The Tests
by Claire
McMurray
Vivianna
It is sunny and warm and quite dry. So she puts the top down on the
convertible before she gets in, careful to put the gift in the back
where it won’t blow away. As she speeds down the highway she
imagines how she must look to the other drivers: a young woman,
carefree and pretty, her long hair streaming out behind her. The image
pleases her and she manages to feel peaceful for a few moments until
she remembers about Wendell. She pictures him sitting at his desk,
perched high on the seventeenth floor, his feet rubbing back and forth
on the cream carpet. It is a tic that she finds particularly
irritating, for he also does it at home at the dining table. His
glasses will be balanced on his nose as he frowns fixedly at his
computer screen.
She looks at the highway like a ribbon running beneath her and at the
bright sun above. Sundays are for drives like these, she thinks, or for
lazy brunches of waffles and berries. Not for the air-conditioned
office and the click, clicking of the mouse. Not that she has had many
such lazy days. She, too, has spent her share of Sundays trapped at
work. Trapped is perhaps the wrong word, for it implies resentment and
anger. She loves her job and feels that it suits her nicely. She always
returns home with a sigh of contentment and a sense of accomplishment.
Even so, on days like today she is happy enough to escape it and to
just drive, warm and smiling in the sun.
She takes her exit and follows the twists and turns of the map. She
enters a subdivision like a maze, with shingled cottages lining the
curving streets. She finds the house and pulls the car up to the curb.
Teetering inside on her heels she stretches the gift out in front of
her like a talisman. She finds she is made slightly anxious by all of
the bright colors, banners, and cardboard cutouts of babies and rattles
plastered to the wall. Louisa emerges smiling from the kitchen, her
belly swollen under her cotton dress.
“Vivianna!” she exclaims brightly.
“I’m so glad you could make it.” Louisa
takes the gift and hands Vivianna a glass of punch. “How are
things in the office? David still being an asshole? Did the merger go
through? God, it feels like forever. It will be nice to get back once
this is over.” She points to her stomach. “Be glad
that you don’t have to deal with this, my dear. I
don’t know what I would do if Linus weren’t a
Parent. He can’t wait for it.” She rolls her eyes,
but her voice is gentle.
Vivanna sips the punch and tries to scrunch her eyes into an expression
of sympathy. Truth be told, she has no idea what it is like to be
pregnant, nor will she ever. She has little contact with children. She
has a sister in Oakdale whom she visited several years ago when the
little girl was born. She can remember holding it on her shoulder,
feeling that it would break. It mewled and whimpered and after a minute
she had to give it back. In general, she is not afraid or nervous or
even bored by children. It is just that they are not a regular part of
life as she knows it. It is the feeling of flying high in the wings of
a plane, looking down at the shrunken people below. She knows that they
are families, teeming with life and love, but to her they are just
dots, just black specks on her horizon.
“Do you have a sister?” a voice pipes.
She feels a tug at the hem of her skirt. She looks down and sees a
small, elfish face and a pair of bright eyes between two curling
pigtails. The girl is looking at her expectantly, wanting an answer.
Vivianna clears her throat. “Yes, I do, actually. But she
lives far away.” She uses that unnaturally bright voice one
makes around children. To her it sounds false and hollow, but the girl
hardly seems to notice.
“Oh, I see,” she answers. “Well I
don’t.”
The girl then takes Vivanna’s hand. It feels small and clammy
and stays still inside hers. They stand there together without moving,
and Vivianna feels foolish. She wonders how she can get out of this
gracefully. After a minute a stocky red-cheeked woman barrels over to
them and picks the girl up in her arms. “I’m sorry
about this,” she says. “She does this sometimes.
She gets crushes on people she doesn’t know and tries to
monopolize them – usually young women. We’ve talked
about this, haven’t we Moorea?” They whirl away and
Vivianna is left on her own by the fruit tray. She nibbles on a grape
and thinks about the girl’s freckled nose. She had a nose
like that when she was young. The freckles faded with age.
