Thank You for All Things

by Sandra Kring

  “So?” Oma asks as she comes back inside seconds later, smelling like an ashtray.

  “So what?” Mom asks.

  “Is Peter staying?”

  Mom shrugs. “If he wants to, I suppose.” Oma and I share subtle grins.

  “I’ll put clean sheets on the bed in the guest room,” Mom says, “just in case.” She talks slowly, deliberately, so I don’t miss her point that Peter is going to sleep in the guest room rather than with her. It’s her ongoing feeble attempt to keep the delicate moral fiber of her young, impressionable children from unraveling.

  “You don’t have to do that anymore, you know.”

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend that Peter won’t be sleeping in your bed. I read Freud, Mom, and you know how preoccupied he was with sex. Besides, I’m not a little kid anymore. I’ll be getting my period soon. I’ve even been feeling a little crampy lately. I’m old enough to know that adults who aren’t married have sex.”

  Mom stares at me with shock, and Oma nods. “She does have a point, honey,” she says, and Mom tells her to stay out of her business, then adds, “You too, young lady.”

  I don’t wait for Peter to come out of Milo’s room when Oma has our chocolate silk pie on plates. I go to the study. “Dessert is served,” I say, eager to interrupt them—that is, until I see Milo’s animated expression as he dabs his pencil tip against a graph he’s made. “You see,” he begins, “if A represents …” I study Peter for a microsecond before he looks up at me. He seems genuinely interested as he studies Milo’s paper, and I admire him for mustering up that interest for Milo’s sake. As much as I want Peter all to myself, I know the importance of a father figure in a boy’s life—so he doesn’t grow up to wear women’s lacy panties or something weird like that.

  I go stand next to Peter while he’s leaned over Milo’s desk, but I don’t interrupt. Peter gives my braid a soft tug, then drapes his arm across me as he listens to Milo drone on about God knows what. I study Peter’s ear: firm and well shaped, and void of wax, even deep into the canal. I make a mental note to examine the ear canals of any potential boyfriend I might have in the future, then I study the stubble over his jaw and chin. The minuscule hairs jutting from his skin go in one direction in certain patches, then brush in another direction in other places, almost like crop circles drawn by a blind, microscopic-size alien. Peter feels me staring at him and turns to me and smiles.

  I HAVE TO wait until almost forever before it’s my turn to hog Peter: until dessert and coffee are finished, and Oma goes back outside to smoke, and Mom gets busy doing the dessert dishes and scrubbing the lasagna pan that was soaking.

  “You want to meet Grandpa Sam?” I ask him.

  “I’d like that,” he says.

  I take his hand and lead him to Grandpa Sam’s room. Grandpa is lying flat on his back, and there’s a drip bag stand next to him, the plastic bag filled with brown thick liquid that looks even more repulsive than the concoctions Oma used to whip up for him, if that’s possible. The brown sludge moves down a tube that disappears around his torso, under his blanket. “That’s how he eats now, because he can’t swallow anymore,” I explain. “He got the tube put in at the hospital yesterday. I didn’t go with. Mom didn’t either, but Oma did. They picked up Grandpa Sam in a medical van his nurse, Barbara, had sent over. Oma rode to the hospital with Barbara. Mom didn’t want it done, but Aunt Jeana decides those things. I felt bad for not going to hold his hand while they did it, but Mom said it was surgery so I couldn’t have gone inside anyway.”

  I sit down on the bed next to Grandpa Sam and place my hand on his chest, right over his heart, and feel his breathing quiet the best it can. A calm comes over him. “Did you see that? I think he knows I’m here, even if he can’t show it outwardly.” Peter nods and smiles at me without showing his teeth.

  “He sleeps most of the time now, but you can wake him up if you try hard enough. I still talk to him, even if he doesn’t talk back anymore.”

  “I’m glad you do,” Peter says.

  “When we first came here, he could walk some and talk a bit. He could drive too—or so he thought.” I start laughing and ask Peter if Mom told him about Grandpa Sam’s getaway and parade down Main Street. He says no, so I tell him the story. Peter tips his head back and laughs and laughs.

