Read Online Little Known Facts: A Novel by Christine Sneed - Free Book Online
Authors: Christine Sneed
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been deprived of anything, which, I realize, some would say is a different kind of deprivation. What’s life without the struggle? Without the hunger to accomplish the right things, those that will bring you the respect and admiration (and envy) of your peers? But I wonder this—if you don’t have to struggle, why would you? I don’t think too many of us would choose to take the harder route. We simply take it because that’s the only one open to us. I realize the irony here—my own children serve as examples of people who haven’t had to struggle in any kind of traditional sense. The one seems to be quite happy, but the other not so much.
I don’t know what to say about Billy’s inertia, which isn’t a recent development—it has been with him since early adolescence. Since before Renn and I divorced, I suppose. Billy saw the divorce coming too. It’s clear to me, having worked as a pediatrician for so many years, that most children are very perceptive, more so than their parents are. But I don’t think the problems Renn and I had caused Billy’s inertia. For one, Renn was often only home for two- and three-week stints, and even when he was with us, he came and went constantly. Scheduling a family dinner was akin to arranging for an audience with the pope, something I said once to Renn, which he thought was funny, even though I hadn’t intended it to be. Our children didn’t see us fighting very often because toward the end, they didn’t see us together very much at all.
After Anna and I said good-bye, I called Billy. He didn’t answer. I tried him a second time an hour later. My call went into voice mail again. Now, at five thirty, when I’m done with appointments for the day (twenty-six patients, all crammed into seven hours, along with several phone calls), I take the 10 to the 405 and make it to Billy’s place faster than I expect to during rush hour. I want to take him out for dinner. We haven’t had a face-to-face conversation in several weeks, in part because he didn’t come over for Thanksgiving this year. He told me that he had been invited to Danielle’s mother’s house and said that I could go with them, but I was hurt that he hadn’t first asked me if I wanted them to come to my house before he agreed to go to Danielle’s mother’s. I told him that I had already bought a turkey and ordered two pumpkin pies. He apologized perfunctorily but didn’t budge, and part of this intransigence, I realize now, was likely caused by his desire to appease Danielle, but then she broke up with him anyway. Anna and I celebrated without him, and she brought along Jill, whose parents were traveling in Europe, but it was still a subdued, almost somber, occasion without Billy, even though he isn’t known for cracking jokes or playing the family clown. Anna and Billy’s father was in Rome or maybe it was New York, both cities where he keeps apartments, but Anna couldn’t take any days off from the hospital to spend the holiday with him, and Billy doesn’t spend as much time with Renn as he used to. I hope this will change, but I’m not sure how or when it will.
The building where my son lives is all gleaming steel and mirrored glass, and it reminds me of a monstrous robot. Sometimes, to get a rise out of me, he calls his home Robotland. “If I live here long enough, maybe I’ll turn into one too,” he once said.
“That’s not funny,” I said, but laughed anyway.
The doorman, a young guy named Carlo (“Not Carlos,” he said with a shy smile when he introduced himself to me last year) who is maybe twenty-one but already has two daughters whose pictures he has bashfully shown me more than once, calls upstairs when I get to the lobby because my plan is to ambush my son. If I called Billy again from my cell and told him that I’m downstairs, he wouldn’t answer and he’d know not to answer the doorman’s page either.
It still takes him several rings to respond to Carlo’s call. “Good
I don’t know what to say about Billy’s inertia, which isn’t a recent development—it has been with him since early adolescence. Since before Renn and I divorced, I suppose. Billy saw the divorce coming too. It’s clear to me, having worked as a pediatrician for so many years, that most children are very perceptive, more so than their parents are. But I don’t think the problems Renn and I had caused Billy’s inertia. For one, Renn was often only home for two- and three-week stints, and even when he was with us, he came and went constantly. Scheduling a family dinner was akin to arranging for an audience with the pope, something I said once to Renn, which he thought was funny, even though I hadn’t intended it to be. Our children didn’t see us fighting very often because toward the end, they didn’t see us together very much at all.
After Anna and I said good-bye, I called Billy. He didn’t answer. I tried him a second time an hour later. My call went into voice mail again. Now, at five thirty, when I’m done with appointments for the day (twenty-six patients, all crammed into seven hours, along with several phone calls), I take the 10 to the 405 and make it to Billy’s place faster than I expect to during rush hour. I want to take him out for dinner. We haven’t had a face-to-face conversation in several weeks, in part because he didn’t come over for Thanksgiving this year. He told me that he had been invited to Danielle’s mother’s house and said that I could go with them, but I was hurt that he hadn’t first asked me if I wanted them to come to my house before he agreed to go to Danielle’s mother’s. I told him that I had already bought a turkey and ordered two pumpkin pies. He apologized perfunctorily but didn’t budge, and part of this intransigence, I realize now, was likely caused by his desire to appease Danielle, but then she broke up with him anyway. Anna and I celebrated without him, and she brought along Jill, whose parents were traveling in Europe, but it was still a subdued, almost somber, occasion without Billy, even though he isn’t known for cracking jokes or playing the family clown. Anna and Billy’s father was in Rome or maybe it was New York, both cities where he keeps apartments, but Anna couldn’t take any days off from the hospital to spend the holiday with him, and Billy doesn’t spend as much time with Renn as he used to. I hope this will change, but I’m not sure how or when it will.
The building where my son lives is all gleaming steel and mirrored glass, and it reminds me of a monstrous robot. Sometimes, to get a rise out of me, he calls his home Robotland. “If I live here long enough, maybe I’ll turn into one too,” he once said.
“That’s not funny,” I said, but laughed anyway.
The doorman, a young guy named Carlo (“Not Carlos,” he said with a shy smile when he introduced himself to me last year) who is maybe twenty-one but already has two daughters whose pictures he has bashfully shown me more than once, calls upstairs when I get to the lobby because my plan is to ambush my son. If I called Billy again from my cell and told him that I’m downstairs, he wouldn’t answer and he’d know not to answer the doorman’s page either.
It still takes him several rings to respond to Carlo’s call. “Good
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