by J. Warren
“Now you wait just a damn minute—,” my father started.
“Albert—,” my mother said, at the same time.
No matter how small I felt, I wanted to shrink down into the chair more. I wanted to go invisible. I looked over at Sarah, and she had her chin at an angle, and the glass held away in one hand, wrist slightly limp. She was waiting; I could tell.
“What does all that about being a Republican mean?” he asked. He already had a pretty good idea, though. That was obvious.
“It means—,” my sister started.
“Would anyone like some pumpkin pie? I made it specially for—,” my mother started. I felt strange to see how hard she was trying to derail the whole thing. I tried to remember if she’d always tried; if she’d always failed.
“—that you’re a conservative, father. It means that you don’t want the status quo fucked with,” she said and my mother gasped, dropping her fork. I lowered mine slowly to the plate. “it means that right now, children are being turned into prostitutes, smokestacks are belching god knows what into the atmosphere for me to have to try to breathe, and men are being assassinated because they don’t want to give the United States oil at the rock bottom prices, and you want that all to continue. This war? This ridiculous war we’re fighting? How is that in any way about freeing people, as he likes to say in his little speeches? How? I’ll tell you how,” she said, and pointed out the window behind my father with the rim of her glass, “Money. Oil, specifically. We all know that this is about securing a country that produces oil; setting up a puppet government that ‘owes us’,” she said, making the quotation marks in the air with her fingers, “so that we can dictate to them what prices they’ll sell the oil. It’s that simple; yet we have to listen to his bullshit rhetoric time and time again about ‘freeing people’ and ‘empire or terror’. It’s bullshit.”
My father took his napkin out of his lap, wiped his mouth, and put it on the table next to his plate. I watched as my mother looked at him, thought about asking him not to get up from the table, saw how useless that would be, and then went back to looking at her own plate. She put mashed potatoes on her fork, and brought them slowly to her mouth. I looked away, but I knew that she was chewing slow.
“You’re wrong, little girl,” my father said, standing up. His chair made a squealing noise going across the tile, “just as wrong as your sister was.” He walked out of the room. My sister sipped, looked at my mother as if just now seeing her, and something happened in Sarah’s eyes. I couldn’t tell what, but something, some sort of decision. She picked up her plate, and walked it into the kitchen. My mother was still frozen; the fork near her lips, her eyes down, her shoulders stiff.
My father had mentioned Katy. The rule was broken. I didn’t know what that meant; what to do now. Mom lowered her fork to her plate, and sat. Her shoulders still did not move. The television came on. In the kitchen, water ran. I wondered why Sarah had been so adamant about me coming home if this is how it was going to be.
The water stopped running. My mother got up and took her plate with her into the kitchen. I followed. Sarah was standing in front of the sink, cigarette in hand and a lighter in the other.
“Please, don’t,” my mother said. Sarah exhaled loudly and put the cigarette away. My mother set her plate on the counter and sighed. “Sarah, I think you should go apologize to your father,” she said.
My sister’s eyes got huge, “What?”
“I think you should go apologize to your father,” my mother said, without looking up. I wanted to put my plate down, but was afraid of the noise it might make; that they’d turn the tension on me, next.
“Why should I? I have a right to believe whatever I—,” she started.
“Because it’s Thanksgiving,” my mother said, and we knew from her voice that was all she intended to say. Sarah wanted to say more, wanted to fight more, I could tell. I don’t know much about women, but I’ve figured that out; when they’re in the mood to fight, then that’s what they do.
“Mother, why should I have to—,” she started.
“Sarah,” mom said quietly, “please.” Sarah exhaled loudly, looking down at the floor. Mom put her plate in the sink, and walked out of the kitchen. I felt as though I were in another country, watching Sarah through a telescope. She fidgeted for a moment. I could see her thinking. She didn’t look at me.
“Fuck,” she said, and walked out of the kitchen into the living room. I followed.
The news was on. I always hated the news, but dad insisted on making us watch it when we were younger. I never minded back when he was a good man. When he got older, meaner, though, we still had to sit with him for an hour while the news was on. We weren’t allowed to talk, though he made snide comments under his breath the entire time.
The stories were, of course, about the war. They weren’t calling it a war, but it was. I drifted off into my own world, and remembered the first time I’d seen a news story on Randy. They’d sent someone down from Pebble Falls. A big shot reporter. He’d written a story and they gave him airtime to tell it. It was “in an effort to bring real faces to the headlines” they’d said. They flashed five different pictures of Randy on the screen, and the man talked about him. He talked about the McPherson’s, too, but he got some stuff wrong. “Tonight,” the man had said, “a little boy is missing.” I didn’t want to watch, that night, but I did. I had to. I felt like I owed it to him. That was that first week. They still thought they might find him then. They still thought that, though probably hurt, he might still come home.
I wonder what things would have been like for him if he had come home? At the time, I wondered if he was tied up someplace, watching this show, waiting for something horrible to happen to him. I wondered what it would feel like to be that powerless.
I came back to myself because of the shouting. While I’d been away, they’d kept fighting.
“Daddy, I’m not saying that the United States shouldn’t look out for other countries—,” Sarah was saying.
