“I forget. A shoot-'em-up. Great special effects.”
The years passed. Then, one weekend, busy with picking weeds and selecting ripe strawberries for dinner from her garden, she forgot to call him. Sunday slipped by. On Monday, she didn't know where he would be. So went the rest of the week. The following Sunday, she fully intended to call at the usual time, but Mrs. Peters from next door came by asking for advice on killing gophers in her yard. Happy for the company, she offered a piece of poppy seed cake. She kicked herself later, as Mrs. Peters ate two pieces, all the while implying that her own efforts to control the gophers had in fact caused an infestation in Mrs. Peters's yard. She felt too upset to call her son that day, too upset to make small talk.
The following Sunday, as she whiled away the afternoon with the papers, he called. “Mom, where have you been?”
“Right here.”
“I've been so worried! I almost called the police yesterday!”
She had forgotten to call him for a couple of weeks. How surprising! Still, it was probably a good thing. Time was passing. He needed to get along without her. By habit, she reached for the picture of him leaning on his car, but it was gone from its usual spot. She must have stowed it during the dusting on Tuesday. Rummaging in a desk drawer, she found it.
“I haven't gone anywhere,” she said. “I'm still sitting in my blue chair and talking to you.”
“The blue chair,” he said. “You've had that forever. That's where I found you… remember that time I ran away?” he asked.
“Of course I do.” But how funny that he did, and funnier still that he would mention it. He had been so little then, still able to stand under her outstretched arm.
“I was really scared.”
“This was a small town. I knew you'd be okay.”
“Why didn't you try to find me, Mom?”
“But I did. I searched for hours.”
“Then you gave up.”
“I waited for you at home. I hoped you'd find your way back. And you did, didn't you?”
As time went by, and the phone calls grew ever more erratic, she lost interest in gardening. She would force herself outside, but the leaves became dry and brittle before her eyes, the landscape drained of its usual colors. She called old friends, but found herself wanting to hang up almost immediately. Their conversation, friendly enough, proved as insubstantial as the local ocean fogs. There was no intrinsic value in these relationships, she realized, letting them lag. She quit reading the news, stopped watching her evening shows. Life reduced itself to an egg in the morning, cleanup, sandwich, cleanup, and long periods when she stared out the window, mentally vacant.
Then one night, she took out some pills and set them on her bed stand. She poured herself a glass of water, opened the bottle, and hesitated.
She would wait for one more phone call, then end it.
Strangely, the sight of the pills on her bureau gave her strength. Over the next few days, she conversed cheerfully with neighbors, and, full of purpose for a change, tidied her papers and her life. Her home looked almost happy.
On her birthday, an intolerably smoggy day a month after he graduated from college, he called.
“Happy birthday!”
She couldn't speak for a minute. Sitting down on the bed, she fingered the pills. Her last day. He would be sad, but he would rough it, as she had. These blows that knocked you down only bruised and battered. They did not stop you cold. You went on. He was so young still.
She roused herself. She knew what she should say, but they didn't have that kind of a relationship. Maybe, she decided, as he told her about what he was up to, she would leave him a letter. She could write at her leisure, explain things somehow.
He talked, and she found herself nervous, the warm ocean wave of his voice on the other end, usually so important, receding on a tide. She found his meaning hard to extract, although she tried, shifting her attention from the pills, from the window and the clearing of the sky outside, white clouds consuming the yellow haze, back to him.
Odd the way the usual quick hang up did not happen. He talked about the smell of the ocean breezes and the din of the weed cutters in early summer. She couldn't help noticing how remarkably like his father he sounded, picking up on the sensory details of life as though entirely untouched by them. The similarity unsettled her, reminding her of another leaving a long time ago. This was different, she told herself, because his reaction would be different. Hardy, she hoped. He was an independent soul, she felt, although she was guessing.
She listened now without listening for content. She pressed her ear to the receiver, eager for something besides words. She listened for rhythm, for a thrumming, for a bigger meaning. It took a minute for her to realize what she wanted. She was asking a lot of this final conversation, wasn't she? She urgently wanted to make final contact with his heart.
What she heard instead was a young man's awkward voice, her distracted chat, and punctuating silences between them. But that was who they were, she thought, realizing she didn't have to hear its beat through the phone, or even in the words he said. His heart continued to beat inside her, alongside her own, out of sync.
She knew she must sound funny, but she couldn't help it, as things large and painful moved inside her own heart.
She swung her attention back to the conversation. She had expected to say good-bye by now, but then questions began, like, what was the weather like there today, and how big were her beefsteak tomatoes this year?
She wouldn't tell him she hadn't planted any. “Oh, not as big as last year's. But when did you start to worry about my garden?”
She could hear the silence ballooning, as it so often did, full of all the things they would never say to each other.
Then, he exhaled. “I've met someone.”
“Someone?” she asked stupidly.
“A girl named Tammy.”
A gusher of something, her blood pumping perhaps, made her suddenly dizzy. “Hang on,” she said, then took a sip of water and four deep breaths. “Honey,” she said, “what does that have to do with my garden?”
He wanted to tell Tammy about her tomatoes, he said, because she complained that all they could get were ones that tasted like cardboard.
He had a girlfriend.
How long was her hair? What kind of clothes did she wear? Was she tall? Thin? Pretty? Freckled? Plump? Sweet-natured or cross? Smart? Foolish? Fun? Serious?
A student? Older than him? Younger? An only child?
Sterile?
Sick?
Big-bosomed?
But he would hate her questions, and so she didn't ask them. “I've got to go,” he said, as he always did when he had had enough.
“Okay, dear,” she said, as she always did, careful to keep the leap of frustration she felt at this abrupt pronouncement out of her voice. This time something new crept upon her-fear. She stopped all such feelings and thought about her last words to him. Nothing came to mind. She couldn't show what she felt without scaring him, too. “Have a good evening.”
“Oh, that's weird.” He laughed slightly. “I almost forgot to say why I called! We're flying out for her dad's birthday next weekend. Would you come?”
“Her folks live out here?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Real close to you, actually.”
Surprising herself even more, she said immediately, “Of course I will.”
“I'll pick you up.”
“Okay, honey.” She waited for his good-bye, picking up his picture to look at, hoping she would not cry.
He hovered on the phone. She could hear him breathing. “Honey, are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
He breathed in and out, and she followed the rhythm like a jumpy little tune. Why didn't he hang up?