by J. J. Murray
“Murphy’s what?”
“Oh,” Joe says as he stands, “I didn’t tell you. Mom and Dad’s house is called Murphy’s Unlimited.”
Joe’s parents have actually named their house. That’s creepy.
“We may have to call for a water taxi,” he says.
“They have those?”
“No. Dad will just bring the boat.” He looks at the drooping lip again. “Dad may have to make two trips.”
We walk inside and see kids sprawled all over the place on couches, chairs, the floor, and upstairs facedown on beds. We close the door to what will be the boys’ room.
“We’re quite a lively bunch, huh?” I say. I lead Joe to the bedroom. “You go on and rest. I’ll—”
And then he kisses me right there at the foot of that bed, without grapes, even.
“Could you ... cuddle with me for a little while?” he asks.
How can I refuse? But then I remember what Rema told me once I showed her my engagement ring. She warned me this might happen. “A ripe melon has to be eaten slowly,” she said. I am that ripe melon, eight years ripe, but I don’t want to rush the passion ... that I desperately need! Lord, could You maybe look away for a few ... No.
No. Not yet. It will be so much better if we wait.
“I’ll cuddle with you,” I say, “but above the covers, okay?”
“Sure.”
I look behind us. “And with the door open.”
Joe lies down. “Right.”
I snuggle in behind him—just to be safe in case I can’t control myself. I wrap my arms around him, and he takes my hands ...
And falls asleep in seconds.
Without a sound.
Very creepy.
I check his pulse by putting my hand on his neck. Nice and strong.
This is going to take some getting used to.
Just as I’m about to step into my dream bathtub again, a flush in the bathroom next door wakes me. Who’s up? I turn my head to see Crystal walk by and stop, dropping her eyes.
Oh, man.
Drama.
I slide quietly away from Joe, tiptoe out of the bedroom, and close the door, taking the stairs to the kitchen where I see Crystal peering into the refrigerator.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask.
“No.” She shuts the door with a little bang.
“Neither can I.” I lean against the counter. “You okay?”
She hops up on the counter. “What do you think?”
After two days of avoiding Joe and me down in Atlanta, Crystal at least hung out with us on our trips into the city. But now that she’s seen me with another man, and in another man’s bedroom, I doubt she’s going to continue on with us up to Canada. And for whatever reason, I’m okay with it.
“I didn’t mean to shock you,” I say.
“I wasn’t shocked.”
Sure she was, and if I give this room enough silence, she’ll tell me she was.
“It’s just that ...”
Here it comes.
“Mama, I used to wake up you and Daddy, and you’d be spooning him just like that.”
Spooning? What does she know about spooning? That Tony and her had better not be spooning, forking, cupping, or knifing at that apartment! They can go bowling, though.
“It made me miss him, that’s all,” she says.
I decide to break my silence. “Do you miss him or the waking-us-up part?”
She closes her eyes. “A little of both.”
She’s still in love with the idea of me and her daddy. I won’t try to take that away from her. Besides, there’s nothing I can say that will change those precious, simple memories.
“Mama, I’m keeping Daddy’s last name.”
I nod, even though it comes at me from left field. “I wouldn’t want you to change it.”
“You’re changing it.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, why couldn’t you hyphenate it?”
“Evans-Mitchell-Murphy,” I say. “Murphy-Evans-Mitchell.” I laugh. “That’s too much of a mouthful, and if you throw in my middle name, I’d be Shawna Marie Evans-Mitchell-Murphy. People would brand me a mumbler, and you know I don’t mumble.” I inch closer to this child I want to hold so badly. “Besides, I don’t remember any hyphenated people’s names in the Bible.” Besides El-Shaddai, that is, but the Lord can hyphenate whatever He wants.
She looks around me at the rest of the kitchen. “You really going to live here all cooped up like this?”
“Cooped up? Girl, this house is four times the size of our apartment with a much larger kitchen.”
“But five kids, Mama.”
“Yes. Five kids.” I look into her eyes. “With room for six.”
Those eyes change. “I’ll pass.”
Shoot. “Well, the door’s always open. You never know how your life might change with a single phone call.”
“Or an e-mail.”
“True.”
She sighs and shakes her head. “I just ... Everything’s so different now.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. The way you’re acting.”
I know what’s coming. “And how am I acting?”
“Like a thirteen-year-old.”
I was close. I was shooting for sixteen in my mind. “I’m in love, Crystal. And I hope I keep acting this way for a long time. What else is different?”
“Do you have to ... kiss him in front of me?”
I step back. “How often do I do that?”
“Once is too often.”
“Well, I will be kissing him at the wedding. Are you going to look away?”
“I might.”
Ouch. “Anything else different?”
“Just ... Daddy’s not here ... to see you so happy. I mean, he was the one who made you happy before, and now ... It’s just confusing to me, okay?”
It’s confusing to me, too. How can I, who had a man bathe me in happiness for so long, find yet another man who is willing to do the same for me? It’s right confusing to be so lucky when so many other women can’t even find one man to make them happy.
