Heaven Adjacent Read online

  She stomped to the door, deeply irked about having to spend one more minute of her morning talking about chickens. And somebody else’s chickens at that.

  “Damn it all to hell!” she spat, and threw the door wide, not knowing if she was cursing at Nelson or his nemesis, Melanie.

  As it turned out, she was cursing at neither.

  Standing on her doorstep, fist raised to knock a second time, was her thirty-year-old son, Lance. Under his arm he held a folded section of newspaper, which she could only guess was the New York Times.

  “Lance,” she said. Which was an unimaginative thing to say. But in the moment, it was all she had. Then, without thinking, she added, “That reporter fellow swore he wouldn’t give my exact location.”

  The little girl and the dog had apparently followed him almost to her door. They were standing uncharacteristically still behind him, just in front of the porch steps. The girl broke her pose, ran up onto the porch, and tugged at Lance’s sleeve.

  “Who are you?” she asked in her screechy, windup-toy voice.

  Lance didn’t answer. He looked to Roseanna, who craned her neck to look up into his face. Lance was very tall.

  “Why is there a child tugging at my sleeve?” he asked.

  “Probably because she wants to know who you are.”

  Lance sighed. He looked down at the girl with an exaggerated tucking of his cleft chin.

  “I’m her son,” he said, and pointed at Roseanna, which caused him to drop the newspaper on her porch.

  The little girl scooped it up and handed it back to him.

  “Her son?” She sounded astonished. As if she’d just been told this tall, solid man was Roseanna’s alligator or her jet plane.

  “Yes, yes, her son. Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “You’re too big to be a son.”

  “Sons can be any size they want. Sons get bigger and bigger and turn into grownups, but you still call them your son.”

  For a second or two the girl continued to gaze up at him in wonder. Roseanna did not interfere with their delicate negotiation, figuring they would work it out between themselves.

  Then the little girl’s spell seemed to break suddenly.

  “Oh,” she said, and ran down off the porch to rejoin the dog, who had been patiently waiting for her to return.

  Lance watched her go.

  Then he turned back to Roseanna, his eyes on fire with accusation and resentment.

  “You have a dog?” Apparently this was the first he’d seen of the dog. On the final word, his voice came up to a full-throated shout.

  The little girl moved to the bottom of the stairs again to see what the fuss was about.

  Roseanna opened her mouth to answer him, but the girl beat her to it.

  “You don’t like dogs?” she asked Lance, clear in her tone that such a situation could not possibly exist in her fabulous world.

  “I love dogs,” Lance said.

  The girl extended her arms into a cartoonishly expansive shrug. “Then why is that bad?”

  Lance turned back to his mother again. She could tell by his face that he had been careful to bring a certain amount of composure to her door, and that he was quickly reaching the end of that supply.

  “You should probably come in,” she said.

  “You have a dog?” he asked again as she handed him a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

  He was sitting on her couch. There was no kitchen table. Nowhere else to sit. He seemed calmer now, but no less aggrieved.

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

  “Oh. I see. That wasn’t a dog. My mistake. Hippo? Bird of some sort?”

  Roseanna smiled a crooked smile and sat near him on the couch with her own coffee. He had learned that type of sarcastic riff from her, and she knew it.

  “I concede that it’s a dog. I’m only suggesting that your assessment that I ‘have him’ might be going too far. Might be more like him having me.”

  “Always the attorney,” he said, and took a sip. “Oh. This is good.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked around the room. Up over his head. As if the very environment, the very atmosphere of the room were poison. “Just that everything here is so . . .”

  He never went on to say what it was. Then again, he didn’t need to.

  “It may surprise you to hear that good coffee made in shabby locations still tastes like good coffee.”

  Lance rubbed his eyes before answering. As if all this could have been a bad dream. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “How did you mean it?”

  “I’m going to change the subject here, Mom. A minute ago I was standing on your porch, and you opened the door, and what did you say to me? ‘The reporter swore he wouldn’t give my exact location.’ Like you didn’t want to be found and were sorry to see me standing there.”

  “Well, of course I didn’t want to be found. We’ve talked three times on the phone since I was here, and you asked me where I was every time and every time I avoided telling you. I mean, take a hint, honey. But I certainly didn’t mean to sound like I was sorry to see you. I’m always happy to see you.”

  “Wow,” Lance said, and sipped again. “That’s got to be the mixed message of the century.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let me clarify by asking you a question. What was your goal in driving out here this morning?”

  Lance sat back on her couch for the first time. Sighed. “To talk you into coming home.”

  “And that is why I didn’t want him to give my location.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. Offered a sad little smile. “Right. Got it. Have you seen this yet?”

  He held the section of newspaper in her direction.

  “No. And I’d like to.”

  She took it from him. Glanced at the photos of the iron giraffe and lion.

  “He didn’t give your exact location. Just said it was in Chudley.”

