Millie finally found her voice. “What happened?”
“Come,” Sophia said and led Millie down the narrow hall to the kitchen at the back of the house.
Millie watched her sister from behind. Her lean muscular figure was now skeletal. How could this happen without Millie knowing about it? How could it happen so quickly? Six months ago, her sister seemed okay. Tired and drawn—but she’d been caring for their father, and Millie had attributed her sickly appearance to grief.
They entered the kitchen. Millie was distracted by the smell of something wonderful and familiar. On the table was a lasagna pan with Millie’s favorite dish—meatball kugel, one of her mother’s specialties. The table was set for two.
“Where’s Nick?” Millie asked.
“He’s playing cards tonight. I made him get out with his friends. He needed a break. And I needed to see you, alone.”
“So talk to me.” Millie took a seat.
“Cancer. Pancreatic cancer. It’s bad, Millie.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Nick tell me?”
“He’s in denial. He thinks if he doesn’t talk about it, it will go away, like a bad cold.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Millie asked.
“I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me,” Sophia said with a sigh. “But now,” she hesitated, “I need something from you.”
“What?” Millie leaned forward. Sophia never asked her for anything. And she had never asked Sophia for anything. It was a matter of independence and pride.
“I need you to forgive me,” Sophia whispered.
Millie felt her heart collapse. She realized in a painful flash that it wasn’t about the past anymore. It was about the future—a future without Sophia always being there.
This was a day full of surprises—and not the good kind. Just another friggin’ forgiver. That’s all she was. And she reached across that big, black line and grasped her sister’s thin hand.
STEALING HOME
Clare Toohey
IT was December in New Jersey, and I was in the backyard without a jacket, just smacking angry, low liners into the wooden fence. Mom said I was being stubborn, still dressing for New Mexico instead of New Jersey, but I didn’t care. From my makeshift batter’s box, I could see the tower above NY-54, the closest missile battery protecting us from the Commies. I’d wished I could tell kids at my new school what more I knew, but Mom would only let me say Dad worked at Bell Labs.
Dad usually worked until after dark, so it was also Mom giving me batting practice or shagging balls. So far, I’d kept that private, too. Dad said earning a doctorate hadn’t allowed time for athletics, but anyone could listen to the radio, so that wasn’t any excuse for not liking baseball. Mom said it’d be fun living here with a brand-new, major league club, but over our first summer, the 1962 Mets had the worst record in the history of baseball. I told Mom it was a bad sign, but she said we were already stuck.
My brother, Chet, only five, didn’t like sports any more than Dad, but he loved reading, which he’d been doing for a boring couple of years already. Still, today, he and Dad had teamed up to betray me, going to a real-live goose farm to pick out a holiday bird without me. I’d said a hundred times I wanted to go. I wanted to see the farmer chop off the head. A kid at school said he couldn’t eat Christmas dinner afterward, but I bet him a pack of trading cards I could.
When I came back into the kitchen, there was no cocoa, even though Mom had promised, to make it up to me. We’d probably run out of milk again. She was just sitting, smoking, too, which she never liked us to catch her doing.
Mom seemed nervous, nothing like her usual, laughing self. The strangeness of that sank in before her words. “I’m sorry, Mikey . . . I don’t know if we’re going to see your dad and brother again. They upset him. They mismanaged him. I wish I knew how . . .”
“What are you talking about? Is this some joke so I won’t be mad anymore?”
She got up to flick an ash into the sink, then turned on the faucet to wash it down. “There’ll be a memorial service for them both, like your great-aunt’s funeral mass . . .”
My breath caught. “They’re dead?”
“No! No, they’re not dead!” Mom ran over and grabbed me, squeezing me so hard I was more scared. “Whatever anyone in a uniform tries to tell you, just nod and look sad. The caskets will be empty, just for show. I promise.” She smoothed my hair. “Do you know what they told me, those idiots at the lab? They said your father blew himself and your brother up.”
I pulled away and looked at her with such horror, she actually started laughing at me.
