Chapter 3

Version 1

Chapter Three

“They adopted me when I was fourteen,” said Nica.  “I lived in a bunch of foster homes before that.”

I was at Nica’s apartment about three months into our relationship and we were just beginning to break through the initial walls people put up when they first meet and start seeing each other.  I had told her all about my family by then, about the age distance from each of my siblings making it hard for us to be super tight, but still loving each other, still getting along and close in our own way.  About my parents’ complicated marriage.  Even about some of my cousins we were pretty close to from my mother’s side of the family.

I didn’t recognize it at the time, but Nica was good at deflecting the discussion away from her family, away from her younger years.  She would ask me about my family by starting with a general, open ended question and then follow up with more specific ones.  She had a way about her that kept it from sounding like an interview, with a tilt of the head, a smile at just the right point in the story, a nod indicating her full attention.

Later in our relationship - and I mean years later - it was so obvious to me what she was doing.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think she genuinely liked to hear stories about my family. 

“I don’t have stories like that,” she would say.  There was a hint of sadness in her demeanor when she would say it, but not dramatic self pity.  Like the way someone might say they never went to the prom.  Disappointed, but not devastated.

But she was also steering the conversation away from me asking questions about her family background.  

“I’m not hiding anything,” she replied tersely when I eventually broached the subject with her.  “I just don’t have those stories.”

She eventually told me the whole story, or that’s what I thought at the time.  How her parents divorced when she was six years old, how her father wasn’t really a presence in her life and her mother stopped raising kids after the divorce even though she had three young ones left. 

Her birth family consisted of seven kids altogether and Nica was Number Five.  The state stepped in and took the last four of them away from her mother and, at first, found a foster family that kept them together.  But Nica said that didn’t last long and they were sent to separate families and eventually lost touch for many years.  

“We found each other after we all grew out of the system,” she told me, “but the connection was gone.”

She rested her narrow face in the tiny, delicate fingers of her right hand, her elbow propped on the table.

“There’s this intense cultural pressure to be close to your blood relatives,” she continued.  “But that’s medieval thinking, a remnant of a long time ago when your family name and ties did mean everything.  But now?” she asked. “Not now, even though people still romanticize it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, playing the same role I had so many times with my mother.

“You know what I mean,” she said, smiling and pissed off at the same time.  It was an unnerving combination.

She took a deep breath and pulled her head up from her hands and sat up straight.  Her dark brown hair looked almost black in the dim light of her apartment and I noticed how beautiful she looked just at that moment.  She had green eyes that were usually enhanced by eyeliner that she rarely went without wearing, even when we were alone on a Sunday morning.  And her skin, which could sometimes appear blemished with scars from teenage acne, at this moment, looked silky smooth.

Nica was funny that way.  She was like a car with flecks in the paint, appearing as different colors in the sunlight versus a cloudy day.  Sometimes she was stunningly attractive and at other times, from different angles, much more plain, asymmetrical in a way that was less appealing.

But not just then.  For whatever reason, she was stunning.

“Fucking family everywhere in the culture,” she said.  “Movies, tv, social media, especially,” she added, an acidic tone practically dripping from her mouth.  

“Look at my beautiful family on vacation,” she said derisively. “See us at the beach, smiling, hugging?  Aren’t we the perfect fucking family?”

The contradiction was jarring, actually.  The physical beauty she projected clashed with the bitterness she embodied.

“Meanwhile, the husband is watching porn in the basement and jerking off while the wife gets drunk with her coworkers and has emotional affairs,” she added.  “But family, family ...I love my family ….family is so important ...I’m very close with my family.”

Her eyes met mine directly.  “Am I right?” she asked.

I hated when she asked that question - and she asked it a lot.  There was only one answer she wanted, which I resented.  

“I take your point,” I said.  “But, personally, I think it’s more complicated.  Sure it’s bullshit on social media, especially, sometimes.  But it also matters, you know, your family.  There’s a reason you let your hair down with them, show them your ugly side in a way you don’t anybody else.”

