ago.
Jeff stood looking down at them, a crooked smile on his freckled face. “Ma, you look like hell,” he said.
“It’s Ellen’s fault,” she replied.
“Nah, it’s not. You haven’t been eating your vegetables. You’ve been out dancing all night long. There’s an empty six-pack behind the shoe rack in your closet. I know your kind.”
“Oh, Lord, Jeffie,” she said, and he ruffled her hair.
But I think our mother’s appearance was not as big a surprise for either of them as mine was for Jonathan, when he arrived at the house unexpectedly on Wednesday. I heard steps behind me and there he was, handsome in a blue sweater and gray flannel pants, his eyes hidden by his mirror sunglasses. It was when he took them off that I saw the surprise in them, saw him look meup and down in a way that, under different circumstances, would have been flattering. I was wearing a red-and-white checked apron that said KISS THE COOK on its bib, and I had pushed my hair up into a haphazard bun on the top of my head. I was making biscuits, and my hands and the front of my apron were covered with flour. I hugged Jon and kissed him hard, and when I finally pulled away I had left him blotched with white, his sweater, his pants, even the part of his hair that hung heavy like a butterscotch parenthesis over his forehead.
“Oh, hell,” he said, looking down at himself.
“Love you, too,” I said, and playfully—or spitefully, I’m not certain which—I put a floury thumbprint in the center of his chest.
“Ellen!” he yelled. After I’d washed my hands and taken off the apron he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me for a long time in the quiet house. “You smell like butter,” he said, but he didn’t sound that happy about it.
Both of us pulled apart as we heard slow footsteps on the stairs. My mother came into the kitchen. “Jonathan,” she said brightly, and he bent to kiss her cheek, pale yellow skin stretched over sharp bone. I left them talking about law school. But after I had taken a shower, when the two of us were out in the car, he leaned back against the seat and let his breath out, long and hard:
Whhhhooooo
.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“As little as possible.”
“I see what you mean,” he said.
He didn’t, of course, because instead of putting off feeling, Jonathan never really felt things at all. I liked to think he loved me in those days, but loving a woman was not truly part of his constitution. No Jessica Feld, no “what we in the trade call psychiatrist,” was necessary to explain this to the laywoman. Jonathan’s mother had left when he was just two and she just twenty, had decided her spur-of-the-moment teenage marriage was a mistake and left behind its most tangible asset, the little boy who, once grown,would never be able to say “I love you” without believing that the sentence was a prelude to a farewell, an abandonment, a kick in the teeth.
She lived in California now, had another family, a house with a pool. Once, when he was twelve, he had managed to get his mother’s phone number out of his grandmother and had called her and heard a little boy answer the phone. “How could somebody just leave their kid?” he told me he asked her when she came on the line, and she replied, still with a broad streak of Brooklyn in her voice, “I just did.”
“You could almost hear the shrug,” Jonathan said.
Not long ago I saw Jonathan on Madison Avenue with a really lovely-looking woman, with blond feathers of hair around her face and sharp intelligent eyes. I knew that she was smart and interesting, someone you could take anywhere. Jonathan appreciated her, I’m sure, just as he appreciated me, appreciated my quick mind, the determination and ambition, the ardor and the lack of inhibitions. But love? I don’t think so.
His father had been a police officer in New York City, taken retirement after the requisite twenty years and what the cops called a tit job as chief of
Jeff stood looking down at them, a crooked smile on his freckled face. “Ma, you look like hell,” he said.
“It’s Ellen’s fault,” she replied.
“Nah, it’s not. You haven’t been eating your vegetables. You’ve been out dancing all night long. There’s an empty six-pack behind the shoe rack in your closet. I know your kind.”
“Oh, Lord, Jeffie,” she said, and he ruffled her hair.
But I think our mother’s appearance was not as big a surprise for either of them as mine was for Jonathan, when he arrived at the house unexpectedly on Wednesday. I heard steps behind me and there he was, handsome in a blue sweater and gray flannel pants, his eyes hidden by his mirror sunglasses. It was when he took them off that I saw the surprise in them, saw him look meup and down in a way that, under different circumstances, would have been flattering. I was wearing a red-and-white checked apron that said KISS THE COOK on its bib, and I had pushed my hair up into a haphazard bun on the top of my head. I was making biscuits, and my hands and the front of my apron were covered with flour. I hugged Jon and kissed him hard, and when I finally pulled away I had left him blotched with white, his sweater, his pants, even the part of his hair that hung heavy like a butterscotch parenthesis over his forehead.
“Oh, hell,” he said, looking down at himself.
“Love you, too,” I said, and playfully—or spitefully, I’m not certain which—I put a floury thumbprint in the center of his chest.
“Ellen!” he yelled. After I’d washed my hands and taken off the apron he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me for a long time in the quiet house. “You smell like butter,” he said, but he didn’t sound that happy about it.
Both of us pulled apart as we heard slow footsteps on the stairs. My mother came into the kitchen. “Jonathan,” she said brightly, and he bent to kiss her cheek, pale yellow skin stretched over sharp bone. I left them talking about law school. But after I had taken a shower, when the two of us were out in the car, he leaned back against the seat and let his breath out, long and hard:
Whhhhooooo
.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“As little as possible.”
“I see what you mean,” he said.
He didn’t, of course, because instead of putting off feeling, Jonathan never really felt things at all. I liked to think he loved me in those days, but loving a woman was not truly part of his constitution. No Jessica Feld, no “what we in the trade call psychiatrist,” was necessary to explain this to the laywoman. Jonathan’s mother had left when he was just two and she just twenty, had decided her spur-of-the-moment teenage marriage was a mistake and left behind its most tangible asset, the little boy who, once grown,would never be able to say “I love you” without believing that the sentence was a prelude to a farewell, an abandonment, a kick in the teeth.
She lived in California now, had another family, a house with a pool. Once, when he was twelve, he had managed to get his mother’s phone number out of his grandmother and had called her and heard a little boy answer the phone. “How could somebody just leave their kid?” he told me he asked her when she came on the line, and she replied, still with a broad streak of Brooklyn in her voice, “I just did.”
“You could almost hear the shrug,” Jonathan said.
Not long ago I saw Jonathan on Madison Avenue with a really lovely-looking woman, with blond feathers of hair around her face and sharp intelligent eyes. I knew that she was smart and interesting, someone you could take anywhere. Jonathan appreciated her, I’m sure, just as he appreciated me, appreciated my quick mind, the determination and ambition, the ardor and the lack of inhibitions. But love? I don’t think so.
His father had been a police officer in New York City, taken retirement after the requisite twenty years and what the cops called a tit job as chief of
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