Homebodies

by Joan Schweighardt

  Everyone passes their plates. When Sherri’s comes back to her, it is full of worms. She tries putting some sauce on them, but then they only look like bloody worms, which is worse. In fact, they look like the kind of worms that eat you up from the inside out when you have a secret.

  Lizzie says, “What’s the matter, Sher?”

  Sherri looks at Jake. He’s eating his worms up fast, adding fuel to the fire, for all she knows. She loves him so much. She doesn’t want him to shrivel. “Jake killed Maddy!” she cries.

  Except for Brigit’s cooing, the room goes silent. Jake’s face floats up from his plate. Lizzie drops her fork. In a shaky voice, Pete says, “That’s nonsense, Sherri. Whatever made you say such a thing?”

  Sherri looks at her spaghetti. Then she looks back at Jake. She doesn’t know how to explain. She says, “Jake told me and Eduardo that’s why you hate him. ’Cause … you know.”

  Jake pushes his plate away and runs out of the room. Lizzie goes running after him. Pete runs after Lizzie. Brigit is playing with her spaghetti, making designs on her tray in the sauce. Only Katie and Isabel are still eating.

  Sherri needs a transfusion. She goes running out of the house, then realizes that her smokes aren’t in her pocket. She runs back in and sees the pack by her worm plate. She picks it up and runs out again, lighting her cigarette and puffing several times in quick succession. She stares at the house next door, hoping Mrs. Bowker will come out. She wonders if Mrs. Bowker would notice the lights going on and off even though it’s not dark yet. She tosses what is left of her cigarette into the vegetable garden and runs back in.

  Jake is lying on the sofa, hiding his face in the cushions. He has his shoes on, but Lizzie isn’t yelling at him. She’s standing over him, stroking his head. Pete is pacing, one hand in his hair and the other in his pocket. Lizzie says, “Jake, I’m telling you, this is nonsense. You weren’t even two years old. You can’t possibly remember. I saw the whole thing. You were playing rough, but I yelled and you both stopped. Then she got up and started coming toward me. There was a book opened on the floor. She slipped on it. She slipped and fell back and hit her head on the fireplace. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you’ve been thinking this all this time!”

  Jake cries, “You’re lying.”

  Lizzie starts to cry. She keeps one hand on Jake’s head and places the other over her mouth, but she leaves an opening between her fingers for her words to get out. “I swear it, Jake. I swear it’s true. I swear it on Brigit’s life.”

  “Then how come he hates me?” Jake cries.

  Lizzie says, “Your father doesn’t hate you.”

  Jake says, “Yes, he does. He’s real nice to Katie and Brigit. He never gets mad at them. He gets mad at me all the time. He’s always giving me the look.”

  Lizzie says, “He gives us all the look.”

  Pete says, “What am I? Invisible? Can I get a word in here?”

  He jerks his head toward Lizzie to indicate that she should back away. Sherri notices that the skin on his face is going up and down. It looks as flimsy and filmy as wax paper. He says, “Now listen to me, son. First of all, I never ever thought you were responsible for what happened to Maddy. And even if you were, I wouldn’t hold you responsible because you were just a baby. But you’re not responsible. You had nothing to do with it. Your mother told me the story a hundred times, a thousand times, and—”

  Jake mumbles something, but no one can hear it because of his sobbing and his having the cushions over his face. “What?” Pete asks.

  “She told you a lie to protect me!” Jake wails.

  Pete considers this for a moment. Then he says, “You’re wrong, son. The state she was in when she told me was not one in which lies are even a possibility. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s very important that we get this straight.”

  Jake’s removes his face from the cushions. There are lines on it from where his tears cut through the dirt. Pete says, “I swear. I never for a moment thought you were responsible. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that all these years—”

  “You’re lying,” Jake declares. “I remember the whole thing. I remember Mom with the dish towel that I picked out—”

  “You don’t even have that right,” Liz interrupts weakly.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t pick out that dish towel. Maddy did.”

  “No, I did. I remember.”