  Roseanna laughed a strange, snorting laugh that surprised and embarrassed her. “Honey, only about three hundred people live in Chudley. And most don’t have iron zoos. So I would say that’s damn well exact enough. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, I’m here,” Lance said.

  They were lying on the scuffed and worn-down hardwood floor in broad daylight, each covered with a light blanket, their elbows about two feet apart. They were staring at the ceiling and not napping.

  It was an old ritual. When Lance had been little, he’d resisted going down for naps so violently that Roseanna had taken to lying down on the floor with him and joining him in the process.

  “So, Mom,” he said, breaking several minutes of fairly comfortable silence, considering the circumstances. “What were you thinking?”

  “Did you read the article or didn’t you? Because I went into my reasoning in that interview.”

  “I guess I was hoping . . . you know, being your son and all . . . that I might get a more personal version of events. In-depth, you know? Something not available to tens of thousands of subscribers.”

  “Yeah, I see where you’re coming from on that.”

  “This is about Alice, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe partly. I won’t pretend that didn’t factor in.”

  “How could you get a dog now, after I’m grown? How many times did I beg you for a dog?”

  “Two hundred and nineteen.”

  “You didn’t seriously count.”

  “No. I’m estimating. But it’s somewhere right around in there. Look. Honey. I didn’t ask for him any more than I asked for all these human squatters. He just showed up. Living in the city . . . back when you wanted one . . . a dog would have needed to be walked three or four times a day—”

  “I told you I would do that!”

  “Lance. Sweetheart. With all due respect, sons have been telling mothers that since the beginning of recorded history.”

  “You never gave me a chance to prove I would have been
different.”

  “Or I never gave you the chance to find out you were more like other boys than you thought you were.”

  “I’m going out to meet this dog,” he said.

  He threw off his blanket, rose, and strode to the door. Lance had a way of covering a great deal of ground in just a few steps. Which made her new house a very small place for him indeed.

  One hand on the antique copper knob, he turned briefly back to her.

  “If you don’t want these people here,” he said, “you don’t have to have them. Tell them to move along.”

  “I’m thinking it’ll be better if they figure out a new direction on their own. The problem will solve itself.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Except for the mom and the little girl, they live in tents. The first good freeze should clear this place out nicely.”

  While he was gone, Roseanna had more than enough time to cook and eat that second breakfast.

  Then she stepped out of her house in search of him, worried that he might have driven away without saying goodbye.

  She found him in the iron zoo, being towed around by the little girl. The girl had one of his hands in both of hers, and was putting her whole weight, her whole body, and apparently a great deal of her spirit into pulling him desperately from one animal to the next.

  Roseanna watched, smiling to herself.

  She couldn’t hear what the little girl was saying, but she seemed to be in full-on tour guide mode, pointing up at the second animal she and Roseanna had ever created together, and saying quite a bit about it.

  Roseanna figured she was telling Lance it was a “hippobottomus.” She knew the right word for the animal, that little girl. She had been corrected a dozen times. But she seemed to like it better her own way. The sculpture had a huge, round posterior made from a couple of antique tractor wheels. So it was not a bad joke. For a five-year-old.

  She moved closer to hear what the little tour guide had to say.

  But when Lance saw Roseanna standing nearby he turned to her with a look in his eyes that felt positively scorching.

  He stomped back to the house without a word spoken.

  “What’s wrong with him?” the girl asked.

  “Not sure. He might still be mad about the dog.”

  “How can he be mad about a dog if he loves dogs?”

  “Because he wanted one for himself.”

  “He should just go get one, then. They’re all over the place.”

  “Good thinking,” Roseanna said. “I’ll go tell him we say so.”

  She found him sitting on the edge of the unrailed porch, his long legs dangling. Swinging them back and forth like a very big little boy.

  “What did I do this time?” she asked, walking up onto her porch and settling on the spongy boards behind him. She leaned on his back. She thought—feared—he would pull away. He didn’t.

  “You babysit that little girl?”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Yes. If you must know. I asked her where her mom was. She said she was at work. I said, ‘So who looks after you?’ She said sometimes Melanie and sometimes Martin but usually you.”

  “And this is bad because . . .”

  “Oh, come on, Mom. You’re a smart lady.”

  “Not smart enough for this one, apparently.”

  “You don’t even like kids.”

  “No. That’s true. I don’t. I find them immature.”

  “I was raised by a nanny because you couldn’t find the time.”

  “Ah. I see. All sorts of stuff is coming up and out today.”

  “I’m going home now,” he said, and pushed off the porch.

  He landed on his feet in the dirt of her yard, and she nearly fell off after him, but she caught herself. He raced to catch her out of reflex, but by then there was no need.

  “Think about what you’re saying,” she called to him as he turned to stamp away.

  He turned again. Stamped back. It was amazing how much he reverted to his childhood self when he was angry. And how cowed she felt by his anger.

  “Fine. You tell me,” he said. “What am I saying?”

