There was a place right off I-90 that sold pierogies. My mother and I would share an order of six. I thought that we alone in the world knew about them. I didn’t realize they were an ethnic food or that there might be variations. The little rings of scallion on top were thrilling. We ate in the sunlight by the window, sitting on stools and looking out at the passing cars. We dipped the pierogies into a plastic ramekin of sour cream. One time one of the pierogies was still frozen in the middle. I felt betrayed. We wouldn’t have asked the kitchen to heat it up. I guess we tossed it in the garbage.
There was a flea market with funnel cakes, hubcaps, guns, go-carts, Mormons selling soap, candles, men in sleeveless shirts selling generators, patchwork quilts, old dolls with yarn hair, counterfeit Ninja Turtles, tin owls, pelts, hot grills with burgers, and Ziploc bags of homemade potato chips for fifty cents. We would always get the funnel cake. We would look around for the perfect amount of time and I would go home with a quartz crystal or a Civil War pin.
Occasionally on the fairgrounds there was a car show. I say occasionally, though I’m sure, like all things, it had a date and time. But my parents seemed to happen up on things. They didn’t plan. They were always on time for everything we needed to be on time for, but when it came to weekend events, especially in the Poconos, we would just get up and drive in the sun and if there was a car show then my dad would stop. He loved cars. He would talk to the owners about the transmission and he would peer inside the windows, blocking the sun from his eyes and getting close but never touching the vehicle. He understood the price of spotlessness. At home I wasn’t allowed to touch the walls. Whenever I was angry at my parents, I would make a furious face and covertly press my palms against our cream walls, leaving prints that might not be discovered for years but would surely cause pain when they were.
But my favorite thing about the Poconos was the pool. There were two pools. One near our house, which abutted a lake with ducks and paddleboats. There was a logroll in the pool. Maybe it was only there once, but I remember vividly the feeling of not staying on for longer than a second. A terrible feeling that fades overnight so that by the next morning you feel good about your chances.
Then there was the other pool, in the ritzier section of the Estates. This was called the Top of the World Pool. It was high up in the mountains and surrounded by trees and there was a bar and women who dropped their bathing-suit strings off their shoulders.
Inside the facility there were tennis courts, that pretty indoor green, the soft thudding of balls and the echoed grunts of men.
We went to the Top of the World sparingly. It was the more adult recreation center and my parents weren’t so much day drinkers. I always felt they were keeping luxury from me and even from themselves.
The smell of the pool up there was deeper. The chlorine was richer. I know many kids love the smell of chlorine, though I wonder if they love it as much as I did. I suppose I’m laying a foundation for you. Another chlorine lover, loose in the world.
12
VIC’S WIFE CALLED AGAIN THAT night. I was in my kitchen. At night my damned house was tolerable. The glow from the lantern lamp over the sink was amber and comforting. I heard River throwing a ball for his dog outside. When I didn’t pick up the call, Mary wrote, Is my daughter there? Tell me, you slut.
I looked for the daughter’s Facebook page. I started with Vic’s wife, who had not posted anything since four hours before her husband’s death.
A friend of hers had recently tacked a Kahlil Gibran quote about death to Mary’s page. I clicked on the friend’s profile and read her most recent post.
I get up every morning and leave my 3 children to drive over an hour to work. I work some weekends. I give up that time with family and friends because I know that my work and the work of my organization make a difference. I can’t travel to conflict zones but I can spend every day supporting lobbyists in DC to help prevent war and kids being separated from their moms (I would die if that happened) and overall make this a safer world for all. I believe with all my heart that intl peace matters to Americans and hope that Congress agrees.
You cannot be one of these, who says or writes these things, who needs others to think something about them.
I clicked around in Mary’s profile to find a picture of Eleanor, the daughter, who was seventeen. Strawberry hair. Vic’s wide, flat cheeks. She looked kind and smart, as Vic was. She didn’t seem to have a boyfriend. She had thick calves and played softball.
If she were indeed coming for me, it made perfect sense. I severed her life with a snip-snip of my inconsiderate fingers. Most people don’t worry about threats like those. Little girls don’t kill people. They’re just silly little girls. But almost no one understands a little girl. We begin hard as marbles.
I pictured this little girl in a small, clean car, crossing Texas with a ball gag and a knife. Just then, as I was lost in that thought, the door handle jiggled and I jumped.
It was only Leonard. He strode through, speaking as though he’d been speaking for a long time.
—Leonard! I shouted. Part of me wondered if it wasn’t a ruse, if he wasn’t fully cognizant.
—Oh, he said, seeing me at last.
—Jesus.
—Oh, dear. How sorry I am.
He touched the top of his forehead. It shone with perspiration. I looked at his hands. Many hands reminded me of my father’s. In particular there was a gas station attendant down the street from the house where I grew up. The day I got my license, I drove past my old house. It had been sold to a family of six. As I approached the tall oak with the haphazard patch of tulips circling its trunk, I found them all outside. The dad was playing catch with one of the girls. The mother was drinking iced tea and smiling at her herd. Afterward I went to the gas station. The attendant remembered me, or rather, he remembered my father’s car. He didn’t ask me where my father was. He was Pakistani and quiet and warm and, when I looked in the side-view mirror, his hands on the gas pump were my father’s hands. I’d have known them anywhere. I tipped the man more than he would make that week. He’d loved my father in the silent way that men love other men they see infrequently.
—Lenny, I said more gently, it’s okay.
—It’s Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
—What?
—That I’ve got. Please don’t tell the others. He pointed idly out my window, then gestured downstairs, toward Kevin’s quarters.
—Oh. I won’t.
—Even the doctor was stunned. He’s an old Jew, too. He said, You must have done quite a lot wrong in your time. Ha!
—When did you find out?
—I’ve known.
In the distance we heard the coyotes howling. Their voices were bright and bony. At night in the canyon everything stilled. There was either a terrible wind or there was no movement at all.
Leonard looked around my house. He looked at the envelopes on my tables as though they were bits of lingerie. Most were overdue bills.
—You’re a mysterious woman, Joan.
—You’re a nosy old man.
—I may be. But I’m a rich nosy old man. Why don’t you be nice to me, and you never know who remembers who in their will.
—You never know, I said, gripping the counter. I wanted money so badly. When I had money, I could drive away from myself.