“Then I heard another voice — sounded enough like your dad’s to give me the heebie-jeebies. So I left. Didn’t bother to say good-bye or put away the cleaning supplies or nothing. I just wanted to get away from your brother and his grief and that house as fast as I could. I think there’s a kind of sadness that gets to be so terrible a person can’t be around it for too long without going a little crazy themselves. I got enough people who think I’m batty. I don’t need to go hearing a dead man’s voice.”
Marian inhaled the peppermint fumes from her fresh cup of tea. “How bad was it for Dad near the end? Did he really feel that...forgotten?”
Boots took a deep drag from her cigarette, coughed, then sipped her tea. “Let me tell you something about your dad. When him and me were growing up, he was always made to feel like a failure by the other kids in the family. Our parents weren’t the kindest folks in the world, they never had much money and even less patience. Pop wasn’t too bad but our mama was one mean-tempered gal. She used to take off her one of her high-heeled shoes whenever she got mad and beat your dad on the back with it, making little holes until you couldn’t see his skin for the blood. Well, I saved up a bunch of money from collecting pop bottles and scrap metal and newspapers and such, and I bought Mama a new pair of boots. They fit her just right and she said they were comfortable. She took to wearing them quite a lot. So I either hid or threw away all her high-heeled shoes, that way, when she got the hankering to pound on your dad, she never made him bleed. Oh, she left some nasty bruises, but never again did she leave him scarred and bleeding. He was so grateful that he hugged me and said, ‘Thanks for the boots.’ That’s how I got my nickname.”
Marian remembered how she used to giggle at those marks on her father’s back when she was a child: What’s all them funny things, Daddy? — Why, those’re dots, honey, so you can play at connect-the-dots and see what kind of picture they make.
“The one thing he kept saying to me,” whispered Boots, wiping something from her eye, “was that someday he was gonna do something great, something that would make mama and the rest of the kids who used to call him a dummy feel sorry they’d ever been bad to him and me.
“He used to ask me if he bored me with all of his talking, his out-loud daydreaming. I thought he was the greatest thing since Errol Flynn. He’d always stand in front of me when mama would go off on one of her pounding fits. Most of the time, he wound up taking my beatings for me.” She touched the scar on her chin. “When he was there, that is. He was a fine boy and an even better man, your dad. You should’ve known him back then, back when you could see his greatness instead of just hearing about it the way others remembered it. I’m gonna miss him so much — oh, goddammit!” She turned away and wept quietly.
Marian reached over and took Boots’s hand. “Please tell me?”
“Oh, honey ... it was terrible for him at the end. I wish I had it in me to lie and spare your feelings but I can’t and I’m sorry. He kept...crying all the time, going on about how he’d never get to build his masterpiece. He figured that his life had been one big waste. There was no feeling sorry for himself, though. He had no sympathy for himself at all — he even said it’d make more sense if he did feel sorry for himself, ’cause that’d at least explain why he couldn’t stop crying. He never got to do any of the things he wanted to do, only the things he had to do. I just couldn’t stand it. He was so miserable. The cancer pain was too much. He needed...I don’t know...something so much and none of us could give it to him. It was terrible. He started drinking, to help kill some of the pain, he said. I knew that he shouldn’t have been pouring booze down his throat but when I said something to Alan, he only said —” “‘I can’t deny him a drink when he needs one.’” “That’s right.” Marian got up and put her arms around Boots, holding her as tightly as she could.
“I’m fine, honey,” said Boots, “thank you. I’m always fine. Don’t know why I had to go and blubber like this. Not my way. Let’s put ourselves back together now, whatta you say?”
Marian kissed Boots’s cheek. “You were always my favorite aunt.”
“Glad to know someone in this family was born with good taste. Listen, now; I’m gonna get myself freshened up. Why don’t you go on and stick your head in the guest room down here and wake Laura? She’d throw a fit if she knew you’d been here and I didn’t let you wake her to say hello. You go do that, I’ll make myself presentable, then I’ll drive us back over to the house. I want to see this thing your brother made.”
Boots went upstairs and Marian— after another shot of doctored tea— went to the door of the guest room and knocked. “Laura? Laura, it’s me. Can I come in?”
“M-Marian?” She sounded half-asleep still. “Hell, yes...come in.”
For a while there were no words exchanged between them, there was no need. Marian sat next to her ex-sister-in-law’s bed, holding her hand and trying not to give in to the fear that was clawing at the lining of her stomach.
Laura was pregnant and—judging from her size—in the last month.
Marian wished she could smile and make herself believe that Laura had found someone new, a man who loved and cared for her and wanted a family, but the look of helplessness on Laura’s face, one composed of fear and more than a little hatred, kept her nailed in the moment.
“I don’t feel very good,” said Laura, her voice thin, hollow, “so please j-just listen to what I have to say.” As she spoke the color drained from her face until she looked ashen, a bloated greying corpse. Marian felt herself shaking as she watched the sweat pour down Laura’s face.
“I left your brother over nine months ago, and I haven’t slept with any man since then. I’ve been tested, Marian, and I there’s a...baby in me. I feel it kicking, I feel its hunger...it’s there. And its Alan’s. I don’t know how or why he did this to me, but I know.
“Early on, I tried three times to have an abortion, but when they got inside me there was... there was nothing there.”
The sweating was worse now and she was shaking badly— as was Marian.
“I never really wanted kids,” said Laura. “All I ever wanted was a man who would love me, who would support me, and who knew that I came first once he’d left the family. But Alan could never leave your family behind. Was that so much to ask? Was it? To have a home all my own? A home that had no trace of whatever it was that happened to him when you guys were kids? I still love him, Marian, but this thing in me is moving and I don’t want it! I just want to... to have my job and my husband back, I want to read in bed at night and feel him beside me, I want to go to movies and drive him crazy because I insist on sitting through all the credits, I want him to wake me up and send me to bed because I feel asleep watching some late night talk show again, I want him to crack bad jokes when our friends come over....” She leaned back and started taking deep breaths. Marian looked at Laura’s middle. It rippled. A quick movement, a thin hissing sound, and Laura’s water broke. Marian jumped to her feet and called out for Boots. “Press the ‘O’ key on the phone,” called her aunt from upstairs. “That’s 911.”
Marian snatched up the phone and made the call. Four minutes later she and Boots watched as the EMTs loaded Laura into the ambulance. Boots kissed Laura’s forehead and told her they’d follow in her car. The ambulance pulled away and Marian followed her aunt into the garage.
The garage was dark but Boots was able to guide Marian to the car without either of them banging a shin. Once inside the car, under the harsh glow of the dome light, the strain on Boots was evident; she suddenly looked much older than her years. She caught Marian staring at her and smiled. “You are a pretty thing. Won’t be much longer now and I’ll be paying good money to see your face up on a movie screen.”