by P D Singer
“Gramps said it first, but the echo chamber from the rest of the family pretty much drowned out her squawking.” Shari chuckled through the turn.
Wonder what united the whole clan against one of the elders? I would have asked what caused Gramps to say something that emphatic, except— “How is Gramps?”
Because Mom could probably contain Dad if necessary, but Grammy had been gone for five years now, and wouldn’t be around to moderate Gramps’s opinions if he took exception to the news I was bringing.
Assuming Grammy was okay with me, which maybe I shouldn’t assume. I’d always been her darling, and her loss was a hole in the family, not just my heart. Let me imagine her gentle admonishment of, “Now, Ray, he’s our grandson and we love him no matter what.”
Because Gramps had never, that I’d ever seen, bucked Grammy on matters of the family.
He had to miss her so bad. They’d been married fifty-two years when she passed on. Fifty-two years and three kids, and they’d been such a team. I loved them both from the bottom of my heart, and disappointing them was a big part of my keeping my mouth shut.
“Doing great!” Shari said, and pulled into the long, clogged drive at my parents’ home.
Kurt had been a warm and comforting presence behind me, and he was probably taking detailed notes on the dirt Shari dished. His situational awareness was second to none. Same for his sense of gambling. I ought to give him a quick rundown on who not to take on for “contributions to Jake’s scholarship fund” aka sucker bets, but hey, anyone who got upset about us was fair game. Even family.
I flipped the passenger seat up and gave him a handout.
He stretched, carefully articulating each joint, and popping slightly at the ankle. He looked up into my eyes, not touching me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” As good as I was gonna get before I knew how this would play out. “We’ll probably get mobbed the minute we walk in the door. You’re okay with being introduced as my friend until I have a chance to talk with people privately?”
A shadow flickered across his face, but Kurt nodded. “I told you, whatever you need.”
We grabbed our backpacks from the Camaro’s trunk and followed Shari up the wide asphalt drive. The horse chestnut trees had shed most of their leaves, which lay on the ground, mixed with the vivid red and yellows fallen from the maples and ash. You can fit a hell of a lot of trees on a third of an acre and leave a lot of pesky grass to mow, or rake.
Kurt knelt to pick up something. “What is this?” He showed me a spiky sphere about an inch across. “There’s a lot of them.”
Any excuse to linger outdoors. “It’s a horse chestnut. Don’t eat it, it’s full of hydroxycoumarins.” The spiky outside was a warning.
“Hy-whats?” Kurt reached to his pocket and grumbled when he couldn’t find the knife that he’d left behind to avoid antagonizing the TSA.
“Blood thinners. Those things will fuck up your clotting.” I bent to scoop up a handful. “Here’s what they’re good for.”
I pitched one at Shari’s back. She yipped with the surprise, and bent over, gathering her own missiles in a split second.
I had the advantage of being armed, she had the advantage of not carrying a pack. She hurled horse chestnuts back at me as fast as she could. I threw the prickly balls at her.
Kurt scooped up a handful too, and froze.
Chivalry or something. I could have told him Shari would take advantage of that, but he figured it out when a well-aimed missile smacked him on the shoulder and clung to his sweater. Followed by a barrage, the ones she could spare from hurling at me.
We bombarded each other with horse chestnuts and the air rang with our laughter. Somehow we stopped, though Shari threatened one last shot. We had to de-burr Kurt, who’d collected a fair amount of ammo on his sweater.
He chuckled and allowed us to pluck him. “You guys are nuts.”
“We are,” I agreed. Kurt’s siblings were a lot older than he. More like auxiliary parents than brother and sister. I’d promised to share my mom, and now he’d gotten a dose of older sister. Guess he liked it.
“So are you.” Shari grinned, and pulled Kurt down to kiss his cheek. “Welcome to the family, other-brother.”
CHAPTER 3
We came through the garage and into the kitchen—family didn’t use the front door. We got mobbed before we could even drop our packs.
