“The Japanese have invented a new watermelon,” Mona said. “It’s square so that it can sit in the fridge without rolling around.”
“That ought to help civilization,” said Jeanie.
“There’s a drawback,” said Mona. “It costs a hundred and twenty-five dollars.”
Jeanie shook her head. She had learned long ago not to be surprised by the world. A man came into the café with a young woman walking close to his side. The hostess seated them at a table by the window and gave them each a menu. Jeanie saw that Mona was watching the couple. She wondered if she should try to engage her in some conversation that would make her forget about Paul, some gossip maybe, even if she had to invent it. But she knew that grief has to be confronted the hard way. Grief is a train, meeting all travelers head-on. You stand there and wait for it. She’d learned that herself.
“At least he’s not gay,” Mona said at last, her eyes still on the couple.
“Who?” Jeanie asked. Mona had three sons, all gone to college.
“Paul,” said Mona. “At least the bastard’s not gay, which is what I thought for months. I’d catch him primping in the mirror, wearing bikini underwear.”
“Paul gay?” said Jeanie, and laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Football players can be gay,” said Mona. “Hockey players, too. I saw a race car driver on a talk show who likes to wear his wife’s clothes. And she lets him.”
“That’s where I would draw the line,” said Jeanie. “It was bad enough when Lisa wore my clothes.”
There was a patch of silence as they ate their salads. Mona kept her eyes on the couple at the other table.
“Lover or daughter?” she asked. Jeanie studied the two. They seemed polite on their opposite sides of the table. Almost distant. She was about to say “daughter” when the man reached over and covered the young woman’s hand with his. It wasn’t a fatherly squeeze, but a lingering squeeze. Then he ran his forefinger along the side of her hand and up her wrist, sensuously, delicately, as Jeanie and Mona watched.
“Lover,” said Jeanie.
“Bastard,” said Mona.
...
When Jeanie turned into her drive, she saw her mother-in-law waiting for her on the front steps. This time, Frances had a pot of beef stew and a baker sheet of homemade biscuits. Jeanie opened the front door and let the older woman go ahead of her into the cool house. When she had risen that morning, Jeanie decided to keep the window shades closed, knowing the weather report had predicted one of the hottest days of the summer. Now, she could tell by the look on her mother-in-law’s face that the cool darkness seemed suspicious, more a state of mind than a logical act. Frances squinted her eyes as she peered toward the kitchen.
“I’ll just open these shades,” Jeanie said, giving in. “They say it’s going to be our hottest day, and I thought—” She stopped. Why was she still trying to please Henry’s parents, as if she needed their approval? Who cared anymore? In truth, this need had evaporated years after their marriage. But people fall into habits, as if they are deep, dark pits. Jeanie had always felt in competition with Katherine, her sister-in-law, the smart one who taught English and watched those boring operas and ballets on the educational channel while the rest of the family was having a barbecue in the backyard. Jeanie had been the one to quickly clear away the dishes from the picnic table while the men sat in lawn chairs and smoked, or told a few stories about cars and sports, and waited for the rest of the day to unfurl. Jeanie had been the one to help Frances clean up the kitchen, the greasy pans, the flour on the counter, the mud tracked in upon the floor by grandkids. And Jeanie had liked the way Frances would peer into the living room at Katherine, who was pirouetting and doing whatever ballerinas do, along with the program on television, oblivious to any domestic work taking place in the kitchen. Frances would roll her eyes up to the ceiling, and Jeanie knew what it meant. It meant us against her, it meant you’re the perfect daughter-in-law, Jeanie. How many years had it been that Jeanie quit caring about this? Many, and yet here she was, operating on a kind of automatic pilot, a lifetime of habit.
“Remember how much Henry loved my biscuits?” Frances asked, as she put the baker sheet on the counter. “Be sure to heat this stew on the stove. That’s what I always do. I wish they’d never invented the microwave. It just spoils food is what it does.” She set the small pot of stew on a back burner of the stove.
