Every Last Cuckoo (28 page)

Andrew quit crying and drifted into a light doze, but he whimpered and squirmed. Sarah examined him in the dim light streaming in from the hallway. He lay across her lap, his head
on her arm, his hair damp, his thick, upcurving lashes resting on his cheek. Sarah's much tinier Andrew had lain just so, contained within his permanent sleep, newly arrived and departed. No time to stay. No time to show Sarah what he had brought with him—knowledge of the place from which he had come. The odd thing, as she entered further into old age, was that Sarah caught glimpses of that place, or some place. These were not images so much as sensations, flickers at the edge of her eye. Perhaps they really were memories of her own origins, returning at last.

Andrew stirred in his sleep and flung his arm out sideways, into the dark. His eyelids fluttered but did not open. Sarah murmured to him and brushed the hair from his forehead. She traced the whorls of his ear and thought about her own Andrew, and Hannah.

Hannah was fearless, despite her cold submersion in the pond, despite her full and final initiation to a world of hazard. Hannah kept her innocence. Sarah had lost hers, along with much of her native courage, when her infant son had both lived and died at the moment he passed from her body to the world outside. What Hannah's courage induced in Sarah was both a longing for her own fearless self and a prayer for Hannah, who would face more challenges to her tough, eager spirit.

This awareness sank into Sarah without a ripple. She accepted it fully and felt at peace. Nothing in the world was sweeter than sitting in a darkened room with a sleeping baby in your lap. Soon it would be Tess and David's baby.

Let there be babies in my life until I die, Sarah pleaded to the sky outside.

“W
HERE'S
N
EO AND
R
ETRO
?” Hannah demanded, scampering inside before David and Tess had even closed the car doors. They had driven up for the weekend, while Tess's due date was still more than two months off. They might try for Thanksgiving, too, but that would depend on her doctor's say-so.

Sarah swooped in on Hannah and gave her a quick squeeze. “You know, we have a baby for you to meet, too. And his mom.”

“Kitties, first, please,” said Hannah, who knew about Andrew and Josie but understood more about cats. According to David, she was having second thoughts about a baby brother—the same doubts Stephie had had about him when she was about Hannah's age. David was aware of the story, and he tried to reassure Hannah with it. “Stephie likes me a
lot,
” he would say, never mentioning that Stephie had taken two years to decide.

Tyler had run down the stairs at the sound of Hannah's voice and skidded into the kitchen holding each kitten with an arm around its ribcage. Their hind legs swung like pendulums; their eyes were wide but unalarmed. They seemed content to dangle.

“Look, Hannah!” Tyler said excitedly, pointing his chin to each kitten in turn. “This one's Neo, and this one's Retro. I feed them two times every day.”

He set the cats down. They were about four months old now, getting leggy and thinning out. Hannah squatted down next to them, her corduroy knees almost to her chin. She wrapped her right arm around her legs and extended her left hand tentatively toward Retro, who crept forward, stretching his head out to sniff. Hannah wiggled her fingers, and Neo leapt forward
to swat them. Retro took confidence from that and went for Hannah's shoelace. She squealed delightedly. “Can I pick them up?”

“Yes,” Tyler said. “Let me show you how.” He reached under Neo, supporting his ribcage and haunches. “See? They don't like it if you pull them up by their arms.” Hannah tried it with Retro. “There you go,” Tyler said proudly. “You've got it.” They started upstairs together, each carrying a kitten, while Lottie, Jordan, and Angelo rattled past them on their way down to the kitchen.

Greetings filled the room as Tess and David took off their jackets. Had Renoir painted pregnant women, Tess could have modeled. Her fair hair shone, and her belly rose high and shapely underneath a collarless cotton dress with small buttons down the front.

That night, everyone would be home for dinner, including Mordechai. Charlotte and Tom were coming with Luke. Lottie had invited Tony. Sarah put an extra leaf in the dining table and counted—sixteen people on a no-occasion evening in October. Most nights, at least six or seven were at dinner, more than when Sarah's children had lived at home. Her life was more heavily populated now than it had ever been since she'd grown up. She never would have thought.

