Once Upon a Day (20 page)

And then my heart would throb—but not race—and I would want to throttle the voice in my head for even daring to suggest that any other man could ever compare to Stephen.

What other man could be as sensitive and intelligent? Taxicab driver though he was, I’d seen into his deeper nature and found that he had the soul of a poet and the mind of a scholar (if not the book collection). Of course he also had that musical voice and such interesting eyebrows and those remarkably perfect teeth.

He was also very kind, not only to Jimmy and me, but to the elderly people he insisted on picking up in his cab, charging them very little or nothing. Some of these people were older than Grandma when she died, but Stephen said they still liked to get out and see their families or go to the store or just sit on a bench in the park. When I asked how he knew their habits, he said he’d been picking them up for months. At first, it seemed odd that Stephen
barely spoke to them, and I would turn around from my position in the front, ready to make pleasant conversation, but then I discovered that many of them seemed to want to talk the entire trip, without interruption, and I decided that Stephen was really just being polite by listening.

He was in every way so very appealing. His only flaw was a tendency to limp a little when he was tired, but this only endeared him to me more. So many of my books had heroes with some flaw, often from an injury, sometimes from birth. Of course I couldn’t risk asking him the cause in his case, for fear of drawing attention to something I sensed he was sensitive about. Whatever the origin, I admired the way he pushed himself, since it was his weak right foot that he used to drive his taxicab. And even though he’d told me he wasn’t driving much now that I was staying with him—only picking up a few of these older people who he knew would have no other ride—still, he had to take me to the hospital and out to dinner and usually at least one more place: the Blockbuster or the mall (for additional modern clothes, which I’d become quite fond of), or the bookstore, where we were headed now.

I was seeking a book about love, though naturally I was a little shy about discussing that fact. The more I’d discovered how little I knew about modern life, the more concerned I’d become that I would not be able to judge what was normal in Stephen’s and my situation. Specifically, I wanted to know what was required of a woman. Was it possible that I was supposed to act first, not him?

I was almost certain he’d thought many times of kissing me. During our nightly television or movie, I would often turn to catch him staring at my lips. He watched my movements more closely each day, and when we would brush against each other, the look that would come over him was less embarrassment than expectation, as if he wanted me to do something, as if he couldn’t be content until I did. I worried that I was failing him in some essential way, especially after watching a television movie the night before, where the woman not only kissed the man first, but pushed him
against a wall and proceeded to pull off his shirt. It was all done with much laughter, and even Stephen laughed, so I knew my failure to find it funny was due to some deficiency of mine. I decided a book must be had.

The store Stephen took me to was three floors tall and so wide, I imagined they had every book that had ever been written in the world. While he was looking in the travel section, I went to the woman behind the counter and whispered what I was interested in. She pointed me to an entire wall of volumes on the topic, but a tall book jumped out at me at once:
Dating and Love for the Clueless.
The title intrigued me, as I already liked the word “clue” from reading mysteries. I found it very cheering that love might be like a mystery, and there would be clues I could discover that would add up to an easy solution of how to act around Stephen.

I managed to buy the book and have it safely installed in a bag before I went to locate him. When he asked what I’d bought, I told him I’d rather not say. Because of his impeccable manners, that was the end of the discussion.

When he showed me the book he was looking at, I felt the breath leave my body, but all at once, rather than gasp by gasp as it did during my attacks. The inscription under the photograph was “Malibu: Paradise on Earth,” and it did seem to be exactly that. The sun was setting, and the beach looked orange and pink, the blue water stretched as far as the eye could see. My first thought was that I could not imagine a place more different from where Father had settled us, because Tuma was rocky and brown and as forbidding as Malibu seemed welcoming. My second thought was that I really had seen this before, many, many times. It wasn’t that I remembered seeing it, but that I remembered what it felt like to see it. It felt like being embraced.

“I would like to buy this,” I said.

“There are other good ones on California.” Stephen started to reach for another book.

“Thank you, but no,” I said. “This one.”