“How ya doing?” and “Jake! Good to see you!” rang through the house. Seemed our gravitational pull sucked up most everyone, to thunk my back, hug, kiss, or otherwise greet me. It had been a couple of years since I’d seen the aunts and uncles and most of the cousins.
Mom got me first, greeting me with a catch in her voice and a hug. I squeezed her with both arms, to reassure her that I could. Last time she’d seen me, I’d been freshly perforated and barely able to lift my right arm to shoulder height. She got the message, I think, pulling back to look up into my eyes with both hands on my upper arms. “I’m so glad you’re home, Jake!”
Had to hug her again just for that.
Damn, but it was good to see Dad. Phone calls and random texts weren’t any substitute for the big bear hug he wrapped me in, warming me almost enough to ignore the icy fear inside. And Gramps—a little older, a little shorter than I remembered, but his grin just as wide and his embrace just as loving.
I hoped some of that would survive this holiday.
When the melee had died down enough that I wasn’t manhandled by four people at once, I noticed that Mom had just greeted Kurt with a hug and a kiss to the cheek and had started introducing him to people as “Jake’s partner, they were rangers together.”
I love my mom. With her arm linked in Kurt’s, he’d get first introductions and the warmest welcome. Dad shook his hand, so did Gramps, and “Hi, Kurt!” rang out from the part of the crowd not close enough for contact. If my mom liked him, that was good enough for most of the family.
So far so good on the introductions, the dozen or so still in the kitchen. I’d reinforce the names one on one: my family had overwhelmed my friends before, though Kurt faced the mob with a smile on his face and only a trace of “deer-in-the-headlights.” If I didn’t know him so well, I might have missed it.
“Give us a minute to drop our stuff, and we’ll be right back.” I commandeered Kurt. “Let me show you where everything is.”
The house was positively cavernous compared to our postage-stamp apartment and anywhere we’d lived together. I guided Kurt down the hall to the bedroom end. “Second door on the left is us, first door is our bathroom.”
Mom and Dad hadn’t changed my room much, though I’d taken down a lot of what had made the place mine. The skating ribbons, my collection of Pokémon cards, the die cast metal cars, all had been boxed up and stashed in the closet. The walls were bare of everything except my high school diploma and one framed poster of Albert Einstein proclaiming “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”
I believed this far more now than when I’d hung it on the wall.
My bunk bed was neatly made, top and bottom, though I’d last slept in it winter break my senior year of college. Close to two years ago. The double bed of the lower level had a new blue paisley comforter, while the twin top bunk, usually the domain of sleepover guests, had the blue and white stripes I’d left behind.
I dropped my backpack on the floor next to the dresser that still held clothing from high school. I should go through and sort it out, pass along what could be salvaged and part with the singleton socks and stretched out underwear that never made it to Colorado.
Kurt dropped his pack next to mine. “Dibs on top bunk.”
Not what I had planned. Not what I wanted. Not—not a bad idea. Maybe better than my first idea. “You should have the bottom, it’s wider. I’ll take the top.”
“And your feet will stick out at the bottom. I’m shorter, and I ne
ver get the top bunk.” Kurt headed up the ladder to survey.
“You’re not that much shorter.” He was five-ten to my six foot, and what about this “never"? We didn’t have a top bunk to debate.
Maybe it was for the benefit of any passers-by. Though the party was mostly in the public areas of the house, someone might head this way to the bathroom. I shut the door.
“You don’t think we should bunk together?” Not that the question hadn’t twisted my mind in the days leading up to our trip.
“I will do whatever you want, Jake.” Kurt came down two steps of the ladder to step into my arms. “If you feel squidgy about sleeping together in your parents’ house, I’d understand. I’m trying to make this easy on you.”
“Nothing about this is easy,” I confessed into the side of his neck. “It should be okay, I’m an adult, you’re an adult, we’re committed, but…” But the idea of the parents hearing us do what close proximity in a bed usually led to gave me the jitters, and sleeping next to Kurt without getting friendly on him, at least kisses… “I thought we’d both sleep on the bottom, it’s a little narrower than we’re used to, but…”
“But you’re getting second thoughts. It’s okay. Whatever you’re comfortable with, and it’s not like you have to decide right now.” Kurt kissed my jaw. “When it’s bedtime, we’ll sort it out.”
