their heads in the exact centers of their pillows.
And Lenny, my idol, my tormentor, was her night self in my vision, a self washed free of us. I was mesmerized if I watched her as she slept, walked into her room at night after drinking in forbidden fashion from the bathroom faucet. She was fourteen: I remember standing in the dark, looking at her, the delicious metallic taste of tap water still sharp in my mouth. Lenny looked cold, but comfortably so, as though she were meant to be cold, like marble or crystal. She slept like a nun, fearless and still, on her back, her hands at her sides, her head gently inclined to one side. Her face, expressionless, perfect and smooth, seemed a face unconcerned with possibilities, a face waiting to be alive. Her long loose hair was the color of bleached hay, hay that has weathered in fields. All day her hair was bound in a long blond swatch, a silky, blunt-cut ponytail that swung when she moved. Wes, who’d learned to barber in the Army, trimmed it once a month—Lenny in the kitchen or the yard, stalwart in her straight chair, Wes with his sharp scissors and rattail comb. My mother put newspapers under them in winter to catch the hair, but in summer the pale wisps fell into the grass and took flight on any gust of breeze. Those nights in my room, in the black fields of my vision, I imagined Lenny and our father tilting and spinning through space, Lenny seated, our father’s hands in her hair. He was separate from us, a bordering country whose customs and language were mysterious, yet he was part of Lenny. Now that I’m grown, I realize they had quiet, definite rituals, unspoken, barely noticed. Aligned with him, she could not have been as lonely as I was, bearing up under Audrey’s plaintive secrets, constantly told the truth.
Lenny was told nothing. She learned to understand things in a different way. Maybe Wes taught her it wasn’t necessaryto name, label, categorize, compile histories, argue with herself until she knew what she wanted. Our mother had to tell herself stories, recite two or three versions of an event, see where things fit. Always, she was outside what happened, alone, talking to include herself in the picture. Someone had to hear her and believe her. Audrey compiled evidence, stories to support her conclusions, and I was the jury she convinced.
I never knew your dad was an alcoholic until after I married him. The man is a secret still, but he’s an alcoholic as surely as Mina Campbell is. That family has been through hell, I know all about it from hearing Nickel talk and hearing women gab. Years ago now. Your friend Delia was only three or four. Mina’s still okay, but they all walk on eggs. Your dad, he just goes out and drinks and is gone, and I get a phone call from Kentucky, or that time some sheriff called, and he was in lockup at Wildwood Beach, in New Jersey. He won’t ever say what happens. I think it’s because he doesn’t remember. It’s all secrets from him as well. And I never know why he goes off. It never seems to have anything to do with me. It’s all him, his whole life is him. I’m just a bystander
.
If he was away, Audrey carried on as though nothing were different, listening for a phone call. Always, the lines of the rooms glowed with the heat of her disappointment. My mother had wanted so desperately to do well and she had ended up with Wes, an outsider to whom nothing was relative. He compared himself to no one and he worked alone, a salesman of mining equipment. When times were bad and the mines laid off or shut down, he roamed farther and farther to sell machines, the backseat of the car stacked with thick manuals. He drove to Kentucky or the Carolinas, maybe north to Maryland, often on tips from Henry Briarley, who was his friend and cohort. He must have sold machines on the basis of similar friendships with other men,on the basis of his independence. My mother knew he was friendly with powerful men, men who passed for rich in our
And Lenny, my idol, my tormentor, was her night self in my vision, a self washed free of us. I was mesmerized if I watched her as she slept, walked into her room at night after drinking in forbidden fashion from the bathroom faucet. She was fourteen: I remember standing in the dark, looking at her, the delicious metallic taste of tap water still sharp in my mouth. Lenny looked cold, but comfortably so, as though she were meant to be cold, like marble or crystal. She slept like a nun, fearless and still, on her back, her hands at her sides, her head gently inclined to one side. Her face, expressionless, perfect and smooth, seemed a face unconcerned with possibilities, a face waiting to be alive. Her long loose hair was the color of bleached hay, hay that has weathered in fields. All day her hair was bound in a long blond swatch, a silky, blunt-cut ponytail that swung when she moved. Wes, who’d learned to barber in the Army, trimmed it once a month—Lenny in the kitchen or the yard, stalwart in her straight chair, Wes with his sharp scissors and rattail comb. My mother put newspapers under them in winter to catch the hair, but in summer the pale wisps fell into the grass and took flight on any gust of breeze. Those nights in my room, in the black fields of my vision, I imagined Lenny and our father tilting and spinning through space, Lenny seated, our father’s hands in her hair. He was separate from us, a bordering country whose customs and language were mysterious, yet he was part of Lenny. Now that I’m grown, I realize they had quiet, definite rituals, unspoken, barely noticed. Aligned with him, she could not have been as lonely as I was, bearing up under Audrey’s plaintive secrets, constantly told the truth.
Lenny was told nothing. She learned to understand things in a different way. Maybe Wes taught her it wasn’t necessaryto name, label, categorize, compile histories, argue with herself until she knew what she wanted. Our mother had to tell herself stories, recite two or three versions of an event, see where things fit. Always, she was outside what happened, alone, talking to include herself in the picture. Someone had to hear her and believe her. Audrey compiled evidence, stories to support her conclusions, and I was the jury she convinced.
I never knew your dad was an alcoholic until after I married him. The man is a secret still, but he’s an alcoholic as surely as Mina Campbell is. That family has been through hell, I know all about it from hearing Nickel talk and hearing women gab. Years ago now. Your friend Delia was only three or four. Mina’s still okay, but they all walk on eggs. Your dad, he just goes out and drinks and is gone, and I get a phone call from Kentucky, or that time some sheriff called, and he was in lockup at Wildwood Beach, in New Jersey. He won’t ever say what happens. I think it’s because he doesn’t remember. It’s all secrets from him as well. And I never know why he goes off. It never seems to have anything to do with me. It’s all him, his whole life is him. I’m just a bystander
.
If he was away, Audrey carried on as though nothing were different, listening for a phone call. Always, the lines of the rooms glowed with the heat of her disappointment. My mother had wanted so desperately to do well and she had ended up with Wes, an outsider to whom nothing was relative. He compared himself to no one and he worked alone, a salesman of mining equipment. When times were bad and the mines laid off or shut down, he roamed farther and farther to sell machines, the backseat of the car stacked with thick manuals. He drove to Kentucky or the Carolinas, maybe north to Maryland, often on tips from Henry Briarley, who was his friend and cohort. He must have sold machines on the basis of similar friendships with other men,on the basis of his independence. My mother knew he was friendly with powerful men, men who passed for rich in our
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