* Anne’s Story *

It is five in the morning.

“Rats!”

Anne wakes up frightened. It’s happened again. She has fallen asleep on the couch. The Wall Street Journal is wrapped around her legs, like a blanket. She always means to read the WSJ, like her grandfather, who made a fortune investing in stocks. Her intent every night is to study the financial sections, become more business savvy, astute; but she can never get past the first article.

“Rats,” she says, again, to herself. She is dreading this day. She has to tell the New Mexico lab that she’s pulling the contract. They’ve made too many mistakes, and the entire protocol is suspect. Unfortunately, they’ve solicited the assistance of a powerful Senator, and he has already raised the alarms that his “beloved State of New Mexico, has a lot at stake in this project!” It was inevitable that she would get called directly from Faucci’s office, questioning whether she had sufficiently considered the “political sensitivities” of the project.

She’s fretting the conference call scheduled for this morning. “To hell with it,” she says, firmly, into the air for no one to hear but her own delicate pink ears. “Let’s go in and get this done. They messed up, and that’s that. I’m going to rip them a new anal passage.”

She uncovers the bird cage. She loves the sound the canary makes. It always sings around six in the evening, shortly before she covers it up for the night. Only the male canaries sing. She knows that in Victorian times the clever aristocrats, with nothing on their hands other than idle time, figured out that a canary would not sing if it saw another male. So, in order to get them to sing in a room full of birds, they would blind all the males canaries, using red hot needles. “So cruel,” thinks Anne. “So cruel.”

Joey is awake. He always rises when he hears his mother walking around in the kitchen. He likes to keep her company; her only male companion. Christina will not wake for another hour. Joey knows to be silent so as not to wake his sister. “Hi Mommy.”

It’s fifteen minutes after five, the loveliest time of the day, when darkness and silence are precious, sensuous. Joey likes the quiet as well. “Joey, sweetie,” says his mother. “Go se if you can find Kitty.”

Joey is very gentle with animals. It’s strange, because throughout most of the day, like most nine year old boys, he likes to pretend as if nothing matters, as if everything is boring, or girly, or “lame.” His favorite expressions lately are “Sucker!,” and “Faked you out!” He tries so hard to play tough, but he is still, truly, only a child. His blond silky hair, his eyes which are too expressive, almost feminine. Without doubt, he is what you would call a pretty boy; almost too pretty. So he tries to overcome his physical angelic looks by acting like a punk. Except with animals. With them, he shows nothing but gentleness.

* * *

It is six in the morning.

While Joey hunts the cat, Anne goes to her garden, to tend to the Beefsteak Tomatoes, the very biggest of her crop. Their pulp cavity is small, compressed, distorted by the overgrown placenta wall, giving them the 'marbled' appearance of a steak. Anne loves to experiment planting different varieties of beefsteaks, judging each type by the density of its flesh, its juiciness, its firmness or softness when ripe, and the feel and texture of the central core.

* * *

Before the divorce, but after he had told her that he was gay and was leaving her no matter what, Anne’s husband insisted that they consult a marriage counselor. “What for?” she asked. “So that some babble specialist can tell me that I should stop complaining about my life?”

“No,” he answered. “So that some babble specialist can help us get through this without destroying each other, and without harming our kids.” Joey was two years old at the time, and Christina was nothing more than an in vitro specimen, waiting to be injected into Anne’s uterus.

In the marriage counselor’s office, her husband sat near the counselor, with his legs spread open, his back leaning, eagerly wanting to give his side of the story. Anne sat on a couch in the far side of the room, feeling ambushed, alone. She kept on her sunglasses, even though the room was dark. There was no way she was going to give her fag husband the pleasure of knowing that she had been crying for days, that her eyes were swollen, her lids black from lack of sound sleep.

“Call me Henry,” said the counselor. “I believe in starting things off on a first name basis.”

(Call me Doctor Monroe, thought Anne. God knows I worked enough years to earn my medical degree.)

“Well, well, well,” continued Henry, in an exaggerated jovial tone, to the point of annoyance. He was wearing a white shirt, stained with mustard, and a cheap tie which, in Anne’s eyes, made him look vulgar. Instantaneously, Anne knew she would not like this man. “Tell me what’s going on?” continued Henry.

