“And that kind is?”
“Hmm . . . Maybe more hardened. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“I can’t, Thomas.”
This electrical charge continues to pulsate from Luke, and it makes Thomas a little dizzy. His scent, too. This odd jasmine-like evanescence, and the bitter undertone of his old sweat: earthy, woodsmoke. What does he mean by hardened? Thomas pictures a few leather-clad bitches, whips in hand, boots crawling up their thighs.
“But you are in love with Patricia, aren’t you? You seem very happy together.”
“We are.”
“It seems you’ve got a good relationship. A good apartment, good jobs. A good life. What everyone wants. She told me she wants a baby. But you’re not interested?”
Thomas doesn’t reply. But of course he needs to reply. The silence goes on for too long. Luke’s breath, light and effortless, and so close. A jab of claustrophobia pings through him. He’s breathing down my neck. “I can’t explain it to you, Luke,” he says. “Maybe it’s like you and your hardened girls. It’s a very private thing.”
“A woman like Patricia should have a baby,” Luke says emphatically. “Otherwise there’s no justice in the world.”
“What’s having a baby got to do with justice?”
“It has a lot to do with justice.”
“In that case, if I were you, I wouldn’t try to make myself a judge of that.” Thomas stands. “I’m going in to see about the lamb.”
Luke trails close behind. When they enter the well-lit living room, they’re forced to squint. “I’m starving,” Luke says. “I could eat that entire lamb myself. I don’t think I’ve ever had roasted lamb before.”
Thomas spins around abruptly, causing Luke to bump against his chest and chin. Luke steps back, a reflex.
“Did Jacques ever take you to Lucianos?”
Luke looks at him, puzzled. “What? Lucianos? No, I don’t think so. Who’s Luciano?”
“Ah,” Thomas says, turning his back on him again. “It’s just a restaurant. We ate there sometimes. Jacques, Jenny, and I.” He continues into the kitchen. Permeated now by a palpable sense of relief and joy, the kind you feel after taking your revenge on someone; they have Lucianos to themselves. Luke has never been there, and in one way or another it feels as though Thomas is special, and he thinks: It was our place. He didn’t take anyone else there. It was only for him and his children, only for us, and Thomas wants to celebrate, then thinks better of it and that feeling of victory, of revenge, completely overpowers the underlying sense of shame he feels at his petty, childish behavior. But he’s suddenly in a much better mood.
Jenny sits at the table waving her beer. She’s busy stuffing herself with peanuts and olives. She spits out the stones on a napkin and hands the bowl to Maloney. But he doesn’t want olives. Peanuts, on the other hand. He pops a handful into his mouth and swigs the rest of his beer like the experienced drinker he is, one with good technique. Under the table, Jenny’s legs slither around his. She’s wearing the blue pumps she wore to the funeral, sheer, flesh-colored tights, and the tailored, salmon-colored dress. Patches of sweat stain her armpits. Her hair has a glossy, wheat-like sheen—it’s not quite as reddish-blonde as when she was young—and it tumbles down either side of her round face. She’s wearing a black pearl necklace. To Thomas, the necklace seems familiar; maybe she’s had it for years. Raising his bottle to make a toast, Maloney leans back, scowling. “Maloney’s back aches,” Jenny says. “But oh, oh, all of you should’ve gone swimming with us. It was cold, but lovely. Maloney jumped off the pier. Didn’t you, my love?” He nods. “If I hadn’t been so hot after chopping the goddamn firewood, I wouldn’t have done that. But swinging that ax was hard work. My arms are completely dead.”
“And your back,” Jenny adds, trying to blow a lock of hair from her face.
“Thank you, dear Maloney,” Kristin smiles. “We’ll think about you every time we get a fire going.”
“I damn well hope so!” Maloney bellows with laughter. “What about you, Tommy? Did you do anything sensible?”
Thomas sinks into the chair beside him. He’s got a view of Jenny’s deep cleavage. “I drank a mojito,” he says. “I think that’s very sensible.”
“You could’ve helped Maloney with the wood,” Jenny says, looking coolly at her brother. “He was out there for hours.” She wipes her mouth with the crumpled napkin.
“No thanks,” Maloney says. “All he would’ve done is chop my legs off. That man can’t handle his tools.”
