you.” This is what I’ve wanted. I grip him tight. His T-shirt smells like dryer sheets from the fluff-and-fold we splurge on sometimes when we have money. But more than that. It smells like him. Daniel breaks the hug first to look me square in the eyes and I bite my lip to avoid a toothy grin.
“You had me going there for a moment,” he says. “The bit about Charles de Gaulle was a nice touch.”
Huh?
“Can you imagine if you ever did meet her and that’s what you asked?”
“I did meet her and that is what I asked.”
Daniel laughs. “Is Charles de Gaulle tall? Was he on the ball or off the wall? Did you two break bread on the National Mall? Tell me, Jackie, is the frog the opposite of small?”
I punch Daniel in the arm. Normally when I do this it’s meant to be playful. This time I’m not so sure. “I asked that for my mother. She used to talk about the presidential visit to Paris like she was there and not stuck in rural New York with three children under the age of ten. I knew she would love whatever the answer was. Oh! And there’s a whole story about the Mona Lisa that I can’t wait to tell her.”
“Your mother …” Daniel says.
“You may remember her. You’ve been introduced on numerous occasions.”
“Your mother, who has adored the Kennedys for most of her life.”
Oh, shit.
“Your Irish Catholic mother whom you wrote a not entirely flattering, although, to be fair, not entirely unflattering, book about? The one who named you Francis? The one who will have a book about her edited by Jackie Kennedy?”
At least he doesn’t say “fucking” this time.
And then it hits me. As frustrated as I have been with Daniel for not immediately getting it, there are layers to this bonanza that even I have yet to process. I’m still scooping my chip through the top layer of a fourteen-layer dip. There are thirteen more layers of mush and fattening sludge to get through before I reach the bottom. As I chew on that image I realize it’s a horrible metaphor—with each passing moment, I feel more like the dip, in another sense of the word.
“Come here.”
Daniel motions for me to step closer, but I’m frozen in place.
“Come. Here.”
I take two steps in his direction and he hugs me again, this time for real. “You really did this. You really met Jackie Kennedy.” He pauses, the truth now undeniable. He cups the back of my head, massaging my scalp.
“I thought you didn’t believe me.”
“I do now! It’s written all over your face. You bastard.” I can feel him smile, his cheek pressed against mine. “I’m so proud of you.”
He squeezes me even tighter.
“What’s more, I think this is a terrific marriage.”
“You don’t believe in marriage,” I say, halfheartedly. I’m hundreds of miles away.
“I don’t believe in monogamy and the subjugation of women, but I’m not so worried in this case.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“This could be a great creative marriage.” He leans back to see if I’m paying attention. “You’ve worked so hard. Been so disciplined. This is your moment. I’m really happy for you.” He musses my hair. “Seriously, though. How are you going to tell your mother?”
“I don’t know.” I’m certain the words fall out of my mouth, but in my head I just say Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, over and over again until my mind goes dark.
I wake to the sound of my mother crying. I grasp and find one of the buttons sewn on the mattress, the one that I cling to when I wake from nightmares of monsters grabbing my feet, but the button fails to provide familiar comfort for a simple reason—I’ve never heard my mother cry. Not like this. And it’s more frightening than any demon.
“Mom?” I call, but no one answers.
I study the contents of my bedroom in the morning light to distract myself. I can see my dresser and my toys and the needlepoint fire engine my grandmother stitched. The curtains flutter and float on the breeze sneaking in the open window. I know where I am and I know my name and that I am seven years old and I’m comforted by at least that much. Still, I feel apprehension, bordering on anxiety—what news could this crying possibly bring?
I look down under the bed like I always do to make sure it’s safe before planting my feet on the floor, and slowly slink out of my room. My mother is in the living room chair where my father usually sits, smoking a cigarette. She’s watching our small TV while clutching a mug, as she does in winter when she wants to warm her hands. The news people on the screen seem especially somber, more so than usual. The volume is low and I can’t make out their words, but their expressions need no interpretation.
“Mom.” I say it again, real quiet this time, in case I am not supposed to see this.
I fidget with the snaps on my pajama pants, grasping for an activity so that I’ll appear casual when I am eventually seen (and I will be seen). I count the seconds, as I somehow know they are the precious foundation of a future important memory; the more seconds I can count, the stronger the memory will be. There won’t be many. My mother has eyes on all sides of her head.
… nine … ten … eleven … twelve …
“You should be getting dressed for school.” Her head remains perfectly still, encased in a cloud of dancing smoke.
I remove my hand from the snaps of my pants and take a step closer, looking at the thick, brown carpet the entire time, imagining it a sea of mud. Or quicksand. I quickly lift my feet just to make sure I still can.
“Go on, Francis,” she says, encouraging me again to retreat, to get dressed, to leave. Sensing that I am not only disobeying her but am actually advancing, she sets her mug on the TV tray, ashes her cigarette, and wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands in a vain effort to transform this crying stranger back into the mother I know.
I place one foot in front of the other, carefully, deliberately, heels touching toes every time, each foot docking with the other before I attempt any further forward motion. I can smell the acrid smoke of my mother’s cigarette and I inhale it deeply, inhale her. Eventually I am beside her. I grasp the arm of the chair, afraid to reach out for her, afraid, given her strange trance, that she might dissolve into ash like her cigarette from even the faintest human touch.
“It’s Bobby.” She starts sobbing. I’m startled by how much sobbing looks like laughing. And by how the way she tucks her head into her arm makes her look like one of the preening swans that used to visit our duck pond. “They got him.” I wrack my brain trying to place this Bobby, and discern just how close he is to us. They got him? I’m not even sure what that means. Did a van pull up alongside him? Is he a cousin or a family friend? If they got him, were we somehow in danger of being snatched too?
I look closely and can spot where tears have dripped and stained the sleeves of the blouse that covers her spindly arms. I want to lick them, her tears, like our dog Casper did mine the night my hamster died. I remember how loved I felt in that singular moment, puppy lashings covering my salty face, both rough and soft like the finest-grained sandpaper from my father’s workshop; I want nothing more than for my mother to feel this loved too. But just as I work up the nerve and I can feel the smallest tip of tongue cross the threshold of my