Tom Mendicino - Probation

“I worry about you too,” I say.

“Andy, I’m so glad you called.”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve said that.” I laugh. “I’m starting to think you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“Well, I was thinking of calling you anyway. I just…well…Andy, I’m pregnant.”

I barely hear the rest of the conversation. It’s a double celebration-a birthday and engagement party. Her fiancé is so sweet. He has a thirteen-year-old son. He’s so nervous about starting a new family. He’s this. He’s that. She knows I would like him.

I’m only half conscious of her voice. I’m more a detached observer, someone overhearing a conversation in a dream and recognizing a familiar voice responding with the polite niceties. I’m so happy for you. No one deserves to be happier. I know the baby’s going to be beautiful. Have you thought of any names?

“Andy, are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.”

I need to let her go, send her back into the kitchen, back to her new life.

“I’m glad I called.”

“It was a great birthday surprise.”

Not as great as the one you’ve given me.

“Andy?”

“Yeah.”

“You know this doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I’ll always love you. In some way.”

In some way. At long last, a level playing field. Now the love going both ways has qualifications, conditions.

She bursts out laughing. At first, I think she is mocking me. No. Someone has come up from behind and grabbed her by the waist. She giggles, says bye-bye, and hangs up the phone. And ninety-some miles to the north, the scene continues without me, the not-so-young lovers, still enchanted by the newness of their attraction, swaying to music that only they can hear, a favorite song, its lyrics known only to them.

Who wrote this ending to my story, the one that started on a night like this, hot and sticky, when I looked up to the constellations and instead saw my neighbor’s son stepping out of his underpants? The night that ended with me in the back of a squad car, too stunned to even cry? The Brothers Grimm have given her a knight in shining armor, a Prince Charming to rescue her, and a house full of people applauding her happily ever after. I’m not sure I like the way this has turned out, not that she doesn’t deserve the happiness a new life and a baby can bring her. I refill my glass and stroll barefoot out into the backyard, uneasy, consumed by a strange, unprecedented fit of jealousy, agitated by the only conclusion to be drawn from the life growing inside her.

Someone, someone who is not me, has stuck his fucking dick in her and got her pregnant.

You’re an idiot, I say out loud, pacing across the lawn. Did you expect her to remain untouched, unsoiled, shrouded in the veil of celibacy, faithful beyond the legal bonds of the marriage, until death did us part?

Yes, I admit, in a rare moment of honesty, too devastated by the knowledge that I’ve been completely and irrevocably replaced to have the strength to lie.

Her words aren’t explicit. But her body language, her moods, tell me, tell the world, what she can’t quite bring herself to say. She’s scared. Things aren’t going well. She’s not responding to the treatment as well as was hoped. She’s cranky, irritable, prone to snapping. Not at me. Never at me. She’s very careful how she handles me. Just yesterday she bit her tongue so sharply I’m sure she drew blood. A single harsh syllable managed to escape before she clamped down. The pitch, the tone of her voice, indicated criticism. Of what? My inattentive driving? My distracted grunts at the latest updates from Florida? The volume of the radio? The station? I turned off the music, cleared my throat, and asked a question about my niece Jennifer, defusing the tension, if only temporarily.

But today, I am sitting across from my mother, and the table between us feels as wide as the Sahara. I feel small, horrible actually, at my reaction when she hands a gift-wrapped box to me. My mother laughs, asking if I remember my father’s rule book for life. The three simple laws all men must obey. Of course I remember.

No jewelry but a watch.

Boxers, not briefs.

Men don’t wear sandals.

I’ve never broken a single one, even refusing to wear a wedding ring. Did him proud on that one. But the gift in the box meets rule one only by a technicality. Calling it a watch is like calling the mansions of Newport cottages. Functional is not a word I’d use to describe it. Uncomfortable, queasy actually, is how it makes me feel.

“You don’t like it.”

“No. Of course I do.”

“No. You sniffed it.”

“What?”

“You sniffed it. Ever since you were a little boy, I could always tell if you liked something by your face. If you didn’t like it, you sniffed. It always reminded me of a cat.”

“That’s not true.”

“Why are you arguing with me?”

“I’m not arguing with you.”

“It’s Mother’s Day and I’m your mother and no one knows you as well as I do.”

My counselor accuses me of describing my mother as if she were an ethereal spirit, rarely engaged, a benign, but remote, presence. He says I romanticize her, speaking of her like she’s Cinderella, content in her life of servitude. He says he senses conflict between us, deeper and more painful to admit than that with my father. Bullshit, I tell him.

No one knows you as well as I do.

It brings the blood rushing to my cheeks. I call the waiter over and order a drink, a real drink, muddy hundred-proof swill, no ice. And much to my surprise, my mother asks him to bring her another glass of wine, no, make that a highball please, with ginger ale, on the weak side. She takes a cigarette from the package and asks for an ashtray. It’s a nonsmoking section but some strange authority in her voice compels him to obey.

My mother, by Bette Davis.

I wish my counselor were here to witness this little scene. See, Matt. My mother’s not the Pollyanna you say I make her out to be. I know she’s not perfect. But why should I share that with you? Why should I give you the opportunity to pick her apart? She’s at least earned my loyalty, hasn’t she? She’s never done anything to hurt me. And I really resent you implying she has. All right, all right, I’m inferring that, you didn’t imply it. Thank you for correcting my word usage once again.

“Well, you’re wrong,” I inform her. “I love it.”

“Then why are you sniffing it?”

“I don’t know. It’s just…well, I don’t know. I mean, it’s Mother’s Day and I take you to dinner and give you a dozen roses and you drop five grand on a fucking watch.”

“Watch your language.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, it’s Mother’s Day and I’m allowed to do what I want and I wanted to celebrate being a mother.”

“What about Gina?”

“Taken care of. Diamond earrings.”

“Why are you doing this?”

She takes a deep drag on her cigarette and blows the smoke across the table, annoyed.

“You know why.”

No, Matt. You’re wrong. There’s no conflict between my mother and me. There can’t be. Just the opposite. It’s been her mission in life to protect me, keep me safe, and make sure the world has righted all the wrongs it has inflicted on me.

All that boy wants is to be with you. Why can’t you give him that?

That voice is so clear in my memory it’s as if I’m back in my bedroom, listening to my parents argue downstairs. That voice, quiet but persistent, insistent, repeated over and over, throughout my life. The voice of the iron fist in the velvet glove.

My mother, insisting she be put through to the commander of the Army base, persuading him to punish his vicious brat of a son for bloodying my mouth and calling me an unspeakable name.