Crossing the Street

by Campbell, Molly D. ;

  “Bob, I get it. This has been a hugely eventful summer for you. Good grief. So your gran and Janey just want to cheer you up. Have you told Hallie and your school friends about the party?”

  Bob continued stroking, but her eyes were faraway. “Nope. Not yet. I have to get into the mood.”

  She looked so defenseless. “There’s plenty of time. Halloween isn’t for a couple of weeks.”

  Bob closed her eyes. “I think about my mom a lot. I wonder if she’s okay.”

  I cleared my throat, and Bob’s eyes flew open. “But I don’t want to see her again! I just wonder about her.”

  “You will probably always think about her, Bob. That’s perfectly normal. And I’m sure that she is so glad that you were kind to her when she was here.”

  Bob sniffed. “I asked Gran if we should tell Dad about it. She said not to. She said that we shouldn’t worry him over there; that he has so much to think about, and he needs to concentrate on staying safe.”

  My heart thumped. That porch party was sounding better and better. “Bob, sometimes we do have to just let things be. Let time smooth things over. Focus on the future, not what’s behind us. This Halloween party is your gran’s way of giving everybody something to look forward to. And kiddo, I am a master pumpkin carver!”

  Bob hefted Simpson onto the floor and attempted to brush the volumes of cat hair off her lap. Her smile was just a bit forced. “Okay! I’ve never made a jack-o’-lantern with a knife, ’cause it was too dangerous. But this year, can I try one?”

  “Bob, I don’t know. We don’t want to have to take you to the ER for stitches right before the big night. Maybe we should just carve one, and then do a couple more with permanent markers. You can draw a picture of Simpson’s face on one.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hey, your gran said that there would be cupcakes. I bet Janey will let you decorate those!”

  Bob put her thumb up to her mouth and bit at the nail.

  And maybe you should write a special poem for Halloween. You can illustrate it with drawings of jack-o’-lanterns.

  “That’s a good idea. Do you think you could buy me one of those giant boxes of crayons?”

  Thank God for distractions.

  ▷◁

  Dr. Lauren called a few times to check up on Ella. She was as discouraged as I was. “Some people never overcome a bad injury. I hadn’t expected this of Mrs. Bowers, but it is certainly not unheard of.” She was glad to hear that Janey was in place, but she agreed with me that the days of Ella’s independence were probably over.

  D called me nearly every evening. We had established a ritual. After I popped in on Ella and Bob, Janey would send me off with a “night, Miss Beck,” and I would sit outside on the porch, sipping a beer. Watching the lights go on in the neighbor’s houses, I would imagine what might be going on inside. Were the Andersons having sex? Dave Anderson was extremely virile. What was that flickering upstairs at the Homans’ house? Oh, that was the upstairs bathroom—I bet Louise Homan had candles burning around the tub. In the midst of my reveries, my phone would beep, and D and I would compare notes. Tonight was no different.

  “Alex may be teething.”

  “Isn’t he way too young for that?”

  “Not really. According to Google, babies can get their first tooth as early as three months. He is drooling and whining, and his bowels are loose.”

  “Sounds fun. Don’t invite me over for pizza any time soon.”

  “How are you holding up? How’s the cat? What about the gang across the street? Is Ella still dragging her ass?”

  I have to say that the new relationship I had with my sister wasn’t perfect. I still found her to be annoying about seventy percent of the time. But the other thirty percent was proving to be very worthwhile.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, but yeah, I guess. She’s an old person, D. They don’t always bounce back.”

  Diana sighed at the other end. “So this caregiver isn’t the solution? The mighty Janey?”

  “It’s going to have to be. However, Janey is awesome, but she isn’t like family. Bob thinks Ella hates being dependent. I have now come to accept the fact that Ella has tried her hardest, but she just won’t ever recover fully. I don’t think it’s her fault. She has tried.”

  “Sounds like they’re stuck over there. At least you said that Ella can afford this. They’ll just have to suck it up and go with the flow.”

  “Oh, D. You can be such a kind and empathetic person.” I hope she picked up on the sarcasm in my voice.

  I heard Alex start grousing in the background. “That’s right, sis. Just call me Mother Theresa.” She laughed.

