The Big Shuffle (3 page)

However, sleep doesn't come for a long time. The house creaks as if it's badly docked at a rickety old pier and about to come loose. And tears continue to roll down my cheeks as I stare up at the ceiling.

T
HE TWINS CRYING IN STEREO WAKES ME FROM A DEEP BUT DISTURBED
sleep filled with upsetting dreams. There's a foggy moment when I'm not registering all that has just happened and then it quickly rushes back and I remember that Dad is dead. Those howling children will never know their father. Maybe they're the lucky ones, since you can't miss what you didn't really have in the first place.

Their cries grow and it doesn't appear to be the moment to philosophize about the rest of our lives. Climbing off the couch I feel like the monster being raised from the dead in a late-night creature feature, as if I haven't moved a muscle in years and it's an effort just to lift my arms. Thrumming inside my head over and over like the bass notes in a heavy metal song are the words: “Dad is dead, Dad is dead, Dad is dead.”

I turn on the hall light and peer down at the red faces and grasping fingers. There's no point in trying to isolate the problem—they both need to be changed, held, and fed. The hall clock says half past seven. At least I had a solid fifty minutes of sleep.

To Mom's credit she doesn't dress the identical-looking boys
alike, and she also keeps a little blue ribbon around the ankle of one of them. Though that's for Dad, since Mom can always tell her kids apart. Only I can't, and therefore don't know which one is Rodney and which is Reginald, nor are there any labels on the cribs. But I suppose at this age they don't know the difference either and so “Hey, you” won't exactly trigger an identity crisis.

Dawn is tinting the horizon pink and I'm halfway through feeding the second twin his bottle when ten-year-old Davy comes crawling into the kitchen on all fours, apparently motivated by his Spider-Man pajamas.

“Where's Mommy?” He quickly glances around the room as if she may be trying to hide somewhere.

“She took Daddy to the hospital.” I give the reply that I've been going over and over in my head all morning. “He doesn't feel well.”

I have absolutely no desire to break this news to the kids. Hopefully Mom will be home this afternoon and she can do it.

“Oh,” says Davy as he climbs up the counter in Spider-Man fashion to retrieve a bowl for his cereal. “Does Daddy have a stomachache?”

“Yeah.” I wipe the faces of the boys with their bibs. “He has a stomachache.”

“That's because it was Francie's birthday last night and we ate cake and ice cream,” Davy informs me. “It was really good.”

“Hey Davy, do you know which one of the twins is wearing the blue ribbon on his ankle?”

“Roddy,” answers Davy.

He scoops generic cereal into his bowl from a big plastic bin on the counter. The minute Davy tips the full gallon of milk toward the bowl I can see what's going to happen, only I'm trying to burp Roddy and don't make the save in time.

“Whoops,” says Davy as the milk washes over the top of the bowl like a giant wave, taking half the cereal with it.

“Don't worry, I can still eat it,” he assures me while sliding the bowl through the puddle, which is now trickling between the leaves in the table and creating rivulets across the linoleum floor.

I put Roddy back in his cradle and look on the counter for paper towels, briefly forgetting that the only disposable items allowed in this house are diapers, and reach for one of the many neatly folded rags under the sink.

Darlene comes bounding into the kitchen trailing six-year-old Francie and twenty-month-old Lillian. The two youngest girls have purple Magic Marker covering their hands and faces.

“Hallie ith back!” exclaims Darlene. “Where'th Mommy?” There's a faint note of concern in her voice.

“Mommy took Daddy to the doctor because he doesn't feel well.” I eject the words “hospital” and “sick” from my story.

The front door opens. It must be Mom! Thank goodness.

“How's Dad?” Eric shouts before he's even through the door.

E
RIC'S HULKING FRAME TAKES UP PRACTICALLY THE ENTIRE ARCH
way. Though he may not resemble Dad when it comes to physical features like hair color and jaw construction, Eric is built exactly like Dad—big, strong, and square. His cheeks are flushed from the cold and snowflakes dot his brown crew cut.

“Oh my God!” Eric correctly guesses the worst.

