Basic Math
By Sara Weiss
Amos stays too long at work just to be somewhere other than home. He sits at his desk to watch the city lights, to listen to the hum of a vacuum cleaner sliding down the hallway.
It’s not easy for Gretchen, Amos knows that, with the kids at the end of the day. The most helpful thing he could do would be to come home right after work and get them to sleep. He’d open the door and the bath would be running upstairs, a stampede of feet scuttling on the floor above him. Coming home at this point would be entering chaos, jumping into a jazz tune at its climax. When Gretchen hears the creak of the door, no matter how quietly he tries to open it, she’d call out his name in desperation.
He scrolls through Facebook to find his feed is full of #metoo posts. Women from his past and present are all typing these two words to signify that they’ve been sexually harassed at some point in their lives—including his sister, Emma. Oh, Emma. Who was she talking about when she wrote that? He knows he should bring this up with her. He starts to wonder about all the women who wrote this, women he wouldn’t have expected to be so public about something so personal. Gretchen is barely on Facebook and she’d never write something like this, herself. She’d think it was a cry for attention. He has a hard time envisioning her letting someone take advantage of her. She’s always been so self-assured. Valedictorian. Champion of the debate team. In the top of her age group in any 5k she runs, as he used to be, too. Their personalities are very much alike.
In the search box, he types in the name of his high school girlfriend, Caroline, who he hasn’t spoken to for years. She used to wear clothes that hid her body, a green jacket, baggy the way all clothes were in the nineties. Every time he spies someone at a distance wearing a jacket like this, his heart flips. And yet, they didn’t even really know each other.
He studies her picture. She’s standing on the top of a mountain with her dark short hair blowing in her face, her cheeks flushed, her gaze addressing the camera directly with a confidence that wasn’t there when he knew her. Her arms are more toned, and there’s a tattoo of a symbol of some sort on her shoulder. Amos would like to see her again, to touch her shoulder and ask what the symbol means, what it has meant to her in her life. A life without him. When he scrolls down her page, he finds that she’s written two words in bold letters. ME TOO.
***
On the train ride home, again, he looks again at her page. Caroline was perfect, perfect, perfect. No one had claimed her yet. She didn’t even seem to know her worth. She rarely spoke in class, and when she did, her voice stayed in its high octave. Her art hung in the hallway, girls with disfigured faces, or red and yellow ink blots bleeding out from the center of the page. The boys on the soccer team passed through this hallway on the way to and from practice without commenting on the artwork. Amos didn’t understand these paintings. He wondered how two minds could work so differently. Emma, too, was artistic.
Soccer was everything to him back then. He’d see an opening and grab it, his feet moving the ball like a dance. He’d map out the path to the goal. He knew which player to dodge, whose shin to kick, and who to knock down like a bowling pin. His coach didn’t love it, but sometimes, he’d take the ball himself and ignore everyone else’s calls, running, his heart pounding, tears spilling from his eyes in the wind. It was the only time he had to care for himself and no one else, and that was good for him. He had the feeling though, that he couldn’t catch what he was chasing, no matter how many goals he scored.
After French class, he said Caroline’s name, and she turned around to face him. She was considering him now. Her skin was creamier up close. Her collarbones jutted out from the wide scoop of her green shirt. Her backpack sagged behind her and the thick straps appeared to be cutting into her shoulders. He would’ve liked to take the weight of it off of her, but to ask to carry it would have sounded odd. She cocked her head, which told him she was waiting for him to say something.
“Would you like to go to a movie? A group of us are going.”
His mouth was dry. Her eyes were very brown. They narrowed and opened wide again. “When?”
“This weekend,” he said. “Saturday night.” He hadn’t really planned anything. “What movie?” she asked, and he wondered if it would determine if she’d say yes or no.
“Jurassic Park.”
She shrugged, lifting one shoulder and lowering it. “Sure.”
He invited two boys from his team and also, Emma invited herself along. He drove his dad’s Honda, and Emma took up the front seat. The boys lived only a few houses away, so they sat in the back. He picked up Caroline last. When the car pulled up to her house, she came right out, and opened the back door. She had to squeeze in the back next to the boys, but they were not moving over. Amos threw a tissue box at Kyle and shouted, “Move!”
When the dinosaurs came out, Emma covered her eyes and screamed. Caroline just flinched.
He was kind and patient for over four months when all they did was kiss. They hid in the basement of his house, his father rarely home or watching football upstairs. Emma was rarely home either, and when she was, she was in and out, a door slamming, laughter, footsteps on the floorboards above their heads. Emma and her friends came in to raid the fridge and then leave. Their father never asked where Emma was going. He seemed to think his kids were like roommates and that it was only his job to coexist with them.