  The lights started to blot out around the neighborhood. It was getting late. “I wish there was something I could do to solve things over there. Bob wants Janey to go. Ella needs Janey to stay. I told you about Halloween. Ella is hoping that making a big to-do out of it will turn Bob around. So Ella is planning a porch party for Halloween. As if that will accomplish anything. What a mess.”

  “Well, nobody said that growing up was easy. Every kid has to deal with the crappy things that life hands them. We certainly did. And we’re both okay, aren’t we? We got over Dad throwing Mom under the bus. I’m getting used to the idea that Bryan and I are toast. You seem to be a happy old maid. So this little girl with all of her tragedy isn’t all that different than most of the people in the world.”

  “D. Thank you for that insightful summary. It warms my heart and gives me hope.”

  There was a pause. “Yup—the entire human race is doomed to misery, right? So what’s the answer? Maybe Ella is right. Beggars’ Night Magic. Hell, it may just work. Ella may just feel the Halloween mojo and get hit by a bolt of lightning. Maybe a porch party is just what the doctor ordered. For all we know, she’ll be running in the Boston Marathon next year. We gotta have faith, I guess. Hey, are Alex and I invited? ”

  “Of course! Hey, I have to hang up now. I need my sleep. Perhaps I will say some prayers tonight. Kiss Alex for me. And give him an ice cube to suck on.”

  “Okay, sis. Hang in there. And just be thankful that Janey is around. She is trained for things like changing Depends. You did the right thing hiring her. This is what is waiting for all of us, you know. Getting old sucks.”

  A little stomach acid welled up into my throat at the thought. “Thanks, D. Just what I needed. A reminder that someday I shall be wearing Depends.”

  She chortled and hung up.

  I finished my beer. The leaves rustled, and a dog barked from somewhere in the next block. Then the Duncan’s dog across the street joined him. The Chihuahua from the apartment below mine chimed in with his tiny yips. Some irate guy opened a window and yelled, “Pipe down, out there, for fuck’s sake!”

  Ah, the nighttime serenade of the Midwest. I rested my cheek against my empty can of beer and looked up at the sky. There weren’t any shooting stars, but I made a wish anyway.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Once the subject of the porch party came up, Bob had certainly participated in all the preparations for Halloween, but not in a carefree way. Damn Rowena. Plus, Ella’s condition seemed to be dragging Bob down, and Ella’s over-the-top enthusiasm for the party wasn’t having its desired effect on any of us.

  I wondered if maybe Bob was disappointed that she was missing out on trick-or-treating.. Maybe that was what was behind her faked enthusiasm. “Bob, would you like to go out trick-or-treating with the neighborhood kids? You could do that for a little while, before the party gets really cranked up.”

  Bob was adamant. “Nope. I want to have the Halloween party with Gran. She will really like it. And I won’t miss trick-or-treating, ’cause Gran and Janey and me can eat candy all night. You, too. I’m telling Janey to get extra candy,” Bob declared with a sort of desperate intensity.

  Despite the pall of doom,
Janey and I decided to go all out for the porch party. I got orange crepe paper and glow-in-the-dark skeletons to affix to the porch railings. Janey got full-sized candy bars. According to Janey, word gets out very fast about which house has the best loot, and it would not take long before the Bowers’ house became the Halloween hot spot.

  I tried to talk to Ella about this. I was attempting to tape orange crepe paper over the top of the front door, but the masking tape I was using kept coming unstuck.

  “Honey, that isn’t working. Why don’t you just drape it over the porch lights and let it hang? That will look fine.”

  I started draping. “Ella, this party is making everybody nervous. You seem so worked up about it. Are you placing a bit too much emphasis on this? Bob is going along with everything, but I’m not sure that the party is going to solve everything. Like POOF.”

  Ella sat in front of the end table, a bag of candy corn in her lap, taking handfuls and placing them in little cellophane envelopes, folding the tops over to seal them. “Rebecca, don’t you worry. This will be a magical night.” Ella lined up the little envelopes on the table. She leafed through a deck of Halloween stickers, choosing a sheet of bats with wings outstretched. Affixing them to the envelopes, she grinned and popped some candy corn into her mouth. “I just love candy corn, don’t you?”

