The Color of Family (31 page)

A
aron was reading through pages of background information for the live interview he had to do for the next day's newscast. Then he picked up the questions the producer had come up with for the interview, but they just weren't complete enough for him relative to the pages he was reading. Just as he was about to add his own questions to the bottom of the page, someone rang his doorbell, which snapped his head to attention with surprise. He wasn't expecting anyone, and so he had to be careful as he remembered with a particular annoyance the time some star-struck woman had found out where he lived through Baltimore's notorious grapevine that ran through the home of every black person in the city. She rang his doorbell at an hour only reasonable for those intimately connected to him, and then she stood there with hair that rested just so in its perfection on her shoulders, a face that could have been chiseled to the exquisiteness of some man's vision of beauty, and an oddly beguiling, yet nonetheless disturbing smile. He couldn't imagine the day when he wouldn't remember her crestfallen eyes when he told her, politely but without a sliver of doubt, that she shouldn't have come to his home; as if, he recalled, she were expecting him to welcome her into the most intimate part of his life simply because of every part of her that, under other circumstances, would have had his eye slightly more than interested.

So he stood, slid into his slippers, and went to see who it might be. When he got to the door, he looked through his peephole to
find Maggie's face distorted by the hole's magnification. He collected himself from the immediate uneasiness he felt at seeing her. This wasn't the time. She just couldn't give him more time. So he unlocked the door and opened it.

“Hi,” she said cheerily, stepping across the threshold.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “What're you doing here?”

“I can't come by and see my fella for a quiet unexpected interlude?” In her eyes that were afraid, she seemed to know the answer.

“Of course you can. It's just that I'm working on that interview I have for tomorrow, and I wasn't expecting you.”

“Well, there'll be plenty of time for that,” she said as she took off her coat to reveal a dress that seemed meant only for the rise of her bosom, and the dip of her waist, and the curve of her hips; and clearly meant only for his eyes.

And it did get his attention. So he said, “Well, I was just wrapping things up with this. I'm working up in the bedroom.” And he locked the door, then placed her coat across the chair and went toward the staircase. As he ascended, feeling with each step the heat of her desperation, he knew that she realized he was slipping away. The regret of what he knew they would inevitably do was fully upon him.

Maggie reached the bedroom before Aaron, who lagged farther and farther behind until he might just as well have stayed downstairs. When he finally got there, he found her already organizing his papers into piles, as if she had decided his work was done. So he stood back, astonished at first, and then perturbed at second glance and asked, “Maggie, what are you doing with my things? I've got work to do.”

“You've got work to do that can easily be done tomorrow. For now, it's our time,” and she went to him, unwrapping herself from the dress she wore that held itself together with a tether round her waist. She stopped suddenly when she looked at Aaron's tentative face.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Maggie's face fell to what seemed to be a most uncertain place. She looked at him with eyes that could only be as secure as his assuring answer, then asked in a small voice that fought against itself to show bravado, “Aaron, should I not be here?”

“Maggie, no! I-I mean—” Aaron stammered badly over himself trying to determine what to say. “Of course you should be here. It's just that I've told you what I need to do.” But he saw her eyes that could not be cast off, and he knew that if he ever loved her, he had to love her right then, otherwise nothing would ever matter again. So he went to her and said, “Okay, let's just forget the work. I'm tired anyway.”

Maggie's bearing softened with his touch. “I didn't come here to sleep, Aaron,” and she smiled in the way he knew.

And so he wondered how he'd do it, as he brought her to him from his shame. He put his warm breath to her neck and felt her dissolve in his arms. Following, as she pulled him to his bed, Aaron unbuttoned his shirt with the same reflex he did anything else in the course of his day that required no thinking, and very little passion. And because she had to guide him like a lost soul, he found himself, scarcely without knowing, connected. He loved her by rote only to the place where history and devotion converged, and then no more.

