“Have we ever found out for sure that they come for just the one week?” Amanda asked. “Maybe they’re here all summer.”
“No,” Jeannie said, “we saw them arrive that time, remember? With their suitcases and their beach equipment.”
“Maybe they stay on, then, after we leave.”
“Well, maybe. I guess they could. But I like to think that they go when we do. They have the same conversation we always have: next year, should they make it two weeks? But by the end of their vacation they say, ‘Oh, one week is enough, really.’ And so they come for the same week year after year, and fifty years from now we’ll be saying”—here Jeannie’s voice changed to an old-lady whine—“ ‘Oh, look, it’s the next-door people, and the grandson’s got a grandson now!’ ”
“They’ve brought their lunch today,” Denny said. “We could check out their menu.”
Jeannie said, “What if we marched over there, right this minute, and introduced ourselves?”
“It would be a disappointment,” Amanda said.
“How come?”
“They would turn out to have some boring name, like Smith or Brown. They’d work in, let’s say, advertising, or computer sales or consulting. Whatever they worked in, it would be a letdown. They’d say, ‘Oh, how nice to meet you; we’ve always wondered about you,’ and then we’d have to give our boring names, and our boring occupations.”
“You really think they wonder about us?”
“Well, of course they do.”
“You think they like us?”
“How could they not?” Amanda asked.
Her tone was jokey, but she wasn’t smiling. She was openly studying the next-door people with a serious, searching expression, as if she weren’t so sure after all. Did they find the Whitshanks attractive? Intriguing? Did they admire their large numbers and their closeness? Or had they noticed a hidden crack somewhere—a sharp exchange or an edgy silence or some sign of strain? Oh, what was their opinion? What insights could they reveal, if the Whitshanks walked over to them that very instant and asked?
It was the custom for the men to do the dishes every evening while they were on vacation. They would shoo the women out—“Go on, now! Go! Yes, we know: put the leftovers in the fridge”—and then Denny would fill the sink with hot water and Stem would unfurl a towel. Meanwhile Jeannie’s Hugh, one of those thorough, conscientious types, reorganized the whole kitchen and scrubbed down every surface. Red might carry a few plates in from the dining room, but soon, at the others’ urging, he would settle at the kitchen table with a beer to watch them work.
Amanda’s Hugh wasn’t around for this. Her little family ate most of their suppers in town.
On their final evening, Thursday, the cleanup was more extensive. Every leftover had to be dumped, and the refrigerator shelves had to be emptied and wiped down. Jeannie’s Hugh was in his element. “Throw it out! Yes, that too,” he said when Stem held up a nearly full container of coleslaw. “No point hauling it all the way back to Baltimore.” The three of them slid a glance toward Red, who shared his sister’s horror of waste, but he was thumbing through one of the trashy magazines and he failed to notice.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Denny asked. “We leaving at crack of dawn?”
Hugh said, “Well, I should, at least. I’ve got half a dozen messages on my cell phone.” He meant messages from the college. “Lots of stuff to see to in the dorms.”
“So,” Denny told Stem, “that means fall is coming.”
“Pretty soon,” Stem said. He returned a not-quite-clean plate to the sink.
“You don’t want to wait too long to move back home,” Denny told him, “or the kids will have to switch schools.”
Stem was drying another plate. He stopped for a second, but then he went on drying. “They’ve already switched,” he said. “Nora registered both of the older boys last week.”
“But it makes more sense for you to move back, now that I’m staying on.”
Stem laid the plate on a stack of others.
“You’re not staying,” he said.
“What?”
“You’ll be leaving any time now.”
“What are you talking about?”
Denny had turned to look at him, but Stem went on wiping plates. He said, “You’ll pick a fight with one of us, or you’ll take offense at something. Or one of those calls will come in on your phone from some mysterious acquaintance with some mysterious emergency, and you’ll disappear again.”
“That’s bullshit,” Denny told him.
