, even probable, that this Thanksgiving will be the longest four days of his life.
“It’s all over with Paula?” Julia doesn’t sound sorry or not sorry, she sounds as if she’s simply counting places at the table.
“Yeah. Things happen.”
“Do you want to tell me more about it?”
“Nothing to tell.”
After his first wife, the terrible Claudine, Lionel had thought he would never even sleep with another woman, but Paula had been the anti-Claudine: not French, not thin, not mean. She was plump and pretty, a good-natured woman with an English-language bookstore
I waited until I heard the toilet flush and the faucets shut, and I listened to her walk across her bedroom and heard her robe drop on the floor, and I could even hear her quilt settle down upon her. I drank in a serious way, which I rarely do, until I thought I could sleep. I made to lay my glasses on the rickety nightstand and dropped them on the floor near my clothes. Close enough, I thought, and lay down and had to sit up immediately, my eyes seeming to float out of my head, my stomach rising and falling in great waves of gin and Merlot. Stubbing my toe on the bathroom door, I reached for the light switch and knocked over a water glass. I knew that broken glass lay all around me, although I couldn’t see it, and I toe-danced backward toward the bed, twirling and leaping to safety. I reached for my glasses, hiding on the blue rug near my jeans, and somehow rammed my balls into the pink-and-brown Billie Holiday lamp. I fell to the floor, hoping for no further damage and complete unconsciousness.
My naked mother ran into the room. I was curled up in a ball, I think, my ass at her feet. She knelt beside me and pulled up a handful of hair so she could get a better look atme. Her breasts swung down, half in, half out of the hallway’s dusty light.
“You do not have a scratch on you,” she said, and patted my cheek. “Walk over toward the door, there’s nothing that way. I’ll get a broom.”
I could see her, both more and less clearly than I would have liked. She pushed herself up, and the view of her folded belly and still-dark pubic hair was replaced by the sharp swing of her hips, wider now, tenderly pulled down at the soft bottom edges, but still that same purposeful kick-down-the-door walk.
She came back in her robe and slippers, with a broom and dustpan, and I wrapped a towel around my waist. I stood up straight so that even if she needed glasses as much as I did what she saw of me would look good.
“Quite the event. Is there something, some small thing in this room you didn’t run into?”
“No,” I said. “I think I’ve made contact with almost everything. The armchair stayed out of my way, but otherwise, for a low-key kind of guy, I’d have to say I got the job done.”
My mother dumped the pieces of glass and the light-bulb and the lamp remains into the wastebasket.
“You smell like the whole Napa Valley,” she said, “so I won’t offer you a brandy.”
“I don’t usually drink this way, Ma. I’m sorry for the mess.”
She put down the broom and the dustpan and cameover to me and smiled at my towel. She put her lips to the middle of my chest, over my beating heart.
“I love you past speech.”
We stood there, my long neck bent down to her shoulder, her hands kneading my back. We breathed in and out together.
“I’ll say good night, honey. Quite a day.”
She waved one hand over her shoulder and walked away.
Light into Dark
“I t’s six-fifteen,” Lionel says to his stepmother. “Decent people have started drinking.”
“Maybe I should put out some food,” she says.
Lionel nods, looking around for the little cluster of liquor bottles she had thrown out when his father was alive and trying to stay sober, and replaced on the sideboard as soon as he passed away. Lionel’s not sorry he dragged himself and his stepson from Paris to Massachusetts for their first trip together, but it seems possible, even probable, that this Thanksgiving will be the longest four days of his life.
“It’s all over with Paula?” Julia doesn’t sound sorry or not sorry, she sounds as if she’s simply counting places at the table.
“Yeah. Things happen.”
“Do you want to tell me more about it?”
“Nothing to tell.”
After his first wife, the terrible Claudine, Lionel had thought he would never even sleep with another woman, but Paula had been the anti-Claudine: not French, not thin, not mean. She was plump and pretty, a good-natured woman with an English-language bookstore
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