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  “Sorry!”

  “It’s cool,” Simon said, laughing.

  “Do you want to go to the river tomorrow?” Cassidy asked. “I want to do something fun.”

  “It’s kind of cold for the river.”

  “Not in the river, dummy. Just to the river.”

  Simon laughed again. “Yeah, sounds great. Meet at my place?”

  “Sure.” It was good to have plans—things to look forward to.

  Back at the house, Noeli was done packing and was lying on Cassidy’s bed, staring at the Weakerthans poster on the ceiling. Quietly, Cassidy lay down beside her.

  It was weird how music defined eras, but she never realized it until the era was over. Like in sixth grade when Cassidy got snowed in at Simon’s house and had to spend the night and they’d listened to “Fireflies” by Owl City over and over, before Simon had stopped listening to anything that wasn’t punk or ska. Cassidy tried to remember what she’d been thinking of as they sang along, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the lyrics, it was about the music itself and who she was listening with. It was why adults were so into oldies. It wasn’t about calling someone Al or only needing love. It was about being twelve or eighteen or twenty-five.

  And now, when she listened to the Weakerthans, she’d remember when their song had come on in her car as she was driving Lyft and the drunken Noeli, who she learned later was coming back from a fight with Lupe, had slurred, “Holy shit. This is the Weakerthans. How is this the Weakerthans right now?” sparking their friendship. Her mind drifted to thoughts of California—to pink sunsets and wide clean sidewalks. She turned her head and looked at Noeli, whose chest rose and fell with each breath. What songs would make her think of now?

  “I’ll miss you,” Cassidy said, her mania cooling. Noeli turned her head.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll text you every time my mom does something shitty.”

  “So, several times daily.”

  Noeli smiled. “Seriously. You don’t have to stay. I know you hated it here growing up.”

  “You hate the IE,” Cassidy pointed out.

  “At least there are other brown people there.”

  “True,” Cassidy said. “But there are brown people in lots of places.”

  “Maybe I’ll get out someday.” There was hurt in Noeli’s voice and Cassidy suddenly felt guilty, like she was abandoning her friend.

  “Maybe I’ll come back to California at some point.”

  Noeli shrugged against the sheets. “Maybe.”

  An hour later, after they’d hugged on the front porch and Cassidy had warned Noeli several times to watch for deer, she watched the SUV move slowly down the driveway and out of view.

  “Oh, good. I didn’t miss you!” Paloma ran outside and found Cassidy standing, staring out at the driveway and the pond beyond. “Where’s the rental?”

  “Noeli took it. I’m . . . I’m not going.”

  “Cassidy! That’s . . . that’s wonderful. I’m so glad you . . .” She stopped as she noticed her daughter’s face.

  “Oh, honey.” Paloma’s face softened and she stepped toward Cassidy, then pulled her close. Cassidy swallowed, and her throat felt pinched.

  “Oh, honey,” Paloma repeated, rubbing Cassidy’s back. Her lavender-and-incense smell was dark and musky.

  Cassidy cried in squeezed little gasps at first, little squeaks escaping her mouth as she scrunched her eyes tight and hid her face in Paloma’s shoulder. She had to let the sobs out then, not for emotional release as much as to release the pressure in her throat. Holding it back hurt, so she let it go.

  “You’re loved.” Paloma continued rubbing, her palm tracing wide ovals from one of Cassidy’s shoulder blades to the other and then back around. One shoulder, the other shoulder. Left, right. Left, right. “You are so loved.”

  When Cassidy finally sat up, the pressure in her throat had dissipated, but her eyes felt tired and raw.

  “Oh, Cassidy.” Paloma wiped her daughter’s face with the back of her hand. She was still wearing her wedding ring, a simple gold band, and Cassidy felt it, cool, on her cheek. Something about this was unbearable. It was the knowledge of impermanence—the in-between. She hadn’t taken the ring off yet, but she would soon. And Grandma Jane—she was okay, but she wouldn’t be. More tears appeared and Cassidy wiped them with her own hand.

