Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
This call originates from a Connecticut Department of Correction facility. If you wish to accept this call…
“Hey, Em. Thanks for picking up. How’s your weekend going?”
“Okay.” She reminds me about that math workshop she had to go to yesterday—the follow-up to the one back in September.
“Maisie was ornery about having to go to Grammy’s for the day,” she says.
“When we got there, she got out of the car and just stood there. So I had to pick her up and carry her inside with her whimpering and kicking my legs. But by the time I got back and picked her up, she was excited about the ‘buberry’ muffins she and Grammy had made.”
“Yeah? How were they?”
“Raw in the middle and so salty, they were practically inedible. Mom said Maisie poured the salt in before they could measure it, but she just let it go.”
“Really? Your mother let something go? Wow.” I tell her I was talking to my mom yesterday, and she said she wished Em would call her more often to babysit—that she hasn’t seen Maisie in almost a month.
“That’s because the last time we visited Vicki, I smelled marijuana. I can’t have her getting high if she’s going to take care of my child.”
Our child. “Did she know you were coming or did you just drop in? Because there’s no way Mom would smoke weed if she was watching Maisie.”
“I hope not,” she says. “But maybe you can appreciate why I’d be a little sensitive about the possibility.”
Ouch. It’s fair, I guess, but it hurts. “Okay, I can address it next time I talk with her. Make it sound like it’s coming from me, not you.
All right?” I wait for her to answer and when she doesn’t, I rush to change the subject.
“So tell me about your conference. Was it worthwhile or a waste of time?”
“Fifty-fifty,” she says.
“And you carpooled with that new guy again? How was that?”
“It was fun. I’ve gotten to know him a little better because we’ve both been ‘test-driving’ the new Eureka math program. He loves it; I have a few reservations, but I don’t want to be unenthusiastic since the district’s already bought into it.”
“Yeah? What’s his name again?”
“Evan. He’s really a sweetheart.”
But not your sweetheart, right? “And he’s how old?”
“Twenty-five,” she says.
“Didn’t you say he’s already divorced? Wow. What was that about?”
“I have no idea,” she says. “What about you? Have you had any more trouble with that guard?”
I tell her no, unless I count dirty looks. Plus, he was off last week doing some kind of training.
“And what about your work crew? How’s Solomon doing?”
“He’s a challenge, but no meltdowns yet.” I tell her about the wheelbarrow incident, his refusal to wear work gloves, how he doesn’t interact with the other guys.
“Hey, by the way, remember how you said his mother gave you an earful that night when you and she talked in your car? What did she tell you? I’m trying to figure him out, but Solomon doesn’t say much about his homelife.”
“Well, first of all, Adrienne’s his stepmother.
His birth mother was an addict who had her parental rights revoked.
When he was three, I think she said. Not long after that, she died of an overdose.
There was no dad in the picture. Adrienne told me she and her husband had decided against children.
Then the husband found out Solomon was going into foster care.
He and the birth mother were both Wequonnoc, related somehow. So he felt like he needed to step in.”
“Wait. Solomon’s Wequonnoc?”
“Half anyway. Adrienne’s husband wanted him to grow up with a consciousness of his Native identity.
It was something he himself had been deprived of.
I had never heard about this before, but until the seventies, it was fairly common for government agencies to separate Native kids from their families and put them in white boarding schools so they could be taught ‘proper’ values. Can you believe that?”
I tell her I heard something about that once. “So arrogant, huh? They assumed they were doing this for the Indigenous kids’ benefit because the white way was the right way. Jesus! What else did the stepmother say?”
“That Solomon was difficult right from the start. Lying, stealing, violent tantrums. They felt way over their heads trying to deal with him. Had him in therapy since he was seven. And the older he got, the worse it became. She said his self-hatred was heartbreaking to witness, but it was hell being victimized by his rage. Then, two years ago, the husband, Gordon, had a heart attack on the golf course and died unexpectedly. Solomon told Adrienne he wished she was the one who had died. The husband’s gun had been secured in a safe.
She said she’d wanted to get it out of the house but hadn’t done it yet.
