Photogenic.
Just looking at her nipped-in waist and pert breasts, (so wantonly on display—visible through her tight little sweater), made him question himself. He felt old. Played.
But tempted.
It was as if she had some power over him and she could feel it. She played with it like a child bouncing a ball. Controlling where the ball went, how high.
He was the ball; a worn, leathery, old rugby ball.
Her French accent made her vulnerable, though—all the more enticing. Vulnerability and power mixed together, like a bomb waiting to explode. She had a slight lisp when she spoke. A little pussycat.
Ready to pounce on him.
Sylvia—a composer half-heartedly conducting an orchestra from an armchair, wanting him to play the right tune but with no direct input herself—flashed into his mind.
It was a warm day, and he and Marie sat in the restaurant’s patio garden. Very LA. Relaxed. Cool. Smart, but not pretentious. She ordered a Margarita so he did the same, even though it was midday. She giggled and shuffled about in her chair. Her legs opened and closed as she crossed and uncrossed her legs—he saw that her kickers were white—a little twinkle of light flashed from them. Like a star.
That’s right, the Americans call them panties.
He laughed, remembering a chant they used to have at primary school, playing Kiss-Chase with the girls, when he was a skinny little boy afraid of the opposite sex:
Up with skirts, down with knickers . . . Up with skirts, down with knickers . . . Up with skirts . . . .
“So what’s your favorite kind of photography? Fashion?” Marie asked, her doll eyes wide, her lips parted.
He thought of Diane Arbus, one of his favorite photographers, how she earned an income from fashion photography, although her real love was finding the interior soul of a subject: portraits of dwarfs, giants and transvestites. She had broken a mold, opened doors, seen beauty in the distasteful. That was Tommy’s goal, his passion.
This girl though, would probably have never heard of Diane Arbus.
He said, “Well what I really love is—”
“I hope you’re going to take some amazing pictures of me,” the girl interrupted.
“Well, I’m not sure if I have—”
“I need the pictures to get the attention of directors, you know? Look really sexy but also like I’m a serious actress.” She licked her top lip slowly, flicking her tongue to catch a flake of salt, and then let her mouth caress the straw, gently sucking up more of her cocktail.
Tommy felt the fly on his jeans strain. He knew exactly what would happen next.
Sylvia
I
t was four a.m. when the telephone rang, a couple of days later. The sound was swirled into the nightmare Sylvia was having; waiting for an ambulance, the red flashing sirens sounding louder and louder. She had to get Grace to the hospital—the house, which was not her house but one in a tropical forest, was on fire.
She woke with a start and grabbed the phone to stop the ringing. Sweat soaked her nightgown at the small of her back.
“Hello?” she answered in a groggy haze.
The voice was quiet. Sympathetic. Sylvia knew immediately something was wrong. It took her a while to understand who it was.
“Sylvie? It’s me, Melinda. I have some terrible news,” she said softly. “Sylvia, are you there?”
“Hi Melinda. Sorry, I was fast asleep.”
“Of course you were. I’m so, so sorry, I have terrible news.” She paused and sucked in a deep breath. “Wilber is in the hospital.”
“Daddy? Oh my God . . . what happened?” She shot out of bed, knocking over a glass of water.
“He took an overdose sometime after midnight. Mom heard some groaning in the night and when she went into his bedroom, he looked marbled and blue. She called 911.”
Sylvia swallowed hard. Her throat was thick and dry. “Thank God you and Aunt Marcy were there. Will he pull through?”
“The doctors say there’s hope. They’ve pumped his stomach.”
“Jesus. Is he conscious?” She staggered to the bathroom, ran the faucet and gulped down some water.
“Barely. He’s in OR still. I’m so sorry, Sylvia. He seemed fine today.”
She coughed, the water going down the wrong way. “Yes, he did. We spoke yesterday. He seemed just fine.”
He’d told her he loved her. Was that his way of saying goodbye?
He’d told her he missed her, he loved her; she should have understood. A cliché, it was true, but the writing really had been on the wall. She wanted to cry but no tears came because there was no time for tears. She had to get to him straight away. Something deep inside her had feared this moment, although she never imagined for a second he’d be capable of actually going through with it. Or had she? Had she known all along? Her dad had been lost without her mother. He’d been co-dependent, and since her mom’s death he had hinted that his life was no longer worth living. Sylvia plunked herself down on the toilet seat and bowed her head, the receiver close to her ear.
