Chapter Twenty-Four #4
“That’s when she’s really pissed, don’t you know? The only thing worse would have been if it was Jamie. Though your situation is bad enough, don’t get me wrong.”
“Why would Jamie be worse?” Jamie was the golden child; Lee was constantly paranoid about being compared.
“Because if it had been him hooking up with some crazy old witch, she might have gotten pregnant. And then what if she wanted to have it? Jamie wouldn’t have any control over that decision. It could literally ruin his life.”
Throughout the conversation, Lee had been winding the phone cord around her finger; she pulled it tighter now, to the point where she thought the cord might break.
“Just to be clear,” Lee said, watching her finger purple, “you’re saying it would have been worse had Jamie hooked up with a teacher, because if the teacher had gotten pregnant, he wouldn’t have had any control over whether she had the baby. ”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Uh-huh.” Lee’s finger had gone numb. She released the cord.
“Listen to your mother. Do what she says.”
“She doesn’t say anything.”
“What, she’s not punishing you?”
“No. At least not yet.” Lee left a long space as if to imply Joan might still punish her, though Lee knew she wouldn’t. Joan rarely punished either her or Jamie; it was like she didn’t know how Americans punished children and was afraid to get it wrong.
“Why are you bent out of shape, then?”
“I don’t know.”
There was the sound of the garage door opening.
“I have to go,” Lee said. After hanging up she stared in the mirror and found her reflection looking unnaturally healthy: her hair was shiny and her eyes and face clear.
She forced herself to think of Charlie, to relitigate their time together.
How special she had felt that morning, as she had every morning these last weeks, as if in possession of an exclusive, precious secret; the shock of Gwen entering the room, Charlie recoiling from her as if she were something repellent, the few seconds afforded by the light being off not nearly enough time to recover.
The slow, wretched understanding that some humiliation—Lee just hadn’t been sure what sort—would soon be visited upon her.
Joan’s look of disappointment (and disgust?
had it been disgust?) when they were called into Cindy’s office and Joan was informed of the transgression.
With all this in consideration, the tears sprang easily enough. Lee wept and felt her face swell and then went to the living room, where Joan was unpacking shopping bags.
“Clearly you had a good time at the mall,” Lee said, sniffling.
“Yes.” Joan didn’t look up. “I found a matching set. Duvet and pillowcase. Sixty percent discount.”
“So you’re completely fine with everything.”
“What, you don’t want me to be fine? You want me to be angry?”
At times Lee thought her mother either a horribly callous person or a master strategist and manipulator. She dropped onto the couch. “Fine,” she said.
“Fine,” Joan echoed, unzipping the clear plastic duvet cover (useful for storing objects) and setting it aside, as she knew Jamie would just throw it away otherwise.
Though, in fact, Joan was not fine. Roaming the sale aisle at Macy’s, as she attempted to locate a flannel set for Jamie and half a dozen other nice-to-haves on her bedding list, she had been flooded at once with rage; not at anything in particular, but rather everything.
Her son, residing across the country in a state he had never visited before deciding to move there, a foreign, Eastern place with cold people and freezing temperatures; the sadistic bedding merchandisers at Macy’s, whose faulty logic had spurred them to purchase an unreasonably optimistic quantity of red plaid pillowcases, forcing her to dig through a mountain of Ralph Lauren–branded product to access the sole pack of gray at the bottom of the bin.
As Joan had waited in line to purchase, she’d found herself behind a mother and daughter from which either or both emanated a strong, headache-inducing vanilla scent.
The daughter was around Lee’s age and wore a flippy miniskirt with sequins on the hem which had clearly just been purchased, as there was a price tag still hanging from the side.
The mother had bent back her head and admired her daughter’s outfit from behind.
“The boys will go crazy over you in this,” she’d said, squeezing her daughter’s shoulder.
When Joan went shopping with Lee, Lee always came out looking older than her age (Joan’s last selection for her had been Donna Karan pants from Loehmann’s, which were charcoal and shapeless, albeit very comfortable).
Joan had never held up a skimpy dress and said: You will look sooo gorgeous.
She had never said: The boys will go crazy.
She had never spoken of sex at all with either of her children.
Even though Joan knew—oh yes, she knew!—that sex was all around.
In short: Joan was a rotten mother.
Because Joan couldn’t say any of this, what she did say was: “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Lee said with dignity. “I’m fine.”
“It’s only it isn’t normal. For someone so old to be interested in a high school student. The age difference isn’t normal.”
Age difference, Lee said. That was rich, coming from Joan.
Oh, how children could pierce you! But Joan deserved it.
What an incredible experience parenting was: all the ways one could suffer—endless ways, really.
Those nights back in Taiwan when Wen-Bao didn’t return from his mistress’s apartment and Mei would sit and despair, Joan recalled the disdain she’d felt toward her mother.
She didn’t see why Mei had married Wen-Bao to begin with; how silly of her to have made such a poor choice, and then continued to stay around and suffer for it.
“Your father and I were both adults,” Joan said.
“ I’m an adult. You don’t think I’ve been through a lot?”
“You know you can always come to me with a problem.” Joan wondered what Lee meant by “been through a lot.” “I promise I won’t be mad. I will help you.”
“I’m fine, really. There is no problem.”
“You understand I love you and Jamie. I will never not be here for you.”
“Jesus, Mom.” On impulse, less because she wanted to and more because she thought she might regret not doing so in the future, Lee bent and kissed Joan on the cheek. Joan blinked, startled, and then kissed Lee back. Joan’s lips were dry and smelled of roses; it was an awkward few seconds for both.
Later, Joan would regret having promised Lee she would always be there.
She understood how fearful Lee was about death, but it wasn’t true, as one day Joan would be gone, and Lee would have to manage.
The urge to give her this had been overwhelming in the moment; at times it was worth it, Joan thought, to enjoy a mutual delusion.
Though she shouldn’t give in like that again.
The demon rock, after all, was a monster with infinite appetite—it needed to be fed, it needed misery.
Sometimes you had to lie and say it wasn’t there.
But it was. It was coming for everyone eventually.
You could only hope it wouldn’t be for a little while.