Child of My Right Hand (16 page)

She hoped Jack understood that, too.

Simon sang, joyously, “It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A,” as she sifted through the pile of dark clothes for the trash he often left in his pockets, the candy wrappers, tissues and folded squares of paper that would otherwise dissolve coating all the clean clothes.

“It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A.”

In the jeans Simon had worn yesterday, she found a sheet of lined paper torn from a memo pad on which Simon had scrawled “Simon and Rich 4-ever,” enclosing their names in a pink heart. Outside the heart there was a phone number, which appeared to be in a different handwriting.

“They have everything for you men to enjoy, you can hang out with all the boys.”

Oh my, she thought and started upstairs, wondering if this were an old note resurfacing in Simon's jeans like a piece of eight rising from the sand on a deserted beach, or something new. Genna turned towards the kitchen to start dinner: turkey burgers, rice, and salad, one of her kid-food standbys, and glimpsed Denny Sweetwater in the hall mirror opening her letter and nearly being struck down with joy.

Genna, he'd say when he called. Genna, this is your dad, Denny Sweetwater.

She shook the vision from her head and began to shape ground turkey into patties.

***

Saturday night, Lizzie had arranged a sleepover at the house of her new friend, Alanna, who lived several miles south of town. Jack missed a turn and got lost in the January dark, a cold night without moon or stars. By the time he corrected his mistake, cursing the miserable Barish sense of direction—not enough iron, he supposed, in his brainpan—Lizzie had stopped speaking to him. He could feel her outrage building like thunder heads, or more appropriately for Lizzie, like a zit begging to be popped, as she sat beside him in the dark compulsively flipping back and forth between the punk rock stations she favored. When he finally circled to the correct road and pulled into Alanna's driveway almost thirty minutes late, Lizzie bounded out of the car without so much as a Goodbye, thanks for the ride, and he sat alone in a familiar parental stew of rage and resignation.

But Jack had promised Genna he'd meet Alanna's parents. He climbed out of the Town and Country (now that Simon had a license, he rarely drove the Camry), and picked his way through a front yard dimpled with frozen turds and car parts. There was a large wood pile at one end of the covered front porch. At the other, Lizzie waited under a yellow bug light. Inside the house, dogs yowled. Then the door swung in, and a girl about Lizzie's size stepped into the circle of yellow light. Dark eyebrows, high, prominent cheekbones. Wide swaths of dark curly hair had been dyed purple, but it was hard to be certain because of the ambiguous light. Maybe her hair was pink? She hugged Lizzie as two black and tan mongrels, hounds with some other breed intermixed, maybe burro, rushed onto the porch and began snuffling Lizzie's ankles.

Lizzie said, “Sorry I'm late. My dad got lost.”

The girls turned to escape inside. Jack said, “You must be Alanna. I'm Lizzie's father.” He shot Lizzie a look, half-smile, half-reprimand, for failing to introduce him. “Are your parents home?”

One of the dogs began humping Jack's leg.

“I'll get my dad.” Alanna disappeared, trailed by Lizzie, but not by the dogs, which appeared to be litter-mates. Short-legged, thick-bodied, forty or fifty ugly pounds. Jack pushed the one dog off his leg, but it climbed back on. Next thing he knew someone had booted the dog's ribs and it slunk off, whimpering, towards the dark end of the porch.

“Sorry, them dogs ain't well-trained. Wally Burns.”

Jack shook the proffered hand, small and hard-callused.

“Jack Barish.”

“Don't worry.” Burns was several inches shorter than Jack, with the same broad face and thick, dark hair of his daughter. “We'll keep an eye on 'em. There's some of her so-called friends we won't let come over no more. Too damn weird-looking.”

Oh, really. “What time should I pick her up in the morning?”

“She sleeping over?” Burns put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Guess my wife forgot to tell me. How about noon?” He whistled again, a sharp, three-note trill.

“See you then,” Jack said.

“Goddamnit, Duck. Commere!”

The dog that had been humping Jack's leg crawled up out of the darkness.

