Web of Angels

by Lilian Nattel

  Emmie slipped a cold hand into her mother’s. “Not the blue paint,” she said. “Don’t throw out the blue, Mama.”

  Her children were scared. She was making them scared. Sharon’s outrage collapsed and she sat on the side of the tub. “You’ll have to have a bath.” The girls looked at each other—no yelling, no consequences?

  “Yes, yes,” Emmie said.

  “Mom?” Nina asked. The flame of fear was doused. Her eyes gleamed. “After could I have some gummies?”

  “No way!” Sharon said.

  While the bath was running and the girls were in the tub, she got the mop from downstairs, a WetJet that her mother-in-law insisted was the best. As Sharon pushed it along the second floor hallway, weightless and swishless and requiring her to buy the disposable pads, which she always forgot, her mind idled around mops and floors, thinking to itself, the phone is going to ring. Bet you it’s her.

  A minute later, Josh was calling, “Mom!”

  She took the phone from him and, cradling it between her ear and shoulder, she turned off the water in the bathroom. The African violets were blooming purple and pink in the south window. “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi Sharon.” It was her mother-in-law. “We have dinner on Sunday.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Who is it, Mommy?” Nina asked.

  Sharon covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Nai-Nai. I’ll be done in a minute.”

  “Is anyone else coming?” Mimi asked.

  “The usual.”

  “Sunday is just for family,” her mother-in-law said.

  “And friends,” Sharon replied. Lately Cathy had been joining them for Sunday dinner.

  “Nice friends.”

  “Cathy’s nice.”

  “Her family is no good. You know what happened to them.”

  “Mimi, it isn’t their fault. Her sister was depressed.”

  “Mental illness runs in families. No good. You have to guide your son.”

  “Okay, see you Sunday. I’ve got to go. The girls are having a bath.”

  Sharon never argued with her mother-in-law. She put the phone down on the counter between the two sinks and knelt beside the tub. Orange hair was shampooed and rinsed, then the pink. Nina came out first, Sharon holding out the big blue towel. Wrap and hug. Then she snuggled her younger daughter, who shivered in her towel while Nina made faces in the mirror, flaring her nostrils, wiggling her ears. “Can you do this, Mom? Can you? Try, Mommy.”

  Dan came home around nine with a new office chair, a two-drawer filing cabinet to hold the company bills, and a surprise from Amy’s Animal Clinic. In the dining room, Sharon was knitting while the girls made a city out of milk cartons. The hoodie she was knitting started out simply enough: largish needles, cast on thirty-seven for her niece’s narrow chest, knit one, pearl one for a while to make the ribbed edge of the sweater. A soft yarn, her niece’s favourite colours, mix of blue, green. Click, click, click. The sound of peace, hands in their quick and familiar motions. A tight ball of yarn, unravelling as a long and lanky string, ravelling up into a solid piece of colour and shape and beauty. Lots of things start out simply. She looked up as Dan came in, carrying something wrapped in a towel. The surprise mewed, and Dan smiled at the childish expression on his wife’s face as a dark nose poked out. Her hand, their hand, gently stroked the kitten. Inside, the lils were saying wow wow wow. can we call him franky? don’t be scared, franky.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  On Sunday Dan’s parents arrived at exactly six o’clock. Mimi made sure of that. Her Chinese name was Xiao Mei, Little Plum Blossom, but she had been Mimi for fifty years and there was nothing blossom-like in her five feet of muscular intensity. She’d immigrated on her own, arriving in a strange country where she didn’t know the language, not even within the Chinese community, which spoke a different dialect. She’d met Jake, married him, and then she had made her husband the man he’d been, convincing him to go into business for himself, six days a week selling odds and ends and cigars to the reporters who worked near his shop at the Evening Telegram. They’d moved out to the suburbs, where her children had had a big backyard and a swimming pool. When Eleanor grew up, she’d moved back to the old neighbourhood as if all that hard work had meant nothing, and then managed to persuade Dan to move there, too. It was an insult to Mimi’s intentions and here was another: she had made Jake, but the universe had remade him. His mind was declining, he was frail and he smiled lovingly at his grandchildren with no notion that he’d ever cared whether his son got 90 or 99 percent, and he spouted nonsense. Things like, “So if God is everything, do you poop God in the toilet? I think yes.”

