DON’T BE THAT WAY by Becky Mandelbaum
Every year for the past ten years, starting the day my husband Parker left me for our neighbor, Lorraine, I’ve entered the Golden Journeys Ultimate Cruise Sweepstakes with the hope of getting a break from this goddamn place. The sweepstakes winner receives an all-expenses-paid cruise for two to such exotic destinations as Tortola, Antigua, and Saint Lucia. Where any of these places are is beyond me, but they certainly have a more tropical ring than Wichita, Kansas, words that have always reminded me, for reasons I can’t explain, of an old manila envelope filled with sprinkle cheese.
Not that I’m qualified for tropical. There’s an idea I have, that in order to fully appreciate a beautiful environment one must herself be beautiful. I used to be beautiful. A lot of people say this when what they really mean is they used to be younger. But I was honest-to‑god attractive. The kind of pretty where, out of the blue, men would give me things: perfume, movie tickets, a necklace they had meant to give their wife. One guy – a principal I worked with back in the day – gave me a self-cleaning aquarium filled with thirteen iridescent guppies (too many guppies for one tank, I learned – they died one by one).
Sometimes, I look at pictures of myself from when Parker and I were first married and I can understand why these men did what they did. I was a walking billboard for myself – teased-up hair, chiffon blouses so sheer you could see my brassiere. These days, I traffic in Keds tennies, stretch capris, and L’Oreal hair dye in Purple Smoke. But I can now eat a cheeseburger without lamenting it for the next two weeks, and for that I am grateful.
Sometimes, if I’m sad at night, I’ll repeat the tropical cruise destinations out loud: Tortola, Antigua, Saint Lucia. Like a witch’s chant. What I’d do if I actually won, I can’t say. The last time I spent a night away from this house was in 2012, to attend my best friend Victoria’s funeral. When I returned, I found my son Clayton blue as a berry on the kitchen floor, an empty bottle of Advil PM at his side. For a moment I considered what would happen if I did not call an ambulance, and then that second passed and I picked up the phone.
I’m sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, trying to pry the batteries from my remote control with some tweezers, when Parker walks in. After everything, he still lives next door with Lorraine. It took him nearly a year to move out after asking me for a divorce – every other week he’d saunter in, saying he’d forgotten his foot powder or his dress socks. He still shows up like this, Kramer-from-Seinfeld-style, wanting to borrow baking soda or invite Clayton over for dinner.
He’s always been a handsome man – my mother used to love to discuss his chin with company – but the past few years of retirement have worn on him. He no longer irons his clothes and sometimes he smells like sour yogurt. Gravity has pulled the tip of his long Grecian nose so that it almost connects with his upper lip. Today he looks especially bad.
“There’s a doorbell, you know,” I tell him.
He looks at me, closes his eyes. “Lorraine’s in the hospital,” he says. “She had a stroke at work.”
For a moment, I can only look at him. When I try to swallow, I nearly choke on my own spit. I haven’t ever liked Lorraine, for obvious reasons, but I wouldn’t wish harm upon the woman. She’s kinder and more docile than me, with a Wonder Bread sense of humor. That she holds her purse whenever Clayton is around does not sit well with me, but she raised three beautiful children who now live in New York, doing fancy things, and for that I respect her. I imagine those children are already clearing their work schedules, in case the worst happens.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Parker. I’ll keep her in my prayers.”
For a moment he just stands there, his face in his hands. “Can I stay here for a little while? I can’t be alone right now.”
Oh, boy, I think. Here we go.
“I can sleep on the couch, Bette. I won’t be a bother. Promise.”
I look at him, thinking, nope, not a chance in hell, and say, “Okay.” I return my focus to the remote, where the batteries are corroded and refuse to budge.
“Let me see that,” Parker says, sniffling. With one maneuver he has the batteries out and one, two, three, pops the fresh ones in.
This is what I hate most about men, this mastery of all things workaday. They’re not making peace on earth but they can change a tire, tile a roof, fell a tree. Meanwhile women are raising their children, making sure they don’t blow each other up. But who has to say thank you when the remote gets fixed? Or when the top to the pickle jar comes off? I keep reading in the news that things are different now, that women are outperforming men, even in the sciences. That we’re no longer supposed to say “I’m sorry” or cross our legs on public transit. I’m not sure what world these women are living in.
