About Time

Luke Fitzpatrick wore a suit the day he came to see her. It was dark--navy, maybe black-­ Maren couldn't tell for sure. But she was certain that it must be an Italian suit. It's what they all wore. Or even if it wasn't, when asked, he would no doubt respond that it was, in fact, Italian. Luke was taking time out of his busy day at the office to go and see Maren.

Putting the phones, e-mails, faxes, meetings, conference calls, and whatever else they did all day in the financial world, on hold to go and see her. So, despite her better judgment, after timidly opening the door to his commanding knock--she invited him inside.

Maren Brooks sat quite uncomfortably in a La-Z-Boy recliner. Luke was across the room in a wooden kitchen chair. Legs crossed, he smoothed out the pant leg of the black--or navy-- suit.

"Things have been busy," Luke blurted out after some time. Maren was unsure if it was a comment or a question.

"I'm sorry? What was that?"

"Things. They've been busy. Since... since... then..."Luke moved to smoothing the arms of his jacket now. It almost looked like he was trying to sweep away cat hair.

"Oh. Yes. I've been so very busy myself. It's... hard. To keep up." Maren looked down at

the arm of the recliner. So fluffy, pillowy, and pink. It made her arm resting on it look like a little, white, plastic straw... the kind you can easily mash between your teeth with almost no pressure at all. She moved her arms, politely folding her hands into her lap.

"I should go. Work. -- Maybe I shouldn't have come." Luke looked around--she thought he tried to hide his discomfort but failed. His eyes caught the clock on the wall. The one with a different bird for every number, the one that made automated chirping sounds on the hour. In twenty-two minutes it would chirp for the western meadowlark. He looked at Maren, then back at the clock. Luke tightened his already tight tie, then walked out the door.

The old house was always damp, and mold grew along all the windowsills and wood fixtures. It used to make Maren ill, especially in winter and fall, the particularly wet months.

Mold seemed to grow everywhere then. But she was used to it now. And though she used to hate never being able to see out of her windows because the condensation was so thick--she now found a sense of comfort in it. Why did she need to see outside, anyway. Nothing but crazies, drunks, and politicians out there. The only time she really left the house these days was to catch a bite to eat or go to the store--she didn't need anyone out there, anyway, she told herself.

Maren had been sitting in her grandmother's old swivel chair in front of a disconnected computer monitor. She noted her reflection in the black screen, how tired she looked, the wrinkles under her eyes were more prominent than usual. She was young--only twenty-six--but she knew she looked much older, lived much older. This was as close as she could come to really looking at her own reflection... mirrors were out of the question. The phone rang. The noise seemed foreign and strange--not unlike the knock when Luke had come by the house--nobody called there anymore. It was the public library. A recorded message announcing her many unpaid late fees. Maren only checked out books that supplied her with historical fact, concrete truths about the world. She hated anything that might misdirect her, manipulate her, lie to her-­ magazines were the worst. Not even a real person on the other end, she thought, a machine.

Maren remembered that her mother had loved to read, but only travel pamphlets that she'd gotten free from that old travel agency on the corner before it went under. She would stay up late into the night reading them...planning vacations that would never materialize. She remembered that she smoked cloves. That she was mostly a horrible cook, but could make the most amazing pierogis from scratch-- it was the only thing she ever made.

Her mother--so small and thin. She remembered you didn't dare hug her too tight or you might break her. Maren most vividly remembered her leaving. With him. Leaving her father, leaving the family, for him. His name was Luke. And she also recalled the telephone call from her father years later. "She's gone," he'd said. "A car accident. There was nothing they could do." She had felt a sharp pang of hurt, then. Of intense pain. Sudden tears shook her body. But the feeling was fleeting and she soon felt nothing. She hardly knew the woman anyway, she had thought.

It was a Saturday morning and Maren began it as she always did. Woke up at around 9:30 to cook herself breakfast. A piece of ham, 2 eggs and an English muffin. She finished the entire plate and as she often did, she still felt hungry. After breakfast she watched some television in her La-Z-Boy chair, and thought of which part of the house she would like to clean that afternoon. After deciding on the kitchen and half bath, the telephone rang. It was Luke Fitzpatrick. She wondered if heartless business executives also wore suits on the weekends.

