Part VII – Won't/Be/Forever

We woke to organ music, coming quietly from a radio downstairs. It was Sunday morning, and light streamed into the windows of our honeymoon suite like a gentle supernova – Helga sat up beside me, her mussed hair shining in a halo of random strands around her face. She looked at me, her eyes thick with sleep, and blinked.

            " What?" she said, squinting at me. I yawned and stretched my arms over my head, wishing we could go back to sleep – but we had a checkout time – another couple would be coming through, preforming our motions, though perhaps less inspired.

            " I didn't say anything," I said, reaching for her. She shook her head.

            " I know –" she said, curling against my side, " Its just – I wake and you're – I don't know. It prompts: What?"

            " Shut up, Helga," I said, finally, pulling her into a kiss. She gave me an aggrivated look, then gave in. I wanted her to feel comfortable with me, though. Not amazed, or shocked, or anything but comfortable. We broke our kiss and looked at each other, grinning smartly. We felt like we'd beaten some invisible odds.

            " Let's go home, huh?" I said, smoothing her hair. She nodded.

            " I've got a lot of explaining to do," she said, referring to her still clueless parents. We both rolled out of bed and got dressed, and went downstairs to check out at the old lady's front desk. She turned down her church music and reguarded us with some seriousness.

            " Good luck," she said, her eyes narrowing a bit. She seemed to be searching for more prolific words – but when they didn't come, we just waved goodbye, thanked her, and left.

            It was the brightest daylight we'd ever seen. Outside of the city – even if it was the suburbs and not the country – we felt like we could breathe. We rolled all the windows down when we drove home, Helga sitting back in her movie star sunglasses, me at the wheel. The husband and the wife – every move she made was half mine now – she was my wife in the passenger seat, my baby growing inside her. It made me want to cry with something that was happiness and disbelief. But I only smiled, only reached over to squeeze her hand.

            " What will we do now?" she asked as the city's gray, mammoth buildings appeared again on the horizon.

            " We'll take the bridge back to Brooklyn," I stalled, knowing, of course, what she really meant. She sighed and looked out the window. Coming up on the Hudson River, we saw it sparkle as if non-polluted – from a distance, it looked even pristine, in this light.

            " I mean, where will we go?" she asked. " After I tell my parents – will we live in the boarding house?" She didn't sound thrilled about the idea.

            " I have a big room," I said, " It won't be forever."

            Boy, was I right about that. We reached Helga's brownstone too soon – it would be the last time we saw each other on good terms. She looked up at her house, then back at me – we'd played this scene before.

            " Do you want me to come with you?" I asked, and she shook her head violently.

            " No, God, that would make it a thousand times harder," she said, surprising me, " Bob would – no, just – wait on that one."

            " Alright," I said, reaching toward her as she climbed out of the car. " Hey," I said, " We don't even have . . . rings."

            She looked at me earnestly, kicking the pavement with her toe and leaning back into the car.

            " When we die," she said, " They can cut us open and count our rings." I made a face, and she grinned, pleased: " Its from a poem," she said, her cheeks growing pink. " We don't need rings. We've got them, on the inside. Fuck symbolism."

            With that, she slammed her door shut, gave me a wave, and dissapeared into the brownstone. Her last words to my face in kindness: Fuck symbolism. Fuck it, indeed.

I drove home, worrying only for her parents' reaction to the news, wondering what Grandpa had been talking about yesterday when he said he had something for me. I parked the car on the curb outside, and felt my heart rate increase as I approached the brownstone. Without even meaning to, I had been the perfect grandson all my life. Good grades. No drugs, little drinking. No violent rebellions or even artful angst.

            And now this?

            I didn't want to be ashamed of what Helga and I had done – our marriage, our decision to make a life together. But behind it there was that first act. Something dark moved through me – would it always be there, our beginning as a mistake? I pushed the thought away. What was any turn in life but a mistake of some sort? Hadn't my parents done the right thing – taken the righteous path, followed their humanitarian goodness to the ends of the earth – and wouldn't they take it back in an instant if they had the chance? There were no right decisions, I decided, climbing the stairs, there was only where you landed.

            Thinking of it this way – of my parents 'landing' somewhere – made me say a silent prayer for them. Or, it was less a prayer – more of an appeal. Where are you? I whispered soundlessly from the pit of my stomach. My eyes focused on the wood grain of the boarding house's door – they would have closed it when they left me. I put my hand on the doorknob and thought of my father's sliding off of it as he turned to go.

            The silent street behind me and the glare of the sky above remained silent on the subject of their whereabouts. There were no signs, I'd come to learn, to accept. There would not be a gust of wind at my back or a pidgeon landing on my shoulder.

            But I sure as hell wished they were there then, not to tell me that I was doing the right thing – I knew I was; it wasn't the sort of thing you did without first knowing. But to tell me that everything would be okay.

