Above our fireplace: the shelf my father installed over Thanksgiving break. On the shelf: my mother’s wine glass. She plucks it by the stem and offers it to me.
“Drink some,” she says. I do.
“Isn’t it delicious?”
“It’s sweet,” I say, handing the glass back to her.
“Have some more.” She pushes my hand and some red splashes onto the ottoman on which I am sitting, cross-legged.
“Crap,” she mutters.
Sober mom would clean it right away, but instead she calls over Maxwell to lap it up. He gives the dollop a little lick and then sneezes. His entire body seems to shiver. I use my socks to soak up the rest.
“Daddy,” she says, pointing to my father. “Refill my glass.” He goes into the kitchen and brings back the bottle of port.
“It’s my favorite drink,” my mother explains as he tops her off. She fidgets and puts one leg over mine. “Dessert wine, you know. Here, have another gulp.”
“I think I’m good.”
“Fine. More for me!” And she throws back her head and cackles.
We stare into the fire that is now ablaze. My father nudges the smoldering log with a poker. Embers scatter from behind the iron screen and shoot up the flue.
“Did I ever tell you about my old boyfriends?” my mother asks after a long silence. She turns to me and opens her mouth, then shuts it very fast, and grins.
“No,” I finally say.
“I had a few, you know.”
“You once told me about Mark. You said he proposed to you, but you said no because he was too short.”
“He was,” she says, bringing the glass from her lips and setting it on the shelf. “But I got proposed to a lot back then.”
“I’m sure you did.”
I notice that Maxwell has fallen asleep next to the piano. I watch his chest rise and fall, and yawn.
“How about my professor at Hofstra?” she asks. “Did I tell you about him?”
My father snorts and leans back in his chair.
“No,” I say.
“He proposed to me at the end of my sophomore year. Initially I said yes.”
The log in the fire cracks and spits as I sit very still, not knowing what to say.
“Are you talking about the business law guy?” asks my father with his eyes closed.
“Shut up, you,” my mother says.
“You were how old?” I ask.
“Nineteen,” she says. A blanket of white light from a neighbor driving past our house flushes our ceiling, and it is soporific. “He told me I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.”
My father stretches his arms and shifts in his chair. I look at the clock on the piano and see that it is almost two.
“We should go to bed,” I say. I get up and walk into the kitchen. I drink two glasses of water and stare at my reflection in the window above the sink. Beyond my reflection: our driveway, wet, dark, and strewn with leaves. Leaves to be raked and stuffed into an orange garbage bin. Something my father and I were told to do many days ago.
I walk back into the living room and sit on the ottoman.
“Tell me the story,” I say.
My father starts to speak, but my mother interrupts. “I had many men who wanted me,” she says. “Men who said that I was the sweetest girl they’d ever seen. They mailed me gifts. Coats so soft you’d fall asleep just holding them in your arms. Watches so big they weighed you down. I kept them all. No matter how much I resented the man, I always kept his gift.”
Maxwell kicks in his sleep and yawps.
“My sophomore year I was taught by a graduate student for my intro to business law. He was only twenty-four. I can still remember the black satchel in which he kept our papers. It made him look important. Much like the bag you carry around nowadays. Odd how those trends all came back.”
“Did he buy you anything?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says. “He didn’t have to.”
I steal a glance at my father, who is now looking into the fire.
“Your grandfather really liked him, too,” she continues. “I brought him to Fort Lee several times, and grandpa said he was a very handsome fellow.”
“That’s weird,” I say. “This whole story’s weird.”
“Then he proposed to me,” my mother says, also looking into the fire. Her eyes are glowing. “I said yes because I loved him. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? But when I told your grandfather, he stated simply that I had to marry Korean. That was non-negotiable.”
“So you married dad.”
“Yes. So four months later I married your father.”
“Did you love him?”
“Who, your father?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I cough.
“But I do now.”
I am afraid to look at my father, so I don’t.
“But that professor—boy, did he love me!” she bursts, laughing. “After your sister was born he called the house. He said, ‘Lily, I hear you and your husband are having issues. I knew he wasn’t right for you. That’s why I will ask you one more time to marry me. Leave Harry and I will raise your daughter as my own. You never loved him, so why put yourself through such torment?’”
“Does nuna know this story?” I ask.
“No,” my mother says. “I’m only telling this to you because I’m drunk.”
“But if you had run away with him, I’d have never been born,” I murmur.
“Well, I’m very glad that I didn’t.”
We don’t say anything and my father grunts and is maybe asleep. His eyes are closed and his mouth taut. I cannot tell if his face is flushed red from the alcohol or from the breath of the fire.
“Daddy,” my mother says, “what was his name again?”
My father does not respond.
“Daddy,” my mother says again. “Harry!”
He opens an eye and says, “Levov.”
“Right,” my mother says, clapping her hands. “Levov.”
“So you told dad, huh?”
“He found a letter,” she says.
My father sits up in his chair and bellows, “I said to her, ‘No man but me!’ and she had no choice but to obey—for I am her one and only!” A smile that is Cheshire in its enormity inches up his slack cheeks, and my mother also smiles, though hers is not as big. I yawn and shake my head.
“I can’t imagine you saying that,” I say to my father.
“He’s joking,” my mother says.
I look over at the piano. Maxwell’s gone. He’s gone downstairs to curl up next to my mother’s bed and go to sleep. I think about doing the same.
“I’m beat,” I say. “Drank a lot, you know.”
“Go to bed, baby,” my mother says.
“Goodnight,” says my father, who is now pouring himself a glass of port.
I go downstairs and brush my teeth and wash my face. I pop a zit on my chin and put my wine-stamped socks in the hamper. Then, I go into the bedroom that is no longer mine and crawl underneath the goose down comforter, lying on my right. I shut my eyes but do not sleep.