“Thanks,” I tell Parker, taking the remote.
“Glad to be useful,” he says, and then his stomach audibly growls. “I guess I haven’t eaten all day – I’ve been so distracted.”
“Well, go make yourself a sandwich if you want. There’s ham.”
He sits down on the couch. “I just feel like I can’t do anything. I can’t concentrate. I feel like I’ve fallen into a crevasse.” He looks at me, pleading.
Like this, I get up to make him what must be ham sandwich #999.
Last year, when Clayton moved back in and money got tight, I moved downstairs and put the master bedroom up for rent on Craigslist. Now, Clayton lives in his old room and across from him, in my and Parker’s old bedroom with the Jacuzzi tub, is Aaron James, a middle-aged Toys-R‑Us assistant manager who refuses to be called A.J. He is something of a ladies’ man, Aaron James. Every other week he has a new girlfriend with whom he copulates loudly.
Unless you are a participant, there is no sound lonelier than the sound of two people making love. It must be especially hard on Clayton, who’s thirty years old and has no girlfriend, no friends, and no job. I once felt compelled to help him but have learned, over the years, that the more I try to help the more emasculated he feels and in the end we all lose. There’s nothing medically wrong with him, a fact that only makes things worse. “I wish there was a reason for why I’m so crappy,” he once told me.
“You’re not crappy,” I said. “You’re my son.”
The real problem is that he has no sense and ends up making messes out of thin air. For example: a few months ago, I had to haul him to the ER because his fingers had turned an alarming shade of yellow. After a fitful hour in the waiting room in which a bloody-skulled man kept glancing at us to determine our brand of emergency, the nurse took one look at Clayton’s hands and said, “Turmeric. Wash with soap and water.”
I could have strangled him Bart-Simpson-style right then and there, in front of the nurse and the bleeding man and the little pig-tailed girl with the inhaler, but Clayton was hungry so we went to Spangles to get burgers.
“I didn’t know turmeric could do that,” he said, looking at his hands, downtrodden.
“What were you doing with turmeric anyways?”
“I read it can help with depression. I was sprinkling it into my oatmeal.”
He kept looking at the pretty girl behind the counter, and so I said, “Go talk to her, then, if you’re going to stare,” and he said, “What’s the point? She’ll just end up hating me like everyone else.”
After a moment I said, “You know, I used to be as pretty as her,” to which he replied, “Gross.”
Veronica once told me that I made it my life’s mission to get men to need me, an endeavor that perpetuates codependent behaviors. I wanted to tell her that if you close one eye and tilt your head just so, every relationship on this earth is a practice in codependence.
Two days later, Lorraine is still in a coma and Parker is still in my house. Clayton is firmly against the whole situation – he’s never forgiven Parker for leaving us – and so he stays in his room, sulking and smoking pot.
Because there is nothing else to do, Parker and I sit around all day, watching Judge Judy and waiting for something to happen. We eat pretzels and drink Diet Sprite. Sometimes when we watch something funny we will laugh together, forgetting ourselves. Years ago, he would sit down beside me no matter what I was doing – grading papers, watching television, solving a crossword – and lift up his shirt, a silent gesture meaning I was to scratch his back. I keep waiting for him to do this now, but he stays where he is, a good arm’s length away.
At night, he sleeps on the couch, the TV set to a channel called Earth Images that plays satellite footage of our planet. Creepy, in my opinion, but Parker finds it comforting. “It’s nice,” he says, “to know someone’s up there watching us all.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be God?”
“Maybe so, Bette, but the satellites are closer.”
On his third morning in the house, Parker goes over to Lorraine’s to grab a change of clothes and his precious coffee grinder. When he reappears in my kitchen, he is holding a caged bird.
“No way,” I tell him. “Not now or ever.”
“Come on, Bette. He can’t be over in that house by himself. He’s an intelligent animal – he requires stimulation.”
“Then why don’t you go over there and stimulate him yourself?”
“You know I can’t do that. All Lorraine’s groceries are still in the refrigerator – her underwear’s in the hamper.”
“Then throw out the food and put the hamper in the closet. Problem solved.”
“It’s too much,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m not ready.”
“You know birds give me the willies.”