Anne took a small sip of water from her plastic bottle. Under normal circumstances, she hated bottles with labels, she considers it an affectation of the mediocre. There’s nothing wrong with tap water as far she is concerned. But when Henry offered them something to drink, she accepted gladly. She would sip liquids the entire hour; anything to keep busy and not having to contribute to this charade.

Her husband was the first to speak (as usual, thought Anne).

“We’ve been married for fifteen years,” says her husband, without looking at her; his eyes are focused on Henry. “I adore Anne. She is my best friend, my lover, my partner. But I’ve decided that I’m gay, homosexual if you will, and I can’t go on with this marriage.”

(That’s it, thought Anne. Fifteen years of marriage summed up in less than three complete sentences. That’s all I mean to him, the life I dedicated to him. Fifteen years of supporting him through each of his imagined crisis, of feeding his bottomless pit of a stomach, of sharing his neurotic anguishes and joys; now forgotten, cast aside because he has decided he is a “happy gay” man.) Anne says nothing. She takes another sip of her water.

Henry is busy taking notes, writing down everything that Anne’s husband says. (Not really that difficult to remember, thinks Anne. You can stop taking notes, Henry. It’s a simple case really: Woman falls in love. Woman gets married. Woman is rejected. Man leaves her. Quite easy to remember, Henry. It happens all the time, except this time it’s happened to me, damn it!) Again, Anne says nothing.

“And you?” asks Henry. “What do you thing about all this, Anne? How are you feeling about it?”

(Don’t do it, Henry, thinks Anne. Don’t use your fifth grade Freudian tricks on me. I wasn’t trained in one of the best medical schools in the country so that some quack like, with mustard stains and cheap clothes, could sit here in judgment of my life.) Anne says nothing.

After a few more sips of water, Anne finally decides to speak. “I think it was all a lie,” she says, confidently, not betraying the insecurity she feels inside. As always, her voice is steady and elegant, as taught to her by her mother, Celeste. Manners matter, was Celeste’s motto; manners and poise.

“It was not a lie!” interjects her husband. He sounds like a spoiled child. Sometimes Anne does not even understand why she loves him. “I always loved you,” he says. (He lies, she thinks.)

“So whatever happened to the promises you made me,” adds Anne, still calmly, still with poise (still crying inside). “You told me you would be my husband for the rest of our lives.”

It’s ironic that Anne brings up the marriage vows he made to her. Those were the exact words, or the exact sentiment, he vowed to her when they got married. He had written them himself. “I promise faithfulness our entire lives.”

They were married in a garden ceremony, in Agnes’s backyard. Agnes is Anne’s sister. Anne was not convinced that it was necessary to have a ceremony, with a minister and everything. She would have been happy with a civil wedding at City Hall. Anne does not believe in God, she does not believe that there is another universe beyond what we have in this life, this planet. Unlike most humans, Anne does not need to believe in a God that punishes evil and rewards good deeds. It is not necessary to believe in such myths in order to act nobly, she thought. Anne has always been a responsible citizen. She cooks weekly for a homeless shelter in Bethesda. She was worked in free medical clinics. She traveled throughout Africa, assisting governments in establishing AIDS prevention and treatment programs. Her medical career has been dedicated to the public sector. Her husband has always thought there was never a more honest person than Anne, and at the same time there are few that are as fervently agnostic as Anne.

Her husband insisted that they have a quasi-religious wedding ceremony. They were married by a minister of the Unitarian Church, a converted Jew. At least the minister was a likeable guy, interested in human rights and charitable causes.

“I did give you an entire life,” protests her husband in Henry’s office. “Fifteen years is a long time, and the person who made that promise to you no longer exists. I’m a different man now.”

(Not much of a man, thought Anne. Not much.)

They never went back to see Henry again.

* * *

Anne’s current favorite is Big Rainbow, a spectacular looking tomato, very large, initially very yellow. As the fruit ripens, it resembles a rainbow, with greenback shoulders, yellow in the middle, and red blushed pink on the blossom end. The flesh is marbled, red and orange, free of defects.