“Oh, Mikey, I’m sorrier than you know to drag you into this, but we have to stand together. I can’t believe you’re already eleven. You’re getting too old and clever to fool . . .” Her voice cracked. “I guess we’ll have to see if your navy suit still fits, and I hope my black dress is clean.”
Mom slumped into a kitchen chair and looked at the still-glowing cigarette, as if she were surprised to see it in her hand. I’d never seen my mom distracted or afraid before and I was scared. None of what she was saying made any sense. Maybe Dad and Chet would come home and we’d all drive her to the hospital. Maybe she was going nuts, like one captain’s wife had back on the base.
I tried reasoning. “But Dad can’t be gone. He was going to show me how to set up the telescope after Santa comes.”
“They never made it to the goose farm. Your father and Chet stopped at his work first. Isn’t that strange? Then, suddenly, there was a boom and fire everywhere, the men at the lab say . . .”
“When did they say that?” I challenged.
“A few minutes ago. They phoned while you were outside.”
I could’ve heard the phone ringing faintly. Maybe. I puzzled over the fire. That didn’t make sense either. “But Chet would’ve been waiting outside in the car. He would’ve gotten away. Dad never took us inside the lab. He says it’s too dangerous.”
“Even you can tell the story stinks. But I’m worried about what they did to him.”
“Did to who, Chet?”
“No, to your father. What could he have seen or heard that made him run away from home? Nothing from me, I promise you, no matter what they say.”
The sound that followed was almost a laugh, but when she reached for the dishrag to press against her eyes, I knew she was crying.
As she dabbed her runny nose, my mind skidded onto the next strange detail. I imagined my departed great-aunt lying in her open box in front of the altar stairs, marshmallow-faced and distant as the moon. “Do we have to get beads for Dad and Chet?”
Mom sniffed. “Beads?”
“Aunt Tilly had them wrapped around her fingers. You know, in her box. But Chet can’t even do a yo-yo right.”
Mom smiled for a second, then looked like someone had slugged her.
In that moment, the thought that I had a disappointing little brother was replaced with the thought that, somehow, she was saying I didn’t anymore. And I didn’t have a dad either? Even if you hardly ever saw him, you wanted one. Mom’s eyes were shiny again, but I sat down in another kitchen chair instead of bawling, because I was too confused by all of it to know what else to do.
We almost jumped out of our skins when the doorbell rang.
MOM and I answered the door together. I knew the tall blond man from barbecues, where he always had a bottle of beer and a big smile on his face. He stood there in a fancy dress uniform I’d never seen before. I was supposed to call him Major, but my parents just called him Jimmy.
Mom said Dad had a real uniform somewhere, too. Standing next to the major was an old man with a gray brush cut and a black suit. I wondered how tall he’d be if he weren’t hunched over. His face was crumpled like a used lunch bag. I’d never seen him before.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Mom asked, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m frightfully busy. Have to air out my widow’s weeds, explain to my son why he’s an only child.�
� I was glad she’d never talked in that cold voice to me.
“Darla, my condolences,” said Major Jimmy, stepping forward like he’d have given Mom a hug if she hadn’t stepped backward. Then he just stood there, looking miserable. “May we come in?” he asked. “Please?”
“I guess it’s your house again now,” Mom said, flinging the door wide so fast it startled me and them, too. She turned and went to sit on the good davenport we kept for company. “Hope you approve of what we’ve done with the decor.”
Letting the older man enter first, the major tucked his hat under his arm and stepped inside, shutting the door and turning the latch. He gestured the other man to one end of the sofa and took the chair closest to where Mom was sitting. “Maybe you’d best go to your room, son.”
“No,” Mom said, before I could budge. “Bad things happen when I let my boys out of my sight.” Her voice wobbled, but she didn’t blubber or look down, so I wasn’t going to let them see me shake either. She gestured me over until I was sitting, unhappily, right between her and the old man.
