All This Life

Of course, the reason that Kathleen knows he hasn’t left the house in four days is that neither has she. The caricature. Rodney’s birthday. It’s left her in — not a depression, exactly. She’s not depressed. It’s a funk, a temporary dip in her morale. She’ll rebound soon. Soon, she’ll shake it off and go back to work, get scribbling on the Embarcadero. She rationalizes that she can take some “vacation” days because of the increased share of the rent that Wes is paying.

She had imagined herself to be left alone, but she can’t slack off on the couch and feel sorry for herself with Wes mumbling away in there. It makes her feel uncomfortable, and that’s not fair; this is her place, and she should always feel at ease. She should at least feel like she has the right to knock on his door and ask him some questions.

So why isn’t she?

It’s not that she’s scared. He’s a nice guy, some lab nerd. That’s not it.

And she’s no coward, either. She has had plenty of awkward conversations over the years and feels like she holds her own in them.

She guesses it’s more of what she’ll say. If something fell through with his job, is it really any of her business? He’s paid to rent a room, and that entitles him to a certain amount of privacy. He’s not being overtly loud, not being rude: There are no actual grounds for any interrogation.

There’s a pause in his filibuster.

Kathleen takes her ear off the door and is about to walk away when Wes fires up another sermon.

Kathleen can’t resist putting her ear on the door one last time, hoping to finally decrypt what he’s saying, but it’s no use. Just a gurgle of syllables, like her son.

It’s hard not to wonder what his eighteenth birthday means. If the needle is going to move, she has to be the one to initiate it. Not a peace offering, or anything that’s insulting to how insensitive she’s been to him over the years, but a way to help him understand that a) she regrets her decision to leave every day and b) she couldn’t imagine coming face to face with her ex-husband again, not after the violence she endured. Now it’s time to find her version of their past and explain it to her son.

With a sponsor who earns her living tattooing, Kat should get some ink. She should get a portrait of her son. She has the perfect print. She left a copy of it on Rodney’s bedside table, and now is the time to commemorate him on her body. A way to signal her contrition and at the same time indicate some hope for reconciliation. They can heal. As an eighteen-year-old, he’s not under Larry’s dominion anymore. Neither is Kathleen. They are free and if they so choose — if he forgives her — they can reunite.

That’s it. A tattoo, a portrait, the perfect way to get back in contact with him.

There’s another pause in Wes’s mutterings. Instead of repositioning her ear, this time she chooses to knock.

“Yes?” Wes says through the door.

“Hi, it’s Kat, can we talk?”

“We are talking.”

He’s so literal. This is what it must be like to live with a teenager. “Can you open the door, please?”

Kat wishes she didn’t add the please. It’s her house. If she wants to have a conversation, this guy should show her the respect of opening the door.

“I can and I will,” says Wes. Soon, he’s standing in front of her, still wearing that lab coat, and maybe still wearing the same clothes from when he first moved in. His stubble is pushing into a mangy beard. The room smells like a hamster’s cage. There are papers strewn over the floor. A few empty plastic bottles of water, though she sees no evidence of food. It’s a room of obsession, Kathleen muses, a scientist so consumed with his calling that the prosaic things suffer.

And, of course, his poster of Einstein’s face on the wall.

“I wanted to check in,” Kathleen says, “and hear how things are going for you.”

“Things are in motion.”

Kat points at Einstein. “What did you end up doing with Bob Marley?”

“I’ve never met Bob Marley.”

“No, the poster.”

“He is vacationing in the closet.”

“I’m sure it’s lovely this time of year,” says Kathleen.

“Plenty of oxygen,” Wes says.

“Do you need anything? Have any questions about the city?”

“No.”

“Have you had any trouble commuting to UCSF?”

“I haven’t had to go yet. My colleague has been delayed. But his arrival is imminent. Then we get to work.”

Okay, now that makes sense. Much more sense than why Kathleen let this unnecessary tension build up. His schedule has been delayed some, which is out of his control, something innocuous. She immediately feels better. Between this revelation and the idea for her portrait tattoo, Kat hopes she might be snapping out of this funk.

“I was going to watch a movie soon,” Kathleen says. “Would you like to join me? You can save me from eating all the ice cream myself.”

“I’m under a deadline,” he says.

“You are?”

“Our research is reaching its climax. We are about to change the world.”