  “You didn’t. You were too little. You weren’t even talking yet. You were just a little baby, still sleeping in a crib.”

  Jake bolts into a sitting position. “No, I wasn’t. I had my bed then. I remember the bed and the guard rail and you coming up and sitting—”

  “You were still in a crib,” Lizzie whispers. “Maddy was sleeping in the bed with the guard rail. Why would you be in the bed? You were younger. She was in the bed and you were in her old crib.”

  “I was in a bed. I remember it so clear.”

  Lizzie’s voice gets louder. “You weren’t in a bed, Jake. You were a baby. Maddy was in the bed and you were still in the crib.”

  Jake opens his mouth and stares at nothing. “I was in the crib?” he mumbles to himself. Then his face hardens and he looks at Pete. “Then why do you hate me so much?” he challenges.

  Pete pulls his hand out of his hair and slides it down his cheek and under his chin. “I don’t hate you. I love you,” he says. “But you’re obnoxious.”

  Lizzie cries, “What a thing to—”

  But Pete spreads his hand out in front of her. “Would you let me handle this, this once?” He turns back to Jake. “You are obnoxious. I know you’ll grow out of it. I know that. And I still love you in spite of that. But you are obnoxious.”

  Jake says, “How?”

  “How? You threw spaghetti on the wall not five minutes ago!”

  “That’s not being obnoxious.”

  “What do you call it then?”

  “Testing the spaghetti to see if it’s done.”

  “Okay, what about showing people, particularly your mother, the food in your mouth when you’re eating?” Jake opens his mouth to respond, but Pete keeps it up. “What about sticking grapes on your teeth? And just today, at lunch, sticking Aunt Sher’s cigarettes in your ears?”

  Jake mumbles, “Well, she smoked them anyway.”

  But Pete is rolling now. “What about sneezing and letting your snot hang down on your face until someone looks up and notices? What about that?”

  Sherri never saw him do that, but she can picture it. She opens her mouth to laugh, but Lizzie notices and puts her finger on her lips. When Sherri looks back at Jake, she can tell by how his cheeks are swelling that he’s getting ready to laugh too, that he’s pumping his laughter into his cheeks like a squirrel. Pete says, “I mean, Jake, son, these aren’t things that occur now and then. This is everyday stuff for you. This is your every evening dinner-table behavior. And since I’m at work all day and you disappear into your room after dinner and prime time to blast your acid rock tapes and—”

  “Heavy metal.”

  “And play Nintendo, all I see of you is your dinner-table behavior. And YOU ARE OBNOXIOUS!”

  Lizzie flutters her fingers toward Pete’s shoulder. “Pete,” she whispers.

  “No, wait. Let’s get this all out in the open, okay? He’s right in a sense, you have been protecting him. And you know what that does to me? It makes me out to be an ogre.”

  “Pete, I never said—”

  “But you do. You let him get away with it. Do you see what he’s done here, Liz? He’s taken my reaction to his behavior and transferred it to an event that took place years ago, an event he can’t possibly remember. And how does he justify this transference? By telling himself that if you protect him from me now, you must have protected him from me then too, so therefore he must have done something bad, something awful. He must have—”

  “Pete, please don’t …”

  “This is very serious. He’s g
ot to understand. He’s twelve years old, for crying out loud. He’s on the verge of manhood.”

  Pete removes his glasses, looks at them, and replaces them again. He turns back to Jake. “You’re more than obnoxious. You’re disgusting. You’re always looking for ways to … to …”

  “Gross us out,” Sherri contributes.

  Pete turns to look at her. Then he turns back to Jake. “Well, Katie and your mother and your aunt may find some humor in it, but I don’t. It’s not appropriate behavior for a boy your age. If you were a member of some primitive tribe, they’d have thrown you out to the wolves by now.” He turns toward Liz. “You see,” he says, “we don’t have ceremonies to alert boys to the transition that should be taking place.”

  Liz sighs exasperatedly, as if she’s heard this all before. Sherri knows she has. She doesn’t understand why they are always talking about men and women as if they’re two different animals. As far as she can determine, the only difference is that men have penises and women have breasts. Otherwise they’re just the same, people with problems. Everyone’s got problems. Everyone wants more love.