It is time for Louisa to open gifts so they all gather round in a
circle. Vivanna notices the girl eyeing her from across the room,
raising her eyebrows in a pantomime of secret communication. Vivianna
sends a small wave back. The gifts are passed around with the requisite
oohs and ahhs. She is happy to see that the tiny dress and booties she
has bought have passed muster. Careers never know what to buy for
things like this, and she always worries that she will have bought
something impractical or inappropriate.
She sneaks off to the bathroom and when she has finished the girl is
standing outside of the door waiting for her. Moorea begs to go down to
the basement and play with her. “A tea party!” she
exclaims brightly. “Everyone is waiting.” Vivianna
listens to the sounds coming from the den. There is laughter and
shrieking. Undoubtedly the women are playing one of those games when
guests eat chocolate out of a diaper or pin the pacifier on the baby.
She weighs her choices, then follows Moorea down the hall.
The basement is darker and colder than she imagined, but the cool air
is not unwelcome. The two sit on the brown carpet and Moorea looks at
her adoringly. Vivianna doesn’t know how to start so she
follows the girl’s lead. At first, they are cross-legged and
stiff with formality. The tea is for the queen so they must bow their
heads solemnly for a moment. Then they mime drinking and eating with a
circle of friends. Moorea rattles off their names. “Now
it’s your turn,” she says. “You have to
say the food we are eating.” So Vivianna lists all the
delicious, indulgent food she never allows herself to eat as Moorea
squeals with delight: chicken salad with mayonnaise, chocolate cake
with buttercream icing, fried chicken, mint ice cream, roasted duck,
and blueberry pie. Vivanna lets her brain run free and adds to the
list. She likes the deep chortle the girl has, almost like an old man.
She notices how Moorea’s head bobs back and forth when she
becomes excited.
Vivianna wonders how old the girl is. She is no good at guessing things
like that. But she thinks it might be close to the age of her
sister’s girl. She imagines her sister sitting in their stone
basement with her daughter, miming and giggling and laughing together.
On the phone Vivianna hears plenty about the tantrums and vacations and
milestones but nothing about this – the everyday moments of
make believe and the times not captured by a camera. There must be
thousands of such moments that simply slide by unremarkably and stitch
together a childhood. She knows that she can be selfish, that she
doesn’t like the sound of tears and gags at the smell of
human waste. She doesn’t have the aptitude for it. The Tests
told her so, a long time ago. And yet no one told her that it could be
like this, that a mother could squat in a basement with her daughter
and, for a moment, recapture what it was to be a child.
Moorea yawns and her eyelids droop. It must be nearly naptime for her.
Vivianna notices a scratched rocking chair in the corner and carries
the girl to it. She is heavy in Vivianna’s arms. The two sit
together on the chair’s worn cushion and listen to the
comforting creaks. Vivianna feels the warm body slacken with sleep as
they rock back and forth in the darkness. She remembers when she and
her sister were young twirling their skirts together in the grass, arms
outstretched to the clouds. She squeezes the feeling beneath her shut
eyes and wishes for nothing but to return to those days.
Dylan
Dylan is glad he rented a van, for the suitcases, crates, rolls of
posters, and bulging duffles are too much for the sedan. If you added
four bodies to the chaos it would have been impossible. He throws the
last bag into the back and marches into the house for a final check. He
is in charge today and so must maintain a solid façade. He
is the one who rented the van, planned the packing, and mapped out the
route. Marienne was too busy with the newest contract, and it
shouldn’t fall to her anyway. This is his domain and he knows
he can master it with efficiency and grace.
He hears the familiar laughter, a kind of rolling chuckle, coming from
the living room. The twins’ curly heads are bent over the
brochure as they snort and point at the bright pictures of
corduroy-clad co-eds and moss-covered buildings. Dylan has never
completely understood their sense of humor or their way of mocking the
things he finds to be beautiful, striking, and special. He feels a
slight twinge when he looks at the brochure. He never had the chance
the Tests have given his boys: four years to live among books and
papers and ideas. The only time he stepped onto a campus was to attend
the mixer where he met Marienne. She was a snub-nosed twenty-year-old
mathematics major and he was a year into his family practicum. They
shared some punch her friends had spiked and then sneaked to the
football field to talk and kiss under the star sprinkled sky. As vivid
and dizzying as that night had been it was five years later when
Marienne’s sweaty hand gripped his so hard that his bones
rubbed together and shrieked with nightmarish intensity at the hospital
ceiling that his life truly began. He held the wriggling red-faced
bundles, breathing in their indescribable spice, and bowed his head to
theirs. He had already held dozens of babies but never two at once. He
reveled in their heaviness as they filled his arms with warmth. He felt
fearless and fulfilled and determined to never, ever put them down.
