The Blessings (11 page)

On Christmas Day, her daughters make all her old cookies: the snowballs and jelly thumbprints and almond moons. Meghan gives everyone a gift—
something really special
, she announces, a stack of red binders in her arms. Bound copies of the historical interview.
A Journey with Gran
, it's called, on a sticker decorated with berries and holly. Helen feels embarrassed for her story to be given so much fanfare, even more embarrassed when she begins to read:
According to my mom, taking care of my uncle was Helen Blessing's last great act.
But in my grandmother's lifetime, there were many…

It goes on to talk about all the great things Helen's done—raising her children, taking care of a baby when John was off fighting in Germany. As if they were paying her tribute. Where had all this come from? Had Helen even said these things? All she remembers talking about were little things, dinners and bus tokens, but this paints her in grand, heroic strokes. Raising a family, caring for her dying son.
Great acts.
Is that how they saw it? These things aren't great. It was what you did, was what family did. Dangerous to see it as something noble.

January is cold and quiet, largely eventless. Alex turns twenty and goes back to Penn, a sophomore. Another blur appears, and another, like drops of rain on glass. Once, when Margie is visiting, Helen notices her looking closely at the silverware. She rewashes a handful of forks.

There are activities on the calendar at St. Mary's, which looks just like the school cafeteria menu stuck to Lauren's refrigerator door.
Exercise Class! Day Trip to Atlantic City!
Helen finds them slipped under her door and throws them in the trash.
One of the most important advantages of our communities is the opportunity for socialization
, the brochure said. But these activities are for people whose lives are empty, whose children never come to visit. Helen doesn't need that kind of thing. She has her family: She needs nothing else.

One evening, Ann drops by unannounced. Helen knows she's come about her eyes. The dirty forks, the half-gallon of milk that Margie discovered past its expiration date—who knows what else. Helen sits in the blue wingback chair, hands folded tightly in her lap. She is ready to concede to whatever humiliation comes next, but as Ann sits on the couch, she says: “Mother, I have to tell you something.” Her voice is calm, but Helen sees the deep lines on her face. “It's about Meghan.”

“Meghan?” Helen says—a bolt of alarm.

“She's sick…well, no, not sick,” Ann says, pausing. “She has an eating disorder. Bulimia.”

Helen has heard of such things before, food things. Ann explains how it works, the eating and the throwing up. They're seeing doctors, Ann assures her; they're getting it fixed. Helen doesn't know what it all means exactly, but she starts saying an extra rosary for Meghan every night.

Church, coffee, the paper. There is no baseball now, no football. Her legs hurt, but she keeps this to herself.

One night, three in the morning, an ambulance comes racing up to St. Mary's. Helen sees the red lights flashing on the Rite Aid across the street. Stan, she hears the next morning. A heart attack in his sleep. Probably Lila was there in bed beside him. Helen goes to the Rite Aid and buys a sympathy card, slips it under her door. She feels sorry for her, having to go through it twice.

She remembers the night that John, her husband, died. How she knew immediately that he was gone. She felt the air change in the room, the sudden stillness. She gave herself one hour: the last hour it would be just the two of them. She talked to him, prayed for him, cried and smoothed his hair and straightened his clothes. Then she picked up the phone.

On a Tuesday in late March, she drives to Lauren's. She hasn't been there in nearly a week. She drives slowly, squinting into the sharp, late-afternoon sun. At first, when the police car appears behind her, lights going, it doesn't even occur to Helen that it could be meant for her. She sees the car fill her mirror and slows down to get out of his way, then is shocked when the policeman gets out and approaches her window, taps a knuckle on the glass.

“License and registration.”

The officer looks young, and not particularly kind. Disappointed, maybe, to be dealing with an old lady. Helen is trembling as she tries to pry the license from her wallet.

“Just a minute,” she says, shaking, but finally manages to dislodge it. “Just a minute, Officer, please.” She pushes through the glove compartment, looking for the registration, wishing John were here—
it isn't fair, without him here!
She rifles through the papers, starting to panic, when there it is, bless him, clearly marked in her husband's lovely penmanship:
Registration, Auto
.

“Do you know you ran a stop sign back there?”

Had she?

“No,” she says. “I didn't see it.”

It was probably the wrong thing, to admit it. The young policeman looks at the car, walking slowly around the front bumper, examining it as if she's some sort of escaped criminal. What on earth is he looking for?

Finally he returns to his police car. Helen can only wait. It is the worst part, the most excruciating part, sitting there on display. She is aware of the other cars slowing down and glancing over. She keeps her head down, turned to the side. Her window is still open and she's cold, but to close it would mean turning the engine on, which she probably isn't allowed to do. So she sits, shivering and trying to blink away the blurred patches, her eyes pooling repeatedly with tears. Will he figure out that she shouldn't be driving? Make her get out and do an eye test on the spot?