Tess helped her set the table. The late-day sun slanted in, lighting up the linens and place settings. Points of light caught on glasses, flatware, and ceramic glazes; the whole table glittered. Outside, fall color had burst wide open. Each year it was sudden, surprising, and new.

Sarah still walked in the mornings, her eye for detail now fine and focused. She noted the departure of the migrating birds and
the signs of animals wintering down, the bears gorging for their long sleep, especially evident around ancient apple trees, where even the rotting fruit on the ground did not escape their hungry scavenging. Bears sometimes got drunk on fermenting apples. Sarah pictured them reeling happily into their dens, to collapse and outsleep any hangover. The females would bear their cubs without even waking. The cubs, tiny and hairless, would crawl blindly toward their mothers' nipples and suck the winter away, growing fat and furry. Their mothers would wake in the spring to greet their chubby babies with all the hard work done. Bears had it easy when it came to childbirth.

Sarah turned to Tess, who was folding cloth napkins. “How've you been feeling?”

“Good,” Tess answered, smiling. “With Hannah, I had terrible morning sickness. With this one . . .” she put a hand fondly on her belly, “not a twinge.”

Tess and David had announced weeks ago that their baby was a boy. They wanted to know the sex so they could begin knowing him better. It also helped Hannah. It made the baby seem more real to call him “he” instead of “it.” They were working on names now.

“Actually,” Tess confided, “I think we've known all along. But I want to know what you think.”

“I'll think it's fine,” Sarah assured her. “I know you'd never call him—oh—Ambrose, or Bonaventure.”

“We want to call him Charles,” Tess told her. “Charles McDermott Lucas.”

Sarah's eyes stung and she blinked hard. “Tess,” was all she could manage.

“Charlie,” Tess said. “There really was no other choice, not
given who Charles was, not after he saved Hannah. It was David's idea to make McDermott his middle name. It was Ian's name, and David thought we should keep Ian in the family.”

“You take my breath away,” Sarah sighed, touching Tess's cheek.

“We think we'll get married, you know.”

“I didn't want to ask. And I didn't think it mattered much these days. But I'm glad.”

“We'll all be Lucases. Hannah has agreed to that as long as she can have McDermott as a middle name, too, like Charlie. What do you think?”

“I think it's grand.” Sarah put her hand shyly on Tess's belly. “Hello there, Charlie.”

L
ATER, AS
L
OTTIE
and Sandy were getting ready to carry serving dishes to the dining room, and Mordechai was slicing bread, David stood near the kitchen table with Sarah and watched the activity. “Mom, you're running a commune,” he said, shaking his head in wonderment. “Every time we're here, there are more people in this house.” He looked down at her. “It's great. You're really helping these kids. And Sandy, too, and Josie. They're helping you, too, I see. You haven't lifted a finger except to set the table, you sly thing.” He nudged her.

“I'm no fool.” She nudged him back.

“Something else has changed around here, too,” he added. “Charlotte. She's different.”

“How can you tell? She and Tom only got here half an hour ago. You've hardly had a minute with her.”

David tapped his temple. “I am astute.”

“Then tell me, Stoot, what is it you see?”

“I see that she has dropped her shoulders, lifted the corners of her mouth, and lowered her voice by several decibels when talking to Lottie.”

“My,” said Sarah. “You don't miss a thing.”

“So, what's the deal? Who slipped the tranks into Charlotte's hors d'oeuvres?”

“I believe she did that herself,” Sarah told him.

They fell silent as Charlotte came into the kitchen. David watched her as she left again, carrying a tray of condiments. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Maybe Dad's dying scared her.”

“Could be,” Sarah agreed. “I think she's blown some dust off her heart. She and Lottie are doing better—being apart has brought them closer.” She almost added that she and Charlotte were slowly spanning their own chasm, but she didn't want to jinx this tentative process. The chasm was forty years wide and deep, and Sarah didn't have another forty years for bridge building. If all she could manage was a swaying, precarious thing made of rope, then that would suffice.

Everyone drifted toward the dining table from the kitchen and the rooms upstairs. They inhaled the seasoned steam from a half-dozen dishes lined up along the center of the long table. Lottie lit candles and dimmed the overhead light. Mordechai poured wine and offered a brief, spontaneous blessing, delivered without any bowing of heads, without amens. He merely wished them peace and offered thanks amid a sharing of glances and a chorus of assent.