            I opened the door.

            The boarding house was quiet; a rare phenomena. I walked through the foyer and heard the scrape of a coffee mug across the counter in the kitchen, froze.

            " Grandpa?" I called. My voice was small – I felt like a child. I knew that then and always I would be one to him.

            " Come on in, short man," he called. I followed his voice into the dirty little kitchen. Would my parents have been happy here, I couldn't help but wonder as I walked in and looked around. The coat of dust on top of the small refridgerator caught my eye.

            Grandpa was sitting at the counter, holding his coffee cup but not drinking. The steam from the mug crept up to his face – so wrinkled now that pictures of himself as a young man felt like those of a stranger even to him. He was old, and tired, but carried on with a spring in his step – for my sake, I suddenly saw. He knew I needed him.

            The dingy floor – not tile, not formica – I couldn't think of the word. The ant-ridden cat food bowls by the door. The flimsey curtains over the window, with their mysterious yellow spots.

            " Arnold," I heard my grandfather say over the growing buzz in my ears. " Sit down and talk to me for a minute."

            My ass found the chair but my eyes were everywhere – the gaping marks on the ceiling that showed the leaky upstairs bathroom's damage. The too-loud hiss of the broken radiator – my grandfather's high-waisted pants, the view from the kitchen window of the dirty brick building next door. They would have hated it here. They had come from jungles, from ruby sunsets and thundering waterfalls – the beautiful views! They would have sipped coffee on montaintops. I looked at my grandfather's own cup, the steam waning slowly.

            " Arnold," he said, placing a weathered old hand over mine. " I just want to make sure you know what you're doing."

            Even with the roar of the plane that took them away, it wouldn't have hit them. No, they had me to distract them. But oh, when they stepped through the door. And the stink of the traffic – everyday the same smells, but they still caught you off guard sometimes. The people arguing over coupons at the supermarket – God, they had saved lives! They had walked over ancient ruins!

            " Do you know what you're doing, son?" grandpa asked again when I didn't respond.

            Tears came to my eyes as it washed over me. I had to forgive them. What they had known – and to resolve to this, for me. The very color of the thin carpets in the hall – it was unnatural, it wasn't meant for them. Yes, they would have had had more than a moment's hesitation at leaving me. But what would have pushed them over the edge was not what they were aiming for when they left, but the place they were leaving. In their minds they were already halfway out the door. Coming back a second time would have been harder, too hard.

            " I'm staying behind," I told him, my voice hollow. I looked up at him and let him see me cry for the first time since I was ten years old.

            " Arnold," my grandfather said, squeezing my hand.

            " They left me," I cried, the realization like a kick in the gut. I'd always thought that my parents had been taken away from me – by their sense of responsibility, so unflinching in myself for years – I had clung to it as an absolute truth, because it was the only thing that made sense – the only thing that could have wrenched them from me. If it wasn't real, if it wasn't the one thing to live by, then why had they left? What other reason could there have been?

            The reason was all around me, suddenly. What cradled me as my home had suffocated them. I saw my mother. Her ghost, or my vision of her – sitting across the kitchen, at the table. In a green dress. Staring down at her hands.

            Catalouging the things she had once done with the same hands. Plugged a wound. Saved some lives. Yes, one she'd made a difference. And now her son crying in the next room – wasn't it the same? Why didn't it feel the same?

            " You can't think of it that way, Arnold," my grandfather admonished softly. " It wasn't that easy for them. They had an obligation to help those people."

            He doesn't know, I realized, a weight dropping into my stomach. He didn't know what was suddenly obvious to me. My poor mother stood up at the table and looked at me, her giant, green eyes pleading.

            My darling we try everyday.

            Her voice was in my ears, but the image I saw of her was still; her lips didn't move.

            Everyday we get up and say this is the day we fly home.

            Grandpa started talking to me about the future – the economy?

            But then we say First we'll make breakfast.

            He told me, in the midst of my mother's breathless apology, that the government had been giving him money to help raise me since my parents had been declared legally dead.

            Then we say, We'll have a bath before we get dressed.

            It wasn't much, he said.

            Well, we want to look nice for you. Everyday we think: We'll want to look nice.

            But he'd been putting it away, scrapping by with a little less to try and save it up.

            And you've never had a bath in a lagoon, have you?

            He said he thought he had close to forty thousand dollars saved.

            Its incredible. So we take our time – it always leads to love-making.

            A lousy consolation for losing your son, he said, but the government did what they could.

            How many parents of eighteen year old children can say they still make love everyday?

            Arnold, he said, I wanted you to go to college.

            Then we come out of our spell. I look up at the sky and trace the lines of latitude overhead back to you.

            Maybe you still could?

            They are supposed to be invisible, but I can see them. I see you in them, waiting for us.

