Oh!

by Mary Robison

  She blinked lights and stars, but got right up, and making great sniffling sounds, she trudged back toward the house—walking more than rolling.

  16

  Thirty yards from the evergreens at the drive’s entrance gate, an old elm creaked from the weight of the truck tire tied high in the swaying tree. Chris was riding the tree.

  “Baby!” he said, the weather almost swallowing his voice. He hopped down and jogged for her in a comic crouch, then did a neat forward roll and plunked onto the seat of his chinos in time to wrap her in his arms.

  “I lost my balance and hit my head,” Violet said. “Is my chin bloody?”

  “No, no, you’re fine,” Chris said, looking at her through dark glasses that had fogged over in the wet wind. They rolled together on the lawn, clumsily because of Violet’s skates.

  “I’ll wager they sent you to get me. Did they?”

  “No, but Dad, will you look at my face? Does it look funny? I was going along and there was a hole.”

  “You’re fine. Wonderful. Unmarked. But wait a minute, you say they didn’t send you to bring me back?”

  Violet shook her head.

  “I’ll be damned,” Chris shouted. “And you’re just out here on roller skates? They let you skate around in this catastrophe?”

  “It’s okay,” Violet shouted back.

  “Listen, Vi, this is important. Howdy was supposed to talk to Mommy for me. Was he talking to Mommy? Was Howdy doing that?”

  “Howdy was in the kitchen.”

  “That’s a good sign,” Chris said. “Now you come with me to my car. If we don’t get inside somewhere, we’re going to get blown away.”

  Violet said, “Not with my skates on, I won’t.”

  Chris’s car was on the shoulder of Charity Way, tucked into some spiraea shrubs. Violet got into the jump seat and inspected the tools Chris kept back there in a wooden box. She tipped the carpenter’s level. She drew on her hand with the grease pencil. She tore a blueprint into bits and let them fly from the window.

  Chris made a steeple with his fingers. He said, “Howdy has five minutes and then I make my move. In five minutes, I hit the goddamn beach.”

  17

  Maureen was furious. She was also drunk. She took some punches at the furniture, landed left hooks and right crosses on the couch.

  “Are you finished, do you think?” Howdy said.

  “Howdy, you’re so fucking dumb. How did I get such an asinine brother? Always stumbling around in some half-lit world.”

  “All right, I’m dumb,” Howdy said. “Now deal with the question.”

  “Get fucked,” Maureen said.

  Stephanie excused herself and went for the hall bathroom.

  “I saw what you did to the hedges!” Maureen yelled after her.

  Howdy said, “Just let me know when you’re all through, Mo.”

  “How could you live here and be around me all the time and not know what Chris does to me? How could you let him invade the sanctity of this house? And expose him to Violet? Don’t you know how smart he is? How smart he really is? He fools you because he can act so reasonable and make such sense. I can’t believe he suckered you, Howdy, when you should really remember this stuff.”

  “Just let me know when you’re done.”

  “Idiot!” Maureen yelled.

  Howdy looked at his folded arms and elbows, pretending patience. “Now, listen,” he said. “Maybe the problem is I don’t know Chris the way you do. But I don’t frankly know why he makes you so insane. All right, so he does. Believe me, I can see that he does. But please understand that this was supposed to be doing you a favor.”

  “Say no more to me,” Maureen said.

  “Will you wait a minute?” Howdy said. “And hear what I’m trying to say? We’ll stay in the room with you, Steph and me. We’ll all listen to whatever Chris is going to say. He’ll get twenty minutes, no more. Then he goes—forever—just the way he promised. You get rid of him forever, Mo.”

  “Oh, I believe that,” Maureen said.

  “He swore. In front of witnesses.”

  “You pathetic asshole,” Maureen said.

  “I gotta tell you, Mo, I’ve never heard you talk like this. To tell you the truth, it’s a little frightening.”

  Maureen dumped herself down in a chair, her full skirt floating up over her thighs nearly to her underpants. She yawned and said, “I’m frightening? Is that what you’re saying? I’m frightening?”