“I mean ... Daddy just seems so far away from me now.”
I walk up to her and take her hands. “Girl, your daddy is probably raiding that fridge right now.”
Crystal looks at the refrigerator.
“And I’ll bet he was there at senior night and at your graduation, too. What else does he have to do in heaven? I mean, you can only sing so many hallelujahs, you know.”
She almost smiles.
“You still feel loved, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You still feel like the big sister, don’t you?”
She groans. “Even more.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Is it?” I ask again.
“No. One brother was bad enough, but three? It’s going to take a lot of getting used to.”
Did she just say ... ? She did. She referred to Joey and Jimmy as her brothers. Can I make her say it again? “They’re not such bad brothers, are they?”
“No.”
Wrong question. Hmm. I’m too tired right now to think of one. “Will you promise me something, Crystal?”
“It depends on what it is.”
She’s growing up, all right. “Just promise to talk to me like this when I’m old and decrepit.”
“I will.”
Ouch!
She squeezes my hands. “And you’re not that decrepit.”
“Just a little, huh?”
“Yeah.”
I pull her off the counter and hug her. “Thank you, Crystal.”
“For what, Mama?”
I hold her out at arm’s length. “For being.”
“For being what?”
I touch her face, which has more Rodney in it than she’ll ever know. “Just for being. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“Aw, Mama.”
&n
bsp; She hugs me this time, and we stand in that kitchen just a-hugging away until ...
“You’re not just trying to butter me up so I’ll go up to Canada with you, are you?”
Shoot. She’s on to me. I sigh. “Please go, Crystal.”
“No,” she says.
I hold her back from me and just stare.
“What?” she asks.
“I say ‘please go’ and you say no? Just like that?”
“Yes.”
I don’t believe her. “When did you make up your mind not to go? Just now?”
She looks at her feet.
“Crystal?”
She stamps her foot on the floor. Ah, there’s still a little girl under all this womanhood. “Mama, I was not going from the very second you said you didn’t want me to go.”
I blink. “Really?”
She nods.
I sigh. I knew this could happen. I just didn’t think it would. “We’ll miss you, girl.”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t say she’d miss us. This freedom thing is a bear and a half to bare. “We’ll, uh, we’ll take lots of pictures to show you all the fun you missed.”
She rolls her eyes. “Right. Um, I’ll go get my things.”
And a few minutes later, she’s gone.
Taking a piece of my heart with her.
57
Joe
After I sleep for three hours, we herd the kids into the van at around 1 AM. The older kids walk like zombies, most dozing off before I carry in Toni, settling her next to Rose.
“Crystal’s not going,” Shawna says as I’m wiping the sleep from my eyes, and I only nod. I don’t pry. In fact, I don’t intend to pry into the female matters of our future family ever.
It seems safer somehow.
Before I pull away from the house, I check our ground clearance.
Four and a half inches.
We will not be speeding over any speed bumps.
I take Shawna’s hand once I start up the van. “Let us pray,” I say.
“Yes,” she says.
“Oh, Lord, please help this van get us there. And, Lord, if You could help the kids sleep all the way to the border, I’d be especially grateful. Amen.”
“Amen.”
The trip up 1-81 to Canada seems mostly uphill. Luckily, traffic is light for the first three hundred miles or so, and though I try to do the speed limit, the van starts shaking and the engine starts whining whenever I do. I stay five miles per hour under the speed limit, and when we go up long, steep hills I even have to put on my flashers like truckers do. Shawna finds a nice oldies station once we cross into Pennsylvania, singing along to monumental hits from the sixties and seventies. I love the sound of her voice, especially when she sings.
And she seems to like not hearing my voice. I’m no singer, never have been. Even humming gives me trouble. Actually, I have no trouble humming—my listeners have the trouble. Rose once compared my humming to fingernails on a chalkboard.
We hit Harrisburg before morning rush hour, which is wonderful, but north of Harrisburg we run into construction, eight miles of one-lane travel, mountains, and fog so thick I have to slow to twenty-five miles per hour or lower. I pray the entire time from Harrisburg to Hazleton, trucks doing seventy blowing by us and disappearing completely into the fog while everyone snoozes behind me. The fog breaks as we descend into Wilkes-Barre, and traffic lightens up tremendously once we get north of Binghamton, New York.
We’re more than halfway there, I’m feeling fine, the sun is shining, and God has answered my—
“Are we there yet?”
Toni is awake.
“Uh, no, honey,” I say.
Now, as long as Toni is the only one awake—
“Daddy, where are we?”
Jimmy is awake.
“Um, New York state,” I say.
I amend my prayer: Father, if you can keep the rest of them—
Shawna wakes with the longest yawn I have ever seen. “We there yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“Fine.”
She looks to the back at the kids. “Y’all hungry?”
Y’all? Who else is awake?
“Yes,” Junior says.
I look in the rearview mirror and see Rose nodding.
“Let’s stop at Friendly’s, Dad,” Joey says.
They’re all awake.
“Let’s stop, Joe,” Shawna says with that sexy little pout of hers.