  Sharon was in the dining room, running Nina’s new jeans under the sewing machine to take them in. She’d intended to tidy up, change her clothes, do something with her hair, but she was still in jeans, a tank-top and a hoodie that she could zip and unzip as the others inside came closer and pulled away, making her hot and cold.

  “Nai-Nai!” the girls were yelling as they ran down the stairs to get the door. “Zaidey!”

  Mimi appeared in the doorway. “If you put things away,” she said, “you could eat in the dining room instead of the kitchen. Still using my old table?” Mimi asked this as if she wasn’t there every Sunday to see that they did. “You need some lipstick by the way.”

  “Hi Mimi,” Sharon said, getting up and coming over to her mother-in-law, bending down to kiss her cheek, which was still soft. Mimi didn’t have any old lady bristles. She wouldn’t allow it. “We set up the folding table for the kids. It’ll be more comfortable that way.”

  “How many kids?” Mimi asked. Her hair was short, not yet completely grey even though she was seventy, her glasses square, her jacket red, her wool slacks navy.

  “Oh, I guess, let’s see now. Five?”

  “The girl is here?”

  “Her name is Cathy.”

  She was up in Josh’s room with him. He was playing the guitar, singing to her. When Sharon checked on them, pushing the door that they’d left open just a crack, they jerked apart, their eyes glazed, cheeks hot.

  “I told you. Weak brains you don’t want in the family. You have to guide your son. Make sure he has good friends.”

  “Uh huh.” Sharon didn’t bother to point out that the kids were only fourteen—a long way from getting married. She followed her mother-in-law to the kitchen as Mimi continued her lecture. Dan was coming more slowly, supporting his father by the arm. Nina had hold of her zaidey’s other hand, her face solemn with the responsibility of getting him to his chair. After he sat down, he patted her head and gave her a candy, not because he still knew that children like candy, but generously sharing his own secret stash, his wife having banned sugar from his diet.

  “Okay. Girls. I check your feet,” Mimi said.

  “Me first!” Nina sat on one of the chairs, sticking out her feet. Her grandmother squatted in front of her, balancing easily on her heels as she pulled off Nina’s shoes and lacy socks, feeling her feet.

  “Excellent feet,” she pronounced, and Nina smiled. “My grandmother’s feet were bound and my father had to carry her when we were running away from the war. But you have strong feet. Never depend on anyone to carry you.”

  “Me! Me!” Emmie said. Her curly hair was done up in six small ponytails all around her head.

  “Let me see. Excellent feet. You wash every day? Good girl. Now you get cakes,” Mimi said, giving them a bag of Chinese buns. “Where’s Eleanor? She’s late.”

  “It’s not late. Girls—set the tables. That’s your job, remember?”

  “Ten after six. It’s late.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be here any minute. Josh!” Sharon called up the stairs as the bell rang. “See? Just stay there. I’ll get the door.”

  While the younger girls set the kitchen table and the folding table, Sharon ushered in her sister-in-law’s family. Bram lowered himself gingerly into the chair with the ObusForme tied onto it. Eleanor
ran her hand through her big brother’s hair in greeting, just the way he hated it and had ever since they were kids. Judy showed Nai-Nai her brand new running shoes, and made kissy noises at Josh and Cathy when they came into the kitchen. Ignoring his guest for the moment, Mimi checked out her grandson, scolded him for going barefoot, and slipped some money into his pocket.

  “Thanks for finding my keychain, Mrs. Lewis,” Cathy said. “My flash drive was on it. I’d have died if I lost it.” She looked like a different child than the one who’d spoken at the memorial, her face no longer wan, her posture confident. But she was still jittery, easily startled, and Sharon didn’t want her mother-in-law making comments.

  “I doubt that. Get the folding chairs, Josh.”

  “I want to see if supper’s any good first.” He stuck a spoon into one of the pots.

  “Listen to your mother. You have lucky ears but this isn’t China,” Mimi said sharply. She turned to his girlfriend, but Sharon was already settling her at the kids’ table, the little girls fighting over who got to sit next to her.

