The Beresfords (20 page)

“Your aunt Terri told me a couple weeks ago the All-Star Carnival was a great success,” began my uncle, attempting to engage his silent daughters with a topic he imagined safe and wholesome. “She said Greg Perkins carried the day.”

“It was fine,” muttered Julie. Her sister said nothing, turning scarlet. Rachel’s eyes sought Eric Grant’s once more, but he was aiming his wadded-up socks at Tom drowsing on the sectional. They bounced off my cousin with little effect.

“I look forward to seeing one of his games,” said Uncle Paul. “But even more importantly, your aunt tells me he’s a fine young man with good values.”

Rachel looked miserable by now. She nodded. Because how could she tell her father—when she was not in the habit of telling him anything—that she didn’t give two shakes for Greg Perkins anymore?

For his part, Uncle Paul was disappointed his overtures met with so little response, and it was Jonathan, as always, who stepped in. “How much Chinese did you pick up, Dad? Could you order in a restaurant now?” And so on.

When the Grants were gone, and after Uncle Paul called the hospital to check on Aunt Terri, the moment of truth came. We were lolling on the deck, the Adirondack chairs clustered in the pool of morning sunlight, not much to say beyond stray comments about the races from Tom, who still had hopes of seeing them. The rest of us all thought house arrest would be more likely, if we judged by the expression of Uncle Paul’s face when he emerged from the cabin.

“It was my idea, sir,” declared Tom, with a show of valiance. “I thought you would appreciate the idea of a family vacation, even if—especially if—you couldn’t be with us.”

“I would,” his father answered. “I do. While I would have avoided this weekend in particular, I am glad to be reunited with you all.”

“I’m sorry about Aunt Terri,” whispered Julie.

Uncle Paul’s frowned. In the sunlight I realized how old and tired he looked. “I am, too,” he said. “But she’s on the mend, with no lasting damage. Maybe you could come with me to the hospital this afternoon and tell her yourself, if she’s awake.”

This was probably at the bottom of Julie’s list of fun things to do, but she mumbled agreement. Even Rachel gave her a pitying look.

“While you know my feelings about the drag boat races and whether or not they’re an appropriate environment for minors, I can understand your curiosity about them,” my uncle went on in a heavy voice. “I also appreciate wanting to invite your new friends to share this place we’ve been blessed with, and I’m pleased you remembered our family rules and brought your aunt as a chaperone, however badly that turned out.” (Julie made a smothered choking sound. I thought she might be in danger of crying again until Tom kicked her irritably.) “What really disappoints me, though, is the choices you made after your aunt was hospitalized. To visit the casinos—where, even if gambling were not what it is and the setting what it is, you are all under age—your sisters in particular. To go under false—illegal—pretences and in the particular company of—those friends of yours, Tom, who have not always helped you in making good decisions—” He broke off here, genuinely upset. Gripping his coffee mug, he took a slow swallow. “I don’t see how this happened,” he said simply. “Jonathan—you especially. I trusted your judgment—depended on it. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking.”

If not for fear of drawing unwanted attention or having Tom aim his kicks at me, I would have wept myself. Not Jonathan! I could bear to hear my uncle’s reproaches—but to hear them directed at Jonathan was a revolution in my experience, and to feel them in any way deserved was a bitter pill.

Jonathan felt their weight certainly. His golden head bowed in acknowledgment. “Dad. I’m sorry. It…was a lapse. I thought I could—I thought if I went along, at least—” He sighed. “For whatever reasons we all went along with it. Including me. The only one who didn’t, really, was Frannie.”

“I would have gone!” I cried, eager to throw my lot in with his. “I begged Tom to let me go along.”

Jonathan gave a short laugh, no more taken in, I think, than my uncle, who said, “Judging from the size of the knife you waved at me last night, Frannie, I think you had entirely different reasons for wanting to go.”

We were all silent for a minute after this. From the kitchen we could hear Aunt Marie running water and opening the cabinets. Uncle Paul drank gallons of coffee, but my aunt began each day with a cup of Lady Grey. I remember wondering when the last time was she had to make it herself.

