Free Rockaway by Tara Ison Page B

“It’s like, I called them the other day, and they really have been supportive, you know, they actually haven’t called even once I’ve been here, and so each day they don’t call I feel even more incredibly guilty. So I call to see how they are, and they ask how much work I’m getting done. Which sounds nice, but what they really mean is, I’m supposed to be getting all this interesting recent work done, because that’s why I’m here and not there, right? This big exhibit, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This very legitimate reason for abandoning them. And I don’t even answer, because then they’re telling me my dad can’t program the VCR or the sprinkler system and hecan’t find his pills and where do I get those low-fat muffins he can eat, and my mom can’t drive at all after the last DUI, and the doctor’s threatening to take her off the transplant list if she doesn’t quit drinking, and then they bicker and my mom gets weepy and my dad gets pissed off and they say how much they miss me and love me, how proud they are, and how I am the most wonderful daughter in the world. And when am I coming home? And then we all hang up and I feel crazy. Just totally crazy.” She took a breath, forced another little chuckle.
    There was another silence, then:
    â€œYou know, Sarah,” and she could hear Emily choosing, saying her words very carefully, “taking care of your parents, and doing every little thing for them exactly the way they would like it done, are two different things.”
    â€œI know that.”
    â€œYou do take good care of them. You always will. You will always be sure they are warm and safe and comfortable, right?”
    â€œOf course. But that’s not—”
    â€œYou haven’t abandoned them. You are a good daughter.”
    â€œThanks. I guess, sure. But—”
    â€œBut they’re not happy people, Sarah. You can’t make them into happy people. There isn’t enough of you in the world to do that.”
    There was a faint, fun-filled shriek, a sudden amped-upup blare of pop music. She looked out the open picture window, peered down at the beach. Kids were chasing each other across the sand, screeching and swinging strips of seaweed. A vendor was hawking ice-cold soft drinks from a wheeled cooler. Teenage girls rubbing suntan lotion on each other, mock-squealing, teenage boys zigzagging with surfboards, or kicking around a soccer ball, thwack thwack thwack . No wonder she was feeling a headache, that dull burn looming at her temples, behind her eyes. She swung shut the window, twisted the latch tight.
    â€œYou’re not crazy,” Emily was saying. “But forget ‘supposed to.’ Don’t even paint, if you don’t want to. You deserve to just have some complete fun and be totally silly and footloose and irresponsible for now. You really do.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œYou know the real truth? I wish I could be doing all that. What you’re doing right now.” Through the phone Sarah heard a girl child wail, scream Mommy! Mommy! She heard a man’s voice, Emily? Honey, can you come here . . . ? and another Emily sigh in her ear. “There you go. Truth is, I am consumed with envy. I hate you.”
    â€œThank you. That’s better.”
    â€œI can’t wait to see you.”
    â€œMe too. Thanks. I’m sorry about before.”
    â€œOh, please. I love you.”
    â€œI love you, too.”
    â€œHey, did I tell you we have ducklings now? And we’re going to start keeping bees.”
    â€œYou are out of your mind. You are the crazy one.”
    â€œI know. So please, go have some sexy beach-bum fun, for me. Go splash around in the ocean. Go have a meaningless hot fling with that musician. Go play. Report back. I’ll be here.”

    THE SATELLITES, THE guys they pick up for the ride to the gig, all in turn exit brick and stone and