"Maybe we could get together this afternoon," he said, "for brunch perhaps. And... talk."

Maren held the receiver to her ear, but didn't know what to say. She had cleaning to do. Brunch was not part of her Saturday.

"... Talk?... Talk. Uh, Yes, I suppose we could do brunch." She did not particularly want to meet with him again. She had nothing to say. But she felt hungry. So, they made arrangements and would meet at noon at the Elmer's down just two blocks from Maren's home.

Arriving early--or even on time--was out of the question. Maren planned her walk to the restaurant so as to arrive just late enough to show Luke that she was doing him a favor, but not so late that there would be hard feelings. She was shown to the table at 12:06. He wasn't wearing a suit, but what Maren decided must be some corporate weekend uniform--the relaxed look, they might call it. He wore tan slacks, a red V-neck sweater revealing the collar of an off-white button up shirt underneath. He looked less nervous today.

"I'm sorry to have barged in on you the other day," He said, wasting no time with pleasantries. "I was just at work, and--you've been on my mind. There's so much I'd like to say to you." He took a sip from his coffee cup. Maren thought it rude that he had ordered his coffee with out waiting for her to arrive at the restaurant. Maren was dying for coffee. But what did she expect; men like him have no sense of honor, she thought.

"What can I get you folks?" The waitress snapped. She didn't even look at them as she said it; she just dug the pencil out of her apron pocket and flipped through her notepad. Her nametag revealed her name to be Sharon. Luke ordered eggs benedict. Typical yuppie food.

"I'd like a piece of ham, 2 eggs--sunny side up, and an English muffin. None of that sauce for me." Maren stared down at the front of the menu as she said it. It was greasy and sticky and she couldn't understand why a fine establishment like this wouldn't take the time to clean off their menus. "Oh! And coffee. I'd like coffee." Sharon the waitress raised her eyebrow slightly as she scribbled down the order. And then she was off.

"Anyway, it's been almost a year now. It's been hard. For you too, I know. It must be hard. She was always sorry you two weren't--closer--" Luke's voice started to fade out and his dark eyes looked aimlessly around the busy restaurant. "She loved you though..I know that." The sentiment was unbearable. Maren couldn't help but roll her eyes. She wanted her eggs, and she needed her coffee. She wanted his food to arrive too, hoping that it would occupy his mouth and he'd stop with this talk. Luke looked back at her, and she managed a half smile.

"Yeah. How is it... you met my mother again?" Maren asked with a spark of enthusiasm fueled by contempt that surprised them both.

"Your mother was at the park... bird watching. Remember how she used to love to do that?" Maren didn't remember, but nodded just the same. "And I was on lunch and out for a walk... and there she was. Sitting there, with her bird book and her binoculars. And I watched her. After that first day I saw her, I was hooked. I'd go out and watch her every day. She looked so... beautiful. Then one time, I finally--"

"--Got up the nerve to go steal away a married woman? With kids? Destroy a family?

How romantic." Maren hardly recognized her voice; she was never the aggressive type. She had half a mind to storm away from the table in a most dramatic fashion--leave him sitting alone at the table to think of all the ways he'd ruined things. But she caught Waitress Sharon on her way out with their food... so she stayed put. Besides…it was better to make it stew, she thought. Both of them ate their meals in silence, then left. Maren never got her coffee.

It had been raining all week. The dehumidifier was turned on high, but not doing much good. The walls were dripping with perspiration and the windows were cloaked with a thick veil of wetness. The mold seemed to permeate the entire house. Maren's lungs felt heavy and corroded by the mold. She found it difficult to breath. She hadn't felt this ill since she first moved into the house five years before. It had been her grandmother's home--left to Maren, along with her other assets--when she died. When Maren dropped out of college, just 2 terms shy of graduation, she moved into the home and quickly discovered its shortcomings. But it was better than her college apartment. That lonesome place she shared with three other girls. None of whom were her friends. There, she spent all her time in her room, alone--pretending to study, but mostly just sitting there, staring at words on pages. The other girls had friends, had boyfriends... had specialties. But Maren didn't-- and didn't care, she told herself. The girls tried to get her to branch out. "Come out with us," they'd say, "to the bars. We'll introduce you to some people." But Maren wasn't interested. She'd rather be by herself anyway, she'd say.

