September 1969 – Yale University
"Out of all the girls who could finally come here, how'd we get stuck with you?" the lean redhead snided. He bumped his loaded backpack higher up on his shoulder and then walked off. Angela barely saw his face, just the back of his slicked back hair and freshly laundered letter sweater huffing toward the quad.
23 floors above Madison Square Park, Angela now scootched her chin down into her giant turtleneck sweater, just as she had 14 years before. She felt the young man's derisive pronouncement hovering through time, warning unsuspecting men of her trickery.
"You're just a tease," had been looping through her head for the past two days. Her deepest fears of sexual inadequacy had been given a microphone and she couldn't turn it off. Michael was leaving sometime today – she didn't know when - and that had been his final word.
She kept seeing Michael's taut, furious back as he shoved through the swinging door, and all her efforts at restraint that night had somehow morphed in her mind from fighting off his passion, to not being adept enough to know what to do with it. Failure pressed down on her, and she shrank further into her itchy turtleneck.
It's so embarrassing! A private failure. The worst kind. Her husband's testimony carried weight.
This is the man who knows me this way, better than anyone ever has, and he's agreeing with guys who barely saw the surface. She felt as if she were finally being revealed as the sexual fraud she'd always feared she was.
I tried. I really did.
Still, Angela looked down at her slim body sitting at the desk, and saw her frilly dress outside her prom, the harsh office lighting mimicking the beams coming in from the window that night. She saw Kenny's better offer bouncing past her, and the white death of her own exhale in the dark.
Instantly, Angela felt cold, and hugged herself as she pressed her legs together. She saw herself sitting chilled on the floor of her sorority room, after she'd fallen down the stairs in front of Greg. She saw his panicked face in the car as he tried to let her down easy.
She saw Brian telling her naked self she could stay one more night in the room, if she wanted.
Angela went round and round with these judgements all day and the whole train ride home, and each time, she could find a Michael memory to punctuate it. Michael disgusted with her. Michael squeezing someone else. Michael leaving. Context didn't matter, only the evidence as it arose.
But by the time she was belting down the treadmill at the gym, Angela had grown tired of being pummeled, and her indignance had fought its way to the front.
Hey! It took everything in me to say, 'No,' that night! Enraged, she mentally itemized all the unladylike things she even still wanted to do to her husband. I've seen that man's eyes roll back into his head many a time, and I know precisely how to make it happen again. Scene after consummate scene came to mind just as fast had the self-pity and felt even better. Ending her run in a heaving, validating sprint, she yanked her water bottle off the floor and stormed toward the locker room.
Angela felt herself pinging from one extreme to another. Whether crushed or fuming, overall, she was antsy, desperately feeling the need to defend herself.
She felt rudely abrupt, but didn't linger at Wendy's when she picked up Jonathan. She needed to move and didn't want to talk. She had a dinner to pick up. She had to correct Jonathan's homework and get him to bed. She had her own files to look over and he own hair to blow-dry. And if she could do any of it without climbing the walls, she was going to consider it a productive evening.
Angela walked out of her bathroom that night, the tub filling behind her. She hung on her doorframe and yelled toward Jonathan's room. "Jonathan! Come get your bath!"
She thought she heard a grumble down the distant hallway.
"Jonathan!"
A much louder, more exasperated groan escaped his room, "I don't want a bath!"
Angela pinched the bridge of her nose. Stay calm. Stay calm.
She took a breath and walked toward his room. Leaning in, she looked down at her son playing Legos on the floor.
Through tight teeth, Angela held back an annihilation she knew he wasn't due, "Jonathan, go take your bath."
Her heart was still pounding from the reels her mind had been watching all day, and she was well aware that this speedbump, while unwelcome and unwarranted, wasn't really the issue. Besides, guilt feasted on her. She knew she hadn't been present tonight…a lot of nights.
"Whyyyyy?" he whined.
Standing up straight, Angela pointed stiffly toward her room.
Glaring up at her, Jonathan grabbed his bathrobe and stomped toward the tub. Angela closed her eyes, counting to ten. She opened them to look around at the mess before her. In addition to the pile of Legos he'd created by dumping the entire box onto the floor, dirty clothes, comics, reptile magazines, dinosaur toys, Matchbox cars, and an old balloon littered the scene. She turned to look at his desk, and there was a tiny snake coiled in a plastic terrarium.
"Ahhh!"
Angela bent down at the waist and stared in growing horror at the thing. She backed out of the room slowly, holding her breath, and closed the door in front of her.
"Jonathan!" she yelled, still staring at the doorknob.
"What?" his annoyed voice echoed from the bathroom.
She paced the hallway, now breathing heavily. How'd he get a- …she stopped and looked up.
Michael, she glared.
Well played, husband. Well played. …He must've given it to Jonathan when he took him out to say goodbye yesterday. He certainly wasn't wasting any words on me...
