Relative Strangers

by Paula Garner

  Thinking about my mysterious history led to thoughts about the tin of buttons. I opened them at my desk and pored through them, googling antique button websites. I was thrilled to identify one as being from a British Army General Service Corps uniform from World War I. From there, I fell into videos about the home front in England during the First World War, shocked at the ways it affected the lives of children, many of whom had to take on the duties of their departed fathers. And the women, flocking to work in munitions factories and to operate the railways. The rationing, the brothers and fathers and sons who never came home . . .

  Before I knew it, it was evening and time to go to Eli’s for some respite of the liquid variety.

  “You want to take the car?” my mom asked as I came into the kitchen. “You can.”

  An olive branch. I trust you, she was saying.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, staring at the floor. “About what I said.”

  “It’s okay.” She pulled a frozen meal out of the microwave. “I have that coming.”

  I glanced up, but there was no sarcasm there.

  She shrugged and pulled the plastic cover off her meal. Tuna noodle casserole, by the smell of it. “I’m an addict. That’s my reality.”

  “I’m still sorry,” I said.

  We stood there for a minute, marinating in the awkward silence. Finally, I said, “You’ve been going to a lot of meetings. Should I be worried?”

  She took a breath and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “I don’t think there’s any point to your worrying,” she finally said.

  “Maybe if I knew what made you relapse, I would know what to watch for, when to worry.”

  She blanched, then reached for the pepper on the table.

  “Seriously?” I leaned in front of her, forcing her to look at me. “You’re just going to ignore me?”

  “I’m not ignoring you.” Her tone was quiet, measured.

  “What happened to that boy in the picture? Your so-called best friend.”

  She paled, then glanced down at the pepper shaker. “That’s . . . it’s hard to talk about.”

  And that was it — I snapped. “It’s been eighteen fucking years! Why can’t you talk about it? He held me! He was there when I was born, and it’s not like I had a village of other people. I want to know who he was and what happened to him. Why won’t you tell me?”

  She set her hand on the counter and held very still. “It’s hard,” she repeated, her voice tense as she enunciated each word. “I’m working on it.”

  “Fine, you work on it.” I strode to the door and grabbed my coat. “While you’re working on it, though, you might be interested to know that I found my foster family.”

  Her head snapped up. “What?”

  I held up my scarf, then wrapped it around my neck. “You should have thrown this out like you throw out everything else! My foster brother’s name is sewn inside it. I met him Saturday! His whole family has missed me, all these years, and I never even knew they existed.” I opened the door, then turned back. “I can’t wait to meet them.” I watched her stunned face with satisfaction for just a brief moment before I whirled and slammed the door behind me.

  My heart pounded as I made my way to Eli’s. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything. I was going to take an evening off of thinking. Less thinking, more drinking. That would be my motto for the night.

  Eli’s house, about a ten-minute walk if I pushed my pace, was in the oldest section of town — prewar two- and three-stories with the detail and craftsmanship lacking in later houses (e.g., mine). Eli’s was a Victorian, complete with a turret. He greeted me at the door, and I followed him down to the crypt, his fond term for his chosen domain in the basement. It wasn’t even a finished basement, really. The walls were sort of crumbly, and the place smelled every bit as musty as a century-plus could inflict.

  As I slipped out of my scarf and coat, Eli demonstrated our libation choices, which he had set up on an old sewing table: cherry Heering, ouzo, and the kind of tequila with a worm in the bottle. Two giant plastic cups sat alongside.

  He shrugged apologetically. “I had to pick things in the back that my dad never drinks. He’d notice if the gin or Scotch was missing.”

  A bare red light bulb was the sole source of illumination in the room, and it cast a horror-movie vibe on the punk rock posters on the wall. His computer glowed in one corner, and his desk was covered in papers and notebooks. Sloppy, sliding stacks of books lined the wall. I wrinkled my nose at a funky, ammoniac whiff in the air. “What’s that smell?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” Eli unscrewed the cap on one of the bottles. “Jay and Daisy’s cage needs cleaning.”

