Sweet Dreams, Irene (23 page)

“Really?” Mrs. Parker was delighted.

“Yes. He told me that they were together for a few years, that he followed her to Las Piernas, that she went back to Bakersfield, that he didn’t follow. That he has no intention of following.” This last I gave special emphasis as I looked over at Frank’s mother.

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Mrs. Harriman meowed.

Mrs. Parker looked extremely ill at ease. “Uh, are you from Las Piernas?”

“Yes,” I said. I was trying to cool down. Mrs. Parker was clearly a pawn. I didn’t like the game much.

“Oh, so is your family from Las Piernas?”

“I was born and raised there.”

“Then why not have Thanksgiving dinner there, with your family?” Mrs. Parker asked innocently.

“Yes, why not?” Bea Harriman chimed in.

“I was invited here,” I said.

“Won’t your family miss you?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“My sister and her husband have plans of their own,” I said. It might or might not be a lie. Barbara had never even asked me about Thanksgiving.

“What about your parents?”

“My parents are no longer living.” I realized that I had said this same phrase to so many people over the last seven years that the sting had gone out of saying it. I usually said it as easily as “Please pass the peas and carrots.” Somehow, this time, the sting was back. Maybe it was the holiday, maybe it was the strain I was under. Maybe it was because I felt like a goddamned orphan, even though that really wasn’t the case. I took a deep breath.

Mrs. Parker was rather stricken, and even Frank’s mom suddenly looked as if she realized she had overstepped a boundary.

It was at that moment that Frank returned. He walked in with a couple of grocery sacks and took everything—well, almost everything—in within ten seconds. He cursed with fluency and imagination and slammed the sacks of groceries down on the dining room table. I hoped he had bought eggs.

“Franklin!” his mother snapped.

He looked at Mrs. Parker. “Hello, Evelyn. Forgive my language. Would you please excuse us?”

“Hello, Frank,” she said. “I was just leaving. I’ll say hello to Cecilia for you.”

“Thank you,” he said, but now he was glaring at his mother.

“I’ll see you out,” Mrs. Harriman said meekly.

As they left, he hurried over to me and sat down beside me. “Irene, I am so sorry. I didn’t even get everything on her damned list because I had this bad feeling about leaving you here by yourself. But I never thought she’d stoop—I’m just so sorry. I never should have brought you here.”

He scooped me up off the couch, and while I was glad to be out of the hole it put me in, I was startled.

“What are you doing?” It was going to be my question, but his mother asked it first.

“We are leaving,” he said, his voice cold. As angry as I had seen Frank, this was a kind of rage that was scarier than any of the other forms I had seen his temper take.

“Frank, please.” She was starting to cry.

“Crying won’t work, Mom. You’ve gone too far this time. Don’t ever even
hint
to me that I should come back here again. It’s not home anymore.”

As rotten as she had treated me, I felt sorry for her. She had tried something really dumb and it had backfired on her. By the time Frank reached the front porch, I asked him to set me down.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, as if my voice had startled him into realizing that he was carrying me.

“No, and she didn’t either. Not really, Frank.” There was a big old-fashioned swing on the porch. I motioned toward it. “Let’s sit out here on the swing for a minute before we climb back into the car. I need to talk to you.”

“I’m not staying.”

“Just sit here with me for a minute.”

He gave in, some of the fight seeming to leave him now that we were outside. I let him get the swing in motion and we listened to its rhythmic creaking for a few minutes before I said anything more.

“I’m not crazy about your mom’s methods, but I honestly think she just feels like she needs you. I think she’s afraid she’s lost you. She’s lost her husband, and she doesn’t want to lose her son.”

He sighed, but didn’t say anything.

“Your mom and I aren’t off to a great start, but I’m not ready to give up. I don’t want to become known as the reason you won’t see her anymore. Besides, none of this is fair to Cassie. She’s had to be the one your mom turns to all the time. You’re down in Las Piernas.”

“I just can’t stand the idea of what she did today. It’s embarrassing.”

“Tell you what. You can have Kenny and Barbara, I’ll take your mom.”

He laughed. “No deal.”

“See? Besides, you can’t have Barbara. Kenny you can have at wholesale prices. But even though Barbara drives me nuts, she loves me, I love her. Go figure.”