“What can’t I do?”
“You’d think you two were brothers,” Jenny sighs.
“We are brothers,” Maloney says, dropping his arm around Thomas. “So where does that put you, sister Jenny?”
“Maloney!” Kristin gives him a stern look. Then she smiles. “Why are you like that? He’s always been like that!” She smiles at Luke, who’s leaning close to Patricia across the kitchen table. Thomas can’t make out what they’re discussing.
“Where’s Helena?” Jenny asks. Now she looks bored. Her eyes are half-closed, her mouth is open.
“She must’ve gone to lie down. The lamb exhausted her. It’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”
“But then it has to sit, too,” Maloney says, winking at Kristin. “Right?”
And so on, back and forth. Small talk. Cozy. Rich yellow light, dark steamy windows. The scent of roasted meat wafting from the oven. A dish of orange salad. Laughter now and then. Eye contact with Patricia, and Patricia approaches. He reaches for her, takes hold, pulls her onto his lap. He wraps her soft arms in his. The weight of her body. Luke’s all by himself at the kitchen table with his beer, maybe he’s feeling a bit dejected, maybe he’s on the outside looking in; it’s not the worst thing that could happen, Thomas thinks, pleased. He’ll learn to leave others’ women alone.
The dog bumbles across the room and drops at Jenny’s feet. She bends over and pats its back. Maloney stares happily at her heaving bosom. Patricia goes to the bathroom, and Thomas heads to the utility room for a bottle of red wine. By the time he returns, the twins and Alice have come downstairs. The girls proudly model their new ’dos, whipping their hair from side to side, jingling the beads. “You two look like you come from a tribal culture,” Maloney says.
“We do,” Maya replies, turning. “What do you think this place is?”
“Are we a tribal culture here at the farm?” Kristin wrinkles her brows, stirring the sauce.
“Yes!” Nina cries out. “And you’re the chief!”
“Oy,” Alice says. She pours herself a glass of water. “That was hard. I’ve never done so many braids in one day.”
“Join the club,” Maloney grouses.
“You’ve been braiding too?!” Alice sips, then sets her glass on the kitchen table. “What have you braided?”
“I don’t braid hair out of principle. But I’ve worked hard. Unlike certain others. So welcome to the hard workers’ club. We’re a whooped bunch.”
“You braid your fingers in mine,” Jenny says, yawning.
Alice stands behind her mother. Puts her hand on her shoulder. “You should grow your hair out so you can braid it,” Jenny says. “You look like a combat soldier.” Alice removes her hand and walks over to Luke.
“No! She looks like a secret agent!” Nina’s the one who says this. “Isn’t that right?” Nina tugs at Maya, who’s still spinning, a dervish, around and around. But now Maya stops: dizzy, wobbly. “No way! She looks totally cool. I want to look like that. When these braids come apart I’m going to cut them off.” Then she thumps to the floor and within seconds Jupiter is all over her, licking her face with his long, floppy, pink tongue. Soon, both girls are rolling around the floor with the tail-wagging dog licking them. When the dog begins to hump Nina’s thigh, Kristin shouts “Jupiter!” and yanks the dog off. Pointing at the dog, she says, “Shame on you.” And it lowers its head. “It’s not doing anything,” Nina says. “It’s just playing.
” No one says anything. They’ve all watched with interest. “I don’t want it doing that,” Kristin says firmly. “It’s not appropriate. End of discussion.” She pounds the kitchen table with her fist.
“What’s going on?” Helena’s standing in the doorway in a brown silk shirt, her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Didn’t you take the lamb out of the oven?”
And so there’s roasted lamb with peas and baked potatoes. The tasty-looking orange salad sprinkled with chopped parsley. Thomas sits between Maloney and Helena, opposite Patricia. Maloney gorges himself. The lamb is tender and seasoned with garlic, the potatoes oozing melted butter. Everyone praises the meal and Helena. “Don’t think we eat like this way everyday,” Nina says, her mouth stuffed.
“Nah,” Maya mumbles. “We almost never eat meat.”
“But you’ve got so many animals in the freezer?” Patricia sits up straight. “Don’t you eat them?”
