The Stories We Tell (26 page)

When her tears stop, I hug her again before giving her a bowl of soup. “Try to eat, sweetie. It'll help.”

She takes a few sips and looks up to me. “Did you ever do anything wrong, Mom? I mean, get in trouble with your parents?”

“Of course I did. I was anything but perfect.” There it is. That word again.

“Did you ever do anything terrible like I just did? I mean … really terrible?”

“Gwen, we have to talk through a lot of things—you and I—about boys and love and depression and sadness. But what you did was not terrible. You're not terrible.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but we both hear it at the same time; the garage door's gnarled sound. “Dad,” she says.

“Sounds like it.”

“Don't tell him,” she begs, her voice pleading and desperate.

Cooper walks through the back door, and it's clear that I don't have to tell him. His mouth is drawn downward and his lips are thin, white. His brows are drawn so tightly together that the wrinkles above his nose are etched deeply into a V of anger. He knows.

“Dad.” Gwen says this in a quiet voice.

“Is there something you two want to tell me?” he asks.

“We had a bad night,” I say, trying for understatement, for something resembling equilibrium. “But she's okay.” I touch the top of Gwen's head to feel the warmth of her life.

“Thank God,” he says, and moves toward Gwen. The air shimmers between them, and I realize that I'm holding my breath. Then all at once, Cooper swoops in and holds his daughter like the child she is. “Oh Gwen.” Cooper is crying. Gwen is crying. I thought I didn't have any tears left, but I'm crying, too.

This goes on for a while and the moment is heartbreaking and wet. It's Gwen who looks up first. “Dad.” She attempts a smile. “I've got snot all over your shirt.”

“And mascara,” I add. “Don't forget the mascara.”

Cooper smiles a little, but it's strained and I can see him coming back to himself. “Why did I need to hear about this from my assistant, who found it out from her paramedic boyfriend? Why didn't you call me?” He speaks slowly, as if studying each word before setting it down in his voice.

“It wasn't something to discuss on the phone.”

“Well, it's something to discuss now.” He walks to the sink to wash his hands, splash cold water on his face.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay. We can talk, but let Gwen eat first.”

We stand there in the kitchen—a family, quiet and still, as if waiting for permission to talk.

*   *   *

Cooper unpacks his suitcase, throwing the dirty clothes into the hamper and putting the things for the dry cleaner's in a separate basket. Gwen is shut in her room, taking a shower, she says. Cooper tosses his Dopp kit onto the bathroom counter next to his sink and stares into the mirror before brushing his teeth and then sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. “Okay. Tell me what the hell happened.”

“We went out last night,” I begin.

“Who is ‘we'?”

“Me, Willa, Max, and Francie. It was a celebration of Ford's five-year anniversary and he included us. Anyway, we walked down to say hello to Gwen at work and…”

“What did Willa do?” His voice is tight, raspy.

“It was me, Cooper. This was my fault.”

“How?”

“I saw a necklace and it was the same one that woman, Mary Jo, wore. I was mortified that maybe she had gone to see Gwen at work.”

“Seriously? You're getting paranoid, my love. Way paranoid. And now it's affecting our daughter.”

I swallow the guilt; it tastes sour and biting. “And then after Gwen got off work, she went after her old boyfriend and guzzled some whiskey. She was sick. She was really sick.” The truth of the night, the boldest truth, comes near me then, and so does the fear. A sob rips from the back of my throat and I drop my face into my hands, speaking through the cracks of my fingers. “I think I scared her.”

Cooper comes to me and wraps his arms around me. “This is not your fault. Gwen has been on a downward spiral for a while.”

His response—it's like expecting the lightning after the thunder and not seeing it. I'm stunned that Cooper hasn't lost his temper. This kindness, unexpected and needed, allows me to cry.

“Shhhh,” he murmurs.

“It's been so hard, and I know it's been hard for you, too. I'm sorry. It's all too much, and I don't know what to think or believe, and I made myself and then Gwen crazy.”