“This here's Duck, other's Daffy. I shoulda named 'em the other way around.” Burns scratched behind the dog's ears and grinned. “Don't worry, Jack, we'll keep an eye on them gals.”

Jack crossed the yard and started home in the dark, trying not to feel that he'd delivered his daughter up to the Philistines. When he arrived, entering through the kitchen door from the garage, Genna called from the living room. He hung up his coat and rubbed his hands, wishing he'd remembered to wear gloves. In the living room, Genna sat on the couch wearing her winter nightgown and fleece-lined slippers. She stared out into the bare trees, sipping what at first blush looked like white wine but turned out to be champagne.

“What took so long?” she inquired, smiling. “You didn't get lost?”

“Don't you start, too,” he said, taking a second sip from the glass she had waiting for him. This is pretty good, he thought, wondering if she'd broken out the Mumm's they'd been saving. “I got so lost and Lizzie was so pissed, she wouldn't speak to me.” He spied the bottle of Mumm's on the mantle in front of the family portrait they'd had done four years ago for Simon's Bar Mitzvah. How young and sweet the kids looked. Lizzie was such a pretty kid, with bright shining eyes. God, he thought, but that Burns house gave him the creeps.

“What's the occasion?”

“Denny Sweetwater called. He lives in San Francisco.” Her eyes glowed oh-so-blue, no gray at all. “He wants to meet me.” She slid across the couch and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I owe it all to you.”

“You asked the Judge.”

“I would never have thought of Webster.” She moved her lips to his ear. “I'm so excited, Jack.”

Genna closed her eyes waiting to be kissed. Before he moved his mouth to hers, he thought, She looks so happy. Despite everything I've done wrong, I guess I've done this right. Then he kissed his wife and felt her full lips press against his.

“What did he sound like, Mister Sweetwater?” wondering in the tiny back corner of his mind if this was going to support his thesis.

“Funny, smart, and you'll never believe what he does.”

“What?”

“He owns a candy shop on Castro Street. Sweet's Sweets.” Genna smiled. “Hand-crafted chocolates.”

“I guess you really are his daughter.”

Genna, whose taste for sweets was wide and deep as the ocean, nodded. “He said he had no idea, never heard a word from Doris.”

Jack wondered if that could be true. It was certainly what he'd tell a daughter he'd never contacted.

“I thought we could all go out and meet him during spring break. We don't have any other plans, do we?”

Jack thought about some provisional arrangements a certain guidance counselor had been urging on him. “None that we couldn't change. This is so great.”

“He's lived with the same man for twenty years,” Genna said. “It turns out he and Marty, that's his lover, met the same fall we did.”

“When Marty met Denny.” Jack grinned. “By the way, is Simon out?”

Genna nodded.

“If I put the champagne on ice and turn the heat way up, would you change your nightgown?”

Genna raised the gray flannel nightgown over her head, shook out her hair and smiled. She was wearing a black lace teddy he'd never seen before.

“Way ahead of you, Jack.” She walked to the mantle and hoisted the bottle of Mumm's. “The ice bucket's in the bedroom.”

“Then I guess we should be, too.”

Jack followed his smiling, surprising wife towards the waiting bucket of ice and his marriage bed.

Valentine's Day was Saturday, three days away, and Simon wanted to buy Rich something special. They'd been to the movies twice since Rich returned to Tipton, trailing a comet's tail of possibility. Simon paid for everything: tickets, popcorn, Mountain Dew, a giant sack of Gummy Bears. Money? No problem for the Fry Guy; he was still working sixteen hours a week. After last Saturday's movie, they hung out at Rachel's, and Rich let him slip his hand inside his pants. Simon felt it, hard and warm, growing like a bean stalk. Simon adored Rich's penis; he longed to sing a ballad to it—On the Cock Where You Live, or Riiiiiiich's Penis, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain!—although Rich made him take his hand away after a second. Rachel was walking back down the hall to her room.