Solomon somehow got ahold of the combination.
She says she still doesn’t understand why he shot those dogs instead of her. ”
“He probably doesn’t understand why he killed them either. Being inside that head of his must be a scary place. It must have been hard for you to have to hear all that. What did you say to her?”
“Not much. I pretty much just listened. Before she got out of the car, she suggested we exchange numbers, which we did. She’s called twice, but I haven’t had the strength to answer.
Maybe that sounds selfish, but Dr. Patel tells me I need to respect my boundaries.
Deal with my own challenges and let her deal with hers. ”
“That’s good advice. And it’s not selfish either. Hey, not to sound like a broken record, but did you get your oil changed yet?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where’d you take it? Jiffy Lube?”
“No, Evan changed it for me. He used to work at his uncle’s service station when he was going to school. He knows a lot about cars.”
Well, whoop-de-do. “What about the filter? If you change the oil but not the filter, it’s like taking a shower and putting your dirty underwear back on.” I don’t mention that’s something I heard once on Car Talk .
“Well, listen to you, Mr. Mechanic,” she says, teasing me.
“You can relax. Evan replaced that, too. I had bought the wrong kind, but he exchanged it for me.” Jesus, this guy’s like a superhero.
Instead of saying anything, I bite at a hangnail on my left thumb.
“He wouldn’t take any money for the job, so I told him Maisie and I would take him out for pizza next weekend. ”
“Oh, yeah? Maisie met him?”
“Mm-hmm. She was shy around him at first, but after he finished with the car, he won her over. He had brought his dog, Jasper, with him. He showed Maisie how to make him sit for treats. She really got into bossing that poor dog around. ‘Sit, Jasper! Sit! I said sit!’?”
How many times had I suggested we get a dog for the twins to grow up with?
But oh, no. They’re too young for a dog.
What if he bit one of them? Then Evan the Great brings his dog over and she’s all yeah-rah-rah dogs!
I’m suddenly aware that I’ve been biting the skin around my thumbnail and that it’s bleeding.
“So he’s what? Ten years younger than you?”
“Nine, actually. Why?”
“Nothing really. I just—”
The phone cuts off, which is probably a good thing.
My point, Emily, is that he’s too fucking young for you if that’s where this is heading.
I bang the phone back on the cradle and walk toward our cell.
My thumb feels sore and it’s still bleeding a little.
Do I need to be worried about this guy? He services cars, charms little kids, even has a dog who doesn’t bite.
… I wonder whether she’s told him about our situation—me being in prison and why.
He’d better not be getting any ideas about the coast being clear.
If he is, she’d better set him straight.
No divorce for the rest of my time in here, she said. Or is that magical thinking, too?
“Door!” I call down the corridor. It pops and I enter our cell.
“Talk to your wife?” Manny asks. “How’s she doing?”
“Good question,” I tell him. “You got any small Band-Aids? I cut my thumb.”
Later, after lights-out, I can’t stop imagining him and Maisie playing with his dog. The three of them sharing a pizza at Tony’s. Him sticking around after she puts Maisie to bed. The two of them having wine and one thing leads to another.…
But what’s the point of working myself up?
God, I miss her so much. Talking to her on the phone helps, but it makes it harder, too.
And the times she’s visited me, it’s fucked-up having to hug her across a fucking table for a couple of seconds.
I miss touching her, miss her touching me.
… When the crew had lunch break the other day, I overheard Spence talking to Tito about how he and his girlfriend sometimes do phone sex when they talk.
She gets him hot and bothered for ten minutes, then he goes back to his cell, finishes what she started, and gets a great night’s sleep.
There’s no way Emily would do something like that—especially since I told her the goon squad can listen in on our conversations. …
I think back to that first summer when we couldn’t get enough of it.
When we were so hungry for each other’s bodies that we fucked whenever and wherever we could, living in the moment without a clue about where this might be going.
And when we were living out in California, too.
Sometimes we’d make love twice in the same day.
And then she got that call from her mother about her cancer. We drove back east and that was that.