When the policeman comes back, he hands her a ticket for eighty dollars—eighty!—and Helen thanks him. Then he returns to his car, and she prays he'll just drive away, but he sits and watches until she's forced to pull away first.

Helen drives twenty miles an hour the rest of the way to Lauren's. Her hands are tingling on the wheel. Cars honk at her for going so slowly, but she can't make her foot press any harder. When finally she pulls into Lauren's driveway, crosses her porch, and steps inside her warm house, she feels as though she's washed ashore.

“Gran!” Elena waves. She's on the couch under a blanket, holding a bowl of Goldfish crackers and watching a cartoon on TV. Helen sits beside her, puts a hand on her knee.

Lauren pops out of the kitchen to say hello as Max comes running toward her. “Gran's here!” he shouts.

“Easy, Max,” Lauren says. “Are you feeling okay, Mrs. Blessing?”

“I'm fine,” Helen says as Max jumps into her lap.

“Max, let Gran catch her breath,” Lauren says, studying her. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Well, maybe. I am a little thirsty. I'll get it—”

But Lauren has already disappeared. Helen blinks around the living room. Her pulse is still beating fast. Clouds float on the wall, on the hearth, which is decorated for Easter, with pictures of bunnies and Jesuses the children made. On the mantel, a photo of her handsome son, holding his children on his knees. Lauren appears with a glass of iced tea. “Thank you,” Helen says, and takes a sip.

“Another!” Max cries as the show ends.

“Just one more, then dinner,” Lauren says, and the children bicker about which episode to watch, but Lauren says, “It's Max's turn,” and the argument subsides, and they sit watching, limbs flopped over one another, Max sucking on his fingers the way he always does.

Helen moves to get up, but Lauren waves her off. “Stay put and relax,” she says. “Really. It's just spaghetti.” Then she heads back to the kitchen to finish with dinner and Helen can't help herself—she stays. She is so relieved to just sit there, so overcome with exhaustion and gratitude she could sink right into the couch. She sits beside her grandchildren and finishes her glass of tea and resolves not to tell Lauren, or anyone, what happened. It's too embarrassing. She doesn't want them worrying.

When her drink is gone and her pulse has calmed, Helen stands. In the kitchen, she finds Lauren draining a pot of spaghetti into a colander, steam billowing around her face. She's a lovely girl, Lauren. She doesn't deserve what she's been dealt. In the months after John died, her house had a desperate, floundering feeling, but nearly four years later, things are different. They've absorbed their new reality; this is their life now. And Lauren is still so young—too young.

“I hope you know, Lauren,” Helen says, “you're too young to spend the rest of your life alone.”

Lauren turns in surprise, holding a stack of plates.

“No one expects you to,” Helen adds as Lauren's eyes grow teary.

“Thank you,” she says. “That's very kind.”

Helen nods. A blur floats near Lauren's cheek. Then a cry goes up from the living room—“Mommy!”—and Lauren sets down the plates and goes to gather the children. Helen finishes setting the table, fills the plastic cups with milk, and the four of them sit and eat. Elena recounts her day in second grade, where she learned about arachnids. Max sings the wheels on the bus song.

Then Lauren takes them upstairs for baths and Helen does the dishes, filling the sink with warm, soapy water. She sponges off the table, sweeps the floor. She goes upstairs, past the smell of sweet drained bubbles in the toy-filled bathtub, past the bedroom where her son lay in so much pain. She kisses her grandchildren, says their prayers with them. Says good night to Lauren, who is removing her earrings. “Oh, you're leaving?” she says. “Well—thank you. We'll see you soon.” Then Helen eases her car out of the long driveway and drives slowly back to Apartment 16D, where she'll call Patrick first thing in the morning. For now, she writes the check for eighty dollars to “City of Philadelphia,” stamps and leaves it for the mailman, puts her car keys in a drawer, and resolves never to drive again.

Cataracts
, Patrick tells her. Eyedrops, pills. So it begins.

In April, baseball is back on television. At night, watching, Helen props her feet on a pillow. Her legs hurt, her knees.

The eleven o'clock news is all nothing but tragedies. Shootings, robberies, a missing baby. Helen decides that she's done watching the news.

At Easter dinner, she watches Meghan. She eats nothing while the rest of them heap their plates, but later she devours three desserts.

At Joey's high school graduation, Helen's feet hurt so badly that she has to sit when the rest of them are standing. He wins an award: Student-Athlete of the Year. She memorizes the name of it and tells everyone she sees.