Jeanie said nothing as she opened the refrigerator and got out a pitcher of lemonade she’d made that morning. She hadn’t really wanted it, but she knew the lemons were in that bin opposite the one Chad was using. This seemed a good reason to go rummaging in the bottom of the fridge. And while she was down there, why not check to see what Chad was up to? The cans of beer were gone.
“Did Lisa find out what the baby’s going to be?” Frances asked. Jeanie smiled at the thought of Lisa becoming a mother, of a little baby smelling of talcum powder.
“She called last night,” said Jeanie. “It’s going to be a girl.” Frances smiled, too, and it seemed an honest-to-God smile this time, genuine and pure.
“Do you know what Lawrence said?” she asked. She waited until Jeanie shook her head. “I told him that Lisa had decided to go ahead and find out what the baby was going to be. He said, if it’s a girl, she might be the first female Munroe to work for the post office.”
“That’s a long way in the future,” said Jeanie. “But it could happen.” Much had been made at family functions of how this particular line of Munroes seemed to produce all male descendants, at least until Lisa came along. It was as if something in the Munroe DNA understood that there was a great need for mailmen.
“My mother was good at telling what a baby would be,” said Frances. “She’d take a needle and thread out and dangle it over your wrist. If it went back and forth in a straight line, it was a boy. If it made circles, it was a girl. It worked pretty well, believe it or not.”
Jeanie put a glass of lemonade in front of Frances and then sat across the table from her. Sat, and waited. They had been doing this twice a week for the whole year that Henry had been gone. At times, Jeanie knew what prisoners feel like when they get visitors. They sit and stare, incapable of real communication, incapable sometimes of even touch. They sit and stare and wait for the visit to be over.
“Well?” Frances asked finally. Jeanie thought about what she was going to say. She wanted to be sure she worded it just so, knowing Frances was capable of reading volumes into a thin sentence.
“I think he’s just going through a bad time,” said Jeanie. “He didn’t say, but I think it’s as much about Jonathan as it is about Henry. Have you seen the picture he’s got on the dresser? It’s of him holding Jon as a baby.”
Frances ran a forefinger around the rim of her glass. She dabbed at the beads of sweat on the side of it. Then she turned to watch chickadees as they flitted down to the feeder just outside the window. Finally, she put her gaze on the pot of beef stew sitting on the stove.
“If you’re not going to have that until supper,” said Frances, “maybe you should stick it in the fridge.”
...
Larry poured from the plastic bottle of Coke until the paper cup on his desk was filled to the top. He opened the envelope, careful not to spill any of the drink on it. This one was special, too special to treat like ordinary mail.
Dear Aunt Jeanie,
Thank you for the birthday money. Grandma and Grandpa sent me money, too, and so did Dad. I used it to pay for my karate uniform. And I bought Monsters, Inc. It’s my favorite movie. I miss my dad, but my mom says I can go home for Thanksgiving. How is Chad? School is okay if you like school which I don’t. I have to go to karate class now.
Love, Jonathan
Larry put the single sheet of paper up to his nose and smelled it, hoping there was something of his son attached to it, something more than the mere shape of let
ters and words. He wanted to sense the flesh and blood of the boy. He wanted to hold him again in his arms, feel the small and sturdy bones pressed into his chest, the silky hair touching his face. They had been talking by phone twice a week, and that was good. But it was not enough. Larry had asked several times if he could drive to Portland for even a quick visit, but his request had been denied by Katherine and her team of lawyers—well, maybe she had just one lawyer, but he was a high-powered divorce lawyer, and from Larry’s corner of the ring, Katherine and any lawyer would make a formidable team. Especially since Larry was alone in his corner. How could he afford a lawyer? After paying child support and the old bills he and Katherine had accrued in their marriage, and fifty dollars a week rent to his parents—who hadn’t wanted it but Larry insisted—he couldn’t afford to buy Monsters, Inc., even if it had been his favorite movie too. The few dollars he had to spare went to the beers he drank at Murphy’s and the modest tip he left for Evie. Larry considered Murphy’s a cheap kind of grief counseling. But the old bills would soon be gone, all paid off, and he’d be able to get his own place again, start over, maybe even ask his parents if he could have permission to use the car. Katherine had gotten the new car in the divorce, and since the old car had waited for the ink to dry on the settlement papers before it fell apart, Larry had gone without one. But a few months before, Jeanie had surprised him by giving him Henry’s black Jeep. “Chad has the motorbike and that’s all he needs for now. I’ve read that Jeeps flip over easy. The bike worries me enough. I know Henry would want you to have his Jeep.”
