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  Clay reminded me that we were only kids. Ma wasn’t, and he claimed that she could have walked away like he did.

  His remark pissed me off all the more and I went off on him, reminding him that she had two kids to take care of and that she didn’t have a penny to her name. No car. No experience being on her own, since she’d lived with her parents until the day she married Dad. But none of that meant jack shit to Clay. The phone call ended with me telling him to shove his self-righteousness up his ass.

  Ever since that conversation, his calls have gone from once a month to three times a year: Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. And he keeps those calls short. Polite. Like you would if you were calling an old aunt out of obligation.

  Ma sat down at the table and took another sip of tea. She told me that the time would come for her to talk to Clay, but for now he’s not ready.

  I asked her if Sky Walker told her this, and she told me to stop it. That I know her name is Sky Dreamer. She took a deep, soft breath, and her face turned wistful as she informed me that she’s thinking of changing her name.

  I hoped to hell she was kidding. She wasn’t. She was perfectly serious as she told me that Lillian is a nice enough name but that it represents the old her. She reminded me that Marie had her name changed for the third time right before we left. I reminded her that Marie’s Indian, for God’s sakes—and she’s not—that it’s part of Marie’s culture. I groaned out loud, then looked back at my computer screen. I could feel her thinking up new names even as we sat there.

  “I’m not staying here until he dies, you know,” I said abruptly. “Maybe you love the guy enough to stay and tuck him in for his dirt nap, but I don’t.”

  Ma gasped at my comment, then asked when I got so sarcastic and bitter, anyway. What could I say?

  She sat quietly for a minute—okay, maybe a fraction of a minute—then she brought up her promise to Dad again. How it never went away, even after his meanness chipped away at her love until there was nothing left. After all Dad put her through, I said, she should be absolved from that promise.

  She blinked at me. “Absolved by whom?” she asked. Again, I had no answer.

  Suddenly Ma looked almost small. Almost vulnerable. She shook her head slightly and gave me one of those bittersweet smiles. Then she told me how, from the time she was a girl, she wondered what her purpose in life was. She always knew that it wasn’t something on a large scale—even though she admitted that when she was young, she wanted to do something great. “Youth always dreams of greatness,” she added, reminding me of my own youthful dream of becoming a world-class novelist.

  She went on to point out that she has no special talents. How she loves music, but can’t play it. How she gets goose pimples over beautiful artwork but can’t create it. But she’s comfortable with that at her age, she said, because she looks at success a little differently than she used to. Then she started talking about how when she’d finally gotten herself together, she promised the “Creator” that she would keep her word and decided that if she accomplished only keeping her word for the rest of her life, that would be enough.

  That’s a noble ambition, and I told her so. But I added that I didn’t see the point in this case. And then she brought up something that pained me. How she’d promised everyone—Marie and me and herself—that she’d stick with her commitment to put an end to the madness going on in this house, but she didn’t do it. Not then, anyway. And that although she tries to live with no shame, no blame, and no guilt, she falters at times and wonders if things might have turned out differently if she’d stuck to her promise the first time.

  I felt my whole insides stiffen when she said this. “It wasn’t your fault!” I protested. “You weren’t the cause of what happened!”

  “Wasn’t I?” she said. Ma wasn’t so sure about that, and she wasn’t about to test it out. “And whether you see my aim as worthy for a life’s goal or not isn’t the point. To me, it’s everything.”

  I wanted to wrap my arms around her at that moment, but I didn’t. Instead, I asked her if she knew what I was having the most difficulty accomplishing.

  She made a smart-ass guess that it was “trying to come up out of the water,” and, I swear, there was a little taunting curl to her lips!

  “No!” I snapped, even though I had planned to reveal something akin to that. I told her that it was trying to get my work done when someone was chewing my ear off. I adjusted the screen of my laptop and stared at it fiercely.

