Body and Bread (4 page)

Hugh’s six-year-old daughter, Norine, Mother’s namesake, whines on the other side of my door: “She doesn’t even have a TV.”

“I know,” Hugh’s wife Debbie says.

Norine is first inside, and when she steps forward with her arm raised, I brace myself for a hug. Instead, she pokes my pant leg. “Aunt Sarah…Aunt Sarah…”

“Hello, Hugh, Debbie,” I say. My rabbit-toothed little brother with hand-me-down t-shirt and exposed belly: now muscle, whiskers, sinew. His eyes: our father’s eyes: my eyes.

“How come—” Norine continues, oblivious, “how come you’re here all by yourself?” Mother’s eyes, the same green. The same question.

Debbie and Hugh believe in immediate response to their daughter no matter whom or what is interrupted. Throughout years of infertility treatments, Debbie had two miscarriages before producing, at thirty-eight, a premature Norine so small that she wore doll clothes. After that, Debbie’s sanctification of motherhood manifested in strange ways. Half porno-queen, half Virgin Mary, she wore tight, low-cut clothes while preaching La Leche philosophy and the carnal influence of Saturday morning cartoons and comic books.

Hugh’s newfound religion emphasizes thou shalt
not
, a reincarnation of our father’s blank expression and stiff back. Our grandfather’s Bible probably sits like the Ark of the Covenant in his Nugent living room.

“Aunt Sarah’s not married,” Debbie explains, holding her daughter’s hand and leaning, her thigh taut and tan. Was mine ever sexy? Maybe. And now? Veins, fat pockets, my body a traitor. The upside is I don’t have to shave much anymore.

Hugh faces his family; he hasn’t said anything yet.

“Look, you have the same chin,” Debbie says, cupping Norine’s face but looking up at me.

“Uh…well…” I say, waving, casually I believe, until my hand lurches sideways, tapping Hugh.

He watches Debbie hovering over Norine.

“Who’s going to be the daddy?”

Enough
, I think. “Norine, dear, would you come over here? I have something to show you.” I’ve given up trying to connect with children. W. C. Fields said, “Anyone who hates children can’t be all bad.” I tend to agree. But I don’t want to upset Norine, so I coax her toward my table. When I hand her my plastic model of the
Mexihcayōtl
Great Temple, complete with removable tops, her expression indicates the distraction quotient of a video game. “Pretend you’re a goddess. Sit here,” I say, “while your folks and I talk. Good girl,” I add as she climbs onto a floor pillow. Then I pull chairs from various places, and Debbie, Hugh, and I sit in the kitchen next to the counter.

“Here, honey,” Hugh says, holding a ladder-back for Debbie, “this’ll be more comfortable.” My youngest brother is approaching fifty, still my height (we tie as the family’s tallest), his hair coiffed as a Baptist preacher’s. During the work week, he wears his white coat. Along with Kurt, a cardiologist, Hugh, a gynecologist, works at the hospital that mushroomed from the practice shared by our grandfather and his two partners. “Is it a political thing or what?” he says. “I mean, why no furniture?”

Where’s the farm contract? I want to ask. I’ve agreed to the sale, so can’t we just get on with it?

“We’re all sitting, aren’t we?” I say, shrugging, wondering if he’ll next mention the stench of burned toast. Oddly, none of them seems to notice, while smoke swirls directly above their heads. I blurt a quote reminiscent of our father’s proverbs: “’Rough treatment gives souls as well as stones their luster.’” My eyes attempt a lighthearted signal. “Good to see you, Hugh.”

“Yeah?” he says, running his palms down his chinos. “You, too.” He teasingly arches an eyebrow.

He spots the five-headed Ganesh next to my laptop. “You never change.”

“Everything changes, especially people.” I’m thinking of us, but we’re remembering Sam. “Except the farm, maybe that’s the same.”

“You haven’t seen the house, have you? The tenant didn’t keep up his end of the repairs. We’re talking wiring, plumbing, roof.”

“I guess he’s not the buyer, then?” I picture children sitting cross-legged in weeds alongside the highway. “He doesn’t have a family, does he?”

