Tracy’s here to meet everyone.
“You must be Martin,” she says, bending down with her hand out.
“Of course I am,” he says. “What’s your name?”
“Tracy Tuttle.”
“What’s your mum’s name?” Tracy looks stricken, but I give her a don’t worry, he does this smile. To him, there’s nothing sad or heavy about it; it’s an old rubber band that he shoots at people for fun.
“Michele.”
“And this is Milly,” I insert before Martin can reload.
“Hello, Milly.”
“Hi,” she says, dead to Tracy’s warmth, as she falls back on the couch like a thirteen-year-old whose mother just suggested, say, a nice pair of denim gauchos for the school dance. Though, of course, she never will be.
While Martin pulls Tracy into his room to meet his cast of dinosaurs, I walk around the back, looking for John, who is sanding the window trim.
“Hi Jo—”
He spins around. Even though he put the ad in the Herald and interviewed me and prepared the guest room for my arrival, I am still a constant surprise.
“Oh, sorry, hello,” he says, blinking at me.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. My friend Tracy’s here, and we’re headed into the city, but I wanted to introduce you and ask if she could spend the night in my room, maybe.”
“Of course, right, good.”
Tracy finds us out back. She and John shake hands and she compliments the new paint color. He says thanks, like he knows she’s just making conversation because that’s his whole life now.
On the way out, we pass Evan in the driveway. I introduce Tracy, but we can’t hang around and talk because we’re catching the 5:18 to Kings Cross.
On the way to the pub, we stop in a pharmacy to primp. Terra-cotta bronzing powder, purple eye shadow, a spritz of Calvin Klein Eternity. Once we’re properly tarted up, as my mother says, we walk faster, the sad, screwy life of the Tanners falling off me with every step. We pass three tattoo parlors, a leather store, and a record shop spraying punk music onto the street. A bohemian at the bus stop is reading Sartre. Now this is what I left home for.
At the Den, we settle in with two pints of Victoria Bitter to hear a singer-songwriter we saw advertised on a flyer in the train station bathroom last week. Tracy takes out our box of Parliaments, a jumbo pack with an incredible fifty cigarettes. Smoking is idiotic, I know. I’ve seen the pictures of dirty lungs, but I’m young, and we don’t have cancer in our family. Anyway, I’ll quit before I have kids.
It’s a relief, being at the pub with Tracy. The Australian code of conduct—backslapping, high-fiving, nicknaming—is pure Corrigan. The louder, the better. The only time I feel like I’m in a new country altogether is in the Tanner house.
Before we finish our first pint, we get talking with some Irish guys who ask what we’re doing in Sydney. We tell them about our kids. When I explain the Tanner situation, the one guy says, “God, my house woulda gone straight to pieces. My ma did everythun.”
“While your da and my da were down the pub,” the other says, laughing. “I’ll tell ya this straight: I don’ think there’s a fader in our whole village coulda raised his own kids. Most of ’em were a sorry fookin’ mess half the time.”
“My dad didn’t go to bars, but he didn’t do much of the dirty work, either,” I say, stopping to look at the truth of that for the first time. He blew in at the end of each day, fresh from the club—steamed, showered, and doused in Clubman aftershave—after a game of tennis or squash on the way home, looking for two boys to roughhouse and one girl to hug and squeeze until she laughed and said Daaad. That schedule left all unpleasant tasks to my mom, who liked to point out, Your father’s the glitter but I’m the glue. I never knew how their roles were distributed, whether they fell out naturally from the get-go or they evolved over time, one creating the other through negotiations and tiny adjustments along the way. I suppose early on she got a sense of what Greenie could handle, and what she could tolerate not being done her way, and compensated accordingly.
However it emerged, my mother was the lead on matters requiring adult intervention, and as such she came to have a high tolerance for crisis, something I learned the fall of my sophomore year when, one afternoon for no good reason, I skipped field hockey practice to go shoplifting at Sears with my friend Louise.
I only signed up for field hockey because my dad got a kick out of me playing sports, and on game days I got to wear the team uniform, which involved a very short kilt that my mother could not ban me from leaving the house in. Other than flashing my bloomers, I hated it—the running and crouching and whacking—and was terrible at all of it.
That Friday, Louise and I looked at each other as we headed to the locker room and decided to keep walking, past the showers, out through the smoking section, up the back hill, along the baseball field, across the street, through the giant double doors into Sears, where apparel spread out before us like a field of cornstalks. We ran our hands along the shirts and sweaters, making snobbish noises to signal our superiority to these garments and the people who bought them. We went down to the basement, past the portrait studio, to the candy counter. I took a pack of gum and slid it into my pants pocket. Just because. For kicks, Louise lifted a roll of Spree and slipped it into her oversize acid-washed jean jacket.