“Then why wouldn’t we go over there and help these people?”
“First off, daddy, we have plenty of our own problems right here at home, and if the government were to spend half the money that they do on things like this to feed the homeless, put roofs over their—“
“Oh, come on. ‘Welfare, welfare;’ that’s all you people think about.”
“All what people, daddy?”
“You know what I mean. You whiners. Always ‘feed the homeless’ or ‘save the whales’. This world doesn’t work that way. If you want something, you have to take it. If those people want food bad enough, or a house, then they’ll get up off their asses and get a job,” my father said, and I hated him.
When he’d turned mean, I used to think that maybe I wasn’t his son. Maybe, somehow, I’d been adopted or something. Of course, I was already a teenager by then. It seemed ridiculous to me, even then. Still, he seemed so unlike me after he changed. I started to wonder if I’d change, too. I hoped not, but that was all I could do; hope.
“But, daddy, you just said that the government sent the armed forces over to help those people. How come it’s okay to help people in another country when we don’t—“
“Y’see?” My father asked, looking over at me, “Do you see what I have always had to put up with from you kids? I try to instill some values in you and instead I get my words twisted and thrown back at me. Shit,” My father said, and stood up. He walked out of the living room. I breathed, finally. But Sarah got up and followed him. I felt like staying on the sofa, but got up, too. I followed them.
“My own daughter, a god-damned pinko,” Dad said, and walked away.
“Daddy, I’m not a communist. I just think that this man, whom we did not
elect—,” she began
“If we didn’t elect him, Miss College Degree, then who did?”
“The electoral college, Daddy. They didn’t listen to popular vote, and they let him steal the election—,”
Sarah turned around and walked back into the kitchen. I followed. She leaned against the counter. I got two tumblers down and put ice in them. I walked over to the cabinet and got down the scotch. I poured; one finger for me, two for her, like always. I got the soda from the refrigerator, and filled the tumblers. The fizzing was the only thing that broke the silence of the moment. I thought I could hear dad out in the garage throwing things around, but I probably didn’t.
When I brought the tumbler to Sarah, she had her head down, and one hand up over her mouth. Her thumb looked so skinny against her cheek. She took the glass with the other hand. The ice clinked against the sides.
“Shall we retire to the lanai?” she asked, a thick fake Georgia accent in her words. I nodded. It was what she always said.
We walked to the front door. I opened the deadbolt slowly, quietly. Our night porch time had always been sacred. If mom or dad had heard us going outside, there would have been questions to answer. We didn’t want to answer any.
Not until we were sitting outside in the cold did it occur to me that I’d just gotten the scotch down and not worried about getting caught. I’d gotten it down as though I’d bought it, not worrying what anyone would think. It made me feel like an adult. I wondered if that was for everyone, or just me. I wondered what I’d have said if my father had come back in, or my mother had seen. I smiled for a moment, thinking that Sarah would have offered to make one for mom.
We were sitting on the front porch, just like always. Sarah fumbled in her pocket for a moment, then brought out a cigarette. She did the same again, producing a lighter. Sarah was smoking and we were both drinking scotch and soda out of dad’s tumblers. It was just like old times.
Sarah exhaled like a dragon. The smoke billowed slowly out of her mouth. I always thought of dragons. I thought that, if I ever made a movie, I’d want it to look like that. That’s what smoking looked like. I’d always seen people do it in a hurry, just quick puffs and long jets smoke with a lot of noise. Sarah just sort of opened her mouth and the gray came out like words.
“Heard anything about Katy?” I asked her.
She laughed, tapped her ashes, inhaled again. “Our illustrious sister?” she asked. “Last I’d heard, she was in Costa Rica,” she said, playing our old game.
“What’s she doing there?” I asked, sipping my drink. I tasted the rum more than the coke.
“God, I don’t know,” she said, exhaling smoke, “some damn thing with the Red Cross or whatever bleeding heart cause she’s adopted this time. Whenever she calls, and I’m not there, she talks to Diane,” she said, “I hate that.” She took another quick sip, then looked over at me. How long have we been pretending, now? the look said.
“Is she going to come home ever?” I asked, noticing how thin and hollow the words sounded. I thought of me when I was little asking Katy if the sun would come back. We’d watched an eclipse together. My mom and dad had said it would be okay for us to go up on the roof. Katy had tried to shove me off, but Sarah made her stop.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, putting the cigarette back to her lips.
“How is Diane?” I asked. I didn’t really want to know, but you’re supposed to ask things like that.
Sarah laughed on short little barking laugh, then said “Fine, as always. She’s gone home to mumsie and dadsies for the winter.” She always put on a fake Boston accent when she said those words.
“You don’t like her mother and father?” I asked. It was Sarah and her lover together; just a quick picture then blank. I inhaled some of her smoke, held it, then exhaled. I thought about being at the bottom of that pool at the Y all those years ago. I thought about how I used to dive to the bottom and look back up at the people on the side of the pool. I used to think about how maybe this was how they were supposed to look; wavy and blurry at the edges.
I inhaled and held it again. Then I exhaled and noticed that her cigarette was down to the filter. My nose and mouth felt dry and brittle inside. I wondered if I’d have a nosebleed later.