“He’s not a bird, Bette. He’s a parrot. And he won’t be a bother. I’ll do all the feeding and cleaning. It’s just temporary, until Lorraine comes home.”
I give in because I know it will be more effort not to. Besides, I feel sort of bad for the bird. He’s not colorful like a parrot should be but has dull feathers the color of ash. From the ceiling of his cage hangs a silver bell on a multicolored string.
“Any plans to visit Lorraine today?” I’ve put out milk and Frosted Mini-Wheats, but damned if I’m going to pour him the bowl.
“Might as well visit a tree in the parking lot.”
“You never know. Don’t they say that about people in comas? That you don’t know what all they absorb?”
“Nobody says that, Bette. It’s just a nice thing to think.”
Just then, Aaron James comes downstairs. Behind him trails a girl with short hair and a nose so petite it’s a miracle she can use it to breathe. Aaron James kisses the girl goodbye and then shuffles her out the front door saying, “Party later, reggae mama.”
In the kitchen, Parker says to Aaron James: “She sure has a nice figure, doesn’t she?”
Aaron James looks at him hard. “I’m sorry. Why are you still here?”
I shoot Parker a warning look. “Parker, apologize.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just when I see an attractive woman I feel compelled to say something. Come sit and have some breakfast,” he says to Aaron James. “I imagine you’re hungry.”
It is not in my job description to feed either of these men, and yet there goes Aaron James, pouring himself a bowl of Mini-Wheats, a cup of coffee, brazenly finishing the last of the milk. I had a plan to make shepherd’s pie for dinner, which means now I’ll have to go to the store.
When I sneeze, the bird is the only one in the room who says, God bless you!
“By the way,” Aaron James says, “your pervy son had a mirror under my door last night, trying to peep on me and Sheila.” He continues to spoon cereal into his mouth. “Sheila says I can live with her, so I’m moving out tomorrow.”
A lump of emotion sits at the back of my throat. I will not cry. “But it’s the middle of the month. You can’t just leave on a day’s notice.”
“Oh really?” he says. “And what contract have I signed?”
I know he has me here, and so I say nothing, not even when Parker offers to help him move his things.
When the boys are done eating, they put their dishes in the sink and separate: Aaron James to Toys-R‑Us, Parker to get a haircut. Clayton is still asleep, of course. The mornings do not suit him. Although I’m furious, I decide not to confront Clayton about the mirror – it’s too embarrassing for him, and he does not do well with embarrassing. Instead, I put up a new Craigslist ad and wait.
I’m alone in my bedroom later that night when I get the email. CONGRATULATIONS!! YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED . . . The room goes topsy-turvy, my heart a jackhammer in my throat.
I read through the email seven times. They’re giving me a number to call, a waiver to fill out. The cruise ship departs from Tampa exactly two weeks from tomorrow. Against all odds, they want me on it.
When I call to claim my prize, the man on the phone sounds as if I’m calling to report a car accident. “What is your location, ma’am? At what number can I reach you?” Eventually he directs my call to his supervisor, a shrill-voiced woman named Karen who seems to appreciate the magnitude of my good fortune. “Congratulations!” she sings, and then proceeds to explain the terms of the cruise, and what I need to provide: my address, my social security number, a $500 deposit for room damages. “We’ll need you to sign a media waiver, saying we can use your image for advertising purposes.”
This is what really gets me going, the idea of my face being used to advertise anything besides Weight Watchers. “But you don’t know what I look like,” I tell her.
She finds this hilarious. “On a cruise, everyone looks good.”
Buoyed by the news, I go upstairs, eager to tell the house that in fifteen days I’ll be drifting along turquoise waters, getting stone massages – whatever those are – and enjoying a nightly all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. No matter that shellfish frighten me; undoubtedly there will also be chicken.
Upstairs, it’s just Clayton, in the kitchen, playing solitaire. “What are you all jittery about?” he asks, mumbling like usual. He tends to direct his voice downward, as if he’s addressing a tiny elf on his chest.
“I have big news. You won’t believe it.”
When I show him the email, he laughs. “Look, they’ve blind CC’ed someone – probably a list of a thousand other people who won too. They’re just trying to get your information.”
“But it’s a legitimate cruise line,” I say, although I can already feel the balloon of my excitement begin to deflate. “They had an ad in Reader’s Digest.”