  Howdy turned away. He said, “Hey, Mo, could you cover yourself up and button your blouse and quit playing the drunken floozy? Because if you go on talking and acting like you’ve been doing, Dad’ll come out here and say you shouldn’t be allowed to drink anymore. Besides, we learned in acting workshop that truly drunk people make an enormous effort to act normal. I mean, you can tell they’re drunk because they’re overly prim and cautious, which is what a good actor does.”

  Maureen said, “Acting workshop! Really, Howdy, if I were you, I swear I’d kill myself.”

  “I’m just a person trying,” Howdy said. He took a small sip from his drink and settled the glass back on a table. “And the guy I had for that class was a real authority. Christ, he’d been a chess partner of Arthur Miller’s. Anyway, Mo, maybe this isn’t the time to say this, but I’ve been thinking.”

  “Please,” she said, “you’re going to make me laugh and I don’t want to.”

  “I’ve got this idea,” Howdy said, ignoring her. “I started thinking about it last spring and it just stays with me. I’m going to Ireland. I’ve decided I’m going to Ireland to see Mother.”

  “I know, I know. You and Stephanie are going on a bicycle ride around Europe.”

  “Skip Europe,” Howdy said, raising both his hands to wipe everything aside. “Don’t you want to see your own mother? I always thought, when I was a kid, that she was—like, you know, unreachable. And then I realized, hell, she’s just in Ireland, for crying out loud.”

  Maureen arranged her dress and straightened her posture.

  “So why don’t you and I go see her?” Howdy said. “What’d be so wrong with that? She’d be uncomfortable at first. So would we. But then we’d go to the theater or dinner and we’d all loosen up. She probably misses us. She’s probably ashamed and guilty. And we could both just say, ‘It’s all right, Mother, we’re okay, we love you and you’re forgiven.’”

  After a long moment, Maureen said, “We ought to go for her sake if for no other reason. We could let her off the hook about us. All we’d really want to do is kind of be friends with her. She’s getting old by now. There’s no guarantee she’ll be around forever.”

  “True,” Howdy said.

  “Showing Violet to Mom would be good, letting Violet meet her grandmother.”

  “Right!” Howdy said. “And this Chris thing, it was just to close that chapter for you, once and for all, Maureen. It’s something we’re all dreading, but then you can move on. After today, if he shows up again, we’ll just have him arrested. See, the thing is, Mo, since I’ve known Steph, I feel I can do anything. My only problem is finding what’s most important to do.”

  “Mother,” Maureen said.

  18

  Something pushed against the flanks of Chris’s car, rocking it. “My God, is this the end of the world?” he said. He picked up Violet’s hand and held it a minute.

  “Can’t we go?” she said.

  “Let’s just sit and talk awhile. How’ve you been, hon? I saw something interesting on the way over here. I saw this woman with a shaved head.”

  Violet said, “Can we go in, Dad? I got hiccups and I need a glass of water.” She held up her stubby index finger, signaling for him to listen, and then she hiccuped twice.

  “We can fix you, Vi. Look at me. Don’t laugh. Take a deep, deep breath.”

  “I’m doing it,” Violet said in a voice from the base of her throat.

  Chris waited. He brought from the wing of his blazer a cardboard folder of Hava Tampa Je
wels and a wallet-sized bottle of Johnny Walker—Black. “Hello, John. My name’s Chris,” Chris said. He uncapped the bottle and drank. He lit a cigar. “Let go of your breath now, baby.”

  She wagged her head no.

  “You really better. You’re turning colors. No? Another thing I saw on the way over, just in passing—this was a woman sitting on top of a wrecked car. I mean it, no kidding, Violet, you really better let go.”

  Violet forced another ten seconds before she exhaled.

  “All right,” Chris said, “it’s thirty-one hundred hours or twelve o’clock high. Do I look handsome enough for your mom?” He punched open the glove compartment and lifted out a shard of mirror. He ran it in the air in front of his face. He fluffed his hair.

  “Not that way,” Violet told him. She pressed a wave against his temple. “Ooh, gross,” she said, as her wrist brushed the stubble on his jaw.

