The Done Thing

by Tracy Manaster

  Off the highway now. Slow driving in residential neighborhoods. I was nearing the Claveries’. Every block the houses got bigger. I’d taken Pam to a birthday party somewhere in this well-wooded grid. The first time a classmate invited her anywhere. I remember letting out a whoop when I saw the invitation. A pool party. Triumph and then the anxious twitch: I had no idea if Barbra had taught Pam to swim.

  All the girls were Katies then. The birthday girl was Katie H. Funny that I still remembered. Pam picked the birthday gift herself. A lavender chain necklace and a starter set of clip-on charms, a snowflake in incongruous pink, a tennis racket with a ball molded to its surface, a blue whistle whose sound hardly traveled. So many objects of Pam’s childhood were plastic.

  I forgot to caution don’t run near the pool when I dropped her off. A mother, a real one, would have remembered. For the party’s three hours I drove past immaculate yards uneasy. And sure enough, at pickup, my girl was running. Barefoot, belly puffed out beneath Lycra, weaving between other children, the lot of them quick as ferrets.

  “Lida!” A happy shriek.

  I tensed. First I registered the volume, then the joy.

  “I won at cannonball!”

  Beside Pam a pigtailed girl scowled. Sour sport. “You call your mom Lida?” she asked.

  Pam shrugged. Behind her Katie H’s yard sloped toward a high fence. To someone as short as Pam it must have looked like the end of the world. “Everyone calls my Mom Barbra now,” said Pam. She made Barbra sound solemn to the point of absurdity. Again the shrug. Everything in me clenched. A whistle blew. Katie H’s ridiculous bracelet. Poolside, it sounded like a lifeguard. The sound stopped me in mid-motion and good thing it had. I’d wanted to wrest down those indifferent rising shoulders.

  “Barbra,” Pigtails said. “That’s stupid. I just call my mom Mom.”

  Pam’s hand went to the lace-trimmed pocket of her party dress. And then, impossibly, she had a gun. Purple and plastic, cheap. She pulled the trigger. A puff of water. Pigtails rubbed her forehead.

  I snatched the toy away and Pamela gave a sharp cry. I’d been too quick, I thought, I’d hurt her. But Pam only wanted the gun back. She grabbed for it. What kind of parents had I left her with? To give out such prizes.

  Pigtails began to wail.

  “Pamela Clare, we never shoot. Not ever.”

  Furious pink filled in the space between her freckles. She reached again for her prize. “It’s mine. I won it. It’s my squirty.”

  “You know why we never ever shoot.”

  Pink became red and Pam’s scowl grew. She pointed at me, her index finger, like Barbra’s, nearly as long as her middle. The finger trembled. Above it, she cocked up her thumb. She jerked it back. “Bang, bang. You’re dead.”

  My face so close I could smell the chlorine as it dried on her skin, the baby shampoo and Jergens cherries and almonds. Lusk eyes gleamed horrible. Birthday cake sugared her breath.

  And here I was again, driving through the same neighborhood.

  Shaking the same angry shakes.

  Speaking with the same fever voice.

  Speaking the same words I spoke poolside.

  “You’re a good girl, Pam, but there are things I would never forgive you.”

  30.

  Summer linners were outside, no matter the heat. Kath’s famous sticky cake wilted onto her picnic table, where whorls dyed in easy-wipe plastic attempted the look of real wood. At its foot a cooler stood open, ice cubes suspended in their own melt. Cans of soda bobbed. Unrestricted access for the junior Claveries, whose antics were not at all improved by sugar.

  “Shoulders!” one of them yelled and his cousins lined up in pairs, pressing together at the shoulders and screaming the word over and over and over. One child remained unpaired and ran. The caller pursued. The grass they trampled had browned in patches where the sprinklers didn’t quite overlap.

  The unpaired child was tagged; he was the caller now. “Foreheads!” he called.

  “Foreheads foreheads foreheads . . .” his cousins copied. They scrambled for new partners, repeating the word without pause. Foreheads knocked together. Someone was going to wind up concussed.

  Pam wasn’t anywhere. One look I’d know. Barbra had shown early. She’d carried it in her face.

