How to Make an American Quilt (26 page)

Then, awkwardly, from James: “Corrina, Jack—look, about Laury, we heard—”

“And they want to tell you they wish I was half the man Laury is,” calls Will from the other room.

“Will—” says James roughly as Hy shakes her head and he
stops. Just stops. It occurs to Corrina that she is witnessing Hy and James’s disapproval of Will mixed with the relief that, while he may be turning into some uncontrollable, disrespectful stranger, at least he is here. He is home and not in some foreign country fighting people who don’t even speak English. Or maybe that does not cross their minds at all; maybe that only occurs to her. And she tries to be fair—to ask herself which is worse, a son like Will, who comes home only grudgingly to treat his parents with undisguised contempt (and might be taking drugs), or one like Laury, doing the right thing in a distant land with names that she could not even pronounce until she heard them repeated daily on the television.

Corrina knows the answer: It is better to have him home. It is better to have him close.

Will looks terrible; long hair falling over his shirt collar, generally unwashed and unkempt-looking. Even his younger sister Gina seems to pull away from him. Gina is at the silent and sullen age of fifteen and appears to suffer all these adults and her awful brother. Gina bears no “hippie” trappings, instead looks like a fashionable young girl who pores over teen magazines (
BEAUTY TIPS TO MAKE HIM SAY
WOW
). She tucks her long hair behind one ear with a bored sigh as she picks at her dinner. Will whispers something in her ear, which she answers by saying, “Oh, shut up.”

Hy is saying that a couple of girls from school are constantly calling him. “Imagine,” says Hy, “could you see
us
calling boys when we were their age?” To which Corrina remarks, “We were practically married at their age.” Elicits a snort of laughter from Will. Corrina wonders about a girl that Will told her he was seeing. She asked him about it when he stopped mentioning her name; recalls his unhappy voice when he said, “Look, we don’t
own
each other. She can do what she likes.”

Will’s jeans are worn and faded, patched over with flower appliqués, peace signs, and angry, raised fists. He is sharply aware of
all that goes on around him, despite the neglect of his appearance. As they make small talk at dinner, Corrina looks from Hy to James, her eyes crossing the distance between the two by way of Will, only to notice him openly staring at her.

Corrina can see, clearly, that he understands the waste of this polite conversation and the trouble she is having controlling what she really wants to say, which is that Will is
here
and Laury is
there
and there seems to be no love in the world because she had waited for Jack years ago as a lover and is now forced to wait for Laury as a mother. How she spent such long, desperate hours in the switch house, her anxiety bubbling so close to the surface that she terrified herself. And how these days, all she can do is tear apart and restore her house, with fury and with hope.

“I waited for Jack,” Corrina blurts out over dessert.

“Yes,” says Hy, confused, both hands holding her coffee cup midway between the table and her mouth.

“During the war,” she says, “I waited. I was a good girl. No one heard me cry because I didn’t cry, because I was so patient.”

“We all were,” says Hy.

“But, you see,” says Corrina, “I hated every goddamn minute of it.”

C
ORRINA EXCUSES HERSELF
, appears as if she is going to the bathroom, but heads out to the garden instead. As she passes through the kitchen she notices the empty cocktail glasses that Hy set next to the sink to be rinsed. Corrina extracts one that is still half full, with melted ice cubes and a twist of lime rind floating along the top, pungent with the smell of gin. And heads outside.

T
HE GLASS IS COLD
and sweating from the ice. She takes a long sip; her nose wrinkles at the diluted taste of gin, tonic, and ice. The sweet smell of a marijuana cigarette drifts in her direction; she turns to see Will drop his cupped hand, slightly turned from her. Corrina lowers herself into the cushions of the redwood lawn furniture and takes another swallow of her drink.

“It doesn’t matter to me. Really.” She leans her head back as Will relaxes, openly drawing on the rolled cigarette. “I know it’s illegal,” she says, “but there are legal things that are much worse.”

“Yeah, right,” says Will, settling in the chair beside her.

“The draft, for example, is legal. That’s not such a good thing. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s not such a good thing?” She holds her glass with her fingertips, palm over the top, spider-style. “Of course you would” (she says as she nods). “After all—I don’t mean to insult you—but you aren’t there, now are you?”

“No, Corrina, I’m not. You have that one hundred percent correct.” Will has taken a roach clip from his front pocket and is pinching the stub of the joint with it. “Damn,” he says as the light goes out. He fumbles in his pockets for matches.

Corrina says, “I’d like to help you out but I don’t have any on me,” then spreads her arms wide as if to prove her claim. “Ah, I am so comfortable. Do you ever sleep out here?”

Will is on his feet, reaching in his back pockets. “No. Never.”

“Not even in hot weather?”

He walks over to the barbecue grill, removes a long wooden match from a brightly decorated box. It has a turquoise tip. “Never.”

“Your parents?”

“Huh?” asks Will, looking up, glancing toward the house, half afraid, half defiant.

“I said, Do your parents ever sleep outdoors?” Corrina rests her elbow on the wide arm of the lounge, turning her body to see
Will attempting to light that small bit of marijuana and paper with a ridiculously long match.

“Damn,” he says, pulling his face away quickly, as if burned. He again opens the tall box, extracting another match, this one with a purple tip. “I’m sorry? My parents? No, they don’t. At least not that I know of.”

“Ah, then it’s only Jack,” Corrina whispers, prompting Will to look up and ask, “What was that, Corrina?”

“No need, I suppose,” then louder: “When did you stop calling me Aunt Corrina?”

Will has finally lit the roach and is taking a deep pull on it as he resumes his place beside her. He holds the cigarette out to her, but she shakes her head, swishes the liquor in her glass. “I don’t know. When I grew up, I guess.”

“But you are barely twenty. A baby.”

“Maybe when I discovered that you are the only adult I can halfway stand these days.” He stops. “Look, there were a couple of times I slept out here. Me and Laury. We used to call it torture camping because it was either too cold or too bug-ridden or too wet or too boring. Torture camping.” He wets his fingertips, tamps out the rest of the joint. “I’d forgotten about it.”

Corrina looks away, pours the remainder of the drink from her glass, splashing the concrete patio. “Laury,” she whispers.

“I write him letters,” Will says suddenly. “I tell him what I am doing, I tell him I talk to you. I tell him to get the fuck out of there. I never send them; I call you instead. I talk to you. You know, Corrina, I don’t approve of the war. My parents don’t understand that—that I simply don’t approve.”

“Neither do I,” says Corrina, “approve of the war.”

“But something else,” says Will, taking a deep breath. “I just never mention Laury’s name. And it isn’t that he could be me and I could be him. We fought before he left. So honor bright; not like me,
bad old Will, whose parents wish he’d go away and stay there. Even Gina gives me grief. I am the family disgrace.

“Anyway, I want to tell you that I don’t talk about him because I feel…I don’t know…a little lost without him. Incomplete. Like I need to check in with him. Ah. My honorable half. So I can’t talk about him and I can’t worry about him. Fuck—the only thing I can do is miss him. And be angry with him.”

“Me, too,” says Corrina. “I miss him, too.”

J
ACK COMES OUT
looking for Corrina, who is already standing, readying herself to reenter the house, but wishing she could stay on the cool patio “a little longer. I know I’d feel better,” but smiles broadly when she spies Jack, who asks, “Are you feeling okay?” then turns angrily to Will and says, “You reek. You are a disgrace.”