I look back at Honey who has her cup but is waving her arms like she wants to throw it and is whining and just generally has an ornery look as she strains against her straps. I say “We’re having fun” which my grandpa used to say and then look at Alice who is wincing a little and wriggling in her seat. “Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable,” I ask, and she says “I’ll manage.” Honey starts bawling openly so I just say “We’re having fun” again, with emphasis this time, and point the car out of the Arrowhead parking lot. Alice points at her car in a far corner spot and says “Goodbye, Rocinante!” and looks at me. “That’s the car’s name,” she says solemnly. I laugh with approval but then I feel my shoulders creep up to my ears as is their wont when Honey cries. Alice twists her narrow body to the extent possible and says “Now what” to Honey, and puts her hands over her eyes and does a creaking peekaboo, and the little internal combustion engine of joy that runs Honey makes a smile bloom on her wet cheeks.
“There’s not a thing wrong with this little baby,” says Alice. I notice she is wearing a wedding ring, a yellow gold band around her finger that wasn’t there yesterday.
“You’re wearing your wedding ring,” I venture.
“Sometimes I put it on.”
“You never got remarried?” She looks out her window at the scenery, which has given over to sagebrush and will soon climb into scrub pine. A jackrabbit runs across the road before I can even think to slow the car. “I never met anybody I wanted to get remarried with.”
“How long were you married before he died?”
“Twenty years.” A long time, I think, and then I remember that it’s been fifty years since. “How long have you been married?” She asks as though she doesn’t really care to know the answer. She’s distracted, staring out the window but I answer her anyway.
“Three years. I met him almost ten years ago and we dated for a month, and then we didn’t see each other for five years and then we basically got married right away. My mom got sick in the meantime so I had gone back to be with her and we weren’t serious anyway, I mean I barely could talk to him, linguistically speaking.” It doesn’t matter if she’s listening or not, it’s nice to be asked about yourself I don’t care who you are.
“You can’t know them anyway,” she says, so I guess she is listening. “I mean you don’t know what they are going to do when the rubber meets the road.”
“What did your husband do when your kids got sick?”
“Well, he agonized, he loved them, he made up stories for them, he read to them all night long. But he went to work all day long too, and he had very strict politics. He didn’t believe it was right to pay someone to look after them, because of the power balance. He was an egalitarian.” I almost stop the car. “So what did you do?” “We compromised,” she says. “We could accept someone’s help if they were getting something in return.” “Something other than money?” I asked. “He was a Marxist, I guess you could say.” Not a spook then, I think to myself and make a note to pursue further inquiries at a suitable juncture. “So instead of paid help we had fellows come and stay with us after they got out of bad situations, jail and such. I had to negotiate with him about what kind of crimes were acceptable.”
I can’t help myself, I laugh. “What the fuck,” I say and immediately freeze but she actually laughs too. “Anyway, it was very difficult. Even their wheelchairs were huge wooden things I couldn’t really get up the stairs. And then after the first of our girls died he up and died too.”
“What did you do?” I look back at Honey and she is lulled by the road. “What do you mean what did I do? I despaired. I grieved. I carried on.”
I feel there is something accusatory in her tone, as if to say, “I didn’t have some little meltdown like you seem to be having over nothing,” and I am preemptively mad about this, since I’m driving her ass to god knows where but then she says “But I did finally pay someone to help me out” and I look over and she has a small smile on her face.
She leans her head against the window.
“I think I’ll take a little nap, if you don’t mind.”
“Go right ahead.”
My energetic feeling from the early morning is collapsing in its usual midmorning way and I try to muster new feelings. First I think about what a luxury it is to be a Marxist who has an extremely accommodating wife. Then I think about the salami in the cooler and the cigarettes in my bag and the fact that the house is all packed up the bed is made and there’s no reason at all to go back. The road is so smooth—kaymak gibi, like cream, you say in Turkish—and the Buick gliding over it. Honey has quieted in the back seat.