  “I look splendid,” he said. “Thanks.” He showed her a front view. Violet fixed his hair some more.

  “Is that really better?” He checked his reflection.

  “Make your bangs lay down.”

  Chris patted his forehead. “Okay?”

  “There!” Violet said.

  “It’s now or never,” Chris said.

  They got out of the car, and he pulled her through the wind toward the house. At the door, he threw his cigar into the shrubbery before he rang the bell.

  19

  Goodness,” Maureen said. She was watching the television. Brigitte Bardot’s bare back was to the camera. She had dropped her bed sheet and was standing naked for several actors in Nazi uniforms. “My heavens,” Maureen said. “Hello, Chris. Do come in. You’ll like this on TV.”

  “Stephanie, Howdy, Maureen,” Chris said. He tossed them all a nervous salute. Behind him, Violet jangled on her skates.

  “Can they show this?” Maureen said, her speech noticeably slurred. “Isn’t that her backside?”

  Howdy and Stephanie left their places on the hearth and came around for a better view of the screen. Chris squinted. He was only a little way into the room. There was a cut in the movie to some partisans stuffing TNT under a railroad tie. Everyone watched through the next scene, and then the next. Then a ribbon of white words moved across the bottom of the picture.

  “There is a tornado warning in effect for Rope County,” Howdy read aloud.

  “That’s us, Violet,” Maureen said. “We’re Rope.” Howdy shushed her. They heard that part of the tornado had touched down to the south of them, knocking hell out of a block of homes.

  “What we need is more drinks,” Maureen said.

  “I like this,” Stephanie said. “If it weren’t so cold.”

  “No, honey, you don’t,” Howdy said. He shook his head. “Some people were killed from it already.”

  “The cold feels good to me,” Chris said. “Many’s the day I’ve stood around grocery stores at the freezers just for the good old cold.”

  “Do we go to the basement?” Maureen said.

  “I think I’ve heard the bathroom is best,” Chris said.

  “It’d be crowded if we all go to the bathroom,” Stephanie said.

  Violet was on the floor, picking at the knots in her skate laces. She gave up and went to the kitchen. Maureen could hear her rolling on the linoleum.

  “Don’t hang around on the shore of the carpet, Chris,” Maureen said. “And, Howdy, why don’t you mix more drinks so Chris can have one.”

  Chris said, “Where should I be that wouldn’t make you nervous? Just say where I should be, Mo.”

  “Not by the damned door,” she said.

  Howdy led Stephanie out. Chris lowered himself onto the ottoman in front of Maureen’s chair. “Thank you for letting me in,” he said.

  “Yeah, fine,” Maureen said.

  “May I tell you how great you look in that dress?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was supposed to have all this stuff to say to you,” Chris said.

  “You know, you are cute,” Maureen said.

  “So are you,” Chris said.

  “Stand up.” They both got up and Maureen fitted herself against him. She dipped her head and wetly kissed his throat.

  “Man,” he said. “Lord.”

  She gave him a sleepy smile. “So where did you catch Violet?”

  “On the drive out there. She’d just done a somersault and smacked her chin. But she’s perfectly okay. Can we go somewhere private?”

  “And waste your time? You’ve only got about fourteen minutes left.”

  Chris turned his back.

  Violet appeared with a cereal bowl. “Please go, Violet,” Chris said.

  Violet looked at her mother, who said, “You don’t have to, Vi. Just promise you’ll be quiet.”

  Chris said, “Please, for me.”

  Violet went to the TV and sat in front of the screen, her legs bracketing her bowl of cereal.

  “This,” Chris said, through locked teeth, “is the most control you’ll ever see anyone exhibit. And only because you’re crocked, Mo. See? I’m not going to do either of the two things my body screams for me to do. I’m not going to.”

  “Settle down,” Maureen said.

  “A big, big part of me wants to crumple at your feet—believe it or not—under the soles of your shoes.”

  “For sex,” Maureen said.

  “For love,” he said.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. “You know I’m not against sex. Sex is all right. True, it’s a lot of bother. It just means work—new underwear all the time, special perfume, legs perfectly shaved. When someone suggests an affair to me, I just think work.”