Amos and Caroline kissed and kissed until their lips were raw. They watched The Crow, Donnie Brasco, Gattaca, Boogie Nights. Her cheeks were red and splotchy from the down along his jaw. He grabbed for her, wanting to pull her closer, wanting to rip her flannel shirt, to break the buttons along the fault-line, wanting her body in his hands. But he didn’t know if she actually wanted this. Her kisses felt to him as if she was pulling away.
***
They’d spent so many hours in his basement on that plaid couch, watching a television the size of a cereal box. She was one of the only people to truly care enough to ask him about his mother.
“Is it hard for you? You must miss her all the time.” Her voice was so soft, a near whisper. She didn’t break eye-contact with him, though he could only manage to return small glances.
His friends would never ask him a question like this, or initiate this kind of a conversation. The fact that his mother had died was just a truth about him that everybody knew. It was Basic Math. Something that was became no more. When you lose a mom, she does not come back. One minus one equals zero.
Yes, sometimes, he still missed his mother.
“I used to think about her all the time,” he said. “When I was a kid. I wondered if I’d be a different person if she was still alive.”
She didn’t answer. She furrowed her brow. She was listening so intently that he wanted to say more, to open up to her. Later, in conversations with others, he’d practice coming across as compassionate and concerned as she did when she listened.
“But, I don’t think there’s a point to thinking that way,” he said.
“There doesn’t always have to be a point,” she said. She was smiling, barely. She could steer a conversation right to the heart of a topic, which was unusual.
“That’s true,” he said, and he nodded.
She put her hand on the back of his head, which to him seemed like such a grown-up thing to do.
She was a shy person in school, but every day, he learned about her confidence. Very few people got to see her, but she’d let him in. This made him feel important.
“What was your mom like?” she asked, closing her eyes briefly and opening them again.
Amos must have made some gesture, touching his nose or scratching his forehead to distract from the gravity of the conversation.
What was his mother like? She used to let him in her bed when he couldn’t sleep. She pointed a finger when she was mad, but one corner of her mouth rose in a private joke. She sighed when she was driving the car and took too long to answer his questions. She knew about Angel, Beast and Jean Grey, the characters in his X-Men comic book. She was the only one in the world who realized he could sing. She had a pretty smile and the darkest black hair in the family.
“She was a scientist,” he said. “She studied soil and plants for a big company. To bring data to farmers.”
“That’s a cool thing for a woman to do,” Caroline said, lighting up.
“Yeah, it was,” he said, a little surprised she’d say that. He hadn’t really thought about it, but it was cool, wasn’t it? “She was a good person.”
“How’d she die?”
He wanted to be done now with this conversation, though he appreciated it. He was reminded of the darkness that lived inside of him long ago, a feeling like he was forever falling and falling.
“Cancer,” he said. This was the expected answer and also the truth.
“Thank you for telling me all that,” she said, sensing that he was finished. She was better than anyone he’s ever known at reading him.
“Thank you for asking,” he said, holding her hands.
***
He and Caroline and those boys he barely talks to anymore used to drive around the backroads, in “the valley,” and the night stretched on forever. Kyle would drive the green pickup, “the Hulk.” He’d travel on the wrong side of the road until another car came around the bend. The windows were down, Caroline’s hands over her eyes, smiling, letting out little squeals, his arm around her securing her as they rounded the sharp bends, his muscles tensing around her. God, he hopes she thinks of him like that, with his arm around her. He really did want to be her protector.
Me too, she’d written.
He shudders. Why, in most of his memories of her, is she covering her eyes or squeezing her eyes shut? Maybe she didn’t feel safe with him. He was the one to put her in these situations. He’d never really thought it was such a good idea to drive on the wrong side of the road, but he was a boy, and this was supposed to be his idea of fun. There was a close call, a car Kyle didn’t see. There was a flash of headlights and a screeching of brakes. They jolted to the right. The Hulk was going to tip. Two tires were off the ground—Amos and Caroline were off the ground. The car passed on the left, the tires bounced back down to the road, and Kyle pulled off into the tall weeds for a second.
They were all quiet. Amos’s heart had never beat so fast, like a hummingbird’s. Caroline was pale. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. They could hear crickets in the bushes, right? Clouds passed over the moon.
“You okay?” he asked her. Did he? He’s really not sure if he asked her that.
“Shit,” somebody said, and they all laughed.
***
They went to a party at a boy named Luke’s house with twenty other kids. He drank stale beer and poured vodka and daiquiri mix into a cup for Caroline, refilling the cup when it was empty. At first, Caroline was shy and visibly uncomfortable, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. After several drinks, she took his hand and started dancing to Prince.
