“Just lie back,” he whispers, looking down at me.
I catch his eyes, and it’s like getting caught in some otherworldly beam, pulled in, no free will.
He doesn’t let me go, like he promised. He holds me up, and I don’t sink.
And I don’t swim.
We go back to the same diner in the late afternoon.
Neither one of us thought to bring food. He supplied the beer, and I just didn’t think of it. It’s not like anyone has ever invited me anywhere.
We did find some saltines, a can of marmalade from four years ago, and a tin of thumbtacks in the cupboard. I keep saying to myself that next time, next time…like there will be another time. Like he’ll want to bring me back after this. I shouldn’t plan for any futures. He could take me back to my aunt’s, tell me “see ya pal,” and that’s it. What could I even do about it? There would be nothing left. Back to Jean Valjean and Javert, my old friends, like meeting up in a pub after years gone by.
On the way back, I feel fat wet drops on my head and see them splash across my glasses. We have to run the rest of the way, and we get inside just as the sky really lets loose and we fall back on the bed, our clothes wet, snickering at the rain. It didn’t get the best of us.
I take my glasses off to clean them, and he gets up, peeling his soaked white T-shirt from his torso. He drapes it over the back of a chair and goes over to the record player. As he flips through some albums, I decide to remove my wet shirt also. And then I worry that he’ll think I’m copying him, like some annoying kid brother, and I go over to Aunt Amy’s suitcase to find something dry.
But before I can, I hear the first few notes of a song and freeze. All my blood vessels seem to constrict, and there’s a chill down my neck.
The lilting light refrain of “La vie en rose” plays and Edith Piaf’s vibrato sails through the humid air of the cabin and crashes into me like a warm wave. It conjures up images of marigolds and nasturtiums on the sun porch, the taste of something sweet and doughy on my tongue, and the lazy comforts of a day spent in dreamy repose.
I sense Asher behind me, hesitant. I’m standing stiff as a statue.
“What’s wrong?”
“This was my mother’s favorite song.” My voice sounds squeezed.
I hear him move toward the record player, remove the needle.
“No,” I say quickly, without turning around. “Let it play.”
It comes back, this time from the very beginning, and I settle onto the edge of the bed. I feel it depress behind me and Asher’s is voice quiet, “I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s fine. It’s not anything.” I pause there while Edith sings the chorus again. “She used to play this all the time…”
On Sunday afternoons, mostly. It would waft up to my bedroom, and I’d come downstairs. It was long before she knew anything was wrong. Long before I knew anything was wrong. I’d lay on the peach Berber of the sitting room and contemplate my young life, my no life, my untethered life. My thoughts came in neat rows like the ducks in the carnival game — short, languid, and blissfully ignorant.
And my mother would sing along softly in her contralto, fixing Sunday supper, her apron frilled and her hair curled. Then we’d sit over some roasted animal, sautéed vegetable, and crusty bread. My mother made sure I had enough on my plate and enough love from her heart. Even Pops looked at me differently back then, in the Days of Edith. It was with hopefulness, watchful, fingers crossed.
And then I grew, I disappointed, and his gaze hardened into two gray stones.
The songs ends with an orchestral flourish.
I close my eyes. There’s a few moments of discomfort between me and Asher. I feel his fingers on mine, timid. I want to lean into him as if he’s the shelter from the raging storm. I want to cling to him like the preserver offered to me in the middle of the sea. I want to drink him in like the first euphoric gulp after nearly dying of thirst. He’s right beside me, and I could just surrender, and let myself see life in pink, life in roses, life in a glow.
But I can’t.
I can’t even move.
I feel his breath by my ear. “I miss my mother too.”
I turn my head slightly.
“I haven’t talked to her or seen her in,” he pauses, “ten years?” Another pause. Longer. “I left home. When I wasn’t much younger than you. I didn’t say goodbye or anything. I just…left.”
I hold my breath as if one movement from me will have all his secrets running back under a bush like a skittish rabbit.
“She could be dead, and I wouldn’t know.” His tone is guarded like a castle. “But I miss her. She liked music too. I learned everything about opera and classical from her. She came from this real well-to-do family up in Vermont. Really ticked off her folks when she married my old man. Because he was beneath her, you know? A country boy. Dirty and uncivilized.” His voice softens into something that reminds me of velvet. “They gave me hope. My parents. That loving is all that matters, and it can carry you through anything.”
