Tapestry of Fortunes: A Novel by Elizabeth Berg

Author:Elizabeth Berg [Berg, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-679-64469-9
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

2

Whenever the phone rings, I answer it as if the rescuers have appeared in a helicopter above me and are lowering the rope. “Hello?” I say, meaning, Please. It is never the rescuers. It is a cheerful young girl wanting to know if I would like to contribute to the ballet. Not this year, I say. It is Monica Kaplan, asking if I’d like to contribute a dozen cupcakes for the bake sale coming up in October. I’ll bring a few dozen, I say. And now it is my mother.

“Honey, you have got to get right back on the horse. I mean it. I don’t say you’re not hurting, God knows I know that, but you’ve got to get right out there and start dating. You’re still a young woman, forty-two is nothing—you’re an infant.”

It is twelve noon. I am sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of mail-order catalogues and an empty box of Godiva chocolates, which I now know are seriously overrated. Also with an empty Scotch glass, but I didn’t put much in there. Hardly anything. I pull the telephone away from my ear and lay it on my chest, breathe out a long sigh. I wish I hadn’t told my mother so soon. But I had to.

I put the phone back to my ear. “Ma, I’m not ready to date. For God’s sake. I couldn’t care less about that. I just want to figure out how to keep Travis … safe.” I look at the Scotch glass, turn it upside down.

“Well, he’s safe, Sam, he’s with his mother. Of course he’s safe! And despite what you may think, children are really very, very resilient. You’d be surprised. I can tell you with all certainty that what Travis wants right now is for you to go on with your life. That’s what will help him the most. He doesn’t want to see you mooning around, doing nothing. You haven’t cried in front of him, have you? For God’s sake, don’t cry in front of him, whatever you do. He’s taking his cues from you: if you’re happy, he’ll be happy. Think of it as your job to pick yourself up and get going again. Why, when your father died, I didn’t waste any time. I went right out and started meeting people.”

“Meeting men, you mean.”

“Well, yes. Of course. It’s the natural thing. Woman needs man and man needs woman, and that’s all there is to it, I don’t care what anybody says. For the homosexuals, of course, it’s a little different, but it’s still the same, anyway.”

“… What?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. The point is, if a child sees his mother dating, it lets him know that she’s special. And then of course he feels special, too. I’m not making this up. Just think back to how you girls felt when I dated. You didn’t mind at all. You liked it.”

I close my eyes, rub my forehead. Where to start? I remember distinctly sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner with my sister, Louise, a few months after our father died.

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