  “Let’s sit. I’ll make some tea.” Paloma looked at Cassidy lovingly, like her daughter was still a small child, and led her by the hand to the couch, where Cassidy curled up in the fetal position, staring at the piles of books on the coffee table at eye level.

  “Those were some of your dad’s favorites.” Paloma gestured toward the piles—a stack of Wendell Berry, several books about sustainable living and environmental issues, some poetry, and a few novels. She disappeared into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a green mug, the steam curling up from the exact center of its circular ceramic mouth. “I thought you might want them.” Paloma set the mug on the coffee table next to the books.

  “Maybe.” Cassidy sat up and took Lost Horizon into her lap.

  “You know you could have told me Noeli was your girlfriend. I’ve always tried to make sure you know I love you no matter—”

  Cassidy cut Paloma off. “Noeli wasn’t my girlfriend.”

  “Oh, I thought . . . with the tears . . .”

  “She was my only friend, Mom. She’s the only friend besides Simon I’ve ever had.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t—”

  “Yes, Mom. Jesus. I like women. But Noeli wasn’t—”

  “Oh, Cassidy!” It was Paloma’s turn to interrupt, and she did so by pulling Cassidy into a suffocating embrace. “I’m so happy you told me. I’ve always had an inkling and I’m so glad you finally felt comfortable enough with me to say it. You know, I’m not strictly straight myself. I’ve always thought women were more aesthetically pleasing than—”

  Why did Cassidy feel ashamed? Obviously, her mom was okay with it. But telling her mom, or being “out” in general, felt like sharing intimate details about her sex life. It felt like admitting to everyone who had secretly suspected it that she was, in fact, weird and dirty. But Cassidy didn’t think those things about other queer people. It only felt embarrassing when it was about her.

  As she thought of Noeli’s mother, guilt joined her shame. Noeli was brave enough to be herself around her mom even when she knew she wasn’t supportive. No wonder Cassidy never felt like a real part of the queer community. She didn’t deserve to be. She wouldn’t subject herself to the slightest bit of discomfort.

  Cassidy wriggled away from Paloma’s arms. “Did you hear anything else I said? This is exactly why I don’t talk to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Paloma said quickly. “Yes, I heard you. I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry your friend left, and that you have felt so alone.”

  Cassidy relaxed her jaw but steeled her reservation. She should feel grateful that her mom was accepting. She knew many people weren’t so lucky. But Paloma’s acceptance felt to Cassidy more about Paloma’s own need to feel like a good person and less about real open-mindedness. She would never tell her mom about camming. She would never understand the real facets of her sexuality or her life.

  “I’m fine. It’s my choice to stay. It’s just hard to say goodbye.” Cassidy opened the book on her lap to a page marked by a folded piece of yellowing notepaper.

  “He was rereading that one,” Paloma said. “He read that one a lot.”

  Cassidy closed the book again and placed it back on top of the pile. She could feel the splintery heat of the woodstove in her lungs. Cassidy pulled out a thick bound journal tucked between Watership Down and The Clan of the Cave Bear. She could not bring herself to open it, and instead carried it with her across the room, to the large stereo system that occupied the space where most families w
ould put a TV. Cassidy pressed the button and waited for the red light to flicker on, then pressed play and turned the volume knob up a quarter turn. Bob Dylan wailed “Mr. Tambourine Man” from the speakers. She walked back to the couch and sat down, hugging her knees to her chest and balancing the journal on top of them. This back-and-forth was worse than when Paloma had first called with the news. This was what she wanted. Why was she over the moon one moment and panicking the next?

  Paloma stood and kissed Cassidy gently on the head. “I’m going to do some more packing,” she said. “I love you, no matter what. I love all of you.” She went upstairs, leaving Cassidy alone.

