A Kind of Sleep

By Susan Scutti

After the collapse of his marriage, Muller is lost. His career, selected years ago to appease his family, does not satisfy him. His friendships are few and hollow. And every attempt to start something fresh with another woman gracelessly fails. His world, the life that he built for himself, seems unable to support new growth. Where can he begin to live and love again? "A Kind of Sleep" is the story of a man who discovers that the aftermath of disappointment can become the foundation for a new life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Scutti
• Release date: Mar 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463820384

Book preview

A Kind of Sleep

Susan Scutti

To those who haunt

There is no death. Only a change of worlds.

Seattle (Seatlh) 1786-1866

Suquamish Chief

Part I  John Muller

Chapter I

In his nightmare, John Muller does not win the trophy and the erotic actress evades him. Next, his gleaming car spins out of control just as he enters a narrow tunnel. He wakes — gasping for breath, wrestling a bedsheet from his face — then he quickly dresses and arrives for work half an hour early.

(Throughout his day, recollections of this dream will recur with the persistence of an inadequately digested meal.)

Exuding the faintest scent of fear imperfectly masked by cologne, Muller attends two meetings then calls his mother from his office overlooking Hanover Square. I ’ m visiting Dad tomorrow, he tells her. His mother ’ s first reaction is silence followed by the sound of ice cubes clicking against her drinking glass.

He adds: For his birthday. She exhales loudly.

Give me a break, Mom — I ’ ve barely talked to him for years. His mother says nothing. A solid man, Muller fills his chair, fills his suit, fills the silence. After a tentative comment about the lack of rain followed by a short pause, Muller ends the conversation and hangs up the phone.

Although his own divorce is not yet complete, that of his parents was finalized six years ago. Until now Muller has positioned himself squarely in his mother ’ s camp. His father left her in middle age for a woman who, at thirty-two, is three years younger than Muller himself.

Now he stands and presses his face against the cool glass of the window. Below him office workers in somber-colored clothes eat lunch on the benches while a homeless man reties his worn shoestrings on the steps of the statue. A thick haze of sunlight squeezes between the tall buildings and warms Muller ’ s expressionless face. Each office on his floor is fronted with glass, and the effect, if he were to walk the length of the hall, is that of window-shopping. In each, the latest edition of a monogrammed businessman, gift-wrapped with a festive tie, watches the latest rise and decline of prices on a computer screen while rapidly speaking into a phone.

Recently Muller has begun to hate his job.

The following morning he pauses as he shaves to stare into his eyes, which are the same shade of cinnamon as his father ’ s. It ’ s simple: to placate his mother, Muller will stop by her house first then continue on to his father ’ s place. He knows she has her bridge club in the afternoon — that this, in fact, is a regular Saturday event. She ’ ll be pleased to see him and the impending gathering of card-playing divorcees will allow him to leave unhindered.

He takes a train out of Manhattan, switches to another line in Newark, then gets off in Fanwood, where he picks up a cab. Finally he arrives at his mother ’ s house, the smell of both the city and diesel trapped in his clothes. A blurring rain has begun and the house, with its gabled roof and ornate window shutters, looks like an impressionistic dream. As the cab pulls into the driveway, a shadow behind the curtains of the picture window stirs then disappears.

When his mother emerges on the front stoop, she seems surprised yet she smiles, the smallest taste of suspicion showing on her mouth. As he walks toward her, Muller inspects the careful style of her hair, the seashell-colored polish on her fingernails, the gold and pearl earrings and her matching necklace. For a moment he thinks she looks like the widows he can remember from his occasional childhood visits to church — well-dressed women sitting beside unmarried sisters in the final pew. Something about her seems so similar to these women yet also so different: hostility, not resignation, shows in his mother ’ s posture.

He says, I ’ m not disrupting your plans, am I? What time does your bridge club get here?

I ’ m surprised you came. They arrive at 2. Will you stay for lunch?

Yes, I can stay.

Unfortunately, you ’ ll have to eat my cooking — Petra took the day off.   As she speaks the scent of her perfume wafts toward him. Since he can remember, his mother has always worn Chanel No. 5, but inexplicably she has recently switched to another scent — Opium. This disturbs her son; Opium is the perfume of a woman he ’ d slept with for two months last year, just after he ’ d moved out of the co-op he ’ d shared with his wife.

I was just making a cold salad for myself.

How are you? Muller asks forcing a smile.

Looking sidelong at him, his mother immediately says, I ’ m fine.   Her clipped response makes Muller hesitate to ask more questions. He follows her into the kitchen.

