Lydia Kiesling - The Golden State

“Hello,” I say to Alice in a whisper and she cranes her head around to see me, smiling faintly. “This little one was very tired,” she says. “I can’t believe how long I slept.” I raise my hands in an odd rueful gesture and let them drop limply. “Has she been putting you through the wringer?”

“Not too badly,” she says. “We read stories”—pointing to the pile of books on the floor—“and we learned nose eyes mouth fingers toes and we went for a walk around the front of the house.” What, I think to myself. How. She looks me up and down. “We walked very slowly” and I nod.

“Are you better now?” she asks.

“I feel more like a human being,” I say. “Thank you so much for doing this, you really don’t know what it means.”

“I know what it means,” she says. “Didn’t I tell you I had three small children and no husband to help me?”

I want to ask what happened to her husband but I feel very raw and tender and wish to spare myself further bad information for just a little longer. So I just say “You’re an amazing woman,” which seems likely to be true even apart from the amazing favor she has done me by coming here to care for the child of a potentially dead stranger. Her hand holds one of Honey’s hands; Honey’s other hand is flung out and dangling off Alice’s knees.

“I made some tuna fish if your stomach can take it,” she says, and behold there is a sandwich on the kitchen table with a little pile of chips next to it.

“Bless you,” I say. I pour myself some coffee from the pot and take the coffee and the plate gingerly over to my grandfather’s La-Z-Boy, facing Alice on the couch.

“Why isn’t your husband here?” she asks me. I sip the coffee and it’s thin but it’s coffee.

“After Honey was born and much agonizing we decided he should finish his certificate in video postproduction so that his employment prospects would be better, and it was going to be cheaper and easier to do it in Turkey, so he went back to Turkey for what was supposed to be a total of six months, but when he came back to see us midway through, under sinister and it turns out illegal pressure he was made to relinquish his green card at the San Francisco International Airport and go back to Turkey and is now waiting indefinitely to obtain a new one, a process which has been slowed by bureaucratic incompetence.”

“That sounds bad,” she says.

“It is bad,” I say.

“How long has he been gone?”

“Eight months, more or less.” When I say the amount of time I am struck anew by its longness, it’s an amount of time that if he had left me for example and was not hanging out on his mom’s couch in Kadıköy would mean it was time for me to move on find closure start trying to make a new life. As it is I am getting the distinct impression from Meredith and Hugo and everyone at work that they think he is an imaginary man, or at least one who isn’t planning to come home, which is really rotten of them.

“And you’re on your own with the baby.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not easy.”

“No.”

“But you earn your own living.”

“Well, I was. I guess I still am. I’m not sure, actually. I walked out of my office a few days ago and I know I’ve got to go back but I just can’t stomach it for some reason.”

“Must be why you drank so much.” I laugh. “I guess so.”

“And the house?” She looks around and I follow her face, trying to see it as it is, and noting how odd it is that neither Mom nor Rodney nor I ever found it within ourselves to change a single thing about its interior, to divest it of any of its furnishings, dismantle the world that my grandma made.

“Ah, yes, this is my house, technically.” I wave my hand around the expanse of the living-dining room. I catch a glimpse of my pale arm in the reflective glass of my grandmother’s hutch housing her milk glass treasures.

“My grandparents lived here and left it to my mom and she left it to me. It’s been for sale for years but no one seems to want it. How long has Honey been like that?” I gesture at the sleeping cherub.

“Only about twenty minutes.”

“We can move her into the crib if you want.” Alice looks wounded by this. “I mean, only if you wanted to be on your way,” I say. “I’d love for you to stay forever!” I say brightly, just to make sure she doesn’t think I’m trying to get her to go. I desperately do not want her to go.

“I don’t have anywhere to be,” she says.

“I’m really sorry to impose further but do you think it would be okay if I took a shower?” I venture, and she says “Go ahead.” I creep slowly back to the bathroom. First, brush teeth, I think. Clear away the scum so you can think clearly.

I come out of the bathroom feeling as fresh as can be given the circumstances, some of the badness washed down the drain and I find a clean white Engin T-shirt and look sorrowfully at my aching eyebrow. Honey is still asleep, the woman must be a witch.

“Thank you,” I say again, running out of ways to say it. I bring her a glass of water which she accepts and sips and I sit back in the La-Z-Boy. “So what’s your plan?” I ask.

“I’m trying to get to a place called Camp Cooville, that’s where my husband was. It isn’t very far, somewhere over the Oregon border. I’ve been there before, I think I told you. We always wanted to get back sometime after the war but never got to it.” A fly buzzes against the window, trapped between the glass and the tweedy beige curtains.

“When are you going to go?”

“I should think the next few days. I’ve been trying to get up my strength a little. I thought maybe if I ate some real food instead of the hundred pounds of banana bread Yarrow made me bring.”

“Ha!” I say. “You’ve come to the wrong place for that.”

“I like the Mexican place,” she says. “I can’t say I care for the Golden Spike.”

“Yeah, we’re maxed out there, I think.”

“The fellow at my motel says you can get a prime rib dinner at a place called Antelope Pines.” The site of the ratty swing set and the man-made lake.

“That’s right. Antelope Meadows. I forgot about them,” I say. “They have an ice cream bar. I mean it’s just a machine but they have a variety of toppings to go on the ice cream.”

Normally when I am interacting with a stranger I want it to be over by a certain point so that I can avoid the inevitable moment of giving or taking offense or feeling bored or boring someone else but it feels so unexpectedly nice to “visit with” someone as my grandmother would have said and to have someone else smooth my child’s hair while she miraculously sleeps in a lap that I try to prolong it.

“We could go for dinner,” I venture. “If you aren’t busy. I mean I don’t want to impose,” which I realize I’ve already said. “I’d just like to buy you dinner or something to say thank you for coming this morning and taking care of us.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay,” I say.

“I’ll have to have a nap myself,” she says, looking down at Honey. “I guess I’ll go after this one wakes up and then we can go early, say about five.”

“That sounds perfect,” I say. “Would you like me to bring you a newspaper or something? I have yesterday’s.”

“That might be nice,” she says, and I bring her the paper and I get Jurassic Park but the sentences make my head spin so I just curl up and kind of stare into space and remember that Engin will want to know where we are and why we haven’t Skyped yet.

“I have to go outside where I get a signal and try to call my husband,” I tell Alice, and she nods, and I surreptitiously get the cigarettes and the lighter from the cupboard and head outside to the deck corner and try Engin on a voice call. He answers right away and the first thing he says is “What’s going on?” and I say “I tripped and fell,” pointing to my forehead even though there’s no video. “I hurt my eyebrow pretty badly.” Then I wonder why I told him this since it will just make him worry.