“Kurt’s been dealing with that, but the guy’s already eight months behind in his rent.”

“Where will they go?” Am I being rude? I’m making him sound like Scrooge, when I’ve never offered to help. Or thanked him. I’ve clearly lost the ability to talk to my brother.

“I don’t know, Sarah, but I’m sure they’ll be fine. They can’t stay at the farm, though. It’s not safe.”

I block more images. Cornelia is enough to worry about, and besides, the farm won’t be ours much longer. “Remember swimming in the creek?” I say before I can stop myself. “I miss Mother and Dad, Sam, everything.” Our parents lie under a single tombstone in the Nugent cemetery, Sam in the same lot shaded by a mimosa. Now, the farm is my only link to family. But if it isn’t sold, what happens to Cornelia? Keep talking, I say to myself; you’ll find a way. You have to.

“Can’t look back,” Hugh says.

“Remember that?” I say, pointing to an imitation jaguar mask hanging over my bed in the next room. The
Mexihca
believed the cosmos was a
xāyacatl,
or mask, of
teōl
. What we perceive as objects during our dreamlike earthly life—insects, cornstalks, comets, even humans—were
teōtl’s
transmutation in disguise. Dualities—order/disorder, illusion/reality, life/death—were misunderstood as opposites. Since you could only know
teōtl
through a mystical union without language or categories, ritual masks had dualities on their surface, the effect intentionally ambiguous. Now, my jaguar’s painted rosettes and leather tongue greet me each morning.

Hugh tilts back. “No, should I?”

“You were just a kid. Sam brought it from Laredo.” I picture our brother, his puckish expression, his hazel-green eyes. As a graduate student at the Institute of Anthropologic Research in Mexico City, I learned
Nahuatl
and held a tenth century mother-of-pearl
īxīptla
.
Xīpe Totec’s
jeweled head peered from inside the open jaws of a flayed jaguar.

“Had to be somebody else,” he says, pulling his ear lobe. “Look, Debbie.” He leans, angling his finger toward the bedroom. She shudders; they laugh. “My big sister,” he says with a smile, “the loco professor.”

This from the boy who made a Pinocchio puppet out of socks, who majored in journalism and wrote an editorial about Camus’ theory of the absurd proving the Viet Nam War’s pointlessness. Where did that brother go? “Okay,” I say, “I assume you brought the papers?” Cornelia. Six months.

“I was only teasing. Come on, can’t you take a joke?” He massages the base of my neck. For years, no one has done that.

“I have an idea,” I say, reaching toward a cabinet. I set a candle on the drain board then light it. I bring my Conway Stewart from the tea table. “Here,” I say, handing him the pen, “you first. We’ll make this a celebration.”

“Sit down,” he says. “There’s something I have to tell you.” His top lip folds under, disappearing, so different from Sam’s.

“What now?” I moan.

“No big deal,” he shrugs, “just, the sale’s temporarily on hold.” He balances his right calf perpendicular to his left knee, then grabs his leg, as though leaning across a desk. “To tell the truth, you didn’t seem that fired up about selling anyway.”

“I don’t understand. What’s the problem?” We didn’t discuss Terezie, so he doesn’t know she’s been to see me. “Who’s the buyer?”

“Our lawyer has to work out a few minor details. Like I said, it’s no big deal.”

“But we don’t have time for that.”

“Sure we do, a little breathing room. This kind of deal can’t be rushed; you know that.”

“But Cornelia, Hugh. She only has six months.”

He flinches.

“Actually,” Debbie interrupts, “she has longer than that.” Norine slides off the cushion and lies prostrate in front of the pyramid. “In the meantime, we’re trying to figure out how we can help her.”

Hugh slumps; his head and shoulders fold over his lap.

“At least Debbie’s being honest,” I say. “Now, will you please explain what’s going on?”

“I swear she’ll get the operation,” Hugh says, “even if I have to pay for it.” He slaps his shoe, uncrosses his legs. “But our lawyer says Sam’s letter could be a problem.” I picture Sam’s scribbled instructions to transfer all his possessions to his wife. “If we give her Sam’s part of the sale now, then later, she could ask for a percentage of Granddaddy’s estate.”