We were back in his cab when he asked if I was all right. I told him yes, and then he started telling me about his own experience in California, a trip taken with two friends when he was in college. He told me he’d learned to surf, and explained what was involved. When I told him I couldn’t even swim, he said that if I was from Malibu, I had to be the only native in the history of the place who couldn’t surf or swim.

“Not the only native,” I said. “My brother would be another one, and surely there are people who are incapable of surfing or swimming due to handicaps or—”

“I’m exaggerating,” he said, and smiled. “Remember?”

“Yes, of course. Exaggeration is normal in all but the most serious conversations, and is often used for comic effect.” I smiled back. “I remember now.”

When we arrived at his apartment, Stephen used the small key to check his mailbox, as always, but then he handed an envelope to me. It was from the California Office of Vital Records. The certificate had finally arrived.

My hands were shaking a little, but I didn’t hesitate to open the envelope once we were inside the apartment. It was very thin, which was a good sign, I thought. Not too many women named Helena O’Brien who had been born in Missouri and married to a Charles and had died in 1984.

In fact, they claimed they couldn’t find even one.

“How can this be?” I said. “I don’t understand.”

“Maybe you have the year wrong.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Stephen sat down on the couch. We were supposed to watch the second half of another movie we’d started late last night:
They Might Be Giants.
I’d been looking forward to it, but now I wanted to talk to my father. Something about that Malibu photograph had made me anxious to talk to him anyway. Now I felt I didn’t have a choice.

I couldn’t call him (because of our unusual phone that wouldn’t
ring), but I could call Dr. Humphrey. We’d spoken nearly every day, and Father continued to improve. It was quite a relief, especially as it freed my mind to concentrate on my brother.

I told Dr. Humphrey that it was very important that my father call me. As luck would have it, Dr. Humphrey was already planning to see Father. It was still only eight o’clock in New Mexico. They had arranged to play a game of chess tonight.

“He really is feeling better,” I told Stephen. And then I was so happy at the idea of him inviting Dr. Humphrey in for chess that I started twirling around Stephen’s kitchen.

He smiled. “Do you still want to watch the movie?”

“Oh, I don’t think I can. My father will be calling soon.”

“The pause button,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes, right.” I smiled. “The pause button for videos, and you don’t watch the commercials on TV.”

I sat down on the couch and by the time the phone finally rang, I’d nearly forgotten about Father. This movie was so wonderful, easily my favorite of all we’d seen so far.

Stephen told me to answer. As I was walking to the phone, he said, “You might want to leave out the fact that you’re staying with your cab driver.”

I gave him a new gesture of which I was very fond. I’d learned it from television: the A-Okay. The gesture was made by connecting the thumb and the index finger to form a circle, while holding the other three fingers up. It apparently had many uses, ranging from a simple yes to any approval, general or specific, of something another person had done.

“Dorothea?” He sounded very far away.

“Oh Father! It is you. I’m so happy to hear your voice!”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, very.”

“Where are you? Dr. Humphrey said you located Jimmy in St. Louis. Are you staying in a hotel there?”

He sounded so worried and so loving; I couldn’t lie to him. I
told him I was staying with a friend. “A new friend,” I said, “but very trustworthy. This friend helped me find our Jimmy.”

I was careful not to use the male pronoun, but Father guessed. He told me he wanted to speak to “this man.”

“Father, I so wish you wouldn’t.” I was whispering. “Please trust my judgment on this.”

“I need to speak to him,” he said.

Shit, I thought; my new word, which thankfully I didn’t also say. I told Father to wait a moment, and then I asked Stephen if he would mind speaking to him.

“Sure, if you want me to,” he said, but his voice sounded very tired. I felt momentarily annoyed with Father, but then I busied myself with trying to interpret what Father was saying from Stephen’s responses.

“Stephen Spaulding . . . thirty-one . . . MD . . . internal medicine, pediatrics . . . at the bus station . . . to the hospital . . . widowed . . . of course not, sir.” (Sir, I thought. See what fine manners my friend has, Father?)