She was barely standing, her arms wrapped around his neck, her eyes unfocused and her words slurred like in the movies. She was letting him hold her weight. He wanted to tell her he loved her. The curve of her breasts pressed against his chest.
He took her outside where there was a gurgling creek and crickets chirping, where the stars glimmered through the trees. She leaned against him as they walked.
He kissed her, and he could taste the vodka on her breath. This time, it didn’t feel to him as though she was pulling away. She was drawing him to her. He had chills everywhere, the anticipation pulsing throughout his body. He took her hand and sat her down on the cold grass.
He leaned over her and kissed her, pressing her down to the ground. He didn’t think too much. He took her bottom lip in between his teeth and lightly pulled. He wanted to devour her. She let out a moan that later, he couldn’t decipher, that could have been passion or not. He unzipped her jacket. Her body was warm and full in his cold hands. He unbuttoned her pants and pulled them down. Later, he remembered how her neck was craned away from him and her eyes closed tight like little stars. It truly was ecstasy for that moment, for that one moment. Afterward, he whispered in her ear. “Thank you.” She was his first, and that was how he always wanted it to be.
They went to the diner with a group of kids, ordered runny eggs and bacon, and smoked cigarettes. She didn’t eat or smoke. He wondered if she was avoiding his eyes. He reached for her hand and squeezed. She let him hold it. Did I hurt you, Caroline? I never meant to. If he could just see Caroline. If she could confirm for him that she wasn’t talking about him when she wrote what she wrote.
***
Now Amos gazes out the window at the Hudson River, the water as brown as mud. He closes his eyes and imagines a life with Caroline, the two of them treading on the soft pine needles beneath thick redwoods, the sun flickering through the leaves, the hum of passion. Her laughter falling like chimes. He opens his eyes quickly to stop his heart from thumping with an ache he didn’t know was there.
He drafts an email on his phone. He writes, “Caroline, I was just thinking of you. Hoping you’re happy in your life. Wanted you to know I loved you back then in the way I knew how.” He can’t bring himself to send it. The light of a passing boat blinks on the dark waves as the train screeches into the station.
He gets home after the kids are already asleep. Gretchen is at the sink, steam rising up from the faucet, dishes clinking in her hands. He stands behind her and puts his hands on her shoulders.
“Sorry, train was late,” he says.
The dishwasher door whines as she opens it. “Hi,” she says. “Before I forget, I need you to write a check for picture day. Decide which package we want. The order form’s on the table.”
“We haven’t seen the pictures yet, so how do we know we want anything?”
“Blind faith,” she says.
“I don’t have much faith they’ll be good, do you?”
She turns to him. “Just do it, okay? Just fill out the form. Mom will ask for pictures of the kids.”
His wife still lives her life for her mother, who is seventy-three. He doesn’t know what she’ll do when her mother dies, which might never happen.
“Sure thing,” he says.
He’s gotten used to the monotony of parenthood and has stepped up to his responsibilities without complaint. But, Caroline is on his mind. He pictures her with a baby in her arms. Caroline, just as she was in high school, her hair soft, freshly washed and cold to the touch, slipping forward around her face. She might have been a more natural mother than Gretchen. Gentle, quiet, and intuitive. So very opposite to Gretchen’s brash fireball of a personality. He shakes his head to try to rid himself of the thought. Without Gretchen, his children wouldn’t exist. And far as he knows, Caroline never had children.
When he makes it to bed, Gretchen is already asleep. He goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth, checking his phone at the sink. He looks at the draft of the email he’s written to Caroline. “Caroline, I was just thinking of you. Hoping you’re happy in your life. Wanted you to know I loved you back then in the way I knew how.” His heart pounds with a slow, heavy thrum. His face flushes with something like embarrassment.
How strange it would be to make contact with her after so many years, nothing but air between them until now. She was as absent to him as his own mother. He thinks of his mom, of what it might feel like to connect with her after the long ache of passing time.
What would it mean for him to hit send? To connect who he was then to who he is now? What if she hates him? How dare you, she’ll think, aghast that he would reach out. What if she never replies and he’s left wondering? All he has to hold him up are his memories. If he learns that he was a toxic force in her life, he’d fall apart.
His finger is perched there, on the button. He has to slow his breathing down. He has to remind himself that he’s a father.
For some dumb reason—and this isn’t like him—he hits send.
THE END
Author Bio: Sara Weiss has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and she has written for Literary Mama, Lilith, Mutha Magazine, Bustle, Brain Child, Underwater New York, and elsewhere. She’s a professional writing consultant, teacher, and yoga instructor and she lives in the Hudson Valley, New York with her husband and two daughters.