still perfect, still the one he wanted, even if, if…well, she… said nothing, did nothing. This nothing in between them like a series of black walls nobody wanted to touch. Still love. But now with decades of nothingness to fill up the space in between… only walls he would occasionally make a half-hearted effort to breach…walls separating him from who he had once been on the border, for better or for worse. “Thank you for spending so much time here. You didn’t have to. Just one more weekend, and we’ll be done. Is that okay?”
“Of course. I’ll be here. Where else am I going to be? You have any more boxes that need to go to the Dumpster? Anything else for the Highlander? I think we could get one or two more boxes in the back underneath your mother’s wooden bench. There’s still room.”
“I got a text from Jonathan. He said he was going out with some friends tonight,” she said, wrapping her arms around her husband. For years, Sarah had relished losing herself in him. Carlos missed these impromptu hugs so much.
“On a school night? Doesn’t he have a term paper due this week?” Carlos pulled away, too tense to hold her anymore.
“Please don’t yell at him. Please, Carlos. He’s doing fine.”
“Is that good enough for you? That’s the reason Ethan doesn’t drive, the reason Jonathan will be lucky to get into Fordham in three years. You don’t push them. You cover for them. I was driving at thirteen—”
“’Cause your father needed someone else to haul cinderblocks, I know.”
“Why are you interrupting me? Don’t interrupt me. Am I wrong? Ethan should’ve gone twice to the driving school this weekend. What’s his excuse this time? You let him off the hook. I would’ve forced him to practice with me if we were in New York. Saturday and Sunday. He’s a smart kid, at least he’s got that, but you don’t learn to drive by thinking about it. You gotta get your ass behind the wheel.”
“Carlos, please. Let’s talk about it on the way home, okay. Deborah’s choosing what Oriental rugs she wants, and what’s left will be mine. Maybe one more box after that. Then we can go.”
“Deborah’s choosing ‘her rugs’? I thought you were going to divide them. Even. Please, don’t be a dupe.”
“I got the china I wanted. Dad’s paintings. You want anything else? Just shove it in the car. Please. Mom doesn’t want much at Arbor Gardens. Whatever doesn’t fit, we’ll pick up next week.”
“And your sister got the nicest pieces of furniture. The grandfather clock from Sweden. The Shaker table and chairs. Even the chipper-shredder and your father’s antique motorcycle.” Carlos had often disliked how his sister-in-law smiled to get her way, how she slyly turned conversations to her “brilliant” kids and her cocker spaniel, how she pretended to care about others. Sarah, Deborah, and even Sam were all black-belts in passive aggression. For three decades, Carlos thought himself an amateur taking lessons from pros. In Ysleta, he would’ve simply shoved one of his brothers in the chest if they had crossed him.
“Deborah’s the one who found Arbor Gardens. She’s arranged for all the painting to be done for Mom’s rooms. Getting the furniture she wants moved there. She’s been packing her all morning. We’re almost done.”
“Okay, fine. Deborah’s done a lot. Your mom okay? I mean, all of you are going through her stuff, and she just sits there staring at the river. She doesn’t have a choice, I know. But has she said anything to you? How’s she feeling about all this commotion around her?”
“She’s happy to have a nice place to go. I think she’ll love Arbor Gardens.”
“Your mom, when I talked to her, when I brought her coffee this morning, she apologized to me. She apologized for treating me badly. She told me I was a good husband.” Carlos could see Sarah getting teary-eyed again.
“You see, she’s not evil. She loves you, Carlos. So did my dad. He knew you had started from nothing, just like he did. He always admired that.”
“I know, I know,” Carlos said, his voice breaking just once. He did feel some sort of allegiance to Stanley. From the very first day in Newburyport, Carlos had never felt adequate about who he was, a poor kid from the border. Without support, without encouragement, he dared to choose the life of the mind, instead of becoming a lawyer, which he had thought about, which would have brought immediate recognition from his mother-in-law Nancy, his sister-in-law and her husband, and their friends. Carlos’s father and mother thought their son was crazy: the life of the mind was not for a Chicano from El Paso. “Can you make a living as a historian?” his father had said in Ysleta years ago. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? You’re turning down law school?” Sarah was the one who gave him the space and time to achieve his doctorate, Sarah was the one who had always earned more money than him, even after his tenure as a professor, and Sarah was the one most proud when his first and second books won accolades, despite that she had sacrificed her time with Ethan and Jonathan as children to become a partner in her law firm. For years, they had made their uncommon bond work, but Sarah had never forgiven Carlos for depriving her of the motherhood she had envisioned for herself. Ironically, only his father-in-law had truly understood Carlos. His Jewish ‘other father’ who had always wanted to write a book, but never had. The doctor-intellectual who never tired of arguing history and politics at the Newburyport kitchen table. Stanley Phillip Mondshein. Turn any name in the sun and one will always discover a new refraction of dark and light. “We’ll come back as often as we have to. Make sure your mother’s taken care of. That’s what your father would have wanted.”
“Thank you. It’s not too much driving?”
“Five hundred miles each weekend. But it’s fine. We need to do it. You need to be here with your mother. She didn’t remember, by the way.”
“Who didn’t remember?” Sarah asked, already on her knees, packing her suitcase. Her sneakers, shoes, pants, a few family photographs for their New York apartment. Her head was but a few inches from Carlos’s waist, and he remembered—how could he not?—how a young Sarah used to smile slyly at him for no reason, without warning, and just start to unbuckle his belt, and unzip his khakis… What is wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with me? Carlos thought.
“Your mother,” Carlos said, sitting down on the bed and adjusting his pants. “She didn’t remember what she said when we told her we were engaged. She didn’t remember what she said at our wedding, in the kitchen downstairs. She didn’t remember. But she was sorry.”
“Well, that’s how it is. Her memory comes and goes. I’m glad she said she was sorry. She probably remembers she said something bad. I know she does.”
“I just brought her the coffee and she blurted it out. Even if she doesn’t quite remember why, I’m still glad she said it. It meant a lot to me.” Carlos forced himself not to get choked up. Why does it still matter to me? Why am I still fighting battles decades old?
“I love you,” Sarah said.
After three more trips to the Dumpster in the driveway to dispose of what all of them did not want, their cars full, they were done. Perhaps one more visit to Massachusetts next weekend would finish the job of cleaning out Sarah and her sister’s childhood home.
Carlos and Sarah drove for four hours, from Interstate 495 South to 90 West, the Mass Pike, to I-84, to Route 15, which after New Haven became the Merritt Parkway, to the Hutchinson River Parkway, joining the Cross County Parkway, finally to 9A South and Manhattan’s Upper Westside. Carlos memorized the route like the lines