“Let me guess. They want your social? Your credit card number?”
“They’re giving me a prize. That requires certain information.” I recall Karen’s jovial voice on the phone, the workaday tone of the man who answered the call before her. They had someone working the call line. There was a hierarchy of employment.
“Even if it is real,” Clayton is saying, “you couldn’t get a passport in time.”
He’s still playing his card game, and I think of Aaron James, of the rent money lost. “Why are you trying to ruin this for me?”
“If anyone’s ruining anything, it’s Dad.” He looks at me with contempt. “Why do you always do this shit? Let him hang around and suck you dry? He ate the last of the Cheez-Its. Kick him out already.”
I take my phone and return to my room. It’s cold in the basement, and there’s nothing to do, so I Google “How long does it take to get a passport?” and discover that Clayton was right – even an expedited one takes three weeks, which means I would have had to apply a week ago. For a moment, I let myself cry and then, as a distraction, watch an episode of Alaskan House Flippers on my phone. I’m on the first commercial break when a notion strikes me. I Google, “Do you need a passport for a cruise?” and discover that the answer, at least for the Golden Journeys Ultimate Getaway, is no.
When I go upstairs to tell Clayton, he’s still at the table, shuffling cards. “I looked it up. I don’t need a passport,” I tell him. “And it’s real – I know it’s real. There’s testimonies and photos from previous winners. I read about it on one woman’s blog – she said it changed her life.”
He looks up at me this time, as if he’s been thinking about something. “It’s really real?”
“Real as anything these days.”
“And you won two tickets?”
“It’s incredible, isn’t it? I’ve never won anything in my life.” This isn’t exactly true. Once, in college, I won a raffle at the library and received a $15 gift certificate to Village Inn. But a mother must have some secrets.
He sets the cards down on the table. “Can I come with?”
For a moment the question stuns me and all I can do is blink. “Oh,” I eventually say, to keep from screaming. To bring Clayton would be to wear noise-cancelling headphones to a symphony. To arrive at the Louvre in blindfolds. But how I can explain this to him – my own son? “I’ll think about it,” I tell him, and the look on his face nearly cracks my heart in two.
“You don’t want me to come.”
“It’s not that – it’s just that it sounds so nice, to go somewhere alone. To have time by myself.”
“But you’re always by yourself.”
“In a way,” I say, too tired to explain the details of my exhaustion.
“Fine – go without me,” he says, returning to his cards. I can tell he is trying not to cry.
“Let me think about it, Clayton. That’s all I said.”
It was a mistake, I now see, to tell Clayton about the trip at all. “I love you,” I say. “You know that, right?”
“If you loved me,” he says, still looking at his cards, “you’d want me to experience a cruise.”
That night, as I lay in bed, I decide not to tell anyone else about the cruise – especially not Parker. I will tuck the prize into my back pocket and treat it like an expensive chocolate bar; nobody will ask to eat it if they don’t know that it’s there.
The next morning, I find I have a new email from a woman interested in renting the room. Her name is Penelope, and when she comes over for the interview that afternoon, I realize I’ve seen her before. It takes me a moment, but then I realize she’s the pretty blonde from Spangles that Clayton always stares at. The only difference is that now she has a black eye and a little yellow cut above her eyebrow. She is wearing her hair in a low braid and has sparkly gunk on her lips, as if the sparkles might distract from the bruise, which is a dark, dangerous shade of purple – the exact color of a cloud before it breaks open with lightning.
“I really like your house,” she says. “It reminds me of my mom’s old place.”
“Is that so?” I say, uncertain whether this is an insult in disguise. “Where does she live?”
“Well, she doesn’t really live anymore – she died a couple years ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, feeling myself blush.
“Don’t be. You didn’t kill her.”
This is another thing I read somewhere: women are no longer supposed to apologize.
I lead Penelope into the kitchen, where she takes a seat at the table, as if this is already her home. “Are you thirsty?” I ask. “I’ve got orange juice, or coffee, or iced tea. There’s also some diet pop. If you’re hungry I have some crackers and cream cheese. Or I could make you something quick – a sandwich or a grilled cheese.”
“I’m fine,” she says. “Just sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”
I follow her orders and take a seat at the table. “So, what do you do for work?” I ask, even though I know she works at the Spangles.