The feeling of hunger was overwhelming. Maren wondered if she might have a tapeworm. Finding it hard to breathe in her home, she decided that going out to eat might do her health some good. She opened the front door and was struck by the freshness of the rain and wind that blew in through the ajar door. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. A big sandwich, she thought, something meaty...that's what she wanted... with fries on the side. She walked downtown towards Silvermine Subs. She held her head down so maybe she wouldn't notice all the crazy people she passed. Or maybe so they wouldn't notice her. She kept track of shoes as she walked. Too many people in Nikes, she thought. Too many people in dress shoes. As she approached her destination, she realized exactly where she was. Just a block and a half from A&R's financial branch. But she was hungry; she'd have to eat something.

"Why, Maren. I'm surprised to see you here. Please... come in. Sit down." Luke was sitting behind a desk that was so large it almost made him look miniature. It was wooden and shiny and his reflection shone brightly off it, though slightly obscured by papers, files, and other important looking documents. Maren stood timidly in the doorway to his office. She didn't know why she had come. She told herself that she couldn't go home--the mold--and she had nowhere else to go. Luke motioned towards a black leather chair in front of the desk, and Maren sat down. She felt awkward. Him behind the desk--in the position of a power. She felt like a child about to be scolded by the principal.

"I'm sorry... for Saturday. My behavior. It's just that. ..you-- She was my mother. I don't need you to tell me how she felt." Maren held her tiny hands together. They were almost shaking. She knew how her mother felt, all right. It was true, that the two of them hadn't spoken since her grandmother's funeral five years before. But, still she knew how her mother worked. Just like she did--her mother felt nothing for her, Maren was sure of it. Why else would she abandon her only to live with some man who would refuse to marry her?

***

"Mom, I'm scared... " Maren had confessed to her mother one night as a child. She was often plagued with nightmares... afraid that she'd be stolen away from her home. "What if that man tries to come back--and take me?" She'd asked.

"I won't let anyone take you away from me. I promise." Her mother said assuredly, as she stroked her child's head. "I'll sit with you all night, I won't leave. You just go back to sleep, Baby..." The sweet smell of cloves wafted around the bedroom. Maren had felt safe then. She had loved her then.

***

"That's true. But it's possible that I know your mother in different ways than you do. And I know she regretted that you two fell away like you did. And I know she was worried that you spend so much time...I don't mean to pry... but...so much time alone." Luke leaned forward and put both hands face down on the top of his desk, like he was discussing some sort of business deal. "She also felt... pretty sad, I think, that you held such hostility towards her."

"But she's the one who made the choice. She's the one who left... and she had promised."

***

Maren didn't want to go home. Normally her sanctuary, the mold was getting to be too much. She just wanted to breathe free. Her stomach felt achy and empty and she could use a bite. She wondered if Sharon the Waitress was on duty. It was nice knowing someone's name, she thought, and she could definitely go for some breakfast as an early dinner. Arriving at Elmer's, she requested Sharon's section. To Maren's disappointment, Sharon didn't remember her. But she did get her coffee this time around.

***

"Mom's gone and she isn't coming back," Her father had told her. "Off with that business executive--that financial jerk-off They're all the same. Moneymoneymoney. Corporate slime-­ home wrecking bastard!" After that, everything was different. Her dad didn't leave the house much and Maren didn't either. But they both assumed their mother was out living it up. Spending Fitzpatrick's money. Gambling. Dancing. Drinking--all in the height of fashion. Whether it was true or not, they didn't know. They felt so rejected. Reminders of her were all around. Maren tried spraying room deodorizer--lemongrass scent--but the rank smell of cloves remained regardless. Trapped in the carpet, curtains, sheets. Everywhere. Even when she looked in the mirror. There was her mother. Maren was so small and thin. She had the same long, dark hair--brown, maybe black... she could never tell for sure. The same brown eyes with little specs of green. They both looked too old and too worn down for their real age.

"Get out of my face! You look exactly like your mother!" Her father said drunkenly one night. And Maren cried--that was the last thing in the world that she wanted ... one more reminder of her.

