Amy Bloom - A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You

Mirabelle and my mother kissed good-bye, French style, and then Claudine did the same, walking out the kitchen door without waiting to see if I followed, which, of course, I did. I didn’t want to be, I wasn’t, rude or uninterested, I just didn’t want to leave yet. Mirabelle hugged me quickly and lay down on the back seat. I made a little sweater pillow for her, and she brushed her cheek against my hand. Claudine made a big production of adjusting the Crown Victoria’s side mirror, the rearview mirror, and the seat belt.

“Do you know how to get to I-95?” I asked in French.

“Yes.”

“And then you stay on 95 through Connecticut—”

“I have a map,” she said. “I can sleep by the side of the road until morning if I get lost.”

“That probably won’t be necessary. You have five hundred dollars in cash and seven credit cards. There’ll be a hundred motels between here and the city.”

“We’ll be fine. I will take care of everything,” she said. In very fast English she added, “Do not call me in New York, all right? We can speak to each other when you get back to Paris, perhaps.”

“Okay, Claudine. Take it easy. I’m sorry. I’ll call you in a few weeks. Mirabelle, dors bien, fais de beaux rêves, mon ange. ”

I watched them drive off, and I watched the fat white moon hanging over my mother’s roof. I was scared to go back in the house. I called out, “Where’s Buster? I thought he was coming up.” I had threatened to cancel my visit if my brother didn’t join me within twenty-four hours.

My mother stuck her head out the front door. “He’ll be here tomorrow. He’s jammed up in court. He said dinner at the latest.”

“With or without the Jewelle?”

“With. Very much with. It’s only June, you know.”

“You don’t think she gives Bus a little too much action?”

“I don’t think he’s looking for peace. He’s peaceful enough. I think he was looking for a wild ride and she gives it to him. And she does love him to death.”

“I know. She’s kind of a nut, Ma.”

And it didn’t matter what we said then, because my lips calling her mother, her heart hearing mother after so long, blew across the bright night sky and stirred the long branches of the willow tree.

“Are you coming in?” she said.

“In a few.”

“In a few I’ll be asleep. You can finish cleaning up.”

I heard her overhead, her heavy step on the stairs, the creak of her bedroom floor, the double thump of the bathroom door, which I had noticed needed fixing. I thought about changing the hinges on that door, and I thought of my mouth around her hard nipple, her wet nightgown over my tongue, a tiny bubble of cotton I had to rip the nightgown to get rid of. She had reached over me to click off the light, and the last thing I saw that night was the white underside of her arm. In the dark she smelled of honey and salt and the faint tang of wet metal.

I washed the wineglasses by hand and wiped down the counters. When my father was rehearsing and my brother was noodling around in his room, when I wasn’t too busy with soccer and school, my mother and I cleaned up the kitchen and listened to music. We talked or we didn’t, and she did some old Moms Mabley routines and I did Richard Pryor, and we stayed in the kitchen until about ten.

I called upstairs.

“Do you mind living alone?”

My mother stood at the top of the stairs in a man’s blue terrycloth robe and blue fuzzy slippers the size of small dogs.

“Sweet Jesus, it is Moms Mabley,” I said.

“No hat,” she said.

I realized, a little late, that it was not a kind thing to say to a middle-aged woman.

“And I’ve still got my teeth. I put towels in the room at the end of the hall. The bed’s made up. I’ll be up before you in the morning.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know.” She came down three steps. “I’m pretending I know. But it is true that I get up earlier than most people. I can make you an omelet if you want.”

“I’m not much of a breakfast man.”

She smiled, and then her smile folded up and she put her hand over her mouth.

“Ma, it’s all right.”

“I hope so, honey. Not that — I’m still sorry.” She sat down on the stairs, her robe pulled tight under her thighs.

“It’s all right.” I poured us both a little red wine and handed it to her, without going up the stairs. “So, do you mind living alone?”

My mother sighed. “Not so much. I’m a pain in the ass. I could live with a couple of other old ladies, I guess. Communal potlucks and watching who’s watering down the gin. It doesn’t really sound so bad. Maybe in twenty years.”

“Maybe you’ll meet someone.”

“Maybe. I think I’m pretty much done meeting people.”

“You’re only fifty-four. You’re the same age as Tina Turner.”

“Yup. And Tina is probably tired of meeting people too. How about you, do you mind living alone?”

“I don’t exactly live alone—”

“You do. That’s exactly what you do, you live alone. And have relationships with people who are very happy to let you live alone.”

“Claudine’s really a lot of fun, Ma. You didn’t get to know her.”

“She may be a whole house of fun, but don’t tell me she inspires thoughts of a happy domestic life.”

“No.”

“That little girl could.”

I told her a few of my favorite Mirabelle stories, and she told me stories I had forgotten about me and my brother drag-racing shopping carts down Cross Street, locking our baby-sitter in the basement, stretching ourselves on the doorways and praying to be tall.

“We never made you guys say your prayers, we certainly never went to church, and we kept you far away from Grammy Ruth’s Never Forgive Never Forget Pentecostal Church of the Holy Fruitcakes. And there you two would be, on your knees to Jesus, praying to be six feet tall.”

“It worked,” I said.

“It did.” She stretched her legs down a few steps, and I saw that they were unchanged, still smooth and tan, with hard calves that squared when she moved.

“You ought to think about marrying again,” I said.

“You ought to think about doing it the first time.”

“Well, let’s get on it. Let’s find people to marry. Broomstick-jumping time in Massachusetts and Paree.”

My mother stood up. “You do it, honey. You find someone smart and funny and kindhearted and get married so I can make a fuss over the grandbabies.”

I saluted her with the wineglass. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good night. Sleep tight.”

“Good night, Ma.”

Iwaited until I heard the toilet flush and the faucets shut, and I listened to her walk across her bedroom and heard her robe drop on the floor, and I could even hear her quilt settle down upon her. I drank in a serious way, which I rarely do, until I thought I could sleep. I made to lay my glasses on the rickety nightstand and dropped them on the floor near my clothes. Close enough, I thought, and lay down and had to sit up immediately, my eyes seeming to float out of my head, my stomach rising and falling in great waves of gin and Merlot. Stubbing my toe on the bathroom door, I reached for the light switch and knocked over a water glass. I knew that broken glass lay all around me, although I couldn’t see it, and I toe-danced backward toward the bed, twirling and leaping to safety. I reached for my glasses, hiding on the blue rug near my jeans, and somehow rammed my balls into the pink-and-brown Billie Holiday lamp. I fell to the floor, hoping for no further damage and complete unconsciousness.

My naked mother ran into the room. I was curled up in a ball, I think, my ass at her feet. She knelt beside me and pulled up a handful of hair so she could get a better look at me. Her breasts swung down, half in, half out of the hallway’s dusty light.