  I smiled, shaking my head. So Eli to name his rats after literary characters. Jay and Daisy were both boys, though (population control). I peered into the cage. This was the closest I’d ever gotten to his rats, because, truthfully, I was sort of freaked out by them. “Which is which, again?” The two rats slept in a cuddled heap under the ladder that ran up to the second level, but they opened their eyes, and the white one lifted his head.

  “Jay is the black-hooded fatty with the adorable Dumbo ears, and Daisy’s the pretty white one. You can take them out if you want.”

  “Um, that’s okay.” The rats peered out at me. Daisy’s little pink nose twitched between the bars. “Do they bite?” I called to him.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re the sweetest creatures you’ll ever meet.”

  He came over and opened the cage. Both rats jumped up and scurried to the door. He picked up Daisy and cuddled him to his face, and as he did, Jay jumped out.

  “Watch out!” I pointed. “Jay’s getting away.”

  Eli snorted. “He’s not going anywhere. He panics if he’s more than a foot from his cage. I could leave the door open all day and they wouldn’t leave.”

  He held Daisy and stroked his head. Daisy closed his eyes, seemingly content, and made sort of a squirrelly chittering sound.

  “What’s that noise he’s making?” I asked.

  “He’s bruxing.” Eli scratched behind Daisy’s ears. “It means he’s happy. Feel him — he’s vibrating.”

  “Kind of like a cat purring?” I asked, stepping closer and daring to stroke a finger down the rat’s white back. “His fur is so smooth.”

  “Rats are the cleanest. They’re obsessed with grooming. They even groom each other. It’s so cute.” And then he said in a baby-talk voice, “Aren’t they just precious?”

  He scooped up Jay, who had scurried back into the cage, and set him on his shoulder. I was endlessly fascinated by this aspect of Eli, this open, tender side that only seemed to exist for rats. I reached out and patted Jay’s head, once I was sure he wouldn’t bite me, although I did jerk away when he turned to sniff my finger.

  Eli put Daisy back in the cage and picked up Jay in both hands. “Time for your medicine, sweetheart,” Eli said in his baby-talk voice.

  “Medicine?”

  Eli pulled a tiny prescription bottle out of a small plastic storage container and shook it. “He has a respiratory infection,” he said, picking up a syringe. “Watch how good he is.” He held Jay in one hand and administered some pink stuff into his mouth with the other. Jay actually held the syringe in both hands and swallowed it down.

  “It must taste good,” I said.

  More baby talk: “Or he’s just the best wittle wattie ever, yes he is.” He kissed Jay on the head and put him back.

  “So is he all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he seems better. Fingers crossed. He’s over three years old.”

  “Is that old for rats?”

  “Yeah,” he said softly.

  Eli set them down and gave them a few Cheerios out of a Ziploc bag. They ran off to separate corners with them, Jay managing to cram two into his mouth at once. He frantically buried them under some bedding and ran back out for more.

  “That’s all for now, sweethearts,” Eli said, putting him away and closing
the cage.

  I did my best impression of a rat voice. “Clean our cage!”

  “Ha-ha.”

  I sat on his unmade bed, which smelled a little like wet dog and had visible crumbs strewn about like ants — Oreos, possibly, judging by the color and texture. Eli returned to the bottles and started pouring from them into the two cups. Then he stepped over some dirty clothes and opened a door on the table that held the red light, which turned out to be a mini-fridge. “I have fruit punch and Dr Pepper. Let’s just make an Attempted Suicide.”

  It figured that this would be the name of an Eli cocktail. “What’s in it?” I asked, sweeping crumbs off the bed onto the floor. I was starting to itch.

  “You just mix everything you have together. Kind of low-rent, but let’s face it, our lives are more Tennessee Williams than F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

  Truer words had never been spoken.

  “Can you go get some ice?” Eli asked.