  “Butts!”

  “Butts butts butts . . .”

  “Language, Nicky.” The adult Claveries hovered at the fringe of the yard. I quintuple checked. No Pam. They’d set up a croquet course. They had only two mallets between them.

  “Patooties!”

  “Nicky . . .”

  “How about earlobes, Nicky-noodle?” Blue’s suggestion floated from the shade, where he lay in a hammock strung between two tall pines. Pam lay with him. A gray sundress helped her fade into the cool. I knew that dress. For years she’d refused to scrap it. Cotton gone thin and soft as pajamas. It would show anything that needed showing. I crossed to her, dodging Claveries. They’d paired up without regard for height and struggled to stay together at the earlobes. Blue pumped his foot and the hammock swayed.

  From nowhere, the odd child out zipped off before me. The girl with boy hair. Emily. An older boy—Benny?—raced after, gaining fast. A gruff whine came from the shade. My stomach fell to my shoes; for a moment I thought it was Pam. But Seshet was up and huffing on her haunches. I’d missed the dog before; she lurked so quiet beneath the hammock. Dogs know things. They track our movements way up above them like stars. Seshet was growling now, warning, imminent impact.

  Pam and Blue ignored her.

  Emily ran headlong.

  “Slow down,” I yelled.

  She didn’t listen. She barreled on toward where Pam hung netted.

  I was running now too, to no avail. The Claverie girl would get there first. I called Pam’s name at the moment of impact. Emily hit the hammock at chest level. She let out a sound like a bottle uncorking. Benny tagged her and wheeled off. She fell back on her bottom and made another cork noise. Pam and Blue hardly swayed. A little bit like Emily couldn’t hurt them if she tried. I was a foolish woman. I needn’t have run. But I had run, and so I saw: in the moment of impact, where instinct should have thrown them out as braces before her, Pam drew her hands in to her stomach, fingers splayed in wide protective fans.

  She told you first. She told you first. She told you first. She told you first.

  Blue’s hand searched out Emily. “Steady, Bumpercar.” He knew her height by heart.

  If I were a believer, this is what I’d pray: please, God, fossilize me. Put all this eons behind me. “Emily?” Astounding I could speak at all. “Call out patella. Means the knee. They’ll take so long figuring it out that you can tag anyone you want.”

  Pamela sat up. Even without your letter I’d have noticed the chub in her cheeks. Emily chugged off, screaming “patella.” “That was really sweet of you, Li,” Pam said.

  “You’re a natural at Siamese tag.” That was Blue. It was he who stood to hug me, not Pam. “I wouldn’t want to go up against you.”

  “You couldn’t have anyways. The running . . .”

  “Of course I can. With all that patella patella patella? Easy to hear who’s where.” He tugged his earlobe. “That’s why Grace invented it.”

  I don’t think I ever made up a game for Barbra; of the pair of us she was the more imaginative. I could have been a better sister. She’d sounded nervous, ages back, telling me about the cell-clump that would eventually be Pam. She knew the rawness of our wanting and her voice was like a stranger’s, reading lines. I told her I was happy and I was. But also that old feeling, familiar as bedsheets. How easy life came to Barbra. “You’re going to be fine,” I’d told her. “Think about it this way: I’ve probably used up both our shares of bad luck.”

  I actually said that, Clarence.

  All over the lawn, Claverie children shrieked. Ribs, ribs, ribs, ribs, ribs, ribs, ribs. They zoomed erratic as gnats. I asked Blue if he’d actually played in that meat grinder.
>
  He nodded, then winked. Some G must have taught him all about winking.

  “You’re lucky you don’t have a face full of stitches.”

  A finger to his chin. A fine, white kiss of a scar. “Georgia got me good when I was nine.”

  Pamela lounged back in the hammock, arm lolling. Cleopatra on her barge.

  I looked right at her. “Lucky thing there’s an even number of cousins. Off numbers would wreck the whole game.” Pam didn’t blush or blanch. Ice in her veins. Well. She came by that honestly.

  “They’re smart kids.” She stood. “They’d manage.”