  When we get done laughing, I tell Peter, “I like having a grandpa, but I’m not going to have him much longer. Before Aunt Jeana dismissed hospice, their volunteer gave me this.” I take a little white pamphlet, The Dying Experience, from the nightstand and hand it to Peter. “It explains what someone looks like and how they act as they’re nearing death. They say in there just what Oma says: that Grandpa Sam has one foot in this world and one foot in the next. You know what else Oma said? That a lot of times, as people are dying, they talk to people on the other side. Ghosts. Well, Oma doesn’t call them that, but that’s what they are. Dead people like their parents, siblings, and friends, who come to help take their spirits to the other side. Mom says that’s hogwash and that it’s nothing more than their failing minds wandering.”

  “What do you think?” Peter asks.

  “I think that I hope Oma’s right and that someone nice comes for him.”

  We sit a few more minutes with Grandpa Sam, then I ask Peter if he’d like to see my room. He says yes, and we leave Grandpa Sam lying in the soft glow of the night-light and head upstairs.

  “This was Mom’s old room,” I tell Peter as he walks the perimeter of the room. “I found her old notebooks in that closet right there. Notebooks she wrote as a kid. And I read them. That’s how I found out that Grandpa Sam was mean when he was younger and that he had a girlfriend. That’s also how I learned that Oma used to be a drunk.”

  Saying the words out loud makes them sound even worse than they sounded in my head.

  Peter goes to my bed and sits down. He pats the mattress beside him, and I sit down too. He puts his arm around me.

  “Lucy,” he says. “People make mistakes. Sometimes very bad ones. But people change too. Sometimes.”

  “I don’t want to think of Grandpa Sam as bad,” I say, “but sometimes I do. And I can’t touch the hand that I think he hit Oma with.”

  We sit quietly for a moment, then he says, “Did you do my assignment I asked you to do? On playing?”

  “I did,” I tell him, just because I don’t want him to be disappointed in me.

  “What did you play?” For the life of me, I can’t think of one little fib to tell him, because I don’t know of any games, except for riding bikes.

  Peter pats my upper arm and removes his hand. He goes to the window, pulls back the filmy curtain, and looks out into the backyard. “Tell you what. There’s a whole yard full of leaves that need raking. How about we all go outside and take care of them?”

  “Really?” I ask with a laugh.

  “Sure, why not? I’ve been sitting for hours, there’s still enough daylight left, and I could use a good stretch. Come on.”

  “That’s what I’ve been waiting to do! The leaves weren’t falling all that much until yesterday’s wind.”

  When we get downstairs, Peter calls to Milo and to Mom—but not Oma, because she’s in Grandpa Sam’s room, changing his diaper—then he leads us into the backyard like the Pied Piper himself.

  Milo gets the rakes from the shed, but there are only two, so Mom and Peter use them and Milo and I kick leaves together with our feet before dragging them into one mound in the center of the yard. “Stop that, Feynman,” Milo shouts when the dog keeps scattering our leaves.

  The air is fresh and brisk as it teasingly tugs leaves from our arms. Peter pauses in his raking to take a breath that stretches the front of his sweater. “Just smell that fresh air, will you? Ahhhh.”

  For a time, nothing exists but the desire to make our pile higher, and wider. And when almost every fallen leaf in the yard is in our heap, Peter instructs us to form a circle around the pile. “On the count of three, everybody in,” h
e says.

  Mom shakes her head. “I’m in a skirt, Peter!”

  “I won’t peek,” he says, and laughs. “But okay. Miss all the fun, then.” He turns to Milo and me. “Okay, on the count of three.

  “One. Two. Three!” And in we go. Feetfirst, but for me, who belly flops in.

  “Everybody under!” Peter orders, and the leaves crunch and crackle as we burrow our way under.

  “Everybody up for a leaf fight,” Peter shouts, and up our heads come, crumbled yellow and red-orange leaves sticking to our hair. We grab handfuls and toss them at one another. Even Mom laughs, as she watches from the tree she’s leaning against, one arm straight, the other crossed over her waist, holding it.

  “Hey, Lucy,” Milo shouts. “Let’s stuff Peter like a scarecrow!”

  “No, no! I’m ticklish!”