Edema
, the doctor says. He prescribes pills for the swelling. She takes them every day, or means to, though sometimes at the end of the week it doesn't all add up—number of pills, number of days.

Her legs still hurt, and other things. Joints, bones.

On a Sunday in early June Patrick appears at her door. Helen knows his knock, the fast tap-tap-tap. He was always the funny one, the tease. When she opens the door, the sight of him fills her with joy—she loves her son, her sons.

“Well!” she says. “This is a surprise!”

“Hey, Mom,” he says, kissing her cheek.

Ten past four—not dinnertime, but close enough. He could have told her he was coming. She could have made something. A simple dinner, grilled cheese and tomato soup.

“Can I get you something?” Helen asks as Kate steps in behind him, carrying the spring air on her clothes, a hint of perfume. Kate doesn't cook. It's always saddened Helen to think of her son without warm meals to come home to. Once, she saw Kate microwave a cup of tea.

“Hi, Helen,” Kate says, kissing her cheek. She looks happy, Helen thinks. She is a pretty girl, but she's always had an edge to her; the happiness makes her look softer.

“I would have made something, if I'd known you were coming—”

“That's okay, Mom,” Patrick says.

“Really, Helen,” says Kate, unbelting her coat, “you don't need to wait on us.”

But that's where she's wrong, Helen thinks: She thinks cooking is subservient, ungratifying, something you do for others and get nothing in return.

They sit on the couch, Helen in the blue wing chair. Her son and his wife are smiling, sitting so close their knees are touching. It's good to see Patrick happy. For so long, he looked so sad. It's all she wants for him, for all of them.

“We have something to tell you,” Patrick says.

They can hardly contain their joy. Looking at their faces, Helen feels a bolt of longing—she misses John. How she wishes he were here. “We wanted you to be the first to know,” Kate says. Helen knows it will be good news, this time. She smiles at them, folds her hands in her lap, and waits to receive it.

A
lex's girlfriend was beautiful. This wasn't subjective: The world would agree. She was tall, with high cheekbones and olive skin and long dark hair so glossy and smooth, it looked like wet paint. But what Alex liked most about Rebecca's appearance was how she wore her emotions right on the surface—eyes filling with empathy when she talked about her research subjects or one hand rising instinctively to her mouth when she was moved by a movie, cheeks flushing with excitement when they signed the lease on the apartment and moved in their things.

They had been living together at Princeton for one semester. Both of them were graduate students, but in different subjects, which Rebecca felt was good for their relationship. Alex was studying chemistry, Rebecca urban planning; for her thesis, she had interviewed dozens of homeless people in Trenton, analyzing their narratives for the social and political factors contributing to the city's demise. Rebecca had a talent for listening. She looked right into your eyes, nodding and asking thoughtful questions; she had a way of holding her face so it seemed she was mirroring just what you felt. She had a way of getting Alex to open up, too—something that, historically, he'd always had trouble doing.
You're so hard to read
, he'd heard from other girlfriends, less serious girlfriends who lasted for two or three months in college. He remembered one, Miranda, a French major, saying,
It's just that you never talk about anything
, and Alex was perplexed—didn't he talk all the time? Obviously there was some other kind of talking he wasn't doing, some layer of himself he wasn't showing. Maybe what he'd needed was a girlfriend like Rebecca to coax it out.

The vacation was Rebecca's idea, to celebrate the end of the school year. They were going to the coast of Spain, a village in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains near the Mediterranean Sea. The Sierra Nevadas, the Mediterranean—Alex could hardly believe he was actually going to these places; until now they had felt purely academic, names he'd learned once for a test. He and Rebecca frequently browsed the online pictures of Hotel Plaza Lorca. A printout of their suite—the bedroom the size of their entire apartment—hung from their refrigerator door. The apartment in Princeton was less an apartment than one-quarter of a house broken into clumsy, inexact chunks. Their chunk consisted of two rooms and a wrought-iron balcony so narrow that it could fit only two people at a time. But it was only a few blocks from campus, and the library, where Alex disappeared to most nights. This had nothing to do with Rebecca; he'd always needed time alone. And he'd always loved the feeling of libraries—the quiet rustling of the pages, the conversations he knew wouldn't rise above a hush.

