What Makes a Family

by Colleen Faulkner

  “I should go,” I say, hugging my Kewpie doll to my chest. It’s gotten cold out, and I wish I’d been smart enough to wear my coat. “Home.” But I don’t want to go home. Not ever again. “How long . . .” I look into Henri’s eyes, even though I can’t really see them in the dark. I don’t need any giggle juice. I already feel giggly inside. “How much longer will you be here? The carnival?”

  “Hard to say. Day or two. We pull up on Jacko’s whim. He runs the joint. He’s the big cheese.” Henri pulls a cigarette from the brim of his cap. “Fag?” he asks me.

  I shake my head. “But you’ll be here tomorrow? Tomorrow night? Right?”

  “Likely,” he tells me. He strikes a match, and for a moment I see his face clearly. And I know I can’t live without him.

  “I’ll come tomorrow night. After my family’s asleep.”

  “I don’t want you to get into trouble, mon cher.” He says it with a lazy sound to his voice. I know he says it because it’s the right thing; of course he doesn’t want me to get into trouble. But I also know he wants me to come back. That he feels the same way about me that I feel about him.

  We’re in love.

  Henri exhales cigarette smoke and then leans down and kisses me again, wrapping his arms around me, and I think to myself, Take me with you.

  12

  Celeste

  I slip into Abby’s bedroom after I see her shut the bathroom door down the hall. My niece is seated cross-legged on the bed, her laptop in front of her. “What’s up, Pussycat?” Then I see that she’s wearing a mink stole over her skinny-ass shoulders. Real mink. “Hey! Where’d you get that?”

  She looks up. “What?” She looks down at herself. “Oh, this old thing?” She grins and looks at me again. “Cool, isn’t it? I found it in the hall closet downstairs. I was looking for pictures of Mom Brodie. There are plenty of pictures of her, hundreds. She must have liked having her picture taken. But not a single one of her in a bathing suit or even shorts.”

  “That’s because she never wore a bathing suit or shorts. Give it to me.” I hold out my hand. “It’s mine.”

  Sarah slips the mink stole off her shoulders. “Birdie said it was Mom Brodie’s. Look. It’s got her name embroidered inside it.”

  She reveals the silk inside lining of the brown stole, and, sure enough, Mom Brodie’s name is on it. Like every other ef-ing thing in this house. On this island. Even when my grandmother’s name isn’t embroidered on something, everyone acts like it’s hers. She always acted like it was all hers: the house, the land, the people who worked for us. Like she was Cleopatra or something. I once tried out for the part of Cleopatra. Off-off Broadway. I had planned to play the part Sarah Brodie style. I didn’t get the part. But if I had, and I should have (I think the director was intimidated by my beauty), I’d have nailed it.

  I never understood why my grandmother was so high and mighty. Or why Birdie always thought she was all that and a bag of chips and has always kowtowed to her. I mean, Sarah Agnes, she came here with nothing. Everything she became was because of my grandfather. Because of the Brodies. I wonder if Birdie would be so smitten if she knew about the tattoo on Mom Brodie’s thigh. That might take her down a notch in my mother’s eyes.

  I snatch up the stole. “She gave it to me.”

  My niece wrinkles her gorgeous freckled nose, and I want to yank on the pile of tangled hair on top of her head. I want to yank a little out and see if I can somehow weave it into my own hair.

  “Your nose is growing, Celeste. Birdie said I could have it. She said Mom Brodie wanted me to have it because it’s got my name in it.”

  I slip the mink around my shoulders, and it feels good despite the heat that won’t let up today. “You’re not a Brodie.”

  She closes her laptop. “Am, too. Sarah Brodie MacLean. It’s on my birth certificate. And I’ve got it embroidered on my field hockey letter jacket.”

  I like the fact that my fifteen-year-old niece won’t take any crap off me. “You should speak better to your elders,” I tell her.

  She ignores me and flips open the laptop again, looking down. “That mink isn’t yours. It’s mine. Birdie said so, and you better not walk out of the house with it. Guess what I found?”

  “What?” I sit down on the edge of the bed. My feet are killing me. Brodie Island black dirt is not conducive to four-inch heels. I should have ditched them when I went into town, but you never know who you might meet. Even at the mini-mart, getting cigarettes.