It was good to have something tangible from Henry, and Larry was thankful to Jeanie for that. He felt his brother in the Jeep sometimes, sensed him floating about on the passenger side as Larry breezed down the highways and byways of town. This is how they cruised when they were just brothers, and also sons, but not yet husbands and fathers, and certainly not what they’d become: ex-husband and deceased husband. Some nights, on his way back from Murphy’s Tavern, wind in his hair and some old song by the Eagles, or Bob Seger, or Springsteen cutting up the airwaves, Larry would just drive around town, often passing the football stadium, until the light on his gas tank hinted to him that it was time to go home. He talked to Henry on nights like that, reminded him of the old fun they’d had, back in those golden days. Hey, Henry. Remember the night we didn’t know who Ginnie McCowell picked to have sex with until the very last minute, and then I was so surprised it was me she picked, I couldn’t do it? And he could hear Henry laugh from the passenger seat, that quick, large laugh that was big enough for a lot of people to enjoy. How many times had Larry seen some stranger at Murphy’s look over from across the room to see where the big laugh was coming from, and then smile to see Henry’s beaming face? Henry was like smoke. He could move in a lot of places at once since no place could keep him out. He was wind. Electricity. Even when you weren’t with him, you felt him. He was that powerful a personality. He was that strong a brother. And that’s why, for all these months that Henry was gone, Larry had just seemed to drift. He still felt his brother in the empty places. He just couldn’t find him there. He could talk to him, for he already knew what Henry would say to the old memories. Christ, how could I forget that night? You had to walk home with your dick in your hand since I’d already left with Dad’s car. It was almost dawn when you crawled into your bunk. You looked like hell. What a wasted piece of ass that was. If Ginnie had picked me, she and I would still be rolling on the grass out behind the stadium.
When had Jonathan started karate class?
Larry looked at the envelope again, the boy’s easy scrawl spelling out the letters and numbers. Jonathan had kept up on his promise to mail the occasional math or history paper, a school drawing maybe, or just a regular letter since Larry wasn’t computerized like so many people were these days. Katherine often referred to him as Larry Luddite, especially in the teacher’s room. Maybe it was the weight of the postal service in his blood. Who knows why? But he still liked to open an envelope and see a real letter in it, maybe a small school photo hiding in one corner. It made it more real somehow, more honest. Larry took the envelope over to his bed and tucked it safely under the pillow. He lay down on the bunk, not wanting to think about boys who live without fathers, whose lives are shaped by men who start out as Mr. Santino the basketball coach, and end up as a second dad. But when he lay his head on the pillow, it was almost as if he could feel the body of the letter pushing itself up, that single page so buoyant with energy, a boy’s life, one filled with the latest movies and the kinds of classes that kids sign up for, and the kind of longing that so many families know well these days: I miss my dad, but my mom says I can go home for Thanksgiving.
He had never even heard of Monsters Inc., and yet it was his boy’s favorite movie.
The way Larry looked at it, you didn’t have to be a high-powered attorney or a grief counselor to understand what a boy wanted in his heart.
My mom says I can go home…
Sometimes, it’s as plain as writing on the wall.
...
Evie didn’t have to be back at Murphy’s for four days, and that was a good thing. She needed the rest. Not just from Andy Southby and the sound of his knuckles, but from looking up each time the door opened to see someone other than Larry Munroe walk in. Once her meeting that afternoon with Margie Jenkins was over, Evie intended to take a short and self-imposed vacation, not just from the tavern, but from her sessions. Maybe she’d throw a few things into her car and head out to Portland or Boston. She could return once the memorial was firmly over. Finis. Maybe then Larry would be back to his old self. But first, she would have to deal with the visitor she was expecting.