“We do,” Kristin says. “But we try to be as vegetarian as possible. As healthy as possible. But it’s not true that we never eat meat, Maya.”
“Almost never, I said.” Maya squashes her potato in the sauce. “That’s why we’re not growing.”
“Maya! Of course you’re growing.” Helena looks at the girls, both startled and cheerful at once. “You’ve grown a couple inches this past year alone. What do you mean you’re not growing?”
Maya doesn’t reply. She lowers her head and shovels mashed potato into her mouth.
“So,” Kristin says. “What do you want to do tomorrow? You’re staying till the afternoon, right?”
Luke and Alice are going fishing. “I don’t have any special plans,” Jenny says solemnly. “If the weather holds, maybe I’ll lie in the sun and read a magazine.”
“Be careful with the deck chairs,” Patricia says. “They can be dangerous.”
“The weather will be fine,” Kristin says, tasting her wine. “But there’s supposed to be rain and wind tonight. And thunder.”
“That means the electricity will go out just like last time.” Maya looks at her mother, defiant. Helena shakes her head. “That’s not always the case, dear. Why are you always so negative?”
“That’s how kids are at that age. Alice was dreadful. Wouldn’t you agree, Alice? You were dreadful!”
“I wasn’t any more dreadful than anyone else. Like you!” Alice points at Jenny and smiles. “We were probably both dreadful.”
“Kristin can also be really dreadful,” Nina says.
“She can be dreadfully dreadful!” Maya snorts sarcastically.
Sitting between Maloney and the gentle Helena, Thomas feels good, he feels comfortable. He scans the faces at the table. There’s color in everyone’s cheeks thanks to the hot food. Seeing his family makes him happy. He’s glad Maloney’s part of the family now. Even for Luke he feels a kind of affection. He’s just a boy, after all. The light strikes his thick, reddish-brown hair, making it shine like copper. Luke looks attentively at Patricia. She’s telling him something, gesticulating gracefully with one hand. It’s okay, Thomas thinks. It’s okay that they’re talking. She sat on my lap a short time ago. She likes it here. And like a swarm of butterflies, or a hot spiral of steam, a wave of tenderness fills Thomas. And so he clinks his glass and gets to his feet. “Dear Kristin and Helena,” he begins.
“Us too!” Maya shouts.
“Yes, and you two. Thank you for inviting all of us dreadful people to your house, and for several days at that.” Helena laughs. “We’re so happy to be here. I was just sitting here thinking that I really do have a family. This makes me very happy. To belong somewhere. I believe we’d all agree that we’re very happy to belong here with you.” Jenny wipes her eyes and loudly blows her nose. “And though I was a little shocked to see Maloney here and together with my sister, well, I couldn’t ask for anything better than having my best friend also belong here. So, a toast for Jenny and Maloney!” Everyone raises their glasses, and the girls refuse to sit until they’ve clinked glasses with everyone. It takes a long time. But finally they’re seated again. Maloney calls out: “Thank you for your confidence, father-in-law!” Everyone laughs; tears roll down Jenny’s cheeks. With a quivering lower lip she says, “I can’t handle all the emotion,” and Thomas clears his throat. The wine’s suddenly making him feel dizzy. “And Alice: You’re our hope for the future. Remember that.” He raises his glass to her and winks privately. Nina shouts: “We’re also your hope!” “Yes, also you two,” Alice says, tugging one of the girl’s many braids, “you two are our very greatest hope.” “That’s right,” Thomas says, sitting. Helena refills his glass and whispers, “Thank you, dear Thomas. That was a fine little speech.” The conversations continue, cheerful, scattershot; the dirty plates are carried into the kitchen, and Jenny gets more and more tipsy and affectionate, with blotches of red wine forming on her lower lip, blue and dry. From time to time she sniffles, dabbing at her eyes. To the girls’ giddy delight, Alice braids Luke’s hair. The twins serve the fruit salad that they made themselves. Maloney makes coffee. “The coffee baron strikes again!” Kristin shouts enthusiastically. Jupiter’s in his basket, still ashamed. But Helena goes to him, discreetly, and squats down to give him a morsel and a loving pat. This seems to cheer up the old boy considerably.