“I flip burgers.”
“How neat – do you like it?”
She frowns. “I don’t think anyone likes it.”
I nod, understanding that, despite the bruise on her face, she really is beautiful, and that to invite her into my home would be torture to Clayton. “Where are you living now?” I ask.
“Well, I was living with my boyfriend, but I left him. So now I’m in my car.”
“You mean you’re sleeping there?”
She frowns. “It has a big back seat.”
The injustice of this brings my heart rate up. To think of this young girl, sleeping in a car. It’s where Clayton would be if I hadn’t let him back in. “If you’d like to,” I tell her, “you can move in tonight.”
“Really?”
“Really. But just so you know,” I find myself saying, “I’m going on a cruise soon. I’ll be away just as you’re settling into the house.” I wait for her to raise her eyebrow, to ask, You? A cruise? But you’re just an old lady who has to rent out rooms to pay her mortgage. Instead, she says, “How fun! I hear they have great food.” She smiles, revealing a set of pretty white teeth that I know, for a fact, will appear in Clayton’s dreams.
The weeks pass. Everyone sleeps where they feel safest: Lorraine at the hospital, Parker on my couch, Penelope in my old room. The cruise becomes a glimmering mirage in the distance, one that, as it approaches, begins to fill me with dread. It is so wonderful I begin to worry it can’t be real. Or that, if it is real, I’m not brave enough to enjoy it. That it will turn to sand as soon as I reach out to claim it.
The night before my departure, I am filled with a deep anxiety the texture of tar. I imagine flying all the way to Tampa to discover there’s no man waiting at the airport with a sign. There is no boat, no cruise. There is no real place called Tortola.
To calm myself, I make a mug of Swiss Miss and sit down to read a book. I haven’t read a book in years, but I bought three for the cruise: two romance novels and a Sue Grafton. I used to love to read, back when I was in college and had so much time I can hardly imagine now what I did with it all. I also loved dancing, and visiting museums, and riding my bike. But then I married Parker, and for recreation we watched baseball and MASH. Then Clayton came along, and even on the toilet I did not have a moment to myself.
I’m two chapters in when Parker comes through the door. I still have not told him about the cruise and know that tonight is the night. But as soon as I see him, I understand that something has happened. Lorraine has died.
“Bette – oh, Bette,” he moans.
In the kitchen, the bird says, Give me kiss! Give me kiss!
I put my book down as he slinks over to me. “I’m so sorry, Parker.”
He collapses beside me on the sofa. When he looks up, I see that his tears are not exactly sad. “She woke up,” he said, smiling for the first time in days. “She came back to me.”
I take a breath, force myself to be happy. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Parker.”
He stares off, his eyes glassy with wonder. “It is,” he says. “It’s the best miracle of my life.”
What about our son? I want to say, but don’t.
He tells me they’re having a sort of living memorial – a party to celebrate Lorraine’s return. “I know it sounds weird, but I’d love if you could come with me. It’ll be in a week or so, once she’s up and about. She’ll be in the hospital for a while, recovering – ”
“The thing is, Parker, I’m leaving tomorrow. On a cruise.”
An onlooker might think I’d told him I was starting a college for gifted turtles. “A what?” he says.
“A cruise, Parker. I won a cruise.” These past weeks, I had imagined him hearing the news from Clayton or Penelope once I was already gone, his eyes growing large with envy. My Bette? he would say. On a cruise?
“Well, that’s some good news, Bette. It’s a day for good news.” He seems only vaguely excited, but then again, he has just won the lottery and here I am, boasting that I’ve found a ten-dollar bill. “I just can’t believe it. I guess good things do happen to good people.” For a moment I think he’s talking about my cruise, but then I realize he means Lorraine. He begins to cry again – happy tears.
Eventually he cries himself to sleep and I go back downstairs to double-check that my bags are ready. I try not to think of how it will be when he wakes up on the couch, alone and without blanket or pillow, remembering the rebirth of his wife. How lucky he is, how blessed. He will wake facing the fireplace, where on the mantel stands the pair of porcelain doves he gave me years ago, their necks pressed together in an embrace.
Before I go to sleep, I bring him some bedding and a glass of water.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“You’re welcome,” I say.