  Ma rose then, warming her tea with more water from the kettle and leaning her backside against the counter. She made a comment about how fear is a peculiar thing, following that gem up by reminding me of how Clay always accused Dad of being a phony and a coward. She surprised me by agreeing with Clay and talking about how Dad split himself into two halves and sent one half out into the world for others and left one half here at home for us. How in both places there was fear. Dad didn’t go to college—even though he loved learning as much as Milo and Lucy do—because he was afraid he wasn’t smart enough to rise to the top there. How he held on to his money with a gripped fist and would take a swing at her when she dared try to snatch some of it for bread or milk, because he was afraid he’d run out. And she brought up how Dad had a string of mistresses and loved at least one of them but couldn’t be with her because he was afraid that if she saw him at his worst, she’d stop loving him. “Everything that man did, he did while standing chin-deep in fear,” Ma said, then she added, “I understand fear, of course. I lived in it too. We all have fears, Tess. But, well, at some point we need to face them.”

  When I didn’t respond, Ma said she’d leave me to my work. She set her cup in the sink and kissed me good night, then went to her room.

  Ma’s right. I am afraid. I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid that if I allow my love for Peter to take me back to him, he’ll change, and he’ll find my underbelly and rip it to shreds in the end.

  I’m afraid to really look at Dad, for fear that I’ll see too much of myself in him and that I’ll break through the thin covering of indifference that sits over the hole in my life where a father should have been and fall into a pit of grief when he dies.

  I’m afraid to look at Lucy when she asks about her father, for fear that in a weak moment I’ll blurt out the truth.

  I’m glad my old files from my time with Howard are gone, along with that old word processor itself, because if I had them, I’m afraid I would read them and go back to that time I never want to relive.

  I’m just afraid.

  I feel like I just walked into a stranger’s room and saw them naked. I minimize the screen.

  Downstairs, the back door shuts, and I hear Mom’s voice. She’s grumbling about something or other. I kick off my shoes, and in stocking feet—half crouching, half creeping—I rush Mom’s laptop to her room and set it on the nightstand next to her bed. I hurry back into my room, slip my shoes back on, and head downstairs.

  “I had Lucy bring it upstairs,” I hear Oma say when I reach the landing of the stairs.

  “It’s on your nightstand,” I add, then quickly lean over Oma’s shoulder and ask her how the dinner preparations are coming.

  “Fine, honey,” Oma says. “We’re going to eat like kings tonight.”

  I pride myself on the acting job I’m doing. Mom had that worried look on her face when I entered the kitchen—the memory of catching me rummaging through her notebooks still fresh in her mind, no doubt—but I played it cool by looking casual, even if I didn’t feel that way inside.

  I manage to give Mom a bit of eye contact and keep my voice at its normal pitch when I casually ask what time Mitzy is coming. Mom is buying it, apparently, because her shoulders relax when she says, “Around seven.” Well, as much as her shoulders are capable of relaxing, anyway.

  Mom’s face might look exactly the same, yet after reading her private thoughts, I know that there is a lot more underneath that dry skin and emotionally void face than meets the eye. F
or a long time now I’ve prided myself on my skilled intuition, my ability to read body language and verbal tones, but suddenly I question whether I’m any good at any of it at all, because I always assumed that Mom—with her attachment disorder and abandonment issues and all—didn’t feel very much past her love for Milo and me and Oma. Now I know that she feels everything. Intensely.

  I watch Mom as she heads up the stairs, and I think that maybe I should brush up on my math skills and just become an accountant or something.

  AS THE day progresses, the aroma of Oma’s cooking swells from the stove to fill the kitchen, and by the time Feynman begins to bark, alerting us that someone is here, the whole house is bathed in smells so enticing that we’re salivating like Pavlov’s dog.

  The first thing I think of when I see Marie is Oma’s fertility goddess earrings. Her skin is clay-red, and she’s molded solid like the earth, with heavy breasts and wide hips and thighs. Her face is full, and her salt-and-pepper hair is pulled back and twisted into a fat knot at the base of her neck. She has a wide, square, attractive face, and she’s wearing a long denim skirt and a white roomy blouse. Long earrings made of tiny red and yellow beads wobble and bend against a neck that is filled with rings like a tree trunk. Mom didn’t specify which kind of Indian Marie is, but I see for myself—feather, not dot—and she doesn’t seem old, even though I know she’s around Oma’s age.

