by Jim Shepard
His uncle told everyone to remember their seats and come up and get what they want this way, kids first, before the adults sat down. Dom, his wife noted, was already sitting.
“I might as well stay sitting,” he said. “We’d need engineers to get me out anyway.”
So they carried their plates to the central table, listening to the warm, pleasant voices of the parent chorus urging them to take more of this, try some of that. “Is that all you’re having?” voices asked. “Try Aunt Judy’s manicotti. Take more of Aunt Frankie’s stuffing.” He filled his plate and followed the line back to his seat, and they all settled in, waiting.
“Let’s have one of the kids say grace,” his uncle said. “Biddy’s an altar boy. Biddy. Give us some grace here.”
Everyone at his table grinned, off the hook. He looked at the adult table in genuine surprise but they all smiled back encouragingly.
“Grace?” he asked.
“An altar boy doesn’t know grace?” someone said.
“He knows it,” his mother said. “Shh.”
There was a silence, forks tinkling.
“Thank you O Lord for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty to Christ Our Lord Amen.” He realized immediately that he’d botched it, muffed one of the easiest, most mechanical of prayers, but no one noticed; in fact, there was a murmur of appreciation, and the sound of knives and forks digging in.
Dinner for him was a blur, as most of the best holiday dinners were: a taste, a smell, and some cooling water on the back of his throat, appreciated and savored, standing out at each precise instant but fading quickly into the rest as the meal wore on. The adults’ table was noisy and festive while at Biddy’s the food was handled with dispatch. He was one of the first finished, and picked a piece of pumpkin pie and some coffee from the dessert assortment, heading for the den. He slipped into the sofa, setting the pie dish on the table, and sipped the coffee with both hands. He loved coffee and had grown up on it, his earliest breakfast memories being of Sanka and farina. The Abbott and Costello movie was over, and he changed the channel to the game with the remote switch lying on the cushion next to him.
The maroon and white of the halfback lunged forward, the colors bright and bracing on this brand-new set, and moved with the slow, unstoppable smoothness of instant replay. He drifted from the reach of arms and helmets of white with scarlet trim and tumbled headlong into the end zone, skidding on a shoulder. The replay began again. He broke his eyes away and took a bite of pie.
His father’s hand landed on his head. “What’s the score in here? Who’s playing?”
The score flashed on the screen. “Oklahoma’s kicking ass,” Dom said behind him. “Don’t get too comfortable, by the way. We should leave for the game pretty soon.” Nebraska fumbled the kickoff, Oklahoma recovering.
His father turned from the room. “Hard to beat those Sooners,” he said. “C’mon, Biddy. Get your coat.”
“How you gonna beat these guys?” Dom called after him. “They send those big spades atcha in waves.”
They got their coats and collected Mickey and Ginnie. Ginnie told Biddy’s mother that she thought it was silly, too, but it was the last one she was going to, and the team was undefeated. They got to the game a few minutes into the first quarter.
Milford punished Stratford, up and down the field. Dom suffered visibly, then audibly. Ginnie stood up finally and said she wasn’t going to listen to it anymore. It was ridiculous to aggravate yourself over something you couldn’t do anything about. Biddy’s father agreed to give her a ride back to Michael’s.
In the third quarter the score was 35–7 Milford, and Louis swept around a block and caught the ball carrier’s helmet flush in the face, shattering his face mask. Dom and Biddy stood up, trying to get a better look. “Oh, Jesus,” Dom said, as though he had no more energy for this. Louis was sitting with his head down, trainers and teammates around him, and when one of them moved, Biddy could see jagged pieces of face mask. Louis was making circular motions with his head, bits of blood and teeth beading out along a line of spittle.
“Oh, Jesus,” Dom repeated, turning away.
They stayed a few minutes longer but Dom insisted they go back; they didn’t all have to wait to check on Louis, and there was no sense staying for the end of the game.
Back at his uncle’s, they announced what had happened and quieted the big table to a hush. Ginnie wailed, “Oh, God, I knew it.” Biddy left Mickey to field questions and returned to the TV, shaken.
During The March of the Wooden Soldiers Dom came back, and moved through the dining room faster than the family’s questions seemed to allow. He came into the den and fell heavily into the chair beside Biddy.
Michael followed, asking if he was sure he couldn’t get him anything. Dom was sure. Michael hesitated, and left.
“How’s Louis?” Biddy said.
“Fine. Toothless Joe.”
A headache commercial came on. It was an animation of a head with electric bolts throbbing through it. They watched in silence.
“Is that what you got your thing for?” Biddy asked quietly. “The things they did with your head?”
Dom gazed at the screen. “What?” He rubbed his eyes. “The encephalogram?” He seemed exhausted, sad. “No, that was for epilepsy. That was a test for epilepsy.”
“Why’d they test you for that?”
“I don’t know. Why do they test you for anything? They were short of cash. I was thrashing around in my sleep, Ginnie couldn’t wake me up. I had something in the Navy and they thought there might have been brain damage.”
“Brain damage?” Biddy’s eyes widened.
