How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [41]
“No good, frozen food.”
“Mom, it’s really great these days. That chicken we had last time at my place was precooked.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Little bit dry. Didn’t want say.”
AT THE COMMISSARY, I came up with a list out of nothing. We needed food; what did it matter if I bought it now with Sue instead of with Charlie? I again searched for the right moment. My heart thumped slowly.
I watched her pick out vegetables and fruits, looking each over for bruises, smelling them the way I’d taught her. A little girl and her mother passed, carbon copies of each other. Sue had never looked like she belonged to me or to Charlie. Her hair was brown; her skin was pale and would tan.
The little girl gave me a chubby-cheeked smile, and I smiled back. I could hardly believe my own baby was here before me, thirty-two and a mother of practically a teenager.
Sue had been too young to be a mother. I knew because I had been, too. At twenty, you’re still a child. She had told me of her pregnancy one October day. Over the phone, though she lived only a few miles away.
It had been better for her not to see my face. Even my voice, I couldn’t control. I shut and opened my eyes for several moments. All of the hopes and dreams she had had since she was a little girl flashed before my eyes. At five, an artist. At seven, the president. At ten, a chef. Twelve, an archaeologist. But, really, I wanted her to graduate from college, marry well, have a job she loved. Children would come later. Now she would have to make do with survival.
“Are you there, Mom?” Sue had asked anxiously. “I’m still going to finish school.”
“Maybe.” My voice had an edge. I tried to soften it. “Hard work, Sue. You think ’bout this?”
“It’s too late to think about it now, even if I hadn’t.” Sue sounded disappointed.
Charlie had been thrilled. “People have been having kids young forever,” he said. “All they need is one room and a crib.”
I had looked at him—this man who had not been the one to wash poopy diapers and hang them to dry, who did not get up with sick children while his spouse was at sea—and said nothing.
AT THE MEAT SECTION, I still could not think of the right way to talk to Sue. My whole life, my right moments had been few. Charlie had not asked me to marry him; I had asked him. That was one right moment. And when Sue had called me to say she and Craig were getting divorced, I had a right moment.
She had been crying so hard I could barely understand her. “It’s over! It’s over. You were right.”
I wanted to cry with her. Sometimes these things happen for the best, I wanted to say. I could not say I was sorry she had gotten married, for they had had my granddaughter. I could not say I was glad he was gone, for Sue was weeping. I wanted to say that she was still very young and that she would find someone else, but this might not come true. “Tokidoki,” I said instead. Fate steps in sometimes.
But most of the time, I talked first, thought later.
We stared at soy sauce bottles in the Japanese aisle. “I wonder real Japan food look like nowaday.” I leaned against the cart. Wouldn’t you like to see for yourself, Sue?
It was so hard to talk to her. She moved fast, in a hurry, a humming-bird pausing at flowers.
“They don’t carry this stuff anywhere.” She threw in packets of Japanese candies, chocolate pretzels, dried fish. Sue had always loved Japanese food.
“Hey, Sue,” I said casually, though my mouth was dry. “You like go Japan one day?”
“Sure, Mom. Someday.”
“Soon.”
My eyesight became black at the edges. My breath quickened, quickened too much, into hyperventilation, then fear. I was going to pass out. I noticed I was sitting on the floor. I forced myself to take deep breaths in and out.
“Mom? Oh my God. I’ll call you an ambulance.”
Sue had called one for me before, once. When she was ten and home alone. She was so brave then. She told the paramedics all my medications and history.
My breathing slowed, my heart steadied. “No. I okay. Ambulance too takai.”
“It’s not too expensive, Mom.”
My eyesight sharpened. A small crowd had gathered around. Sue