* * *

When she got divorced, her friends tried to set her up on dates. There was the policeman, who told her that he’s “all for the modern woman and so forth, but someone has to stay home to take care of things.” It was hard to remain friends with Linda, the clinical nurse who set her up on this date.

Then there was the electrician who was thirty years her senior, a fact that both he and the girlfriend who set her up forgot to mention. She considered dating him for a while since it’s so hard to find a good electrician these days and hereabouts, and there’s always something in need of electrical repair. Besides, if he’s good with wires, he’s probably also good with other stuff, like painting, patching up holes, fixing broken toilets. She seriously considered the idea, but on a heart to heart with her best girlfriend, Veronica (who pointed out that the guy was very close to heart attack age and that if anything, “he’s looking at you Anne, to take care of him!”), Anne decided to stop seeing the geriatric electrician. She just couldn’t bring herself to date a gomer for the handy man aspects of the relationship.

“What’s a gomer?” asked Veronica.

“Sorry, shop talk,” said Anne. “It’s medical slang. It means Get Out Of My Emergency Room (gomer). Doctors use it to refer to old patients who are a nightmare to take care of.”

Finally there was the very handsome architect who showed up with roses and too strong cologne. At dinner, just as she was about to dip shrimp into cocktail sauce, he announced as part of his “fair disclosure” speech that he likes to sleep with men from time to time.

“I hope that’s not a turn off for you,” he said, expecting that she would be intrigued by the idea. Anne was very proud that she had the gumption to tell him (slowly, elegantly, ladylike as Celeste had taught her) that, “No thank you sister, I’m not making that mistake again.”

She left the restaurant and asked Veronica to pick her up. They laughed about the incident over a drink at a bar. Later that night, she cried. It woke up Joey.

“Mommy, is everything alright?” Joey is only a child, but ever since Joey’s father left, the boy is the closest thing to adult conversation available to Anne in the house.

“Your father is a shit, Joey. “He’s a shit.”

* * *

Joey and Christina are in the back seat of their father’s Prius. They are whispering to each other, and both of them look very nervous.

“What’s going on,” says their father.

“Nothing, Daddy.”

He knows even from their response, from the frightened sound in their voices, that something is disturbing them, terribly.

“Don’t try to be coy with me,” he says. They don’t understand the expression.

“What does that mean, Daddy?” asks Christina.

“It means that I know you two are keeping a secret, and you are not allowed to keep secrets from Mommy and Daddy.”

Joey is nervous, but desperately in need to confess. He can be a difficult child, always in search of giving “payback” to those he imagines have hurt him, but he is fundamentally a sensitive child, too tender for his own good.

“Mommy says that you are the S word,” says Joey. “She also says that you don’t pay for anything.”

“And that’s really stupid!” chimes in Christina, with that squeaky, always excited voice. “You pay for everything. You always pay!”

* * *

I am angered by Anne. She has no right to bad mouth me in front of the kids.

“Why does Mommy say that?” asks Joey. He is so hurt, so disturbed to hear that I’m a shit, that I wish I could die right here and now. “Be kind,” I tell myself. “Anne is a wonderful person, and normally a wonderful mother.”

“Mommy is just angry,” I say. “Sometimes people say things they don’t mean when they are angry.

Joey and Christina are trying to comprehend this. I wish I could get inside their heads and give them adult thought, adult comprehension, bypass all the fantinformation and delusional believes that children favor.

“You mean like when I want payback?” asks Joey.

I’m surprised and frightened by Joey's’ observation. He has no right to be so understanding; he’s supposed to be a child, unknowing, incapable of understanding.

“Exactly, Joey,” I say. “Mommy is just angry. She does not mean what she said.”

That night, after I had fed and bathed the kids, after we played three rounds of Old Maid, after I read to them from the Brothers Grimm Stories that I love so much, after I was sure they were profoundly asleep, I telephoned Anne.

“If you have any issues with me,” I told her, “speak to me directly. Don’t use the children as an intermediary.”

She hanged up on me.

* * *

“Rats!,” said Anne, as she slammed the phone on her ex-husband. “He’s right, but he has no right to be right.”

She went to her bookshelf, the one where she keeps all her cookbooks, and looked up a recipe for Pasta Puttanesca. Cooking always soothes her.

Ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive oil – 4 abundant tablespoons.