We went back to Jewelry. Long gold chains hung in clusters by length. We tried on three or four of them, moving away from the counter to see ourselves in the full-length mirrors, making sure, I guess, that the necklaces worked with our wide-wales and Docksiders. I unclasped one of the hooks and dropped a chain into my book bag. I could hear my new necklace slide down my world history textbook, along the cover I made from a brown Acme bag because Momma Pennywise didn’t believe in buying glossy Go-Go’s textbook covers from the school supplies store.
Next, we went to Hosiery, pulsing with anarchy. I saw my mom’s standard panty hose hanging on a rack. Suntan, control top, reinforced toe. Her birthday was in a week. I took five pairs. I could picture her face as she opened them. She wouldn’t be happy I’d spent so much money on her, but she would love the practicality of the gift. Everyone needs a good supply of hose.
We crossed the aisle into Accessories. I hung a denim purse over my shoulder and walked back and forth, modeling for Louise. She said it was super cute and a good size. I pulled out the paper wadded up inside and stuffed it in a rounder of dungarees. I folded the purse in half and pushed it deep into my book bag. It was so easy, we were laughing.
“Holy shit!” we whispered to each other on the way to the exit. “What a joke.”
We passed through the first set of doors, ready to scream with relief. As we pushed against the rail that opened the second set of doors and the air of freedom hit us, a man took both of us by our elbows and said, “Okay, girls, you can come with me,” and I wanted to fall over so he couldn’t take me to wherever he was leading us.
I hated myself.
I hated both of us.
The man guided us through racks of winter coats until we got to a door with no trim, no doorknob, and no sign. He unlocked it with the smallest key on his giant ring and sat us down in an office. “Empty your bags.”
We poured everything onto his desk. He patted down our bags and opened zipped compartments, even the pocket where Louise kept tampons. He didn’t care that we were crying. He made a list of everything we’d stolen and tallied up the value. My pile was worth almost fifty dollars.
He asked how old we were, and when we said fifteen, he shook his head and pushed clipboards toward us. “Write down your name, address, and telephone number.”
I watched him dial Wooded Lane. It was so awful to listen to his deep, imperial voice telling my mother her daughter had been shoplifting and was “in his custody” that I sobbed. My nose was running, but the man didn’t offer me a Kleenex, or push the box on the desk closer to me. I didn’t deserve a tissue. I wiped the snot on my sleeve.
Louise’s mom, whom I loved, came first. She glared at both of us and said she was disgusted. She did not like me anymore, I could tell. She would never again say, “Hey, Lou Lou, why don’t you see if Kelly can come up to the lake with us this summer?”
They left, and I was alone with the security officer.
It was getting dark outside. Must’ve been thirty minutes since Lou’s mom came. When my mother finally arrived, she did not look at me. She shook the officer’s hand and said, “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you called the police and sent her to jail.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She said nothing.
We walked through the parking lot to the station wagon. She unlocked her door and got in. After sitting alone in the car for a moment, she slowly leaned over to pull up the lock on my side. I slid in and pulled the door closed. My mom put the keys in the ignition and then fell back in her seat.
“Mm,” she said without starting the car. “Mm-mm.”
“I took the panty hose for you—”
Her hand flew across the space between us and she slapped me across the face. I cried, turning toward the window to look at the empty black parking lot, and on the glass there was a little splatter of blood. I touched my nose. It was bleeding. “I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so sorry.”
“Mm-mm,” she said again, shaking her head, her lips tight.
At last she turned on the car. “I’m not going tell your father one word about this. I don’t think he could handle it. Honest to God, I don’t.”
Shoplifting was so bad that she could not tell my dad, my booster and biggest fan. The fall would be too far. It would hurt too much. He would love me less if he knew. Which meant that either she loved me less as of that moment, or her love was different than his. Our relationship started pristine but was pretty beat-up by that point, like an heirloom tablecloth that, after years of hard use, was tired and stained. Maybe she was hoping that didn’t have to happen with my dad just yet. Or ever.
Whatever her reasons, my dad was not told about the Sears episode. He could still run around town waving my flag, bragging about his “Lovey,” his “superstar” who played lacrosse in the spring and field hockey in the fall. Only my mother knew I hated sports and worse, much much worse, that I was morally defective. Because only she could handle it.
The morning after Kings Cross, Tracy and I are so hungover we keep my room pitch-black all morning, only letting light in when we leave to use the toilet and take some Tylenol. I’d give up a month of my life for two Alka-Seltzer.