Cooper sits again and pats the edge of the tub for me to join him. He takes my hand and wipes at my face gently. “I love you. I love Gwen. This family is more important to me than anything else in the world. I would not do anything to harm us. Ever.”

“I know” is all I manage to say.

“What are we going to do about Gwen now, though? There has to be some consequence,” he says.

“She's talking to me now. And I think she needs a therapist or a professional.”

Cooper holds up his hand. “No.”

“No?” I'm stunned.

“That's too much. She doesn't need that kind of help. Our family doesn't need a psychiatrist.”

“How do you know? I mean, if she's drinking enough to…”

“That's what teenagers do.”

“That's not what I did.”

“You're the exception.” He leans in to kiss me. “She's grounded, of course. She needs to go to work with you every day until school starts back up. Find something to keep her busy other than just her job. She's either at home with us or at work with you.”

I can only stare up at him. I don't know what to say.

“You agree, right?”

In the bedroom, the phone rings, and we glance at it as if someone has entered the bathroom. Neither of us moves to answer it. Then Cooper asks again, “Right? You agree?”

“I need to think about it, Coop. I've been a mess all night; I'm not sure what I think.”

“Mom?” Gwen's voice calls from the hall. “Max is on the house phone. He says he needs to talk to you real quick.”

Cooper turns away from me with a noise that is somewhere between a grunt and a groan. I pick up the extension in the bedroom. “Hey, Eve. Hope I'm not disturbing anything, but I need a huge favor.”

“Sure.”

“My Saturday class tomorrow. Can you teach it? I know you can do it in your sleep. I have to drive to Atlanta to see my brother. Long story, but it's important.”

“Sure thing. I've got it.”

“Thanks.”

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“Yes, and I'll be back by Saturday night. Promise.”

“No problem.”

I hang up and I turn to Cooper, who is standing directly in front of me, his face hard and closed. “What was that about?”

“Max needs me to teach that letterpress class tomorrow at SCAD. No big deal.”

“‘No big deal'? You'll be gone again all day. What about Gwen? I think right now we need to focus on her, not work.”

“Aren't you off tomorrow?”

He stares at me for so long that I think maybe I haven't spoken out loud, merely thought the words. He says nothing, just walks away, leaving me alone.

*   *   *

It's dark now. Night came quickly to a quiet house where Cooper and I have been watching a baseball game I don't care about at all. A hurricane swirls in my chest and stomach. Finally, I go up to Gwen's room, where I find her sitting on the bed with her laptop open. The pale light falls on her face, a spotlight. She looks up. “Hey. I know, I shouldn't be back in bed. I know, but…”

“Did you finish the soup?”

She nods. “I feel … better.”

“We'll keep talking, Gwen, but tomorrow you'll be hanging out with me, okay? I have to teach a class at SCAD and you'll go with me.”

“Okay.” She leans back into her pillow. “Dylan must hate me even more than he did before. I made such a fool of myself.” She presses her fingers into the corners of her eyes. “Such an idiot.”

I don't know what to say to my daughter now. There's never a class on what to expect when your daughter gets drunk enough to puke. I make a feeble attempt. “You are
not
an idiot. We all make mistakes.”

“I seem to be really good at it lately,” she says.

“Yeah, well, this is one subject I'd rather you didn't get an A.” I kiss her forehead, wipe back her hair. “Good night, sweetheart.”

I turn off her light and shut the door. The hallway is dark and I run my hand down its wallpapered surface, my fingers lightly feathering against the print of roses and urns. Our master bedroom is dark and the ceiling fan whirs on high. In the bathroom, I perform my nightly routine, teeth, face, lotion, and pj's—drawstring pants and a tank top—and crawl into bed. Cooper has come upstairs and is already in bed. His back is to me and I move toward him, curling around him like a shrimp in water, rounded and soft.

His body tenses and I reach up to rub my hand through his hair. “I'm taking Gwen to SCAD with me tomorrow.”

He makes a noise, something that sounds like approval, and turns to me, wrapping his leg over mine. I kiss him, but my throat clenches. I feel an awful need to pull away.