  “It’s societal,” Pete says, turning back toward Jake. “It’s not your fault. But nevertheless, you seem to be moving towards manhood at … at a snail’s pace. You are very immature. You’ll never get there at this rate. And it’s my fault too. I admit that. My father was never around. He was always working. I had no one to teach me … but it’s going to be different around here. We’re going to make some changes. Your mother and I have been talking. We’re starting things over. We’re going to open up, extend ourselves. You saw at the table … Isabel got a seat. You’re getting something too.”

  “What?” Jake asks, pouting.

  “I don’t know yet. Something. Something special for the two of us.”

  “You mean like a trip?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You mean like going to Alaska to see polar bears or something like that?”

  Pete snickers. “Well, that’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

  “Well, what then?”

  Pete bites down on his thumb and considers. “Well, maybe for starters, a night out camping.”

  “Where?”

  “Some place close, for starters, until we get the hang of it.”

  “Like up on the mountain?”

  “Well, for starters, I thought in the back yard.”

  “Duh!”

  “Can I come too?” Sherri asks.

  Pete turns to her abruptly and gives her the look. She feels the urge to laugh, but when she looks at Lizzie, she finds her glaring back at her. She tries pumping it into her cheeks the way Jake did.

  Sherri returns to the kitchen. She is dying of hunger now. Her spaghetti doesn’t look like worms so much anymore. She sits down and tastes one noodle. It doesn’t taste too bad. She begins to eat, but when half is gone, it starts looking like worms again. The pieces on the bottom are beginning to writhe. She looks across at Katie’s plate, which is empty. She says, “You like that stuff?”

  Katie says, “No, it looks like worms. Isabel ate mine for me.”

  “Could she eat mine too?”

  Katie turns toward Isabel and whispers. Then she turns back to her aunt. “Isabel says you got to go away if you want her to eat yours.”

  Sherri goes outside for a smoke. “Yoo hoo,” Mrs. Bowker calls. This time she is emptying a bucket of grayish water by the side of her stoop.

  When Sherri comes back in, Pete and Lizzie and Jake are all eating in silence, all picking at their food. Her own plate is empty. She sure does like Isabel.

  After dinner, when Katie, Isabel, and Brigit are in bed, Sherri, Jake, and Pete play Poker on the floor. Pete wins the first few hands but then starts losing badly. He says, “You guys must be cheating or something.” Jake says, “We wouldn’t do that.”

  But, in fact, they are cheating. It was Jake’s idea. When Pete went to the bathroom, Jake looked at Sherri’s cards. He took out an ace and gave her a five. Then he told her that whenever his father turns around to say something to his mother, that she should show him her cards. If he nods once, that means he wants the first card. Twice means the second. Three means the third.

  It works great because Pete keeps talking to Lizzie. Sherri can’t tell if he’s trying to help them cheat or if he’s just stupid. One thing Eduardo taught her is that only stupid people get in conversations when they’re playing Poker. Finally Pete says, “I’ve had it. You two play by yourselves.”

  Sherri is afraid he’ll take Lizzie and go upstairs. She doesn’t want anyone to go away. This is the best night of her life. Katie got to have Isabel at the table, Jake isn’t going to shrivel, Lizzie and Pete look happy, and she has a new friend. But Pete goes to the sofa and sits down next to Lizzie to watch her work. She is cutting up an old mattress cover into squares to make pot holders. It reminds Sherri of when Mommy used to knit and Daddy used to sit down next to her.

  Sherri and Jake play for a while longer, but it’s not as much fun without Pete. Then Sherri realizes it is time for a smoke. The only problem is that it’s dark now, and the last time she went out for a smoke, she saw Mrs. Bowker leaving her house with her walking cane. She’s afraid the old woman won’t be back yet to see the lights go on and off.

  Last night, Jake came out with her when it got dark. She asks if he will come out now. “No,” he says, “I want to count up how much money I won.”