  “I can’t believe this!” Marie says as she twirls Oma around so she can look at her from every angle. “Look at her, Tess. Just look at her. Can you believe it? My God, I can’t even tell it’s the same woman who left here. You look terrific, Lillian.”

  Oma giggles. “Oh, I don’t look so great right now,” she says. She lifts her arm and wobbles the skin that hangs from her upper arms. “I’ve not been to Curves or Nia for almost three weeks now, and it’s showing. Look at my stomach. I’m starting to look like I’m pregnant.”

  Marie pats her own pooch of a belly. “Hey,” she says. “If someone looks at us and thinks we’re still young enough to get pregnant, we should take that as a compliment!”

  “Come here, you,” Marie says. She wraps Oma in her arms and they hug with such gusto that their faces change color.

  “Oh, I’ve missed you, dear friend,” Oma says as they hug.

  Of course Oma tells Marie that she looks good too, and Marie says, “It’s my new bra, I’m telling you. Look at this thing. Can you believe it?” She lifts up her blouse and shows us her tight-fitting bra, which is icy peach, filmy, and looks like the wrap they put over Easter baskets. Her boobs crest above her bra cups like muffin tops. “So don’t worry about TV trays if you don’t have enough room at the table for all of us, Lillian. I’ll just slide my chin off my shelf, and we can set a few plates here.”

  Oma laughs ’til she’s teary-eyed, then she throws her arms around Marie once more for a quick squeeze. “Still the same Marie,” she says.

  “Say hello to Sam, Marie,” Oma says as she swabs her drippy eyes, and Marie turns and sees Grandpa Sam sitting in his chair. Her dark-chocolate eyes grow wide and her clay cheeks rosy.

  Grandpa Sam is looking right at her, same as he was when she lifted her blouse, his face impassive. “Well,” Marie says, “either his strokes have done that much damage to him, or the years have done that much damage to me !” The women roar again.

  Then Marie opens her arms to Mom. “Oh, sweetie,” she says. She hugs Mom long and hard too. When she’s done, she cups Mom’s face in her hands, smiles at her with glittery eyes, then kisses both of her cheeks. “I love you like a daughter, you know.” Mom grins.

  “Where’s Al?” Oma asks.

  “Probably still trying to get out of the car. Stubborn old mule, he wouldn’t let me help him.” Marie spots me and her eyes get teary all over again. She glances at Mom with pride, like she did something wonderful by creating me, then she opens her arms and invites me to step into them. She pins me in a big hug that feels good—well, except to my ear, which must be folded over, because it hurts. “Last time I saw you, you were still wearing your umbilical cord,” she says. “Oh, Tess, she’s just precious. Just precious.”

  The back door scrapes against the floor as it opens, and even with my ear crushed against Marie’s boobs, which are bobbing against me like buoys, I can hear the taps of Feynman’s toenails, which are getting so long that he could perch.

  “Milo, come meet your auntie Marie,” Oma says when Milo comes in, pink-cheeked and sweaty from his bike ride. “This is our Milo, Lucy’s twin,” she says proudly. Luckily for Milo, he’s still wearing the pterodactyl helmet Mom insists he wear when riding on the road, so his head is protected from Marie’s crushing hug, while I’m still rubbing my ear to get rid of the stinging.

  “I didn’t know you were my aunt,” Milo says, and I’m amazed that he can breathe enough to say it, with his asthma and having his face smothered as it is.

  “I’m your auntie of the heart,” Marie says.

  “Hot apple cider?” Mom asks when Marie finally lets go of Milo. Marie says yes and Mom hurries off to the kitchen to get her some, leaving Oma and Marie to hug and giggle some more. I follow Mom into the kitchen, but dumb Milo, he just stands there, too polite to ask if he can be excused even though he’s fidgeting because he wants to be.

  In seconds, I hear Mitzy’s voice as she comes in the door. She fusses over Milo, then Feynman, and I hurry into the living room to get my share of fussing. Mitzy’s hug is different from Marie’s—it feels more like a burst of sunshine, while Marie’s felt like the splashing waves of an ocean.

  “Where’s Ray?” Mom asks.