Up close, I could see frayed spots on his black cuffs. His shoes were waxy with shine, but had odd soles, thicker than my sneakers’. Besides cigarettes, he smelled like old towels. Mom reached for a long box decorated with Italian postcards.
“May I, madame?” the older man said hoarsely. Mom looked like she’d rather snap his fingers off, but she let him take a cigarette from her stash. He popped a blue-yellow flame from a fat, gold lighter behind his knobby thumb. He reached to light her cigarette, right past the end of my nose. The burning paper crackled as he sucked on his own and snapped the lighter into his coat pocket. “Our sympathies. About the fire at the lab . . .”
“Oh, there really was a fire?”
“Of course there was a fire, madame,” he said. “Recently, your husband seemed to his supervisors to be . . . preoccupied. Do you know what might have led to this tragic accident?”
She made another half-barking laugh. “If Robert was involved, you can bet it was no accident. Better ask yourself what you screwed up.”
“I talked to Robert,” the major said.
“And told him . . . what?” Mom asked, turning slowly.
“How the demands of his work made life harder for you and the boys. That I only wanted what was best for you.”
Mom stubbed out the cigarette she hadn’t even puffed and shrieked in a voice I’d never heard her use. “How dare you meddle? Are you crazy . . . or just a fool?”
So fast that I barely saw it, she slapped Major Jimmy. His head swung around, and the sound cracked and echoed. He looked ready to grab Mom or say something back, and I got ready to jump on him if I had to, but the old man put up a hand, and Mom stared the major down until he sat back.
The worst she’d ever done was tickle me. I’d never even heard her and Dad yell at each other. Everything at home had changed, and I was afraid all over again.
The old man spoke again, like nothing had happened. “Unfortunately, madame, time is of the essence. We have much to attend to.”
Major Jimmy rubbed the side of his face and cleared his throat. “Death benefits will be paid for your loss and continued cooperation, Darla. Generous ones. There’s just some paperwork to make it all official.” He loosened his brass buttons and pulled a sheaf of papers from inside his breast pocket. “We’ll take care of you. You won’t have to worry about a thing.” He gave the papers and a pen to Mom, who dropped them onto the table without even unfolding them.
“People don’t matter, Mikey, just the paper. Notebooks, printouts, schematic drawings . . .” Suddenly, she grabbed me against her again. I felt stupid being hugged like Chet’s sleeping bear, but I didn’t want to show it bothered me. Mom pressed her forehead into the back of my skull. “Will you two please go?” she asked. She was hiding her face, but her tears itched me as they sneaked down the back of my collar.
The major scooted forward and cleared his throat again. “We have to ask, Darla. Did Robert keep any duplicates of his work here?”
MOM and I leaned against the doorway of my parents’ bedroom, watching Major Jimmy take everything off their closet shelves and lay it out on the bed.
“They’re going to turn our lives inside out, Mikey. They’ve paid for something and they’re determined to get it,” she said loud enough for the major—heck, even the old man still down the hall—to hear.
After checking that the shoe boxes were all full of shoes, the major started pulling out things that didn’t belong in my parent’s closet: a brand-new baseball mitt, board games, an erector set, piles of books, and the perfect telescope, plus wrapping paper and bows.
“So much for Santa Claus.” Mom started sniffing a little again. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I already knew.”
“Did Chet know, too?”
“It’s rotten to tell the little kids.”
“Well, at least Jimmy doesn’t have to add killing Santa Claus to his list of sins.”
If I thought the major looked hangdog when he came in, he looked even lower now. But I didn’t care.
Major Jimmy said, “You should know . . . Robert always said meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“Meeting me was the worst thing for a man whose profession is death, and whose bosses demand that he be the best at it. The boys and I reminded him every day of flesh-and-blood, of consequences. We were wounds to him that could never heal.”
Mom kept patting my shoulder as she talked, but I’d never heard her sound so mean. “Would you like to check my underwear drawer, Jimmy? Maybe there’s an escape plan or prototype in there. Maybe he took Chet to the national park where we honeymooned, way back when Robert was still his own man. Shall I write down all our pillow talk for you? Tell you about the magic fingers on the hotel bed?”