He changed the channel. “They don’t know. What difference does it make anyhow?”
“Don’t talk like that,” Biddy said, more moved than he wanted to be. “Do you still take pills for it or anything?”
“I’m at that stage now where it doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s almost the end of the line.”
“No, it isn’t.” He detested and feared adults when they spoke like this.
“It isn’t?” He snorted. “Everything’s coming down around my ears. The job, the wife, now this. You know what you do in my position? Take a guess. What do you do when it’s fourth and forty-one? Punt.” He sat back and ran his palm across the back of his neck. “And sure as shit if I did it’d be blocked.”
That night although they got back late he went right out with Teddy’s rifle, allowing only the barest minimum of elapsed time for his parents to fall asleep before creeping down the stairs and out the front door. He carried the ladder silently around to the back of the garage himself, teetering under its awkward weight, and set it against the side of the building, where it promptly sideslipped and slid off the roof onto the patio with a terrifying crash. He ducked behind the garage, throwing the rifle a few yards away in a hedge, and waited. The garage light went on. He crouched, wondering what to do, what to say. The light went out. Finally he eased out of his crouch and retrieved the rifle from the hedge. He brought the ladder back around and, after a second thought, left it on the floor of the garage to account for the crash, then hurried down the driveway and into the house.
The door swung away from him and his father grabbed his arm in the dark. “What the hell are you doing out there?” he whispered. The lights came on. His mother and father flanked him. His mother’s eyes widened at the gun. “What are you doing with this?” she said, voice rising. He didn’t answer and she shook him, his neck snapping back. He started to cry and they shook him harder, demanding answers, and finally led him up to his room. They stalked back and forth past his bed and he insisted the gun was Teddy’s and he wasn’t shooting at anyone. His mother finally threw up her hands and left, taking much of the noise downstairs with her. He lay quiet, his neck hurting.
His father sat on the edge of the bed, scratching the top of his head and rubbing the hair around, looking at the floor. “I don’t know about you, kid,” he said. “
We don’t have enough to worry about?”
Biddy sniffled.
“You look thin. You eating enough?” His father laughed at himself. “No. Of course you’re not eating enough. You’re never eating enough. I got those vitamins downstairs; I want you to use them.” Biddy nodded. His father blew some air from his mouth. “Your mother’s upset right now. Go easy on her the next couple days. Don’t do anything more to get on her nerves. She’s unhappy.”
“What’s she unhappy about?”
“Everything. Lots of things. Different things. You know your mother; she gets frustrated. Things don’t work out the way she likes. She worries about you two. She’s got no patience, she gets mad, and then you do something, or Kristi does something, and she, you know … explodes.”
Biddy wiped his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“I know, I know. I get mad, too; I’m no better. C’mon,” he sighed. “Slide down.” Biddy straightened his legs under the covers and his father slapped his thigh and stood up. He paused at the door as if to add something, but said only, “Get some sleep,” the yellow light from the hall narrowing and disappearing with the words.
III
Christmas
KRISTI
Checking the Vital Functions
My brother told me that everything was going to be different soon. I asked him how he knew and he said he was going to make it different. I don’t believe him. He can’t make anything different. He came outside to play with me the day it snowed six inches and we dug tunnels for Stupid. He wouldn’t let me hide in them. He was scared I’d get buried and suffocate. I hid in them anyway, and he pulled me out by my boots, and got snow up one leg. I hate it here and nobody cares. We made Sanka later and the wind came and shook the windows. I told him I hoped Stupid froze outside. I told him I hoped some Sisters were outside, too, and froze with him. I think everybody should be put in a box until they do something good, and then they can be let out. All my brother can do is things like when he was on the roof, which was stupid. They just catch him and nothing changes except he gets in trouble. He’s going to do something else, I know, but he’ll just get caught. He can’t do anything. He can’t make anything different.
Outside it was clear and cold and objects in the distance had a special clarity. Inside folding chairs squeaked all the way down the line: every boy and girl could see the blue sky through the windows and school had been out for half an hour, and yet here they were.
Sister leaned into the piano and the notes rose to the empty space high above them. The wood around the stage was old and filled the room with a damp, comforting smell. The winter sun came through the windows in great bands and swept across the maroon-and-black tiles in dull streaks.
Our Lady of Peace was forming a choir. It was, as Father Rubino often said without enthusiasm, Sister Theresa’s idea. Sister Eileen didn’t support it; Sister Beatrice thought her first-graders too young; Sister Marie Bernadette thought the same of her second-graders, and Sister Mary of Mercy claimed her sixth-graders were too far behind in their other work already. Mrs. Duffy knew her eighth-graders would never support it. Mrs. Studerus offered her fourth-graders, but at that point Sister was in no mood for it to help, and had decided to use, as an example, her own class, and only her own class.
Biddy sat beside Teddy and behind Laura, wondering if his voice was any good. Sister was going through the class members, one by one. There were only a few left, himself included. She banged out the introduction to “Joy to the World!” Sarah Alice stood by the upright piano, her hand on the nicked wooden top. She got as far as “Let earth receive her King” before Sister stopped and wrote something on a pad.
