They felt close, which they had been for Robin’s entire life, especially in that period after her brother, Benny, went away to Champaign for college and the house had become extremely empty, her husband, Richard, always struggling to keep his three pharmacies afloat, engaging in some sort of pyramid scheme among businesses, driving back and forth between them, always hustling (she had to give him credit for that), even as he was failing. Edie and Robin were left behind with each other, and they joined forces at the kitchen table, Edie sharing (sometimes age-inappropriate) stories about her day, like the ones about her co-workers at the law firm, who were always more interesting than their job descriptions would suggest; they were office-supply thieves and part-time jazz musicians and heavy drinkers and cancer survivors. Or about the woman in line at the grocery store who had too many babies and a low-cut blouse and what seemed like a hundred coupons, and why were they all for cat food? And there was always something to say about family members, distant cousins who were getting divorces, because she had known all along it was never going to last, or wistful stories about family members who came over from Russia before the war, or directly after, because it’s important to know where you came from. Together they sat, a haul of groceries in front of them, the prepackaged snacks one of their shared great delights in life.
Then Edie would send her daughter off to do her homework while she prepared their official dinner, something of real substance, steak or chicken or pasta. The pretense of all-together time at dinner had long faded, of course, with Richard showing up late for dinner or not at all. Edie never bothered to set a place for him. Sometimes Robin ate in her room, and that was fine with Edie. It felt good to be alone with your food, she understood. Even if the rhythm in their lives was a strange one, it was a rhythm nonetheless.
Then Robin started high school six months ago and became friends with these two boys, the dead one, and the one who was now locked away, and she had begun to disappear from Edie. Home late sometimes, or leaving after dinner. Phone calls late at night. The music coming from her bedroom grew louder for weeks, and then quieter, and it was almost as if there were no music at all. Edie stood in the hallway, holding in her breath, her ear pressed against the door to her daughter’s bedroom. There was definitely something playing on her stereo. What kind of music was her daughter listening to these days? Edie used to know everything about her, and now she couldn’t answer that question. She was embarrassed as much as worried.
And now she realized she knew nothing about her daughter at all. This boy had overdosed on pills. The letter didn’t say that, but she had read about it in the newspaper, and the guidance counselor had confirmed it again that day. He had held on for two days, and her daughter had begged to go to the hospital, and she had said no because if it were Robin lying there (God forbid. Oy. God forbid.), Edie wouldn’t want anyone else but family with her. And also she didn’t want Robin anywhere near that kind of sickness. This wasn’t like keeping her away from Benny for a week when he had the chicken pox in sixth grade. This was like Edie was two steps away from marching into that bedroom and rummaging through all her daughter’s possessions to see what she was hiding, and hell no, her daughter was not going to hang out in the ICU of a hospital with the family of a boy who had just overdosed on pills.
“I’m sorry your friend died,” said Edie.
Robin took another handful of cookies and continued her methodical quest for the decimation of all of fat-free-based-snack America.
On the wall across from the kitchen table hung a macramé owl with large brown agate stones for eyes. Edie had put it there when they moved into the house in 1980, when Robin was just a baby. The cleaning woman dusted it every week, but it still seemed to be coated with some sort of old filth. A twig hung forlornly from its claws. For ten years Edie had been meaning to take it down. No joke, an entire decade. But Edie had been busy. First it had just been pro bono consultation, anything to take her mind off the banalities of her suburban existence. But then the purpose of her volunteerism came into sharp focus in 1988, when Dukakis—married to a Jewish girl!—ran for office, and her old college roommate Carly, one of the top Democratic fund-raisers in Chicago, called and asked for her help. Edie had sent in a check, and made some phone calls to some of her friends, the Cohns and the Grodsteins and the Weinmans and the Frankens, all lovely people, and before she knew it, she was making phone calls to people she didn’t know, and she discovered she was good at it. Paperwork and phone calls. She was most confident doing things where she could hide, where she didn’t notice people noticing how heavy she had gotten. She could see it even in the eyes of her co-workers. But here was a way she could help. Here was a way she could make a difference. Carly didn’t realize it, and Edie didn’t know if she could ever properly communicate it to her, but she was pretty sure Carly had saved her life. So who had time to worry about wall hangings when there were Republicans to kick out of office?