The old man had sneaked up behind us, and now hunched over my shoulder like a vulture. We watched the major poking through the photos on Mom’s dresser. I wondered what he was looking for. He didn’t look like he knew either.
“Let’s allow the major to complete his task in peace, madame. You’ll never know he was here.”
“Oh, I’ll know. And I’ll throw away everything his filthy hands touched,” Mom said, turning to follow the old man back down the hallway, ushering me with her.
“I thought you and Dad were friends with the major,” I whispered.
Her answer wasn’t private. “Jimmy was never here to be our friend. More like a babysitter, but he was too easy to distract. He’s brave enough, but unlike you, he doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. And now he’s helping the people who’ve got a destroyed lab, with no genius and nothing else to show for it.”
It had never occurred to me that my dad might be important to anyone besides us. He made things work, but so did car mechanics.
“Madame, cease this foolish talk. Your grief is overwhelming you. Is there coffee, perhaps?”
I’d bet there wasn’t. Mom never bought enough of anything. She was forever going to the farthest grocery store, all the way in Middletown, but she’d come back with one teeny bag. We hardly ever had anything in the icebox or the pantry. Dad sometimes noticed it, too. She just said she’d buy more if he’d promise to be home to eat it before it spoiled.
Mom kept talking as she followed the old man toward the kitchen. “Will it be your head on the block or Jimmy’s?” The old man opened a cupboard—how did he know which one?—and grabbed a cup. “Oh, give me that,” Mom said. “I can make you tea. That’s all I’ve got.”
She swept past him and grabbed the kettle from the stove. She put a saucer with the cup on the table for the old man, who sat down to give her room to move. From the cupboard, Mom grabbed crackers and a jar of peanut butter, sitting me in front of them with a butter knife. “Humble dinner tonight, Mikey.” She put her hand on my shoulder and told the old man, “I still have plenty to lose. I promise we’ll both be quiet and behave. Now, where in the world do you think my brilliant husband has taken my
youngest son?”
So that’s what she thought. That they weren’t dead, but they’d run away from us, having another adventure to which I hadn’t even been invited.
Dad would come in and lie next to Chet in his bunk at bedtime, sometimes for a long time. They’d mutter about whatever stupid book Chet was memorizing. Dad would tell stories from the lab. They both knew I didn’t care about any of that, because it happened indoors. I liked when Dad talked about outdoor things, like astronomy and insects and volcanoes. Between my brother and me, it was the dividing line—there was just a lot more of the indoor Dad for Chet. But that’s why I’d been so furious about the goose farm. An outdoor thing, by all rights, it was mine.
Had either of them thought about taking me along? Were they cruising down the highway right now—even riding across the country on horses—while I was stuck with people talking in circles, with these men I was too small to fight without the bat I’d left outside?
Mom uncurled my hand, which had balled up into a fist around the butter knife. “It’s all right, Mikey. They wanted to track your father’s every move, his every thought, and still, they underestimated him. He broke free and slipped out of their pretty cage.”
The question burned its way out of me. “But why’d he only take Chet?”
“Your brother and father are a lot alike. Someday, you may have to protect Chet from miserable men like this old fossil. Until then, your father will keep your brother safe.”
“Stop!” the old man thundered. “Young master, your father and brother are dead! There was a fire. Perhaps it was accidental, or perhaps set by an arsonist with a grudge against this country’s defense.”
Mom hadn’t flinched. “Save the fairy tales for the evening paper.”
The old man pounded the table so hard the peanut butter jar tipped over. I caught it just as it rolled off the table’s edge, headed for the floor.
“Good eye, Mikey,” Mom said. “Quick enough reflexes for the major league.” The kettle began to whistle. “We don’t have any lemon, Mein Herr. Sorry.” She pulled open a box of tea bags and held them in front of the old man. “Ordinary Lipton’s. What are the chances I’d have poisoned them all?”
Family Matters Page 16