When Margie Jenkins arrived, Evie led her away from the parlor where she held her sessions. Instead, she and Margie sat at the kitchen table where Evie poured them each an iced tea. This would help it seem like a visit and not an appointment. Margie clinked her spoon around in the tall glass, stirring up the sugar again and again until Evie took the spoon from her and placed it on the table.
“You look enough like Gail to be her twin,” said Evie, hoping to lighten the heavy mood. Margie smiled at the notion of this. She and Gail were close in spirit, too, always looking out for each other’s kids, always scraping together a few dollars if one of them was broke and the rent due. The way sisters should be.
“That’s what everyone says.”
“Margie, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Evie said.
Margie nodded at this, probably having heard it a few hundred times in the month since Annie died. What to do now but nod?
“Sometimes, I think it’s harder on Phil,” said Margie. “She was Daddy’s little girl, you know.”
“I know,” said Evie. “Gail told me.”
The two women sat like bookends, one at each end of the table, holding silence between them. The faint buzzing of the clock over the refrigerator, and the refrigerator itself, filled the small room with its own kind of mantra. Outside, occasional horns tooted. Kids bicycled by, their noise fading at the end of the street, disappearing. Next door, Mrs. Albion’s dog barked at each passerby. Seconds came and went as time did its job of passing. When it became apparent that Margie Jenkins had no intention of talking, Evie did instead.
“Come on,” Evie said. “I do my sessions in the parlor.”
Evie poured the rest of her iced tea down the kitchen sink and then took several deep breaths, preparing herself. She filled the glass with water and sipped at it. She just needed a few minutes alone, the time to put her mind in that place that was necessary, a mental game she had learned. She had taught herself, years before, to block out the faces of the dead until she was ready for them. Otherwise, she’d have burned out long ago, like one of those stars out in the universe that just winks out one night. It was a way to survive in a world filled with pain. Then, as ready as she could be on such short notice, she put the glass in the sink and went to
the parlor.
Margie was sitting on the sofa, leaning back into the lavender flowers on the fabric, when Evie saw the little girl. She knew who it was, of course, there could be no doubt. Annie Jenkins. Ten years old and already there was a wisdom in her eyes that Evie knew well. It was the wisdom that comes of letting go, the knowledge that goes hand in hand with the fragility of life. But, still, a child is only a child. With that wisdom Evie could also see confusion, as if the eyes were asking, Why did I have to know all this now, when I was just starting to learn my earthly body, the small buds of breasts, why when I was so close to being told all those secrets the older girls know? Why now? And this was why it was too soon for Annie to come. It was too soon. If Evie were to sketch this worried face, it would not bring an ounce of comfort to Margie Jenkins. Instead, it would bring her immeasurable pain.
Evie took her sketch pad and began, as she always did, to make circles in one corner with her drawing pencil. As she did so, she remembered Annie Jenkins the last time the little girl visited Murphy’s Tavern. It was before she became ill and Evie never saw her again. It had been the previous December, a couple weeks before Christmas. The place was all colored lights, reds and blues and greens, with strands of bulbs encircling the bar itself and then decorating a lighted fir tree in one corner. Gail was taking her niece home after work since Margie had some shopping to do. So Annie sat on a bar stool and ate the burger and fries that Gail made for her. She had sipped at the glass of soda. Annie, with a thick ponytail, thick and full, and eyes so dark they sparkled with energy. A happy child on her way to living a long and happy life.
Evie drew the shape of the face first, oval and sweet, and then the dark hair and the eyes full of such Christmas excitement, eyes happy to be seeing what they were. She finished the drawing off with the sweater Annie had been wearing that day, with small kittens embroidered on the collar. Maybe it was cheating, and Evie didn’t like to cheat. But she could tell as she looked again into the troubled eyes of the child who stood just behind her mother’s shoulder that this was the best thing to do. Annie would want this, too. She handed Margie Jenkins the finished sketch. Margie stared at it for some time before she spoke.
Year After Henry Page 11