A lot of things could change by bedtime. We might be torturing the credit card for a night at whatever hotel had an open room, or staking out a row of seats at the airport waiting for our rescheduled flight.
I had to have more faith in my father. Mom was cool with us, and she loved Dad, she wouldn’t make a horrible error of judgment in him…
My heartburn blazed up like a forest fire, and I hadn’t even eaten the mashed rutabaga yet.
“It’s okay, Jake. However this turns out, we’re together, and it’ll be okay.” Kurt’s reassurances helped my heart, if not my esophagus. “I love you, and they love you, and it will all work out.”
I didn’t want to let go—if we stayed in here long enough, everyone could start drawing conclusions and I wouldn’t have to say anything at all, they’d figure it out…. But people were waiting for us, and I couldn’t just hide. I released Kurt with a squeeze. “It will.”
It had to.
CHAPTER 4
Wandering back out into the fray was good for a lot of “School’s fine, my shoulder’s good, yeah, it’s weird to be back in a city” kind of talk. I managed to listen more than I spoke, with Kurt at my elbow for the, “We were forest rangers together, yeah, Jake’s a great guy, really glad to be included” notes in the social symphony.
We circulated through the living room and kitchen, making one on one introductions. Most of the aunts and uncles were pretty chill in general—I concentrated on avoiding the obvious problems.
Aunt Becky was good for hugs and news of the far-flung older cousins. Aunt Cindy told me my old high school led their division in football, and how my cousin Elliott the wide receiver was singlehandedly responsible. Elliott himself was in the TV room watching the Lions game, yelling or groaning with every play, along with most of the cousins and a good helping of the relatives, plus some folks I didn’t recognize and some that I did. Not unusual: this family accumulated people, and if there were fewer than thirty-five in the house tonight, I’d be surprised.
Uncle Steve caught us in the breakfast nook, wanting to discuss the future of health care with me, because obviously as a pharmacy student I not only understood every nuance but wanted to hear his fabulous ideas how to fix a broken system.
I might have to put up with my dad’s brother pontificating, but Kurt didn’t. “Go check out the game,” I suggested, and only after he headed into the adjacent room did I realize the only open seat was on the L shaped sectional couch next to Uncle Ed.
Kurt had survived forest fires, avalanches, and bear encounters. He’d probably survive Uncle Ed.
Shari caught my eye from the counter where she lay out forks and napkins for the buffet style serving. This house was big, but not “tables to seat thirty-five” big, and we’d break into groups to eat at any available seating. Between the kitchen table, the island, the game table in the TV room, and the dining room table with all its leaves in, we usually had enough table for the adults.
It’s casual but it’s worked for years, and if Kurt and I ended up cross-legged on the living room floor with our plates on the coffee-table, next to the midling cousins, that was fine because it gave Gramps and Great-grandmother Viola seats in the dining room.
“Help me!” I mouthed, but Shari only giggled and opened the silverware drawer again for the knives.
“Of course, you have a vested interest…” Uncle Steve pursued his topic like Kurt pursued elk, and I was feeling just as skewered as Kurt’s prey. There had to be thirty-three possible conversations I’d like better than this one—I cast around for escape.
“Big topic, Uncle Steve, don’t think we can solve it tonight.” I seized the opportunity of him drawing breath for another seventy-five-paragraph monologue to extract myself. I turned and nearly smacked into another relative.
“Hi, Aunt Patrice!” I said to this rescue from an unlikely quarter. “Tell me how you’ve been.”
My show of interest pleased her: she almost cracked a smile. At least she twitched, and proceeded to tell me about her new Bible study group and the meditations she read after her daily allotment of Scripture.
I might have been too quick to abandon Uncle Steve and the woes of the health care system. Could I do a quick sidestep and leave them droning at each other?
