Rachel Cantor - Good on Paper

This is supposed to make me feel sympathetic? I asked.

He’s trying to apologize, Benny said.

Confession, contrition, reparation, change —it didn’t seem enough anymore.

You tell him he comes anywhere near Andi, I’ll have him thrown in jail.

I don’t want to be your intermediary, Shira. You need to talk to him.

Never, I said.

When I explained to Andi that Ahmad wouldn’t be living with us any more, she pounded me with her good fist.

You shouldn’t have hit him! she wailed. He’d be here still if you hadn’t hit him!

I tried to hold her, but she kicked my shins.

It’s not fair! she cried. You can see him anytime you want!

When I told Andi that Ahmad wasn’t her real father, that her real father lived in India, she screamed at me: Liar! Ahmad’s my real father!

At her birthday party, she picked at the cake. At night, she cried. When I asked what was wrong, she said, Nothing, her face smothered in tears. You’re waking me up, you know that?

I thought I heard … something, I’d say, helplessly. Right, I’d say then to her silence. If you need me, I’m just down the hall.

I know that, she’d mutter. I’m not stupid.

I crept into her room when she was at school, to smell her Andi pillow, and stare at her Observations Notebook ( Do Not Tuch!! ), which she kept, though its edges were frayed, the koala on the front smudged. I picked it up once, opened the front cover, went no farther. Did she know I’d done this? I was sure she did, I was sure my guilt followed me, left tracks wherever I went.

She came home with a note: Her school was doing Career Days. Could one of Andi’s parents attend?

I want Ahmad, she said. Everyone’s doing a dad. Except Martina. Martina’s dad’s in jail. She doesn’t have anyone else to ask.

What about her mom? I asked.

She doesn’t do anything. Not like Ahmad. Ahmad knows the forty-first president! He was nominated for a Noble Prize.

Nobel .

Pammy’s dad’s got a bald spot, Andi said. And he was a Good Humor Man.

Almost as good as knowing a thief conman president, I said. And not quite winning a prize. I’ll go. I’ll be happy to.

Forget it, Andi said. Forget I said anything.

I tried to seduce her with stories, metamorphoses plucked from her wall. To convince her change was good. ( No change, thanks. I’m fine the way I am .) Never mind that for Ovid, metamorphosis is at best a consolation prize, meager compensation for what’s been lost.

Go away, she’d say, I’m trying to sleep.

Not till I tell you a story.

I’m too tired for stories. I hate your stories. Your stories are stupid!

I absorbed her anger, breathed in her rage, allowed it to settle inside me, accepting it as her gift to me, and holding it there, as my gift to her; I’d learned this from Benny. Someday, I hoped, her anger would spend itself. If not, I’d still be there — I hoped.

I skipped the story of Niobe, her fourteen children sacrificed, and Phaethon, who flew his father’s flaming chariot into the ground; I talked instead about Perseus, his flying sandals, the hero Heracles, whose bravery earned him a spot in the gods’ Greek heaven.

With Aunt Emma? my baby asked.

What?

In heaven with Emma. Emma’s in heaven, right?

Who said Emma’s in heaven? Emma’s not dead.

You told my Enrichment Facilitator she was.

Shit .

She told you that?

We sat in a Healing Circle. I had to Share Memories. Only I didn’t have any.

What did you do? I asked.

I made something up. I said she took me to the park. And bought me things.

Your Aunt Emma isn’t dead. I told your teacher a fib. It was wrong of me to do that.

If she’s not dead, can I see her?

I don’t know. (Maybe I made a face.)

Of course, Andi said, rolling away. Forget I asked.

What I mean is, she lives far away, but why don’t we invite her for a visit?

Why don’t you finish your stupid story?

•

My translation lay in medias res, preserved in the study like a crime scene, the pages in fact piling up: I wouldn’t go in there but I could hear the fax machine churning. I imagined pages spilling like so much wasted seed, Romei’s love’s labor lost. Did he know I wouldn’t read what he sent? He couldn’t: Benny promised he wouldn’t talk with him about me, but wasn’t I curious?

I am in no way curious, I said.

I did wonder when Romei would tire. Maybe when Esther died, but I couldn’t think about that, I couldn’t think about Esther — her small, ailing body. My anger, once pure and unsparing, had been diluted by moments of compassion, interest, affection, back when I thought her merely a character in Romei’s peculiar drama.

It wasn’t her idea, Benny said. It was all him.

He lied to me, he used me, he made a fool out of me.

He had to try, what choice did he have?

I put my fingers over his mouth, told him never to mention Romei’s name. And called Durlene from SuperTemps.

What are you looking for? she asked. The usual , I thought: love, companionship, the American Dream . The usual, I said, so she found me more of the same. Jobs stuffing envelopes, sitting in empty rooms waiting for the phone to ring, being paid by middle managers, always men, to listen to their fantasies of new life — as wildlife photographers, authors of best-selling novels drawn from the thinly disguised stories of their lives— I could tell you stories , they said, and invariably they did.

I temped in the Village. At lunch, I found myself walking to T.’s townhouse. The stunted tree I’d stood under in grad school had grown, but it was late-autumn bare and offered no protection. Still I stood under it, looking for T. through the blinds, arms crossed against my chest, shivering, waiting for light, movement, anything that might help me understand where I’d gone wrong. I’d spent years loving a man who didn’t love me back, I’d squeezed everything out of myself so I could love him — and why? Why had I done that to myself? Was it easier, loving someone I never saw and couldn’t have? I then spent years imagining love with someone I didn’t know, someone who was dead , for heaven’s sake, and wondering what if? What if I’d been different? What if instead of saving myself for T., I’d noticed Jonah, what if we’d become friends, what if I’d been open to loving him? It was too late for Jonah — was it too late for me?

The figures silhouetted against the blinds told me nothing I needed to know. A woman left the house once, holding a bicycle. She stood on the sidewalk a moment, tall and willowy — she could have been looking at me — then she was joined by a laughing child. They climbed onto their bikes and glided away. T.’s happy family, his happy life.

My child was not happy. Mornings, I tried to get her ready for school, Andi struggling all the while — I don’t want to wear that , it’s too tight, too ugly, too green, too stupid — I losing patience sometimes, saying things I didn’t mean. Andi would look at me, then, scowling and victorious— see , she seemed to say, see , this is who you really are!

After school, she read at People of the Book till I got home. Then I’d bring her to Joe’s or Nice Cream, get her anything she wanted; I didn’t worry about ruining her appetite, since she had none. When she asked, I lied and said Nate the panhandler had gone to the East Side where people were richer; when she asked if we could visit, I said, Sure, some day, and she rolled her eyes. When we got home, I cooked, and washed dishes, and tried to help her with her homework, though she said I knew nothing, what did I know about Eskimos, the hibernation of bears? She whispered with Ovidio, laughed at his jokes, jokes she wouldn’t translate but which caused her to laugh uproariously and look at me out of the corner of her eye.