  Finally everyone was seated, the adults at the blue table, the kids at the folding table, made presentable by a floor-length tablecloth. Outside in the yard, darkness had not yet descended and evening light touched the floor, making it shine under their feet as Sharon took the chair closest to the kids, facing the outside. Dan sat opposite, undisturbed by having his back to a door, having no thought of anyone coming through it unasked. He’d just showered, and his hair stood on end as it dried. He wore jeans, of course, as he was at home, and a cotton shirt, perfectly pressed, smelling of fabric softener. This was what he loved about his wife: that she made his life smell good, that she brought his people into the house.

  Dan’s parents were on one side, his sister and her husband on the other. Bram shifted in his seat, trying to make himself comfortable with the ObusForme. He liked wiring. You started at one end and you traced the wire wherever it went, no matter how torturous the path, until its end. If it wasn’t up to code you pulled it out and replaced it. People were dismayed when he gave them the bad news. Illegal patching through knob and tube. Faked grounding. Even worse—aluminum. Hidden behind the walls, a waiting fire. So he never showed that it excited him to remove the thin crackling wire from its twisted path and construct something strong and sound, a clear and logical network for electricity to safely travel, its power channelled, harnessed. In his private imaginings it was a wild horse and he was the horse whisperer.

  Dinner was meatless as Mimi was doing battle with the universe. Organic vegetables, beans, tofu, rice and Chinese herbs were going to fix her husband’s brain. Only warm foods, nothing cold because he had too much yin, the dark dank feminine principle. In a more superstitious time, she might have suspected a fox spirit of sucking out his male vitality. She might have prayed to the goddess of mercy.

  “Do you have enough room there, Dad?” Dan asked.

  “Everything’s good,” Jake said, eating slowly. He was nearly eighty, his belly gone, his hair wispy and white, his eyes watery, the colour faded.

  “Your back out again, Bram?” Mimi asked as if he threw his back out every week.

  “Yeah. Again.” Bram came from a small town back east, where his family owned McMurray’s Diner. The town was built beside a marsh, which gave off a sour air that hovered over everything, and all the regulars at the diner ate with sour faces as if they could never get rid of the smell. Men in his hometown spent their wages on nice cars, they didn’t fix up houses. Bram had grown up being teased and beaten by his brothers to cure him of being fey. Compared to them, his in-laws were harmless, and he was usually good-natured about these family dinners. But tonight his back hurt, and he hadn’t been able to play handball with Dan that weekend. His face soured as if he was breathing the marshy air of his hometown. “I think this is the worst time. Don’t say anything, Eleanor.”

  “Like for instance that you had to carry the old air conditioner yourself?” They preferred fighting with each other to anyone else, making up as vigorously except when his back was out. “It’s been sitting in the garage for years. I told you I’d hire someone.”

  “Eleanor, with you—something new?” Mimi asked. “Maybe you go back to school?” Eleanor stared back at her mother. Bram grimaced. Even with the ObusForme he couldn’t sit long.

  “Look Mimi,” Bram said. “Let it go. It’s been twenty years since she quit school. And Sharon went to a lot of trouble to make this f—” (his wife’s elbow) “fantastic vegetarian meal. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to just eat it and go lie down.”

  “Hmmph.” Mimi’s eyes moved past her intractable son-in-law toward the kids’ table. They were chattering, digging into mac and cheese, Judy having rice. She had given up on making kissing noises, and instead was asking Cathy about makeup. Sharon glanced over her shoulder at the girls, who were raptly attentive, as, with an imaginary brush, Cathy demonstrated the correct way to apply powder. She looked back at her mother-in-law, certain that Mimi was about to say something she shouldn’t.

  “Mental illness—” Mimi began

  “How’s the tofu teriyaki?” Sharon asked.

  “You bought it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. But it’s just the same as if I marinated it in teriyaki sauce. All the vegetables are organic and I didn’t use canned beans in the salad.” Mimi believed that metal was toxic for Jake.

  “You should make the sauce yourself. How do you know what’s in it?”

  “I can take the package out of the garbage and show you.”