“There’s a Friendly’s in Cortland,” I say. “About twenty more miles.”
And then ... silence. I like silence when I’m driving. It keeps me focused—
“What’s a Friendly’s?” Toni asks.
And then, everyone is talking at once about what they want to eat, how much they want to eat, how badly they’re starving, how long ago they ate, what they ate ...
Food and complaining about being hungry: another chance to bond.
Everyone is wide-awake by the time I pull into Friendly’s, and soon after we get inside the staff pulls a few tables together. I’m thankful that Friendly’s has an outstanding menu with more food than they can eat and at a decent price. The service is fantastic, the food hot, the Fribbles and Fishama-jigs perfect, and as we chow down all I hear is chewing, slurping, and swallowing.
“We need one of these in Roanoke,” Shawna says.
“I’d eat here at least once a week,” I say.
“Every day if I could,” Jimmy says.
Shawna stares Jimmy down. “Now, Jimmy, what are you trying to say about my cooking?”
“You’re in trouble now,” Junior says to Jimmy.
Jimmy looks at me for help, but I shake my head. He’s on his own.
“I’m just saying,” Jimmy says slowly, “that if I could, I would eat here every day.”
“Boy,” Shawna says, “I can fry fish better than this. Just don’t ask me to clean the nasty, slimy things.”
Let off the hook, Jimmy smiles. “Rose cleans fish.”
“You do?” Shawna asks Rose.
“It’s easy,” Rose says.
“You let her?” Shawna asks me.
“It’s a Murphy rule,” I say. “Whatever you catch, you get to clean.”
“I’ll just have to throw anything back that I catch,” Shawna says.
Jimmy shakes his head. “You won’t want to, Shawna.”
Shawna’s kids jolt a little. It’s the first time Jimmy has used her name.
Shawna doesn’t seem to notice. “Why not?”
“Cuz catching fish is hard!” Jimmy’s eyes seem more alive today than yesterday. “Besides, Grandpa, Daddy, or Rose will clean them for you.”
“Really?” Shawna asks.
Jimmy shrugs. “Or I will. I don’t mind. I like to know what they’re eating.”
The three young Mitchells don’t look too pleased with our conversation, but luckily the meal ends.
Shawna takes the check. “I’ll get this one.”
“I don’t mind,” I say.
“Okay.” Shawna checks the bill against what’s on the table. “Just making sure.”
Cheryl used to do the same thing. Lord, You have brought another check-checker into my life. Thank You.
From Cortland, through Syracuse, and past Watertown, I’m starting to feel younger again. Something about the trip, despite the exhaustion, takes years off my life. I’m going to my boyhood home, going back to a million boyhood memories. My kids have perked up considerably, chattering away about how much there is to do up at the lake.
“Okay, folks, make sure you’re wearing your seat belts and look alive,” I say. “We’re about to hit the border.”
“Why do we have to look alive?” Toni asks.
“You’ll see.” I turn to Shawna. “We’ll need that folder now.”
Shawna takes a file folder filled with birth certificates, passports, and an insurance certificate. After a short wait in line, we pull up to
the customs booth.
“Citizenship?” the woman asks.
“All U.S.,” I say.
She peers into the van, her eyes narrowing a little.
I hand her the folder before she can ask.
She flips through our files. “Purpose of visit?” she asks, handing back the folder.
“Bonding,” I say. I feel Shawna’s eyes on me. “Family vacation at Aylen Lake near Barry’s Bay.”
“How long will you be in Canada?”
“About six days.” I wish it could be more.
“Anything to declare?”
I smile. “No, just that it’s a beautiful day.”
She almost smiles. “Enjoy your stay.”
I turn to smile at Shawna as we pull away.
But she’s not smiling.
58
Shawna
“Were you flirting with her?” I ask. That was some definite flirting. He was all one big smile with that squint of his.
“Anything to get through quickly,” he says.
And he admits it!
“They can search through all our things without any real reason, and we could have been stuck there for hours,” he says.
Wait a minute. “Hours?”
Joe nods.
Hmm. I guess flirting is okay, as long as it shortens the time we spend in this van. Jimmy’s “pipes” have been kind to us so far, but I know that milkshake he sucked down is cozying up to his large intestine by now. I wiggle the air freshener on the vent, just in case.
We take a scary bridge, kids leaning right and left to look at the houses on all the islands, my kids pointing, his kids explaining. Yeah, this is more like it. This is bonding. They’re all going to have the same memories. This is good.
The QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way) looks like any American highway except for the smooth ride and the Canadians flying by us at 130 kilometers per hour while we continue to putt-putt at 95 kilometers per hour.
“Are we there yet?” Toni asks with a giggle.
And now their bonding is causing trouble. “Which one of you kids put her up to that?” I ask.
All eyes land on Jimmy.
Jimmy looks around. “What? It’s what I used to say. It’s her turn now.”
Ah. The passing of the “Are-we-there-yet?” torch. Cool.
I turn to Joe. “How long, Joe?”