When truth settled itself back down in the room, he lay next to her, not nearly as breathless as love had once made him. He prayed she wouldn't see him, wouldn't look his way, yet she was; staring right into the side of his face, looking for something—something he did not know how to give her. So he closed his eyes and took his arm from around her to lay across his forehead. And so if she would never say anything, not one word, they could drift off to sleep and the bright light of the new day would eventually make its way into the room to steal from them the memory of the last few minutes.

But it wouldn't be that way. Maggie said, “Aaron, I can't keep pretending nothing's wrong. I'm just wondering how long you can pretend.”

Aaron blew out a sigh of frustration he'd been waiting to release, then said mostly to himself, “Here we go again.” He sat straight up on the bed, turned halfway to Maggie so that he'd see her enough, but not fully, and she wouldn't see him, and continued, “Maggie, I don't know what you're talking about. Pretend what?”

“First of all, pretend that you were into what just happened, because I'm not going to bastardize lovemaking by calling it that.”

Aaron picked up his boxers and snaked his legs into them. He stood to pull them up and completely cover himself. He sat back down on the side of the bed, then said over his shoulder, “Okay, Maggie, so it wasn't lovemaking. Now what?”

“Now what, Aaron, depends on you. Are you sleeping with someone? Are you cheating on me?”

And so that she'd know he meant it, Aaron turned to look squarely at her and said, “No, I am not.”

“All right, then, why the disconnect? I could feel it in the way you made love to me, Aaron, that you weren't connected to me in the way that we've always been when we make love. You were there with me, but you really didn't want to be.”

“Maggie, I had been working. I had been working and concentrating really hard when you came in here ready for…well, just ready, and you expected me to switch modes, just like that.”

“Look, Aaron, I've seen you distracted before, and I know what that's like. I've seen you able to switch modes and make love to me like nothing was haunting you. I've also had an ex-husband distracted by the guilt of cheating on me, so I know what that feels like, and that's what this just felt like, so tell me what it's all about.”

Aaron turned his whole body to face Maggie, and everything about him was deflated. He took in a breath for courage, then said, “Maggie, twice I have been asked if you and I are headed for marriage.” He paused because he was certain that she would ask what he'd said, but when she didn't, he continued, “And I said ‘Aren't we all headed toward marriage?'”

“What does that mean?” Maggie said softly, with a fear all over her like he had never seen.

“I'm not sure what it means, and that's what bothers me most.”

Maggie seemed to shrink into herself when she pulled the sheet up to cover her nakedness, then said, “So what do you think it means?”

Aaron thought very deliberately about what he would say, because there was no way of answering her without taking her to a place where she'd be stumbling around in darkness in search of her pride. If a guy were about to say this to his sister, he thought, he'd kick him square in his manhood. “I think it might mean that I'm with you because it's easy for me to be with you, but I also think it means that marriage is not a part of my plan.”

She asked, but only tentatively, “Part of your plan, period, or part of your plan with me?”

Aaron sat with his trepidation and savored the few seconds left that he would still be tethered in every earthly way to Maggie, because he knew that once he answered her, that would be it. There was a way to answer around it by saying that it wasn't a part of his general plan for now, but it would mean about as much as saying aren't we all headed toward marriage. And as he thought in the scarce seconds he had left before the end of his life with her, he wondered why Maggie couldn't have been the one. He wondered why one woman he'd only seen twice, maybe three times, inspired him to think of his forever-after in a way that Maggie never had. So now that it was clear to him, he owed it to her to say in a small and craven voice, “Part of my plan with you.”

It's not so much that he saw, or even heard, but he knew that Maggie had gotten herself up and slipped back into her under things. And without even knowing for certain, he was sure she was wrapping herself back up in her dress as if she'd never been unwrapped and touched. But he did see her when she went to the door and stepped into the shoes that she had stepped out of in the middle of her highest passion when she reached his room. Then she was gone. Just that quickly. It would have made all the sense in the world, he knew, in that gallant, knight in white tights and sparkling armor way if he had gone after her, but that seemed to him to make as much sense as banging a gong that made no sound. So he sat on the side of his bed, and wondered about the next day—first facing his mother in a cold psychiatrist's office, and then facing Maggie in a place that had sparse memory of them as anything but lovers.