  Peter giggles like a little boy as Milo stuffs handfuls of leaves down the front of his sweater, while I stuff them down his back and up his sleeves. Peter’s laughing so hard that he keeps tipping over.

  Soon Peter’s sweater is fat and he’s begging us to stop. He’s laughing so hard that he’s weak and can hardly get the words out. Then he stands up and holds out his bulky arms and makes his expression still, like a scarecrow. He leaps out of the heap and does a crazy little skipping dance, wobbling like a drunk. He goes to the tree where Mom stands and wraps one arm around her middle while the other holds her left hand, and he dances her to the mound of leaves, then pulls her right down into it with him. Mom screams and Milo and I crack up.

  I fall back on the leaves and rock myself from side to side, holding my belly as I laugh. The sunset above is bright with hues of pink and violet, and I know that even when I get as old as Grandpa Sam, I’m going to vividly remember the look and the feel and the sounds of the four of us lying on this bed of leaves.

  We are still laughing as we get up and brush the broken leaves from our hair and clothes. Mom holds out her skirt and fans it, and Peter lifts off his sweater and shakes it, then he pulls off his undershirt, even though it is cold, and brushes the crumbs of leaves from his red-patched skin. When we get mostly cleaned up, Peter wants to put the leaves in trash bags, but I inform him that Oma won’t allow it, because she loves leaves on the lawn.

  While the others go into the house, I follow Peter to the car so he can grab his bag and change out of his leaf-infested clothes. “I think I’ve found him,” I tell Peter as he rummages through neatly folded shirts and sweaters.

  “Found who?” he asks, as he slips a clean white undershirt on.

  “Our father,” I say. Peter looks up.

  “He was one of the Nobel Prize donors at the sperm bank Mom went to when she lived in California.”

  Peter sets his suitcase on the ground and slams the hatch shut. He sits on the bumper and flops a clean sweater over his leg. He stares down at the gravel in the drive, not looking at me as I tell him the same things I told Milo. The story sounded like an absolute truth when I told it to Milo, but for some reason, when I tell Peter, the story sounds ridiculous even to my ears.

  Peter’s legs are spread, his hands resting on his thighs. “You know I can’t tell you anything I might know about your father, Lucy. It’s not my place to say anything, and, really, I know very little, anyway. But what I can tell you is this: You and Milo are not the products of a sperm bank. Can you trust me on this one?”

  I have that sinking, hollow feeling in my middle again. The one that comes every time I think of Grandpa Sam dying, or of not finding my father, or of Peter not becoming my second father in the event my real dad doesn’t want me. “Okay,” I say. My head is down, and Peter puts two curled fingers under my chin and lifts it so that I have to look at him.

  “Lucy, I’ve asked your mother repeatedly to please tell you children the story of your father. Lillian has begged her to too. Many times. But your mother has to feel that the time is right, and so far that hasn’t happened. Try to be patient, okay?”

  “I’m still a kid. How much patience do you think I have? Besides, I’ve waited all my life to know about him. Isn’t that long enough?

  “You want to know what, though? Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m still looking. Because most times, I just want you to be my dad. And not only for selfish reasons that could bring me bad karma either. You’d make a perfect husband for Mom, you being patient and loving and all that. Okay, maybe she’d think you were more perfect if you were an atheist, but an agnostic should be good enough. And for me and Milo, you’re perfect, no matter what your beliefs are.”

  Peter’s smiling, but there’s sadness in his smile too. “Ah, I’m not that perfect, Lucy. I drink straight out of milk cartons when no one’s looking, and I’m fanatical about my books being in order but I leave dirty clothes on the floor. I’m grumpy when I don’t get enough sleep, and I fart in the morning.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, “… well, except for the farting part.”

  Peter laughs and takes my hand as he leads me to the house.

  “Lucy?” Oma’s voice rings out from Grandpa Sam’s room the second we get inside. “Could you please give me a hand?” Oma wants to distract me so that Peter and Mom can spend some time alone now, of course, and she doesn’t need to ask twice. I want Mom and Peter to have that time. I want them to gaze into each other’s eyes with dilated pupils and to feel a surge of warmth when their hands meet. I want Mom’s trust hormone to kick into overdrive and then, before the night is done, Peter to reach into his breast pocket and pull out a poem that makes Mom want to be his forever.