In the morning, Parker is still asleep, as is Clayton. It is Penelope who drives me to the airport, in her ‘93 Honda Civic that smells of French fry grease and fruity lotion. She is a tidy person, and her car is spotless save for a tube of lipstick that rolls around the ground at my feet.
“Are you nervous?” she says.
“Yes,” I say. “Very.”
“About what exactly?”
“Just traveling. The usual anxieties.”
At the airport, she wishes me luck. “Go dancing at least once,” she says, “and make lots of friends.”
Friends. I hadn’t even thought about that part.
I haven’t flown since 9/11 and just looking at the security line, which is long and filled with jittery people, makes me queasy. I’m worried there won’t be food beyond the metal detectors, so I buy a two-hundred-dollar strawberry smoothie. While I’m standing in line, the bald, perspiring man in front of me gestures to my drink and says, “You better drink that, they won’t let you take it through.”
“Why not?”
“No liquids – there could be explosives in there.”
“In a smoothie I just bought from the airport?”
“I don’t make the rules,” he says.
Panicked, I chug the smoothie. As my duffel slides through the conveyor, the question strikes me: What good is a vacation for someone like me? I am just one woman on this earth, and whether I have had any happiness or have any more coming down the pipe is of such minor consequence that to even consider the question feels like a waste of consciousness. Perhaps the sunshine and turquoise waters will be wasted on me. Even the group of white-haired ladies in line behind me seem worth the fuel in a way that I do not.
On the other side of security, I take a seat next to the window and watch the planes come and go. I think about Clayton, about what he will do without me: what he’ll eat, who he’ll talk to when he’s up in the middle of the night with bad thoughts. For a moment I wonder if Penelope might try to help him, and then I am filled with anxiety, imagining all of the possible scenarios this might inspire: Clayton making a move on Penelope, Penelope snubbing him, and Clayton swallowing pills. Or Clayton spying on Penelope, Penelope reacting negatively, and Clayton swallowing pills. Or Clayton reaching out to Penelope, Penelope responding with grace, and Clayton, feeling he will never be good enough for someone like Penelope, swallowing pills.
I recall something Victoria once told me: “You look for misery because at least, in misery, you feel relevant.”
When my plane starts to board, I find that I cannot stand up. My boarding pass is in my hand, my duffel is at my feet. The Sue Grafton sits on my lap, untouched. When the airline people call my name – We’re looking for passenger Bette Dolly, paging Bette Dolly! – I don’t even look up. I just stand, wipe my palms on my pants, and leave the gate, the terminal, the airport. Because I am too ashamed to call Penelope, I hail a cab and spend a portion of my fun money on a mostly silent drive back home. I’m grateful when the pale, droopy-eyed driver hands me a package of Kleenex without asking any questions.
Five days later, at Lorraine’s living memorial, I’m stunned by how many people show up. She always seemed so shy, so ordinary. I had imagined her sphere of influence being no larger than my own, and in this way could tolerate the fact that she stole from me the only person in the world aside from Victoria who had ever thought I was special. But here, important-looking men give speeches about her moral fiber, her humor, her intelligence. A terrified-looking undergrad with pink fingernails mumbles the words role model, tears running down her freckled face. “I’m so glad she’s still here,” she whispers. “The world wasn’t ready to let her go.” Lorraine sits in a wheelchair near her children, a blanket across her lap. She cannot talk because the intubation irritated her throat, but she smiles, silent tears streaming down her face. On her lap is a pile of roses. She has lost a tremendous amount of weight and looks oddly beautiful, her silver hair let loose around her face.
When it is Parker’s turn to speak, he cannot speak. He breaks down, spit building at the sides of his mouth. “It’s okay,” one of the important-looking men says, putting his hand on Parker’s shoulder, “you just sit down and rest. Everything’s okay.”
Parker returns to his seat beside me and grapples for my hand, which I give him. There I am, holding hands with my ex‑husband at his wife’s celebrity living memorial when I recall a detail of his departure ten years before. It was the day we signed the papers, and he’d gone through the house, selecting items to take: the toaster oven, the cheese grater, his beloved Royals beer stein. Weeks later, I discovered he’d also made off with a $200 bottle of French merlot he’d bought me on our first anniversary. His plan was for us to drink the bottle decades later when we were old bags of skin still madly in love.