  “Look at all these pictures of old tattoos. Tattoos women used to get.” Sarah brings up photos on the screen. “These are from the twenties and thirties.”

  “I didn’t even know women got tattoos in those days,” I say, fascinated by the images that scroll by under Sarah’s skillful thumb. “Find anything like the garter?”

  “Not yet. But I’m thinking it has to be from the thirties. Wouldn’t you think? Before she married Great-Grandpop?”

  She glances up at me, and I realize something. When my niece looks at me, she doesn’t see me for what I really am: old and wrinkled and balding. A failure. She sees me as someone else. She sees more than I really am, ever will be, and for some reason it hurts. I feel like I’m disappointing her. The same way I disappoint all the Brodies.

  “What year were they married?” I ask, fluffing my hair. The humidity is bad for it. It’s so thin that the moisture in the air makes the carefully constructed hair tent I build collapse. I’ve been thinking long and hard on it, and I’ve decided that with the money I inherit when Mom Brodie kicks the bucket, I’m going to get hair plugs. The real thing. I’ve already done the research. I want a face-lift, too, of course. And a boob job. But plugs are expensive. I’ll do the plugs first; a full head of hair is what I need to get my foot back in the door. My acting career’s stalled, but I know with a good tune-up, I’ll shine at my next audition. I’ve already got an appointment with a plastic surgeon in Manhattan. He’s supposed to be some kind of doctor to the stars. Celebrities fly from Hollywood to New York to have their work done, just to get away from the paparazzi.

  “Not sure when they were married,” Sarah says, not looking up. “Birdie wasn’t exactly forthcoming in her answers. If Mom says it’s okay, I’m going to ask Grandpop if I can look through Mom Brodie’s important papers. There’s got to be a marriage certificate or baptism record or something.” She keeps tapping away on the keyboard. “Right? They’re something an old lady would save.”

  “Why are you asking your mother’s permission?” I slide the mink off one shoulder, taking my shirt and bra strap with it, and gaze at myself in the wavy mirror over the old bureau. It would look great over a glitzy, strapless dress. I can imagine myself dancing in some fancy place. Maybe with the old coot, Bartholomew. He seemed very interested last night. “It’s time you start standing on your own two feet,” I tell my niece. “Thinking for yourself. Acting on your own.”

  She glances at me over the laptop screen. “I don’t want to cause any trouble. Everyone’s upset enough as it is . . . you know, with Mom Brodie dying.”

  I roll my eyes and bare the other shoulder. I definitely need a spray tan. And maybe hair extensions. Women always look young with longer hair: Halle Berry, Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Garner. And they look hot. With longer hair, I bet I wouldn’t have to let old coots buy me drinks. I could let the young, hot guys buy me drinks. “I’m telling you, it’s time you were an independent woman,” I tell my niece. “You’ve got a mind of your own; use it.”

  She returns her attention to her laptop. “Mom and Dad still pay to maintain this mind.”

  Christ, she sounds like Abby. Always so practical. And such a goody-goody. It’s annoying as hell.

  My cell phone, tucked in my padded bra, vibrates, and I check it. I smile when I see who the text is from. I can’t believe the old coot actually texted me. I wasn’t sure he even knew how to use that fancy latest model iPhone of his.

  “Who’s that?” my niece asks.

  “A ri
ch old man who wants to whisk me off to Europe,” I tell her, texting something coy back.

  “You’re such a liar.”

  “Sarah Brodie!” My sister walks into the bedroom. “Don’t speak to your aunt Celeste like that.” She looks at me. “Daddy home yet?”

  I stick my tongue out at my niece and then turn to my sister. “He’s with Mom Brodie. Birdie said supper’s in ten.”

  Abby pulls her T-shirt over her head, and I stare at her. She’s got an amazing body for a forty-five-year-old. Put a different head on her, and she could pass for thirty. And her face doesn’t look a day over thirty-five; I must have gotten her crow’s-feet. I look away, disgusted. Why was I the one who got the bad genes? Standing in my bra like that, I look like Mom Brodie, minus the tattoo. My skin’s all wrinkling and lumpy, bumpy. No matter how much I lay off the carbs, I’ve got more cellulite in my little finger than my sister’s got on her whole body.

  “Little warm to be wearing Mom Brodie’s mink, isn’t it?” Abby asks me.