Rebecca was one of those people who actively avoided solitude; even her research involved people. She loved hosting dinner parties and was good at it, though not in the same way Alex's aunts and mother were. In his family, to be the host was to be unobtrusive, make sure everyone was taken care of; the goal was to disappear. But for Rebecca, hosting was a performance, part of the big dinner party show. She was always trying out new recipes, fastidiously wrapping melon in prosciutto, figs in bacon, experimenting with seasonal cocktails. She thought in advance about who would sit where and have what in common. She liked conversation, real conversation—no
empty talk
, she said. Sometimes, at the parties, as Alex's head swam with wine and he struggled to look engaged, he felt a bolt of longing for his family, their mild conversations about ordinary things, sports scores or people from their parish, and the food, which was predictable, unfussy, unpretentious: ham salads and roast beef, potatoes in hollowed-out brown skins, cobbled chunks of pickle wrapped in ham, speared with toothpicks. This was not subjective, either: The pickles tasted better than the figs.

Two nights before the Spain trip, an hour before friends are set to arrive (another dinner party), his sister Abby calls. They talk more often, since their parents' divorce.

“Mom's on an honesty kick,” Abby moans when he answers. “She's telling me how their marriage was never healthy, and they never communicated really… I don't need to know all this.”

“Me either,” Alex says. “Stop it, please.” He snatches a heel of bread from the cutting board, where Rebecca is slicing a loaf to make bruschetta.

“She feels guilty that they didn't recognize all this stuff sooner,” Abby goes on. “So now she's dumping thirty years' worth on me.”

Alex chews, only half listening. He doesn't point out the irony: His sister complains about their mother dumping on her, then turns around and dumps on him.

“Consider yourself lucky,” Abby says. “You're the boy. Meghan's the fragile egg.” She pauses then, as if sensing his inattention. “So how's this Rebecca?”

“This Rebecca is fine,” Alex says. “She's good.”

Rebecca waves a bread knife and calls, “Hi, sister Abby!”

“I can't believe I haven't met your girlfriend yet,” Abby says.

As if Abby's so available, Alex thinks. She's always moving, always attached to some new boyfriend. He's met a few, but it doesn't seem worth the effort to really get to know them. They're usually short-lived.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “We live in Princeton, New Jersey. You know where to find us.” He can't resist reminding her, “Meghan's been here.”

“Meghan's local,” Abby says, and Alex drops the subject, even though he knows it's more than this. Meghan is also more devoted. It had been her idea to come visit them over her spring break; from their mom's house, it involved taking three trains.

“But you're going home next weekend, right?” Abby says. “Is Rebecca coming?”

“Oh,” Alex says, and stops chewing, the lump of bread lodged in his cheek. Guilt engulfs him like a wave. “No. I mean—I can't.” It was his fault, his idiotic oversight: When they booked the Spain tickets, it didn't occur to him that that weekend would be Uncle John's anniversary. On Saturday, the family is having a party, as they do every year: a Mass at St. Bonaventure's, a barbecue at Aunt Lauren's. “I totally forgot. I feel really badly. I just didn't think of it when we booked the tickets—”

“Oh, my God!” Abby cuts him off. “Spain!”

“Right,” he says. “Spain.”

“Is that now?”

“Almost. We fly out on Monday.”

“Be careful, Al,” she says. “There are new security regulations now, you know.”

As if the entire world doesn't know. As if his mom isn't constantly reminding him, worrying about him flying so soon after the attacks.

“Yeah,” he says. “I'm aware.”

“Did you remember to get a passport?”

“Of course I remembered to get a passport.”

From the counter, Rebecca lets out an amused chuckle.

“Are you going to propose?” Abby asks.

“What?” Alex exclaims. “No!” He lets out a startled laugh and glances at Rebecca. Propose? It hadn't even occurred to him. Was it supposed to have occurred to him? Rebecca looks over her shoulder, face crinkled—
what's so funny?
—and he rolls his eyes.

“Al?” Abby is saying. “Are you there?”

He leaves the kitchen quickly, stepping onto the balcony, where he eases the door shut and lowers his voice. “Why would you think that?”

“I don't know. I mean, you've been together over a year, you're taking her on a romantic European vacation…it's probably at least crossed her mind.”

Alex stares at the street, the sidewalk scattered with wilted pink petals. The late May air is muggy and fragrant, tickling the back of his throat.
Taking her
—well, this wasn't quite true. Not only had the trip been Rebecca's idea, her parents were footing the bill. Alex stiffens—could her parents be expecting a proposal, too? He's never even thought about marrying Rebecca. He tries to picture what life would be like: a long march of dinner parties, an endless conversation. As his sister keeps talking—
if we learned anything from Mom and Dad
—Alex tries to imagine the proposal, kneeling on a whitewashed Spanish street, but it's like picturing a scene from a movie with other people in it.

“I mean,” Abby says, “do you
want
to marry her?”