  “You look different,” I said. This was Pamela. My good kid. Sixty-three must seem ancient to her. Forbidding. Maybe she didn’t mean to shut me out. She might just be shy of admitting to sex. “Good, I mean. You look good.”

  “I remembered to brush my hair for once. Come on, I’m starving.” She shot off toward the table. She’d taken off her shoes. Grime coated her heels. She’d been in the hammock with her husband a long while. Its ropes left hatch marks on her calves.

  Kath stood at the table lamenting her cake. She prodded it with a rubber spatula. Gone all to gobs. “What a disaster. Four kids, four in-laws, my own father, eight grandbabies and not one of you warns me.” She counted family on her fingers. She needed a second hand.

  “You forgot Lida,” said Blue. If only it had been Pam speaking. But your daughter only cozied up to Kath, making mollifying sounds.

  A bee hovered near the plate. I said, “I thought it was supposed to look like that.”

  “Lida!” Kath rubbed her throat like she was trying to massage out a laugh. Around her neck, those mismatched gems threw back the sun. A second bee appeared. Kath had more family than she had fingers. If nothing else, I should be told before her.

  A third bee joined the pair. That cake must be pure sugar. Pam grabbed a plastic knife to assist with the reshaping.

  “Nothing to do but eat it quickly. Hey, everyone!” Kath yelled. “Dessert first!”

  Claveries came from across the yard, little ones running despite the heat. One G noticed and insisted her children rehydrate. Another swung a croquet mallet in careless circles. The third stood arm in arm with Kath’s father. Pam passed out paper plates. I counted a fourth and fifth bee. I wondered what Pamela would do if I let them swarm me.

  “Since I have the knife,” said Blue, “anyone who wants cake had better listen up.”

  The Claverie children quieted faster for Blue than they ever had for any G. Their treat at stake.

  “Since we’re having dessert first,” he continued, waving the knife, “I figured we might as well overload on sweetness.” What a family. I was the only one worried about the blade in his blind grip. “Because Pam and I have some pretty sweet news ourselves.”

  No.

  I wouldn’t be told like this. In a herd. Like I was nobody to Pam. Like I was another countless Claverie. I opened my purse. “Kath! Kath! You’ll never guess. I found your driver’s license today. It was in one of the lawn chair cracks.” I waved the ID hard, as if it could waft away Blue’s cloying coming words.

  Kath mouthed her thanks; the card passed from G to G.

  “More good news!” Blue chuckled. Another of his ridiculous winks. “Thanks, Lida. But that’s not what I was going to say.”

  I’d lost Pam to these people.

  The ID disappeared into Kath’s pocket.

  If Riverview asked for ID again, I would lose your mother too.

  “This is the best family in the world,” Blue said, and raised a hand to quiet a smattering of claps.

  “The best,” Pam echoed. “Everyone here.” She grinned so big she shook with it. She and Blue both had such round heads. Hand in hand they looked paired for Siamese tag.

  “It’s hard to imagine a better family,” Blue’s voice cracked. “But they do say that bigger is better . . .”

  Another wink.

  My mouth was rank. This was so public, so cheesy. If only my ears were made of wax. The Claveries pieced it together with ecstatic whoops. Slower children tugged for explanations at their parents’ shirts.

  “When?” some G asked.

  “In about six months.” Pam’s voice was buoyant and not her own.

  Kath’s fingers found her necklace. She counted stone by stone. “July, August, September, October, November, December. Another little tourmaline. Oh, you two.”

  The family moved as one toward Pam and caught her in their net of arms. She did nothing to break free. Pamela was the only thing in the universe holding still. The Claveries took their sweet time unknotting.

  Finally, she faced me.

  “Well, Lida?” Pamela stood before me completely pride-lit, though all she’d done was lie there. A petulant flash I knew I was much too old for: my turn, my turn, it should have been me.

  “I knew already, Pamela. I’ve known for ages. I raised you. There’s nothing you can keep from me.”

  “Keep from you?” A girl with that pout was too young to be a mother.

  “You’ve never been any good with secrets. There’s no shame in it.”

  “It’s not a secret. You just heard us tell everyone.”

  “You should have told me sooner. I could have helped from the start, if—”

  “What? Did you want to hold my hand while I peed on the stick?”