One finely minced onion. [I’ll use three instead, edits Anne.]

One tablespoon of carefully crushed garlic, no peel.

One 30 oz can of plump, chunky tomatoes. [Anne will use fresh tomatoes instead.]

One half cup of rich, strong, red wine. [One full glass for me, thinks Anne.]

Always use drinking quality wine, not cooking wine. [Touché.]

Six anchovy fillets, firmly ground to a paste, then vigorously blended with salt and a small amount of sugar (to mellow the flavor).

Two cups of thick, ripe, sliced black olives.

Chopped Italian parsley, dried basil, oregano, capers, red chili flakes, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper -- all to taste. [Anne is an ardent believer in the pinch of this and a dash of that style of cooking.]

Two cups, Parmesan-Reggiano cheese, aromatic, grated extra fine. [Anne will use Argentine cheese, if she can find it.]

One pound of pasta shells, al dente, never over cooked.

The kids love Pasta Puttanesca, and so does her ex-husband. It means, “Prostitute Pasta.” She’ll invite him to dinner.

Anne sets a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, pours in the olive oil, and brings it to just below smoking.

In the end, she decided to stop going on dates set up by her friends. “I’m busy that night,” or “I’m not sure I’ll have time this week, or this month, or this year,” became her standard answers for dealing with invitations. Her friends from college and colleagues from work got the message (loud and clear), and stopped trying to set her up with a man. “Besides,” said Anne to Veronica, her constant confidante. “I have the kids to take care of, and that’s more than enough companionship.”

Anne adds the onions, and stirs methodically, rhythmically. She lowers the heat to medium, and allows the onions to cook until softened, about three or four minutes. She will know when they are ready, by their sweet smell. Onions make some people cry, but not Anne. She’s never affected by it. “That’s because you are too strong,” said her ex-husband.

At night, after the children have gone to bed, after she has finished checking emails on her blackberry, after she has done the dishes, done the laundry and packed the kids’ lunches for tomorrow, she feels lonely.

Ann adds the garlic. The pungent smell fills the kitchen. She cooks it very briefly, always careful not to let the garlic burn. She pours in the tomatoes and wine and stirs well. She takes a sip of the wine for herself. She ads the anchovy filets, basil, and oregano. She lowers the heat to medium-low, partially covers the skillet with a lid, and lets the sauce simmer for twenty minutes. She sips her wine while the sauce is cooking.

“Not what I had envisioned my life to be,” she thinks. “But buckle up. Cheers old girl.” She drinks wine.

Tomorrow she will reheat the sauce, and stir in the olives, capers, chili flakes, salt, pepper, one and one-half cups of the cheese, and three teaspoons of the parsley. She will place the cooked spaghetti on a platter or plate, ladle on the sauce, and sprinkle the remaining cheese and chopped parsley over the top, and she will serve it to her family, including her ex-husband, the shit head..

* * *

Two months ago, Celeste was visiting Anne for a fortnight. Anne enjoys her mother’s company, and is glad to have her whenever she visits. Celeste was in the kitchen, making waffles for the children.

“I’m a gomer and a wrinkled old woman,” said Celeste to the kids, in jest. “Still, I make a mean waffle.”

Joey was licking his fingers from the waffle he just finished. Christina looked at Celeste, with a quizzical look on her face.

“You are not a gomer!” insisted Christina. “You can’t be a gomer! Gomers are old and frail, and they die. If you die, who’s going to make waffles for us?”

Thanks a lot kid, thought Celeste.

The phone rang and just from the tone of its ring, Celeste knew it was important. Celeste prides herself on her extra sensory perception.

Anne was in her garden, tending to the Plum Tomatoes, the flesh fine and thick, very little pulp. This year she has also planted Costoluto Genovese, which is rigged, fluted, and lobed; she has heard that because of its shape it is difficult to can or preserve, but they should be perfect for fresh eating.

“Anne, the phone is ringing! I think you should answer it. It sounds important!”

Anne was not convinced of Celeste’s so-called ESP, but she knew it was easier to appease the old woman than try to argue the matter. She ran to the phone. She really doesn’t have time for a phone call right now. She needs to round up the kids, get them ready for school and get herself ready for work.

“Hello?”