Jeannie’s Hugh said, “Oh, well now, guys …” and Red looked up from his magazine, one finger marking his place.
“You just say that because you wish I weren’t staying,” Denny told Stem. “I’m well aware you want me out of the way. It’s no surprise to me.”
“I don’t want you out of the way,” Stem said. They were facing each other squarely now. Stem was gripping a plate in one hand and the towel in the other, and he spoke a little more loudly than he needed to. “God! What do I have to do to convince you I’m not out to get you? I don’t want anything that’s yours. I never have! I’m just trying to be a help to Mom and Dad!”
Red said, “What? Wait.”
“Well, isn’t that just like you,” Denny told Stem. “Spilling over with selflessness. Holier than God Almighty.”
Stem started to say something more; he drew in a breath and opened his mouth. Then he made a despairing noise that sounded like “Aarr!” and without even seeming to think about it, he wheeled toward Denny and gave him a violent shove.
It wasn’t an attack, exactly. It was more an act of blind frustration. But Denny was caught off balance. He staggered sideways, dropping the plate he held so that it shattered across the floor, and he tried to right himself but fell anyhow, his head grazing the edge of the table before he landed in a sitting position.
“Oh,” Stem said. “Gosh.”
Red stood up, slack-mouthed, with his magazine dangling from one hand. Hugh was hovering in front of the fridge and saying, “Guys. Hey, guys,” and gripping his washrag in a useless sort of way.
Denny began struggling to his feet. His left temple was bleeding. Stem bent to offer him a hand, but instead of accepting it, Denny lunged at him from a half-standing position and butted Stem in the sternum. Stem buckled and fell backwards, slamming against a cabinet. He sat up again, but he looked groggy, and he raised a hand tentatively to the back of his head.
All at once the kitchen was full of fluttering women and shocked, wide-eyed children. There seemed to be a multitude of them, way more than could be accounted for. Abby was saying, “What is this? What’s happened?” and Nora was leaning over Stem, trying to help him up. “Keep him sitting,” Jeannie told her. “Stem? Do you feel dizzy?” Stem went on holding his head, with an uncertain look on his face. Shards of the plate lay all around him.
Denny stood backed against the sink. He seemed bewildered, more than anything. “I don’t know what came over him!” he said. “He just went from zero to sixty!” Blood was traveling down the side of his face, darkening the olive green of his T-shirt.
“Look at you,” Jeannie told him. “We’ve got to get you to an emergency room. The two of you.”
“I don’t need an emergency room,” Denny said, at the same time that Stem said, “I’m okay. Let me up.”
“They both have to go,” Abby said. “Denny needs stitches and Stem might have a concussion.”
“I’m fine,” Stem and Denny said in chorus.
“Let’s at least put you on the couch,” Nora told Stem. She didn’t seem all that perturbed. She helped him to his feet, this time without Jeannie’s objecting, and guided him out of the room. All the children followed dumbly except for Susan, who was standing very close to Denny and stroking his wrist. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “What are you crying about?” Denny asked her. “This is nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.” She nodded and swallowed, tears still streaming. Abby pu
t an arm around her and said, “He’s okay, honey. Head wounds always bleed a lot.”
“Out,” Jeannie said. “Everyone out of the kitchen while I check the damage. Get me the first-aid kit, Hugh. It’s in the downstairs bathroom. Susan, I need paper towels.”
Red had sunk back onto his chair at some point, but Abby touched his shoulder and said, “Let’s go to the living room.”
“I don’t understand what happened,” he told her.
“Me neither, but let’s leave Jeannie to take care of things.”
She helped him up, and they moved toward the door. Only Susan remained. She handed Jeannie a roll of paper towels. “Thanks,” Jeannie said. She tore off several sheets and dampened them under the faucet. “First we’re going to clean the wound and see if it needs stitches,” she told Denny. “Sit down.”
