already at three years. You boil all the bottles and nipples with tongs, and then one day, you stop. Raising children, it is all the same story—they grow above you. And you are no longer needed. They have a name for that here—obsolete. Things outlive their use, even people. And that is actually success. “My employer, she always says they will need me until the day Williamo goes to college. I will be the one to plan the graduation party.”
Maybe this is what I will write in The Book of Ruth . If you can stay until they are five years old, then they will never forget you.
I wash my dish in the bathroom sink. On the bed, I glue in the pages that have loosened, put stones on top for the paste to dry overnight.
There at home, across the ocean, I have a house.
Here, one room, attached to the garage: a bed, bathroom in the corner. Television.
There I lived with other people. Bong Bong, our kids, friends and relatives arriving, sitting for a bite of gelatin squares on a plate.
This room is my place here. It is still light in the sky but already dark on the ground. Before, I did not like to be alone. My sister became the doctor, so I became the clown. Bong Bong, he is the serious one. The cheese stands alone. Not the clown. Because when I am alone I cry. It is a strange thing: here, it feels good, untangling strings. After a few minutes, when I finish, the lines of the day laid out straight, I begin to hope Williamo will come crashing to the screen, yelling Lo-la .
And when I begin to hope, he comes galumphing.
Claire
MY OLD CHAOS
The phone rang after midnight—my mother. “Come over right away, I was broken into.”
I made out our dresser, Paul not there, everything the same. The clock blinked 12:18. “Did you call the police?”
“Just come over. This once you really have to. It’s all I have!” Her voice peeled a shred off me.
I pulled on sweats, tucked in my nightgown, and walked out back, the wet grass sharp on my ankles, to Lola’s room off the garage, where I heard the faint noise of TV—good, she was still up. But when I knocked, she didn’t answer. I pushed the door open. She’d fallen asleep, the remote in her hand.
I ran back to the house and called Paul. “Can you come home?”
“Not yet. Oh, thanks. Diet Coke. Sorry, they’re just passing out the pizza. You’ll have to wake her and give her the monitor. Call me from your mother’s.”
I felt terrible touching Lola’s shoulder in the dark. She bolted up, as if she’d done something wrong. “I have to go to my mom’s, I think her apartment was broken into.” I handed her the small plastic baby monitor.
But she said, “I will just stay in the house.”
I felt grateful I could drive back to my old chaos and leave Will sleeping. Paul’s mother’s edict against live-out nannies finally made sense, for a reason she wouldn’t have imagined. I coasted empty streets. Without traffic, my mother lived nine minutes away, which would swell into an hour when the sun rose. Had she really been broken into? Growing up, I’d become the man of the house because there wasn’t one. I’d learned the power companies’ addresses and how to pay their bills. But I’d failed to protect her.
All her lights were on. She met me at the door, her hair sticking out at wild angles and her eyes sketching back and forth. “It’s gone,” she said. “I had a money order for one hundred thousand.”
I didn’t believe her. She didn’t have a hundred thousand dollars. But I asked questions with the distant patience of a police officer, one not particularly kind.
“No windows broken?”
“Huh-uh.”
“And nobody else has your keys?”
“The landlord does. And I’ve been wondering about him. Last week, he came to repair that leak, you know, I told you in the back of the—”
“It’s not the landlord, Mom.” The landlords, two men who’d upgraded their forties building, got a kick out of my mother and hadn’t raised her rent in seven years.
Maybe this is what I will write in The Book of Ruth . If you can stay until they are five years old, then they will never forget you.
I wash my dish in the bathroom sink. On the bed, I glue in the pages that have loosened, put stones on top for the paste to dry overnight.
There at home, across the ocean, I have a house.
Here, one room, attached to the garage: a bed, bathroom in the corner. Television.
There I lived with other people. Bong Bong, our kids, friends and relatives arriving, sitting for a bite of gelatin squares on a plate.
This room is my place here. It is still light in the sky but already dark on the ground. Before, I did not like to be alone. My sister became the doctor, so I became the clown. Bong Bong, he is the serious one. The cheese stands alone. Not the clown. Because when I am alone I cry. It is a strange thing: here, it feels good, untangling strings. After a few minutes, when I finish, the lines of the day laid out straight, I begin to hope Williamo will come crashing to the screen, yelling Lo-la .
And when I begin to hope, he comes galumphing.
Claire
MY OLD CHAOS
The phone rang after midnight—my mother. “Come over right away, I was broken into.”
I made out our dresser, Paul not there, everything the same. The clock blinked 12:18. “Did you call the police?”
“Just come over. This once you really have to. It’s all I have!” Her voice peeled a shred off me.
I pulled on sweats, tucked in my nightgown, and walked out back, the wet grass sharp on my ankles, to Lola’s room off the garage, where I heard the faint noise of TV—good, she was still up. But when I knocked, she didn’t answer. I pushed the door open. She’d fallen asleep, the remote in her hand.
I ran back to the house and called Paul. “Can you come home?”
“Not yet. Oh, thanks. Diet Coke. Sorry, they’re just passing out the pizza. You’ll have to wake her and give her the monitor. Call me from your mother’s.”
I felt terrible touching Lola’s shoulder in the dark. She bolted up, as if she’d done something wrong. “I have to go to my mom’s, I think her apartment was broken into.” I handed her the small plastic baby monitor.
But she said, “I will just stay in the house.”
I felt grateful I could drive back to my old chaos and leave Will sleeping. Paul’s mother’s edict against live-out nannies finally made sense, for a reason she wouldn’t have imagined. I coasted empty streets. Without traffic, my mother lived nine minutes away, which would swell into an hour when the sun rose. Had she really been broken into? Growing up, I’d become the man of the house because there wasn’t one. I’d learned the power companies’ addresses and how to pay their bills. But I’d failed to protect her.
All her lights were on. She met me at the door, her hair sticking out at wild angles and her eyes sketching back and forth. “It’s gone,” she said. “I had a money order for one hundred thousand.”
I didn’t believe her. She didn’t have a hundred thousand dollars. But I asked questions with the distant patience of a police officer, one not particularly kind.
“No windows broken?”
“Huh-uh.”
“And nobody else has your keys?”
“The landlord does. And I’ve been wondering about him. Last week, he came to repair that leak, you know, I told you in the back of the—”
“It’s not the landlord, Mom.” The landlords, two men who’d upgraded their forties building, got a kick out of my mother and hadn’t raised her rent in seven years.
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