Or summon Mom to join the conversation? She had some stout rules about unacceptable topics for holiday conversations, and Bible study group even in general terms was perilously near the line. I opted for something noncommittal.
“It sounds like you’re getting a lot out of your group.” I did a quick calculation on how long I had to listen to be polite, and came up with a duration much too long for my taste. I’m sure Mom needed help getting a twenty-five-pound bird out of the oven, or Aunt Becky needed me to run the corkscrew, or Nicole needed her ring admired, any second now…
“So, that young man you brought with you.” Aunt Patrice snapped my attention back to her. “Kurt Carlson? Is he right with God?”
“I’m sure he is.” Kurt was the best human being I’d ever met, and I’ll punch anyone who says different. So what if he had a strained relationship with religion? More likely he had a strained relationship with churchy people who’d ask the sort of question that just came out of her mouth.
“But do you know?” The Grand Inquisitor looked ready to get out the thumbscrews for one or both of us.
“I know he’s a good man, and I also know Mom’s going to be put out with you for asking.” Religion as a topic was forbidden at holiday gatherings after a memorable discussion that turned into a shouting match with flipped platter. I didn’t mind invoking the highest authority.
“Diane’s silly rules.” Aunt Patrice sniffed, which made her resemble a basset hound. “My younger sister can be so controlling.”
Before I could snap back on that, she took her next shot. “Are you right with God?”
To think Aunt Patrice wondered why she was nobody’s favorite.
“Damn right I am.” The casual profanity should give her something to clutch her pearls about. And I was done. She might be my parents’ generation, but she was so far out of line she’d forfeited any deference for her age.
‘Well!” She sniffed harder. “No need to get shirty about it. There’s just so much—” she glanced into the TV room where Kurt, Uncle Ed, Gramps, and another fifteen people cheered some well-executed play “—immorality about these days.”
She had no cause to look at Kurt like that, or question him, or me. She should question whether she had the right to speak for the deity she was so gung-ho about. Before I came up with something—anything, rude or not—to shut her down
, Mom stepped in, her oven-mitted hands full of sweet potato casserole.
“Patrice. You were warned.” Mom may only come up to my shoulder, but the wise fear her. A “just finished a round of golf,” fifty-coughcough lady is easily the scariest person in this house.
“I know, Diane.” Aunt Patrice stretched the O long enough to make it sound like an eyeroll.
“Remember that.” Mom didn’t even have to snap to make her point. “This family lives by Matthew 7:1.”
Aunt Patrice found someplace else to be. Away from me was good enough. “Oh look, Ed wants another drink.”
Uncle Ed probably shouldn’t have one—I couldn’t pick out the conversation from here, but he seemed to be haranguing Kurt about something. I’m sure I had at least seven more people to introduce him to, football game or no. Or seventeen, or whoever was in the living room solving the problems of the world.
At least Aunt Patrice headed toward the living room. Probably the only way to regulate Uncle Ed was to make him get out of the chair himself.
My own exit had a delay. “Mom? Matthew 7:1?” I couldn’t recall the verse, though I could dig my phone out of my pocket. It wasn’t the latest or greatest, but it was smart enough to cough up the text.
“Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Mom went serenely on her way to the oven, where the casserole joined at least three other side dishes.
I went to retrieve Kurt from whatever diatribe he was being subjected to. Uncle Ed waved me over. “Tell this guy that you weren’t in any danger from dying from that arrow wound.”
Whut?
Some vestige of automatic respect for the elders kept me from snorting in his face. Instead, I parked my backside on the arm of the adjacent easy chair with a quick glance at the game clock on the TV. Middle of the third quarter, Lions had the ball, second down. We wouldn’t be eating for a while, so no immediate rescue from a call to table.
My cousin Ivy yielded the armrest and patted my thigh in solidarity. She didn’t like Uncle Ed any better than I did. Midway between me and Shari, Ivy had been our constant companion growing up. As staunch an ally as I had in this family, short of my parents. Well, Mom. Hopefully Dad, too: we’d see later tonight.
