It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  The way Dan tells it, going to Ma’s was for him how Aunt Evie’s was for me. There was a pool at the condo, free for residents and their guests, and he spent his days splashing in the chlorinated water, playing water polo with the older kids, learning to dive. Sometimes they would go into “the city”—he remembers Rockefeller Center, shopping in tiny stores along the sidewalks, watching the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. Everything that’s so stereotypically New York, he did during his summers growing up.

  Uncle Ernie ran his own electrical business so he missed a lot of the trips, but Ma always tagged along. She held onto Dan’s hand with a death grip, but he didn’t mind. “I loved her,” he tells me, unashamed. I love the way he can open up to me when we’re alone. “She was short—when I was eight, I was as tall as she was, five four, five five tops. Really short, wiry hair like steel wool, always a mess of curls but close to her head, you know what I mean? Very thin, almost scrawny, with the biggest damn mouth you’ve ever heard.” He grins at a memory, his tiny Ma holding him in hand and bitching out a waiter because Dan dropped his ice cream cone. She wanted another one, no charge, and she wanted it now. Dan mimics her in a high, eerie voice that makes me laugh. “So hot outside, it’s a shame you give kids melted slop like that in a cone. And you have the nerve to call that ice cream? It’s nothing but milk.”

  “Did you get another one?” I ask. We’re still lying together on my bed, and the more he talks, the closer I draw to him. With a hand against his chest, I can feel his words rumble through my fingers, up my arm. Packing is the last thing on either of our minds.

  He smoothes the hair back from my temples and kisses me quickly. “Damn straight,” he murmurs against my skin. “Ma had a way of getting what she wanted, no matter what. The Pope himself wouldn’t have been able to withstand her. She was like a force of nature.”

  Was, I hear the past tense in his voice and smile sadly. “What happened?” I ask quietly.

  Quiet for a moment, Dan rubs my arm, my back, and I wait. I can feel the change in his emotion like a lull before an impending storm. “She died,” he tells me, his voice almost a whisper between us. “When I was twelve. Lung cancer, I believe. She always had to have her smokes. Menthol lights. She took long drags on her cigarette and always coughed when she laughed, but I was just a kid. I didn’t think anything of it.” I kiss the exposed flesh of his throat and he hugs me to him like a security blanket. “She lost more weight,” he sighs. “The last time I saw her, she had dark circles under her eyes and her skin was really loose, and I remember thinking she’d be in the sun too much. She was starting to look old in my eyes, you know?” I nod, yes. Though his voice is steady now, I know that it must have been something horrible for him at the time, and I know he probably kept everything inside, because that’s the way he is. Or rather, was, until he met me. I know him too well to let anything fester.

  “My Papaw was in the Army,” he says. Ma’s first husband, his father’s dad. “Died in World War II, shot down in the Pacific, few days after my dad was born. I think that’s part of the reason I always wanted to be in the service. I’d see his graduation picture on Ma’s wall and he looked so proud in that uniform, so regal. She used to touch the frame and tell me that’s your Papaw. He died to keep us free. The way she said it, it was the most noble thing he could’ve done. I wanted to make her that proud of me.”

  He never got the chance. In April of the year he turned twelve, Ma lost the battle with her cigarettes. It was the only time the Biggs family ever flew to see her, and the first time Dan rode in a plane. Being in the Army now, flying is old hat, but at the time he was terrified of crashing. “I kept asking why can’t we drive?” he says, and now it’s me trying to kiss away his memories, his pain. “What happens if I have to pee? I said. There’s a bathroom in the back, my mom told me, but I was too nervous to go. I just knew something horrible would happen if I left my seat.”

  They flew into Newark, took a rental car to the condo. Uncle Ernie was there, alone. A big man with thick muscles on his arms who always reminded Dan of Brutus in the Popeye cartoons, he dwarfed Ma, but that day Dan said he never thought a man could shrink the way Ernie had. “Just sort of shriveled into himself,” is how he puts it. “Like he lost weight so fast, his body didn’t know what to do with all the extra skin. When he looked at me and I saw he’d been crying, that’s when I started to cry, too. I thought if whatever happened to Ma upset a man like him, it was okay to cry.”

