Greer made another trip to Macopee before a Loci event in Cambridge. Though the distance between New York and Macopee wasn’t too much greater than the distance between Ryland and Princeton, the trips were less frequent, and it was only Greer visiting him, never the other way around. Whenever she came to see him, the rhythm in the house was thrown off. His mother seemed agitated with Greer around, maybe even self-conscious about appearing unwell in front of her. She retreated to her room and didn’t eat.
And though Greer kept trying to get him to come down to New York—he’d sworn to her he would—he didn’t want to leave his mother for the weekend, even with one of the aunts, who didn’t know everything that had to be done. So Greer came there, and it wasn’t great. This weekend, Loci would be cosponsoring a mini-summit about sexuality and the law at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She drove up in a rental car a day early, and she came into Cory’s house and looked around. The Pintos’ place was clean and orderly again—he’d gotten good at that—but she didn’t even comment, and it actually hurt his feelings a little.
His mother drowsed in her chair; eggs were lightly knocking together in a pot of water on the stove, emitting that distinct hard-boiled smell. Everything was under control here, but Greer just said quietly, “Cory, what’s going on?”
She looked as if she might cry, and he was slightly offended by that. What was so terrible here that could almost bring her to tears? What was she seeing? He’d been trying so hard to manage every aspect of his mother’s life, and Greer had come in and basically held a mirror up to everything, which wasn’t something he’d asked her to do. How could he not take care of his mother? How could he go back to Manila to be a consultant when in fact the one who needed his consulting skills was right here, in a housedress with a repeating pineapple pattern, agitated and confused and unwell?
How could he return to being interested in his “relationship” with Greer? Relationships were a luxury designed for people whose lives were not in crisis.
For some reason Greer didn’t understand any of this; it was so unlike the way she had always understood everything about Cory since they were teenagers and lay together in her upstairs room, their bodies being revealed to each other for the first time like monuments undraped at a public ceremony. He had shown himself to her, his slightly crooked penis and his heart fat with longing, and then, indisputably, the love he’d been storing up. His toes like fingers. His desire to do something useful with himself someday, to spread money around the globe because he hadn’t had much money growing up, and because he’d learned in his economics classes about how everything was connected through intricate systems. And Greer had shown him all that was hers as well: the small, warm body, and the muted self that, these days, was being replaced by something less constrained. She was less timid; Faith Frank had brought her out more than he ever could.
But he had the distinct feeling that she didn’t understand him anymore, which was news, because for years they had always taken each other’s understanding for granted. “What do you mean, what’s going on?” he asked.
“We had a life,” she said. “Not living together, I know that, but we told each other things, and we were in it together. Come on, why do I have to say all this? You know what I’m talking about. You’ve basically removed yourself from me.”
He just looked at her. “This doesn’t only go one way, Greer.”
“You think I’ve been distant too?” she said. “I always call you and text you. I want to hear everything.”
“Yes, you’re very responsible.”
“What do you want, Cory? Am I supposed to move up here with you too? Maybe I am,” she said frantically. “Maybe that’s the only way I can show you what I feel.”
“No,” he said. “This isn’t about obligation, Greer.”
“But you don’t go to me for comfort anymore. You don’t go to me for anything. Not even distraction. Our lives are just totally separate. You’re not even trying! I know you’re upset, I know you feel shattered. But when I try to get you to come down to New York to see me and be alone with me someplace where we can really talk and be together, you say you can’t.”
“Right. Because I can’t.”
“I have an apartment now, Cory. I have big spoons. I just don’t have you there.” He didn’t say anything, and so she kept talking, making it worse. “I know your mother needs protection and care, of course she does, and you have to see that she gets it. But I know you can get other people to help with that, at least sometimes. It’s not the sum total of who you are. I haven’t heard you talk about anything else in so long. You seem completely uninterested in the outside world.”
“In your world, you mean,” he said, and this was a little mean and he knew it. But it was true. Her world had become abstract to him; she had stayed firmly in it, planted in it. No, he didn’t think she should move here. She shouldn’t give up her job with Loci and Faith Frank and come up here to live with him. Though really, he thought for a second, if she had done that, then finally they would be living together. They could live in Greer’s bedroom; her parents would leave them alone. They could live there and his mother could heal and he could heal, and they would have some version of a life. But Greer couldn’t do that, and he would never, ever ask her to, because she would have to give up so much. This time of life was meant to be about adding on to yourself, not taking away. It was all backward now, and he didn’t know how to stop the backward motion from continuing, accelerating.
“All right, fine, my world,” she said. “But also your own world. The one you had.”
“I don’t have it anymore.”
“You could have a little of it,” she pressed. “Just once in a while. You deserve it. You’re a person, and you still have to live. Why won’t you come down to New York for the weekend? You haven’t even seen my apartment in Brooklyn, not once. And I sound spoiled saying this, and I hate that. I’m sorry, but I had this whole thing in my mind. We’d get Thai takeout at this place I go to. We’d sit in my bed. We’d walk in Prospect Park. You said you would leave your mother with your aunt Maria just for one night. One night. And then you always cancel.”
“The logistics are complicated.”
“I know they are, but I feel like being involved with me is this gigantic burden that you feel like you have to carry out. More of a burden than taking care of your mother. You have to want to do it. I can’t make you want it. That’s the thing about a relationship. Whoever is more aloof always gets to set the terms.”
“So now I’m aloof.”
“Well, yes, kind of.” He didn’t say a word, but just sat there, taking this. “Cory,” Greer tried, “it’s okay to still care about things. But you don’t seem to believe that. How long are you going to stay in this state where you’re totally removed from everything? How many months are you going to keep doing this?”
“Fourteen.”
“What?”
“I made up a number. I’m trying to show you how completely ridiculous this line of thinking is. How can I put a limit on it, Greer? I’m needed here.”
“Aren’t you needed elsewhere?”
“I’m not irreplaceable elsewhere.”
“You had a plan, and it made sense. Doing consulting for now, saving money, then doing your app. You were so excited about it.”
“I had to adapt,” he said. “I’m starting to think that you’re the one who can’t.”
“Can we please go somewhere and discuss this?” Greer asked, agitated.
So they left his mother alone for an hour and went to Pie Land, the pizza place where once, before they were in love or even tolerated each other, he used to stand and play Ms. Pac-Man while Greer sat stealthily watching him. He would see her in his peripheral vision, and would play better and harder and longer, as if for her, his rival at school.
Now, on a weeknight in summer, the grown versions of themselves entered this same place, which was empty, apparently doing more takeout business than dine-in. There was even a Pie Land app for the phone.