  As I skip off to Grandpa Sam’s room, I leave Peter in the kitchen, where Mom has two cups of coffee waiting on the table. For the moment, I don’t mind not knowing about my birth father.

  chapter

  TWENTY

  I SIT CROSS-LEGGED on my bed in the quiet house, Sammy lying in the nest my legs make. I’m watching out the window. Staring at the patches of road between the night-blackened trees, waiting for the beams from Peter’s SUV to light them.

  “Don’t wait up, honey,” Oma told me before she turned in. “They’ll no doubt stop to have a drink or go for a drive after leaving Mitzy’s. You need your rest; you’ve had a long day.” What she really meant, of course, was that Mom and Peter need their privacy. And while I know that’s true—and I want them to have it—I just need to know that something magical and permanent has happened between them tonight.

  I doze off while sitting upright and don’t wake until I hear Feynman’s three short barks. “They’re back,” I whisper to Sammy.

  My legs are stiff when I unbend them. I hurry to the window and peer down into the drive.

  The passenger door opens first, then slams shut with a whomph. I see a dark shadow hustling toward the house. The driver’s side door opens next, and I hear the muffled call of Mom’s name.

  I’d left my door ajar so I could hear Mom and Peter pad up the stairs when they got home, and I hurry to it to listen. The back door scrapes across the floor, and then the bathroom door closes hard. I hear Peter’s low whispers as he repeats Mom’s name at the bottom of the stairs. My heart falls when the bathroom door opens and Mom’s footsteps—a single pair—begin up the stairs. “Tess, please,” I hear Peter plead quietly. “Don’t do this. Let’s finish this discussion.”

  The stairs stop creaking. “I’ve nothing more to say,” Mom says. “Just leave it alone.”

  “Leave what alone? Us? Tess, you can’t shut out the reality of what we have together any more than you can shut out the reality of your past. It works for a time, maybe, but it’s still there, whether you’re looking at it or not. It’s all there.”

  “Are you saying that I’m not facing the reality of my past?” Mom says in what is supposed to be a whisper but isn’t. “I’m living in this graveyard, Peter. I face it every single day I’m here.”

  “Honey, please. You’ll wake your mother and the children. Come down. Let’s go outside. It’s a nice night for this time of year. Let’s grab a blan
ket and sit on the back porch like lovers, and talk.” Peter makes his voice boyish as he says the last part.

  For a moment there’s no response, which means Mom is caving. I don’t waste any time. My room overlooks the porch, and with my window cracked and the night air in the country void of any sounds on calm nights but for the soft murmur of nature, it’s likely I’ll hear something.

  I sit on the floor, my head just to the side of the windowsill, and wait for the downstairs door to open and close. Then I hear them, talking. I can’t make out any words, only the low hum of Peter’s voice. That is, until Mom gets upset, and her voice rises.

  “I have a right to my privacy!” she says. “And she had no business telling you anything! What is it with this family, anyway? Can’t anyone respect anyone else’s privacy? Crissakes, I can see where Lucy gets it from.

  “And besides, what my mother told you is probably not even the truth. We don’t talk about what happened—I don’t want to!—but I know her well enough to know that by this point she’s filtered reality through a sieve of New Age beliefs in an effort to find the good in something that was only heinously tragic.”

  “I wouldn’t know if she told me the truth,” Peter says, and he sounds annoyed, “because you’ve never told me your version of what happened—only that he ‘had problems’ and that you left him. Why didn’t you tell me the rest, Tess? Jesus, don’t you see how it would have helped me understand you better? What good has it done to keep this a secret? From me, or from the children, for that matter? You give it more power by keeping it hidden.”

  I make two fists, lift them above my head, and silently give Peter a cheer.

  “Upstairs you have a little girl who is so desperate to find her father that she’s checking out sperm-bank donor information. She thinks that she and her brother were conceived through artificial insemination with sperm donated by a Nobel Prize winner. Did you know that?” I unclench my fists and drop them to my drawn knees. Peter can add another flaw to his list, right above farting. He’s also got a big mouth!