Her husband in the waiting room. There had been so much blood they thought—could it have been possible?—she had been pregnant again, she had lost it. The flood had made her nauseous, and she had vomited too. None of it made any sense, and more than that, the pain, the ruined pants, blood still caked in the fault lines of her palms. She has been asked a question and realizes she is supposed to give an answer, but nothing is entering other than the surreal way the clock on the wall is still moving, hands still falling steadily forward.
She nods, and Al’s body is around her, her face in his chest, both of them moving with heavy, frightened sobs.Where are the children? Safe, fine, with his mother. It’s not real, she says.You’re going to be okay, he says.We’re going to fight this.
What is next? The dismantling of her broken pieces, the removal of rot? Only yesterday she had opened a sweet potato, peeled the perfect orange exterior, and chopped in to find that the core was liquid and wrong. None of it is fair. Her husband’s attention, his mind connects perfectly with hers for a moment and even in the terror they pass strength between them. They reach inside each other to find something solid. They hold each other’s gaze like it’s the only safe place to look.
When they arrive home, she can’t get out of the car. Her insides are still so cramped up with failure, with the exodus, and she cannot face them. So Al brings the children to the car, straps them into their car seats. He is talking about practical things, about whether or not they are going to McDonald’s or Friendly’s for takeaway. He is acting with a numbness she never before understood as a strength. She can hardly look at their beautiful, beaming faces—she cannot break in front of them. She cannot let them watch her go to pieces. Look! How much time have you wasted?
They ask to listen to the Disney CD and Al humors them even though the songs make him insane, and the two of them look out the windshield and try not to cry while the kids scream “Hakuna Matata” at the top of their lungs. Susan places her hand on her husband’s hand and tries to catch her breath.
I have this, she thinks.Thank God I have this.
When they get home, Al takes the kids into their room, and she calls Mark Flowers. “I can’t do this anymore,” she says. “You have to kill me.”
2012
In a quiet thicket of Regent’s Park, a sign advertises tonight’s outdoor entertainment:Twelfth Night.
“Oh look, a nice trash can for me to hide in.”
“I’m not forcing you to go.”
“You absolutely are.”
It’s a quintessential London experience, Viola had told Sebastian in the affectless voice that was the only one she could muster.I thought it would be nice.
Somehow it seemed important that they went together. It felt like they had been avoiding it their entire lives. She had bought the tickets before he came, in a gesture that she had written off as a generous surprise, a thank-you-for-coming gift. But she can see now in his squeamishness about the whole thing (here! in this languid, gorgeous everyone park!) that it had only been something thatshewanted. Perhaps the idea had been a way of managing her anxiety about the visit, of what to do with him. But it will be nice, just sitting next to him in silence for a while. Letting the story go by.
“Lola, you are sad, and if this is going to make you feel better, then this is what we’ll do.”
“It will make me feel better.”
“I can’t promise I’m going to like it.”
“You are entitled to not like it.”
“Am I entitled to think it’s pretentious bullshit?”
“Sure.”
“And that their accents are stupid?”
“Don’t push it.”
The set is lush, and thickened by a dense soundscape of crickets, tropical birds. In the general settling, a small band begins to play. Breathing next to her is her brother, and she can feel the quieting of his mind as he looks around the amphitheater at all the people coming in, little children and a woman in a wheelchair and some too-loud Americans and a pair of German girls. She can see him unfurling in this rough assembly of people just here to listen to a story about a boy named Sebastian and a girl named Viola. Gradually it grows quiet, and a woman trundles up to the stage.
Here she is: herself but not herself. Mannish, commanding, wide-faced, and broad-shouldered. Her voice is a surprise, all delicacy and enchantment:
“What country, friends, is this?”
She slips into the spell.A memory.Thick red curtains, the ceiling painted with a false sky, people talking and then silent and dark, the stage lighting up.What country, friends, is this?Her mother’s voice:That’s you, attention directed toward sentences she couldn’t understand, her mother’s voice explaining the motions, the turmoil, the mistakes. Cold ice cream on her tongue. Just the two of them. Bliss.
1995
Her daughter’s perfect tiny features, hers for the evening, the lights coming down. Imprinting something that might matter. She needs this time. When she looks at her children, Susan is overcome by how quickly they are growing, how far they have to go. Her love for them arrives fiercely in strange moments, a desire to pin them down, to suspend them in time. To suspend herself. She knows she is unnatural with them now, that at times she spills over, that it isn’t fair. And so tonight, she is only trying to create some normalcy. To escape. Just her daughter and her.
They settle into their seats. Her daughter is wearing a black velvet dress and tights, tiny patent leather shoes. When the play begins, she tries to lose herself but instead just feels lost. Disconnected.
She wonders now whether she had been wrong to capitulate about the names. It’s a silly show, really. Predictable, clean. Everyone just ends up with who they are supposed to. It all passes by in a laugh. None of them really see each other at all. But to be honest, she can hardly focus because she is so smitten with the rapture on her daughter’s face, watching her fall in love with the lights and the drama.What’s in a name?The magic of being in this space together.She will remember this forever.Nothing else matters.
