Элисон Скотч - The Song Remains the Same

She hesitates, wondering if she can slip through with the lie. “Okay, yes, he did. I’m sorry,” she says, more irritated than sorry. “I just didn’t want to drag all of this stuff back up again. And besides, I promised Mom.”

You promised Mom? I start to say, until I think of my choice and my control over that choice, and I let it be. Of course she promised Mom. Mom, who was asserting her own control over things, too.

Anderson ignores us both, strides to the shelves, and pulls down the notebooks. He thunks one in front of me and it flops open, concealing the desk calendar entirely. I’ve been trying to pretend that it wasn’t there, avoid eye contact like an ex-boyfriend at a cocktail party. Nine-week doctor’s appointment. No, no, let’s not think of such things right now. I try to refocus instead on OFNS, at what I might unearth.

“So what are we looking at here?” he says, peering more closely at the pages.

“Um, this one is of his stuff from the late eighties.” Rory runs her finger over a laminated sheet. “Here, look, this one is of Mom. A sketch of that portrait in Mom’s dining room,” she says to me.

“Uh-uh,” I manage, gazing at the image but not really focused. Truth be told, even with the calendar out of sight, I’m distracted—that ex-boyfriend is hovering by the bar, and I’m spending more energy avoiding him than enjoying the party. Was I going to tell Peter? Was I going to keep it? These are the questions, in the whole lot of this mess, that no one else can answer for me.

“She looks young here,” Anderson says, “happy.”

“She was—at least the former. The latter was always more complicated with her. With them,” Rory offers, then shakes her head almost unconsciously. “Anyhoo, what’s that saying? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and all that.”

Freud, I think, remembering Liv. How much are we defined by our parents? How much is it possible to break free of that?

“Rory, can I ask you something?” I can’t stop thinking about that damn calendar, about that nine-week appointment. It’s a pox on me, a blunt-force trauma. What was I going to do? “I know that you told me back in the hospital that you didn’t know that I was pregnant…but…you didn’t know anything? There were no signs? No indications about…my plans?”

Both of their faces wash with alarm, and Anderson reaches for my shoulder as if to steady me, even though I’m seated.

“You don’t have to be overly concerned,” I say. “I just, well, I’m just wondering.”

“No, nothing,” Rory says, her face drooping. “I wish I’d known. I never would have sent you out to San Francisco.”

“Eight weeks pregnant didn’t make me an invalid,” I offer. “I would have gone anyway.” I think about it. “Actually, I did go anyway.”

“You told me, ” Anderson offers.

He leans against the desk in his brown cords and graphic tee like this is the most natural thing in the world. Like he’s delivering a line in one of his movies that will shift the tone of the scene entirely. And Rory and I, rightly so, play out the scene perfectly: double takes, popped eyes, then brows appropriately furrowed as if on cue.

“I did?” I say, just as Rory says, “She did?” and I can’t tell if she’s jealous or astonished. “I barely knew you.”

“Like I told you back in the hospital, we talked most of the flight. I tried to get you a vodka tonic, and that’s when you told me.” He drifts off, his face scrunching. “I think, honestly, you didn’t know what you were going to do. Or at least you didn’t offer me specifics. Which, I know, isn’t helpful, doesn’t really answer questions.”

“Did I sound excited about it?” I try to envision it, the idea of becoming a mother, even if it meant being a single mother. Yes, maybe.

“You know, I didn’t press it. I was half-drunk, and, well, it didn’t seem like the right thing to discuss with a stranger on a plane.”

“Or maybe it’s the perfect thing to discuss with a stranger on the plane. Maybe that’s why I told you in the first place.”

“Anyway,” Rory says, too sharply, “do you want to look through these or not?” She grabs for her phone and checks her messages once again. From her expression, clearly, still nothing from Hugh.

“Jesus Christ, take it down a notch,” I say, then assess her. “Are you okay? I mean, beyond…that?” I gesture to her phone.

“Okay, fine! Here’s the truth: you didn’t tell me you were pregnant because we weren’t speaking.” She sighs, runs her fingers through her greasy red hair, and sits atop the desk next to Anderson, a defeat. “I mean, we hadn’t spoken for a week or so before you left. I should have called you and made up. And of course if I knew that you were pregnant or knew that you were going to nearly die in a plane crash, of course I would have called you and made up. But…”

“But what?” I say.

“But, well, you were just so mean during that last fight. You were mean and said terrible things, and to be fair, I said terrible things of my own, and I just couldn’t forgive you like that, like snapping my fingers.”

I exhale, closing my eyes, wishing it all didn’t have to be, what? So difficult? Yes, why does it all have to be so difficult? So I make the choice—as Liv would say—to make it easier.

“I know that I should ask what I said, what we were fighting about, but…is it okay if I don’t?” I look up at my little sister, and she’s brokenhearted enough.

She angles herself and kisses the top of my head.

“It’s more than okay if we don’t.” Her voice catches. “I’m sorry that I didn’t know that you were pregnant. That you didn’t tell me even before we weren’t speaking. I should have, you should have. We should have made that space for each other. Sisters, you know? Always, before everything else.”

I reach up and run my hands over her pale cheeks. “Sisters. Always. Before everything else. I know that I can’t remember it, but I wish I’d told you, too.”

The first of the American Profiles installments airs two and a half weeks later at nine o’clock. This one, Jamie explained when he called from his new office at the studio, will be mostly background—reacquainting viewers with who I was before the crash, piquing their interest so that they sign up for the months-long journey that we’re asking them to take with us. We hadn’t shot much new footage as a consequence, which was perfectly fine with me. What I was interested in—and I’d made this much clear to him—was unraveling my story, uncovering the pieces like an archaeologist who may have to brave the elements to dig up what really matters. Google had filled in enough of the obvious stuff: about the rise of my father into the art community, and later, about his spiral into the demons that he never quite tamed. But what I needed now were the intangibles, the things that Google—and Liv’s file—can’t quantify. Who I was in the in-between spaces.

We’ve all huddled at our apartment for the airing. I call it the housewarming party for my new couch, the one I’d bought Labor Day Monday, and had paid the premium for rush delivery a few days later. It is oversize and angular, and yes, per my cliché, it is red—too modern, too large for the space, but damn if I don’t love it anyway. It’s something , I told Peter when he got home and eyed it and gaped, but smartly said nothing more. It’s something for my new start . So he nodded and kissed me hello, and then got himself a beer and sat down to break it in. The Salvation Army showed up and whisked the other one away, and I hoped, as I watched them stuff it out my front door, that maybe this could be symbolic: that they could truly usher out the old, wave in the new. I didn’t have too much else to hope for, so this seemed reasonable.