Family Reunion (9 page)

The night before, after the Little League game, when Brett stood all dusty among his losing players, and his parents walked uncertainly toward him, I had seen in his face what Annette must have seen in mine and in Joanna's and in Angus's for a year and a half: a sneer and rejection.

You have so little power. You can't hold together your mother and father's marriage. You can't prevent them from remarrying strangers. You can't keep them from dividing up the furniture and the children and the calendar. But you can curl your lip, and make them wilt, and hurt them bad, and it's good. You're glad.

I hurt for Carolyn, though, the peacemaker. I hurt a little bit for Aunt Maggie, but not much, because she was doing exactly what Joanna had predicted she would do: saying bad things about our father.

“You must bring out the family photograph albums,” said Annette. “I'd love to see Charlie like that.”

“In all his teenage splendor,” said Aunt Maggie grimly. It didn't sound as if she meant splendor; it sounded as if she meant dung-streaked horse blankets. “Brett thinks Charlie is
somebody to admire!” Aunt Maggie burst out. “He thinks Charlie is somebody special! After all the hard work bringing my children up right, my own son turned out like Charlie!”

I opened my mouth to say a thing or two, but Annette shook her head very gently, and I let it go.

“I have to give this stupid party!” Aunt Maggie said, tossing dishes into the dishwasher like a woman who wants all-new china. Or a woman who would like to break her plates over her brother's head. “I had such fun planning this, and thinking about it, and getting every detail just right, and every single guest is going to know that my own son doesn't want to live with me and my own brother can't be bothered to show up.” She slammed the door of the dishwasher and stormed out of the room.

There was silence.

Grandma stared into her coffee cup. Carolyn clung to her orange juice glass. Annette played with her sunglasses, horrid misshapen yellow things that are supposed to be fashionably retro but only make her look like a serial killer. I said, “We'll have to start calling Aunt Maggie Big Joanna. Absolutely identical temper tantrums.”

Annette nodded. She could see the truth in that.

Carolyn wanted details, and my stepmother and I took turns telling about Joanna's temper, and then Grandma said, “Perhaps, darling, you should telephone Joanna and get the details of her plane flight. If indeed she hasn't left already.

Think of the temper tantrum she might have if she is sitting in the airport waiting to be picked up while we are sleeping in from the rigors of an unsuccessful surprise party.”

It was ten A.M. in Barrington. It would be five P.M. in Paris.

My stepmother handed me her cell phone, and she and Carolyn and Grandma watched. I'd have to call Joanna right there, in front of everybody, and what if Mother or Jean-Paul answered? “I forget the number,” I said.

“Your mother's phone number?” said Carolyn incredulously.

“Because she doesn't ever dial it, of course,” said Annette, rescuing me. “It's in her phone's address memory,” she lied, “but this is my phone. It's listed in my phone address book, Shelley.”

Carolyn leaned forward eagerly to be part of the conversation.

“You'll want privacy, Shelley,” Annette added. “Phone from Carolyn's bedroom.”

Stepmother. It's not such a bad word after all, I thought. A mother, except a step below. I didn't want Annette to go back to work. I wanted her to stay with Angus and me, and be in Vermont, and forget Granger Elliott, and take us bagel-hunting in major cities.

I poked at Annette's phone. I could not believe that once in her entire acquaintance with Daddy she had ever even thought about calling my mother. I felt sure she would bungee jump without the cord before she would telephone
my mother. But here was the number, neatly stored. For emergencies, I thought. Because in the end, Annette is not going to let me down. My real mother will let me down and go live across an ocean, and my real father will let me down, bailing out on important events, setting terrible examples and failing to support or acknowledge sons from previous marriages—but my stepmother will do the right thing.

This was so depressing I didn't care if I had to speak to Mother or Jean-Paul after all, and when it was Joanna who answered the phone, I wasn't even relieved. I was just irked that I had to deal with any of this. “Oh, hi, Jo,” I said grumpily.

“Shelley!” cried my sister. “I was postponing calling you because I'm so upset. I'm so glad to hear your voice. I feel as if I've been here for a century. But I won't be coming after all, Shell. I'm staying here.”

“Staying?” I whispered. “For good? You're never coming home?”

