his work.
Mum opened the binder to a reprint showing a fat white butcher surrounded by sides of dark, glistening beef. Laid in transparency
over this image was a Ku Klux Klan Dragon presiding at the lynching of six black men. The work was in black and white. Of
course.
“This piece is six feet square. I sold it on the first day, can you imagine? Twelve thousand dollars. Gerard was fit to be
tied. I sold out my first one-man, too, you know. Scott’s show?”
“Smashing.” I closed the book without looking further.
“Smashing.” She narrowed her eyes at me the way she used to when I said I
felt
too sick for school. “Well, then. Let’s see what you’ve been up to!”
She did not mean my eight-by-ten product shots of the grinders, scrapers, holders, and splicers that she was conspicuously
ignoring.
“I don’t have anything ready.”
“Oh, please. You can show me.”
“I’ve been too busy with the job to print.”
She stared at the empty mantelpiece for a moment as if she could see something hanging or leaning there that I could not.
Then she put away the binder and stood up brusquely, grabbed my hair and lifted it this way and that.
“You’d be happier
if
you got all this stuff off your shoulders. Lighter, bouncier, less time-consuming.” She pulled just this side of too tight.
For the first time I noticed the precise flecks of yellow and green that give her gray eyes their fire.
“You’re twenty-eight years old, Maibelle. This is your time, your chance. If you don’t pull yourself together in the next
couple of years, you’re going to lose it all.” She yanked tighter, hurting my scalp. “Just like your father did.”
“You despise Dad, don’t you?”
“Maibelle!” She released my hair.
The sensation was what I imagine a dandelion might feel when its white fluff blows away. I rose from my seat. She had come
uninvited. She’d insulted me and twisted the knife in my father’s back as she had my whole life, over and over.
“You can’t make us all blame him for disappointing you.”
She sat rigid on Marge Gramercy’s sofa and clenched both fists until the skin pulled white across her knuckles. She glowered
at my equipment across the room, then stood up quickly, haphazardly, banging her knee on the trunk I used for a coffee table.
It must have hurt, but she ignored the pain, collected her purse and hat. I was astonished to see shelves of tears in her
eyes when she looked at me again.
“You don’t know what’s it’s like to be married to a stranger for thirty years.”
“I know what it’s like to be his daughter. He’s not a stranger to me.”
The tears started to rise again. She squeezed her eyes shut and stepped into the entryway to hide them. I heard the clasp
of her purse snap open. She blew her nose. Her back straightened and she spoke over her shoulder.
“The current issue of
Interiors
is devoted to small apartments. I’ll send it to you.”
She was gone.
The next day I asked my father down. I called and made it official because I knew he’d never drop by on his own. Beyond that,
I’d been bluffing. My father was as much a stranger to me as to anyone. But when I’d said those words to my mother, something
seemed to flip inside me, and I decided he couldn’t stay that way.
“Mum wanted me to give you this,” were his first words on arrival. The festive magazine cover illuminated the dim hallway,
but it seemed to weigh on him. He was breathing hard from the climb up the stairs.
I took the
Interiors
and his umbrella. “Come on in. Sit down.”
He lit a cigarette, but did not sit. He stood before my orange crate shelves and picked up one object after another, turning
them between his square-tipped fingers, measured their quality with the care of an Italian matron testing plum tomatoes. I
could almost hear his thoughts turning as well, methodical and focused sternly on the assortment of plastic and metal and
Velcro components
Mum opened the binder to a reprint showing a fat white butcher surrounded by sides of dark, glistening beef. Laid in transparency
over this image was a Ku Klux Klan Dragon presiding at the lynching of six black men. The work was in black and white. Of
course.
“This piece is six feet square. I sold it on the first day, can you imagine? Twelve thousand dollars. Gerard was fit to be
tied. I sold out my first one-man, too, you know. Scott’s show?”
“Smashing.” I closed the book without looking further.
“Smashing.” She narrowed her eyes at me the way she used to when I said I
felt
too sick for school. “Well, then. Let’s see what you’ve been up to!”
She did not mean my eight-by-ten product shots of the grinders, scrapers, holders, and splicers that she was conspicuously
ignoring.
“I don’t have anything ready.”
“Oh, please. You can show me.”
“I’ve been too busy with the job to print.”
She stared at the empty mantelpiece for a moment as if she could see something hanging or leaning there that I could not.
Then she put away the binder and stood up brusquely, grabbed my hair and lifted it this way and that.
“You’d be happier
if
you got all this stuff off your shoulders. Lighter, bouncier, less time-consuming.” She pulled just this side of too tight.
For the first time I noticed the precise flecks of yellow and green that give her gray eyes their fire.
“You’re twenty-eight years old, Maibelle. This is your time, your chance. If you don’t pull yourself together in the next
couple of years, you’re going to lose it all.” She yanked tighter, hurting my scalp. “Just like your father did.”
“You despise Dad, don’t you?”
“Maibelle!” She released my hair.
The sensation was what I imagine a dandelion might feel when its white fluff blows away. I rose from my seat. She had come
uninvited. She’d insulted me and twisted the knife in my father’s back as she had my whole life, over and over.
“You can’t make us all blame him for disappointing you.”
She sat rigid on Marge Gramercy’s sofa and clenched both fists until the skin pulled white across her knuckles. She glowered
at my equipment across the room, then stood up quickly, haphazardly, banging her knee on the trunk I used for a coffee table.
It must have hurt, but she ignored the pain, collected her purse and hat. I was astonished to see shelves of tears in her
eyes when she looked at me again.
“You don’t know what’s it’s like to be married to a stranger for thirty years.”
“I know what it’s like to be his daughter. He’s not a stranger to me.”
The tears started to rise again. She squeezed her eyes shut and stepped into the entryway to hide them. I heard the clasp
of her purse snap open. She blew her nose. Her back straightened and she spoke over her shoulder.
“The current issue of
Interiors
is devoted to small apartments. I’ll send it to you.”
She was gone.
The next day I asked my father down. I called and made it official because I knew he’d never drop by on his own. Beyond that,
I’d been bluffing. My father was as much a stranger to me as to anyone. But when I’d said those words to my mother, something
seemed to flip inside me, and I decided he couldn’t stay that way.
“Mum wanted me to give you this,” were his first words on arrival. The festive magazine cover illuminated the dim hallway,
but it seemed to weigh on him. He was breathing hard from the climb up the stairs.
I took the
Interiors
and his umbrella. “Come on in. Sit down.”
He lit a cigarette, but did not sit. He stood before my orange crate shelves and picked up one object after another, turning
them between his square-tipped fingers, measured their quality with the care of an Italian matron testing plum tomatoes. I
could almost hear his thoughts turning as well, methodical and focused sternly on the assortment of plastic and metal and
Velcro components
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