What to buy him? Simon didn't have time to shop. Friday, he worked four to eleven. Today and tomorrow, rehearsal until six, and he'd promised Mom to come straight home to study for his stupid French and English tests. Saturday morning was his lesson with Yevgeny, so what he had to do was convince Mom to let him drive alone to Cincinnati for the first time. Afterwards, he could shop at Kenwood Towne Center.

Maybe, Simon thought, as he walked down the deserted hallway with its cheesy Go Braves! red construction paper signs on the wall, he and Rich could park somewhere on Saturday night, and something might happen. Maybe Mom and Dad were going out, and he could sneak Rich into his very own bed. But he'd been noticing that on romantic occasions like their anniversary and V-Day, Mom and Dad often didn't go out. Instead, they tried to arrange it so the kids were gone. Was that disgusting or what? He and Lizzie discussed it. She was almost fun to talk to now, after years of being a brat. At first, she wouldn't believe him; he wasn't sure himself if Mom and Dad still did it.

Then one night last fall, it must have been just after Thanksgiving, long after he was usually asleep on a school night, he heard this noise in the ceiling, thump-thump, thump-THUMP, as if someone were moving the bed. All of a sudden he knew what the thumping was, and he lay awake, horrified, just horrified, afraid he was going to hear voices, moaning, his own mom moaning, and realized he was listening for their voices. He hurried to Lizzie's room and shook her awake. She whispered, “Let's go back and listen.”

“That's gross.”

But he followed her, and they lay on his bed with just the hall light on. The ceiling thumped softly once or twice, and he glanced at Lizzie's face beside his. She was growing up, little Lizzie. She was so beautiful, and he wished he were, too. The next thing Simon knew it was morning, and Lizzie was asleep beside him, her face buried on his pillow.

Simon turned into the guidance office and asked the secretary, Mrs. Rogers, who was old and plump but had a head full of red curls, just like Annie—Tomorrow, tomorrow!—if he could see Mrs. Lindstrom.

“Is she expecting you, Simon?”

I love you, tomorrow. Everybody knew his name, he loved that. “I have an appointment.”

Mrs. Lindstrom had approached him yesterday in the hall. He must have looked worried, because she said, Nothing's wrong, and smiled like she was smiling now as Mrs. Rogers led him into her office.

“How are you, Simon?”

She was so little and cute, seated behind her desk, with soft blond hair touching her cheeks. If Simon were a woman, he'd want to look just like her.

“Fine, and you?”

She smiled again, and he felt warm and happy.

“I'm fine, too.” Mrs. Lindstrom glanced at her hands. Such nicely shaped nails. Real ones, not like the black press-ons he sometimes wore. “I asked to see you because I care about you. I really like you, Simon.“

“I like you, too.”

She smiled again, and Simon felt all gooey inside.

“Ms. Cherry's worried about your grades.”

“But I don't have Ms. Cherry.”

“Of course not. She's worried about your grades and the show.”

“I thought if I passed everything last semester, I was fine.”

“That's right.” Mrs. Lindstrom looked so concerned Simon began to freak out. “But we don't want you falling so far behind you can't catch up when the show's over. I've checked with your teachers, and though it's early in the semester, you already seem to be having trouble.”

Simon thought about his tests on Friday in French and English. About the pre-calc and history tests—he was pretty sure they were next week—he hadn't even told Mom about, and thought he might cry. “Ms. Cherry's kicking me out of the show?”

“Oh, no, Simon. Ms Cherry adores you, and so do I.” Mrs. Lindstrom smiled, and he smiled back, not comprehending. “But I was thinking, maybe I could move you into this special study hall I run. Until the levy passed, the superintendent's office was going to cut it, but now they won't. There are only five or six students. Like you, they're smart kids who have trouble getting their work done. I'd have to rearrange your schedule, but you'd have all the same classes, just at different times.”

“You'd make sure I'd get my assignments written down, things like that?”

“Like having another parent in school.”

Simon wasn't sure he wanted more parents.

“Why don't you think about it, then have your dad call me?” Mrs. Lindstrom smiled again. “Or your mother. I really think it would be good for you.”

