The Blessings by Elise Juska

Author:Elise Juska
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2014-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

Rebecca has met both of Alex’s parents—who each came out to Princeton for dinner last year, on separate occasions—and Meghan, but he’s resisted taking her home to Philly and introducing her to the entire clan. He isn’t sure why. Rebecca is different from his family (an atheist, for one thing), but Alex is pretty sure he isn’t worried about them disapproving. (He can just imagine how his cousin Stephen would look her up and down, then mutter: How’d you manage that, Al?) Maybe he’s worried about what Rebecca will think of them? The women sitting around the dinner table, the slow conversation about small things. Empty talk—it might qualify. Or maybe he just doesn’t feel like stirring up all the excitement, the attention—some adult version of the crowd snapping pictures at his senior prom—or dragging Rebecca through the aftermath of the divorce. Since last year, his dad has been renting an apartment; his mom lives in the house alone. It’s just simpler without Rebecca there.

Rebecca’s parents, Jane and Douglas, are still married. They live in Connecticut and have a summer house in Maine. Alex spent a weekend there last August, where they had long, boozy dinners on the deck overlooking the ocean. They talked about books and films (they were the kind of people who called movies films) and asked about Alex’s research. He talked way more than usual, loosened by the wine and the questions. They had just returned from Africa and were astounded—borderline offended, it seemed—that Alex had never been abroad.

“Never?” Jane said. “Never left the country? Not even Europe? Oh, you need to go to Europe, Alex. Or Africa.” She appealed to Douglas. “Don’t you think Alex needs to see Africa?” she said, as if seeing Africa were reserved for certain kinds of people, people intellectually sophisticated enough to appreciate it.

“Watch out,” Douglas said with a weary affect that seemed somehow for show. “She’ll stuff you in her suitcase.”

“What about your family, Alex?” Jane pressed. “Have they done much traveling?”

“Not—internationally,” Alex said, thinking of the Jersey shore. “Actually, I’m not sure my parents have ever left the country, either.”

“What?” Jane grabbed her face and squeezed, raking her fingers down her cheeks. She seemed a little drunk, he thought. “Well, I just don’t understand it,” she said. “To not go out and see the world. It’s a problem in the whole United States.”

Seeing the world costs money, Alex felt like saying. And these are my parents, not the whole United States. But he’d offered the information; he must have known where it would lead. He thought of his cousin Stephen, the family screwup. Their birthdays were just three weeks apart, but their lives had gone in opposite directions. Stephen, who never left Northeast Philadelphia. Stephen, who lately barely left Aunt Margie’s basement. Douchebags, Alex imagined his cousin saying. And what kind of asshole goes by Douglas instead of Doug?

“I told you,” said Jane. She draped a finger in Alex’s direction. “This one is an old soul.” Her face

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