  “She’s trying to steal it from me.” Sarah doesn’t look up from the laptop. “Birdie said it’s mine. Mom Brodie wants me to have it because it has my name in it.”

  Abby pulls a white T-shirt down over her head. “You’ll wear a mink stole, but you won’t eat chicken?”

  Sarah wrinkles up her nose like her mother’s and says the most absurd thing. “I didn’t kill the mink.”

  “You didn’t kill the chicken frying downstairs, either.”

  I look at my sister, then my niece, then my sister again, enjoying their little tiff. Abby always stays so calm with her kids. I’d want to slap them. Often. So it’s probably just as well I never had children.

  “She can’t do that, can she?” I get up from the bed, wincing. I consider going native and heading downstairs to supper barefoot like my sister always does. Let the open blisters on my heels dry out. “Birdie can’t just give away Mom Brodie’s shit.”

  “Do you really want that old mink stole?” My sister tosses her dirty shirt in a pile next to the door. “Sarah, could you go downstairs and see if Birdie needs help getting supper on the table?”

  My niece looks up eagerly, but doesn’t move. “You guys going to fight?”

  Abby cuts her eyes at her daughter. She doesn’t say a word. Sarah takes one look at her, closes the laptop, and leaves the room, shutting the bedroom door behind her.

  “Are we having a fight?” I ask my sister, thinking I must have missed something.

  “Not to my knowledge.” Abby is fiddling with her earring. “I just want to make it clear that we understand each other. We’re not telling Birdie or Daddy about the tattoo. We’re not telling anyone.”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t feel strongly about it one way or the other, but I don’t like to commit too soon. Or be accused of being a traitor later, unless it’s absolutely necessary. I kick off my heels and sigh with pleasure as I sink my feet that are as knobby as Mom Brodie’s into the ugly blue rug. “You said that this morning.”

  “And you didn’t agree you’d keep your mouth shut.” Abby’s tone takes me off guard. “Nothing good can come from telling them, and it could be . . . hurtful.”

  “You mean they might realize that Mom Brodie wasn’t the saint they think she is.”

  Abby hovers near the door. “I don’t think Birdie ever thought Mom Brodie was a saint. They were always at each other’s throats.”

  “Sure, to her face. But behind her back,” I say, “she was always, Mrs. Brodie this and Mrs. Brodie that. You know, I never got why Birdie called her Mrs. Brodie. I always thought it was weird.”

  My sister crosses her arms over her chest. She looks concerned. But I get the feeling it’s not about how our mother addressed our grandmother, or even the tattoo. Adjusting the stole over my shoulders, I walk to the old bureau with the big oval mirror on it, like I’m strolling the runway. I could have been a model, if I’d been a little taller. I’ve got the walk. I pick up a compact of cream blush. I pop it open and add a little to the apples of my cheeks. “Birdie said you took Daddy his lunch. I came back from getting my cigarettes, and you were gone. I was going to go with you.”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to wait for you. Didn’t you have lunch with Joseph?”

  I learned a long time ago that you don’t have to answer a question, just because it’s asked. “Daddy say anything about the will?” I ask, glancing at Abby in the mirror.

  She starts chewing on her bottom lip. She hasn’t learned my little trick concerning unwelcome questions. “He did.”

  I turn around so quickly that the stole slips off one shoulder. “And?”

  “He just said that Mom Brodie updated it recently and that Clancy said it’s good to go. Probate won’t be a big deal.”

  I smile and turn back to the mirror, patting one cheek and then the other to plump them up. “Sounds like we’re getting our money quick, doesn’t it?”

  Abby opens the bedroom door. “Let’s go have supper. I hear Joseph.” She hesitates in the doorway. “Put the mink back in the closet, Celeste. It’s Sarah’s.”

  “Hiss, says the mother cat.” I pretend to bare claws.

  Abby doesn’t even smile. “There’s a list on the refrigerator of stuff she wants us to have. Who gets what. I can’t believe you missed it. She left you the diamond stud earrings.”

  “As long as I don’t get that stupid frog bowl.”

  “Oh, you’re getting the frog bowl, all right.” Abby laughs and walks out of the bedroom. “I told her you wanted it.”

  13

  Birdie

  “Heavenly Lord, be with us now . . .”

