Lisa Unger: Fragile

There was something in the pitch of his voice when Ricky had first told her about Charlene that had made her stop what she was doing and listen, something about the look on his face. She knew it was going to be trouble.

Maggie kept waiting for the death knell: Mom, Charlene’s pregnant. We’re getting married . But she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut, to welcome Charlene into their home, into their family as much as Jones would allow. She wasn’t a bad girl. Maggie even saw a little of her younger self in Charlene. A little.

Maggie remembered how she’d railed and rebelled when her parents tried to keep her away from a boy she’d dated from a neighboring high school. Phillip Leblanc-with his punky hair and his paint-stained black clothes (he was an artist, of course), he was everything boys from The Hollows were not: cool, exotic, artistic. She did love him, in that way that teenage girls love, like a lemming. Which is not love, of course. Unfortunately, at seventeen, no one realizes that. And the only thing her parents accomplished with their endless groundings and tirades was to push her into his waiting arms. It was a big mess, from which she’d barely extricated herself. But that was another life. She still thought about him sometimes, wondered what became of him. Her random Google searches over the years had never turned anything up. He was a troubled boy, she realized now, and probably grew into a troubled man.

Even her mother had admitted recently, during one of Maggie’s laments about Charlene, that they’d handled it all wrong. Maggie was surprised, because her mother was generally not one to give an inch. But Mom was long on self-reflection these days-when she wasn’t obsessing about some noise in her attic.

Luckily, Jones recognized that when it came to Charlene, their son was standing on the edge of a cliff. Any sudden movement to help or control might cause a leap. They wouldn’t get him back.

That girl is sleeping with our son , he said to her one night as they sipped wine by the pool.

I know , she said, not without a twinge of something angry or jealous or sad. She’d seen Charlene with her hand on Ricky’s crotch just the day before. Somehow it made her remember changing his diapers and giving him a bath. She’d felt another lash of grief. Sometimes it seemed like that was all it was, motherhood-grief and guilt and fear. You said good-bye a little every day-from the minute they left your body until they left your home. But no, that wasn’t all. There was that love, that wrenching, impossible love. It was all so hard sometimes, hard enough with two careers that they hadn’t wanted another. But it was over so fast.

There’s something not right about that girl .

I know it , she said.

Jones cast her a surprised glance over the table. I thought you liked her .

She gave a slow shrug. I care about her because I care about Ricky. And he loves her .

With a sharp exhale: What does he know about love?

Not enough. That’s why it’s so dangerous .

• • •

“I’ll pay for the tux and the limo,” she said now. Was she begging?

“Come on, Mom.”

“Just think about it. Ask Charlene. Even a girl as hip as Char might harbor secret fantasies about dances and party dresses.” She tried for a smile but suspected she might just seem desperate.

“Okay, okay. I’ll ask her.”

He was humoring her, but she felt a little jolt of excitement just the same. She never thought of herself as that kind of mother. But there she was, pushing her kid to go to the stupid winter formal so she could have the pictures, join in with the other moms as they talked excitedly about gowns and flowers, limo services. It was embarrassing.

She went back to gazing through the catalog in order to appear nonchalant-a sensor alarm for the pool, a ceramic frog that hid a key in his belly, a floating cooler. She felt like buying something. Anything. She noticed her nails. She needed a manicure.

The screen door slammed again. When she looked up, her son was gone; her husband had taken his place, sorting through the mail. If they knew how alike they were in every way, they’d both burst into flames.

“Where’s Johnny Rotten?” asked Jones without heat.

“He was here a minute ago.” She closed the catalog and threw it in the trash.

“Heard me coming,” he said. He opened the phone bill, glanced at it, and put it on the counter.

“Probably,” she said. Then, “No more fighting today, okay?”

“What’s to fight about, Maggie? The war is lost. Nothing left to do but surrender.”

She felt her throat constrict. “It’s not a battle. There aren’t supposed to be winners and losers. He’s our son.”

“Tell that to him.”

She looked over at him, but he was a locked box, staring down at the rest of the mail-more junk. She didn’t know how to comfort him anymore, how to soften him. The years, the job, had made him harder. Not all the time. But his anger used to be hot. He’d yell and storm. Now he folded into himself, shut everyone else out. You didn’t have to be a shrink to know this wasn’t a good thing.

He glanced over at her. A quick up and down. “You look nice. Do something to your hair?”

“I had it trimmed a couple of days ago.”

She tossed her copper curls at him, blinked her eyes in a teasing come-hither.

He moved over to her and wrapped her up in his big arms. She leaned into him, feeling his broad chest through the softness of his denim shirt, then looked into his beloved face.

“I can still drown in those blue eyes, Maggie,” he said with a smile.

The years, parenthood, money worries, all kinds of stresses, had not robbed her of her love for him-though there were times when she feared they had. She still loved the sight of him, the smell of him, the feel of him. But sometimes she felt like they didn’t always look at each other anymore. Like the gold watch his uncle left him, or the diamond earrings in a box that had been her grandmother’s-precious things in the landscape of a life, cherished but barely noticed. Trotted out for special occasions, maybe, but most often taken for granted.

There were worse things. She’d seen her friends’ marriages implode and dissolve, leaving massive emotional wreckage or just disappearing at sea, second marriages no better. She didn’t always like Jones. Sometimes she ached to punch him in the jaw really hard, so hard she could split her own knuckles with the force of it. But she loved him no less totally than she did her own son. It was that complete, that much a part of her. He was half of her, for better or for worse.

“He’s okay,” she said, squeezing his middle. “He’s going to be okay.”

Silence. Jones took a deep breath, which she felt in the rise of his chest against hers.

Because that was what it was, wasn’t it? Not just anger. Not a need to control in the way we most often mean it. Not a lack of love or understanding for their boy. It was fear. Fear that, after all the years of protecting his health, his heart, his mind, setting bedtimes and boundaries, giving warnings about strangers and looking both ways before crossing the street, it wouldn’t be enough. Fear that, as he stood on the threshold of adulthood, forces beyond their control would take him down a path where they could no longer reach him. Fear that he’d be seduced by something ugly and would choose it. And that there would be nothing they could do but let him go. She believed they’d taught him well. Prayed they had. Why did her husband have so little faith?

“I hope so,” he said flatly, like it might already be too late.

She pulled back to look at him, to admonish him, but saw by the clock on the stainless-steel microwave behind him that she had just five minutes until her next session. She didn’t have time for a throw-down. She saw him notice her eyes drift, and then he moved away from her, unknowingly mimicking Ricky by opening the refrigerator and peering inside.