“I need help,” says the voice on the other side of the phone. “I took 90 sleeping pills and I need help.”

“What did you take?” she asks. She’s afraid that he has done something stupid again.

“I think it's called Ambien,” says the voice, “or something like that. I threw up.”

“You have to stay awake,” says Anne. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, but you have to stay awake.”

Christina recognizes the voice. “Is that Daddy?” she asks. “Yes, its your father,” answers Anne; and then to Celeste, “Get on the phone with him. He’s swallowed sleeping pills. Keep him awake until I can get to his house.”

* * *

Some tomatoes she plants for sheer color, like the Evergreen, which ripens into green toning yellow, and the Giant Belgium, with its very large, dark pink fruit, dense and meaty; the Great White, a vigorous beefsteak, bearing large yellowish white fruit; the Pineapple tomato, with its yellow-red striped fruit and heavy green foliage; the Ponderosa Pink, which is best eaten when it is slightly underripe and its fruit is sweet. Not least, the Cherokee Purple, the sweetest of all tomatoes, with a dirty pinky-purple colored fruit and brownish shoulders, soft brick colored flesh and a vibrant green gel.

* * *

Anne was neither surprised nor angry that the father of her children tried to commit suicide. He had a dark streak in him, since the day she met him, on a dark day, in grimy subway, the way he likes to tell, but not the way she remembers it. She remembers meeting him on a bright and sunny day outdoors, in the wide and open yards of Columbia University. To each his or her own memory, she figures. As to his present suicide attempts, she perceives it as just one more inconvenience she will now need to endure. She knows there are no guarantees that he won’t try to do the same thing again.

“I can’t worry about that,” she tells Veronica, over tea and home grown tomato sandwiches, served on Anne’s botanical portmeirion china. “All I can do is be there when he needs me, and let him now that we all support him.”

“Anne,” said Veronica, savoring the tomatoes, throwing her head back to untangle her golden main. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Caffeine, Clairol Number 15, contact lenses, a push-up bra, and comfortable shoes. That's how I do it,” said Anne. “Any other questions?”

* * *

It is seven in the morning.

Things are finally falling into place this morning. Both kids have been fed breakfast (sort of), lunches are ready to go, everyone has brushed their teeth. Here comes the school bus. “Mission accomplished,” says Anne to herself. It’s the same expression Celeste used every morning when Anne was a child. Except Celeste didn’t work, she was a stay at home mom. Sometimes, that sounds like such a luxury to Anne, being able to stay home and have no duties other than taking care of house and kids. The devil called doubt plagues Anne periodically, momentarily, making her question whether it’s right for her to work when she has two small children at home. Other times, she thinks that if she did stay home she would undertake home schooling, and then she would want to set up more activities for the kids, and of course she would have to pursuit her hobbies, like gardening and farming. Before you knew it, if she stayed home, her schedule would be busier than it is now and the kids would see far less of her.

“Face it Anne,” said Veronica to her, this time enjoying Anne’s mint tea and butter cookies. “You are not the stay at home type, it would drive you crazy!” Anne was not sure what Veronica meant by that, but it didn’t matter; it was all speculations and hypothesis in any event. The reality is that Anne has to work, since the child support is not enough to run a household. Besides, in the silence of her own heart, Anne likes her job; Anne likes her life.

“I’m a good mom,” she says to herself, clearing away the dishes.

* * *

Other tomatoes she loves merely for their names, like the Mortgage Lifter, an absurdly large, furrowed, red beefsteak; the Arkansas Traveler, with its pink fruit; the Burpees Longkeeper, large and orangey-red; Djena Lee's Golden Girl, a deep yellow tomato, intensely flavorful and sweet; the Early Girl, a good all season tomato; and the Fourth of July, although it tends to be a bit flavorless, and yields a small fruit.

* * *

The kids have never met Anne’s father. Anne has not spoken with him in almost twenty five years. Since the day her parents separated, Anne only speaks with her mother, Celeste, and never with her father, Victor. Even though Anne was only 18years old, Celeste (in the desperation of divorce) used her as a confidante, telling her things about her father that a mother should never tell a daughter. Anne learned that Victor, almost since the first day of marriage, cheated on his wife. Celeste put up with it because of the kids; she did not want to divorce Victor while the children (Anne and Agnes) were still young. But once Agnes was in high school, and Anne was barely in college, Celeste decided it was as good a time as any to leave Victor.