He reminds the boys that they are to leave in five minutes and wanders
the house looking for Marienne. She stayed up until two last night
squeezing numbers into a spreadsheet, and he is afraid that she might
have drifted off to sleep again in a corner. It is not unusual for him
to stumble upon her curled in a chair or flung across the bed he has
just made. He always says her name gently to avoid startling her awake
and she will stir slowly, her mouth stretching into a hazy smile. On
his search, he passes by the boys’ room and shuffles to a
stop on the carpet. Though hearty, barrel-chested seventeen-year-olds,
they still insisted on sharing a living space, despite their
father’s protests. From all that Dylan had learned it seemed
best to provide each child with his own unique space in which to grow
and to explore, but the twins were adamant. He had finally backed down.
Dylan had hoped for an end to the late-night giggles and rumbling
fights. If he was completely honest with himself, he had also hoped for
a small space to emerge between the two, if only large enough to
accommodate Dylan himself. The room is not completely empty as the boys
have left behind their furniture and much of their belongings. Collared
shirts still swing on hangers in the closet and pencils sit in the cup
on the desk. But he can feel the twins’ vitality already
leaving the room. He sniffs the air, realizing how soon that special
scent will fade, leaving behind it the smell of stale carpet and musty
air.
He feels an arm snake around his waist as Marienne rests her chin on
his chest. “You’re really going to miss them,
aren’t you?” she says gently as she, too, looks
into the room. “I know that we both will but it is different
for you, isn’t it? You have been their rock and their
protector for seventeen years.”
“They have been the most important thing in my
life,” he says and then immediately regrets it. He
doesn’t like saying these kinds of things aloud or admitting
her into the deepest parts of his self. The two of them work so well
together because he can normally keep this well of emotions buried
away. He uses it only to feed his love for the boys. When he turns it
on for them it can flow endlessly – silent, deep, and
unrelentingly powerful.
She rubs her cheek slowly on his shirt. “They will still need
you. You will always be there for them, and they know it.” He
gives a noncommittal grunt. Her voice becomes bright. “Just
think of all of the hobbies you can develop and projects you can work
on now. In fact, I have to admit I’m a little jealous of you
right now.” She swats him playfully on the butt.
“No reason at all for you to feel sorry for
yourself.”
He clears his throat. “Of course not. I actually have a long
list of things I would like to get done. Parts of the house need
repairing and there are new dishes I would like to cook without
teenagers simply inhaling them. Plus, I have lots of cleaning that
I’ve been putting off. I’ll be fine. Just
fine,” he repeats reassuringly. “Now
let’s go find those boys and hit the road. We’ve
got a long day ahead of us.”
He and Marienne round up the twins and everyone piles into the van. It
is cozy but comfortable inside, and Dylan relishes his time behind the
wheel. He guides his little family through the maze of ramps and
highways. His sense of self is sharpest when he is leading his pack and
when he has mapped out the course of their journey or smoothed out the
schedule for the day. For this reason, he has always liked driving on
family trips. So he tries to trick himself into believing that at the
end of the day they will park at a motel and all pile into their rooms
for a sound night’s sleep before the next day’s
vacation.
When they arrive, they are immediately consumed by a flurry of
activity. There are meters to be fed, dollies to be found, and bags to
ferry back and forth. Marienne hangs posters on the wall while he and
the boys haul the twins’ belongings, putting each bag and box
in a growing mound upon the floor. Once, when he allows his mind to
wander, he thinks about the contents of those bags and boxes. They
contain shirts he bought for the boys, books he wrapped as Christmas
gifts, and sheets and towels they all three picked out together at the
mall. There is not one item, he thinks, that he has not touched,
bought, or wrapped. He is leaving bits of himself behind among the
toothbrushes and terrycloth. Will the twins ever think of him as they
brush their teeth or wipe the striped washcloths across the stubble on
their chins? As soon as he thinks this he has to duck behind the corner
of the dorm building and push his hands against his chest. It passes
after a moment, and he returns to the van for the last load.