They had just finished eating and were starting to clear the plates and serve dessert when footsteps and a heavy thump reached them from the front porch.

Jordan's eyes went wide. Josie took Andrew out of his high chair and held him close. Angelo, Tom, and Mordechai exchanged glances.

“What's going on?” David asked.

“Nothing,” Sarah answered, rising from her chair. It was not Roger. It wasn't.

“I'll come with,” said Lottie.

“Me, too,” added Angelo.

They went down the hall, listening hard and exchanging nervous glances. More footsteps, another thump. Sarah, suddenly impatient, switched on the outside light. A woman was just heading down the stairs, having left two large boxes at the top.

Sarah yanked the door open and called, “Hello? Did you want something?” Angelo loomed behind her, with Lottie at his side.

The woman stopped on the steps and held onto the railing, as if deciding whether to keep on going. She turned, though, and came back up. She was somewhere in her thirties. She wore heavy makeup, tight jeans, and a loose sweatshirt printed with a cartoon of a small boy scowling and pissing. Her hair was curly and short, like her daughter's.

“I'm Lorraine,” she said. “Jordan's mom. I just came to drop off some stuff of hers that's been lying around.”

“Well, come in, Lorraine,” said Sarah, holding the door open. She took a big breath of autumn air, her anxieties fleeing like the leaves in the wind outside. “Please do. We're all finishing dinner. Why don't you have dessert with us?”

Lorraine drew herself up. Her eyes moved rapidly among the three who faced her until she reached her decision. She looked straight at Sarah and said, “All right. I will. Thanks.”

Angelo headed back to the dining room to alert Jordan. Lottie stepped in front of Sarah and stuck her hand out. “I'm Jordan's friend Lottie,” she said, speaking like an etiquette instructor and drawing Lorraine inside. “And this, as you've probably figured out, is my grandmother, Sarah Lucas.” She gestured toward Sarah, who likewise held out her hand.

Lorraine offered a listless grip in return. Sarah and Lottie traded looks and led the way to the dining table in the great room. Lottie called ahead with a further warning. “Jordan, your mom's here.”

Jordan was on her feet by the time they entered the room. She looked ready to run.

Lorraine scanned the faces around the table as if they were billboards.

Sarah made the introductions, and David brought another chair from the kitchen. Lorraine sat down stiffly, her eyes taking in the room and the furnishings. She glanced again at the fifteen unfamiliar faces, including Andrew's, but she avoided Jordan's eyes.

“Hi, Mom,” said Jordan finally, her voice barely audible. She cleared her throat and spoke up. “Angelo said you brought some of my stuff.”

“Yeah. Yes. It's on the porch. The kids and I are moving. I cleaned out your room.”

“Moving?” Jordan's big eyes were bewildered. “Where? When?”

“First of the month, just over near Barre Street. I'll let you know. It's smaller. Less rent.”

Sarah took her meaning—there was no room for Jordan. Hastily, hoping Jordan wouldn't tumble to this, she said, “I'm
glad to meet you at last, Lorraine. We all are.” She gestured around the table, where an awkward silence reigned and Jordan looked trapped. “You should be proud. Jordan is doing so well. We're all glad to have her here.”

A hearty chorus seconded this, and Jordan blushed. Lorraine shifted uneasily in her seat.

Charlotte and Lottie, serving dessert, moved quietly and eyed Lorraine. Lottie looked ready to pounce if need be. Instead she set a bowl of Cherry Garcia before her and offered a plate of Milano cookies.

“Thanks, no,” Lorraine said gruffly, not meeting their eyes. She saw that others were digging into their ice cream, so she picked up her spoon.

Sarah was suddenly touched to the bone by Lorraine's tense, defensive manners. She must wonder, how did her difficult, wayward daughter end up here, at ease in this family of strangers, while Lorraine worked her butt off and barely got by? Why should Jordan have all this support and affection, while Lorraine had none?

There would be a scene. Lorraine would scorn and belittle Jordan, she would disgrace herself, she would never contain her bitterness. It was why she had come inside. Sarah knew this absolutely, just as she had known that Tess was pregnant.