  I hate candy corn. It makes my teeth ache. “But, Ella. It might not be what you expect. Bob is muddling through, but there is just so much on her mind these days. What if the party isn’t a success? Shouldn’t you be prepared for it to . . . well, fail?”

  Ella looked startled at my choice of words. She folded her lips into a stern line and glared at me. “Believe me, Rebecca. The party will be thrilling. And that is all I will say about it. Now take that crepe paper off the porch lights and do something else with it; it looks terrible like that.”

  I did as I was told.

  ▷◁

  Halloween in Ohio can be fickle. Some years, it is a golden evening full of fallen leaves and flashlights, parents escorting ninjas, tiny ghosts, scarecrows, and goblins. Other years, it is so frosty that all the trick-or-treaters wear overcoats, their costumes obscured by goose down and hoodies. But this was a golden year. The porches on our street were festooned. Jack-o’-lanterns had been burning nightly for at least a week. Mr. Fenway had out his usual corn sheaves and hay bales. The Davis’s house had a graveyard in the front, complete with cobwebs and giant spiders. Halloween this year would be picture perfect.

  I came over early to have dinner before things got started. Janey had made chicken soup and BLTs, but Bob and Ella were just picking at their food. I, on the other hand, adored everything and asked for a second bowl of soup.

  “Bob, you need to eat something. If you just have sweets all evening, you might get sick,” said Ella, who had taken exactly one bite of her sandwich.

  “I can’t eat. I’m not hungry.”

  In between bites of my sandwich, which was regrettably nearly gone, I said, “Bob, I really like your costume. You look just like Simpson.”

  Janey had used an old eyebrow pencil of Ella’s to draw whiskers on Bob’s cheeks and blacked out her nose. She had painted a few stripes across Bob’s forehead, and Bob wore a headband with cat ears on it. “From Amazon,” Janey told us. To complete the look, Bob wore black tights and a black leotard. A fuzzy tail was Velcroed to Bob’s back end. Also found by Janey while shopping online. Bob looked cute enough to be edible.

  Ella looked up at the kitchen clock and pushed her plate away. “It’s almost time. We should go out on the porch now. The children will start coming. Where are the cupcakes? Rebecca, will you take the matches and go out and light the ghost candles on the railing? Janey, you might as well bring out all the extra candy.” Ella was so wound up, her hands shook as she grasped her walker. She nearly tripped on one of the legs as she tried to pull herself up too quickly.

  My stomach forgotten, I slid out of my chair to steady Ella. We walked out to the porch together, my hand on her arm. I wondered if I should take her pulse. I had never seen Ella so nervous.

  We arrived on the porch just as the first few trick-or-treaters appeared on the other side of the block. I took a deep breath and shot a quick look skyward, pleading silently with whomever ruled the universe to let this evening pass without a tragic incident.

  Diana and Alex arrived. Diana was apparently the sexy witch. She wore sheer black leggings, a teensy black skirt, four-inch heels, a black-and-orange striped top, mostly obscured by Alex in the baby Bjorn, and a peaked black witch hat. Her hair gleamed down her shoulders, and her lips were bright red. Alex was wearing skeleton pajamas. “Take him, Beck,” Diana unfastened her son. “He is ruining the full effect here.” D held her son out and shrugged off the Bjorn. “I mean, let’s not deprive the dads around here of this.” I took Alex as D thrust out her chest.

  “Of course not. What dad wouldn’t want to get a load of your boobs?” I pointed to the Bjorn with my foot where D had dropped it. “Bobbo, would you help me on with this?”

  We were ready. The sexpot sister, Janey and her delectables, me baby-wearing, Bob faking cheeriness, and Ella, her jaw set with determination. I held up Alex’s fists and waved them. “LET THE FESTIVITIES BEGIN!”

  Trick-or-treating was scheduled for the hours between six and eight o’clock—for safety, before it got too dark. That was a shame, I thought. Trick-or-treating when I was a kid, in the dark, with no supervision, was much more fun. But that was then and this is now.