  She worked to cover her own intimidation. Not let it show in her voice. “That you’re mad because we don’t spend enough time together.”

  “Right.”

  “So you’re cutting this visit short.”

  Lance stood still a moment, blinking into the sun. As if recently wakened from a deep sleep. Then he dropped his head into his hands. When he lifted it again, Roseanna saw that he was laughing. Which seemed like a damned good start.

  He walked over and leaned against the porch, quite near her, and she draped an arm over his shoulder and felt her tension drain away.

  “Look,” she said. “I get it. I was not mother of the year during any of the eighteen years I raised you. I’ll be the first to admit that I probably shouldn’t even have tried to be a mother. I’m glad I’ve got you, kid. I’ll never regret that. But it wasn’t really fair to you. And I’m sorry for that. I genuinely am.”

  They fell silent for a moment. A hen skittered by close to Lance’s feet, and he brushed it away with the toe of his shoe, as if it frightened him. Which seemed odd.

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming,” he said.

  “But . . . my darling boy . . . we’re not dead yet.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning if you want a better relationship with me, here I am.”

  “Yeah. Here you are. That’s exactly the problem. If you were in the city we could spend some quality time. You know. Even though we never did before.”

  “If I was in the city, I’d be the same person I’d always been, and we wouldn’t have a chance to do something new. You want to spend time with me, spend time. You want a better relationship? We’ll make one from scratch. Right here, right now, buddy boy. Stay.”

  “Stay?”

  “Yeah. Stay. You know the word? Even most dogs know it.”

  “Don’t even mention dogs.”

  “And that’s another thing. You’re thirty years old. You want a dog? Stop complaining and go get one. Hell, even the five-year-old suggested that.”

  “But I’m gone all day. I work.”

  “So?”

  “It’s not fair to the dog.”

  “Oh, that’s bull. Go pull one out of the pound. Get one who’s on his last day before they take him to that room at the end of the hall. Ask him if he’d rather go into that room and never come out, or go home with you and have to wait for you to come back from work before he collects his loving. Small price to pay for being literally saved.”

  Lance didn’t answer for a long time. Just stared off over the hills.

  When he did speak, dogs seemed to have left his mind completely.

  “I can’t stay here. I have the business.”

  “Darren and Annie couldn’t manage it while you take a little sabbatical?”

  Another long silence.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure they can manage it? Or you’re not sure you can let them?”

  “I hate it when you do that.”

  “What? Guess correctly?”

  “Pretty much. Yeah. Okay, I see your point, Mom. I do. And it’s only a few hours from the city. So I’ll come around more often. And we’ll figure out how to be two adults together. Maybe. We’ll have a go at it, anyway.”

  “That wasn’t really the request. But I suppose I’ll take it.”

  “I can’t stay.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Because I have a life.”

  “People take little vacations from their lives all the time.”

  He peered around at the house, his eyes narrowing. Whether it was a reaction to the sun in his eyes or the sight of the house itself was hard to say.

  “Any good four-star hotels nearby?”

  “If by ‘nearby’ you mean New York City . . .”

  “I love the
idea of it. And thank you for offering. It means a lot to me that you would want that. But I have to go home.”

  They sat cross-legged on her porch boards, facing each other, each holding a hand of playing cards. They were playing gin, just like in the old days. Except in the old days he had been easy to beat.

  “So you have playing cards,” he said, squinting as he gazed into the distance, waiting for her to decide what to discard.

  “That’s a bit of a memo from the Department of Duh. Don’t you think?”

  “I meant . . . in that article you were talking about only having what you need to get by.”

  “To live a decent life, I think I said.”

  “So no decent life without playing cards?”

  “You know I like to play solitaire when I’m thinking. But, anyway, you’re missing the point, honey. My point was that I wasn’t going to spend the lion’s share of my life savings building a dream home that I could live without. And also that I wasn’t going to work hard all day at a job I hated just to be able to afford more stuff I don’t need. I honestly think a person can make her way through the world with a deck of playing cards and still be traveling fairly light. Don’t you?”

  She pulled a card off the stack. Then she frowned at her hand of cards for a moment and discarded a five.

  “I didn’t know you hated your work,” he said.

  “Of course I hated it. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Then why did you do it all those years?”

  “Now that, my son, is a question for the ages. It’s more or less what I came out here to try to answer. Why do we do work we hate all our lives? Somewhere earlier on the road somebody must have made us feel that we didn’t have an option to do otherwise. I’m sure it gets psychologically complex.”

  “Gin,” he said, and laid his cards faceup on the rotted boards. The wind nearly took them away.

  Roseanna held them down with one hand and examined them. Not because she thought he could not be trusted. It was just what you did. It’s how the game was played.

  “Damn,” she said. “I used to be able to beat you ninety-nine percent of the time. We’d play game after game after game, and I can only remember you winning maybe two times.”