***

Maren's dark reflection in the disconnected computer monitor didn't reveal as much as she had hoped. She could only see the outline of her face and neck, a few small details, but nothing concrete. She leaned forward and coughed, not bothering to cover her mouth, there was no one around to catch her germs anyway, she thought. The clock sounded. The song sparrow. It was seven in the evening. Her mother had loved birds--loved to bird watch. Maren did suppose she remembered that. She'd always catch her mother looking out the window of the car as they drove, trying to spot a bird or two as they sped along. She took her pocket bird book with her almost everywhere they went. The backyard was a maze of birdbaths and birdfeeders, and constantly filled with sounds of chirping.

"Won't you come with me?--To the park? We'll watch the birds, I'll teach you about them... and we can talk." Maren's mother had asked her once. But Maren had always found birds to be rather dirty creatures and didn't want to go. Her mother looked disappointed, and left the house alone.

***

Tiny hand dripping with wetness, Maren peered out the blurry window from where she'd just swept away what seemed like years of condensation. It was Sunday, and she'd woken up earlier than usual that morning. About eight o'clock. She was unsure it was her hunger that woke her or the redwing blackbird from the clock down the hall. Peering outside into the raining morning, Maren looked up into the naked trees, the telephone poles, the cloudy sky. Nothing.

Grabbing a large breakfast on the way--a piece of ham, 2 eggs, an English muffin, a side of hash browns, with coffee--Maren took a bus to the suburbs. She never rode the bus. It was filthy. Filled with crazies. But she didn't dare drive anymore, that was as bad as suicide, so she didn't have much choice. She never thought about her mother either. Never until Luke had come to see her. Wearing his ridiculous suit. Now it was all she could think about. Her mother.

He opened the door with much confusion. His hair was a mess, lines from sleep on his face. He was wearing sweatpants and tying a bathrobe as he opened the door to Maren's commanding knock. Luke said nothing, just motioned that she best come in, out of the rain.

"My mother. Do I look like my mother?" Maren asked abruptly. Luke had been walking ahead of her, escorting her into the kitchen, no doubt for some coffee. He stopped, but didn't turn around. Then continued walking. "Well... do, I look like her? I need to know." Maren repeated herself She was soaking wet from walking in the rain and felt dirty from her bus ride.

"No." He stated bluntly. "You don't." Luke paused briefly. Tightened his bathrobe, then pulled a canister of coffee out of the fridge. Maren noticed that she had trouble breathing in his home, as well. Perhaps he, too, had a problem with mold.

"But I've always been told that we looked... " Maren's thoughts were interrupted by a large picture of Luke and her mother on what must have been a camping trip. They had their arms around each other and were smiling, almost laughing. Her mother looked so young, childlike, with an innocence that Maren thought not possible from such a woman. The woman she remembered never looked like that--smiled like that.

"She had the most beautiful smile." Luke said, noticing her looking at the picture. "She was so happy. But, I've never seen you smile."

Maren timidly approached the small medicine cabinet that hung in her bathroom. The mirror appeared as if someone had just taken a long, hot shower. She took a towel off the rack and franticly wiped away the tiny beads of water that masked the mirror. She rubbed harder and harder, but still there were streaked lines of wetness blurring her reflection. Maren threw down the towel in frustration, and leaned forward--concentrating on her face, despite the imperfect mirror. She studied her lines and contours... her eyes: brown that didn't seem to show specs of green, her hair: thinner than she remembered and hanging about her face like black or brown string, her lips: cracked and pale, as if they were made of stone, like they had forgotten how to smile. Luke was right. She looked nothing like her mother now. She looked old. Tired. Alone.

Maren looked older than her mother looked in the camping picture. Her mother was beautiful, she thought. Maybe she could have been too.

The phone rang. It was an automated message from the public library. Not even a human to call her on the phone. She knew it was about time she got out of the house. She could hardly breath locked away in the smoldering isolation. Maybe her mother was right. She was alone. She felt so hungry and was sure that Sharon the Waitress would remember her this time. Besides, Elmer's was on the way to the library. Maybe she would return the books that were over-due.

Maybe she would sit and read of the Peloponnesian wars--or D-day. Or maybe she would look at a book--or a magazine about birds, she thought. It would be spring soon, and she'd need something to occupy her time.