Notes on a Near-Life Experience (9 page)

H
ALEY ANSWERS THE PHONE ON THE THIRD RING
. “H
EY
, stranger.”

“He asked me,” I tell her.

“Great. Congratulations,” she replies. “Who asked you what?”

“Julian. To the prom.”

“Are you serious? What happened? How? What's been going on with you guys? Is this why you've been so hard to get ahold of lately? I can't believe you didn't tell me. I can't believe this.”

“I did tell you. I mean, I
am
telling you. Nothing's been going on. I mean, he's been acting weird, but the prom thing kind of came outta nowhere.” I start to wonder how long it's been since I've talked to Haley about anything real, anything
important. Before I can stop myself I tell her, “My dad moved out.”

“Oh, Meems. Shit. I'm sorry. When? I wish I'd known. I would've come over or you could've come over here…to talk about it…or something.”

I am so tired of trying not to think about them or talk about them. I am tired of spending my life trying to figure out what happened to my parents and what I'm supposed to do about it, and hiding it from everyone so that when whatever is wrong is right again no one will be the wiser. I am tired of avoiding feeling sad by feeling numb. And I get cold inside when I think about talking about it. I want to talk about Julian and dresses and how pissed Kiki Nordgren will be when she finds out.

“I don't know,” I tell Haley. “I don't know what to say about it. I would have told you, but there was never really a good time to bring it up. It happened so fast, you know.”

I couldn't explain to Haley what had been happening because I didn't really know. I felt retarded for not telling her, and for having a messed-up family. And it's not like it happened all at once, either; it had been happening for a long time. But how do you tell your best friend that there are a million things you never said and that there will probably be a million more? If there are things I couldn't even admit to myself, how could I have told Haley about them, best friend or not? Realizing that, I wonder what I really know about Haley and her family—whether everyone keeps so much hidden.

Haley's dad sleeps in the living room on the couch, but
supposedly that's because he has really bad gas problems or something; it's nothing to do with the state of her parents' marriage.

“Hey, listen, I've gotta go now. My dad's here. We're all going out to dinner together,” I lie, to get off the phone.

“Well, call me when you get back. I want to talk to you.”

“I will. Bye.”

“See ya.”

Why is it that even when something great happens, the bad stuff taints it? Why can't I tell Haley about Julian without talking about my parents? Why can't I keep those things separate? I just need to be more careful, I guess. How can I ever feel happy if all the painful and sad things keep leaking into the good ones?

T
WO YEARS AGO, WHEN WE WERE ON VACATION IN
A
RIZONA
, my mom found out that a car auction was being held near our hotel. She's not really a car aficionado, but for some reason she fell in love with this car there, and when no one bid on it, she approached the owner as he was loading it onto the truck with the other cars that hadn't sold. She negotiated a price, bought it, and drove it back to the hotel to show us. Dad was livid, and he said it was because she hadn't discussed it with him first and she hadn't done any research on the car. Mom suggested that maybe he was angry because she had a vintage red Porsche and he didn't, which only made him angrier. They got like that sometimes. They clashed. They had such different ways of doing things. Usually they complemented each other: Mom's impulsiveness eased Dad's rigidness; Dad's
careful way of doing things saved some of Mom's not-so-well-thought-out plans from being total disasters. But sometimes, like with the car, they were both too stubborn to compromise, and the battles ended with each of them doing what they thought was right. This time was like that.

Mom and I drove the car home, across desert highways; through orange groves, strawberry fields, and suburban neighborhoods; right into our driveway, while Dad, Allen, Julian, and Keatie took a plane back. Mom kept the top down most of the way and told me stories about her first car, the first new car she and Dad had ever owned. I told her about my dream car, sang along to songs on the classic-rock radio station, felt like I was free, somehow.

That's how it was with us. She would listen to me talk about anything; she told me stories about what she was like when she was my age. I wasn't afraid of my mom, the way some kids are of theirs. I always felt like she understood me. Like she liked me. Like she liked being my mom. Lately, though, whenever I want to talk to her, I feel like I'm interrupting something. Like it isn't fun for her anymore. Like I'm a burden.

O
NE
S
ATURDAY NIGHT AFTER
D
AD'S BEEN GONE A FEW WEEKS
, Mom asks me if I want to go to the movies with her, just the two of us, since Allen is at work and Keatie is at Dad's.

“Sure,” I say.

The movie is the only one showing at a theater that people are always trying to shut down because it's old and ugly. It shows movies that are kind of old, but not really old; they're not black-and-white or anything. The one we see is kind of depressing. It's about all these people who just kind of fall into a coma for no apparent reason, just kind of check out of life one day. Then this doctor finds a medicine that seems to wake them up and the people start to live and talk and act normal, but eventually the medicine stops working and the people go back to their coma. Mom and I both cry at the end when all
the people are lined up, listless, in their hospital beds again.