“And there’s a few other things you ought to know about your father,” said Celeste to Anne. “For example, did you know that he is nothing but a petty thief, a bumbling criminal? He swindles the government every year, claiming false deductions on his tax return. One year he declared the dog as a dependant, and my household budget as tax-deductible employee wages! He’s a piece of work, let me tell you.”

Celeste drank too much in those days, and said things she now wishes she could take back; but none of it surprised Anne. Even though Celeste believed that it was better to remain married all those years, Anne and Agnes had been fully aware of the discord between their parents. The ferocious fights between Celeste and Victor were unbearable. (For God sakes, thought Anne, does she not know that the whole neighborhood knew the marriage was a sham?) Anne would shut herself up in her room, reading, with ears covered, but she could still hear her parents arguing, hurling insults at each other. Anne sought her refuge in books, read all the classics, allowed literature to become her sanctuary.

Anne never saw a tender moment between Celeste and Victor; she only knew of such things from the books she read. From her own life, she knew that marriages don’t work. “I don’t want to get married,” she said to her now ex-husband when he insisted they take vows. “I don’t want to commit the same mistake my parents made.” But he persisted, assuring her that in fact their marriage would be different precisely because her parents had been so awful. “You’ll know not to do” he explained, and she believed him. He’s very good with words; very convincing. The great conniver.

The fifteen years of marriage to him were not so horrible; to the contrary, the majority of the time they were happy, joyous years. Perhaps it would have been better in the end if the marriage had in fact been a failure; then she would not have minded so much when he chose to destroy their world by telling her he was gay.

Lately, Anne has decided she will call her father. She wants her children to know their grandfather. People, just like life, are complex.

* * *

Not everything about Victor was negative; Anne has some good memories of her father; they are few; they are hard to recollect; but they are precious.

Celeste was the perfect housewife, the queen of her domestic empire. The living room was always impeccable, but no member of the family was ever allowed to use it. The sofas and chairs were covered in plastic, waiting for some guest to come to the house and try out their comfort. “That’s only for company!” Celeste would scream if Anne wanted to sit on the pink couch to read a good book. The same thing with the dinning room, with its expensive furniture and precious china that could be used only when guests arrived. And likewise with the downstairs bathroom and the sun room, and the entrance hall and who knows what else. All rooms were off limits to the family. It was a house of luxury in which no one was allowed to live except Celeste and her eagerly awaited, though rare guests.

Anne and her father felt rejected in their own home; and so both of them, like lost dogs, wandered outside in the garden, where Celeste had no desire to govern. At first Victor would say nothing, but he allowed Anne to observe him as he tended to his plantings. Victor loved to grow tomatoes. Even though they were father and daughter, they barely knew each other. It was as if they had just met for the first time. After a couple of years of Anne simply observing her father toil, seed and plant, learning everything there was about gardening, Victor began to give her small tasks. “Would you like to plant these seeds Anne? They will sprout cherry tomatoes.”

That simple phrase is something Anne remembered always, as if it were engraved on her forehead. To this day whenever she works in her back yard (her farm in the city), she thinks of that day when Victor let her plant her very first seeds. “I love cherry tomatoes,” thinks Anne.

Together, they planted and cared Brandywine, a staking variety. The fruit is large, but soft, prone to minor cracking on the top. However, they considered its flavor to be outstanding, full, both sweet and acid.

Little by little, father and daughter developed a relationship based on gardening and vegetables, and best of all tomatoes. He and Anne developed a lexicon of tomato talk.

* * *

But that same night, or any other night, Anne heard her father yelling at Celeste, perhaps even slapping her around

* * *

It is eight in the morning.

Anne is still fretting about the conference call scheduled at work this morning. It’s a mess, a bloody mess.

She tidies up the kitchen, examines the bowl of tomatoes she has picked this morning. She tastes one of them, juices spilling into her mouth. “Precious,” she says. “Simply precious.”

She locks up the house, enters her car, turns on the ignition and regains her confidence, knowing that as usual she will bring order to the chaos.