I couldn’t read her expression but plowed ahead anyway.

“Family can’t leave you,” I said.  “You’re stuck with each other.  No matter how hard you fight, no matter how long you don’t talk after an argument, you make up eventually and end up getting back together at some point.  You might grow apart as you get older, gossip behind each others’ backs or whatever, but when Christmas rolls around or someone has a baby, you put it behind you and move on.  You can divorce your spouse, but you can’t divorce your family.”

I laughed meekly.

“Of course, you don’t ever talk about the fight or process it together in a healthy way,” I added. “But you find your way back to the tribe eventually.”

Nica shook her head almost imperceptibly and smirked at me.  Only emotionally intelligent people smirk and the two most important women in my life smirked a lot.

“Not every family,” she said.  “Some families leave you and don’t come back. Or you leave them and don’t come back, or you forget who left who and don’t come back - and after a while it doesn’t matter anyway.”

It hadn’t occurred to me how my take on family would look to Nica until then and, when it did, I couldn’t understand how it had not.  I guess not all people who smirk are emotionally intelligent.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and then she got up to go to the bathroom.

******

It was 7:30 and, of course, Nica wasn’t at my place yet. When I pressed her for a ballpark time she might arrive, she had said “sevenish” precisely because it was not precise.  It could mean she would be on time, though usually not.  It could mean she’d be a few minutes late. It could mean almost an hour late, though if she got there at eight o'clock that would make it “eightish” and would leave her vulnerable to criticism for being late.  And Nica had a way of working a situation to her advantage, of pushing boundaries but never quite obliterating them.

What had looked like rain clouds passed and gave way to the sun, allowing me to do some long neglected chores around the farm.  I met with some of the new volunteers for a few minutes.  I gassed up my truck and bought some food for the dinner I anticipated making for us later.

If I knew she wouldn’t be there until eight o’clock, I would have stopped to get some supplies at the hardware store, but what if Nica was actually on time?  That’s the thing about people who are notoriously and consistently late.  They assume you will be on time, but it’s optional for them.  And you don’t have the ability to plan how to use your time because, what if they are actually on time?

It drove me crazy and we fought about it a lot.  A lot.  In calmer moments, we would have philosophical discussions about the nature of time.  Nica would bring up the fact that Native Americans had a different concept of time than the Europeans who conquered and slaughtered them, that it frustrated the white men when they wouldn’t show up at the appointed time for a treaty negotiation because, to them, they would get there when they got there.  It didn’t take a genius to see that I was the genocidal white man and she was the noble indigenous person in this scenario.

I would, in turn, tell her about how Malcolm X was known to have driven around the block a few times so he would show up for an appointment precisely at the appointed time.  Not five minutes early.  Certainly not five minutes late.  He would show up exactly when the two parties had agreed to meet.  It wasn’t about time for Malcolm X, I would say. It was about respect. Then we would laugh at the notion of two white people so brazenly using oppressed people of color to win a lovers quarrel.  

But we didn’t laugh when she was actually late, which was most of the time.  I would get so frustrated, I could feel my blood pressure rising and, though I never yelled, I would get angry and terse when she finally arrived.  She would see this and react to it and the downward spiral would begin until, usually, I retreated and asked her if she would please just be more considerate of my time in the future.

She would never agree to this because to do so would be to admit she had done something wrong.  But she would tacitly recognize my submission and change the subject and, somehow, we would move on.  Eventually we would have dinner, watch TV and cuddle, make love and fall asleep in each other's arms and the ugliness of the fight would fade.  Until the next time.

I had been sitting on the front porch having a beer and waiting for her when I saw her car turn into the long driveway that led to the house.  It was late July, so it was still quite light out, but she had the headlights to her Subaru Forester on just the same.  She stopped the car, but did not shut off the engine.  She turned the headlights off but stayed in the car and I could see now that she was talking, probably to someone on the phone through the bluetooth connection of her car.   I expected her to wrap up the conversation but she continued with no indication she would stop.  I felt my blood pressure rise  and looked at my watch.

It read 7:53 P.M.