“Mom feels responsible,” Melinda told her gravely.
That made two of them. Sylvia knew, somehow, her aunt would feel that way but said, “Why?”
“She feels so guilty, she should have monitored him more closely, she should have taken them away from him, rationed them.”
“The sleeping pills he’d been prescribed by Doctor Locke?”
“Yes.”
Sylvia bit her lip so hard she could feel it smart. “She’s not to blame. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not her fault. He could have done it at any time.”
“He’d been stashing them. Saving them up. We couldn’t know.”
“Of course you couldn’t.” Sylvia should have been more on the ball herself, should have seen this coming. Was it a cry for attention? The fact he did it while her aunt and cousin were staying with him, made her wonder. He needed her, obviously. She’d get up, get dressed and go.
“So when can you get here?” Melinda asked in a quiet voice.
“As soon as I can. I’ll go online now and book our tickets.”
“You change planes in Chicago, right?’
“Or Minneapolis. And we have to change in Denver first. Two changes.”
“What a bummer. Let me know your flight number and I’ll pick you up in Saginaw.”
“But you told me you had to get back to work tomorrow.” She looked at her watch on the bathroom cabinet. “I mean, today.”
Melinda cleared her throat. “I do. But Sylvia, this is an emergency. I’m not going anywhere right now. I want to at least wait until you get here.”
“I’ll call the second I have our flights booked. Tell Dad I love him and we’re on our way.”
“I will. I promise. Safe flight.”
THERE WAS ONLY one seat available on the Denver to Chicago leg that morning. Nothing from Minneapolis. As if the entire world had decided to fly that day. If Sylvia could wait twenty-four hours there would be another seat for Grace on a later flight. But twenty-four hours was forever when her father was battling for his life. She remembered her mom, the guilt still wrapped about Sylvia like a blanket, thick with mildew—Sylvia hadn’t been there for her at the end. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
She called Tommy—he wasn’t picking up.
As if by osmosis, Ruth appeared as Sylvia was coming out of the bathroom. It was still dark—even the birds hadn’t yet awoken.
“Honey—Sylvia, what’s wrong? I heard something smash and it woke me. Oh my . . . your eyes are red, have you been crying?”
Sylvia related the dilemma. Her heart felt like a fragile piece of paper, fluttering in two separate directions, about to rip. Maybe she should just leave it—trying to get to Saginaw in record time was ridiculous. Grace took priority—she couldn’t leave her behind. Grace had never been alone without either her or Tommy.
Ruth hugged her friend. Sylvia could smell sweet-scented cream on Ruth’s face and her hard breasts—filmed in her thin, floaty negligee—pushed up against Sylvia’s chest.
Her voice was soothing. “Sylvia . . . go to your father, he needs you. This is life or death—you’d never forgive yourself. I know, believe me. I looked after my mom in the last stages of breast cancer. It was grueling, but the best decision I ever made in my life. I wouldn’t trade those last few weeks for anything in the world. Your dad will make it. I’m sure he will. But having you by his side will make all the difference.”
“You’re right, I—” The phone was ringing. Sylvia raced to pick it up. It would be Tommy calling back.
His voice was like balm to a wound. All her resentment melted away. She needed her husband more than ever.
“Baby,” he said. “Are you okay? I figured there must be some kind of emergency, you calling at this hour.”
Sylvia explained her quandary, her breath short, obligation strangling her like tenacious, wet ivy. Why did parents feel like children? Why the weight of responsibility? But that’s the way it was.
“Well, Ruth is there, isn’t she?” Tommy said. “I’ll get on the first plane out of LA and come home. Gracie won’t be alone. And then Gracie and I can both come to Saginaw if need be. Or not. Depending on your dad. We’ll play it by ear. Get on that plane, anyhow.”
“I’ve never left her alone before.”
“Okay then, wait. But you said the next available seat wasn’t for twenty-four hours.”
“Yes,” Sylvia said, her throat thick.
“In other words, tomorrow.”