“No, no, no. I mean the reunion. Barrington. Mother started crying when I said I want to be with you guys. She hasn't stopped crying either. I hate it when parents have feelings. They should be like carvings. Solid. No emotions. And here's Mother sobbing all over the place because one month with her is plenty and I want my real family.”

“Did you say that to her?” I asked. “Out loud? Real family?”

“Yes. I did it to hurt her, but I didn't think it would be so
successful. Shelley, Mom needs me. I kicked her in the teeth and now—”

“You have to build her smile back,” I said.

“If you would just talk to her once on the phone without sounding as if she's worse than anthrax, that would build up her smile.”

“Me?”

“You're maddest of all of us.”

“I am not.”

“You are so. Tell me. When we finish talking, are you going to ask to speak to Mother?”

I said nothing.

“No, you're not. Because you're mad.”

I said nothing.

“Mother says her three children have gone and grown up without her and she doesn't know us anymore and we'd all rather live somewhere else and we're still mad.”

“What did she think would happen when she crossed the ocean?”

Joanna sighed. “Give everybody hugs for me. Have a great time for me.” Her voice broke.

I couldn't even find my voice. “Bye,” I whispered.

The party rental truck had arrived. Uncle Todd sent Angus into the kitchen to get volunteers to help distribute chairs and tables all over the yard and drape them with cushions and linens. There were no volunteers. Everybody was too busy listening to Aunt Maggie talk about loss and holes in families and pain between mothers and sons and the failure of brothers to have any value whatsoever on the face of the entire earth.

I was so mad.

I had just told Joanna that I didn't get mad, but now I was mad at Aunt Maggie and her dumb party and the entire town of Barrington and especially my father. You should be
here! I yelled at him in my heart. You're making Annette and me defend you. You're ruining the party. You're not telling me who Toby is. And I have to listen to your sister whine about Brett, whose only problem is his father won't let him use the car.

I had a sudden memory of my mother, years ago, making pound cake. She had beaten the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon instead of using her Cuisinart. “Does it taste better that way, Mommy?” I had asked, licking the bowl.

“No, but it feels better,” said my mother. “Pounding a cake is usually more acceptable than pounding a person you're really mad at.”

Oh, Mommy!

Who were you mad at? And how come I can't be little again, sitting on a stool so high that my feet swing in the air, wearing your old red-and-white-striped apron with the bib and licking the spoon from the cake you were baking?

Aunt Maggie noticed me. “When is Joanna's flight?” she said, in the voice of one asking when Joanna's kidney transplant was scheduled.

“She's not coming after all,” I said. “I got overexcited. I misunderstood. She's staying in Paris.”

Carolyn and Annette looked at me thoughtfully. Grandma said, “Oh, I'm so sorry she isn't coming. I miss her already.”

Uncle Todd came in. “Come on, people. Help out here.”

“Joanna isn't coming,” said Aunt Maggie. “Brett isn't coming. Charlie isn't coming. Nobody's coming.”

“We're coming,” said Carolyn irritably. “Ninety-seven hungry people with packages to put on the gift table are coming. Shelley, let's do something interesting.” We walked out the door into the backyard, where the only interesting possibility was unloading stacked plastic lawn chairs, so we walked around the other side of the house and into the front yard and stood beneath that blazing, stupefying Midwestern sun.

“How come they can't talk about me?” demanded Carolyn. “I'm here. I'm doing things right. But am I worth a conversation? Of course not.”

“I know just how you feel,” I said. “Let's go for a walk.”

Carolyn stared at me. “I suppose we could,” she said doubtfully, as if she had walked once a few years ago and maybe the skill would come back to her. City people walk so much more than town people, even in towns like Barrington, where everything is so close and there are lots of sidewalks.

“We'll be back later, Mom,” shouted Carolyn toward the house, but of course nobody could hear; the windows were all closed to keep the air-conditioning in. We wandered down the block. Carolyn looked into yards and across intersections as if she were a tourist. “I haven't done this in ages,” she confided.

We went block after block. We came to a stone church flanked by blooming shrubs and a glass-fronted announcement board for Sunday services. “Our church,” said Carolyn. “We get to skip during the summer, but during the school year we go. Not Brett, of course. It would make my parents happy if he went, so it's the last thing he's going to do.”