  They came in clusters. The moms and dads, most of them in costumes, hanging back on the sidewalk as their kids rushed up to ring doorbells and demand candy. I loved the cries of “Trick or Treat!” My favorites were the tiniest ones; some even babes in arms, dressed up as tiny peas in pods, or mini superheroes.

  Hallie giggled by, and after rushing up to hug Ella, grabbing a Hershey bar, and high-fiving Bob, she kissed Alex. Then she and her father rushed back into the fray to gather up more booty.

  The streetlights came on at seven, even though it was ‘the gloaming,’ as Mom liked to call it. Not exactly dark, but shadowy. The children, their bags almost full, started to drag. Parents looked at their watches. The traffic was thinning.

  Our candy was getting low. Ella’s hip was bothering her; she shifted in her chair uncomfortably. I felt Ella had had about enough.

  “Bob, we are almost out of candy. I think it’s time to just leave the bowl on the porch and turn out the porch light. Diana’s feet must be killing her in those heels. Your gran is tired.”

  “NO. I am not tired, not a bit.” Ella squared her tiny shoulders. “We will stay out until the end. There are at least a half-dozen cupcakes left, for heaven’s sake!”

  So the party wasn’t over. Bob and I sat on the steps, the bowl of candy on Bob’s lap. She hadn’t had one piece. I was at a complete loss. I reached over and helped myself to a Snickers. I offered Bob a bite, but she demurred. Yes, such a queer evening! We handed out two more treats to a small policeman who was holding hands with a princess. It was almost dark.

  We were approached by a clump of kids, followed by their dad. They were dressed as a ninja, a robot, a nurse, a skeleton, and yet another princess.

  He was dressed like a soldier. Tall, erect posture. He certainly looked authentic, in tan and beige desert fatigues, the large duffle bag slung over his shoulder. It looked heavy, and I wondered why on earth any father would go to such lengths for Halloween authenticity. He even had on shiny black combat boots. Despite the heat, he looked comfortable. Whew. This was one hunky-looking father. As he got closer, I realized that he looked vaguely familiar; he must be a neighborhood dad. I wondered which of these kids were the lucky ones to have such a good-looking parent, but he didn’t seem to be following any one of them in particular. D let out a low whistle.

  As the children standing on our porch took their candy, Bob looked up and noticed the soldie
r. With a shriek, she shoved the boy in the skeleton costume aside, knocking him into the princess. In a tangle of arms, legs, and fun-size candy bars, they struggled to right themselves and retrieve their spilled candy. Bob paid no heed and hurtled down the sidewalk and right into the soldier’s arms. He dropped the duffle and swept Bob up, burying his face in her hair.

  As he carried Bob towards us, Ella pressed her hands to her cheeks and began to cry. “Charles. Oh, Charles. You came! I was not sure, not completely!” Ignoring her walker, she stood up and extended her arms. Janey gasped and put her hands out in case Ella fell down. But she didn’t fall. She pushed her walker aside and took two very firm steps forward.

  Bob struggled in his grip to turn to both of us. “GRAN! IT’S DAD!” She tried to whirl around in his arms. “EVERYBODY! THIS IS MY DAD!”

  He carried Bob onto the porch and set her down. Taking a cupcake from the plate, he popped the entire thing into his mouth, consuming it in one munch. “Chocolate with candy corn icing. My favorite.” Wiping the crumbs from his chin, he flashed a stunning grin at us all. “Now what is this I hear about somebody not doing her exercises? And not climbing stairs yet? Is that why you had me sent home? To be your personal trainer?”

  He gathered Ella into his arms. Weeping, she ran her hands over his cheeks, murmuring “Charles. Oh, Charles!”

  Bob was a living pogo stick. “YOU DID THIS, GRAN? You SURPRISED me!”

  Ella disengaged Charles’s arms and motioned toward Bob. Charles dropped and crouched in front of her. “Bob, you told me how hard it was for Gran. You told me you were discouraged, even though Janey”—he flashed a brilliant smile in Janey’s direction—“is sort of like Mary Poppins.”

  Janey beamed.

  “And when I heard about your mom coming, and how that turned things inside out, I felt just awful. But Gran had an idea. She asked me for the name of my commanding officer. And she sent him a very impressive email. EMAIL. Gran didn’t know what email even was before this last deployment.” He chuckled.