I've heard it said that the heart wants what it wants. But there's a counterpart to this: The body wants what it wants, and it doesn't want this. It wants to pull away, to run, to flee. I fight its urges and fold myself around my husband. His hands run across my back and slide my pj bottoms down. I slip one leg out of the cotton pants and I close my eyes as he moves into me, as we move together.

He shudders and whispers, “I love you, Eve. So much.” And then he's done.

My tank top is still on, and I slip my one free leg back into my pants. I sidle to the edge of the bed and place my feet on the floor, feeling his warmth slide down my thigh. Soup rises in the back of my throat and I run to the bathroom.

What destroyed my desire for him? For his touch? My chest crushes under the panic.

What the hell is wrong with me
?

We made love after Cooper had approved of my choice to take Gwen, after I did exactly what he wanted. And it was just this—the lack of partnership—that killed desire. He's kind when he approves, distant and unkind when he doesn't. And it's this, this not knowing
which
Cooper I'll be getting at any given moment, that's killing us.

I want to go back and find the place where the change started, where our relationship went from crush to boyfriend to lover to boss figure who offered praise and warmth.

I want to go back and yet I know we can't.

I can be the perfect hostess. I can smile and support him and say all the right things. I can be there for the speeches and the family functions. I can keep a perfect house. Damn, I can even close the studio. The Fine Line, Ink if that's what it would take. But what it would take to make my body cling to his, or even want his … I don't know.

Who am I without Cooper? Who am I
at all
without a family? Hi, I'm Eve. I'm married, one daughter, one sister, and a letterpress company.

Without a marriage, I would become someone else completely—someone smaller and free-floating. Not part of a family at all.

When my dad threatened to kick me out and then later when he'd quit talking to me because I wouldn't go to the Bible college that had given me a scholarship, it was like small pieces of me were floating off into space. In those days, I came back to myself slowly, waking each day a bit more intact. So yes, I know what it feels like
not
to be part of the family, to be separate, and I'm sure I can't bear it again.

Without our family, who will we be? Who will I be? This is what matters.

Something has to be done.

I slip quietly downstairs and take from my bag the envelope the anonymous someone has sent me this time. In the dim kitchen, I see the disfiguration of idea number one:
Be Kind.
The large oak tree, its arms reaching high, have been colored on with a dark marker, a slicing through the trunk. I open the card, and once again nothing is signed; no words are written, but one sheet of paper falls out: a bank statement for
Southern Tastes,
LLC.

 

twenty

It's Saturday, and Gwen and I are at SCAD's Poetter Hall. I'm setting up to teach a class in the place where I'd once wanted to take a class, wanted it with all my heart.

Every hall or building owned by SCAD was once something else. In the 1880s, this was the National Guard Armory. Before that, it was the site of the Savannah Female Orphyn Asylum. The asylum is a rich part of Savannah's history, an institution once run by the city's “female elite.” In a patriarchal age and city, the affluent women did what they could, and what they could do was be fully in charge of the orphaned children here. I imagine those girls, young ones submitting to a strict regimen of twice-a-day worship services and, if needed, a whip. This was a place where girls were trained for “useful and respectable employment”—so maybe things haven't changed so much. But if they could look down, those ghost girls from a hundred years ago, and see the students now, some bleary-eyed and hungover, in their torn jeans and printed T-shirts, playing with iPhones, what would they think?

Gwen is sitting at a desk, reading a novel, completely engrossed in someone else's story. I take the chalk and fill the blackboard with my handwriting—definitions for the simple terms we'll discuss today: font, kerning, leading, polymer plates, case, typeset, and more. I then place a booklet, one Max made to teach the class, on every desk.

One by one, the students settle into their seats. A boy with dreadlocks sits in the front row, alert and ready; two young girls (either best friends or sisters) huddle next to each another, a pile of letterpress books between them; a middle-aged woman arrives, nervous and fingering the buttons on her cardigan. It's a diverse group, but almost everyone seems to arrive with white cups wrapped in brown cardboard. And everyone seems to be checking their cell phones.