The twins catch sight of a touch football game that has sprung up on
the dorm’s lawn and glance longingly at it out of the corner
of their eyes. So, the goodbyes are hurried and cheerful, and Dylan and
Marienne climb back into the van for the ride home. As they make
conversation he strains his ears for phantom roars and rumbles from the
backseat. His own voice seems to echo when he speaks, and
Marienne’s chirps drift and fade into the air. He pulls up
into the driveway and turns off the van. His arms are so heavy that he
cannot imagine being able to remove his seatbelt, to pull the door
handle, or to push the door shut. Marienne turns to him and pats his
shoulder. She raises her eyebrows and looks at him questioningly. He
thanks God that she does not say anything then. He meets her eyes and
shakes his head. She clicks her belt and climbs out of the van.
“I’ll give you some time,” she says
before she walks inside.
They have been gone all day and now dusk is falling. He looks at the
tire swing hanging from the oak tree in their front yard as it spins
gently in the breeze. He can just make it out in the blackening light.
The last of the summer crickets sing to him from the yellowed grass.
They gently hum his sadness to the neighborhood. He stares at the front
curtains and knows he does not want to go back into the house that is
now brightly lit from within. He has no wish to unfasten his belt or
push open the van door. So he turns the key and the engine roars back
to life. The crickets fall silent. He backs the van out of the driveway
and points it toward the road. Then he drives.
Markus and Kimber
They lie side by side in the darkness, her back curved into his thin
chest. Every so often she weeps but makes no noise. The only proof of
her grief is the sudden arching of her spine. When this happens, he
tightens his hold in the hope that he can squeeze the melancholy out of
her. He imagines it exiting her mouth in a cloud of greenish vapor as
it flouts up through the ceiling and out of their life forever. He
knows there is no shame in crying; he has been told many times over the
past year that “emotional release in any harmless
form” is acceptable. Yet still he remains strong for her
sake. He doesn’t quite know why. This is not the first time
they have lain like this. It has become a frequent occurrence of late.
While other couples stride in circles in the mall, secretly siphon
vodka from their parents’ liquor cabinet, or hold hands
greasy with popcorn in the theater, the two of them embrace in the dark
and talk of a future that will never be.
Parent, Parent, Parent. He tries the word out in his mind as he has
done a thousand times. Do its rhythm and sound improve with the plural?
Parents, Parents, Parents. No, it seems to him even uglier, a harsh
staccato. Its sound is cruel and sudden, like the angry slamming of a
door.
She sniffles and then sits up, staring straight ahead. “Maybe
they will let one of us change,” she says with no note of
hope in her voice. “I heard once about a kid who was allowed
to switch with a petition from his parents.” This is
well-trodden territory. They both know their roles: hers to profess
hope, his to protest. She is the idealist and he the realist. He thinks
it strange that two people on the same track should differ so much in
temperament. Perhaps there is some truth in it when she wonders if one
of them received the wrong results. He shakes his head to dismiss the
thought. A year of Tests doesn’t lie. They don’t
make mistakes. Everyone knows that.
“That’s just a myth,” he answers.
“You know that. We can’t change. We’re
stuck as parents and we might as well accept it. Two parents never end
up together. Who would make the money? Only really rich people can do
that. It’s not an option for the rest of us.”
She shakes her mane of blond hair defiantly and a few loose strands
tumble into her eyes. “Well then maybe we’ll just
have to become rich. Then we could do what we want.”
“How are we supposed to make money if we aren’t
trained to work? Win the lottery?”