Another sigh.

“Go in and talk to her. I’ll wait out here. If you decide we’re leaving, I’ll go with you and never bring it up again. If you want to stay, I’ll survive. I think I’ve got my deer-foot knife here somewhere.”

“Will you be okay out here?”

Good, he was going to do it. “My grandmother had a swing like this. I’m fine. Besides, Cassie will be here before too long, and those kids are dying to see the lady with all the casts on her.”

He kissed me and went in.

T
HEY TALKED FOR
a long time. Every now and then I would hear them shouting at each other. Frank is seldom a shouter; you have to really push his buttons to get a shout out of him. His mom must have been hitting them like a kid in an elevator. But I just sat in the swing and admired the garden, thinking that it was probably all for the best.

Cassie and Mike pulled up in front of the house before Frank came back out. The two boys got out of the backseat before their parents had a chance to open their own doors. “There she is!” one shouted, pointing at me. Brian, the four-year-old. Michael, at six, was slightly more restrained, but not by much. Both with light brown hair and freckles.

“Wait here, boys. Remember what I said.” Mike O’Brien was a tall blonde with a dark tan. He gave me a wave and a grin.

“Be gentle, like when we pet Mutt,” Michael Junior recited, as the four of them made their way over to me. Michael and Brian were each holding their hands behind their backs, as if for self-control.

Mike and Cassie probably hadn’t expected to have the comparison to the dog be made public, but I laughed and they joined in on it, leaving the kids confounded. Cassie introduced me to her family.

“You’re in Grandma’s swing,” Brian said by way of observation.

“Yes, I am. Would you boys like to sit on it with me?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, but the casts were too intriguing. They hopped up next to me.

“Careful,” Mike said.

“Where’s Uncle Frank?” Michael asked.

“He’s in having a nice long talk with your grandmother. That’s why I asked you to sit with me on the swing.”

“Where are your fingers?” Brian asked me, studying the sling.

“You can see most of them, can’t you?”

“Yeah. And I can see your toes.” This amused the two of them to no end.

“Where’s your cat?” Michael asked, looking around.

“He’s at home. Our friend is taking care of him.”

“Where do you live?” Brian asked.

“She lives in a place called Sin,” Michael said.

“Michael!” Mike said.

“That’s what Grandma said. She said Uncle Frank and his friend Irene are living in Sin.”

“Grandma must have got it wrong, Michael,” I said easily. “We live in Las Piernas.”

“Oh. Where the beach is.”

“Right.”

Brian said, “When do we get turkey?”

“Soon,” Cassie answered, but looked nervously toward the door.

Sitting was too much for the boys and soon they were running around the front yard, playing tag, laughing and squealing whenever one tagged the other.

Cassie and Mike sat on the swing with me. Like Cassie, Mike was easy to talk to. He was telling me about his work with the Highway Patrol, when the door opened and Frank and his mom appeared, arm in arm. Before any adult could get a word in, the boys were rushing toward them, shouting, “Uncle Frank! Uncle Frank!”

“Hello, you little devils,” he said and scooped them up, giving me a wink.

“You winked at her!” they both shouted.

“Yes. You caught me.”

“Wrestle us!” Brian cried.

“Give Uncle Frank a break, boys,” Mike said, but it was too late.

Frank was out on the lawn, the boys rolling and crawling all over him, amid more giggles and squeals. Mike grinned. “Well, Irene, I wish my kids would warm up to him a little.” He stepped off the porch and joined the melee.

“Why don’t you join us on the swing, Mom?” Cassie said.

Mrs. Harriman hesitated, avoiding eye contact with me. “I’ve got a dinner to get ready, Cassie.” And she turned and went inside.

“We’ll help!” Cassie shouted, undaunted. “Come on, Irene,” she said.

Frank’s mom looked between us as we arrived in her kitchen. “What can I do to help, Mrs. Harriman?”

“Please call me Bea.” She paused then added, “I guess you’ve already been a great help to me.”

I didn’t hear any sarcasm in that, so I tried a smile. “I’m not very useful in this condition, but I’m improving in using my left hand. I’d feel better if there was something I could do.”

“Why not let her stir the gravy, Mom?”