A
ntonia had decided that she would wear her canary yellow suit. It simply made the most sense. Why not spread joy in a place where none could ever be found? No joy, she thought, except inside the delusions of those deemed insane. They had plenty of joy if only all these dour-faced, white-coated medical people would just leave them to their world. But then she thought of that world and how it just might not make too much sense to leave them to their delusions after all.

Of course there were also the harmlessly insane who most likely wouldn't be in there to begin with; people like Cora Calliup. Imagine, the woman naming all those children after herbs—and now carrying on with Junior after she's been all used up. Maybe he was harmlessly insane too, for bothering with used goods. But those children with herb names—that's really what gave Cora's craziness away. Everybody would have been just fine with Sage, Basil, and Rosemary, Antonia thought, because nobody would have ever known what she was doing. But when Cora went ahead and named that last boy Thyme, that's when everybody knew that she was naming those kids after herbs. She must have gotten some kind of joy from it, Antonia surmised with a curious half-smile of certain arrogance; some kind of harmlessly insane joy, because she just kept going with those names. Thank God she stopped at four children, Antonia thought, because that kind of absurd compulsion could have made her move on to spices. A girl named Coriander—Cori for short, for goodness'
sake. Or a boy named Turmeric or Cumin. It was all too much, and the possibility far too mad to be pondering in the office of a doctor ready to probe through her mind, anyway, searching for loose screws and missing bolts. The one he needed to be checking, Antonia knew as she drew her lips into a tight scowl, was that Cora Calliup for having so little loyalty and class that she'd sleep with a childhood friend's husband.

Then, just that quickly, her anger with Cora swelled large enough to irritate all over again, and so she shifted and folded her arms and pouted, as she looked over at Junior whom she could have beat down with everything in her. So she had to think of something else, and think of it quickly. And so she went back to thinking about odd names. She wondered how in the world she would keep her composure when she'd finally be introduced to this Dr. Lillywhite. That was his name! Dr. Richard Lillywhite. Antonia knew he'd be white, she only prayed that he wouldn't be as white as a lily otherwise she'd have a hard time keeping the laughter suppressed.

“Momma, do you want something to drink?” Ellen asked kindly.

“No, thank you, honey. I'm just fine. But can you tell me exactly what this Dr. Richard Lillywhite is going to be doing to me in there?” And Antonia simply couldn't hold back the smile that, more than anything, wanted to be a laugh at the mere mention of the man's name.

“Momma, I know you find the man's name funny, but please try not to laugh when you meet him. He's actually quite good at what he does. He just might be the best psychiatrist here at the hospital.”

“That's a fact, Antonia,” Junior confirmed.

Antonia did not flinch at the sound of his voice, as if she did not see, hear, or sense him at all. Her eyes stayed on Ellen when she said, “Okay, that's fine. So what's he going to do in there?”

“Momma, all he's going to do is run some standard tests on you and then he'll talk to you. The whole thing, I expect, will take a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours out of my life to assure my children that I'm not crazy,” she said with a sigh. Then she pointed at Ellen's belly and continued, “You'd better remember this day, because this is what a mother's love will make her do.”

Ellen looked away, as if too burdened by the shame just looking at her mother put on her, and changed the subject. “I don't know what could be keeping Aaron.”

“He said he'd be here,” Antonia said. Then she turned to see Ellen better and said, “So tell me something. Why couldn't I go to my regular doctor for this?”

“Because, Ma, your doctor is not a psychiatrist.”

“I see,” Antonia said with a roll of her eyes and a nearly comical twist of her mouth.

A woman approached wearing a white coat and carrying a clipboard, and that's when Antonia knew that this was it. The woman walked right up to Antonia as if she had a picture of her on that clipboard.

