THE BIG HALF

Something about the way things are divvied up, nothing’s really parcelled out equally is it, do you think it’s according to one’s expectations? Do you think the question who do you think you are anyway is loaded? Mathematics aside, do you think the bigger half comes to those who believe they deserve it?

Do you think I ask too many questions?

Do you think your big half diminishes the other half or do you think that they are the same size but your eyes are wider or you’re more grateful, maybe more self-grateful.

And not a moment too soon, here’s a little story.

Thanks for being here.

There were three of them at the cottage the weekend Helen and Maddie met, the two girls looked like twins, one would assume this was because of their common father, but later in the evening they each pulled from similar pockets in similar purses pictures of their similar mothers, both of them confidently beautiful, dark haired, intelligent looking women.

I told Helen her mother looked like Mary Tyler Moore – so much for third person – she said my mother looked like Laure Petrie from that show with Dick Van Dyke.

Sunday afternoon I was on the train slamming home through New York State, I was trying to pull myself together, the swirly blur of forest/mountain/field/stream reminded me of the way the passage of time – backward and forward – is sometimes depicted in movies.

I tried to concentrate on my book, we had to read it for school, but my eyes kept bouncing from the page to the window, I could half-see my reflection – can anyone read The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter without looking sullen? – the autumn light gave a particular glow to the forest so that I felt as if I were dreaming, I half expected Biff to appear knee deep in the golden leaves, Mick Kelly sending leaves to the ground as she climbed the giant maple above him.

I put the book down and went through my purse, I was feeling dislodged and my arranged possessions helped to ground me, my sunglasses in their case, my slim wallet, unnecessary gloves folded into one another, lip balm, Lifesavers, ticket stubs, a pouch of barely scented lavender, in the zipper a handkerchief and the envelope which held the picture of my mother. I pulled it out for further grounding but got the opposite, it was Mary Tyler Moore, I'd taken the wrong one. The lighting on the train was far better than the fire-lit evening when Helen and I handed one another our beautiful dead mothers. This time I really looked and in a cracking moment, two things occurred to me: Laura Petrie was Mary Tyler Moore; and Helen’s mother was my mother’s sister.

I felt like I already half-knew about MTM – I mean how could I not have? – but the sisterhood came to me sudden as a summer storm, complete with galeforcewinds.

My mother rarely mentioned her sister – and when she did her voice went stringy and awful – do you remember the way Linda Blair sounded? I was curious but never asked her to extrapolate, for I was sensitive to my mother’s demons, too sensitive if such a thing exists, I feared what she feared and loathed what she loathed, with gusto. I couldn't remember my father, also with gusto. He had a new wife and daughter somewhere, my mother laughed when she told me he’d left them, too, I’d never heard her laugh like that and never wanted to hear it again.

Back to third – sounds like baseball doesn’t it? – we're all fans today, but I am talking about third person.

Maddie sat on the edge of her seat, as if she were a gape-mouth statue whizzing through the wilderness, this is what happens to people as the penny drops.

When my mother died I half-died, too.

I was brought up in foster homes, too old to be adopted, I moved around a lot, Child Services didn’t care about that and neither did I, their goal was to keep me in the same school, but to keep me in the same home was impossible. The woman in charge had been an army brat, her words, the rug beneath her feet always yanked away, she told me once she went to seventeen high schools and she waited for me to say something about it, she nodded, eyes closed, when I eventually did, I said se-ven-teen?

Helen had been to my school briefly, she was just a little younger than me and I half-remembered her – the small half – a temporary angel, I’d felt something when I saw her but before I had the chance to talk to her she was gone. When I went to the office and asked, they didn’t know who I meant, the always-annoyed secretary told me to go back to class and stop with all the questions, who did I think I was anyway.

Good question.

It was Mrs. Peel from the Child Services who discovered we were related, she got notice that my father had died and left behind two daughters both of whom were in her care. My mother had switched back to her maiden name; Helen’s had not.

Mrs. Peel was the third person at the cottage.

She kept her distance, she said she forgot her book and asked if either of us had anything she could read and we both offered her Carson McCullers, she laughed and said that was the one she’d been reading, too, we all laughed, what a coincidence, I don’t know why she took them both but she did. She went into her bedroom and we didn’t see much of her the entire weekend, she cooked for us, a little sullen she seemed to pine out the window, we ate together, not sullen but not anything else either – pass the salt, is there any butter, this ham is good, is there mustard, do you think the water’s safe to drink, may I have ginger ale, have you ever tried tea with lemon, I smell burnt toast, here, have an orange.

Being abandoned by the same father united us in a way, of course we hugged and smiled, but our hearts – I’m sliding into third again here – but their hearts were only warmed. Perhaps their lives would be aligned for a while, maybe they’d spend a Christmas or two together, they wrote down one another’s birthdays, addresses, and exchanged telephone numbers, politely said sweet dreams in unison and closed their bedroom doors with a click of relief.

I like the fly-on-the-wallness of third person.

Helen was on a bus, Mrs. Peel had driven her to the depot and then taken Maddie to the train station, Helen was uncomfortable and restless, there was a stink for one thing, and the roar of the engine, the dragon brakes, she went through the events of the weekend, its disappointments – half-sisters is not the big half – she was surprised to find herself crying. She reached into her purse for a handkerchief, the envelope came with it, and she then made the same discovery Maddie had only moments before made, she sat a gape-mouth statue within her own blur.

Helen says she called me but I remember it the other way around, we talk about it all the time, every once in a while I’ll look over at her and say I called you, I might ask to borrow a sweater or something and when she presses it into my hands she’ll say I called you.

But I remember the way she answered the phone, she could barely say my name and I could only whisper hers.

What’s important is that we suddenly had the big half of everything.