We drive home in her car, listening to a Righteous Brothers CD. She begins to tell me about Dad. About them.

“When we started dating, my friends thought I was crazy. We didn't have anything in common, really. Your father was interested in politics and philosophy; I couldn't have cared less about those things… but he was so smart, and he just
adored
me. And it seemed as if, ultimately, we wanted the same things—family, a home, a life together….”

“No offense, Mom, but, duh … everyone wants those things. So you married Dad because he liked you and because he wanted to live in a house and have kids?”

“That's not what everyone wants, actually, Mia. Julian's dad didn't want those things, and it seems that your dad didn't, either. A few years after Keatie was born, he became distant. He started working longer hours; he seemed less interested in me, in you kids, in being a husband and a father. It was as if he just slipped away. Even when he was present physically, he seemed absent, like his mind, maybe his heart, was somewhere else.”

What she's telling me makes me uncomfortable. How could someone be in one place and be someplace else at the same time? How come I had never noticed what my mom was talking about? “What do you mean?”

“He just became… vacant, empty. I don't quite know how to explain it. He just checked out on us. But then after a while, he'd be back just like he was before—happy … alive…. Those times made me think we would be okay.

Every time he went back to his old self, I told myself he was back for good, that the… emotional absence had just been a phase. I'm sorry, Mia, I shouldn't be telling you all this,” she apologizes. But she goes on anyway. “The times when he was involved and excited and loving were so wonderful, but then he'd check out again. Kind of like the people in the movie. It became a sort of bittersweet cycle…. We tried therapy, but your father…It's hard being married to a ghost.”

I have no idea what she means, how my father, who has always lived in the same house as us, living, breathing, working, was ever like any of the people in the movie—absent, empty, unresponsive.

I nod anyway. It feels like she needs that.

“But he kept falling back asleep, kept going back to it.”

“Yeah.” I nod again, wonder who my father is when he isn't just my dad, the guy who helps me with my math homework and talks about Woody Allen. He is someone who grew up, who had dreams, who maybe lost them, who feels things; someone who became a ghost to my mother while he still seemed real, unchanging, to me, his daughter. I think of how I've sometimes felt like I'm watching my life pass by, like I'm watching a movie, and I wonder if I am like him. The back of my throat aches; my chest feels like it's being pumped full of Jell-O. I suddenly feel as if I have to concentrate just to breathe. I can't remember ever having felt as scared as I do now.

The song “Little Latin Lupe Lu” begins to play. We have to sing along. It's what we always do.

“Did I ever tell you that the Righteous Brothers used to
practice in my neighbors' garage? My mom used to take us down to listen to them,” Mom says.

I remember. She's told me a thousand times before. Every time we listen to the CD. I remember how the first boy she ever kissed, Tony Rojas, when she was in seventh grade, told her not to tell anyone they'd made out because he didn't want the other girls to think he was her boyfriend.

“Julian asked me to go to the prom with him,” I tell her.

“That's wonderful, sweetie,” she says, instantly my mom again. “When did he ask you? What did he say? What did Allen say?”

We talk about proms, high school, boyfriends, the whole way home. But it feels different. I know she is hurt and confused and scared. I guess I've known that for a while, but I've tried to ignore it. And now I can't. How will she hold us all together, keep us all afloat? How will she rescue us if her boat is sinking, too?

Tonight I can't sleep. I keep thinking about the things Mom said. I can't make sense of them. Why didn't I ever see my dad the way my mom did? If he was acting so weird, if there were times when he didn't want to be with us, didn't care about us, why didn't I see them? I wonder if maybe he and Mom would have been okay if they hadn't had kids, if he'd been able to make his films or be a philosopher or do whatever he wanted to do. I wonder what my dad thinks of me, how he feels about me. I mean, I know he must love me; I'm his kid. But does he like me? Does he think I stole his life? Does he blame me for his lost dreams?

I
FIND
K
EATIE WATCHING OUR FAMILY MOVIES—VIDEOTAPES
of dance recitals, vacations, birthday parties, Christmas mornings, Easter egg hunts, championship soccer games—when I go down to the basement to practice my new routine. I notice that she keeps watching the same part of one tape over and over again; I think it must've been made on the first day we had the new camera.

In the scene Keatie watches, Dad wants to make sure the camera works, so he wanders around the house taping, droning on about whose room is where and how long we've lived in the house, until Keatie convinces him to let her hold the camera. She has a hard time keeping the camera steady as she zooms in on my parents in the kitchen.

Mom unloads groceries, unaware that Dad is sneaking up behind her until he blows on the back of her neck.

Mom turns around and laughs. “What on earth are you doing?” She and Dad kiss.