Alex looks down at the tops of people's heads moving along the sidewalk, a student headed toward the library, stooped under the weight of his enormous backpack, and wishes briefly that he were him. “I don't know,” he says, which is true.

Rebecca has met both of Alex's parents—who each came out to Princeton for dinner last year, on separate occasions—and Meghan, but he's resisted taking her home to Philly and introducing her to the entire clan. He isn't sure why. Rebecca is different from his family (an atheist, for one thing), but Alex is pretty sure he isn't worried about them disapproving. (He can just imagine how his cousin Stephen would look her up and down, then mutter:
How'd you manage that, Al?
) Maybe he's worried about what Rebecca will think of them? The women sitting around the dinner table, the slow conversation about small things.
Empty talk
—it might qualify. Or maybe he just doesn't feel like stirring up all the excitement, the attention—some adult version of the crowd snapping pictures at his senior prom—or dragging Rebecca through the aftermath of the divorce. Since last year, his dad has been renting an apartment; his mom lives in the house alone. It's just simpler without Rebecca there.

Rebecca's parents, Jane and Douglas, are still married. They live in Connecticut and have a summer house in Maine. Alex spent a weekend there last August, where they had long, boozy dinners on the deck overlooking the ocean. They talked about books and films (they were the kind of people who called movies
films
) and asked about Alex's research. He talked way more than usual, loosened by the wine and the questions. They had just returned from Africa and were astounded—borderline offended, it seemed—that Alex had never been abroad.

“Never?” Jane said. “Never left the country? Not even Europe? Oh, you need to go to Europe, Alex. Or Africa.” She appealed to Douglas. “Don't you think Alex needs to see Africa?” she said, as if seeing Africa were reserved for certain kinds of people, people intellectually sophisticated enough to appreciate it.

“Watch out,” Douglas said with a weary affect that seemed somehow for show. “She'll stuff you in her suitcase.”

“What about your family, Alex?” Jane pressed. “Have they done much traveling?”

“Not—internationally,” Alex said, thinking of the Jersey shore. “Actually, I'm not sure my parents have ever left the country, either.”

“What?” Jane grabbed her face and squeezed, raking her fingers down her cheeks. She seemed a little drunk, he thought. “Well, I just don't understand it,” she said. “To not go out and
see
the world. It's a problem in the whole United States.”

Seeing the world costs money
, Alex felt like saying.
And these are my parents, not the whole United States.
But he'd offered the information; he must have known where it would lead. He thought of his cousin Stephen, the family screwup. Their birthdays were just three weeks apart, but their lives had gone in opposite directions. Stephen, who never left Northeast Philadelphia. Stephen, who lately barely left Aunt Margie's basement.
Douchebags
, Alex imagined his cousin saying.
And what kind of asshole goes by Douglas instead of Doug?

“I told you,” said Jane. She draped a finger in Alex's direction. “This one is an
old soul
.” Her face was soft and pink, with that smug, self-satisfied expression that older people seemed to get when they were drinking. It made Alex embarrassed. His aunts might have a glass of wine or two, but they never got like this. “He's not a talker,” Jane went on—which was ironic, because Alex had never talked so much in his life—“but it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”

“He's not always quiet,” Rebecca said, and leaned over to kiss his ear.

When Alex first met Rebecca, he joked that he was just another of her research subjects. But the truth was, it felt good to tell her things. In bed—for some reason, these conversations usually happened in bed—he told her what a nerd he'd been in high school, how he used to play
D&D
and had this insane mop of hair. How he didn't kiss a girl until he was sixteen and lost his virginity to his senior prom date, Debbie. (
Oh, my God
,
she said, laughing.
Such a fantastic cliché! And her name was Debbie?
)

Alex had never thought of himself as having a particularly interesting life, but Rebecca found it fascinating, especially the parts about his family. He told her about Meghan and her eating problems. How she threw away her lunches in high school and made him promise not to tell. How after it came out that she had bulimia, their parents consulted a million doctors, but it wasn't until Meghan's freshman year of college—only a few months before Alex met Rebecca—that she took a semester off and went to this outpatient rehab place. It was there that the five of them had to meet the family counselor and everything cracked open—their parents admitted they were having problems, had been having problems. They were separating. His dad was leaving. (
They never fought?
Rebecca said.
Not once?
) How Meghan had screamed and cried in the counselor's office, but shortly after, she'd finally started to get better.

“Amazing,” Rebecca said, nodding knowingly. “That's what they say about bulimics. If there's some family secret, and it comes out, it gives the sufferer relief.”

Sufferer
—words like this made Alex uncomfortable. They sounded too grand, too elevated above his actual life.