Everyone’s more willing to help clean up tonight. They work at a good clip, and they have fun doing it. The girls chase each other with the dishrags and Jenny regresses to her childhood, kicking off her pumps and chasing Thomas around the kitchen, into the living room, and finally into the sunroom where she smacks him on the back with a towel, so that it stings. “Revenge!” she squeals. “After all these years! You tormented me.” They have to let the dog out because it doesn’t like the commotion. Now it stands outside barking. “If you want to see our stars, then you should do it now,” Kristin says, “the weather’s going to turn cloudy and windy.” Patricia wants to come with Thomas. She’s flushed and in high-spirits. “They must’ve put something in the wine,” she says. “I feel like I’m on drugs, like I’m high! I’m high.” Jupiter leaps on them one at a time, tearing a hole in Patricia’s tights. But she doesn’t care. She showers the dog with caresses, until it lies down on the flagstones. Thomas lights a cigarette. To adjust their eyes to the darkness, they step away from the house. “It takes ten minutes before our night vision kicks in,” Thomas says. “I read that somewhere. Want to go down to the lake?” They step cautiously so they don’t trip. After some time they find the path, and at last they can see more than just contours. The lake is shiny, black. The slender moon throws light on the water, but not much. They look into the sky. At the sea of stars. The longer they stare, the more stars they see. “Look,” Patricia says. “There are layers of stars. A shroud of stars. As if the more you look, the deeper into eternity you see.” Eternity makes them dizzy. It’s so overwhelming, so frightening, and so magnetically alluring all at once. They have to turn away. Patricia whispers, “We’ll die someday, Thomas. That’s what you see when you look up there.” They walk farther on, along the bank of the lake, where the path isn’t a path but trampled-down grass that, every now and then, isn’t trampled down. Their legs are wet, the dew has long since settled in. At last they can go no farther, the path is blocked by blackberry and willow scrub. The rushes shiver. They turn around and walk back a ways, then sit on a boulder. Thomas recognizes a few constellations, but not many. Patricia’s especially fascinated by Orion’s Belt. The three clear, well-lit stars are lined up straight. “You know that some people call them the Three Kings? While others call them the Three Marys? It’s a mythical constellation.” Thomas didn’t know that. But he does remember an episode of Star Trek, in which Captain Kirk tells Edith Keeler that a famous poet wants to write a poem with three letters, each of which symbolizes a star in Orion’s Belt: “Let/me/help.” Or at least that’s how he remembers it.
“You watched Star Trek?” Patricia asks.
“Everyone who owned a TV watched Star Trek. It was on for years.”
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“Not me. But Orion’s Belt is also mentioned in Blade Runner. Remember that? How does it go again . . . it’s a beautiful passage.” He feels her eyes on him. Her face is bathed in darkness. “I’ve . . . seen things you people wouldn’t believe . . .”
“. . . attack ships in flames off the shoulder of Orion,” Thomas continues, “I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate . . .”
“. . . All those . . . moments . . . will be lost in time, like tears . . . in . . . rain.” Patricia rests her hands on her knees and sighs. “Isn’t that gorgeous?”
“You’re forgetting ‘time to die.’ That’s what he says at the end.”
She stares at the constellation again. “Oh,” she says, “Oh.”
“Oh what?”
“Oh, everything.” She sighs. “I think my buzz is gone. Sucked into outer space.” She scratches her leg. “There are mosquitos here. Can we go back?”
Grass crackles beneath their feet. “What do you think about Luke?” Thomas asks.
“He’s very sweet. And very young.”
“Why did you ask him to massage you?”
She stops to regard him. “You weren’t jealous, were you, Thomas? Were you jealous? You were. Ha! That’s too funny.”
“I wasn’t jealous. I just thought it was a little strange.”
She shrugs. “My neck was sore. And he said he was good at massaging. What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem.”
They start walking again. “Do you like being here?” Thomas says, taking her hand. “Or are you bored?”
“I’m not bored. I was irritated that you fell asleep during the game yesterday. I was mad at you. But I also didn’t care. By this morning my anger was gone. I’ve really enjoyed being with the ladies.” Patricia drops his hand and threads her arm through his. When they approach the house, the dog begins to bark. “Kristin told us a lot of stuff about your mother today.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was a wild and decadent person.”
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