  I went, partly because I was dying to get out of the itchy crumbs and partly because I rarely got to see much of his house. I’d kill to have a house as old as his, a house with character and all sorts of unknowable history in its walls. Built in 1875, Eli’s was one of the first houses to go up after the founding of Maplebrook. It had original woodwork and fixtures and claw-foot tubs. Eli said it was his mother’s dream home, not at all what his dad wanted, but after she died, he couldn’t bear to leave.

  My heart sank as I thought again of Luke and his mother. I wondered what kind of house they had, and if it was the same one I’d lived in as a baby.

  I tiptoed up the stairs, which creaked deliciously. The lights upstairs were off. A column of moonlight poured in through the front bay window and illuminated my path to the kitchen, but when I got there, I couldn’t find the light switches. I found my way to the fridge and opened the door for light while I looked for something to put the ice in. There were old copper pots hanging from a rack on the wall, so I lifted one of those from its hook and filled it with ice.

  When I got back downstairs, Eli was reciting some weird incantation while mixing the drink. I didn’t ask for a translation; ignorance is bliss. I was just looking for a distraction, not an exercise in voodoo or Satanism or whatever other dark fun he might have been invoking.

  He added ice and handed me a cup. “Cheers.”

  We clinked (more like clunked, owing to plastic acoustics) and took a slug. It was both disgusting and oddly intriguing — possibly from the black licorice flavor of the ouzo. I wasn’t sure how to pace myself. Drink it like soda? Or was it more a sipping drink? I’d been tipsy a few times but never smashed — I was still sort of a rookie where drinking was concerned. I had always been an almost pathologically well-behaved child. I thought of Luke, and not hearing from him, and chugged half the glass.

  Eli gave me a crooked grin. “Easy, girl.” He took a sip and made a face. He sat on his bed and propped himself up on lumpy pillows.

  I picked up something in a frame on his bedside table — or what passed for a bedside table. It was actually an overturned laundry basket. It was a framed newspaper article — small and kind of faded.

  “My mom’s obituary.”

  I nearly dropped it. “Eli! Why?” Why would he frame it? Why would he want that reminder so close by every day?

  “I love obituaries!” He picked it up and hugged it to his concave chest. “They’re this final tribute to a person, this way of immortalizing them. There is nothing like them in all the world.”

  I regarded him with worry, unable to think of anything to say.

  “So where are your girls tonight?” Eli asked.

  “Basketball game,” I said guiltily. I brushed off the sheets as discreetly as I could and settled in next to him.

  “Sportsball. What a waste of time.”

  I shrugged. “How’s your novel coming?”

  “Good. Mostly. There’s one part that’s kind of rough.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have this male character who’s totally in love with a woman.”

  I gasped. “A woman! That’s disgusting.”

  “Right?” He grinned. “She’s going to end up pregnant, so . . .” He made a face. “Het sex. I might need some help.”

  I snorted. “Not exactly my field of expertise, either. Besides, didn’t they cover everything you need to know in fifth grade?”

  “Oh, so it should go something like, Elmer inserted his penis into Annabelle’s vagina, ejaculated, and impregnated her? Ahh, so literary, so nuanced.”

  I laughed. “You’re a shoo-in for that Iowa program.”

  “Don’t joke!” he said, suddenly serious. “If I don’t get in . . .”

  “All is lost?” I suggested, hoping to preempt a more macabre threat.

  My phone dinged. I sighed. It was only a matter of time before my mom had something to say in response to the bomb I dropped. Or maybe it was just Gab or Leila checking my pulse.

  But it wasn’t my mom, and it wasn’t Gab or Leila. The display read Luke.

  I opened the message, my stomach writhing like a pile of eels.

  Hey, Jules! Greetings from your starving long-lost almost-brother. Behold:

  After a moment, a photo came through of a package of ramen, a chunk of Romano cheese, and a container of ground pepper.

  “What are you grinning at?” Eli said. “Don’t tell me it’s Hottie McPianofingers.”

  “Shhh!” I typed, Luke! Are you okay? Is everything okay? I’ve been worried!

  He wrote: We’re okay. Good news is Mom is home. Tired, but home.