“It’s not that,” Sarah said, exhaling and sipping her drink, “it’s just—she has everything, you know? I mean, I love her, and I think she understands me. At least, she gets my writing, but—,” she said, letting it hang there. She in haled and exhaled loudly. The smoke drifted just above the words. The ice clinked in her glass. “What about you?” she asked.
“What about me what?”
“Susan?”
“Susan,” I said.
“Still?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You’ve been seeing her for what, a year?”
“A little less.”
“Have you fucked her yet?” she asked.
I blushed, said nothing.
“I saw Kevin O’Mally at a stop light on my way into town,” she said. When I didn’t say anything, “How come you and he were never friends?”
“Why would we have been?” I asked. An image of him pounding his fists into another boy’s head flashed in my mind.
She moved a leaf with the toe of her shoe, “I don’t know,” she said.
The deadbolt clicked. Sarah and I looked at each other, and she threw the cigarette overhand as far as she could. She exhaled sideways out of her mouth. The door opened, and I looked back. Mom was there in her robe. The light behind her made her face hard to see. For a second, I was a kid again.
“Don’t you two want to go to bed?” Mom asked.
“In a minute, mom,” Sarah said. Just like when we were younger, Sarah’s voice toward mom was always a warning.
“Oh. Okay. Mike, will you take the garbage out?”
“Garbage day isn’t until Wednesday, ma. I’ll take it out tomorrow night,” Sarah said.
“Oh. Okay,” she said, and I heard her cross her arms. I could tell she was trying to look up and down the street, seeing what lights were on. “It’s very cold out here, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Goodnight, ma,” Sarah said.
Mom paused. I saw her tighten her robe belt. Then she said, “Goodnight. Don’t stay up too late.”
“Night, mom,” I said.
“Sweet dreams,” she said. After a moment, she closed the door. The deadbolt clicked.
Sarah and I looked at each other. She rolled her eyes, and took a long swallow of her drink. The ice clinked against the side of the tumbler.
“That damn old woman is going to drive me to drink,” she said. I laughed. She smirked.
“What are you writing now?” I asked.
“The new novel?” she asked, setting the glass down on the lawn. “It’s a period piece. It’s about a woman who goes home to her ten year high school reunion. The kids treated her like shit, and it’s been a huge weight on her the whole time, so she goes back. By going back and dealing with these people head on, telling them ‘you hurt me’, she heals herself. She stops writing romance novels and decides to start writing something worthwhile, something more like her life. On the trip, she meets a guy and they fall in love.”
“Oh,” I said, sipping.
“There’s a lot of music symbology in it, as well as a serious call to get off prozac for this generation. Jamie says that there’ll be a lot of interest in it when I’m done,” she said, picking up her drink. She drained the rest of it in one long swallow. Then she crunched one of the ice cubes. My shoulders tensed.
“She’s straight?” I asked.
“Who? The character? Yeah. Why?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Do you think just because your sister is a big ol’ dyke that she can’t write something about a straight girl finding love?”
I don’t know why, maybe the warmth in my chest, but I asked “Was it Ainsley? That girl from Alabama?”
“N—no. How did you—? No. I was—I mean, I d
id—with her, I mean—but—,” she stammered. She cleared her throat loudly, then looked away. “I had already been with a few girls by then.”
“What?” I asked.
She cleared her throat again, then tipped her tumbler up, hoping to find a few drops. She set it down. “I said, I’d already been with a few girls before Ainsely.”
“Who?”
She snorted, “Shit, Michael. That was a long time ago.”
“Who?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
She stood up slowly, picking the glass up after she was standing. “Because I can’t. I’m going to bed.” She walked up the steps. Each on creaked under her feet. As she opened the door she asked, “You coming in?”
“Nah. Gonna’ stay out here a bit, maybe go for a walk.”
“Wherever it is that you always used to get mud on your shoes?” she asked and I started.
“What?”
She knelt down, “I never told mom or dad, obviously. That doesn’t mean I was never curious, though,” she brushed some dust off her pants, “There was always mud on your shoe the next day after you’d ‘stay out for a bit, maybe go for a walk’. I never asked, and—,” she said, “I guess I’m not asking now. Just—just be careful, okay?” Sarah said, and put her hand on my shoulder. It was warm and heavy and I felt better. Then it was gone. The front door opened.
“Okay,” she said, then paused, the door open. After a time, “Goodnight, Michael.”
“G’night,” I said. I heard the door close softly behind me.
THIRTEEN
The night grew quiet. The concrete was cold under me. The wind was moving my hair, and it made me think of Susan. I thought about how she’d play with it as we lay face to face, while she drifted off to sleep. I closed my eyes. In my head was a little movie I’d spliced together of all the nice moments we’d had: Her holding the light while I worked under the hood of her car, asking questions she didn’t care if I answered or not, her rubbing the back of my neck the first time she was around for one of my nosebleeds. That’s the one that I liked most. She didn’t get upset or start acting hysterical like my sister always did; she didn’t try to turn me into a child the way my mom always did. She just rubbed my neck and shoulders and spoke in this quiet voice that was like music. Randy got them, too.