Authors: Kate Rockland
“Up,” Bunny said, shooing Alexis with a spatula.
“What?” Alexis asked. Oh, right. No one was allowed to sit in Mark’s chair after he died. She’d forgotten about this rule.
“Mom, he’s been dead three years. I’m sure Mark wouldn’t mind.”
Shocked silence hung in the air like a car wreck. Disappointment dripped down the walls. No one said a word. Her father picked up a section of
The Wall Street Journal
from the table and began perusing it. Befuddled, her mother grabbed the wrong plates, the crystal ones instead of the everyday ones they’d always used, and began serving up the pasta, using tongs to place small clumps of salad on each plate, her emotions tuned into a high key as the metal tongs scraped against the crystal plates.
“Apologize to your mother,” her father said, his voice calm and low from behind his newspaper.
Alexis stared at the print. There was a story about a woman who was making a small fortune selling off her shoe collection. She had over five thousand shoes. The photograph was from above, with her surrounded by a plethora of pumps in different colors.
“Dad, I didn’t say anything wrong. I knew Mark just as well as you did. He wouldn’t mind me sitting in his chair. He wasn’t someone who cared about things like that.”
John slammed his fist down on the table, making Alexis jump. “You’ve been god knows where doing god knows what. Your mother is allowed to mourn her only son any way she wants. Apologize.”
Alexis’s eyes filled with tears of anger. “I wasn’t just twiddling my thumbs, Dad. I was in New York starting a blog that is loved by millions of girls! I was paying for my own rent, my own expenses. And I wasn’t here, because you kicked me out, remember? You said if I didn’t go to law school I should leave and never come back. Those were your exact words.”
Her father’s voice was cool, which was somehow scarier than if he’d shouted. “I said if you wanted to throw away your life, be my guest. I had your inheritance check ready for you when you turned twenty-one. Instead you made poor choices, Alexis.”
She bit her lip to keep from crying. Bunny served dinner. Alexis started eating. She hated herself for doing so, wishing she could do something drastic and throw the plate down and storm out, but in reality she was starving and starting to feel light-headed. She had to eat. She had a baby to feed. Bunny made idle chitchat in that chirpy, mindless way she always did, something about a neighbor who had a groundhog problem in her front yard, a new mailman who gave her the creeps, a birdhouse she installed in the backyard, the cardinals and blue jays she’d seen.
Bunny stood and began clearing the plates, the sound violently loud in the silent kitchen.
“Thanks, Mom,” Alexis said.
“You’re welcome, dear,” her mother said, fixing the comb in her hair. She proceeded to place the dirty dishes in the sink and then stare at them as if she were confused. “Oh, shucks. I think I’ll have to ask Elsa back after all.”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me why you’re here,” her father said finally, putting down his newspaper. “If you’re in some kind of trouble…”
A hysterical giggle escaped Alexis’s lips, which earned her a frown. She certainly
was
in some kind of trouble, wasn’t she? Pregnant and not married, wasn’t that, like, the definition of “trouble” since the dawn of time? But
that
particular trouble was not why she’d come here today.
She looked down at the table. “Billy is sick,” she said quietly.
“Billy who, darling?” Bunny called out from the sink. She’d picked up a green sponge and was staring at it like it might bite her hand. “Is that one of your New York City friends?”
“What’s he got, the virus?” John Allbright asked. Unbelievably, he chuckled, wiping his impeccably shaved chin with his cloth napkin. Her mother let out a twitter, though whether it was following along in the conversation and therefore contextual or was random, one couldn’t know.
And then something cracked deep inside Alexis. It was like a volcano that had weakened over time and now the gash was quickly widening and the red-hot lava was starting to erupt through her veins, arteries, bones, and marrow. Her head felt like it was on fire.
“No, he doesn’t have a virus.” For one crazy moment, she had no clue what he was talking about. She hadn’t lived through the height of the AIDS epidemic, and she had never discussed it with Billy. She knew it was still a very real and scary disease, but it wasn’t part of their world, really. When it dawned on her that was what her father meant, and the malice behind his words, she thought she might throw up.
Alexis pushed her chair away from the table and stood. She felt light-headed, despite the meal. “That comment was pigheaded and stupid.”
Bunny placed her hands over her ears.
“He has cancer. And we are really behind with hospital bills. I know Grandma Eleanor left me the five million dollars for a good reason. I’m here today to ask for some of it. Not for me. For Billy. He has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It’s serious.”
“Surely the young man has family resources…” Her mother tried to join the conversation. Her hand fluttered to her bun, pulling out the tortoiseshell clip somewhat awkwardly.
“He doesn’t. His parents disowned him.” She didn’t want to mention Billy’s mother had made a vague mention of helping if Alexis couldn’t find the money elsewhere. The idea that a mother wouldn’t visit her only child when he was dying made Alexis want to rob a bank, or speak to her father. Anything but go back to that woman and her somewhat pained voice, like Alexis was asking her to subscribe to a newspaper or switch phone plans.
“Understandably,” John Allbright said sarcastically.
Alexis glared at him. “That’s all you know, isn’t it? Disowning your child. And why, Dad? Because I didn’t want to be a lawyer? So fucking what?”
A gasp from Bunny. “Lexa!”
“Oh, have another vodka, Mom.”
John Allbright smiled coldly. “I see you are still not able to keep your feelings in check. Perhaps it’s better you didn’t become a lawyer, after all. But my mother left you and Mark that money specifically stating that you would follow me into the family firm.”
“Mark never would have been like you, and you know it,” Alexis said. “When he got back from Iraq he was going to drive across the country in an RV, and take college classes. He wouldn’t have ever become a lawyer.”
Her father laughed bitterly. “Nonsense. He was going to complete that tour and apply to law school that spring. We had it all set up.”