  Sherri doesn’t know what to do. Pete says, “Go on, Sherri. You can go by yourself.” He looks at Lizzie and smiles. She is smiling too. She says, “Oh, and Sher, on your way out, do me a favor and check in the laundry room and see if the clothes are dry.”

  Sherri says, “You didn’t do no laundry today.”

  Lizzie smiles down at her pot holders. Pete says, “Just go and check, Sher.”

  Sherri gets up obediently and heads for the laundry room, which is off the kitchen. She looks in the dryer. It’s empty. She looks in the washer in case Lizzie got mixed up, but that’s empty too. She yells, “NO LAUNDRY,” but when she turns around to listen for a reply, she sees them all right there behind her, Jake and Lizzie and Pete. They’re all laughing. She thinks they must be playing some kind of joke on her.

  Jake’s eyes drift to the dryer. He juts his chin up at it. Sherri turns around and notices that there is an ashtray there. When she turns back, she sees that Jake is still jutting his chin. She looks up higher. Then she sees the sign. It says, “Smoking Aloud.” Lizzie says, “Katie doesn’t spell very well, does she?”

  “What’s it mean?” Sherri asks.

  Lizzie takes a deep breath and grins. “It means that you can smoke in here as long as you crack the window and put the butts out in the ashtray and remember to dump the ashtray before you go to bed … after checking to make sure there’s nothing burning in it, of course. We’ve talked about it. We don’t think you should have to go outside anymore.”

  Sherri has never been so happy in her life. She cracks the window and lights right up. They all watch her smoke, Pete and Lizzie shoulder to shoulder, both with their arms folded, and Jake with his fingers pinching the end of his nose. Sherri can’t believe how happy she is.

  They stay to watch her finish her whole cigarette. She smokes it right down to the butt. She puts it out carefully, just like Lizzie said. Then they all go back into the living room. Lizzie says, “Pete and I have been talking.”

  Sherri says, “I know you have.”

  Lizzie laughs. She says, “We really want you to stay here with us.”

  Sherri says, “Oh oh!” but Lizzie doesn’t hear her.

  “Jake came up with an idea. I can’t think how I didn’t think of it myself. Jake’s room is the biggest, so tomorrow we’ll move Brigit and Katie into it. Jake will move into Brigit’s room. And you’ll have Katie’s. We’ll clean Dad’s house and put it up for sale.”

  “Oh oh,” Sherri reiterates.

  Pete steps forward. “I know what you’re thinking, Sher. You�
�re thinking that if he comes back home … but you have to understand.…”

  Lizzie gives Pete a look. Then she steps forward too. “What Pete means is that if … when … Dad gets out of the nursing home, we’ll find room for him here, too. So don’t be worrying about that.”

  Sherri says, “Oh oh.”

  Jake says, “Don’t you want to live with us?”

  Sherri looks at him. He appears genuinely hurt. So do Pete and Lizzie. She is afraid to tell them about her new friend, but she’s afraid too that if she doesn’t it will turn into a secret and she will start shriveling. “I already promised Mrs. Bowker I would live with her,” she explains.

  “What?” exclaims Lizzie.

  Sherri cocks her head in the direction of Mrs. Bowker’s house. “She said she’s gonna make me her business partner … or something like that.” Her brows arch and her bottom lip rolls up over the upper one.

  “What business is she in?” asks Pete.

  Sherri shrugs. “I don’t know. Something about keeping the Grime Sweeper away.”

  “Grime Sweeper, grime sweeper,” Pete mumbles to himself the way he used to when he watched the quiz shows. Then his face brightnes. “Do you mean Grim Reaper?”

  “But she’s practically a stranger!” Lizzie cries.

  Sherri shrugs again. “Strangers got to have friends too.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Stan Greenberg, Polly Lindenbaum, Peggy Tosher, Valerie Van Inwegen, and Robin Van Lew, for reading and advising me on an earlier draft; to Ellie Lee, for stretching my time; to Jonathan Koschei, for his interest and his legal advice, and, again, to Judy and Marty Shepard.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.