The bell rang, ending fourth period. He thanked Mrs. Lindstrom and hurried back to art to collect his books, then continued towards the auditeria. The only problem, he thought, as he navigated the sea of strangers, with Rich returning, was that he didn't know how to act with Peter. They still stood next to each other in Animal Chorus, but since Rich returned they'd stopped sharing music. It wasn't like anything had happened. They'd never kissed or even touched, and that night they went to the movies when Fry Guy burned his arm and Peter called him Super Simon, he'd chickened out and didn't try to hold Peter's hand.

But Peter liked him, at least as a friend and maybe more. He liked Peter the same way. But the kid wasn't on to himself; he couldn't admit he was gay, even though it was totally obvious to Simon and everyone else. Just yesterday, standing on the risers in Animal Chorus, Peter dropped his music. Bending to reach it, Peter started to fall forward and squealed like a little girl. Then he covered his mouth and looked around. Who me? I didn't make that sound. No straight teenage boy would. Even Simon wouldn't squeal like that, no freaking way, and he wasn't trying to pass.

The other thing, and this was nothing bad about Peter, but Rich was really, really hot. There was something about his black hair and how sad and ironic he was, like he didn't give a crap about anything, that excited Simon. Simon wanted to have wild sex and take care of him at the same time. And if what he felt for Rich caused him to hurt Peter's feelings, he was really, really sorry. Simon was the king of getting his feelings hurt, he knew what it felt like. And he also knew, as he turned into the auditeria and looked around to see if Rich was at Rachel's table—Not yet—that Rich didn't like him nearly as much as Peter did. Rich often hurt his feelings without meaning to because he didn't care about anyone, not even himself. Simon couldn't help that. He was just a boy in love. Hit me from the top, hit me from below, Just hit me hard, yeah, so I know. Simon set his hip bag on Rachel's table and joined the food line. He was trying to lose a little of his belly, but he was so damn hungry all the time. Salad, he decided. For the rest of the week, he would only eat salad. Maybe a small bag of chips.

***

Thursday morning Genna rolled over to check Jack's alarm clock. The face was angled away, preventing her from seeing the red numerals. Though she depended on Jack to prod the kids into action, he slumbered beside her, a breathing, blanketed mound. Sam held down the floor, her side of the bed, whimpering softly, perhaps dreaming of the spring bunnies he could never catch. Wraiths of light twisted through the drawn curtains. Why weren't the kids awake? She strained to read her watch, but the early light and the damn changes in her eyes (she'd always had such perfect vision) thwarted her, and she nudged Jack, once then harder.

“Why aren't the kids up?”

“It's a snow day.”

Suddenly, she remembered. She had been up, Jack too. Shouts and murmurs from downstairs, then she must have fallen back asleep. She didn't recall Jack returning to bed, or anything but this. It was February 12, Lincoln's birthday, also her mother's. Doris would have been sixty-six, or was it sixty-seven, old enough to collect full social security if she'd worked, which she hadn't. It was hard to think of her mother so old. In her mind's eye, Doris remained the same age. Never a gray hair or a day older. Doris would have liked that. On her next birthday, Genna would be as old as her mother had been the year she died. Was Doris's eyesight fading when the breast cancer got her? Lying under the warm covers beside Jack, who was snoring like a faint, whistling teapot, she tried to remember Doris wearing glasses, or straining to read, Daddy joking, “Arms too short, Doris?” but drew a blank. Maybe it happened while she was away at college. Or maybe it never happened at all and Doris had slipped the indignities of middle age by popping off this mortal coil, like Keats or Shelley, without lingering into tendentious old age like Wordsworth.

I've never forgiven her, Genna realized. Doris would have chosen dying young to wrinkles. Doris had been so proud of her skin, which she shielded from the sun like that woman at the far end of Forest Glen, what was her name? Mary, the one with the standard poodle. Doris had also been enormously vain (a pattern here?) that her birthday was a school holiday. She'd been outraged when they'd conflated Lincoln and Washington's birthdays to Presidents' Day.

“The world is going to hell, don't you see? This is yet one more example.”