  Once Paloma had gone, Cassidy opened the journal like a sacred text, handling the pages covered in Ken’s handwriting with exquisite care. So much had happened in the last day. Had she really just decided to stay in West Virginia? Had she really just come out to her mom? Some pages of the journal were filled, the words jammed from corner to corner. Others had only a few words—poetry. His writing was hard to read, and Cassidy had to work to make out each word. It felt wrong to read them, but she continued to turn the pages.

  With effort, she deciphered a poem. In California, even dandelions are strange, Ken had written over and over, his line breaks and capitalization changing each time.

  He was right. In California, everything was strange—even those things that seemed as natural and as non-alterable as dandelions took on a different quality. Or maybe it was the context. When unnatural crap was the norm, unblemished nature seemed strange. It was good to stay. This was a real place. It was where she should be.

  Cassidy had never been a poetry person, had certainly never stopped to analyze a poem, but reading these now felt like receiving a secret message. She flipped a few more pages, until a title caught her eye, centered on the top of a page and written more neatly than most of the contents. A Brief History of My God, it said.

  It was an essay, several pages long, and she struggled through interpreting it—a sketchy account of Ken’s experience with religion and an explanation of how his own beliefs had evolved—as a kid, liking the songs at church, then as a young adult, trying drugs and expanding his mind.

  At one time I knew there was a God. He went on to describe his take on reincarnation—the one he had shared with Cassidy just a few weeks earlier. The essay ended with a paragraph on Ken’s embarrassment that the idea of God again seemed possible as he considered his mother’s dementia.

  Now, he knew. Despite her deep fear of death, Cassidy found herself, for a split second, jealous.

  What had her father written about her? Cassidy wondered with a jolt. She glanced toward the empty steps and turned her back slightly, hiding the notebook from view in case her mother came back down.

  Skimming Ken’s handwriting for something in particular was impossible. Now the letters squirmed—her eyes were tired from working out the essay. She stopped every few pages and analyzed a word or two. There were political poems, a draft of an editorial about the pipeline, lots about sex and women and thighs and legs and breasts, but nothing about her.

  Cassidy had gotten poetry from men online. One had written about her as the girl with the crystal eyes, and another had written a long free-form composition about the show she’d done in an Ariel costume. Her take on his favorite animated character, he’d said, had re-sparked his first hints of sexual longing and healed something long unfulfilled. Men declared their love for her in numerous thoughtful ways. They gave her nicknames and explained, in detail, how much her attention meant to them. But her own father, a professional writer, hadn’t thought to compose something for her.

  Cassidy wanted something cathartic—something she could keep with her, always, something she could get tattooed. She closed the journal with a soft smack and slammed it on the coffee table, then picked up Lost Horizon and threw it on the couch, watching it bounce slightly before landing in the crease between the seat and the back. She wanted to rip the pages out one at a time and scatter them on the floor, leave them there for someone else to deal with, but she could not make her hands harm the book. Instead she crossed the room in one long step, opened the door of the CD player with the Dylan disc still spinning, grabbed it from its shelf, and snapped it in half. Not satisfied, she broke it another time, then carried the sharp pieces to the kitchen trash and buried them under the plastic wrappers from the bouquets that were now wilting on the table, stifling a frustrated scream.

  Cassidy muttered under her breath, “Where are you, Daddy? Tell me what you know now. If you have to be dead, can you tell me if it’s all bullshit?” She heard no answer, felt no presence.

  Fury reached down to Cassidy’s tingling fingertips. She wasn’t mad at her parents. She was mad that she’d ended up just as selfish and self-absorbed as they were. She was a piece of shit that lived for constant affirmation, that needed other people to call her pretty so she didn’t feel bad about herself. She liked to think she was so empowered, so independent, but really, she was petty and pathetic, a needy little bitch. She slammed the trash can back under the kitchen sink, pivoted, and found herself facing Paloma.

  “Cassidy, I am so sorry I said what I said earlier,” Paloma said. “About my relationship with your father.” The two women stood facing each other like a mirror, their shoulders sloping forward and their hands hanging at their sides. Even their heights were the same. “I hope you know that there is nothing you could do, nothing you could say, that could change my love for you.”