  The Claveries got very quiet. The best family in the world. They stared and I wished every one of them blind. Blue found his way to Pam, with Seshet in her harness.

  “We told you with the rest of the family because you’re a part of us.” His voice a studied, courtroom calm.

  “Pamela and I were family before she ever heard of you.”

  “No one’s disputing that.”

  “I shouldn’t even know you.”

  “But you do.” He actually smiled. So much for the blind being able to read tone of voice.

  “We’re happy.” Pam sounded the farthest thing from it. “Just say congratulations and stop making a scene.”

  Blue kept his fool grin, wide and sightless as a carved pumpkin. “C’mon. You know this is good news.” He winked again. A gesture he had no sensible right to.

  “Congratulations, then. What are the odds of my grandchild being blind?”

  “One hundred percent, Lida. She’s going to slut around and shoot people too. Genetics are a bitch.”

  “Auntie P said the B word,” Nicky singsonged. He perched at the edge of the picnic table and swung his feet in time. No Claverie tried to shush him. Not one move to defend their Blue. Best family in the world lumped around like potatoes in a bag.

  “If your uncle could hear you say that to me—”

  “He’d agree. Frank would be happy for us. He knew how—”

  “I’d be plenty happy if you weren’t so set on hurting me.”

  “Hurting you? It’s a baby. A baby.”

  Never had that word been so sour.

  “A baby I had a right to know about.”

  “A right? It’s not like you’re my mother.”

  I felt held together by grout. “Thank god I’m not your mother. When you turned out just like her.”

  As if my heart cued him, Nicky began to wail. He bolted from the table, right hand waving frantically, spread wide. Sobs came jagged as a saw. He was the only Claverie who listened.

  My throat throbbed. I tasted iron. If I spat now it would hit the ground red.

  Pam stood mute, Barbra rotten.

  Nicky’s hysterics built.

  Those should have been my sobs.

  Pammie turned away, head shaking, hands shaking. I wanted the sun to fall from the sky. Blue knew to follow her before Seshet even moved. He gave a stiff wave. His aim was off; he looked like he was taking leave of a lawn chair.

  Claveries unfroze. They knotted about Nicky, blind to Blue and Pam and what had passed between us. They fussed over the welt on his palm. His cries began to dissipate. We’ll get that mean old bee, some G promised. Looky here, some
husband said, it killed him to sting you. So guess who’s worse off?

  The Claverie child was nothing like me, already cosseted and calm. While I blistered inside and envied that bee. One small barb against the world. But he could use it and never have to wrestle with an after. He stung; he winked out; he turned in an instant to quiet mash.

  31.

  Congratulations. Grandpa. (It’s okay to call you that, isn’t it?) That’s just super-duper about your Pamela. Yeah, I know who she is. It’s so easy to find things out these days. They probably haven’t told you about the Internet in Stemble.

  You always say how smart you are. Maybe if you’re really smart you’ll use your Thursday call to tell your lawyer all about it. You know he’ll want to use this. What judge wouldn’t spare a man waiting on a grandbaby?

  Unless His Honor knows that when he died three years ago, Lawrence Ring’s father didn’t have a single “survived by” left in his obituary. It’s been a long time since you shot his son. He could have had grandkids by now too. Maybe His Honor will hear how the cop you killed died so broken his only donatable organs were the eyes.

  Come hearing time I bet I know what you’ll say. Yes, you bought the gun. You bought it and you brought it to her lover’s house. You only wanted to scare them. You don’t know how you let all this happen. Please, Your Honor, please.

  Of course he’ll understand. You just got carried away. His Honor can’t help but reprieve a grandfather.

  Well, you can hope. Grandfather Going, Going, Gone.

  Did you think I’d be happy to hear you loved me? Your love kills. And not just Barbra and the other two. Your love is killing Pam. Clarence, I’ve found out all about her. She should be building a career, not mucking about with dogs. She should have a roommate or still be living at home. She married right out of college. Nobody does that anymore. It’s your fault she’s rushing. She wanted you to see her married. And the baby’s the same. Rush, rush, rush. She wants you to die knowing she has one.