Why should that bother me anymore than the idea of sharing our inheritance with my other sisters-in-law? The only difference is that she needs the money. “But if it’s legally hers, what right do we have to argue?”

“Wills are contested all the time.”

“But Hugh, a child’s life weighs in the balance.”

“What do you think I am?” Hugh says, rising. He fills a glass at the faucet. “I told you Cornelia would have her operation.”

“So you’re definitely going to pay for it?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Debbie interrupts.

Norine walks over, whispers into her mother’s ear.

Debbie nodds. “All Terezie has to do is sign an agreement promising not to ask for anything else.”

“Have you explained this to her?”

“Not yet,” Hugh says. “But that’s our next step.”

“So you’re going to ask her give away what our brother told us to make sure she got?”

“She’s not part of this family anymore, Sarah. Nobody’s talked to her in thirty years. You’d feel a lot different if you had children.”

“Maybe.” Now I stand but turn my back, press the bridge of my nose and inhale. “But I expect to be included in the meeting with Terezie.”

“All right,” he says, holding up his palms. “Whatever you want. We should know something in the next couple of weeks. I’ll call you.”

“Should I talk to Kurt?”

“No, I’ll tell him.” He gives a Boy Scout salute. “Promise.”

“Sarah,” Debbie says, “Norine would like a Coke if you have it.” She sits with her arm around her daughter; they glance at each other, look back, smile, their movements synchronized.

Debbie’s question is a command. I’m expected to accommodate the child who’s assumed my mother’s name, while another child and her mother are being manipulated. “No. Sorry,” I say then blow out the candle. “As a matter of fact, just before you got here, I promised a student I’d meet her at my office in half an hour. Having trouble with her thesis. You understand.”

“You mean you want us to leave?” Hugh asks, his head cocked. “But we drove all the way here.”

I gather the scattered pyramid pieces from the floor. “Professors have emergencies, too.” Hugh’s specialty, gynecology, was chosen for its un-Pelton-like qualities, but he, like Kurt, heads his department at Latimore Memorial.

“Why do you do this?”

“Excuse me?”

Holding hands, Debbie and Norine walk toward the front door.

“You’re my sister.” He and Kurt have maintained the Pelton tradition of gathering for holiday lunches and periodic Sundays after church. My absence must worry them.

“Yes, and I appreciate you coming.” Mother and daughter move into the front yard. “And bringing your family with you.”
Liar! Liar!
Miraculously, he doesn’t notice.

“At least call sometime.”

“Sure.” I walk him outside, tap his back, the bones pliant yet sturdy.

“I pray for you every night,” Hugh whispers with such tenderness, I can’t bring myself to point out his implied insult.

“When did you get so pious?”

His fingers furrow his hair, exposing strips of scalp. “When Sam died, I got mad,” he says, his eyes suddenly wet. “There didn’t seem to be a point to anything. Church was nothing but morons preaching a hyped-up myth.” He shifts his stance, shoves his fists into his pockets. “Then I found the Lord.” He nods, as though I’ll understand. I don’t. Sam would’ve known what to say. Hugh’s grief would’ve prompted Sam to give comfort. Now this Christian brother is hesitating to help Terezie’s daughter, and I am silent.

While Norine stands at the curb, Debbie crouches, her denim skirt barely covering her crotch. Hugh joins his family; when he squats, he cups his daughter’s chin with one hand, grips his wife’s thigh with the other.

Odd, I think, the variations in dress and behavior female animal species use to attract males. Then,
cheer-lee churr
sings from the pecan tree across the street. “Western bluebird,
Sialia mexicana
,” I mumble, “Sooty gray feathers that camouflage during nesting. Unlike grouse in estrus, who shove their swollen parts in the air.”

While Norine runs to the side of the house, out of view, Hugh helps Debbie stand. He whispers something, rubs her back.

The white bass squirts orange eggs, roe, as she flutters her silver sides in the shallow water.