  They stayed a week. “Mostly to help Ernie square away the bills and whatnot, and there were a ton of insurance papers that needed to be filed. I kept thinking Ma was out visiting someone down the hall and she’d be back any minute. The day of her funeral, my mother woke me up really early because we had to get to the church by nine, and I didn’t…” Dan sighs. “I wasn’t thinking. I dreamed Ma was still alive. My mother was like Danny, come on. We’re leaving soon. And I was so mixed up inside that I asked her if we were leaving to pick up Ma.”

  I stare at him for a full minute, savoring the way the early morning light that seeps through the curtains catches the highlights in his short hair and warms his face. “I love you,” I whisper, because I do, and I hope that my kisses, my hands, can ease the memories of the frightened twelve-year-old boy he used to be. “I’m glad you’ll be with me.”

  “We’ll make it,” he promises. “You’ll get through this, Michael. I’ll make sure of it.”

  I believe him. “I never went back there,” Dan says, “after the funeral. I just couldn’t. I thought I had moved on. But in September, when they kept showing the skyline on TV? It all came back. Every single moment I spent there, every word Ma ever said to me, everything. In such vivid detail. I closed my eyes and was back in her condo again. I could see the pictures on her walls, I could read the headlines of the newspaper she kept folded up on the kitchen table so she could do her crossword after dinner.” All the years in between were gone. I know exactly what he means—I feel that way thinking of Sugar Creek.

  “I’m afraid I’ll forget her,” I admit. Here in his arms, I can tell him anything. “I’m scared that one day something will remind me like that, but I’ll have nothing to remember. It’ll all be gone. I don’t…I don’t want that.”

  His arms tighten around me. “You don’t forget,” he assures me. “When you love someone like that, you never forget them.”

  He’s right, I know he is. Aunt Evie’s too much a part of me to just slip away like the blurred faces of the boys I knew before I met Dan. Disregarding the clothes beneath us, I roll onto my back and pull him with me so that he straddles my waist the way he did last night. He fits perfectly, his legs alongside mine, and he leans down over me, his arms on either side of my head as his lips find my own. My hands rub his thighs, causing the light hair to stand up under my palms. My fingers slip beneath the fabric of his shorts, tickle along his upper thighs, rub against the confines of his underwear, and he grins against my mouth. “You’re bad,” he whispers, but he leans into my hands and I don’t hear him complaining when I start to stroke across the front of his crotch—

  Suddenly there’s a knock on my door, and before I can extract my hands or Dan can slide away, Caitlin enters the room. “You’re worse than newlyweds,” she tells us, closing the door behind her. As Dan rolls off me and I sit up, Caitlin plops down on the edge of my bed and starts to pick at the clothes I laid out to pack. They’re badly wrinkled now. “Oh, don’t let me stop you,” she says, sarcastic.

  “Caitlin,” I start.

  “Cat,” she corrects. I’m going to have to get used to saying that.

  “Cat,” I say, emphasizing the word. I cross my legs and frown at her—can’t she see we’re in the middle of something? Dan lies propped up on one elbow beside me, his body pressing against my hip so I can feel the interest hardening in his shorts. If she would just give us a few more minutes…but she doesn’t look like she plans on leaving before she’s told me whatever’s on her mind. With a sigh, I ask, “Wh
at is it?”

  She looks past me at Dan, then meets my gaze, her eyes rimmed with smudged black eyeliner, her lashes a mile long with the mascara she has caked on them. “Let me paint you a picture,” she says. She wears dark lipstick the color of crushed garnets, and even though she’s still dressed in the faded shirt and boxers that she wore to bed, she already has a studded dog collar in place around her neck. The clasp hangs at the hollow of her throat like a locket. My sister, the freak. “Imagine yourself in a car,” she tells me, and I nod quickly—anything to get this over with and her out of the room so I can have Dan to myself again. “Mom and Dad in the front seat, fine. Ray beside you.” She lets this sink in. “For eight hours,” she adds. “How many rounds of that damn license plate game do you think he can go through in eight hours?”

  I have to laugh. At least it won’t be me listening to him cry out, “I see Virginia!” every three minutes. Uncrossing my legs, I give her a slight push with my foot to get her off the bed. “Sucks to be you.”