“Now you’re talking,” she grins. He loves
the way her lips curl to reveal the snaggle tooth she so despises. It
was her crooked smile that drew him to her in the first place. He sat
next to her in Child Development and when she began giggling during the
lesson on tantrums his heart melted. At first, he merely found her
pretty, but soon he was picturing her as she held their baby in her
arms, the soft downy head cradled by her long, delicate fingers. He
bites his lip and the pain distracts him. He can’t think like
that. These fantasies are like quick stabs to his side. He imagines the
blood running down his ribs in ribbons, the dark crimson swirling in
circles and streams. He is often visited by images like these,
beautiful, haunting and cruel. Perhaps he should have tried harder on
the Tests and gone for an art degree. He could do it, he thinks. He
could become a painter or a sculptor – anything but a Parent.
“Why can two Careers be together but not us?” she
asks sulkily. He knows she doesn’t expect an answer. Because
they don’t have a child to support. Because they have the
money. A better question would be: How can they expect us to take the
same track together and not fall in love with each other? Surely, we
are not the only ones suffering like this, he thinks. There must be
others. What are they doing and thinking right now? Are they also
huddled in the dark, mourning their future?
Without warning she turns to him with a cunning glint in her eyes. She
seems more energized than usual, quite keyed up. “Why
don’t we become criminals?” she says. “We
could rob from the Careers and give to the Parents. Like Robin Hood. Or
just steal for ourselves. Then we could have whatever kind of life we
wanted.” He is silent. She nudges him with her shoulder and
smiles. He can see that she is mostly kidding, but there is a scrap of
truth in it. It is a scrap that sends a cold shiver down his back. She
might have it in her, but he knows that he does not. This has gone too
far, this dreaming and wishing and plotting.
He knows then that it has to end. He is so tired and so sick with
desiring that he cannot go on. He feels the last spark of anger melt
away, leaving resignation and relief in its place. All he wants is to
take the path well-traveled, to join the others, and to do what he is
told. He must let her know that it is over and that they have lost. His
brain, numbed and dulled, searches for the words. He knows that they
will come if he tries hard enough. He sighs softly and turns toward
her, stroking her hair with his hand. Then he opens his mouth to speak.
Winnie
Darkness has just set in so she pulls the brightly-colored curtains
shut, pausing to look at the yellow monkeys that tumble in all
directions on the garish fabric. She turns towards the small voice that
wheedles and cajoles from the bedside. “One more story, Nana.
I’m not sleepy yet. I want you to stay with me. Just one,
just one!” Winnie sighs and sits on the slatted chair next to
the bed. The little girl’s frizzy curls are framed in the
lamplight like a halo. She thinks of her own daughter at that age, with
those same wiry ringlets and large staring eyes. She too would clamor
for bedtime tales – monsters, dragons, fairies, talking
animals – anything that would prolong the moment when mother
shut the door and darkness reigned.
Her daughter has been a good Parent to her little girl. Even now she
can sense the mother hovering around the hall corner, worrying about
the disruption to the usual bedtime routine. Winnie looks at Alphia
wriggling on the bed and wonders what she could tell her next. She has
run out of the usual fare of knights and quests. She was never very
good at inventing stories. She always rehashed the same five or six,
but her daughter never minded. She was a much more docile child than
this squirming, fidgeting creature and demanded no more than a few
magic wands, princesses, and a snuggle with Mama. Alphia knows her own
mind and does not hesitate to make unusual and sweeping demands. When
faced with a thwarted desire she sheds floods of tears, but these are
short lived and soon forgotten. “What would you like, my
snuggle bear?” she asks. “King Arthur and his
knights? Or Atalanta and the golden apples?”
“Noooo,” the child wails as she hits her head
against the pillow. “I’m tired of those. No more
knights and no more Atalanta. No more make believe. I’m a big
girl now, Nana. I want a real story.”
“What does that mean, my love?” Winnie asks gently.
“What does a real story mean?”
“One about grownups,” Alphia says immediately.
“I’m afraid grownups’ lives
aren’t very interesting. We don’t do much that is
worthy of storytelling. Unless you want me to tell you about some
famous grownups, like the Chairman.”
“No, not him,” she answers scornfully.
“That’s boring. I want to know about real grownups.
Like about you, Nana. Tell me about when you were a little
girl.”
