Really, it felt like a slap, only inside her chest somewhere, an abrupt physical moment of something very much resembling violation. She made note of it in her head: Someday I might be able to use that somewhere. She had been to so many acting classes over the past five years, it was ingrained in her thinking now, a sort of double consciousness. Record your emotions. They are your tools. “Kyle,” she noted lightly, recovering with a practiced sardonic edge. “What was Kyle doing at Dad’s urologist?”
“Well, he wasn’t at the urologist,” Rose said, stirring the pot both literally and figuratively. “He was at the pediatrics office, down the hall.”
“You just happened to stick your head into the pediatrics office, while you were running around Cincinnati with Dad’s urine sample?” Alison asked. “This story is starting to sound a bit improbable, Mom.”
“Well, it’s what happened,” Rose informed her, with a slightly superior tone. Alison really did always sound like she thought she was smarter than you, and this time she wasn’t. “Your sister Megan is looking into pediatricians and I told her that I’d stop in for a brochure, and there was Kyle. He looks great. He was wearing one of those white doctor coats.”
“Wow, he was wearing a white doctor coat! Maybe that’s because he’s a doctor.”
“Well, I thought he looked handsome. And the office was crowded, I think they do well over there.”
“Did you ask him what he was doing in a suburban doctor’s office outside Cincinnati? I thought he was going to go to South America and work with war victims in refugee camps, that was always his plan,” Alison noted dryly. She hated the sound of her own voice making fun of Kyle’s passionate beliefs, which were beautiful and, she knew, deeply held. But she was also angry with him. She had not seen or spoken to him for almost a year, and the anger had not abated. “What happened to going to the Navajo nation to take care of dying beggars with a bunch of nuns?”
“I didn’t ask,” Rose said. “Mostly we talked about you.” Alison felt her heart start up again. Honestly, she thought, if this phone call goes on much longer I’m going to die from it. “Look, Mom, I have to go, I have a big audition tomorrow and I have to prepare,” she announced. No matter how much she wanted to hear about the man who had completely unmoored her for years, she simply could not let this go on.
“Well, he was interested in hearing about you,” Rose continued. “I told him what you were doing up there in New York and I could see how much he wanted to hear about it. You were so foolish to let him go. That boy loved you. I think he still does.”
“That boy is married, Mom,” Alison snapped. “Did he mention that, while you were chatting him up in the waiting room of his pediatrics practice?”
On the other end of the line, Rose fell silent. “No—why, no he didn’t,” she said. She was mortified. And heartbroken. “Is that true?”
“He got married last month. Next time, check for the ring.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Rose said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t— Seriously, Mom? I just cannot, I cannot talk about this.”
“Oh, Alison,” her mother said, honestly woeful.
Alison wanted to slam down the phone and break her mother’s unthinking eardrum. This was going to take hours to get over and she really did have a big audition tomorrow and she had not prepared for it yet because she’d had three catering shifts back to back, none of which she had the luxury of passing on at this financially precarious moment in time. “Look, I have to go,” she finally said. “I really do, I have to go.”
“Okay! Well, maybe we’ll talk next week,” Rose replied, careening instantaneously into an attitude of maternal good cheer. It was one of her most inexplicable tricks but she used it often, when caught in a bind with one of her children: Just pretend that nothing upsetting was happening at all. Be positive. That was all anyone could do. “You should see Megan!” she announced, falling into the second default position: Change the subject and talk about one of the other kids. “She’s really showing now. Those babies are on their way!”
“Yes. Yes, they are.” Alison sighed. “Bye, Mom. Bye. Tell Dad I said hi.” Panicked now, she felt terrible for having been mean to Mom. It wasn’t her fault, she knew. This is all your fault, and you know it. “Tell Megan I can’t wait to meet the twins!” She wanted her mother to know she cared, she really did. “Another baby, that is going to be so fun. See you later, Mom. Bye. Bye.” She hung up.