“Bullshit,” Alexis said.
“Watch your mouth, young lady. I threw you out of this house once. I’m not afraid to do it again.” He stood, his former polo-playing shoulders still powerful.
“Yeah, Dad? And how should I speak to you? You’ve never let me have a voice in this house. No woman is allowed to. You dope Mom up all day so she’s like a fucking rag doll—”
“Alexis!”
But Alexis ignored him. Bunny started sobbing loudly into her hands like her heart was broken.
She stood up, meeting his eye. “You have a wife who is an alcoholic, and you do nothing about it. Both of you have been depressed for years. Mom solves it with booze, and you quiet your pain by working all the time. You sit there and judge other people and don’t do
shit
when your own family needs you.”
Bunny looked as though she’d been slapped. A red flush crept up her slim neck like ivy on a wall. Her father’s fist came down on his plate, cracking it in half. Small pieces of glass lay on his suit leg. Her mother sobbed louder. Alexis jumped involuntarily, but stood her ground. A vein pulsed in her father’s neck.
“I will not have this kind of talk in my house. Every time you come home it’s something else. I didn’t think you could upset your mother any more than dropping out of school, but this time you’ve really done it.”
For a split second she wavered. His voice, the fury in his eyes … she felt five years old again, being reprimanded for some small crime. He was terrifying when angry, which was what made him such a good trial lawyer. He was still a big man at sixty, not having shrunk in that typical way men do as they age, and people cowered when he advanced on them in the witness stand. She felt the baby flutter its feet, and it gave her an inner strength.
“Billy does not have AIDS. Not every gay man who gets sick has AIDS. It’s time you got over your homophobia, Dad, that’s
so
outdated. He’s my only friend in the world, my only family as far as I’m concerned, and I’m losing him. I will never come back here, and don’t contact me in New York. I don’t need your money. I’ll figure something else out.”
She picked up her purse by the front door. Then called out, “Mom?”
Bunny picked up her head, her once-beautiful blond hair showing streaks of gray, her tight face looking bleary and confused. Alexis wondered why she ever could have thought Bunny still looked young.
“Mom, if you ever stop drinking and want to get in touch with me, I won’t change my phone number. That way you’ll be able to find me. I hope someday you leave him. Just call me, okay? And I’ll come and get you.”
Her mother nodded, looked as if she wanted to say something, but instead gently eased herself off the kitchen chair, walked over to Alexis and touched her cheek. Alexis slowly closed the front door. She stood on the front walkway of her million-dollar house then glanced at the stupid heart-shaped boxwood bushes the gardener had clipped, the gleam off her father’s Jaguar, Mark’s bedroom window she used to raise for him when he’d sneak home after romancing some girl in the middle of the night. This hadn’t been home for quite some time.
Her tiny apartment with Billy and Vanya. That rattrap was home, her
real
home. Not this McMansion with its ugly secrets.
She had one last thing to do before she left Greenwich forever. She got into her rental and drove over to the cemetery where Mark was buried. At one point, two deer walked into the road, but she had plenty of time to brake; her head turned and followed their soft brown leaps back into the woods.
Dusk fell as she pulled up to the cemetery. Two stone angels guarded the entrance, the light from the sky rendering them an inky blue. The grounds were pretty, if that was possible in a place of mourning, rolling green hills surrounded by oak trees big enough to wrap your arms around. Their leaves shone, glistening in yellows, greens, and oranges. She had not come here since the funeral. Alexis didn’t believe in the afterlife and preferred to remember her brother as a living, breathing person. She had a crisp, perfect memory of him as a child. The family would drive up to Vermont on family vacations to a small rented cabin on a lake. When they arrived he’d run from the car, throw his T-shirt off onto the ground, and plunge off the dock, coming up sputtering, grinning, and shaking his head like a dog.
Someone had placed rocks on the top of his grave. Alexis had read somewhere this was a Jewish tradition, and she was touched that a stranger had visited his grave and cared.
On his tombshine sat a statue so large and hideous she knew he would have hated it. But when you die young, you don’t get any say in your burial. Made of marble, it depicted a kneeling soldier, rifle in hand, tending to another wounded on the ground. The soldier’s helmet was next to him.
M
ARK
J
ONATHAN
A
LLBRIGHT
1983–2008
A
MERICAN
H
ERO
S
AVED
T
HREE
M
EN’S
L
IVES
IN
I
RAQ BY
P
LACING
H
IMSELF IN
H
ARM’S
W
AY
G
ONE
B
UT
N
OT
F
ORGOTTEN
Gone but not forgotten. No, he had not been. Not by Alexis, or her parents. She knew if Mark were alive he would have steered Bunny into rehab. He’d tell their father to get off his high horse about Alexis dropping out of law school. To give her the inheritance to help Billy. He would have said all of this in that fake Irish brogue he’d sometimes put on, which would make them all laugh, squinting one of his eyes closed like some drunken pirate.
“I’m pregnant!” Alexis whispered to the statue, the remains of her brother buried somewhere beneath. Then, “I’m pregnant!” she shouted the words and the wind picked them up, scattering leaves in a swirl around her, as though Mark were somewhere listening and nature was giving her a sign. She smiled through her tears. It felt so good to finally tell someone. She sat in a crouch in the grass and was wracked with sobs.
“Alexis?”
She turned, but had been crying so hard that Noah’s figure was a blur. She wiped her nose on her sweater sleeve and blinked.
“Noah? What … what are you doing here?”
He touched the statue. “Is this Mark?”
“Yes. Noah, Mark. Mark, Noah.” She stood up too quickly and leaned on Mark’s grave until the dizziness passed. Something to do with her blood volume increasing, at least that’s what the baby books said.