What We Keep - Elizabeth Berg [63]
“You’re supposed to eat them one by one,” I said. “It’s more delicate. You taste it more.”
Sharla looked closely at me. “Were you crying?”
I shook my head.
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Because she’s not worth it, you know. She’s an ass-a-hole-a.”
I sat immobile, trying to make sense of the feel of the sun on my back. Finally, I said softly, “Yeah.”
“She’s a whore, too.”
“She’s a fuck,” I said, and Sharla’s eyes widened. Then she laughed loudly, and so did I.
“Fucker,” Sharla said. “She’s a fucker and a penis and a vagina. And a shit.” We laughed again. It hurt a bit, this reckless laughing; I enjoyed the ache of pain in my stomach. Finally, I sat up, wiped my eyes, and finished my sandwich. Then I went in the house and made another one and ate it. And then one more.
One night at dinner when my older daughter was around ten years old, she ate four servings of strawberry shortcake. I didn’t say anything when she did it, or immediately afterward. But when I went into her room to say goodnight, I sat on her bed and asked if there was anything bothering her.
“No,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah!”
“Okay.” I kissed her forehead. Then I said, “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“With me? Nothing!”
“Well, why do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
I busied myself straightening her bedspread. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just thought … well, I noticed you had a lot of dessert. Much more than you usually have. And I do that when I’m upset; when something’s bothering me, I eat a lot.”
“I just like strawberry shortcake!”
“Okay.”
“God, Mom!”
“Okay, I’m sorry!”
She looked at me for a while, then said, “I’m your daughter, not you.”
“I know.”
She raised one eyebrow, something she’s been able to do from the time she was a very little girl. “You keep forgetting,” she said.
“I suppose.” I smiled. Actually, the problem was that I keep remembering.
The Saturday before school started, my father called Sharla and me into his bedroom. He had just awakened—his hair was mussed, his face looked charcoal-smudged with whiskers. “I thought we’d go out for some clothes and supplies today,” he said. “For school.” A smile. Fake.
“We don’t get supplies until after school starts,” I said. “The teachers have to tell us what to buy.” I hated his not knowing this. I hated his not being fully dressed and competently serving us breakfast before he broached this topic. The way he was doing it was not how it was done. On the day you went shopping for school, you were served breakfast and the shopping plans were laid—where to go, where to go first. After the dishes were done, you were on your way. With your mother. Your mother drove, your mother waited outside the changing rooms while you put together skirts and sweaters, your mother bought your underwear—not your father. I didn’t want to be seen with my father, shopping for school clothes. It was dumb. And so I said, “I don’t need anything.”
“Me neither,” Sharla said.
My father blinked, gently rubbed his knee. “But you must need something.”
“We don’t,” Sharla said.
“We got enough last year,” I added.
“It still fits?”
I had no idea. But “Yes,” I said. “It still fits. We’re fine.”
You went shopping with your mother and then she helped you put everything away and then she went and made dinner while you did whatever you wanted and then your father came home and after dinner your mother showed him what you’d gotten. I knew how to do what I needed to live my life. I didn’t want to confuse things by doing them another way. It would only be wrong.
Still, my father tried once more to get us to go shopping. After breakfast he said, “You must at least need some pencils and paper.”
“Not the first day,” we answered together. It was true. Sort of.
“A lunch box?” he asked.
We rolled our eyes, both of us, and he nodded, relieved, in a