This story was written for a workshop as an experiment in modular structure. It's a departure from my usual fare, so I hope you find it interesting.
From behind the newspaper Adam said, “Could I get another cup of coffee, Hon,” and Sarah’s hand with the spoonful of cereal froze between the cereal bowl and her open mouth. She clenched her teeth before she could scream out, “Get your own damned coffee!” Her temples throbbed as the stifled words struggled to escape, bouncing around and around her head looking for a way out. Then they slid back down her throat and she gagged. She dropped the spoon into the cereal and clamped her hand on her mouth. What was the matter with her? What the hell was going on?
***
Be a good daughter, Sarah. Pick up your room and say your prayers before you go to bed. Be sure you do all your homework. Don’t be late for school. You’re the oldest, Sarah, so you have to set an example for your brother and sister. Okay, Mom.
Eat your vegetables. Don’t fill up on candy – you don’t want to get fat. Put down the crayons, Sarah, and help your mother with the dishes. Keep your grades up so you can go to a good college. Obey the rules. Watch your mouth and don’t sass your mother. Don’t be an artist. There’s no money in that. Be a teacher or a nurse or a secretary, Sarah. That’s what good girls do before they get married. Okay, Daddy.
***
I’m on the rafting trip again, floating down a river in a rubber raft with my family, all of them. Mom, even though she’s dead now, Daddy, Adam and the kids, my sister and brother are crowded together in the small raft. They’re holding paddles, waiting for me to tell them what to do. Everyone is remarking on the beauty of the scenery, but I can’t look. There’s no guide and I have to watch the river and steer the raft. I’m anxious about what’s ahead and how I’m going to navigate the rapids. I keep my eyes on the river, alert for the slightest nuance of trouble ahead. I feel the current quicken and strain to see swirls of water and froth against the rocks in the distance. I look down to warn my family to brace themselves, but only Mom is there, holding out her paddle to me.
“Paddle or die, Sarah,” she says and jumps into the churning water.
“Wait,” I yell to her, “where is everyone?”
“They’re busy. They had to go,” she says before she disappears, too.
Frantic, I search the water and the riverbank for my family, but they’re nowhere I can see. I’m alone now, plunging headlong into the rapids. Close now, too close.
“How could you leave me at a time like this?” I scream into the wind. “Where are you?”
***
All he wanted was more coffee, Sarah thought, trying to calm herself and understand her violent physical reaction. He’d asked politely, hadn’t he? It wasn’t exactly a question, though, was it? Or even a request. It was, she realized, more of a matter-of-fact expectation that she would stand up, walk over to the counter right behind him, pick up the coffee pot and pour him another cup. And really, why shouldn’t he expect that? She did it every day. He’d say more coffee and she’d jump up and say here, honey. As if her life depended on it. As if he wouldn’t love her any more if she didn’t refill his coffee cup. As if he’d leave her if she didn’t serve him, and the family would fall apart. She felt the muscles in her jaw contract.
***
Be a good wife, Sarah. Just for now take that secretarial job so we can save enough money to buy a house. You can paint in your spare time, can’t you? Can you make a special dinner tonight? The boss and his wife are coming over. I need a clean shirt. Did you do the laundry yesterday? What’s for breakfast? Dinner? Would you take the car in for service and get my blue suit cleaned? Mom is coming to visit for a week, but I have to work. You two can entertain each other, right? Let’s make another baby. Can you keep that job a little longer so we can get out from under these bills? Okay, Adam.
***
I wake up on the couch again. The woman on the television wants me to use her disinfectant to keep my house germ free. She looks at me like I’m a naughty child and says, “Don’t forget, now, your family’s depending on you.” I shake my head to clear the static playing in my ears. What does she mean? My family left me alone in a raft to face the rapids, for God’s sake. I click her off and climb the stairs to bed. I’m floating down the hall. The doors are open and I look in each one. There’s the daughter, I say to myself. So sweet, all curled up in a tight little ball, honey hair haphazard on the pillow. There’s the son, I think at the next door. Almost grown now, a big long lump of comforter splayed across the bed with size twelve feet sticking out. I’m at the last door looking in. There’s the father, asleep on his side, arms reaching out to the empty space beside him. What a nice family, I think, until I realize there is no mother. Sadness overwhelms me. Where is the mother, I cry to myself, alone in the dark hall. Where is the mother?
***
What would Adam say if she didn’t get the coffee? She’d been fired once for refusing to make coffee. No company loyalty, they said. No coffee, no job, and they sent her packing. Coffee was haunting her and she didn’t even drink it. She looked across the table at Adam. All she could see of him was the top of his head above the paper, a hand holding each side.
He doesn’t even know I’m angry, she thought. He has no idea at all that this perfect blue-sky day is any different from any other. And why would it be? Her hand slipped from her mouth and fell silently into a fist on the table.
***
Be a good mother, Sarah. Pick up Krissie from school at 3 and take her to ballet. Go to Andy’s soccer game. Swing by ballet and pick up Krissie. Fix a nutritious meal. Oversee homework. Practice night driving with Andy so he can finally get his license. Vacuum the dried muddy bits that Andy tracked on the living room carpet. Prepare a hot breakfast. Make sack lunches. Give Krissie and Andy their allowance and take them to school, even though it’s not raining. After work, pick up Krissie and take her to piano lessons. Stop by the fabric store and buy pink netting and satin for Krissie’s ballet costume. Throw a load of clothes in the washer. Start dinner. Pick up Krissie and Andy. Dinner with kids. Adam working late. Help Krissie with math and get Andy started on his biology project. Mom, I forgot I need to take two dozen cookies to school tomorrow. Okay, Krissie. Mom, I don’t have any clean socks. Okay, Andy.
***
I’m naked except for a wide-brimmed straw hat with a baby blue grosgrain ribbon streaming down my back. It’s not my now body. It’s my body before babies, my twenty year-old body, tight slim, curvy in all the right places, skin creamy smooth. My sparkling tawny hair falls in gentle waves over my suntanned shoulders. I’m sitting on the royal blue cushion of a white wicker chair, the kind that looks like a throne with a tall curving back. An easel stands in front of me with a canvas propped on it. I’m painting a seascape, en plein air, from atop a bluff overlooking the Pacific. My painting reflects the shades of blue surrounding me, ultramarine sky, cerulean sea, periwinkle flowers dotting the grass. I can smell the salt of the sea, borne by the warm breeze caressing my body. I watch the gulls soar and dive over the ocean and listen to them call to one another. And to me. In answer I spread my arms wide, throw my head back and laugh with pure joy.
***
Adam lowered the newspaper, looked first at his empty coffee cup and then at her.
“Sarah?” he said. “Coffee?”
She heard the pulsing swish of blood coursing through her head, urging her. She straightened up in the chair, lifted her eyes to meet his and said, “Help yourself, dear.” Without a sound she drew in a breath and waited for his response.
Adam tilted his head and gave her a long puzzled look before he reached for the coffee pot and filled his cup.
“You okay?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.
She hesitated, taking stock of herself, still poised tall and tense on the edge of her chair, but aware of a new lightness spreading throughout her body.
“Sure,” she replied. “I’m just fine.”
Copyright 2000 by Liz Zuercher
