“My son listens to the sea for a living, can you imagine?” Eleanor said to Mr. Mitch one day, back in the days when her husband Bert was still alive and they were at some lawyers’ event together.
“It’s actually a job!” Bert quipped. They had a good chuckle together over that one. Eleanor and Bert had a way of doing that, being funny together.
Maybe, when all this was over, Mr. Mitch could ask Byron about his latest project, about how the institute he works for is helping to map the seafloor. The oceans are a challenge, Mr. Mitch thinks. And what about a person’s life? How do you make a map of that? The borders people draw between themselves. The scars left along the ground of one’s heart. What will Byron have to say about that, once he and his sister have heard their mother’s message?
Homecoming
Benny lets herself into her mother’s house through the back door and stands in the kitchen, listening. She hears her mother’s voice, hears her own laughter, smells clove in the air, but sees only a dishcloth folded over a chair, two prescription pill bottles sitting on a counter. There’s no sign of Byron. She walks into the living room. It is silky with light, even at this hour. Her dad’s armchair is still there, the blue fabric nubby in spots where Bert Bennett once sat. The last time Benny saw him, he stood up from that chair, turned his back on her, and walked out of the room.
Hard to believe it was eight years ago.
Benny had been trying to explain herself. She’d sat down next to her father, though not without great embarrassment. After all, who wanted to have a talk with their parents about sex? Though this wasn’t only about the sex, that was the whole point. Benny had taken way too long to get around to this conversation and it had cost her, big-time.
Benny remembers running her hand back and forth over the crushed-velvet sofa that day, murmuring a compliment. Her mother had kept the seat encased in a plastic covering all those years that Benny and Byron were growing up and long after that. It was the first time that Benny had seen the sofa this way. She couldn’t get over the feel of it, how it could be so soft and ridgy at the same time.
“We just woke up one morning and realized we’re not going to live forever,” her mother said, touching the sofa. “It’s time we enjoyed it.” Benny smiled and petted her end of the seat like a stuffed toy. The sofa was still an ugly thing to look at, its brassy fibers glinting in the light, but just the feel of it under Benny’s fingers helped to calm her nerves as her father began to raise his voice.
When she was little, Ma and Dad used to tell her that she could be anything she wanted to be. But as she grew into a young woman, they began to say things like We made sacrifices so that you could have the best. Meaning, the best was what they envisioned for Benny, not what she wanted for herself. Meaning, the best was something that, apparently, Benny was not. Letting go of a scholarship at a prestigious university was not. Taking cooking and art classes instead was not. Working precarious jobs with the hope of opening a café was not. And Benny’s love life? That, most certainly, was not.
Benny walks over to the sofa now and sits down next to her father’s empty chair, placing a hand on the armrest. She leans in and sniffs at the tweedy upholstery, searching for a hint of the hair oil that her father used to use, that green, old-style stuff that could fuel a pickup truck. Benny would give anything now to have her parents here, sitting in their favorite chairs, even if it meant they might still have trouble understanding her.
Benny finds herself smiling, now, thinking of a different time in this room. Her mother, perching her rear on the arm of this sofa, watching MTV with teenaged Benny and her friends while Benny kept hoping Ma would remember she had grown-up things to do and scoot. Ma had always seemed different from the mothers of other kids. Super athletic, a bit of a math wiz, and yes, a fan of music videos. The whole music thing was something that Benny, in her thirteenth year, had found somewhat embarrassing. It seemed Ma was always doing things her way. Except when it came to Benny’s dad.
Benny’s phone is pinging. It’s Steve. He’s left a voice message. He’s heard the news. So sorry, he says, though he never knew her ma. He’s thinking, maybe they should get together, when Benny gets back to the East Coast. Steve’s voice is low and soft, and Benny feels the old stirring of the skin along her shins, just as she did the last time he called.
Benny and Steve. They’ve gone back and forth like this for years, now. Every time, Benny promises herself it’ll be the last. She never calls him back. But each time, there has come a moment when she’s finally answered Steve’s phone calls, when Steve has made her laugh, when she’s agreed to meet him.