Winnie thinks about that. It was more than half a century ago. That
time is so blurred that it radiates like the lamplit halo that
encircles her granddaughter’s head. She remembers a few fears
and joys and a long river of afternoons spent on the grass, up trees,
and down the wormhole of childhood. “I’m not sure
what you want to know about, my dear,” she says.
“It’s hard for me to remember much about that time.
Do you want to know about the games we played? Or what life was like
back then?”
Alphia tilts her head and hesitates. “No, Nana. I
don’t want to know about that.” Then she says,
“Tell me about your family. Did you have a little brother
too? Was your mommy like my mommy?”
“No, not much, my bunny. My mother was
…” What was her mother? Winnie finds it impossible
to put into words. She thinks of her as two different people: before
and after. Things began to change when she was only six, just about the
age that Alphia is now. Only bits and pieces remain of the time before.
She can see them bouncing like fragmented clips of an old home movie,
tripping on its track. She sees her mother arriving home from work,
wisps of hair escaping her bun as her eyes droop and she wipes her
forehead with a limp hand. Winnie would run to hug the woman as she
opened the door, and her mother would grip her tightly as though she
were the only thing still keeping her on her swaying feet. She sees her
mother rising before dawn and tiptoeing past the cracked bedroom door
to throw loads of towels and t-shirts into the groaning washer in the
basement. She hears her whispering in low, harsh tones to her father
late at night when they thought she was asleep. Her pricked ears would
burn when she caught her own name.
“My mother was a very busy woman when I was a little
girl,” she answers finally. She did the best she could for
me.”
“But was she a good mommy?”
“Yes, she was, in the end.”
The changes were not sudden, for it took years to implement everything.
Gradually, her mother’s smile brightened. Bit by bit, her
hair smoothed, and her sighs became less deep and frequent. There are a
few moments that still capture Winnie, times when she sensed that
something was different. Her eighth birthday fell on a Wednesday, and
her mother rose early, spending all day baking cupcakes, blowing up
balloons, and teaching her daughter to make buttercream icing from her
own mother’s recipe. Her mother seemed never to stop humming
and bustled around in Winnie’s favorite apron, the one that
was dusted with light pink rose petals. Or there was the first summer
vacation they spent together, just the two of them. The afternoons
splashing in the pool and the cucumber sandwiches in the park seemed
deliciously infinite.
“She would take me to the pool and to camp and to horseback
riding lessons. She was a good mother,” she repeats. But as
she says it, Winnie wonders. It is true, but was it enough? The morning
of her sixteenth birthday she found her mother with cake froster in
hand, frozen in mid-gesture. She was staring, transfixed, at the red
velvet mound with an indecipherable look in her eyes. Her mother would
occasionally have moments like this, when she stared straight ahead and
drifted away from them for a minute or two. These times always
frightened Winnie and she would quickly turn away, pretending not to
have seen.
Winnie looks at Alphia on the bed and notices that she has stopped
wriggling. She is gazing at her grandmother with glassy eyes and
snuggling her head into the pillow. “It’s time for
bed, my love,” Winnie says as she pats the girl’s
head. Alphia gives a little groan but shows no other form of protest.
Winnie looks once more at the curls spread on the pillow in the circle
of light and gently kisses the forehead. She reaches for the lamp, and
the room sinks into darkness as the grandmother leans back in the chair
and listens to her granddaughter breathe. Winnie thinks how Alphia
knows nothing of the torments of the past, of the transformations that
the changes have brought, or of all the people who still continue to
struggle. Instead, the child, like all children, will slip blissfully
into the nothingness of sleep and wake in the morning, reaching out for
her mother.
THE END
© 2017 Claire McMurray
Bio: "I currently work as the Graduate Writing
Specialist at a Midwestern university writing center. I had a story
published by Aphelion Magazine in December 2014 and have had my
creative writing published by Scholastic Press in the past. I have
recently begun writing articles about parenting and have been published
in 2016 by Brain Child Magazine, Parent.co, and Scary Mommy. I also
have a forthcoming peer-reviewed academic article in Praxis: A Writing
Center Journal. I received my Ph.D. in French from Yale University in
2010, am fluent in French and German, and lived in France and Germany
for several years."
E-mail: Claire
McMurray
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