  “Like who?” Chris said.

  “Lay off, will you?” Maureen said.

  “And the other thing I want to do is give you a short, devastating left hook in the stomach.”

  “Vi, go help your uncle,” Maureen said.

  Violet didn’t move.

  “Violet!” Maureen screeched.

  “All right, Mom, I’m going. God!”

  When she was gone, Maureen said, “You belong in prison. You’re violent. You’re crazy. You broke teeth.”

  “I chipped one tooth,” Chris said. “And you drove me to it. No sane human being could have done otherwise.”

  “It’s my fault that someone acts like a savage? I don’t care what you say, no man should ever hit. If he can’t stop himself, he ought to be locked up for the rest of his life.”

  “What are you doing to me?” Chris screamed. “I came here to plead with you. How did you get this turned around?”

  “Mo?” Howdy called from the kitchen.

  “It’s all right,” she called back.

  “Thank you,” Chris said. “Bless you for that.”

  “Hmph,” Maureen said. “I’m just not afraid of you anymore. I’m fucking numb. I hope you hit me, so you can go to the penitentiary. Anyway, I’m going away to live with my mother in Ireland and I’m taking Violet. So I really don’t care what you do. Go ahead and bash me one. God forbid you should leave without getting your kicks.”

  “Oh, that’s so stupid it takes the anger right out of me,” Chris said. “Thank you for that stupidity. Howdy! How are those drinks shaking up?”

  “In a minute!” Howdy called back.

  “Listen,” Chris said. “I came here to say I really want to try living with you again. I need to see my daughter more than every once in a while. I’ll do anything you say—whatever you say. I’ll tag along to Ireland or wherever, and I won’t touch you.” He held up both hands. “I’ll work hard to support you.”

  “Maybe I was believing you until you said that.”

  Chris said, “Would it mean anything if I told you I don’t see anyone else? Not ever? That’s proof, isn’t it?”

  “It would mean something if I believed you,” Maureen said. “But I don’t.”

  20

  Virginia said, “Are you better now?”

  “Just want to sit,” Cleveland
said.

  “Then sit we shall,” Virginia said.

  “The deck has stopped tilting, but the wallpaper’s still falling on me,” Cleveland said. “This is no goddamn way to feel. I got a big fire in my gut.”

  “Maureen says you’re getting fragile, wearing down.” Virginia lowered her voice. “I felt like telling her just how robust her father is.”

  Cleveland sat up stiffly.

  “Poor old bird,” Virginia said, embracing him and rocking him back and forth on the bed.

  “I’ll live. I’d sure hate to miss you being sweet. I’m in a big mess, aren’t I?”

  “Are you unhappy?”

  “I’m settling down. The worst is over,” Cleveland said.

  “Shall we tell them tonight? When you’re feeling better? About the twentieth?”

  “Don’t care,” he said.

  “May I look at the piano room while you rest? I need to get an idea of space.”

  “Have at it,” Cleveland said.

  She propped her chin on his shoulder. “Poor old bean. You just want to be left alone and here I am cuddling you, driving you nuts. Can I bring you anything?”

  “Sorry. Really sorry.” Cleveland lay back on the bed. “Don’t move too fast, is all.”

  Virginia got a washcloth from the bathroom, soaked it with cold water, and squeezed it out. She put the cloth on Cleveland’s head and went down the hallway and up the stairs.

  21

  Lola had almost finished with the entire second floor. She had wiped the windows and the French doors, vacuumed, dusted, sent out the heavy old draperies and hung clean muslin ones for summer. She had rolled up the scatter rugs and put down straw mats, swept out the fireplace in the piano room, changed the candles in the pewter sticks for fresh ones, oiled and polished the two highboys. She carried an Amish quilt—one that usually hung flat on the far wall of the piano room—out onto the west balcony and fought for the quilt with the wind.

  “You’re getting help flapping that out!” Virginia shouted from inside.

  Lola pulled the quilt down and gathered it into a bundle against her chest. She stepped off the balcony, closed and latched the French doors. “Thought that wind was going to yank me off the roof.”