  “No, don’t bother.” She dumped his teriyaki into her bowl, and served him bean salad over rice instead. She approved of rice, heaping bowls of it. “You aren’t having any rice, Eleanor?” she asked.

  “I’m on a diet.”

  “Even the best wife can’t make miracles out of a pantry without rice. What kind of rice cooker is that?” she asked, staring at the microwave rice cooker on the counter. “It’s so small.”

  “I got it for them. It’s just the right size,” Eleanor said. She turned toward her husband, arguing with him in a whisper. He replied in a testy undertone. Their eyes locked. Even with his bad back, they would manage to make up later. There were ways. Through the wall they could hear the teenage son next door playing the saxophone.

  Mimi peered over at the kids, pushing up her square glasses to see better. “The girls look very nice today. You, too, Judy. Even with running shoes, you have a nice sweater. Your Auntie Sharon picked a good colour and a good style to make for you. Put the hood back so everyone can see your face.” Judy screwed up her nose, but obeyed. She took after her father, wiry, unmusical, allergic to wheat. “There is nothing wrong with looking nice,” Mimi went on. “Josh’s friend knows how to dress. Very dainty. Did someone make your sweater, Cathy?”

  “No, Mrs. Lewis.” A polite tone, a polite smile. “My mother bought it.” The sweater was pale pink, with a knit collar and three glitzy buttons. Her jeans had the same buttons on the fly and the pockets. “She buys all my clothes. My closet is stuffed.”

  “Lucky girl.”

  “I hate my clothes. I wanted Heather’s, but they got rid of everything.”

  Looking over her shoulder, Sharon saw Cathy stiffen. The little girls were pinching each other. Mommy! She hurt me! Mommy, she started it! And then Judy, whose interest in makeup was new and unsure, having spent a good chunk of her childhood learning how to use her father’s tools, waved her hand in front of her face and drawled, “Who cut the cheese?”

  Their grandpa was sniffing the air. “I farted,” he said, and added with wonder, “It was a silent one, but it stinks more than the noisy ones.” Everyone stopped talking. He looked surprised by that and pleased. “Someone else’s farts always smell worse than your own,” he said, since they were interested. “Why is that?”

  “Zaidey!” Judy said.

  “God makes all the farts. Why should anybody’s stink worse?”

  “Some people’s don’t stink at a
ll,” Cathy mumbled.

  “My wife’s do,” Jake beamed. “I love you. And you. And you. And you.” He pointed to each of his grandchildren, to Cathy, to his children and their spouses, to the floor, to the glass doors, to the tofu that his wife had disdained. He moved his gaze and blessed his wife with an impish smile. “And you most of all. Even your loud farts. Why shouldn’t I? God brought you to me. All the way from China.” He smiled at Cathy. “You only had to come from around the corner.” For a moment Mimi suspected he hadn’t lost any marbles at all and in her gratitude left well enough alone.

  After dishes were cleared, the kids decided to arm-wrestle. Emmie watched while Nina took on Judy, and Josh wrestled Cathy, whose blonde hair fell over her face, the part no longer ruler straight. Her back was bowed as she leaned into her arm, other hand pressed against the table, trying not to slip on the tablecloth. She put her all into it, for one contest was all contests, and Josh was equally in earnest, his hand clasping hers, bare feet flat on the floor. When he won she swore, and Sharon nearly laughed to hear the expletive burst from those perfectly glossed lips. Cathy called for a rematch, but Josh just laughed at her.

  The sun had set and the sliding glass doors were a mirror now, reflecting her family, the one she had married into and made. At the sink, her mother-in-law was singing a popular song from her childhood: wo yao hui jia, Shanghai is scary, I want to go home, Mama. The kitten crept out of his hiding place between the fridge and the washing machine to slurp his supper. The kitchen smelled of soy sauce, vinegar, cinnamon and baking apples, lemony dish soap, and all of it, each separate smell, even the sulphuric odour that had emanated from Jake, was the smell of love. And if it wouldn’t have seemed absurd, Sharon might have cried, because, inside, there was such longing to have had a family like this.

  INSIDE

  “Forget it, Ally.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”