  “Outside talking to Al,” Mitzy says. “The poor guys are probably afraid to come inside.”

  Oma invites them into the kitchen, even though they’ll be cramped, she says, but she’s got to watch the pots on the stove. While Mom is waiting for Marie to squeeze her way around the kitchen table, Milo goes to her and pleads to be excused. She nods—probably because she fears Milo will end up armless, considering that his puny arm is stretched like a rubber band as he tries to keep Feynman from jumping up on our guests—and he tugs the dog back to their cave.

  I like being in the kitchen with Mom and Oma and Marie and Mitzy. They are all talking at once as they uncover pans to stir and sniff and sample, and their laughter is as fragrant as the steam that rises up from beneath the lids. They talk in hurried bits, commenting on the simmering food and past events. Light, simple, happy times, but the occasional glances between Oma and Marie say that there are deeper memories they want to share too.

  There’s a sharp rap of knuckles against the front door before it opens, and then Al and Ray step inside. Al is the same height as Marie, white, round in his belly and cheeks, and has bulgy blue eyes. His ears are triangle-shaped, and the tips point out at a ten o’clock and a two o’clock angle—which, I decide, is probably from being crushed against Marie’s boobs for thirty-nine years. I only know a little about Al. He trucks logs from the woods to the paper mills, and he (probably) has a hernia.

  Oma hugs Al as she laughs, and he pats her back as she hugs him. He does the same with Mom. While they hug, Ray just watches with a nervous smile. Mitzy goes to him and slips under his arm—maybe so he doesn’t feel left out in the hug department.

  Mitzy doesn’t need to worry about Ray not getting his share of welcome hugs, though, because Oma sees to it that he gets his, even though she doesn’t know him from Adam, as she herself would say.

  Ray has hair the color of Peter’s, but it’s buzzed to a fraction of an inch. He’s rather nice-looking—though not nearly as handsome as Peter—even though he’s as skinny as a tapeworm.

  Mitzy puts her arm around Ray again as she tells Oma who Ray’s relatives are, dropping names in the hopes of finding someone in his family that Oma knows. I study Ray as his head swivels from side to side, trying to keep up with Mitzy, Oma, and Al, as they volley names. When they finally find a relative of Ray’s that Oma and Al know, there’s relief, althoug
h who knows why. Maybe it’s just important to identify the tribe of a stranger. I tuck this thought into my head to chew on later.

  “Here, here, have a seat,” Oma says, when she notices Al’s posture drooping. “Those hernias are painful, aren’t they?” she says, as though she’s had a few herself. “After dinner I’ll give you a Reiki treatment.” She says this as though Al has no choice in the matter, which he probably doesn’t.

  “You do Reiki?” Marie asks as she follows Oma back to the kitchen. “Oh, I’m curious about that. A friend of mine went to an alternative healing center over in Marrington and had Reiki. She saw a medicine man on the reservation too, and who knows which did the trick, but …”

  Mom offers Mitzy and the men chairs and apple cider, then they talk about all those things grown-ups who don’t know one another well talk about. When the frost will set in. The high price of gasoline. Boring things like that.

  I watch them as they make their small talk. Ray is soft-spoken and friendly, but the way he keeps brushing the legs of his pants and shifting his feet says to me that he’s a loner and would rather not be in a group of strangers. Al’s face is tense, and he sits tilted to one side. He’s making comments back to Ray, but I think he’s really thinking about the pain in his groin and wondering what could happen if he lets his hernia—or whatever it is—go. And then there is Grandpa Sam, who is too out of it to worry about his health or, for that matter, about behaving in a socially acceptable manner, judging by the way he’s picking at his nose.

  Oma comes to take Grandpa Sam into the kitchen for his dinner before we eat. She’s got him almost through the kitchen doorway when she stops and turns to me. “Lucy, would you mind feeding your grandpa, so I can orchestrate the finishing touches on our dinner?” She sees me cringe, and her face mixes with sympathy and pleading. “Please?”

  Despite my stomach growling from hunger, nausea kicks in with the first spoonful of orangy-green mush Grandpa Sam rolls back out of his mouth. I scrape it off his chin like Oma does and quickly scoop it back in.