  While everyone else’s head is bowed and Little Joe is saying grace, I peek at my family gathered around the table. Joe sits at the head of the table not looking like himself without his ball cap. Of course Mrs. Brodie’s chair is empty. But everyone else is here: my Abby, my Celeste, my Joseph, and my Sarah. I wish Reed, Abby’s boy, were here, too. He’s a good boy. I don’t understand him. He’s like a boy from outer space to me, but he’s sweet like his father, and he never looks at me like the rest of the Brodies do. He never expects anything from me, which means I never disappoint him. Reed’s needs have always been easy, ever since he was a baby. As long as he had a dry diaper and a full tummy, he was content. Joseph was mostly that way, too. And Little Joe is, too.

  So maybe it’s girls that always expect too much.

  My gaze drifts to Mrs. Brodie’s empty chair as Little Joe asks God the Father to look over us in our time of need and give us comfort in knowing that Mrs. Brodie will soon be with Him. Mrs. Brodie’s chair is almost glowing, and I blink, knowing it must be my imagination, or a lightbulb in the lamp overhead that needs changing. I’ve always been a God-fearing woman, heavy on the fearing part, but honestly, I’ve never felt much like He was with me. That Mrs. Brodie’s chair is lit up shouldn’t surprise me. I have no doubt God is with her. Always has been. It’s why she’s lived such a blessed life.

  I keep staring at her chair from under my lashes. I came close to sitting in it when everyone walked into the kitchen and sat down for supper. I stood right there in the middle of the kitchen, bowl of mashed potatoes in my hand, and stared that chair down. Because it’s mine now. Or will be. It’s my rightful place, next to my husband. My whole life I’ve waited for Mrs. Brodie to leave it to me, and finally it’s happening. But now I’m scared. I don’t even know if I want the stupid chair. Especially with it glowing like that.

  “Amen.”

  I don’t realize grace is over for a second, not until I hear the clink of a serving spoon in a bowl. I drop my hands to my lap and look up, feeling guilty. I should have been praying and not gathering wool. No one seems to have noticed. They never do.

  Everyone starts talking at once, which is the way my family does. I only get bits and pieces. Celeste says something to Sarah, and Abby’s putting her two cents in while talking to her daddy. Then Celeste is complaining about the skin on the chicken and sa
ying she wants a piece of baked breast. “Isn’t there a baked breast?” she asks no one in particular.

  My granddaughter says, “’Tis but a tub. Sit.” Just blurts it out. I know it’s one of those silly word things she likes, but I’m a little worried about the girl, and I have half a mind to talk to Abby about her. Fifteen-year-old girls don’t just say “’Tis but a tub. Sit.” I wonder if she needs to see a doctor.

  “Dad, I ordered the part for the combine.” Joseph is putting two pieces of fried chicken on his plate. Thighs. He likes dark meat like me. My favorite is wings, though. Nobody else likes them, so I always get the wings. He looks across the table at me. “Chicken smells great, Mom. I’ve been looking forward to this all week. Think you’ve outdone yourself.”

  I look down at my empty plate, feeling my cheeks get warm under the praise. “Biscuit?” I say, picking up the plate and holding it out for Little Joe.

  He takes two.

  “Overnight it?” Little Joe asks, dishing out a heaping spoonful of peas onto his plate.

  “Yeah, but shipping’s free,” Joseph says.

  “Have you got any real vegetables in the fridge, Birdie?” Celeste asks. “Something that’s not a carb?”

  “Maybe a head of lettuce,” I answer. “Carrots.”

  Celeste is fiddling with her hair. She’s going bald, just like her daddy. I don’t care how much she fluffs it; she can’t hide it. “Carrots are carbs, Birdie. Don’t you know how much sugar is in a carrot?”

  I don’t say anything. I put a biscuit on my plate and pass the plate to Abby.

  “Hey, Grandpop, Birdie tell you I’ve been looking through photo albums?” Sarah calls across the table.

  I’m impressed by my granddaughter’s maturity, by how well she carries herself. Speaks. (When she’s not blurting out those weird sentences.) She seems like a girl who’s not afraid of anything or anyone. I give Abby and Drum credit for that. They’re good parents.

  “That right?” my Joe says, passing me the mashed potatoes. He’s put a big pile on his plate. Doc Moses says he needs to lose weight, but Joe works hard. A hardworking man has a big appetite. Brodie men all have big appetites. And you can’t give them a green salad and call it supper.