“That’s not all they were jealous of,” Otto egged him on. Otto’s flattery went a long way in reviving them. Even Granny Olga gave up a tight-wadded snicker.
Ruth was in kitchen again with the eggs and the éclairs. What with the emergency, we’d worked up an appetite. Granny Olga was bothering Ruth about the tea. There was nothing like a good Catholic woman in her daughter’s kitchen to stir up Granny Olga’s hankering to bring out the samovar. Once, I’d asked Mother about attending catechism.
“I want to go,” I’d said. I’d just finished sitting down to my method. Mother had come into the room to have a cigarette and a listen. It was the only time Mother had ever struck me in the face. The surprise of it was what stung.
Despite her husband’s alcoholism and her penchant for Pall Malls, Ruth was a Catholic. Grandmother could smell it on her, lapsed or no.
“I’ll clean up here, darlin’,” Granny Olga said as soon as Ruth had finished arranging her spread.
The house had the feel of the holidays.
“I heard Jean’s been tending to Helene,” Mother was saying to Otto. Everyone was sprawled out on the L-shape.
“With all her grace,” Otto said. “Never thought I’d see anyone make that old piano sing again,” he said.
“I keep telling her,” Father said. “She could really have something if she just practiced. Not everyone can have a little something like that. A real talent.”
“I think she practices just fine,” Otto said.
I was quiet then. My eyes fell into my lap. I examined the curve of my thigh where Grandmother had touched it. I thought maybe I’d have a fine shape one day if I just discovered it right.
“Speak up, child,” Granny Olga said. “We don’t mind you so much talking.”
Otto cleared his throat. He began telling stories about the bonfire.
“All this celebrating in my absence,” Mother was saying. “You know how much I hate to miss a good party.”
“Nothing doing,” Father said. “Pretty much just a fire and some fancy camping is all. Remember, baby. I took you camping once.”
“Sure,” Mother said. She hadn’t given in to him yet. But she wasn’t denying him anything either. He was injured after all. Everyone could see that. Everyone could see that denying him would’ve made her look too sharp in the light.
“We ate fresh carp,” she said.
“Crappie,” Father said. “We went swimming and fried crappie over the Bunsen and camped out on the dock. We never made it all the way out to the ocean. You said you wanted to avoid the salt.”
“Right,” Mother said. “I never can get the water out of my eyes. That was it.”
“I don’t know what you kids call camping,” Otto said. “All I know is I came home from the butte that night with a six pack under one arm and a hard-on under the other despite the liquor. I haven’t been that horny since I was a teen. I went to take a piss and caught myself in the zipper. Wilson comes in and I’m curled up on the floor with my head over the bowl. Scared him shitless. All that smoke and wide open air.”
“Cocksucker,” Ray said then from the rocker. It was hard to say if this was intended as a comment on the conversation or if it was just some gesticulation.
“Get back to your sleep, old man,” Otto said.
“Well,” Father said to Otto. “I guess I’ll have to button you up better next time. I took you for a man who could hold his liquor.”
“That’s what being out in the daybreak will do to you,” Mother said, pausing for a moment to stare at Father. “It messes with your sense of the day.”
“Sure,” Otto said. “The sunrise spoils everything.”
They both laughed. They both seemed easier then.
“Speaking of fresh air,” Granny Olga said and nodded down at me. She was talking about my age and the conversation. She’d given up trying to get me to dress. She was on to smoothing my hair.
“There’s no use waterproofing her,” Mother said, nodding towards me. “She’s got a good mind. A little love and squalor isn’t gonna change that. A little love and squalor isn’t going to change anything.”
There was a knock at the front door.
“Be a doll and get that,” Mother said to me. She tapped me on the bottom as she excused me from the room. One day her daughter might have a figure too if she just gave it the right attention.
Callie had come to visit the scene of Mother’s crime. All Callie’s desires had been laid there in our house in Mother’s absence. Callie glanced into the living room through the open door. She looked tired. Her breathing was heavy. Her hair smelled of ointment.
“I heard from the barn hand,” she said. “The horses came home without any riders. I saw him leading them in.”
“How are they?” I said.
“Who?” she said.
“The horses,” I said.
“Fine,” she said. “The horses are fine. The vet’s there now.”
“Thanks for staying with them,” I said.
“Sure,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Sorry for what?” she said.
“That you’ve put so much into looking after them.”
She was gazing at the eagle, the small one in the painting over the wooden chest where I kept my sleeping bag for those mornings I waited on the Steelhead mother’s Impala.
“Where’d she pick that up?” Callie said nodding toward the painting.
“Junk shop,” I said.
“Ah,” she said. “I thought maybe it meant something. I thought maybe he’d painted it for her.”
“Who?” I said.
“No one,” she said. “Your old man.” I knew then how much Callie’d thought on Father. How much of herself she’d wasted away hoping. Like most things that were sinking, she’d seen something shift here and had hoped to grab hold of it. I looked in at Father. His face was puffy and blue. He was smiling with all the teeth he had. I could tell by the way he ignored the door, that Callie was a thought that had not yet occurred to him. Her image was still stuck there developing somewhere in the ether. He was a good man. All he’d wanted to do was fix her pipes.
“Oh,” I said. “Father doesn’t paint much anymore.”
Callie took my chin briefly in her hand and tilted it toward her face so that she could shove her smile into my eyes. I swallowed that too.
“You look like her,” she said.
“Who?” I said.
“Your mother,” she said. “She’s nearly glowing.”
“Yes,” I said. “Mother’s quite well.”
Callie looked at me then with a new sort of terror. There was something welling up in her eyes. It looked almost like laughter.
“Happy to hear it,” she said. “I’m sure she’s happy to see you.”
“I suppose,” I said. “It’s been a long day. She’s been traveling.”
“Well,” she said, “Tell Otto His Helene’s been asking for him. Tell him I put a pot of coffee on.”
“Is she in a bad way?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose she is in a bad way.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll tell him.”
“Well,” she said. “I best be getting home.”
“Are you sure?” I said, opening the door a little further to let her have one last look at them.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I have my boys.”
“Who was that?” Mother said when I came back to the couch.
“No one,” I said. “The stable boy. He came to let us know about the horses.”
“How are they?” she said.
“Who?” I said.
“The horses,” she said.
“They’re fine,” I said. “He said the horses are fine.”