“Come drive,” my father said, opening up his door and getting out. I felt lost and confused. I was starting to reach for the door handle when he opened it on his own. I got out, and looked at him. I couldn’t tell because it was dark, but I think he was shaking. As I got behind the wheel, I noticed I was, too.
The drive home was quiet. I remember thinking I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the wind this loud, before. I thought that if I had ever designed a car, I’d try to make one that cut down on wind noise so much. I knew that turning on the radio would be a bad idea. Dad would insist on some talk show station, and mom would want country. Instead, I just kept my mouth shut and concentrated on the road.
The whole time, dad was staring out his window. He had his hand up, and he kept tapping a knuckle against the glass. I’d snatch quick glimpses at him from time to time. I could feel the anger coming off of him, and something else. To this day, I can’t tell what the other thing I felt was, but it was strong.
We pulled up in the driveway as the sun was going down. Everything had that golden glow about it. Susan once told me that the Scottish had a name for that, but I can’t remember what it is. The word started with a ‘G’, I think. I’ve never been so good at remembering stuff like that. I thought about asking Sarah.
Dad was out of the car before I could even shut it off. Mom’s mask was still in place, though. “Thank you for driving for your father, dear,” mom said. She opened her own door and stepped out. I watched, painfully aware of how she struggled, of how thin her arms were. I got out, and cringed at how lightly she closed the door compared to the look of concentration on her face. I could tell even something as simple as closing a car door was getting hard for her. ‘When did she get so old?’ I asked myself, and found I had no answer.
Sarah came out of the hall just as I shut the front door. “Susan called,” she said, “she wants you to call her back.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. I hadn’t called her to say I’d gotten in like she’d wanted me to. She was probably upset. I stood there, between the front door and the rest of the house, wondering what to do.
“Are you going to call her?” my sister asked, cocking her head forward. She always had that expression when she assumed I was stalling.
“Yeah,” I said, “I guess I should.”
She was just behind me as I walked into the kitchen. I picked up the phone and dialed the number. I walked over to the kitchen window, and pulled a small dent into the blind. I looked out into the backyard at the sliver of sun disappearing behind the other houses. I felt odd for a moment, remembering being much shorter than this and doing the same thing.
“Do you and she ever fuck, Michael?” Sarah asked. I gripped the receiver tightly and, in my ear, it began to ring. She grinned like a shark.
“What?” I asked, trying not to show how off-guard she’d just caught me.
Sarah smiled, “Susan,” she said, gesturing toward the phone, “Do you two ever fuck?”
“Why do you—ahem—why do you ask?” Fourth ring.
“I dunno,” she said, turning away. “I guess because I just always thought you were gay.”
“What? Why would you—?” I started to say after her, but then the phone picked up.
“Hello?” Susan said, her voice sleep-muffled.
“Hi,” I said, “I didn’t mean to—you know—wake you.”
“It’s okay,” she mumbled, “I sat down to watch TV and fell asleep.”
“Oh,” I said after a few moments. I thought about telling her about meeting Dr. Gantner, and about the accident. I thought about telling her about Sarah. My head filled up with all kinds of stuff to tell her, but then I started thinking about how much I’d have to tell her just for her to understand each thing. Instead, I stood silent for a while.
“If you’re busy—?” she said.
“No,” I replied, looking over at Sarah. My sister pretended to read one of the junk mail catalogues that had come in. She was listening in. “No, it’s okay. I’m sorry I—you know—didn’t call.”
“Yeah, I thought you might have, but you didn’t,” she said.
“Sorry,” I replied. Mom was moving around the kitchen, water running, pots clanking. At one point, several cookie sheets fell out of a cupboard she was using. The clatter made Sarah jump.
“What’s that?” Susan asked.
“My mother. It’s almost supper time,” I said, watching my mom slowly crouch down to pick the sheets up. Every time her knee popped, I flinched.
“Oh,” she said, then said something that sounded like “I fish juice,” but I couldn’t hear it. My mom tried to shove the sheets back in the cupboard they came from, and they fell again. When she started to fall, herself, she reached toward the counter to hold on. Not only did she miss, though, and fall, but she also managed to pull down some of the pots she’d sat on the counter, as well. The clatter was deafening.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Susan said.
Mom lay on the floor, and Sarah watched her with a blank expression. I started to put the phone down to go help my mother, but remembered Susan was on the other end. “Umm—my mom just—dropped some stuff. Can I—can I call you—maybe back?” I asked, staring. My mother floundered on the floor, trying to get a grip on something to pick herself up.
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll talk to you later, then,” she said, and hung up. I set the phone down. I put my arm under my mother’s, and pulled her to her feet. Her knees gave one last almost deafening pop. I was sure she’d just broken something. “Here, mom,” I said, moving her step by slow step to one of the chairs. When I had her comfortable, I turned to Sarah. She was still flipping through pages.
“Sarah,” I hissed.
She looked at me with an eyebrow cocked.
“Help,” I whispered.
She rolled her eyes, and closed the catalogue. She got up and we started to straighten the mess. Neither of us even wondered where dad was; we knew he wouldn’t come in until long after everything was cleaned up. Then, we’d have to listen to him criticize the whole thing, from start to finish: ‘Why didn’t you ask one of the kids to get it for you in the first place?’ all the way through ‘Most likely it was that piss poor stacking job one of you kids did that caused it in the first place’.
“So, do you?” she whispered.
I stopped and looked up at her. She wasn’t looking at me, only stacking pots on the floor. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked, still not looking.
“Because I don’t,” I said.
“Is she too much for you in bed, Michael?” Sarah asked, grinning.
“No, that’s not it—,” I started.
“Does she stay too quiet for you?”
“Sarah, stop—,”
“I just want to know if she—,”
“GOD DAMMIT!!” I said, standing up. I threw down the pan I was holding. It clattered loud on the floor, and rang out like a bell. She looked up at me, frozen. Mom’s back went stiff at the table. Silence fell. “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” I said through clenched teeth, “and I fucking meant it.” I grabbed the phone off the counter and walked out into the back yard. No one followed me.
I dialed the number to Susan’s apartment. It was busy. I hung up and stared out the window at the horizon for a while. I dialed the number again and it was busy. I hung up and noticed how I was shaking. I dialed the number again and got the answering machine: the phone was off, now. I sat down on the back porch, the concrete cold through my jeans.
The truth was that for the past two months or so, Susan and I hadn’t had sex. I watched the wind moving the blades of grass back and forth and I thought about what it’d be like to be a blade of grass. The truth was that for the past two months, I’d been unable to think about sex with Susan. I watched the grass, just swaying back and forth, unconcerned with the world around itself. The truth was that for the past two months I’d been thinking about something else a lot.