  “Michael, listen!” She grabs my foot and stands, dragging me to the edge of the bed. If it wasn’t for Dan’s arm around my waist holding me back, I’d fall off onto the floor. “Let me ride with you guys. I’m not asking much.”

  “No,” I tell her.

  She sighs dramatically. “You’re not listening to me,” she says. “I’ve got headphones and my Gameboy and a pile of magazines, a book I’m about halfway through—don’t shake your head at me. I won’t say anything the whole trip, I cross my heart.”

  “Caitlin,” I sigh. “Cat, no.” The last thing I need is an audience. Eight hours in the car with Dan, that’s fine. Add Caitlin to the mix and Dan won’t say much, he’s terribly shy. She’ll think he’s being standoffish, she’ll pluck on our nerves, eight hours with Ray would be hell but I can’t imagine Caitlin being much better, headphones or not. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

  Dan tickles my stomach to get my attention. “Why not?” he asks, surprising me.

  When I frown at him, she seizes the moment. “Yeah, why not?”

  Ignoring her, I ask Dan, “Are you sure?” He shrugs like it’s nothing to him one way or the other, but that’s his way of telling me it’s cool with him if she rides with us. When I raise an eyebrow in question, he nods slightly. “Okay,” I concede.

  Caitlin lets go of my foot and whoops in my ear as she gives me a quick hug. I push her away. “Just for this,” she says, “I won’t tell Mom you two got your freak on last night.”

  “Caitlin!” I shout, embarrassed. I swat at her but she laughs and dances out of reach. Before I can say anything else, she’s through the door and gone. With a glance over my shoulder at Dan grinning at me, I point out, “Eight hours of that. I’m going to remind you that it was your call.”

  Chapter 7: On the Road

  When I stand at the foot of the stairs, my suitcase in hand, and call up to Caitlin because I’m ready to go, she comes bounding down with a bag slung over one shoulder, her pillow and a stuffed dog clutched to her chest. “Who’s this?” I ask, poking at the dog’s scruffy ear. She’s had that thing for years—I know, because I gave it to her when she turned six. It’s a light purple dog, well worn, with a row of safety pins holding shut the seam up its back. I’m surprised she even still has it. “You still sleep with that?”

  With a meaningful look past me at Dan, she says, just loud enough for our mother in the kitchen to overhear, “I’m too young to sleep with anything else.”

  “Caitlin!” Dad cries, anger in his voice. He stomps out of the living room and into the foyer to glare at us—he’s mad because my mom is still getting ready and it’s almost ten in the morning. He wanted to be on the road already. To be honest, I did, too.

  Caitlin shrugs like she doesn’t know what she said wrong, then pushes through us out the door. “Do you believe her?” I ask Dan as he takes my suitcase. I keep my voice quiet so my dad won’t answer, not that I have anything to worry about there. He barely knows I’m alive.

  But somehow, miraculously, he’s taken a liking to Dan. My lover heads out to the car with the suitcase and I trail behind him, one finger hooked through the belt loop on his jeans, and my dad is right behind me, catching the screen door when I let it slam shut and blinking in the early Sunday morning sun as we hurry down the porch steps to my car in the driveway. Caitlin leans against the side of the car, waiting for us, and my dad surprises us all by following us across the lawn. “You heading out soon?” he asks as I pop the trunk.

  I look up at him and he’s talking to Dan, not me. Swinging the suitcase into the trunk, Dan looks up and, seeing that my dad’s waiting for him to answer, nods. “Yes, sir. Soon as we’re ready to go.” Then he gives me an amused glance that makes me turn away before my dad can see the smirk on my lips.

  “Let me tell you how to get there, son,” Dad says, calling Dan son like he’s the one home for the weekend and I’m the errant boyfriend he’s brought along to show off. With another glance my way, Dan puts on his stoic soldier’s face and nods as he shuts the trunk. This is the face he wears when his CO is going on and on about something that doesn’t interest Dan in the least, but the man outranks him and he knows better than to brush him off, even when I’m in the parking lot waiting. As if the back of my car’s a huge map, Dad draws a line from the keyhole up towards the rear window. “Take 95 all the way up to D.C.—you ever been to Philly?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dan answered quickly.