            Either way, my grandfather said, I know you'll have a great life.

            For the rest of the day we say We'll go tommorow.

            Grandpa told me that he'd leave the boarding house to me, but he'd understand if I wanted to stake out elsewhere.

            But the sunsets are so beautiful.

            Because I had my father's blood in me – You'll want adventure, he said.

            Arnold, we try everyday.

            She faded, and I looked to my grandfather. His eyes were sad, but strangely hopeful. I saw in him, suddenly, what I'd been looking for – the promise that everything would be okay.

            " Grandpa," I said, snapping out of my trance, wiping my nose. " They gave that money to you, to help you out while you were raising me. Its not my money – its yours."

            He gave me a look.

            " Arnold," he said, " I'm glad to hear you're still a do-gooder, son, I really am. But this is taking it a little too far – I'm an old man! What am I going to do with all that money? I've lived my life, Arnold. As far as I'm concerned, that money belongs to you."

            " I just don't want you to suffer for – something that I've done," I said, rubbing my hands over my face. " You've already given up your whole life to raise me."

            " Oh, c'mon!" he said, laughing. " I gave up nothing! Think of how bored Pookie and I would have been without you here. A little youth in the house was good for us both – and anyhow, you were such a good kid, its not like we had much to do, 'cept feeding you!"

            " Well," I said, " I just don't want you to feel like you have to rescue me. I'm trying to . . . take responsibility on my own."

            " Arnold, I would have given you the money anyway," he said, " I was always planning on it." I wasn't sure if I believed him, but slowly it began to dawn on me – forty thousand dollars.

In the big scheme of things it wasn't a lot of money, but it was a place to start. Money to rent an apartment – our own place, and we'd buy our own dishes and our own sofa and everything would be brand new and ours . . . my head started filling with visions: Helga and I dragging a  Christmas tree through the door at the end of the year, me fussing over her, because her stomach would be huge then. She'd tell me she was fine, and stand back while I adjusted the tree into its holder. It would fall on my head, I would curse. We would laugh, and at the end of the night, like every night, we would climb into bed together – our own bed with our own sheets. I imagined mattress shopping with Helga – my foot started tapping under the table with excitement.

            " Grandpa," I said, hopping up and putting my arms around his bony shoulders. He chuckled and returned my hug, patting my back.

            " You're going to do just fine, Arnold," he assured me. " I know you're young, but Pookie and I were even younger when we got married. Barely your age when we had your Dad, and he turned out just fine. It will be hard, but you're such a good kid. I know you'll be a great father."

            I felt a tear slide down my cheek – it was one of the few times I'd spoken with my grandfather when he hadn't tried to cover his emotions with jokes. We released each other and he sat back, placed a hand on his bony knee.

            " Well," he said, " Where's the bride?"

            " Heh," I wiped my eyes, " She went home to tell her parents that we got married."

            " Oh boy," Grandpa said, drinking from his coffee. " So she's . . . in the family way, you say?"

            My cheeks burned red. " Yep." And then, " I'm sorry."

            " Well, Arnold," he said with a sigh, equally embarrassed, " You . . . love her?"

            " I love her so much," I gushed, and I realized then that it hadn't fully washed over me until that moment. I wanted her with me, immediately – she was my wife, and I didn't want to be apart from her anymore. My leg continued tapping anxiously under the table – I wondered how soon I could call her. Grandpa smiled, and in his face I saw his forgiveness. He'd never asked me to be perfect. I'd just done it anyway – and the release of him, my perfect self, felt vindicating.

            I left the kitchen, my mind buzzing with what felt like the endless possibilities of the money Grandpa had promised. Helga had said we didn't need rings – well, she was probably just trying to make a poor dope feel better about his empty pockets. But now! I thought, I would buy her the biggest diamond I could find.

            I wanted to call her, but was afraid she'd still be in the midst of her conversation with Big Bob and Miriam, the admitting that had gone so well for me. I prayed that they didn't chastise her – I wasn't sure if she could recover from another of their assaults. At the same time I hoped they at least reacted – if they brushed her off, if they continued to ignore her, it would sting her just as badly.

            I took a hot bath, soaked in the water and stared up at the tiny bathroom window. Shutting my eyes and resting my head on the edge of the tub, I tried to relax, but I was too excited, and nervous at the same time. I could feel the fragility of the beginning of our new life – I wanted to have Helga in my arms, I knew if we were together nothing could stop us. Being apart felt dangerous.

            When I climbed out of the tub I was contemplating whether or not it was too soon to call her, and the phone rang before I could decide. Grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist, I ran out into the hall and grabbed it on the first ring.

            I meant to say 'hello,' but it came out, " Helga?"

            " Yes," she said, giggling. " How'd you know?"

            " I don't know," I said, exhaling in relief when I heard her happy tone, " Come over," I begged, " Come over right now, I miss you."