“I do not need stitches,” he said. He lowered himself to a chair. She leaned over him and pressed the wad of damp towels to his temple. Susan, meanwhile, sat down in the chair next to his and picked up one of his hands. “Hmm,” Jeannie said. She peered at Denny’s cut. She refolded the paper towels and dabbed again at his temple.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Hugh? Where’s that first-aid kit?”
“Coming right up,” Jeannie’s Hugh said as he entered the kitchen. He handed her what appeared to be a fisherman’s metal tackle box.
Jeannie said, “Go tell the others not to let Stem fall asleep, hear? Leave that,” because Hugh was stooping to pick up shards of the plate. “We need to make sure he doesn’t go into a coma.” She had always been the type who grew authoritative in a crisis. Her long black ponytail almost snapped as she flicked it out of her way.
Hugh left. As soon as he was gone, Denny said, “I swear this was not my fault.”
“Really,” Jeannie said.
“Honest. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Susan, find me the Neosporin.”
Susan raised her eyes to Jeannie’s face but went on sitting there.
“Ointment. In the first-aid kit,” Jeannie told her. She folded the paper towels yet again. They were almost completely red now. Susan let go of Denny’s hand to reach for the kit. Her blouse had a brushstroke of blood smeared across one shoulder.
“We were just doing the dishes,” Denny said, “peaceful as you please. Then Stem flies off the handle because I say he can move home now.”
“Yes, I can just imagine,” Jeannie said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
She tossed the paper towels into the garbage bin and accepted the Neosporin from Susan. “Hold still,” she told Denny. She applied a dab of ointment. He held still, gazing up at her steadily. She said, “When are you going to drop all this, Denny? Get over it! Give it up!”
“Give what up? He was the one who started it!”
“Don’t you think everyone’s got some kind of … injury? Stem himself, for instance! Couldn’t I feel jealous too, if I put my mind to it? Dad favors Stem way over me, even though I’m a really good worker. He’s always talking about Stem taking charge of the business someday, as if I didn’t exist, as if I couldn’t do every single thing a man can do once somebody shows me how. But guess what, Denny: the fact is that nobody has to show Stem how. He was just, seems like, born knowing how. He can figure things out without being told. He honestly does deserve to be in charge.”
Denny made an impatient snorting noise that she ignored. “Butterfly bandages,” she told Susan. “If you can find me some of those, we’re in business.”
Susan rooted through the first-aid kit, which didn’t seem well organized. She tossed aside scissors, tweezers, rolls of gauze, a bottle of vinegar for jellyfish stings, and came up with a box of butterfly bandages.
“Great,” Jeannie said. She shook several out onto the table, then picked up one and tore open the wrapping. “A few of these should do the trick,” she told Denny. “Hold still, please.”
“It’s not his being in charge I mind,” Denny said. “I sure don’t want to be in charge. It’s that Dad isn’t satisfied with the rest of us. His own three children! You said it yourself: you should be the one taking over the business. You’re a Whitshank. But oh, no, Dad had to go hunting outside the family for someone.”
“He didn’t go hunting,” Jeannie said. She drew back to study the bandage she had applied, and then she reached for another. “He didn’t choose to have Stem join the family. It just happened.”
“All my life, Dad has made me feel I didn’t quite measure up,” Denny said. “Like I’m … lame; I’m lacking. Listen to this, Jeannie: when I was working in Minnesota one summer, I had a boss who thought I had a really good eye. We were putting in cabinets, and I would come up with these design plans that he said were fantastic. He asked if I’d ever considered going into furniture making. He thought I had real talent. Why doesn’t Dad ever feel that way?”
“And then what?” Jeannie asked.
“What do you mean, what?”
“What happened with the furniture making?”
“Oh, well … I forget. I think we moved on to the boring part, then. Baseboards or something. So I quit, by and by.”
Jeannie sighed and collected the bandage wrappings from the table. “Okay, Susan,” she said. “You can help your dad to the living room now.”