Raw vegetables sit on the counter.  See?  I ’ d just begun chopping when you drove up. Do you want tuna with this or cheese?  Maybe a soft-boiled egg? You can have a combination if you like. Whatever you want.

Muller watches her step gingerly around this room as if it were someone else ’ s. He wonders how long it takes to make a new house your home; she ’ s lived here since her divorce, years ago now. Still, when he was a child, they ’ d always had a maid. Rarely had his mother been the one to feed him.

As she slices, he asks her questions about the condition of the house; about a friend she ’ d mentioned more than once in their conversations; and then, about her job at the museum in Newark.  It takes up some of my time.  Money ’ s not the issue, though I do hope I have something to leave my son.   She removes two eggs from the refrigerator and uncertainly eases them into a pot filled with water. Her thick bracelet knocks against the counter. Hesitating for a moment, she turns then walks to the stove.  She places the pot on the front burner, turns up the flame, and, still staring at the eggs in the pot, says, Of course, I feel comfortable knowing that you will never need to support me, even if I became ill, but I ’ d really like to leave you something. Your father ’ s money, I ’ m sure, will go to that woman he married instead of to his own child.

You ’ re not even sixty — no where near dying. Why are you thinking about things that aren ’ t going to happen? Relax and enjoy your bridge parties.

My bridge parties. Returning his condescending smile, his mother says, Don ’ t worry about me. Enough said about me. And how are you doing? Are you dating anyone?

Muller steps back as if avoiding a stranger begging from him in the street.  It ’ s none … I don ’ t want to talk about this, Mom.

You ’ re my only child.   Meaningfully his mother looks at him. I want you to be happy.  I want you to have a family.  I know things didn ’ t work out with Sarah, but whatever went wrong, get over it.  Did you cheat on her?  Did you think I couldn ’ t guess?   She pauses, watching him. You cheated on her, she got angry and she left you.   Again she pauses to study his non-reaction; then, her voice softens with insinuation.  Take a lesson from your father and move on.  He didn ’ t let remorse or guilt or whatever it is you carry inside of you stop him.

Don ’ t … He walks into the dining room. I ’ m not your husband, he adds softly.

As he takes a seat at the table, he thinks about how she has changed over the years. Now she moves forward without pause, trying to galvanize those around her in the process, spurring herself and everyone upward, onward — forward march, her every action seems to say. (Why isn ’ t his reaction to divorce similar to this?) It occurs to Muller that his father may have married the young nurse — a woman he ’ d possibly only intended to have a brief affair with — just so he could remove his mother ’ s strange and often brutal energy from his life.

Here we go, she sings as she walks into the dining room. She places a single plate before him on the table. Looking down, Muller sees that the boiled eggs, the broccoli spears, olives and sliced carrots have been arranged to form the eyes, nose, ears and mouth of a happy face.

Chapter 2

When Muller was still a small child, his pregnant mother taught him how to whistle. For weeks he sat beside her, within the smell of her, his legs folded on top of hers. Gradually she coached him and finally he learned how to produce a small sound with his mouth. Each time a small whistling sound emerged from his lips, she ’ d hug him and laugh; as the days passed, the sound he made grew.

Then, late one night, he woke to hear the rapid voice of his father outside in the driveway. Looking out his window, he watched as his father eased his mother into the back seat of their car. When his mother returned weeks later, Muller appeared uncertain, he felt shy within her presence. Finally, his father prompted him.

Come on, son. Whistle — whistle for your mother. After successfully producing his short, high sounds Muller placed a small fist on her flattened belly. Where ’ s the baby? he asked.

His mother ’ s querulous smile instantly disappeared. 

His father told him, Go tell Annie to serve lunch — your mother ’ s home.  

Days later, Muller stood in his mother ’ s bedroom doorway, watching her. Wordlessly she lay on top of the bed in her housecoat. Her eyes remained open yet vacant, she never once responded to his question, and, except for the occasional gesture of bringing a glass filled with dark liquid to her lips, she didn ’ t move.

Eventually his father told him that Annie, their maid, would live with them in the house. " From now on she will take you to pre-school and pick you up. It ’ s time you left your mother alone in her room. " 

And so the routine of Muller ’ s life changed. Every afternoon Annie pulled a chair away from the kitchen table, poured a glass of milk, then set the glass on the table next to a plate with two cookies on it.  As he lifted his glass, he could hear his mother ’ s laughter harmonizing with the sound of the TV coming from her bedroom.  Annie sighed, sat down beside him, and tapped the plate a few times with her finger.  Eat your cookies. You don ’ t want to be one of them skinny boys, now do you?