We didn't go to church except on Christmas and Easter, and I had never attended Sunday school. I was uneasy about admitting this. Carolyn might report to her mother, who probably ranked Sunday school even higher than backyards for creating stable families.

We walked on.

“There's Johnny Cameron's,” said Carolyn.

The Cameron house was being relandscaped. Brand-new shrubs, the size of footballs, stood at attention in straight lines. Tiny trees, tethered by wires thicker than their branches, were placed at regular intervals. Sprinklers in a newly installed underground system tried unsuccessfully to keep the grass seeds damp under the hot sun.

I wondered what kind of people Mr. and Mrs. Cameron were, and whether Brett was happy living with them, and whether they would in fact buy him new sneakers. I said, “Where does Toby live?”

“Chicago, of course,” said Carolyn. “He's staying with his grandparents, though. Celeste's parents. They never approved of Charlie.”

“Will they be at the party?” I asked.

“No. But Toby will. He's always wanted to meet Charlie, of course. And now he won't. But who cares about any of them? I care about me. You know the parable of the prodigal son?”

I didn't know the words parable or prodigal, so I just said, “Not really.”

“It's a story Jesus tells. There are these two sons, see. The bad one leaves home. He parties, he takes drugs, he hangs out with scum. The parents never hear from him. The good one stays home and does all the chores for his father and runs the farm. One day the bad kid comes back and says he's sorry. The father is so happy, he throws a big party. But all the time the good kid was being good, the father never once even thought of throwing a party for him.”

Carolyn walked like a person eager to kick a dog. “I bet anything,” she said, “that I'll stay home being good year in and year out, and the most they'll ever give me is new spiral-bound notebooks every September. But the minute Brett comes back in the door, it'll be a new car, a new computer and a winter vacation on a Florida beach.”

We detoured into the street to avoid being soaked by lawn sprinklers, and then the water looked pretty good, so we walked through it and cooled off.

“I am completely sick of being a nice person,” said my cousin. “I feel like puncturing a few tires.”

“You know, you're not bad, Carolyn. Can I stay here all summer?”

“No. It's my turn to go somewhere. I get to go back to Vermont with you.”

“That would be great. I'll tell Annette. She's pretty relaxed about stuff, really. She has low expectations after a year and a half of Angus.”

We walked on in companionable sweatiness.

A car straight off one of the posters that Joanna and I paper our apartment bedroom with pulled up next to us: a 1963 maroon Cadillac convertible. It was packed with girls our age, twice as many girls as space or seat belts, and driven by a hugely overweight man. “Carolyn!” they yelled. “You forgot Pammy's birthday party!”

“Hi, Pammy!” shrieked Carolyn. “I didn't forget! I RSVP'ed that I couldn't come because I was setting everything aside for my cousins.”

We hadn't set aside anything when Brett and Carolyn visited us in New York. We never even thought of setting anything aside.

“We tracked you down, though,” said the fat man. “What's a party without a Preffyn? Come on, you two, get in! And you must be Charlie's girl Shelley. Glad to meet you, Shelley.”

Carolyn clambered right over the side of the Caddy and fell messily into the laps of the other girls. “Come on, Shell,” she said over her shoulder.

The girls wedged into the beautiful convertible seemed younger and gigglier than I was. Carolyn blended in. She ceased to be my cousin. I couldn't tell her apart from the others. I was afraid of them all, suddenly, as if they were not a bunch of laughing girls on their way to a birthday party, but a pack of wild dogs.

“No, you go on,” I said quickly. “I'll walk on home and make sure Annette's okay. Help Aunt Maggie get set up and stuff.”

“I'll get you guys back home in time,” the driver assured me. “You won't be late to Charlie's party. I'm coming myself. Went to school with your dad, you know. Yup. Graduated the year after him.”

“Oh, Mr. Hallahan,” said Carolyn, beating on his shoulder as if he were her property. She must have known him, and his daughter Pammy, if I was adding this up right, for a long time. “My mother didn't remember to tell the guest of honor to come on the right date. Charlie won't be here.”

Mr. Hallahan laughed hugely. “That's our boy Charlie,” he said.

I thought it was actually our girl Maggie, but I was polite and begged Carolyn to attend the birthday party without me, and off they went. I stood alone in Barrington. I felt misplaced. I walked slowly back the way we'd come, pausing at each corner as if I thought something might go wrong.