Then she said something, which Genna had forgotten or more likely repressed, which made her wonder if Doris had really said it. Senior year of high school? No, she was home from college, sitting in their kitchen.

“If you ever have kids, Genna, make sure they know my birthday. It used to be so easy.” She patted her hair into place. “When it was a national holiday.”

Did Doris know she was going to die, Genna wondered, years before she told me? Could the cancer have been in remission? Or maybe she knew nothing, and Doris was just being a drama queen, Genna thought, trying to remember if the conversation had, in fact, occurred. Yes, she decided, slipping out of bed. I'll tell the kids.

Later, when the kids had stopped grumbling because she hadn't let them sleep in and everyone was in the kitchen cutting into Sunday breakfast on a Thursday—the kind she rarely made even on Sunday—Genna doused her blueberry pancakes in maple syrup. “Simon, Lizzie?” She glanced at the amber lake on Simon's plate. “Today was my mother's birthday.” She cut into the stacked cakes and took the first bite. “I promised her I'd tell you.”

Suddenly, she was sobbing. She was so surprised, stunned, really. The kids looked at each other, Simon at Lizzie, Lizzie at Simon, then both kids at Jack, as tears soaked her cheeks. She'd had a whole speech planned, an appreciation of her strange, hard-to-know mother, but did she get a chance to deliver it? No, first she was blubbering, then choking on the doughy cakes.

“Do something, Dad!” Simon shouted.

Lizzie was shouting, too. Jack stood, pounding her back, though she'd told him, time and again, it didn't help, they'd done new studies. Her larynx cleared. She'd somehow got the pancake down despite the pounding, and her eyes were tearing, not with sorrow, but the ack-ack of nearly choking to death.

“Will you stop hitting me, Jack!”

“Dad was trying to help,” Lizzie said.

She's so protective.

Genna sipped orange juice and cleared her throat. “As I was saying. You never knew my mom. I sometimes think I didn't know her very well myself.” Genna glanced at Lizzie, the long line of her jaw, the dark brow she'd gotten from Doris. “Sometimes mothers and daughters go through a phase where they don't get along that well.”

“From what you've told me,” Jack said, “that phase lasted your entire life.”

The kids glanced at her apprehensively. Would she commence choking and blubbering again? Lose her temper? “That's true,” she admitted. “But I kept hoping it would change.” She felt herself tearing up. “Way back then, when I was a girl, February twelfth, Lincoln's birthday, was a school holiday. My mom thought that made her special. Every year she told me and Uncle Billy the holiday was in honor of her birthday but we shouldn't tell, it was our secret. Until third grade, I believed her.”

“Aw, Mom,” Simon said. “That's so sweet.”

“So here's to your Grandma Doris.” Genna raised her orange juice.

Jack said, “I doubt she would have wanted to be called Grandma.”

“Well, she wouldn't have had any choice,” Genna answered, feeling some of the old resentment return.

“Happy birthday, Grandma,” Simon said.

“Whoever you are,” Lizzie added.

They clinked glasses and settled in to inflict serious damage on the cooling hot-cakes.

***

Snow fell for twenty-four hours. Then the temperature dropped to six above, and Tipton schools were closed for a second day. Even the university canceled classes, the first time that had happened in his eight years in Ohio. It felt to everyone, Jack thought, as if Old Man Winter stood on their chests, howling. It was all anyone could talk about, at home or around the department. How cold. How much snow. Have you heard another storm is coming? The woods behind their house filled up, one foot, two feet, it was hard to tell. Saturday morning, while the family slumbered, Jack decided to take Sam and see if the small stream at the edge of their meadow was still flowing. He laced his Timberlakes over two pairs of wool socks. He found the heavy parka with a wolf fur collar Simon had bullied them into buying for him two years ago then abandoned when he learned how unfashionable real fur was, and how much he resembled an igloo inside the enormous off-white coat, which was too warm for southwestern Ohio except for two or three days a decade. But it was perfect for this Valentine's Day morning. Jack stepped out of the family-room door with the dog behind him and felt the cold smack his cheeks but nowhere else. Sam bounded ahead through the unbroken drifts.