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The Wife You Wanted
- West Virginia University Press
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147 TheWifeYouWanted I hover in the foyer for five minutes, my heels digging little graves in the plush carpet as I pace back and forth, back and forth before the muted wall mural: cypress trees and tranquil streams meant to console . They don’t soothe me because I know you’re in there, Tommy, waiting. And the thought of you, the image, even after all these years, makes my fingers tremble. Finally I clench my teeth and rush into the teeming room, though I’m knocked back a step by the nauseating sweetness of too many flowers. I push through it, looking frenetically for familiar faces, peering into sagging jowls and sun-creased eyes, trying to subtract twenty-five years. Do I know you? Did I know you? Across the room your mother stands like the grande dame she is, only ever bowing down to one person: you. Polishing your shoes, bringing your hot lunch to school every day because she knew the few foods you would eat: lemon-pepper chicken livers your favorite, yikes, and for a minute of my life I thought I would have to learn how to make them, if not eat them. (Rest assured. The ironic snobbery is not lost on me, who lapped up pâté in the ’80s when I lived in Dallas —or was it Seattle?—this exquisite cuisine that couldn’t possibly be kin to the common chicken livers served up back in West Virginia.) 148 the wife you wanted I walk toward her, this tiny woman—a foot shorter than me—with a monolithic presence, who scrutinizes me so completely I want to run back to the foyer. But her mouth opens and out pours my name in one long, cave-buried howl: “Julie?” “Yes,” I assure her. She swoops in for an urgent embrace that nearly cracks my spine. “You came all the way from Chicago?” “Yes,” I lie, because I can’t tell her that I was in town visiting my mother anyway, that it’s a monumental coincidence. “Come,” she says, strapping one arm around my waist to guide me through the crowd, well-wishers patting her shoulder, kissing her cheek as we pass. We could be at a tea party, your stoic mother and I, the way she nods and smiles, the lilt in her step as she ushers me to your father, slumped in a chair, staggered. Clearly this is no tea party for him. “You remember our Julie,” Frances says. Our Julie. Your father raises his handsome head—I always thought he was handsome, tall, chiseled, so different from his scrawny son. Cute, yes, but you cannot deny the scrawny. “Julie?” he repeats, a fleeting zap of current in his vacant eyes. He stands and I cup his cold hand in mine. “Have you seen him yet?” he says. My heart dives into my stomach. “No.” Frances grips my hand. “I’ll take you. He’s right over here.” Your father collapses back into his chair as your mother whisks me away. “This is Julie,” she chirrups to people, relatives, who may or may not have heard of me. Introducing me as if I were her daughter-inlaw . “She’s a columnist, you know.” As if I deserve a place of honor and respect on this unhinging day. 149 the wife you wanted “That’s Julie,” someone whispers as I pass. The crowd around you parts as Frances approaches; they understand protocol. I suck in my breath before taking you in. And there you are. Your mother says: “Isn’t he handsome?” I have to say yes, and you do look pleased, that pre-formed smile at this reunion. But the truth is, Tommy, you also look like a used car salesman with your hair slicked back. Striated comb streaks plowed through whatever pomade they used to tame that wild hair I remember so well, wispy. All Peter Frampton, tips tinged gold by the sun. You’re not golden now, though you’re still as wiry as Frampton. Nose still elfin. High forehead only etched with a few well-earned wrinkles. Under that suit coat your folded arms cratered with cigarette burns from all those games of chicken you bragged about, reminding me of your rough roots: you West End, redneck, grease-monkey boy with your GTO that grumbled through my hilly East End neighborhood night after night. My stodgy fundamentalist neighbors tisk-tisking from behind pulled curtains: Get a muffler! They didn’t...