Джонатан Троппер - This Is Where I Leave You

Paul opens the discussion. “What the fuck?”

“You didn’t know?” Me.

“What do you mean? You did?”

“We had our suspicions.” Wendy.

“So Mom’s a lesbian now? Cool.” Phillip.

“Don’t trivialize it,” Tracy says. “That was actually a very moving thing to witness.”

“She can’t be a lesbian,” Paul says. “She was married for forty years.”

“Well, it’s a little late in life for her experimental phase, don’t you think?” Wendy.

“I think they prefer the term ‘bisexual,’” Horry says.

We all turn to look at him.

“And you know this because . . . ?” Paul says.

Horry shrugs, blushing slightly.

“How long?” Wendy demands.

“How Long is a Chinaman?” Phillip says, mechanically repeating an old childhood joke.

“Run and play, Phillip, the adults are talking,” Wendy says. “How long, Horry?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Ballpark it.”

“I think they should tell you themselves.”

“Holy shit!” Paul says. “Mom is a lesbian.”

“A bisexual.”

“Whatever.”

“Well, whatever, then,” Horry says. “Mine is too.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Alice says. “I mean, they’ve been best friends since forever. What a deep bond they must have.”

“Jesus Christ, Alice! My father’s body is still warm!” Paul shakes his head. “Am I the only one who is having a problem with this?”

“A problem is something to solve,” Phillip says. “If there’s no solution, it’s not a problem, so stop treating it like one.”

We all turn to look at Phillip.

“That actually almost makes sense,” Wendy says.

“It’s something I learned from Tracy,” Phillip says. “Isn’t she something?” He leans forward to kiss her, and she turns away from his kiss.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Not here.”

“I just complimented you. What are you getting all pissy about?”

“I said not here.”

“And I said, what are you getting all pissy about?”

“This isn’t the appropriate time or place.”

“My mother just stuck her tongue down her best friend’s throat in front of her children and half the neighborhood. In case you’ve missed it, we don’t really do appropriate here.”

“I’m leaving,” Tracy says, getting to her feet.

“Since when do you walk away from a discussion? You live for discussions. That’s all you ever want to do is discuss the shit out of everything.”

She looks down at him and shakes her head slowly. “You are such an asshole.” Then she turns and heads back toward the den.

“But I’m engaging here, honey!” he calls angrily after her. “I’m taking ownership of my feelings.” He watches her go, then shrugs and turns back to us. “Don’t ever date a shrink,” he grumbles. “It’s like trying to read Chinese.”

Jen has checked out of the Marriott. I make the drive to Kingston in just over ninety minutes and pull into my driveway, like I have a thousand times before. Her white Jeep is parked, as usual, too close to the center, and I have to open my door gently against the stone retaining wall to squeeze out of mine.

She comes to the door in her college boxers and an old concert T-shirt of mine. Elvis Costello and the Attractions. We went to see him play a few times. When I have a cold, I can sing “Almost Blue” and sound just like him. It never fails to crack her up. We have history, Jen and I, a mess of artifacts strewn haphazardly in our wake. Her hair is down, longer than I’m used to, and she is pale and tired, her eyes swollen from crying, and she looks for all the world like she can use a hug. So I give her one and she breaks down, sobbing violently into my neck, her body convulsing to the point that I worry about the pregnancy.

The bedroom smells of Jen. She lies down horizontally across the bed and closes her eyes. We’ll have to throw out the bed, I think to myself. There’s a lot we’ll have to throw out.

“Run me a bath?” she says.

She lies in the tub, in the slanted shadows of the afternoon sun through the blinds, while I sit on the edge, tracing letters in the surface of the water. We talk for a long time, long enough for her to have to add hot water twice. I don’t know what we talk about—the baby, the past, college, our honeymoon. She cries when she speaks briefly about Wade, not because she misses him, but because she’s humiliated. I remember what Tracy said about gathering up what’s left of her dignity. These are the facts: I am drawn to women like Jen, who are drawn to men like Wade, and it’s not healthy for any of us, but that’s just the way it is. The Tracys of this world will always fall for the Phillips, who can always be counted on to fuck the Chelseas. And round and round we’ll go, doing our pathetic little dance, denying our own true natures in the name of love, or something we can pass off in its place. I can feel myself getting angry again. I’m not sure at whom. I’ve been angry for so long it’s like a reflex now.

When Jen stands up in the tub, I watch the water cascade down her back. It’s a sight to behold, and one I can’t recall seeing before. We must have taken baths together, but I guess there’s always something new to see. Back in our bedroom, she collapses onto the bed, wrapped in a towel. “Judd.”

“Yes.”

“Will you lie with me?”

This is my bedroom. This is my bed. This is my wife. When I was a kid, I would flex my eyeballs to make everything go blurry. If I can just do that with my brain for a little while, flex until certain thoughts become blurred, this can be my life again. I strip off the sheets on my side of the bed and lie down on the bare mattress. Jen watches me and understands, then turns away, pulling my arms around her, wearing me like a cape.

“Do you think it can ever be the same?” she says. She is fading, her voice thinning out like the voice of a little girl.

“I don’t know.”

“Or maybe not the same. Something different, but good.”

“Maybe.”

She sighs and then shudders, pressing her back against my front as her breathing slows. I press my lips to her bare shoulder and take in the familiar smell of her. I slide my hands over her chest and then down past her navel, to where her belly is hardening, just above her groin. She takes my hands and slides them down a bit lower, just above the pelvic bone, pressing them into one spot on her belly then another.

“There she is,” she whispers. She leans her head back, her cheek lightly brushing mine.

“She?”

“Yes. It’s a girl.”

There is no reason I can think of that this should make me cry. Jen rolls over and wraps her arms around me, her damp hair falling over my face like a tent, and she rocks me back and forth, exactly like Mom will tell her not to rock the baby, or she’ll be rocking her to sleep until she’s five years old. She kisses my eyes. My cheek. My chin. My mouth, softly and with great tenderness. I can taste my tears on her lips. Sleep falls down on us like a heavy curtain.

I WAKE UP with a start. The room is bathed in dusky shadows, and I am momentarily disoriented. I take a minute to sift through the facts and determine which are real and which the residue of dreams. I am in my house, in my bed, with Jen sleeping beside me. Just like that, the nightmare is over, the curse broken. Jen is snoring lightly. She never believed me that she snored, and I always threatened to record her, but, of course, never did. It was one of those playful arguments that we would carry with us unresolved into old age. I look up at the familiar brown swirl of water damage on the ceiling. If it is possible to feel affection for water damage, then that’s what I feel for that little brown swirl.