“Mrs. Jackson, you can come with me now,” the woman said. Then she turned to Junior and Ellen and noted, “She's going to be a while with us, so you might want to go and get something to eat at some point. When the doctor's finished, he'll have you both come in so that he can brief you on his findings.”

“That's fine,” Junior said. He stood and took Antonia's hand and said, “We'll be right here. You just take it easy and don't worry about anything. This will all be over before you know it.”

Antonia promptly took her hand back and replied with a salty edge, “I'm not worried about anything.” She turned to look at Ellen. “You two just make sure you stay here and wait for Aaron.” And then she followed the nurse through the metal, windowless door.

And just as the door closed, another opened and in walked Aaron. He looked to the door with eagerness, because all he saw was the hem of his mother's skirt. So as he went to his sister and father and was about to sit, he said, “So I just missed her, huh?”

“Yeah, they just took her back,” Junior replied.

Aaron sat in the seat right between Ellen and Junior, where his mother had sat, and it still held her warmth. He unbuttoned his coat and took in the room with a sweeping glance. Why, he wondered, would anyone paint the walls of the place where people have to come for problems in their head a shade of green that could split the sanest of minds in two. This green, he thought, couldn't even have a name. It wasn't exactly mint, but it wasn't seafoam, either. It reminded him of a circle of oil paint on a palette
from his boyhood that he'd mixed so much by the dipping and dripping of other colors that it actually had no color at all. He couldn't keep it to himself a second longer, so he turned to Ellen who had picked up a magazine and was reading it, and said, “This is an awful color, isn't it?”

“What's an awful color?” she replied without looking up from the page.

“These walls. Aren't they ugly?”

“I never noticed,” she said as she looked around. “They're okay. I guess they're meant to soothe.” Then she went back to the magazine.

“Do they soothe you?” Aaron asked incredulously.

“I don't know, Aaron. I guess they would if I were on the edge.”

“Well they don't soothe me. They make me want to jump out a window just to get away from them.” He couldn't look at them anymore because they really were beginning to make him feel as if they were closing him in. But then he stared straight ahead and blurted out, “I broke up with Maggie last night.”

Ellen closed the magazine and set it down in the chair next to her. Slowly she turned to face her brother. “What?”

“I broke up with Maggie last night,” but by now his father, who had closed his eyes as if for a doze, had awakened fully and was staring him square in the side of his face. So he turned to face Junior and continued, “There was nothing left to do. I don't see myself marrying her, and so I had to ask what it was we were doing together if that was the case.”

Junior sat up straighter in his chair and cleared his throat. “Well, now that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You don't have to be headed for marriage to enjoy a good and solid relationship with someone, son. Where'd you get that notion? A relationship isn't all about what's written on a piece of paper, or what the law says you are. Sometimes a relationship is just about what two people mean to each other for however long they're together.”

“I'm surprised at you, Poppa,” Ellen snapped, “telling Aaron something like that. He
ought
to be thinking about marriage, and he ought to be thinking about marrying Maggie.” Then she looked at her brother and gave him a light smack on his thigh and
scolded, “And what in the world is the matter with you? They don't come much finer, much more solid than Maggie. Okay, so she can be a little overbearing and opinionated, but that's probably more a result of her work environment than anything. I know what that's like because that's my life too. But I'm surprised at you, being in the same industry and not knowing that and having patience.”

“You're all wrong, Ellie. It doesn't have anything to do with that. Not really.”

“Then what does it have to do with?”

“Look, Ellie, Maggie and I have been together for four years, and in all that time I should have at least thought about marrying her. Yet when I was presented with the question from two total strangers, I realized that marrying her hadn't even crossed my mind. All I could think to say was ‘Aren't we all headed toward marriage?'”

“What does that mean?” Ellen asked, her face wrinkled.

“Exactly. I don't know what it means, but I do know that if I felt that she was who I wanted to marry, I would have said yes, we are headed toward marriage. What's that about?”