He and I escape to the living room so that we can talk. However, Teddy is plunked in front of the PlayStation blowing up a city. Eric follows me upstairs to the room that Louise now shares with Darlene, and I switch on the overhead light. Louise is the only person I haven't seen yet this morning. She's in bed looking every bit the shot-down pilot, lying on her back with eyes closed and enormous earphones covering the sides of her head.

I yank off the headset. “Louise, get up! Eric is home.”

She opens her eyes and stares up at us, blinking into the light.

We fill Eric in on the details of last night, bursting into tears at the end. He sits there on the edge of Darlene's bed in stunned silence, as if we might eventually revise the story to have a happier ending.

“Someone has to go and pick up Mom at the hospital,” I finally say. “I guess it should be Eric.”

Louise raises no objections. But then Louise has never been what one would call an avid volunteer when it comes to family life.

“We'll get all the kids dressed, clean up the kitchen, and shovel the driveway,” I say.

The next two hours are spent scrambling eggs, giving baths to the twins, and doing several loads of wash. It's amazing that one day of clothes and nightwear for this family can result in two full loads of laundry. A repairman once informed my mother that she was the first person he ever knew to actually
wear out
a lint trap. There's an ironing board in the corner but I decide that, under the circumstances, gravity will have to take care of the wrinkles.

When that's finished it's already eleven o'clock, the twins are hungry again, and it's time to figure out what's for lunch. I tell Louise to call the pizza parlor and order two pies because I don't want the kitchen messed up just as Mom is arriving home.

“But Eric's got the station wagon,” she says.

At first I assume this is just another one of Louise's excuses to get out of doing something. But then I realize that Dad's minivan, which no else one but Mom was ever allowed to drive, has taken on a sacred air. Only there's too much to do and not enough time or money to be become superstitious.

“Take the van.” I hand her the keys off the rack next to the refrigerator as if we toss them back and forth all the time. She doesn't take her road test for another month, but under the circumstances I can't imagine that anyone will make a fuss.

Before Louise can take a step toward the garage the phone rings, and for some reason we're both equally startled by this, jumping slightly and then staring at each other rather than lunging for the receiver.

“Maybe it's Mom,” I say hopefully.

Louise grabs the receiver. After listening to some high-pitched squawking on the other end, she places her hand over the mouthpiece and whispers, “Aunt Vi.” We both give each other the Aunt Vi eye roll. She's a talker, as Mom likes to say about her mother's vivacious younger sister, our Great-Aunt Vivian.

Aunt Vi must finally take a breath, because I watch as Louise quietly says, “He passed away.” It's eerie to hear the phrase actually spoken, at least in reference to our dad, and I'm impressed that Louise has opted for the more churchlike version. I probably would have just said that he died.

There's a tremendous crash in the living room followed by a cry of pain and then shouts of accusation. Running toward the noise, I find Francie on the floor with her mouth wide open in protest, eyes squeezed shut in pain, and hands gripping a spot slightly to the left of her forehead.

I lift Francie in my arms and carry her to the downstairs bathroom, which I know from experience has the best combination of outdoor and artificial light for inspecting wounds and removing slivers. There's a nice gash right along her hairline, but it doesn't appear wide enough or deep enough to merit stitches.

Meantime, the phone rings again. Louise must have picked it up because there was only one ring.

While I'm wiping away the blood on Francie's head, Louise pokes her head into the bathroom. “What happened?”

“The girls were walking across the furniture in the living room and she fell.” Francie doesn't dispute this version of events. Nor does Louise ask questions because the younger ones had of course learned the game from us in the first place.

“Uncle Alan is on the phone,” reports Louise. “He wants to know when the funeral is.”

Funeral? Such a thing had never occurred to me. But yes, I suppose there would have to be a funeral.

“Should I just tell him we'll call back when we know more?” suggests Louise.

“Yeah, that's good. Do that.” I find a Band-Aid and place it on Francie's gashed forehead.

The doorbell rings. It must be Mom—I'll bet she didn't know that Eric was on his way, so she took a cab but doesn't have her keys. Eric must have accidentally locked the door when he left.