            She laughed. " Already?"

            " Helga," I said, " I have some great news. But first – did you tell them?"    

            " Yes," she said plainly, " Arnold, its going to be okay. It really is."

            " I know, I know," I said, twisting my arm up in the phone cord like a nervous school girl, " I can hardly believe it, but I think you're right."

            " Bob and Miriam – I should have known how they'd react," she said with a scoff, " Naturally they're thrilled to have me off their hands – Bob is a little pissed that I'm not going to college, and very pissed that I'm pregnant, but its like the fact that I got married makes up for all of it – they've got someone else to pass me off to."

            " Helga . . ."

            " And the best part," she said, genuinely satisfied with this reaction from her parents, somehow, " Is that he's giving me the money he had set aside for my college tuition. Just for the first year, but still – its twenty thousand dollars, Arnold!"

            " My grandfather gave me forty thousand," I gushed without preamble.

            " What?"

            " Yep," I said, " He's been saving it since my parents – well." That wound was still fresh.     

            " Holy hell!" she said in a belly laugh, " What are we going to do with all of this money?"

            " Take care of our baby," I answered with the obvious, " She's going to have everything."

            " Or he," Helga contested, " I think it's a boy."

            " How do you know?" I asked, grinning into the phone.

            " I don't know," she said, " Arnold, I love you." We both giggled – over the phone, neither of us had the inhibitions that sometimes surfaced in person, and it slipped out easily and sweetly.

            " Come over," I pleaded again, " Will you?"          

            " Oh, not tonight," she said, " Olga and I are supposed to have 'bonding time,' or something."

            " What do you mean?" I felt somewhat dejected – she was my wife, and I wanted her with me.

            She sighed. " She's visiting, naturally," she told me, " And when I told her about everything that happened she burst into tears and insisted that we spend the night together, junior high sleepover style with s'mores and nail polish and everything. She wants to hear the story of my life. She says we don't really 'know' each other."

            " Well," I said, " Maybe it's a good idea."

            " I'm dreading it," she muttered, " But I don't want to step out of line and offend princess First Born, or they might yank the cash back from me."

            " That's noble," I said, laughing.

            " It is, if you think of the money in terms of formula and diapers," she rationalized.

            " Maybe you and your sister will finally make peace," I said, trying to optimistic, though something about her spending the night away from me seemed fundamentally wrong.

            " I don't think she ever realized we were at odds with each other," she said with a sardonic chuckle. " But hey, let's go in for that sonogram tommorow. See how he's grown?"

            " I'll come get you at the crack of dawn," I promised, " We'll be the first ones in."

            " Actually," she said, her voice demuring a bit, " I kind of have this . . . fantasy."

            " Yeah?" I said, my face flushing.

            " Yeah," she answered, " For the longest time I've wanted to . . . well. Sneak into your room in and climb under the covers with you while you were asleep. Even when I was a kid, before I wanted sex, before I even knew what it was. I just wanted to lie beside you. I just wanted to walk right in and not be afraid that you'd reject me."

            " God, Helga," I said, " I want you to lie next to me every night –"

            " I know, I know," she said, " We're together know – hard as it still is for me to believe – and I know I'm welcome to it. But . . . this one last time, I just want to live out the fantasy, in your childhood room, the one I always dreamed of walking into. Can I come over tommorow morning? Can I climb into bed and wake you up?"

            " Of course you can," I said, " I'll tell Grandpa you're coming over early, and have him let you in."

            " Oh, that won't be quite as romantic," she joked, " I was hoping to climb through a window. But I suppose it'll do."

            After we hung up I wondered if I'd be able to sleep – it was strange, but I couldn't wait to feel her in my arms again – to wake up and find her crawling under the covers, snuggling against me. When I climbed into bed at the end of the night, I felt empty, wishing for her warm body to be pressed against mine again.

            " Helga," I moaned into my pillow. I knew I was being a pathetic moron – she'd be there in five or six hours; she'd promised to come early. But I knew, partly, even then. I knew something was about to go wrong. I slept fitfully, dreamt of her, walking ahead of me with our baby in her arms. I kept calling for her, in the dream, asking her to wait for me. She wouldn't stop. I dreamt also of my parents, sitting in a grass hut communing with the natives. I saw the sadness in their eyes, the apology. I turned away from them.

            When I woke up soft blue light was streaming through my skylights. Before I even opened my eyes I felt something stir in the room, and was automatically alarmed. Then I remembered Helga's promise to show up early and slide against my skin – I wondered, still cold and alone in bed, why she'd hesitated. I searched the room for her, and found a woman's form standing near the door. My lips started to turn into a smile.

            I still remember halting, pausing – my whole body froze when my eyes focused on the figure by the door.

            Ruth. Ruth McDougal was standing in my room.

            Grinning.