Parallel and Perpendicular
Gary couldn’t sleep.
Whenever his wife
and son got into one of their arguments, it stressed him out. The fights were
exhausting for all the parties involved, but their son, Neil, would eventually
storm off to his room and decompress with loud music. Gary’s wife, Sofia, would
sit down at her computer and read the posts of her most distant acquaintances
of Facebook. Occasionally she’d sigh and tell Gary about one that particularly
bothered her, but mostly she’d retreat into the digital space, at once a public
place and her most private space in the house. Their daughter, Stephanie, who
was three years older than Neil, could now drive. When the fights began, she
would ask Gary for the keys. They would share a moment of eye rolling, and then
she would take off. She had a sixth sense about when it was safe to return.
Gary’s sixth sense told him he would be in big trouble with his wife if he
tried to escape during the fight, but even bigger trouble if he tried to
intervene, so he would quickly find a book, sit down in his recliner, and only
weigh in when Sofia asked for his opinion.
Tonight’s fight
started the way they generally did. They were all watching The Daily Show, a
show the whole family could enjoy together. They got to a commercial break, and
while Gary skipped through the commercials, Sofia looked over at her son. “Neil,
will you quit doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“You’re doing it
again.” Her voice was calm, but there was a dangerous undercurrent, like a
riptide.
“What?” Neil’s voice
carried the sneer he’d almost perfected at only 13. Gary marveled at that
sound. To the best of his recollection, he’d only mastered that kind of disdain
by 16.
“You’re digging in
your ear again. You know that grosses me out. Get a cue tip and do that in the
bathroom if you have to.”
Neil pulled his
pinky out of his ear. “I was not.”
“Neil, I just saw
you,” Sofia said.
Gary tried to steer
to safety. He smiled at Neil and said, “You were, buddy.”
“No I wasn’t. It’s
not a big deal.”
“Well, which is it?”
Sofia asked.
“What?”
“Either you weren’t
doing it, or you were and you don’t think it’s a big deal.”
“Or I wasn’t but I
still don’t think it would have been a big deal if I had been.”
Stephanie held out
her hand. Gary shook his head and continued to aim the remote. If he could just
get through the commercial break in time, he thought. He skipped ahead, but it
was too far. He tried to go back.
“Neil, I wish you
would just admit that you were doing it, say you’re sorry, and quit it. Then it
won’t be a big deal,” Sophia said.
“I wish you’d admit
I wasn’t doing it, say you’re sorry, and leave me alone,” Neil said.
Gary hit pause and
handed Stephanie the car keys. Then he got up.
“Where are you
going?” Sofia asked.
“I’m just going to
grab my novel.”
“I’m sorry, honey.
It’s not a big deal.” She looked back at Neil. “I just don’t like being lied
to.”
“And I don’t like
being falsely accused,” Neil said.
Gary headed off for
his book.
When he came back
down the stairs, their voices hadn’t risen too much, and they were still on the
original topic. Gary wasn’t sure what kind of omen that was.
“Maybe I touched my
earlobe or something, but I wasn’t ‘digging in my ear,’” Neil said.
“Well, this is
progress. Now you admit you were touching your ear. Neil, your pinky finger was
halfway to your brain. I think you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”
“Then why did you
call me a liar?”
“I didn’t call you a
liar.”
“Yes you did!” Now
Neil’s voice didn’t just rise in volume, it cracked in a way that might have
made Gary laugh under different circumstances. “You called me a liar!” he tried
again, this time without cracking.
“I didn’t call you a
liar,” Sofia explained in a voice straining for patience. “I said I didn’t like
being lied to.”
“That’s calling me a
liar!”
“No, it’s not quite
the same thing-”
“That’s a lie,
because if I said I didn’t like you lying to me, you’d say I was calling you a
liar.”
“I am not lying,
Neil. I’m trying to explain to you that-”
“I didn’t say you
were a liar, Mom.”
“Okay, you did, but
please don’t interrupt me Neil, because-”
“I did not! I said
you wouldn’t like me to call you a-”
“You just did,
Neil!” Now Sofia was shouting. “You said, ‘That’s a lie!’”
“Did not! This is
just like the whole ear thing!”
“Yes, it is. You say
you didn’t do that, either!”
“See? You are
calling me a liar, but you also said I don’t even know I’m doing it.”
“But you can know
you’re doing it when I catch you doing it, so just admit it and quit it.”
“But I’m not doing
it!”
Gary tried to focus
on his book. The words made a gray smudge on the page but refused to separate
into distinct shapes.
Sophia leaned
forward. “I’ll tell you what you aren’t doing. You aren’t doing all your
homework. You aren’t doing the dishes when it’s your turn. You aren’t
practicing the piano even though we keep paying for lessons.” She was counting
things off on her fingers, and hesitated on the third, her mouth slightly open
to let Neil know she wasn’t finished. Then the fourth came to her. “And you
aren’t putting your clothes in the hamper.”
Well, Gary thought,
they got past the ear thing. Now we’re up to DEFCON 2.
Neil leaned forward.
“So that’s what this is really about? How I do everything wrong?”
“Oh, don’t be so
dramatic. I didn’t say you do everything wrong. It’s just that, when I come
home from work, and I’m tired, and I’m stressed, if you haven’t done something,
and I ask you if you did it, just admit it and do it. Don’t tell me you did it
when you didn’t.”
