Amy Bloom - Where the God of Love Hangs Out

He pushed his head against my leg and cried, the way men do, like it’s being torn out of them. His tears ran down my bare leg, and I felt the strings holding me together just snap. One, two, three, and there was no more center.

“Go to bed, Lion.”

“How about you?”

“I’m not really ready for bed yet, honey. Go ahead.” Please, go to bed.

“Okay. Good night, Ma.”

“Good night, baby.” Nineteen-year-old baby.

He pulled himself up and went off to his room. I peered into the kitchen, looked at all the dishes, and closed my eyes again. After a while, I got up and finished off the little bit of Jim Beam left in the bottle. With all Lionel’s efforts at sobriety, we didn’t keep the stuff around, and I choked on it. But the burning in my throat was comforting, like old times, and it was a distraction.

I walked down the hall to the bedroom — I used to call it the Lionel Sampson Celebrity Shrine. It wasn’t just his framed album covers, but all of his favorite reviews, including the ones I wrote before I met him; one of Billie’s gardenias mounted on velvet, pressed behind glass; photos of Lionel playing with equally famous or more famous musicians or with famous fans. In some ways, it’s easier to marry a man with a big ego; you’re not always fretting over him, worrying about whether or not he needs fluffing up.

I threw my black dress on the floor, my worst habit, and got into bed. I woke up at around four, waiting for something. A minute later, Buster wandered in, eyes half shut, blue blankie resurrected and hung around his neck, like a little boxer.

“Gonna stay with you, Mama.” Truculent even in his sleep, knowing that if his father had been there, he’d have been sent back to his own room.

“Come in, then, Bus. Let’s try and get some sleep.”

He curled up next to me, silently, an arm flung over me, the other arm thrust into his pajama bottoms, between his legs.

I had just shut my eyes again when I felt something out of place. Lion was standing in the doorway, his briefs hanging off his high skinny hips. He needed new underwear, I thought. He looked about a year older than Buster.

“I thought I heard Buster prowling around, y’know, sleepwalking.”

The only one who ever sleepwalked in our family was Lion, but I didn’t say so. “It’s okay — he just wanted company. Lonely in this house tonight.”

“Yeah. Ma?”

I was tired of thinking, and I didn’t want to send him away, and I didn’t want to talk anymore to anyone so I said, “Come on, honey, it’s a big bed.”

He crawled in next to his brother and fell asleep in a few minutes. I watched the digital clock flip through a lot of numbers and finally I got up and read.

The boys woke early, and I made them what Lionel called a Jersey City breakfast: eggs, sweet Italian sausage, grits, biscuits, and a quart of milk for each of them.

“Buster, soccer camp starts today. Do you feel up to going?”

I didn’t see any reason for him to sit at home; he could catch up on his grieving for the rest of his life.

“I guess so. Is it okay, Mama?”

“Yes, honey, it’s fine. I’m glad you’re going. I’ll pick you up at five, and then we’ll drive straight over to Grandma’s for dinner. You go get ready when you’re done eating. Don’t forget your cleats — they’re in the hall.”

Lion swallowed his milk and stood up, like a brown flamingo, balancing on one foot while he put on his sneaker. “Come on, Buster, I’m taking you. I have to go into town anyway. Do we need anything?”

I hadn’t been to the grocery store in about a week. “Get milk and OJ and English muffins and American cheese. I’ll do a real shop tomorrow.” If I could just get to the store and the cleaners, then I could get to work, and then my life would move forward.

Finally they were ready to go, and I kissed them both and gave Lion some money for the groceries.

“I’ll be back by lunchtime,” he said. It was already eight-thirty. When his father got sick in the spring, Lion gave me hourly bulletins on his whereabouts. This summer, Lion was house painting and home constantly, leaving late, back early, stopping by for lunch.

“If you like,” I said. I didn’t want him to feel that he had to keep me company. I was planning on going back to work tomorrow or the day after.

While the boys were gone, I straightened the house, went for a walk, and made curried tuna-fish sandwiches for Lion. I watched out the window for him, and when I saw my car turn up the road, I remembered all the things I hadn’t done and started making a list. He came in, sweating and shirtless, drops of white paint on his hands and shoulders and sneakers.

Lion ate and I watched him and smiled. Feeding them was the easiest and clearest way of loving them, holding them.

“I’m going to shower. Then we could play a little tennis or work on the porch.” He finished both sandwiches in about a minute and got that wistful look that teenage boys get when they want you to fix them something more to eat. I made two peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and put them on his plate.

“Great. I don’t have to work this afternoon,” he said. “I told Joe I might not be back — he said okay.”

“Well, I’m just going to mouse around, do laundry, answer some mail. I’m glad to have your company, you know I am, but you don’t have to stay here with me. You might want to be with your friends.”

“I don’t. I’m gonna shower.” Like his father, he only put his love out once, and God help you if you didn’t take the hint.

I sat at the table, looking out at the morning glories climbing up the trellis Lionel had built me the summer he stopped drinking. In addition to the trellis, I had two flower boxes, a magazine rack, and a footstool so ugly even Ruth wouldn’t have it.

“Ma, no towels,” Lion shouted from the bathroom. I thought that was nice, as if real life might continue.

“All right,” I called, getting one of the big, rough white ones that he liked.

I went into the bathroom and put it on the rack just as he stepped out of the shower. I hadn’t seen him naked since he was fourteen and spent the year parading around the house, so that we could admire his underarm hair and the black wisps on his legs.

All I could see in the mist was a dark caramel column and two patches of dark curls, inky against his skin. I expected him to look away, embarrassed, but instead he looked right at me as he took the towel, and I was the one who turned away.

“Sorry,” we both said, and I backed out of the bathroom and went straight down to the basement so we wouldn’t bump into each other for a while.

I washed, dried, and folded everything that couldn’t get away from me, listening for Lion’s footsteps upstairs. I couldn’t hear anything while the machines were going, so after about an hour I came up and found a note on the kitchen table.

Taking a nap. Wake me when it’s time to get Buster. L .

“L.,” is how his father used to sign his notes. And their handwriting was the same, too: the awkward, careful printing of men who know that their script is illegible.

I took a shower and dried my hair and looked in the mirror for a while, noticing the gray at the temples. I wondered what Lion would have seen if he’d walked in on me, and I made up my mind not to think like that again.

I woke Lion by calling him from the hall, and I went into my room while he dressed to go to his grandmother’s. I found a skirt that was somber and ill-fitting enough to meet Ruth’s standard of widowhood and thought about topping it off with my EIGHT TO THE BAR VOLLEYBALL CHAMPS T-shirt, but didn’t. Even pulling Ruth’s chain wasn’t fun. I put on a yellow shirt that made me look like one of the Neapolitan cholera victims, and Lion and I went to get Buster. He was bubbling over about the goal he had made in the last quarter, and that filled the car until we got to Ruth’s house, and then she took over.