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” Sarah Alice picked her briefcase off a nearby chair and left, buttoning her coat, unsure whether she’d been accepted or rejected.
“Mr. Bell,” she said. “You’re next.”
Teddy got up and crossed to the piano. Choirs were for fools, he had told Biddy while they had been sitting there.
“Do you know what you are?” Sister said. “Soprano? Tenor?”
“I don’t know. Soprano,” Teddy said.
She looked at him and then launched into “Joy to the World!” He started to sing. She stopped playing, and he went on for several notes himself. The few people left along the empty chairs tittered.
She glared at him. “You sing seriously, young man,” she said. “Or you’ll wish to God you had.”
She played it again, and he sang with absolute seriousness.
“It turns out you have a very nice voice. And you’re certainly no soprano. Mr. Siebert.” She wrote on her pad. “You’re next.”
He took Teddy’s place at the piano. His fingers picked at the scars in the wood. Teddy indicated at the door that he’d wait. Biddy nodded without enthusiasm: Laura was already waiting. He opened the music book to “Joy to the World!”
Sister was looking at him expectantly. “Any idea what you are?” she asked, conscious of the futility of the question.
His temples grew cool. “Maybe a soprano.” His fingers made ghost fingerprints on the wood.
“Soprano’s high.”
He nodded.
She started the song, unconvinced. He knew as he sang that something was off, that he wasn’t singing even as well as he could. She continued to the end before stopping, dissatisfied. “Well, we need sopranos,” she said, and leaned forward, fingering a page. “You want to try something else?” She flipped through the book.
“How about ‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing’?” he suggested. She agreed, surprised.
She misplayed the beginning and restarted. The introduction rose around him and he watched her, hesitating, and began, weak at first, hearing his voice lost in the huge room, but gaining strength and feeling his confidence grow as he climbed the higher notes. He gained power and swept into the highest parts with his voice ringing clear and strong across the empty floor: “Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies,” and without loss of power or clarity his voice carried up and over the highest of the bridges: “Hark! the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King!” Sister stopped, and the room shone. In the silence it was as though the metal chairs were still resonating, holding the sound.
Outside the bare branches of a maple moved silently in the wind, the glass insulating them from exterior sound. Laura shifted in her chair and it squeaked, ending the moment. Sister cleared her throat quietly, and reached out to touch the music book.
“That’s a beautiful voice God’s given you,” she said. “Just a beautiful voice.”
That night it snowed. Biddy and Kristi knelt at the picture window in the living room with the lights out, watching the snow drift down past the telephone pole at the end of the street, the individual flakes flashing like dull fireflies as they passed beneath the streetlight. They were descending in perfect silence and beginning to lightly cover the road.
Their parents had gone into New York to see a play and the baby-sitter had turned off the TV and was reading a book in the den. In the silence they were both listening for the snow, their faces to the cool windowpane, hushed by the snow’s quiet even while they realized that they were behind glass and that falling snow should make no sound in any event.
They could hear the dog bothering the baby-sitter before she let it out. The door slammed and they watched the dog trot into the cold, nose to the thin layer of snow. It, too, made no sound, swinging into the neighbor’s yard, its paw prints showing dark where it crossed the driveway. It stood unmoving with the snow coming down around it, its head to the side and raised, sniffing.
His sister sat back, away from the window. “I’m going to get a sled,” she said. Even she was quiet, beside him in the darkness. “If we had a sled we could go sledding.”
“There’s not enough snow.”
“Tomorrow there’ll be,” she said.
They watched the dog, its nose edging along the base of a tree.
“You we
re crying last night,” she said.
He looked at her, then returned his attention to the darkness outside.
“What were you sad about?”
He put his palm almost to the glass, feeling the cool air especially on his fingertips. He had the sensation of dipping his hand into shallow water. “Lots of things.”
In the other room the baby-sitter turned the TV back on.
“Will they be able to come back from New York?” Kristi asked.
“They went on the train. That still goes even when it snows.”
There was a sound of a police siren on the television, and cars screeched back and forth. She got up. “If Lisa can’t come over tomorrow, you want to make a snow fort?”
“If there’s enough snow. If there’s enough snow and Lisa can’t come over, we’ll build two snow forts and have a battle.” He got up as well, and turned from the window, following her into the den. The ordered light and noise of the television were warm and welcome after the living room. He stood watching for a few moments before remembering the dog and going back into the kitchen to let it in.
The next morning, his parents were up early and his father was ruining eggs.
“How was the play?” Biddy said. He sat at the table and rubbed his eyes.
“Good,” his father said. “Very good. I recommend it highly.”
“You want some coffee?” His mother had an orange Sanka jar in her hand. He nodded.
“Your sister’s outside.” His father flipped an egg with élan, yolk breaking in midair with a flash of yellow. “She said to come out when you got up.”
“Have some breakfast first,” his mother said.
He got up and went to the window on the back porch. Kristi was hunched in the snow, piling up a mound. “How much is it?” he asked without turning around. “How much did we get?”