Once Muller began to eat, Annie would press her hands flat on the table then pushed herself up into a standing position.  She pulled the sack of potatoes up from the bottom cabinet, or peeled carrots over the sink. Muller liked to tell her about his friends and the things he learned during arithmetic and the new castle he built with his Legos. Sometimes he ’ d describe a dream.  Whenever he said he was afraid of anything, she ’ d murmur, A grown-up boy like you? and he ’ d feel better.

After he finished eating, Annie led him into the den and turned on the TV then returned to the kitchen to finish making dinner. His mother had stood a framed photograph of herself and his father — newly married and posing beside an unadorned Christmas tree — between the rabbit ears. Watching The Jetsons , Muller occasionally looked up to see his parents, new lovers in the photo, smiling down at him.

A year later his mother had abruptly begun to attend graduate school in Art History and Annie, whose daughter recently moved north with two young sons, had more responsibilities at home. Since Annie could no longer handle both the cooking and the cleaning chores, Petra, a thin woman with a heavy accent, came to clean for the Muller family. Young and newly married, Petra revitalized the spirit of the house. She laughed loudly and frequently, black tendrils falling across her face and dark fillings showing in the upper row of her teeth, and soon Muller forgot that once, long ago, he had almost received the single gift he wished for most: a brother.

Chapter 3

After sharing a desultory lunch, Muller leaves his mother ’ s house, takes another train ride then spends ten minutes in a slow cab with a talkative driver. He arrives late. His father walks out on the lawn to greet him. Awkwardly the men translate their handshake into a hug. His father ’ s face is strikingly similar to his son ’ s, though more lined. His body gives off an opposite impression than his son ’ s: slender, flexible, aristocratic. His father appears unchanged from their last meeting. Muller wonders if he seems any different to his father?

His father ’ s new wife, Rebecca, waits, standing inside the doorway. When introduced, she says, pleased to meet you in a childish voice and extends a plump palm. At 32, she looks at least a decade older than Muller. It ’ s not her features, exactly — she has an olive complexion with few lines, dark brown hair with an occasional glint of gray, and mahogany eyes — it ’ s her expression that makes her look so much older. An attitude derived from a tough life. Her eyes seem to say I-may-be-submitting-but-I ’ m-not-yet-beaten.

(She is nothing like the woman Muller imagined: he ’ d been thinking stylish, flirtatious, cultured. Refined.)

Standing beside Rebecca, Muller ’ s father exudes a different aura. Somehow he loses his sophistication beside this second wife and gains instead the cheerful heartiness of a high school football coach. Excusing himself, Muller ’ s father leaves to catch up on some work, promising to return in an hour for dinner. Rebecca disappears into the kitchen and returns with a tray carrying two mugs of coffee, sugar, cream and a dish of store bought cookies.  She sets the tray down on the coffee table and sits opposite John on the couch. You ’ ll want more cream with that, she says. I make it strong. So whatever you ’ re used to, you ’ ll want more. I think we ’ ll have a little time to talk before dinner — your father prefers to get his work done on Saturday as he tends to sleep late on Sunday.

He always tried to sleep late on Sunday.  Since I can remember, anyway.   Rebecca ’ s eyes question him, so he continues, speaking in the language he reserves for impressing people.  By the time I was ten, or so, he was able to pick his schedule at the hospital.  He ’ d received high recommendations from some of the important doctors on staff.  The only reason I remember this is once, when I asked him to sign my report card, he showed me his own — a letter from one of the older physicians.   Muller feels rewarded by the sweet, proud expression on Rebecca ’ s face.

Your father is an excellent physician. Rebecca zealously and incorrectly adds, Among the best in the country. Of course he ’ s also proud to have his only son work on Wall Street in New York City.

Oddly, her easy admiration flatters Muller; he softens to her and begins talking about his work. Job, he calls it.  Although I know it ’ s an important industry, I ’ m getting tired of the corporate structure, he tells her. He doesn ’ t say that the daily struggle toward more money, control and power has begun to bore him. To overwhelm him. That he feels as if he ’ s sleepwalking through his days. In fact, many of my … responsibilities seem like simple drudgery but so much depends on the execution of just these simple …

After his voice fades to a stop, Rebecca ’ s caring eyes still cup his face and looking into them he feels the entirety of his weariness. Muller feels the lack of a counterbalance in her eyes — a lack of intellectuality — and he resists her soft emotional pull by looking away from her. For a moment, remembering Sarah ’ s questioning stare, Muller sees how different he and his father are. This