The Summer Without Men

of dim arousal accompanied by a sensation of the not-quite-right. I put my hands on his knees, gave a push, dropped off his lap to the floor, and wandered away. This drive-by groping must count as my first sexual experience. I have never forgotten it. Although it was not traumatic in the least, it was novel, a curiosity that left a definite imprint on my memory. My view of the event, which I never told anyone about, except Boris, surely qualifies for what Freud (or, rather, James Strachey) called “deferred action”—early memories that take on different meanings as a person grows older. If I had not escaped so quickly, if I had not been able to retain a sense of my own will, the molestation might have scarred me. Today, it would be considered criminal and, if discovered, could send a boy like Rufus to jail or into treatment for sex offenders. Rufus became a dentist who now specializes in implants. Last time I saw him, he was carrying around a magazine called Implantology .
     
Entry #2. Lucy Pumper announces to me on the school bus: “I know they have to do it to have children, but do they have to take off all of their clothes?” Lucy was Catholic—an exotic category: incense, robes, crucifixes, rosaries (all coveted)—and she had eight brothers and sisters. I bowed to her superior knowledge. I, on the other hand, looked through that particular glass darkly and had nothing to say. I was nine years old and understood perfectly that I would discover a reflection of some kind if I looked hard enough, but when I gazed ahead I had no idea what I was seeing. All of their clothes?
     
A side entry: I promised not to, but I can’t help it. His hair was dark then, almost black, and there was no soft, loose flesh beneath his chin. As he sat across the table from me in the Hungarian Pastry Shop, he explained his research slowly and lucidly, and he drew a model on the napkin with his Bic pen. I leaned forward to look at it, followed one of the lines he had drawn with my finger, and looked up at him. The electric air. He placed his hand over mine and pressed my fingers into the table, but I felt it between my legs. I felt my jaw loosen and my mouth open. It was grand, my love, wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it?
    *   *   *
     
    I am screaming, All these years you came first! You, never me! Who cleaned, did homework for hours, slogged through the shopping? Did you? Goddamned master of the universe! Phallic Übermensch off to a conference. The neural correlates of consciousness! It makes me puke!
    Why are you always so angry? What happened to your sense of humor? Why are you rewriting our life?
     
I remember pieces, parts,
A chair without the room,
A flying phrase, a shriek, a foggy scene,
hippocampal fits
that summon David Hume,
his I as pale and lean and phantom-like
As mine.
     
Dear Mom,
     
I’m thinking of you every day. How is Grandmother? The play closes in August and then I’ll come to visit for a whole week. I love doing Muriel. She’s a pip—a great part and finally comedy! The laughs have been huge. I told Freddy the scripts were awful, but he kept sending me out for those ghastly torture-and-kill-the-girl movies. Yuck! The playhouse is trying to raise money, but it isn’t easy here in off-off-off land. Jason is fine except that he’s hating my schedule.
     
I saw Dad for lunch but it didn’t go so well. Mom, I’m worrying a lot about you. Are you okay? I love you so much.
     
    Your own Daisy        
    I sent my own Daisy a reassuring message.
    *   *   *
     
    “He wasn’t an easy man to be married to, your father,” my mother said.
    “No,” I said, “I can see that.”
    My mother was sitting in a chair, hugging her thin knees. I thought to myself that although age had shrunk her, it had also intensified her, as if the lack of remaining time had had the effect of stripping away all fat—both physical and mental.
    “Golf, the law, crosswords, martinis.”
    “In that order?” I smiled at her.
    “Possibly.” My mother sighed and reached to pick a dead leaf from a potted plant on the table beside her. “I have never told you,” she said, “but when you were still small, I believe your father fell in love with someone else.”
    I took a breath. “He had an affair?”
    My mother shook her head. “No, I don’t think there was sex. His rectitude was absolute, but there was the feeling.”
    “He told you?”
    “No. I guessed.”
    Such were the circuitous routes of marital life,