Tapestry of Fortunes A Novel

31


Two days before the appointment, I take a day off from work, tell Travis as he is eating breakfast that I’ll be cleaning out his closet today.

“No!” he says, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.

“I have to! You can’t shut the door anymore!”

“I’ll do it,” he says. “You’ll throw everything out!”

“First of all,” I say, “you won’t do it. Secondly, I will not throw everything out.”

“Yeah, just the good stuff.”

“If you would keep your closet clean, then I wouldn’t have to clean it for you. I don’t enjoy cleaning it any more than you do. I’ve told you a hundred times—”

“Oh, don’t give me one of your lectures.”

“Travis, don’t you take that tone of voice with me. I swear to God. Do not speak to me like that again or I’ll slap your face. I have never hit you yet, but I promise you I am entirely capable of it.”

His eyes widen. “Boy. You’re crabby.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I know!”

“Go to school.”

He stands. “I am!”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

As I watch Travis go out the door, Lavender comes up the basement steps and into the kitchen. “Hi,” she says, her voice croaky with sleep.

“Hi.”

I watch her grab a spoon, then head for the refrigerator and take out a carton of plain yogurt. She sits at the table and pulls off the lid, smells it. “I really hate this stuff.”

“Well, why eat it, then?” I ask tiredly.

“ ’Cause everything else is, like, poisonous,” she says. “Everything else will give you cancer. The planet is so totally wrecked.” She swallows a mouthful of yogurt, shudders.

“Lavender?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you tell Travis that if he eats snow he could die?”

“It’s true!”

“And that in a few years we’ll all have to wear gas masks?”

She shrugs.

“You know,” I say. “I’ve been thinking. I don’t think things are working out too well with you living here.”

She looks up, sighs deeply. “You’re, like, kicking me out, right?”

“Not ‘like.’ ”

“I knew it.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“So … end of the month, right?”

“Right.”

Lavender nods. “This always happens.”

“Frankly, I’m not surprised.” I want to ask Lavender who her references were. Probably relatives who wanted to make sure she didn’t end up with them. But what’s the difference?

I go upstairs to Travis’s bedroom, sit at his desk, look around his room. He has made his bed, more or less. I reach over to tuck in one edge of the sheet, pull on the quilt to straighten it, find a sock, hold it in my hand. I look out his window, remember when his chin barely came to the ledge, remember him later sitting on my lap while I helped him undress for bed, looking out that same window at the setting sun and saying, with wonder, “The sky’s coming down.” When I came downstairs, smiling, I told David what Travis had said. From behind his newspaper, David said, “Huh. He’s mixed up.”

I open Travis’s closet door, stare dejectedly at the mess. It’s sort of amazing, the creativity of it. A veritable sculpture of clothes, games, old schoolwork, shoes, hangers, loose felt-tipped markers. Back in the corner is a stack of old children’s books, the ones he’d liked best. I pull one off the top of the pile. Pumpernickel Tickle and Mean Green Cheese. Ah, yes. I open the book, turn to the picture of an elephant and a boy who are playing cards on the boy’s bed. Neither Travis nor I had found anything about that to be unusual. Of course a boy and an elephant are playing cards. What happens next? I close the book, put it back in the closet, shut the door, and go to the phone. “This is Sam Morrow,” I say. “I’d like to cancel an appointment.”

I am up late, watching E.T. Couldn’t sleep. Suddenly, between my legs, a warm wetness. I go into the bathroom, pull down my pajama bottoms. A fair amount of blood. I go into the kitchen, call the hospital emergency room, speak in a low voice to the nurse on duty. How old am I, he wants to know. Oh. Well, then. I can come in if I want to. Or I can just wait it out. It will undoubtedly all pass without complication. If cramping gets bad, if I develop a fever, if the bleeding doesn’t stop … Yes, I understand, I say.

I am in my forties. I already have a child. Therefore there is no tragedy here.

I feel more blood coming and go into the bathroom, sit on the toilet and wait. I feel it pass. I stand, and, holding a towel to myself, try to see it in the bloody water. Then I pull up my bottoms and go to the kitchen for a tablespoon. I want to bury it in my yard. I want it always near. But it won’t stay on the spoon and I’m afraid to touch it with my hands. I flush the toilet, and, quietly weeping, put on a sanitary pad. It’s gone. Everything is gone. I can’t hold anything. Back in bed, I cup my hands over my uterus and begin weeping so loudly I awaken Travis. He opens my door, sticks his head in. “Mom?”

I stop crying. “Yes?”

“Are you crying?”

What to say? What not to say? “Yes, I am.”

“Oh.” He scratches one foot with the other. “Want me to come in there with you?”

I smile, feel tears slide into the corners of my mouth.

“It’s okay, honey. Sometimes you just need to cry, right?”

“I guess.”

“It’s just … you know, I was watching a sad movie.”

“What one?”

“E.T.”

“Oh. The part where he goes away?”

“Yeah. Did you think that was sad, too?”

“Yeah. I guess. Not that sad.”

“Right. Well, I’m sorry I woke you up. Let’s just go back to sleep, okay? And tomorrow let’s have something special for breakfast.”

“What?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Pancakes with blueberries? And bacon?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” He starts down the hall, then comes back into my room. “Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“I hope you feel better.”

“Thank you. I’ll be fine.”

He hesitates, then comes over to kiss my cheek. Which makes my throat hurt so much I make two fists in order not to cry out.