“Mom, did you ever
stop to think that maybe I’m stressed and tired, too, and that’s why I can’t do
all the things you want me to do?”
“Neil, I said I
understood that sometimes you won’t have done all the things you’re supposed to
do. That’s not the point. The point is that you need to just admit it and do
them when I ask.”
“No, that’s not the
point, Mom.”
Sofia fell back
heavily into the couch. “Fine. What is the point?”
“The point was that
you were accusing me of digging in my ear. All this other stuff is just a
distraction you just brought up.”
That is a pretty
good point, Gary thought. Wisely, he said nothing.
“There can be two
points, Neil. These aren’t unrelated. You say you didn’t do something I was
watching you do. Sometimes you say you did things you didn’t do. I think
there’s a connection there.”
That was also a good
point, Gary noted.
Neil fell back
against the back of the loveseat. “Fine. Fine. I will try to do everything you
want me to do.” He started counting on his fingers. “I’ll try to remember to do
all my homework. I’ll try to make sure I do the dishes when it’s my turn. I’ll
try to remember to practice the piano.” He hesistated on the third, his mouth
open. “Oh, and I’ll put my clothes in the hamper.” Then he exaggerated the
fifth, waggling his thumb. “And I will try to stop doing the things I don’t
even know I’m doing, okay?” He stood up. “But you don’t have to be such a…” He
pressed his lips together.
Sophia’s eyes got
very wide, then very wet.
Gary sat up quickly,
looked at his wife’s eyes, then turned toward his son.
Neil knew he’d
stepped in it. “…mean. You don’t have to be so mean.”
“Neil,” Gary said
softly. “Go up to your room. Right. Now.”
Neil opened his
mouth.
Gary pointed toward
the stairs. He pointed hard. Neil went.
Gary looked at
Sofia. She carefully dried her eyes with one finger, trying not to smudge her
eyeliner too much, rose slowly from the couch, and went to sit in front of her
computer. The sound of muffled punk music sloshed down the stairs in little
rhythmic waves, just loud enough to be sullen, but not loud enough to confront.
Gary went into the
kitchen, but he could still see Sofia over the bar. “Would you like a glass of
wine?”
“Do we have anything
stronger?”
Gary turned toward
the cabinet above the fridge. “Um, we might.”
“I’m kidding. A
glass of wine would be nice. Maybe some of the red from when the McCabes were
over.”
He poured it and
brought her the glass. She mumbled a thank you, then disappeared into Facebook
again. Gary went back to his book. The words resolved themselves, but the story
eluded him.
“What punishment
should we give him?” Sofia asked.
“For sticking his
finger in his ear and lying about it?”
“No. For… Oh, God,
do you think I was being a bitch too?”
“No, of course not.”
“I was. I was. It
wasn’t a big deal and I made it into this big thing.”
He could hear in her
voice that she was crying, and he rose to hug her, but she handed him her
glass. “No, I’m fine. I’ll apologize to him tomorrow.”
“I don’t think you
need to apologize.”
“No, I do. It was… I
do.”
Gary tried to think
of something to say while he took the glass back to the sink, but when he
turned around she was already heading up the stairs. Soon after, the music
stopped, and he thought maybe she’d gone into Neil’s room. He listened, but the
only sound he heard was the car pulling back into the driveway.
“Are they done?”
Jennifer asked when she came in.
“Yeah.”
“Was it bad?”
“It’ll be fine.”
Gary watched Jennifer roll her eyes, then head for the stairs. He called after
her in a barked whisper. “Hey!” She returned. “Hey, why didn’t we ever have big
arguments with you like that when you were 13?”
“Because I’m more
like you, Dad.”
“But you didn’t
argue with your mother, either.”
“Nope. Neither do
you.”
“True.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too,
honey.”
Gary read his book
for a while, but when he was sure everyone was asleep, he made his way up the
stairs. As he passed Neil’s door, he remembered checking on his son a decade
earlier. He felt an overwhelming urge to do so again. Carefully, he turned the
nob and poked his head in. Neil was turned toward him, his face serene and
years younger. The blankets were pulled up to his neck, but one leg stuck out,
almost perpendicular to his body, his foot hanging off the edge of the bed.
Disturbed just enough by his father’s presence, Neil swallowed and then made a
soft clicking sound in his throat twice, then fell back into a deep sleep.
Gary continued down
the hall, past his daughter’s room, and slipped into his own. Sofia had fallen
asleep with her book open on her chest and her end-table light on. Gary slipped
around to her side of the bed, gently picked up the book, placed the bookmark
in it, and set it down as quietly as he could. Sofia heard this slight sound
and swallowed once, then made a soft clicking sound in her throat twice. Gary
remembered, at one point when Neil was five or six, he went through a phase of
climbing into their bed after bad dreams, and because he made the exact same
sleeping sounds as his mother, Gary hadn’t been able to tell if he was there or
not sometimes.
Before Gary could
turn off Sofia’s light, she rolled over and pulled the covers up to her neck.
Then she pushed one leg out from under them and dangled her foot over the side
of the bed.
Gary went into the
bathroom. While sitting on the toilet, he contemplated the ways his wife and
son were so similar. Did that explain the tension between them? It must, he
decided.
He was entirely
unaware that his pinky finger was buried deep in his ear.
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