“Will we stay up here for the weekend or go home today?” Jonathan asked the question in everyone’s mind.

“We’ll stay,” said my uncle. “Even if they discharge your aunt today, I think we may as well stay. I had no idea you all wanted to see the races so much. Your mother and I would like to do something you kids enjoy.”

I could see his kindness only made Jonathan feel worse. As for the rest of my cousins, I suspect they would rather have gone home, since their delight at the prospect of the races was dimmed by their father’s presence and the loss of Eric and Caroline Grant.

We did not know it then, but that confused, awkward morning with the Grants would be our last time all together for some months. After so long an absence, my uncle now wanted only to be quiet at home with his family around him. If he could have this, he was willing to forgive and forget—or at least to forgive and not harp upon. “I’ve missed half the summer with you boys, and Rachel will be gone in another month,” he explained. “I won’t miss a minute more.” Kicking off this bonding season amid the clamor of the drag boat races was unfortunate (as was coming home to find his daughter had put his sister in the hospital), but he was willing to work with it.

Under the new regime Tom stifled—he took to sneaking out nights again—but my other cousins bore it, albeit with varying levels of resentment. Julie had the least to lose by the change; I think she might even have welcomed the break from Eric Grant’s turbulent presence. Certainly she was content not to fight with Rachel anymore. Without him to pit them against each other, the sisters regained peace—peace, in the “absence of conflict” sense. Rachel pined, but in a Rachel fashion. No one accused her of being sick or listless or pale. She spent extra time on her grooming, rather. She clung once more to Greg Perkins with a determined set to her jaw that bewildered him. She talked up her boyfriend’s merits to her father (especially if Julie were not around), leaving Uncle Paul no alternative but to find him “a solid young man.” She never, never mentioned either of the Grants and feigned elaborate indifference if someone else brought them
up. Eric Grant was to be punished for the ease with which he forgot her, even if he never knew it. She would punish him by erasing him.

It was Jonathan who regretted the loss of the Grants most openly. Had he not gone against his own principles in Lake Tahoe, he might have attempted to coax his father into expanding the family circle to admit them, but as it was, he kept his unhappiness to himself. Or nearly.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it, Frannie,” he began one afternoon, maybe a week after we returned from the cabin. “I mean, I understand Dad wanting us close to him. He’s been gone, and this is the last time the family will be together until Thanksgiving or Christmas. But I think he’d like Caro—like—the Grants if he had a chance to get to know them. He met them under the worst possible circumstances.”

“Mm.”

“I worry that he’ll lump them together in his mind with Steve and Dave,” my cousin continued, “when they’re not like them at all.”

“Mm.”

“Stop for a second—” he spread his hand across the paper where I was doodling. “Are you listening, Frannie? Don’t you kind of miss her—miss them—too? We spent so much time together.”

I turned my face so he wouldn’t read it. “They were…lively. But quiet—quiet can be kind of nice for a change.”

“Sure it can.” He didn’t sound at all convinced.

After a pause, he pushed my paper back at me. I couldn’t doodle—not with his eyes on me, even when I knew he didn’t see me, really. Instead I traced the plump bird I’d drawn, going back and forth over the arc of its wing, back and forth until my pen punched through the paper.

“I was thinking,” Jonathan said at last, “of inviting her to church sometime. If she’d go. There couldn’t be any objection to that.”

There couldn’t.

Or at least, no objection that could be voiced aloud. The birds and flowers blurred before me, but I kept my mouth shut.

I didn’t say a word.

1985 - 1989

I was in three weddings before I graduated high school.

The first one, amazingly, was Rachel’s. Greg Perkins didn’t last out fall semester in college, and when the Oakland A’s renewed their offer of a minor-league contract and invited him to spring training, he jumped at the chance to drop Intro to Sports Physiology and pick up a bat. “He might be dumb,” Julie sniffed, “but he’s smart enough to figure out he was gonna be spending a lot of time in the counselor’s office trying to stay off academic probation.”