They went on like this for another five minutes, perhaps more. Some of the subjects were fairly obvious, but I wondered why Stephen mentioned that Father was a widower. Eventually they started talking about Jimmy. “Self-destructive behavior, including self-mutilation . . . initially, but at this point he’s considered a voluntary commitment because he doesn’t feel ready to leave . . . Dorothea is helping his psychiatrist with his treatment . . . she needs some information from you, sir. Let me put her back on . . . I understand . . . here she is now.”

“Father? Are you still there?”

“I’m going to wire you some money to the Western Union office in St. Louis. It should be there tomorrow by noon.”

“But I don’t really need any. I took quite a bit from—”

“This will ensure you continue to have enough.”

“Thank you. Please don’t hang up yet.”

“I wasn’t going to, pumpkin.”

I cradled the phone closer to my cheek. Oh, how I missed him then. He rarely called me pumpkin anymore. I was too old for pumpkin, but I still liked the sound of it.

“I hate to ask you this,” I began.

“About your mother,” he said. Not even a question.

“Yes,” I said, amazed. “How did you know?”

“Educated guess,” he said quietly.

“The problem is, for Jimmy’s sake, I need to know how she died. Of course I completely understand if you can’t talk about it, but perhaps you could send me her death certificate?” My voice had become a squeak, and I could feel my heart beating faster. I was surprised how upset I was, suddenly.

“Take a deep breath,” Father said.

“I can’t,” I whispered, because I was already panting with fear. I hadn’t had an attack since the first day I arrived in St. Louis. I’d let myself become convinced, foolishly, that I was finished with them for good.

“Put Dr. Spaulding on again. I love you, darling. I’ll call you again soon.”

It struck me that Stephen had told Father he was a doctor rather than a cab driver, but I couldn’t worry about it then. I handed him the phone and stumbled into the bedroom so I could sing with my head between my knees. A minute or so later, when Stephen joined me, I was already feeling better enough to ask him what Father had said.

“He’ll send you the information you need about your mother.”

“Oh, good.” I paused. “Did he mention anything else of interest?”

“Nothing I didn’t expect,” Stephen said, and exhaled. “Come on, we should go finish our movie.”

“It’s really wonderful, isn’t it?”

“It’s cute,” he said, heading down the hall.

I was right behind him. “But not just cute. It has an important meaning too.”

“What meaning is that?” He sat down on his side of the couch; I sat down on mine.

“That life is as much about what you believe as what seems to be reality.”

“Dorothea, Dorothea.” He shook his head. “You’re way too smart to fall for such New Age hocus-pocus.”

I assumed “new age” was the opposite of “old age,” but he told me no. Yet the way he explained it, I didn’t see the difference between new age and hocus-pocus. Since both were, to him, merely illogical and untrue, why use both?

“I don’t agree with you,” I finally said. “And I think I can demonstrate why my idea is not this ‘new age’ thing you clearly don’t respect.” I stood up. “Would you please follow me to the window?”

The only large window in his apartment straddled the living room and the kitchen. I pulled back the drapes.

He laughed. “If you’re about to tell me to wish upon a star . . .”

“Oh, no. I don’t believe in wishing on stars myself. I used to do it for years, but it never worked.” I pointed. “See the ring around the moon?” I had noticed this earlier, while we were in the cab.

He was standing right behind me, so close I could feel his breath on my hair. “Yes,” he said, “I see that.” His voice was his usual cello sound, but deeper, more resonant. It made me feel a strange combination of being flushed and wanting to shiver.

I forced myself to concentrate. “There is a scientific reason for the moon appearing this way. I won’t bore you with the details because they’re not relevant to my point. When Jimmy and I were children, we thought that ring around the moon was a halo. We used to call moons like this angel moons.”

I stopped talking there, but my mind suddenly finished the thought:
because this is what our mother called them
.

Had I been told this before? It was possible, and yet, I felt like something more was happening, like I might even be having my first memory, finally. Even in the bookstore, I’d felt that picture of
Malibu starting a churning in my mind. Could this be the result? It was so much better than I’d dared to hope. If I was really remembering something about my mother, how long would it be before I remembered even more? Maybe I would remember her voice saying those two words, “angel moon.” Maybe I would even remember what she looked like.