Parker pauses his weeping to look at me. He then removes a piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me. “Lorraine wanted me to give this to you.” He squeezes my hand, his grip as warm and strong as ever. There was once a time when looking at his hands in public made me blush.
When I open the note it says, in tiny printed letters: Thanks for taking care of him.
After the memorial, Parker goes to Lorraine’s house with her children. The bird, however, is still in the kitchen. In his metallic voice he says, Don’t be that way! Don’t be that way! He’s pacing just the way Clayton paces when he’s having a bad day, going back and forth from nowhere to nowhere. The whole situation strikes me as infinitely unjust. Why should the pigeon who shits on my deck get to roam the earthly sky while this creature – an intelligent bird, as Parker said – lives out his days in a kitchen? What sadistic monster came up with the idea of pet birds in the first place?
Penelope comes downstairs and sees me eying the bird. “What’s going on?” she asks. I’ve been avoiding her since getting home from the airport. When she asked what happened, I told her I was in the restroom with nervous bowels when the plane boarded, and that I missed the whole thing. “You could have gotten on a later one,” she said, but I played dumb. “I figured you only got the one chance,” I told her, and she seemed to understand I did not want to discuss the matter further.
“This bird,” I say, “is seriously depressing me.”
“Because it’s in a cage? Or because it’s shitting in your kitchen?”
“Both, maybe.”
“Should we return him? I mean, she’s home now, right?”
“I guess, but don’t you think it’s messed up? A caged bird?”
“I mean, yeah. Sort of.”
“Do you think we’re morally obligated to do something about it?”
“Are you saying you want to let it go?”
Here, the bird starts bobbing up and down, as if it understands what we’re discussing and wishes to concur.
“I think I do.”
Penelope pauses, as if to consider. “Should we invite Clayton?”
Clayton hasn’t spoken to me since I told him I was going on the cruise alone. “But I’ve never seen the ocean,” was what he said, and I had simply stood there, uncertain what to say, feeling my heart turn to putty. You’re a bad mother, I chanted in my head.
In his room, Clayton is sitting on his bed, playing a computer game. He wears a dirty undershirt and red basketball shorts. The skin beneath his eyes is thin and purple. There was a time I regretted that he did not inherit his father’s good looks. Now, I’m happy he looks more like my mother: small nose, close-set eyes, blond hair that turns white in the summer. My mother was a bland-looking woman with a spectacular heart. Animals and children adored her.
He glances up from his computer, making a point to look at Penelope and not me. “What’re you doing with Dad’s bird?”
“We’re letting it go,” Penelope says. “Wanna watch?”
He eyes me, assessing our seriousness. “Yes,” he says. “I do.”
We go to Penelope’s bedroom and open the window. Penelope has installed sheer curtains the color of a cucumber’s interior and they whip around in the springtime wind. Kansas is a windowless waiting room where the temperature is always wrong – too much air conditioner or not enough – but you couldn’t give me a sweeter smell than the smell of a late April afternoon, rain evaporating on the sidewalks, the musty odor of a Bradford pear caught in the wind. We are delirious with joy, preparing for this poor incarcerated bird to finally spread his wings and reclaim his kingdom in the sky. Clayton is smiling. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him smile, and I notice that his teeth are surprisingly white, as if he brushes them regularly. I am suddenly proud of him, for taking care of himself in this small but fundamental way. To feel proud of him brings me nearly to tears.
Penelope takes the creature into her hand and holds him out the window. “On the count of three,” she says, smiling mischievously. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Clayton says, a trace of happiness in his voice.
I nod, my heart beating fast.
“One,” she says, rocking the bird in the air. “Two. Three!”
Only after she releases the bird does it occur to me that maybe the bird does not know how to fly, that he either never learned or has lived in captivity for so long that he has forgotten, that somebody clipped his wings. I can’t see anything, because Penelope is blocking the window.
“Wow,” Clayton says.
“What happened?” I ask. “Did he fly?”
When Penelope looks at me, I notice her bruise has nearly healed. “For fuck’s sake, Bette,” she says, “he’s a bird.”
Becky Mandelbaum is the author of The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals (Simon & Schuster, 2020) and Bad Kansas (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Her stories have appeared in One Story, The Sun, The Missouri Review, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.