Ducking the hurt, Angela shook her head and slowed her breathing. She faced Jonathan's door, readying herself. Oh, yeah! She came back to now and turned her head toward her own room. "Oh, never mind!" she yelled.
She walked toward the door and steeled herself as she turned the knob. Poking her head in the room, she scoped out the intruder for a few seconds. It's just lying there... It's kind of small. I guess it's not that big of a de… Just then, it brought its head up and flickered its tongue.
"Ahh!" Angela screamed and shut his door in front of her again. Taking a moment to herself, she shuddered in disgust. Yuck!
She turned around to see a wet-haired Jonathan in his robe, looking at her with great pause. She smiled sheepishly and quickly stood up straight, wiping new sweat from her forehead.
"Are you okay?" he asked her cautiously.
"…Yes," she decided.
She tilted her head at him. That was the fastest bath ever taken… But she settled on another battle, "Um, hey, you need to clean your room."
At the first sign of his petulance, Angela put her hands in front of her. She didn't need a war tonight. "Not a big job. Just a little straightening up. I'll help you. Call me when you're done getting dressed."
Angela and Jonathan scooped up giant handfuls of Legos and dumped them into the bucket. The only sound in the room was the tinny clinking of the plastic bricks as they spilled onto each other. After they were done with that, Jonathan walked around his room collecting cars while Angela hefted the Legos into the closet. Angela watched her son as he went to the next task without being asked, gathering each dinosaur and placing it on his shelf. "You're really good at sorting and organizing, you know that?"
He looked up at her, "What?"
She ran her fingers over his hair and smiled at him. "You're good at organizing. Most people see a big mess, and they don't know what to do with it. They'll get stuck in one corner trying to sort everything and still stay sitting there. But you picked out one type of item to locate and took care of that. And look at all you picked up! You did a great job."
Jonathan looked around the room and smiled. "Thanks. Did you see my snake?"
Angela's breath caught, but she forced her voice through it. "I did!"
"Isn't he great? His name is Wilbur."
"A stately name, indeed," Angela tried.
Jonathan scrunched his face at her. "What?"
"Never mind. It's a good name."
Jonathan nodded, satisfied. "We found him at the playground and Daddy took me to the pet store to get him a box."
"What does he eat?"
"Oh, little insects and stuff… - he can eat a mouse, if he wants!"
"Oh, no he can't!" Angela made a point to slow her breathing again and cleared her throat. "I mean… he'll be just fine with the bugs."
Jonathan shrugged, "Okay."
"Alright, let's get these clothes picked up and then we can read."
He nodded and picked up some pants by his feet.
Angela unballed various wads of socks and tossed them into the hamper. She walked to the rocking chair to clear it for their reading time, and underneath a couple of stuffed animals was Michael's fisherman sweater.
The one he'd lent her in the desert, when she'd felt like all he'd ever wanted. The one he wore as he humbled himself in the park, effectively convincing her to give them another chance.
Angela leaned over and picked it up, feeling it between her fingers. She was tight and started to shake. Tears blurred her vision, but she didn't need it. She wasn't here anyway. So many emotions swirled around and through her. She was angry and hurt, dreamy and heartbroken. Nothing was what she'd wanted, and she still wanted him. She wanted him to be there. She wanted him to hold her and say nice things. She knew he could, he just wouldn't. She squeezed the sweater furiously in her hands and hugged it before she realized she was crying loudly. Dropping down in front of the chair, she bent over, wracking out huge sobs.
Quiet and still, Jonathan stepped up to her. He looked down at what she was holding and then got very close to her face. His round eyes stared openly at her for a few seconds, and then he asked, "Do you miss Daddy?"
Gasping into the present, Angela looked through her tears at her little son. Perfect honesty came out in nods and another round of sobs. Jonathan reached around her and hugged her shoulders. Humbly accepting his gift, Angela kept hold of the sweater as she hugged him snugly back.
Angela shimmied into Michael's sweater that night and snuck under her covers. I wonder if he's in the air yet? With all the layovers, it would take him at least a couple of days to get there. But she didn't even know when he'd left.
She wished she knew where he was, where he'd be. This was different than his other assignments. She didn't have a phone number for their camp. Michael, himself, had said he couldn't pin down where they'd be, when - even to get the scientists off his back. The Institute must have some information, but she was embarrassed he hadn't given it to her. She groaned inwardly. If I ask, I'm bringing people into our problems again.
When Michael was in the field, Angela had usually waited until it was convenient for him to call her, since he had more unpredictability on his end. But after the cathartic experience in Jonathan's room, she realized she was profoundly sad, and really wanted to talk to him. That doesn't go away just because I'm pissed.
Hugging herself, she felt the cable pattern in the wool on her arms. I wish things were different. I don't even know how I want them to be. I want Michael to be happy. But I want Jonathan and me to be happy, too. And we really, really aren't. …Jonathan. Our sweet boy. Gratitude filled her as she burrowed into her pillows. Closing her eyes, Angela smiled as she cried.
