tear since the night I pictured him floun dering in a rice paddy? I ended his illusion by writing to him a few hateful words: “I don’t now, never did, and never could love you, so do me a favor and forget I ever existed.” Then I marched to the middle of the driveway and in a gouge in the asphalt made a pyre of his picture and letter.
The only thing I thought about marriage after that was, Never in a million years, not for a billion dollars, and never again if it kills me.
Then it was a year since Raymond deserted us, the close of the summer of 1971. Jason was about to be three, and a few days later I’d be twenty-one, drinking age, voting age, and a legal adult. I was at a picnic in Beatrice’s backyard with Jason and Fay, her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Amelia, and a bunch of Beatrice’s friends from work. Fay and I’d had a plan. We’d split a hit of acid, then once we got to Beatrice’s all-girls picnic, all the girls would take care of our two kids. Problem was, we didn’t let Beatrice and her friends in on the plan and they were too dense to pick up on it. First of all, they had no idea we were tripping, because they’d never tripped themselves and wouldn’t know a tripping person from a lunatic, which is probably what they thought we were. And second of all, they just didn’t understand. This was our logic: Fay and I had gotten knocked up, which made us the scapegoats or fall guys. In other words, if it hadn’t been us it would’ve been them, so the least they could do was take up some slack by easing our kids off our backs during one measly picnic. No such luck.
So I’m lying on my back in Beatrice’s parents’ aluminum pool and I’m tripping peacefully, listening to the trees talk to me in a language I’m sure I’d understand if only I could concentrate harder. But then here comes somebody handing me my son. By the blinding orange of her bikini, I know it’s Beatrice. She says, “Somebody wants to swim with his mommy.”
Couldn’t she tell somebody didn’t want to swim with her son? But she’s dangling him over the water, so I reach out to get him and he slips through my fingers and underwater. I catch him just after his face goes under, but he starts crying hysterically anyway, spitting and coughing and making me feel awful. Now I understand every word from the trees. They’re saying: You’re a terrible mother. You almost drowned your son. He’ll remember this moment forever.
I hugged Jason and bounced him around the pool to distract him. When we climbed out, I lay on my back and Jason sat on my stomach. His head was ringed by the sun, and for a minute I thought it was a halo, but then a cloud obscured the vision and I concentrated on his face. He had three freckles on his nose and blue-gray eyes that were shaped like almonds. Did Raymond have eyes shaped like almonds too? I closed my eyes to change the subject, and what I saw was the Blessed Virgin standing on a world with the infant Jesus perched in the crook of her arm, like on a plastic card, and that’s when I remembered about my mother. She said she almost drowned when she was little, even went down for the third time, but then she saw the Virgin Mary holding out her arms, and the next thing she knew she was lying in the sand, saved.
Jason had had a vision too, of an old lady floating outside his window, trying to get in. He was afraid of her. I told him she was probably a fairy.
“She’s too old,” he said.
“Not for a guardian angel. It’s probably my great-grandmother Irene dropping by to give you good luck.”
“You think so?”
“Sure.”
My great-grandmother Irene was on my mind a lot these days, because every time I turned around, my mother was saying, “I don’t know who you take after. Not my family. It must be your father’s grandmother Irene.” Personally, I took this as a compliment, but although my mother liked Irene, she meant it as an insult, because Irene had committed the cardinal sin
The only thing I thought about marriage after that was, Never in a million years, not for a billion dollars, and never again if it kills me.
Then it was a year since Raymond deserted us, the close of the summer of 1971. Jason was about to be three, and a few days later I’d be twenty-one, drinking age, voting age, and a legal adult. I was at a picnic in Beatrice’s backyard with Jason and Fay, her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Amelia, and a bunch of Beatrice’s friends from work. Fay and I’d had a plan. We’d split a hit of acid, then once we got to Beatrice’s all-girls picnic, all the girls would take care of our two kids. Problem was, we didn’t let Beatrice and her friends in on the plan and they were too dense to pick up on it. First of all, they had no idea we were tripping, because they’d never tripped themselves and wouldn’t know a tripping person from a lunatic, which is probably what they thought we were. And second of all, they just didn’t understand. This was our logic: Fay and I had gotten knocked up, which made us the scapegoats or fall guys. In other words, if it hadn’t been us it would’ve been them, so the least they could do was take up some slack by easing our kids off our backs during one measly picnic. No such luck.
So I’m lying on my back in Beatrice’s parents’ aluminum pool and I’m tripping peacefully, listening to the trees talk to me in a language I’m sure I’d understand if only I could concentrate harder. But then here comes somebody handing me my son. By the blinding orange of her bikini, I know it’s Beatrice. She says, “Somebody wants to swim with his mommy.”
Couldn’t she tell somebody didn’t want to swim with her son? But she’s dangling him over the water, so I reach out to get him and he slips through my fingers and underwater. I catch him just after his face goes under, but he starts crying hysterically anyway, spitting and coughing and making me feel awful. Now I understand every word from the trees. They’re saying: You’re a terrible mother. You almost drowned your son. He’ll remember this moment forever.
I hugged Jason and bounced him around the pool to distract him. When we climbed out, I lay on my back and Jason sat on my stomach. His head was ringed by the sun, and for a minute I thought it was a halo, but then a cloud obscured the vision and I concentrated on his face. He had three freckles on his nose and blue-gray eyes that were shaped like almonds. Did Raymond have eyes shaped like almonds too? I closed my eyes to change the subject, and what I saw was the Blessed Virgin standing on a world with the infant Jesus perched in the crook of her arm, like on a plastic card, and that’s when I remembered about my mother. She said she almost drowned when she was little, even went down for the third time, but then she saw the Virgin Mary holding out her arms, and the next thing she knew she was lying in the sand, saved.
Jason had had a vision too, of an old lady floating outside his window, trying to get in. He was afraid of her. I told him she was probably a fairy.
“She’s too old,” he said.
“Not for a guardian angel. It’s probably my great-grandmother Irene dropping by to give you good luck.”
“You think so?”
“Sure.”
My great-grandmother Irene was on my mind a lot these days, because every time I turned around, my mother was saying, “I don’t know who you take after. Not my family. It must be your father’s grandmother Irene.” Personally, I took this as a compliment, but although my mother liked Irene, she meant it as an insult, because Irene had committed the cardinal sin
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