  I wrote, That’s good. She must be happy about that.

  He wrote. Yes. Now help me feed myself before I chew my arm off. Which will wreck my piano career and it will all be your fault.

  I grinned, elbowing Eli away as he tried to peek at my screen. It’s so easy. Boil water. Cook ramen. Drain some of the water but leave a little. Throw in more pepper than you’d think advisable and an embarrassment of cheese. Stir. Enjoy. Praise the Ramen Queen.

  He wrote, See, it’s things like MORE pepper or pour off SOME of the water. And what unit of measure is an embarrassment?

  I quickly typed: A LOT of pepper. More than you’d ever put on anything. Leave maybe a quarter cup of water. An embarrassment of cheese is the amount that you’d eat if no one was looking.

  He wrote: What kind of cup? Coffee cup? And I’m from Wisconsin. There is no amount of cheese I would be unwilling to publicly eat.

  I laughed giddily.

  Eli got up. “Fine. I’ll clean the cage.” He stopped and poured himself some more drink and dumped more in my cup, too, splashing some on my thighs.

  “Eli!”

  “Sorry.”

  I typed: Okay, cheesehead. Boy, you’re clueless! Sure, a coffee cup, fine. Close enough.

  He wrote, Okay, brb. STARVING.

  Eli came over and plopped the ratties right onto the bed. “Watch them, okay?”

  “What?” I squealed as they landed inches from my legs. “What do I do?”

  He tossed me a bag of Cheerios. “Here, you can give them a treat.”

  I yelped. “Eli! How long will this take?”

  “Just a few minutes, calm down. I just have to change the bedding.”

  “You should think about changing your own bedding,” I muttered.

  I opened the bag nervously. Jay scampered right over to me, but Daisy held back. “What if he bites me when I give it to him?” I yelled to Eli, who was in the laundry room.

  “Jesus fuck, Davis. You’re not gonna get hurt. Give my babies a treat.”

  I positioned a Cheerio at the very tips of my fingernails and held it out. Jay snatched it so fast that I jerked away, scared half to death. Daisy inched closer. I glanced around for Eli, and when it was clear he couldn’t see me, I tossed a few Cheerios onto the bed. Jay stopped eating to grab as many as he could. Daisy hopped over and grabbed one, then hopped away to eat it. I watched them for a few minutes, and it actually was sort of cute, the wa
y they held the Cheerios in their tiny hands. “Hey, Eli,” I called. “What keeps them from going to the bathroom on your bed?”

  “Nothing,” he called back.

  “Oh gross!” I yelled, scooting back. I startled Jay, who moved away from me, then continued munching. I felt bad, so I slowly reached out, considering petting him. He ignored me, so I tried it, stroking him lightly with one finger. He held still for a moment, pausing in his mad munching, then continued.

  Not wanting to play favorites, I reached out and petted Daisy, too. His coat was even softer than Jay’s.

  “What’s going on with Hottie?” Eli called after a few minutes.

  “His mother is home from the hospital. So that’s good. Eli, your ratties are actually almost kind of cute.”

  “Well, duh! What’s cuter than a rat?”

  I checked my phone, realizing this was taking way too long. Ramen noodles cook in two minutes! I typed: Getting worried . . .

  He responded: I was eating. It was okay. But the cheese never melted in. It stayed in a big hard lump.

  I wrote: Um . . . The cheese was grated, right?

  He wrote: GRATED??

  I shrieked with laughter, which sent the rats scurrying.

  “Hey, you scared the ratties!” Eli said. He came over and picked them up, crooning apologies at them.

  I typed: You just put a giant chunk of cheese in?

  He wrote: You said an embarrassment! And nobody told me to grate the cheese! Jeez.

  I wrote: So it wasn’t creamy and luscious?

  He wrote: No! It was watery, with a rubbery chunk of cheese.

  “What is so funny?” Eli asked, jumping onto the bed next to me, causing yet more drink to slosh onto my jeans. “You’re not drinking my amazing creation. Snob.”