  Dad likes that sir, I just know it. Walking around behind them, I lean over Dan’s shoulder and frown at the line drawn in the faint dust on my car. “Dad, he’s from Ohio,” I point out. Sugar Creek is in the western part of Pennsylvania, not far from the border. “He knows his way around up there.”

  That earns me a hateful look from my dad, as if I’ve just interrupted him and made him lose his train of thought. Seeing that glance, Dan reaches back to me, his fingers tickling over my stomach playfully. “Shh,” he admonishes, before Dad can tell me the same thing in harsher words.

  It doesn’t stop him. “Do you know how to get there, Michael?” my dad asks, the challenge thick in his voice. He hasn’t opened a beer yet—this is his usual level of meanness.

  Like a chastised little boy, I reply sullenly, “I’ve been there often enough.” True, it’s been awhile, and I’ve never actually driven to Sugar Creek before, but I would swear the pathway there is carved into my heart.

  We stand like two alley cats about to fight, my dad bristling and me trying hard not to pout, when Dan asks cautiously, “So you head up 95 like you’re going to Philly?” It’s directed at my dad but he looks at me as he speaks, and when I meet his gaze, there’s a hint of a smile on his lips and a gleam in his eye that says simply, Humor him.

  Diffused, my dad nods and I’m forgotten again. Turning back to the car, he taps the trunk like it’s a map he’s reading and says, “Actually, you don’t go that far. Best way is to get off outside of Baltimore, 695 to 83, take that into Pennsylvania and keep to it. Past Harrisburg it turns into 322, then into 80. We’re talking country roads here, boys.” The front door opens and the three of us look up as my mom comes out onto the porch, enough bags in her hands to last an entire week. “If you wait a bit, you can follow us,” Dad murmurs. Then, as Mom struggles with the luggage, he calls out, “We’ll only be there three days, Laura. Jesus. Raymond! Help your mother. Mike—”

  I don’t wait to be told—I’m already halfway across the yard when my brother peers out from the door above the garage. “I’ve got it,” I tell him. It’s obvious he has his hands full with his own bag and pillow. Three days, is that all we’ll be? What do these people need to pack?

  As I take two of the bags from my mom, she gives me a tired smile. “Thanks. Do you two have pillows? You might need them.”

  Pillows, no. “I can stop by the house—” I start, but she shakes her head.

  “It’s okay,” she tells me. I follow her to her small Ford Escort and wait as she unlocks the t
runk. “We should be one of the first to arrive. Just grab a bedroom when you get there and don’t let anyone throw you out. We might have to double up.”

  I toss the bags into the trunk and frown at the thought of sharing a room with one of my relatives. Doesn’t matter who—I’m with Dan. Growing up, kids had to share rooms at Aunt Evie’s—there were so many of us, the easiest thing to do was just group the girls in one room, the boys in another. The oldest usually managed to get the bed, while the rest were left with sleeping bags and blankets on the floor, like a weeklong pajama party. The only sure way to get a room of your own was to be married—Mom and Dad were afforded some privacy, along with other couples, but I remember a few summers when Aunt Bobbie was between husbands and she had to bed down with Penny. And Ginger, one of Aunt Billy’s girls, always brought a boyfriend along, always. Once she told me it was just so she didn’t have to room with anyone else.

  But I’m with Dan. Not married, no, but together in the same way Ginger was with her guy friends, and she was always given a room apart. “Mom,” I start, sure this is going to lead to an argument in the middle of the street—then what will the neighbors think? “Dan and I—”

  That’s as far as she lets me get. Holding up one hand, she tells me, “I don’t want to hear it. It’s not my house, Michael. They aren’t my rules.”

  No, it’s Evie’s house, she made the rules, and I don’t have to point out that she’s no longer there. Which of her sisters can possibly hope to fill her shoes? Without children of her own, she was an impartial ear whenever there was an argument, judge and jury while we were guests at her home. Who would we turn to now?

  Slamming the trunk shut, Mom sighs. “I guess we’ll just see when we get there,” she says. End of discussion.