Uncle Paul could hardly get his mind around it when Greg and Rachel came to ask his blessing. “I never imagined any of my children would not graduate from college. Rachel, you’re so young. Have you thought about what you’d be giving up?”

Her eyes flashed and I saw the line of her jaw through her soft cheek. “I want it more than anything, Daddy! College will always be there. Maybe not four-year college, but something. This is the chance of a lifetime for Greg, and I want to be there for the ride. And have babies. I want a family very soon.”

“Soon? I didn’t know you felt so strongly. I didn’t know—well—this is hard to say, but you children seem to have grown up all at once. I’ve only gotten used to the idea of you graduating high school and now you’re wanting to get married?”

“Mom didn’t graduate from college,” said Rachel.

Aunt Marie looked up from her book to consider this. “I did finish my freshman year,” she recalled.

“Yes, you did,” Rachel agreed hastily. “But you never got an A.A. or anything. And you’ve never regretted it—marrying Dad—have you? Not that I wouldn’t get my degree at some point. Who knows? I mean, who knows where life will lead?” She gave a high laugh and crossed her arms over her stomach. Greg leaned over her, but I saw her flinch when he squeezed her shoulder.

“I just don’t see the rush,” her father persisted. “Why not wait until the end of the school year—”

“Who knows where
Greg’ll
be then!” Rachel interrupted. “He might make the team at spring training or be sent who-knows-where or whatever! It’s too unsettled. I want to be married way before he leaves for Phoenix.”

“Sir, I know this is really sudden,” said Greg, “but Rachel’s happiness would always be my first priority.”

Uncle Paul gave him a long look, taking in the honest, earnest, well-meaning face. No, the boy wasn’t brilliant, but he was solid. And talented. His future held more promise at this point than Tom’s, say. “You want this too?” Uncle Paul probed. “This rushed timeline?”

Greg cleared his throat and sat forward, his color coming and going. “I love your daughter, sir. To have her by my side as I take this next step would be—it would be a great blessing.”

“And if baseball doesn’t work out?”

“I hope that wouldn’t be the case, but I’ve also thought about coaching, teaching.”

Julie raised her eyebrows at me. With her other siblings gone, she was thrown back on me to share family developments.

“Think about it, Dad. That’s one less kid you have to put through college!” Rachel sounded almost playful now. It was so unlike the way she usually spoke to him that I couldn’t suppress a squirm. “And Greg and I don’t want a big extravaganza, so there’s another savings.”

Not for the first time since the summer did Uncle Paul look weary and regretful. He was going to give in, we all felt it, but I imagined he wished otherwise. If he thought Rachel would listen, he might have continued to preach patience, but the blessing she sought was no more than lip service. He passed a hand over his forehead and sank down beside Aunt Marie on the couch. “I wonder what your mother would say.”

“My mother?” Rachel wondered. In her rehearsals leading up to this conversation, she must not have anticipated this. “You mean that person I haven’t seen since I was five? The one who never called or wrote or asked me to live with her, like other divorced moms? The one who moved to Boston and had three new kids? I doubt she even remembers I exist. Jeez—even Frannie hears from her mother more than I have, and her mom isn’t even
normal
. I couldn’t be less interested in what my so-called mother has to say.”

My uncle lay his head back and shut his eyes for a moment. Aunt Marie patted his arm. “Tom, then,” he said. “Tom would be sorry to miss the wedding, if you honestly can’t wait till Christmas.” My oldest cousin was in Florence, having stopped out of Santa Clara at the eleventh hour because Eric Grant thought it would be a riot to do a quarter abroad.

It was the wrong thing to say.

Her wayward mother forgotten, Rachel stiffened and her voice became brittle. “Oh, you know Tom, Dad. If he’s scaring around Europe with Eric Grant, who knows when they’ll—when he’ll turn up again. There’s no guarantee he’d even be home by Christmas.”