“Listen, Aaron, love is not going to fall from the sky like a drop of rain and hit you right between the eyes one day. That's some televised version of love, but it's not real love at all. Love takes time. You have to let it grow. You have to nurture it. But to give up on ever loving her just because you don't right now is foolhardy.”

“Who said anything about not loving her, Ellie? Of course I love her, otherwise I'd be a real big fool for being in this relationship for as long as I've been in it. It's just that I don't want to be married to her.” Then he paused long enough to think about what she said, which didn't take any time at all, mostly because what she said about love hitting between the eyes made him think of Tawna and the way space and time had a way of disappearing every single time he'd been in her presence. So he questioned, “And why can't love be like that, hitting me right between the eyes, and everything? Maybe that's how love is supposed to happen for me, in order for me to know that it's the woman I'm supposed to marry.”

“Now, that is just ridiculous, Aaron, and you know it. You can't just trade love in, as if it had too many miles on it, or something.
You stick with it, especially when you know there's something right about it, and there's obviously something right about you and Maggie that's kept you there for four years.”

“Oh, really? Is that how it's always been with you and Rick?” he asked with a bitterness that broadsided him, because he thought he had rid himself of all his anger with Rick years before. “Is that what's gotten the two of you through?”

Ellen stared at her brother with pleading eyes that seemed to be meant to shut him up, then shot a tense look at her father. She smiled nervously at her father who only looked plainly at her as if he was waiting for her answer. But she simply slid her eyes back to Aaron and said, “This isn't about me and Rick. We're married.” Then she pulled her purse strap onto her shoulder, got to her feet, and continued, “I guess it's your life, anyway. I need to get something to eat. Are you two coming?” But by now she was at the door and opening it.

Aaron and his father followed Ellen in silence as she walked five paces ahead of them. Considering how far along she was in the pregnancy, Aaron thought, who knew she could move that fast; and he knew what had gotten her moving. What good are intentions if you end up still wounding, he thought. His intention hadn't been to touch her exposed nerve with his curt comment about her and Rick. It's just that, without him being aware all these years, it seemed his umbrage for Rick had made a home right on the surface of his subconscious, close enough to be summoned whenever he knew, or didn't know, he needed to remember. But Rick and Ellen had recovered from the time of their discontent, and she was filled up with his child, for heaven's sake. So he needed to get over it. But that wasn't so easy, since he remembered that night when he drowned in her tears that were filled with the torment and fever of a woman betrayed.

When they reached the cafeteria, Aaron stopped, then looked up at the sign that said
BLALOCK BUILDING
with an arrow pointing in the opposite direction from which they'd walked. He turned to his father and said, “Poppa, remember when you worked down there in the Blalock Building?”

“Sure,” Junior said, looking wistfully down the hall. “Boy, I remember when I did my first surgery. It was on this young guy who had broken both his ankles in a motorcycle accident, and I
remember going down to that big white statue of Jesus and rubbing his feet and praying for him to guide my hands through the surgery.” Junior held the door for Aaron to walk through, then laughed quietly. “Worked, too. Those ankles were masterpieces. To this day he calls me and tells me how perfect they are and how he has arthritis in nearly every joint in his body except those two ankles.”

Aaron smiled, not knowing if he should have believed in the miracle of God answering direct pleas or in the precision of his father's skill. He decided, instead, to chock it up to the luck of that hobbled guy's draw, in whichever way he was graced, and leave it at that. When they got into the cafeteria, Aaron followed his father, who followed Ellen to the stack of trays and picked one. As they approached the food, he looked questioningly at it, chuckled lightly, then said in a near whisper, “Boy, nothing smells good in here.”

“Tell me about it,” Ellen said with as much quiet. “No matter how hungry I get, this place never makes my mouth water. But it's here, and it's convenient, and so I'll find something I can eat.”

Junior strained to see what the dish was that had something swimming in tomato sauce, then looked at Aaron, then Ellen and replied, “The food here's not so bad. Try coming out of a surgery that went on longer than you expected, and you're hungry as a horse. Then see if this food doesn't taste like a gift from heaven.”