Around one, I pull myself out of bed and stretch, feeling like I’m fifty years old. I can hear John out back, sanding. Evan and Pop are wherever Evan and Pop usually are. Tracy’s in the TV room, reading about the election back home. Apparently, the governor of Arkansas just won a primary, but nobody takes him seriously. I mean, he’s from Arkansas.
Things are churning and spoiling inside me and my head aches for hydration. Milly, who seems able to see my hangover, is jamming Beauty and the Beast into the video player.
“Need some help?” I ask, wincing at the sounds.
“No.”
She turns to make sure I’m looking when the tape is sucked into the plastic mouth of the machine. Not for the first time, Milly reminds me of my mom, who likes to do things the way she does them, often ass-backwards. Oh, wait till you get old, my mother warns when I start to interfere. But it’s hard to watch someone struggle with a testy machine, a sticky door, a heavy suitcase, much less listen to them cough or cry. People want to help, and the more we’ve seen and heard and done, the more useful we are, and this is why even the tiniest show of stoicism, in little girls and grown women, makes me mad. It makes us useless to each other.
Martin pops up and pats the cushion. “Sit here, Keely.”
The seat is warm. Martin climbs into my lap with the dingy blanket that he loves and a lumpy pillow that he knuckles the corners of. I don’t remember ever watching a movie in my mom’s lap. Snuggling is not her speed, and Tell me, who has time to sit?Personally, I can think of nothing better, nothing more curative, than tangling up with a kid.
Milly settles into her seat while Tracy brews a pot of coffee in the kitchen. “You all right in there, Kel?”
“My head—”
“Are you sick?” Martin asks.
Milly turns to look at me.
I stop myself from saying what I’ve said about a hundred hangovers before—my head is killing me.
As the movie begins, Martin turns around and kisses me on the lips.
“Oh!” I say, overcome.
Milly rolls her eyes. I see her point. I can’t imagine, now or as a kid, kissing any woman other than my mother, especially on the lips: now because it seems the exclusive right of the woman who raised you, then because it would have been gross. I send off a silent apology to Ellen Tanner. Though I suppose if she can see us, it’s possible that she doesn’t mind. In fact, maybe she’s euphoric, crying with relief that her son isn’t hiding under his bed in the fetal position waiting for her—only her—to coax him back out into the world. Maybe Milly’s resistance is what undoes her.
Tracy and I are happily staying in tonight with the kids because John has “plans,” unspecified, as usual. Maybe, if Ev hears John’s car pull away, he’ll come in.
Milly and Martin are on the floor, gluing ripped bits of paper into horses, pigs, and flowers.
“Pretty rose, Milly,” I say.
“It’s a tree,” she says.
“See!” Martin points to the anorexic trunk.
“Oh, right, duh.” I comb through Martin’s hair with my fingers. “Hey, big news: We’re making grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.”
“What are that?”
I explain that they are PB&Js, just grilled.
“P P and J?”
I lead the kids into the kitchen, and Tracy and I describe each step as if we’re hosting a cooking segment on morning television.
Now, Kelly, tell me what you have here.
Well, Tracy, we start with a nice thick pat of butter, maybe two, like so …
I press the sandwich down with a spatula like a short-order cook, and the peanut butter oozes from the sides. A masterpiece. I wish Evan were here.
I slide the sandwich onto a cutting board and quarter it.
“Keely, Tracy Tuttle!” Martin says after his first bite. “This—this is magnificent!”
Milly will not join Martin’s chorus, but she finishes every bite and accidentally lets out an mmm that I pretend not to relish.
Night comes and turns the sliding glass doors into blocks of glossy black. I go back to the kids’ room to deliver the bad news: bedtime. Martin folds easily enough. Milly looks mutinous but pushing back would require engagement. As my mother liked to remind me after going fifteen rounds over mascara or red fingernail polish, You have to care to fight.
“Night, Keely,” Martin calls out. “Good night, Tracy Tuttle!”
I squeeze his foot through his blanket and flip on Milly’s daisy night-light. I’m getting the hang of them.
Tracy and I stay up late playing Rummy 500 on the kitchen table and whispering about the kids. Tracy goes over on three aces, which means she gets the bed and I’m on the floor. I settle in with my Walkman, listening to a George Winston tape from college, staring at the skylight, which is framing the moon like a piece of art. This is as good as I have felt in this house. I flip through the headlines of my day, looking for the source—no Evan, no outings, barely a breath of fresh air—until I get there: Milly said “mmm.”I made Milly Tanner a tiny bit happy.