“But I can’t—”
“One day. That’s nothing! Ruth can drive you to the airport, then take Gracie to school—she’ll have her usual routine. I’ll be back shortly, and tomorrow, or the next day, she and I can both fly to Saginaw. I’ll sort the tickets out. What’s the big deal?”
“Okay. But what if you can’t get a flight back home?”
“As long as some earthquake doesn’t come ripping and roaring through LA, we should be fine.”
“Okay. What about your new job?”
“We’ll talk about that later. Your dad takes priority.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should just wait until there’s another seat for Grace.”
Ruth, who was standing there, raised her eyebrows. She whispered, “It’s not my business, of course, but by that time, Sylvia, honey, your dad could have passed away. He needs you. Sylvia, this is an emergency.”
Sylvia had her father in her mind’s eye; his stomach bloated from all the pills, his pallid face desperate. She said to Ruth, “I guess you’re right.”
“Are you listening to me, Sylvia, baby?” Tommy was still on the line. “I’ll catch the next plane home.”
“Wait one minute, Tommy.” She turned to Ruth. “Are you okay looking after Gracie until Tommy gets back? It’ll only be for the day—he’s catching the first plane he can. I could ask one of Grace’s school friend’s moms, although it’s a little short—”
“Don’t be silly,”—Ruth jokingly rolled her eyes—“of course, I’ll look after her; I’d be delighted.”
SYLVIA HATED FLYING. She panicked every time. The liquid allowance, and all the fuss airplane traveling entailed these days, drove her nuts. In her rush, and with the added panic of dropping Grace off at school on time, she realized that she’d forgotten her passport, but luckily not her driver’s license.
As Sylvia drove to Riverton Airport, Ruth beside her in the passenger seat, she reeled off a list of instructions, as Ruth scribbled it all down in a notebook. Sylvia’s eyes were fixed on the road, almost without focusing, while Ruth then rambled on jollily about a boyfriend who had abandoned her on a backpacking trip on an Indonesian island (as things, he said, were “not going to work out”).
“You know, Sylvia, I have something to say, that you may not think is important but . . . well . . . it’s something that has marked my life.”
Sylvia glanced at her friend. She had been so preoccupied by her father, she hadn’t thought of much else. “Oh yes?”
“Just . . . I understand. I lost my mom to cancer and . . . well . . . you’re doing the right thing going to see your dad.”
Ruth is a good person, however quirky,
Sylvia mused. They both knew what it was like to lose a mother to that insidious disease. She thought about the tragedy of her dad, and prayed he would make it through. She reflected on the vulnerability of her relationship with Tommy, and how she was about to leave the most important person in her life: Grace.
Trusting her to someone outside the family.
AS SOON AS SHE landed, Sylvia could feel disaster thick like syrup. She knew something was wrong. It was confirmed in Melinda’s heavy, red-lidded eyes. Sylvia’s dad, she told her in a whisper, had just died.
Melinda shielded her with her plump arms as Sylvia’s lungs began to heave with disappointment. Why, oh why hadn’t her father had more strength? She ached for him—why hadn’t she been there sooner? Why hadn’t she read the signs? She cried for her mother, too, for the deep love her parents shared during their forty-year marriage. If Heaven came through and wasn’t just a myth, her dad would at least be reunited with the love of his life.
The drive from the airport felt surreal, as if everything was unraveling in slow motion—as if this were all happening to someone else. Melinda was babbling, words tumbling out of her mouth incoherently. She spoke several times about Aunt Marcy’s upcoming mole removal operation—which was precautionary, she explained, because the mole was benign—and the guilt she felt about not being able to be there for her. The older parents got, the more like children they seemed. Just vulnerable beings without all the answers who needed looking after.
They drove along for several miles, each in their own world, each suffering from the wound of loss. The fact that Sylvia’s father took his own life was a bludgeon to them both, not just Sylvia. It was Melinda who sat on her father’s knee when they were girls, Melinda whom he taught to play golf, Melinda who used to chat to him about the stock exchange.
“I just can’t believe dad didn’t wait,” Sylvia lamented, staring out of the car window, focusing on nothing, the blur of buildings flashing past her in a haze.
Melinda blinked away a deluge of tears. “I know, honey. Life can be so unfair sometimes.”
There was a long silence and then Melinda said, “Sylvie, I made a promise to your dad recently—something you and I need to discuss.”