“Good idea, Cassie.”

And so it was that the three of us got a chance to know one another better. Cassie was a masterful ambassador between us. Somehow she managed to get Bea and me to relax, to help with dinner, and get the boys cleaned up again when it was time to eat. I figured that as a working mother, she had learned to juggle this many activities long ago.

Frank sat next to me and helped to load up my plate with turkey and all the trimmings. When it came time to give thanks, there was plenty to give.

Brian was surprised to watch Frank cut up my food for me. “Look, Dad! Like you did for me when I was little.”

This was topped a little later by Michael, who in all seriousness asked me, “Irene, what is it you want?”

We all looked at him.

“I’m fine, Michael. I’ve got all I want.” I meant it.

“But Grandma said you were a wantin’ woman.”

Bea was mortified, but Frank started to howl with laughter and was soon joined by everyone but Michael and Brian, who exchanged that look that says adults are nuts.

“Did Grandma get it wrong again?” he asked when he could be heard.

“Not that time, Michael,” Frank answered.

No one would let me help with the cleanup, so I sat outside watching the boys play. Brian had a toy clown that they were punching and flinging around, but the clown had the signs of being well-loved otherwise. Frank came out before long and sat next to me. Brian and Michael wore down and sat next to us. Brian wanted to sit on my lap, and Frank figured out a way for him to do it. “You have to sit very quietly,” Frank said. “Irene has been hurt.”

“How?” Brian asked, poking a hole in the clown’s neck with his finger.

“We’re not supposed to ask that, dummy,” Michael chided.

“I’m not a dummy. Irene, can you take your casts off?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“When you do, can I wear them?”

“They have to saw them off,” Michael said with relish.

Brian’s eyes grew wide. “How do you know?”

“A kid at school broke his arm and he had a cast and we all signed it and they cut it off with a saw.”

“Can we sign your cast, Irene?”

“Sure,” I said.

Frank laughed. “Boys, I wonder why we haven’t thought of it up to now? That’s a great idea. But I have dibs on the ankle cast. You guys can take the arm.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate being divided up by you, Mr. Harriman.”

But the boys were racing inside to ask Grandmother for marking pens. We went inside to a desk, so that my shoulder wouldn’t bear the weight of my arm. The boys went to work eagerly and that is how the cast on my right arm was decorated with stick figures, unidentified swirls, airplanes dropping bombs, and the scrawled names of the artists.

They ran out of available arm cast and were eyeing the leg cast covetously when Cassie and Mike told them it was time to go home. They protested loudly to no avail, and I got a gentle kiss from each of them before they left. “Good-bye, Aunt Irene,” Brian had said, and no one corrected him.

A
FTER THEY WERE GONE
, the house seemed a little empty. Or a little larger. Frank came over to me and asked me to sit on the swing with him for a while. He held me against him and rocked the swing back and forth.

“We have a decision to make,” he said.

Uh-oh, I thought.

“We either stay here in separate bedrooms or go to a hotel.”

I smiled. “Oh, is that all? Let’s stay here.”

He gave me a wry look. “I’m that easy to give up?”

“Not at all. I’ll miss you terribly. But think of what it will be like when we get back home.”

“You have a point. Aren’t you worried about nightmares?”

“Lately I’ve been able to wake up from them a little more quietly.”

“I’ve noticed. But I don’t like the idea of not being there for you. I’ll be in the room across from yours. Call me if you need me for anything—Mom or no Mom, okay?”

“Okay. Are you still going to undress me?”

“You really know how to torture a guy, you know that?”

B
UT WHEN IT CAME
time to get ready for bed, Bea shooed him out of my room and helped me instead. Even though she was another woman, it was embarrassing to me to have her do it. Frank knew all my tender spots and was able to avoid causing any additional discomfort when he helped. Bea tried, and I bore with it, but by the time I got into the bed I was sore in a couple of places; my blasted shoulder was already throbbing from when the boys had gotten overly enthusiastic about their artwork.

She tucked me in and sat on the edge of the bed. “I owe you an apology,” she said after a while.

“I’d prefer we just forget about it and go on from here, if that’s all right with you.”

She nodded. “Frank’s a man now. I guess I have to learn to let him make his own mistakes.”