T
HROWING OPEN THE FRONT DOOR, I FIND A WOMAN WHO LOOKS
remarkably like my mother, only her hair is coppery red instead of chestnut brown, she's about three inches shorter than Mom, and she's wearing two different gloves—one black and one red.

“Aunt Lala!” I shout, and hug her tightly right there on the threshold. Her name is really Lorraine, but when my mother was young she couldn't pronounce it, and thus ended up with Lala. No one ever called her anything else after that.

“How's your father?” she asks hopefully

I suddenly realize that Aunt Lala's been on a plane from London and hasn't heard the news. But from the way I stop hugging and start staring she immediately understands.

“Oh dear Lord!” The corners of her mouth tremble and she closes her eyes tightly, as if preparing for a storm. Long drawn-out sobs begin to shake her body. I help her through to the dining room and into a seat at the table. Tears stream from her eyes and she covers her mouth with her hands. A high-pitched screech comes from the kitchen and I realize the twins are still perched atop the table out there. Not that they can go anywhere, but I think I'm supposed to keep an eye and not just an ear
on them. And where have the older boys disappeared to? I wonder.

“Hang on—I have to get the babies.”

The doorbell rings again.

Bernard is standing on the front porch holding a casserole dish and a laundry bag, which he immediately sets down in the entrance hall table to give me the kind of hug reserved for people who have just experienced a major loss. “Gil is going to stay home and watch the girls today. And I packed up your clothes that were in the summerhouse.”

The phone starts ringing again. Louise must have picked it up again because it stops.

Bernard lifts the casserole dish and follows me toward the kitchen. “I brought leftover baby back ribs à la Bernard and my super-special Stockton shrimp scampi—hardly enough to feed everybody, but perhaps good for a little snack.”

Over time one begins to notice that most of Bernard's recipes manage to work his name in there somewhere.

“Unfortunately we finished all the cauliflower,” continues Bernard.

“The kids hate cauliflower,” I say.

“I must admit, I couldn't eat it for a year after what happened.”

There's no doubt that I'm distracted at the moment; however, a cauliflower tragedy just isn't ringing a bell.

“Excuse me?”

“The brilliant French chef Bernard Loiseau searched nonstop for a way to transform cauliflower from an unsophisticated vegetable into a dazzling side dish by caramelizing it. He blanched, strained, puréed, and then finally committed suicide after it failed to impress the critics.” Bernard stares at me as if he can't believe a civilized human being could not know such a
thing. He harrumphs loudly and adds, “Yet you never find any award-winning dishes named after critics, now do you?”

Louise appears in the front hallway. She gives Bernard a nod and dutifully reports, “Eric called from the hospital. Mom is still in shock and she isn't coming home.”

“What?” I might be in shock, too. Nothing makes sense anymore.

“She's not yet recovered from the blow,” Bernard translates.

“I know, I mean, what are we supposed to do?”

“Eric says the hospital wants to know what to do with the body,” Louise somberly continues.

A loud sob comes from the dining room. Louise and Bernard appear startled.

“Aunt Lala is here,” I explain. “She just found out.”

“Maybe she knows what to tell them,” suggests Louise. “Eric is waiting on the other end.”

I walk into the dining room where Aunt Lala is still wearing her purple coat with an enormous handbag strapped across her chest. Strands of frizzy red hair hang down over florid cheeks, and her face is streaked with mascara, lending a clownlike atmosphere to the scene. Aunt Lala's naturally bright coloring goes a long way in explaining the red hair and freckled skin that pops up in every second or third Palmer child. Aunt Lala leans forward until she runs out of breath and then leans way back and loudly blows her nose into a fast-disintegrating tissue.

“Mom is sort of in shock and so they want to know what we should do with Dad's body,” I say.

Aunt Lala's eyes open wide and it looks as if she's about to say something but all that comes out is another huge wail.

I step back into the front hall where Louise and Bernard are waiting. “She's not sure,” I say as we hear her get started on another round of weeping.

“I know,” says Bernard. “Call Pastor Costello!”

Bernard isn't a churchgoer, but he's quite fond of the regular poker games that Pastor Costello holds with some of the guys in the church basement.

“I thought of that,” I say. “He's on that mission to Cambodia.”