And something did.

* * *

How dumb daydreams can be.

I found myself facing the Camerons' house. I had not even managed to say hello to my cousin Brett the night before, he had kept such a distance. I went up and knocked on the front door. After all, these must be pleasant people, the sort of loving, generous folk who took in kids in trouble. They would answer the bell exclaiming, “Charlie's daughter!” Brett would say, “Gosh, I'm glad you came. I really need a cousin to escort me home so I can apologize and get along with my mother again.”

That was my daydream.

And I, the essential follower—the one who tags after Bev or Kelsey or Marley in the city, and after Angus in Vermont, and after Carolyn that day—I led the way. I went alone up to a stranger's house to interfere with somebody's life.

“Oh, hi,” said Brett without interest. “It's you.”

Brett seemed so much older than I had expected. His tan was not golden like his sister's or Toby's, but dark and hard. He wore reflective sunglasses that hid a third of his face, even though he was indoors. I didn't feel related to him at all. Where was the cousin I had played with in distant summers? The cousin who had lowered his bike seat for me so I could ride more easily? The cousin who had found Band-Aids when I scraped my knee? The cousin who had given me his ice cream cone when I played too hard and the ice cream fell out of my cone and onto the sidewalk?

The front door opened directly into the living room. Behind Brett, a tall, thin boy stared at me. Brett did not introduce me. Motionless on the couch was Miranda. The three of them were watching television. There were no adults around. The house had a thick smell, as if garbage needed to be emptied and sheets needed changing. The acrid scent of cigarettes was strong. The shades had been pulled down, and the rooms were dim and sullen. Who would run away from Aunt Maggie's sparkling home to this?

Somebody either desperate or stupid.

“Whaddaya want?” said Brett.

“Just to say hello.” I was flustered. “We haven't had a chance to see each other yet.”

“Oh, wow, Brett, what an honor,” said Miranda. “The cousin from New York City going out of her way for a little down-home chat.”

The thin boy laughed. Miranda laughed. Brett remained behind his silver lenses.

“Are you coming to the party tonight?” I said, knowing how pathetic I sounded.

“Why would I want to hang out with that bunch of assholes?” said Brett.

The word shocked me. Not because I hadn't heard it before, but because it meant us: Uncle Todd, Aunt Maggie, Grandma, Annette, me, Carolyn, Angus. The word was so ugly, so mean.

“Your own father couldn't be bothered to come,” said
Brett. “What makes you think I'd make any more effort than he does?”

No reason came to mind.

“Aren't you supposed to be helping with the big event?” he said. “The big failure, I should say. Since as usual our sainted mother figured she could engineer everybody else's lives without asking first.”

Poor Aunt Maggie. They were so mad at her. But we had been mad at her too, since the divorce. Aunt Maggie went on relentlessly, cheerfully, faultlessly, no matter what was going on around her. Aunt Maggie was Perfect.

Miranda flicked the remote control at high speed. Scraps of dialogue, bits of advertisements, two notes of a theme song and a burst of applause were tossed into the room like broken lives. I was afraid of these three. This was what giving up looked like. Shuttered and dusty and mean-mouthed. I would rather be like Aunt Maggie any day.

I backed toward the door.

“Have a nice day,” said Miranda.

I stumbled out, shutting the door behind me, and ran down the street, thankful for every house and tree and fence that protected me from them.

Nobody ever solved a problem by shutting out the air and the family. Except me. I had shut out my mother. Shut out her entire world. Hid from her. Just like Brett.

I stopped running. The Barrington sun was frying me like
an egg. My hair turned sticky. Even my thoughts stuck together.

How could I be the one who was wrong? Other people were the wrongdoers; I got dragged along. I made none of those awful decisions, filed none of those awful divorce papers.

I found myself not on Carolyn's road, but a block over from the little stone church, on the quiet, half-occupied old main street. Parallel parking was neatly marked in front of its old-fashioned stores, and most slots were empty. When I was little, my mother had taken us to a drugstore on this street, and we had gotten something called a root beer float. But nobody anymore would have a soda fountain in a drugstore.

I walked past each store, little places that probably couldn't afford rent at a mall. Sewing machine repair, silk flowers, Thai takeout, secondhand paperbacks, children's dance school, real estate agent.