But just as Denny was getting to his feet, Stem walked in, with Nora close behind. By the looks of him, he’d recovered from the blow to his head. He seemed himself again, only paler and more rumpled. “Denny,” he said, “I want to apologize.”
“He is very, very sorry,” Nora put in.
“I should not have lost my temper, and I want to pay for your String Cheese Incident T-shirt.”
Denny made a little puffing sound of amusement, and Abby, who had come into the room behind them—of course she had to be part of this, falling all over herself to set her family to rights—said, “Oh, Stem, that’s no problem; I’m sure we can treat it with OxiClean,” which made Denny laugh aloud.
“Forget it,” he told Stem. “Let’s just say it never happened.”
“Well, that’s very generous of you.”
“Fact is, I’m kind of relieved to find out you’re human,” Denny said. “Till now I didn’t think you had a competitive bone in your body.”
“Competitive?”
“Let’s shake on it,” Denny said, holding out his hand.
Stem said, “Why do you say I’m competitive?”
Denny let his hand drop. “Hey,” he said. “You just assaulted me for saying I should be the one to help out with Mom and Dad. You don’t call that competitive?”
“God damn!” Stem said.
Nora said, “Oh! Douglas.”
Stem socked Denny in the mouth.
It wasn’t an expert blow—it landed clumsily, a bit askew—but it was enough to send Denny tumbling back onto his chair. Blood bubbled up instantly from his lower lip. He gave a dazed shake of his head. Abby shrieked, “Stop! Please stop!” and Jeannie said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” and Susan started crying again and biting her knuckles. The others appeared in the doorway so instantaneously that it almost seemed they’d been lying in wait for this. Stem was looking surprised. He stared down at his fist, which was scraped across the knuckles. He shifted his gaze to Denny.
“Out,” Jeannie ordered everyone.
Then she said, in a weary tone of voice, “First we’re going to clean the wound and see if it needs stitches.”
6
ABBY FELT NERVOUS AT FIRST about the appointment with Dr. Wiss, but then she thought, “I can do this, because I’m so familiar with my mother’s Wiss pinking shears.” And the exact, clunky weight of those shears instantly came to her mind, along with the too-thick handle loop that pressed uncomfortably against the bone at the base of her thumb, and the initial balkiness as the heavy teeth began chewing into the fabric.
But wait. Really, the one kind of Wiss had nothing to do with the other.
It was Nora who made th
e appointment. She had called her pastor for the name of a gerontologist, and then she phoned Dr. Wiss’s office without consulting Abby. Meddlesome! She must have discussed it first with Red, though, because when Abby complained to him he didn’t seem surprised, and he told her it wouldn’t hurt to hear what a doctor had to say.
Abby was finding that Nora had started to get on her nerves. Why, for instance, did she persist in calling Abby “Mother Whitshank”? It made Abby sound like an old peasant woman in wooden clogs and a headscarf. Abby had offered all her children’s spouses a choice of “Mom” or “Abby” when they first joined the family. “Mother Whitshank” hadn’t so much as crossed her lips.
Also, Nora stacked the plates on top of each other when she was clearing the table, instead of carrying one in each hand as Abby had been taught was polite. All the plates arrived in the kitchen with food stuck to their backs. Yet she criticized Abby’s housekeeping! Or that was her implication, at least, when she blamed the dust in the rugs for Sammy’s allergies. And she cooked fatty fried foods that were bad for Red’s heart, and she was much too lax with her children, and that queen bed she had requested completely filled Stem’s little room, barely allowing space for a person to edge around it.
Oh, well, this was just roommate-itis, Abby told herself. It was rubbing elbows at too-close quarters; that was why she felt so irritable.
She told herself this several times a day.
She also reminded herself that some of our connections are brand-new connections, unrelated to our past incarnations—new experiences to broaden our horizons. Maybe Nora’s role in Abby’s life was to deepen and enrich Abby’s soul; could that be true?