  “I know.” Cassidy tried to step around her mom, but Paloma stopped her, placing her hands on Cassidy’s shoulders, and the two looked directly into each other’s eyes.

  “You’ll find your way,” Paloma said.

  “Okay,” Cassidy growled.

  They stood like that, breathing for a moment, until Paloma broke the stance.

  “Are you done checking out the books? Come look at your dad’s old school things. See what you want to keep.”

  “Fine.” Cassidy stomped after her up the stairs. Kneeling before the pile of treasures Paloma had gathered, she fingered her dad’s leather tool belt and remembered hanging off of it as he tried to work. She held his guitar pick over her head and watched the light filter through the tortoiseshell. She felt the smooth wood of his hand-carved fountain pen and the small heft of his pocketknife. His absence buzzed in all of them. “I don’t need any of these,” she said. All she’d wanted from him was a poem, or if there was a poem, better handwriting so she could read it.

  Paloma

  How could Paloma possibly explain her feelings for Ken to Cassidy? She’d been trying to parse them herself since the day they’d met. Even at their wedding, a small ceremony on the island of Kampa, below the Charles Bridge, Paloma had not understood the complicated mix of admiration and aversion she held in her heart for her husband-to-be.

  She had loved seeing the bridge from the island. From below, the physical and intellectual behemoth, the heart of the city, seemed indestructible. She could see its building blocks, its powerful arches and huge pillars, sandstone green with algae where they met the water. Here, the reality of the thing was accessible. From here, Paloma could possess it.

  The island was busy on that warm day; several people with bowl cuts and sneakers walked by the wedding, pausing to watch. Families picnicked nearby and a group of teenagers sat close to the river. One played “Let It Be” on an acoustic guitar as the others shared a single beer. Birds flew in every direction over the Vltava.

  As their guests found seats on the grass, Paloma stared out over the water at a man in a rowboat paddling against the current. Sometimes it was easier to go where the flow wanted to take you. The back of the man’s boat bonked against the bridge. Sometimes it was futile to fight.

  Ken cared about Paloma. He wanted to make a family with her. She didn’t have to search for whatever she was looking for anymore. She could finally settle. She’d come to this conclusion
after a long series of dates with Ken, each of which had ended with a marriage proposal, and she repeated it to herself often as they made plans for the nuptials. At some point she had stopped distinguishing between his philosophies on home and him as a person. They’d been on the river when Paloma had finally accepted Ken’s proposal, their small boat floating easily between island and city shore. She had been so tired of fighting, so tired of worrying and wondering what the world held for her.

  The officiant cleared her throat and Paloma’s heart beat hard against the charm Ken had given her the first day they met. The officiant was a friend of Jan’s, a professor from the philosophy department who had been imprisoned for her political actions under the regime. At Paloma’s request, she spoke of love as a means of resistance. At Ken’s request, the woman read a quote from Carl Jung:

  “This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance.”

  Ken grinned at Paloma and she shivered, looking away from him and toward their guests. That was certainly what had happened, but she wasn’t sure how romantic it was. Jan sat slouched in his oversized suit, stroking his chin thoughtfully. Jane, who had flown in for the ceremony, wiped joyful tears from her cheeks. Paloma felt a resolved, resigned sort of happiness.

  Even then, before Cassidy, Paloma had loved Ken as her child’s father. This was romantic, in a way that felt weighty to Paloma—a fateful way, rawer and realer than head-over-heels infatuation. She loved Ken for leading her to this place where she had discovered her ability to make a home out of sheer will. And she loved Ken for dying, for letting her go. This was not something she could ever say aloud, especially to Cassidy, but somehow, she hoped her daughter could understand this love that was not love. Perhaps Cassidy might even grow to love her mother because of it, and in spite of the ways she felt Paloma had failed her.