“And now,” Lacy announces, “we have an extra-special surprise. Ceejay’s going to read you a story!”
The kids all clap and squeal but I’m shaking my head like, No way. Too late, though. Lacy shoves a picture book at me, and the kids all plop down on the floor again and gaze up at me like I’m Santa Claus or something. There’s nothing to do but sit in the chair and give it a go. The story is really stupid, all about a dog who learns how to drive a train, but the kids love it. They even want me to do a special voice for the dog part, which is definitely out of my comfort zone, but what can you do when you have a bunch of kids gazing up at you like that?
When I finish, they cry out for me to read it again, but luckily the librarian comes to my rescue, telling them that’s all the stories for today. Lacy puts her arm around me and goes, “See why I want to work with kids now?”
“I guess it wasn’t completely awful,” I tell her, but the truth is I really did get kind of a charge out of it.
When we finally leave the library, I’m ready to snag some French fries and a Coke, anything to just hang and relax, but Lacy’s like, “No, we have to go by the drugstore to pick up some things for Grandma. And besides, it’ll be dinnertime in a little while.”
I’m like, “Surely Grandma’s not going to do the cooking,” and Lacy goes, “Oh no. I’m fixing dinner. Grandma taught me how to make her famous meat loaf.”
The weirdness continues. I mean, Lacy cooking? I have to ask myself what is going on here. Is it possible the goody-goody thing can be for real?
28
Okay, I admit it—the meat loaf turns out to be semi-awesome. Even Drew puts down his Game Boy to rave about it. We’re all sitting around the dining room table, and Grandma starts bragging on Lacy and going on about how glad she is the rest of us have come to visit and even says she can’t wait till Dad gets here. Of course, she’s always hated Dad, but if she’s being fake nice now, she sure is doing a professional job of it.
Everything’s not sunshine and rainbows, though. Just as Lacy’s about to trot out the chocolate pie, Grandma’s face goes pale, and she picks up this little plastic bucket she’s kept at her side ever since we got there. I’ve been wondering what it’s for—now I know. She leans over and vomits into it. Not a violent heave like when you’re a kid and you throw up and it sprays halfway across the room, but more of a slow gray leak.
No one says anything, not even Drew, who’s sitting there watching her, bug-eyed. When Grandma’s done, Lacy takes the bucket from her as if it’s nothing but a dirty dish. From the dinner table we have a full view of her in the kitchen as she empties the bucket into the garbage disposal and starts cleaning it without a single hint of disgust.
Grandma wipes her mouth with her napkin, and goes, “Darn my luck, I’m so sorry. I hoped I could make it through dinner without this. I probably ruined everybody’s appetite.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Mom says. “I’ve had to clean up after every one of these kids when they’ve thrown up, and you had to clean up after me when I did. It’s just part of life.”
That’s Mom for you, putting a positive spin on the topic of puke.
“Oh, Grandma’s always trying to apologize to me too,” chirps Lacy as she scrubs the bucket. “I just tell her I don’t even notice it anymore.”
I guess Lacy has witnessed quite a bit of puking since she’s been here. But the way she handles it—jeez—I can’t hardly see how she could be faking about how much she cares for Grandma. I mean, later that evening, she even helps her take a bath. That’s dedication. Of course, Grandma never took her skates away or slapped her across the face either.
But the thing is, Grandma’s just as much of a surprise. Aside from the puking, she tries her best to stay upbeat and pleasant. Used to be, she was always cranky with us—didn’t like us underfoot, yelled at us for sitting on her car, wouldn’t let us play with the water hose—but now she can’t tell us enough how glad she is we’re here. Even me. She also says she’s concerned about Bobby, but she doesn’t complain about him not coming. She just says she’d love to see those big brown eyes of his again. I’m surprised she even knows what color his eyes are.
The real test comes on Saturday when Dad shows up. For as long as I can remember, every time she says Dad’s name, which is Don, it sounds like she’s talking about something gross she found sticking to the bottom of her shoe. Then half the time, when he says something to her, she doesn’t bother to answer, acts like she can’t hear him. I always figured since her second husband owned three restaurants in three different towns, she thought she was on such a high social level that Dad’s voice couldn’t even reach her.
Just before lunch, Dad comes into the house with a watermelon tucked under each arm for a present. We’re sitting in the kitchen, and I expect Grandma to make some snide remark about the size or color of the melons, but she doesn’t. “Would you look at that,” she says. “I’ve been craving watermelon all week long. You must have read my mind, Don.”
And what do you know? She genuinely seems to appreciate it, even says Don like it’s just a regular name. When Dad sits down to talk, there’s nothing uppity about Grandma. In fact, she comes off kind of humble, a little embarrassed, even. Some people might see this as an opportunity to get back at Grandma for years of abuse, but not Dad. No. He turns on the old smile and charm as easy as flicking a light switch. And sure, that’s good of him, but I’d rather see him do that with Bobby instead of getting all self-righteous about the discharge fiasco.
Later that evening, I find out what the embarrassment in Grandma’s voice is about. The whole family—except Drew, who went inside to watch TV—is sitting on the deck in the backyard finishing off the watermelon, and she reaches over and touches Dad on the arm. “Don, I just want to thank you again for this wonderful watermelon. I think it’s the best I ever had.”
Dad acts like there’s nothing different about her at all, like she’s been this nice the whole time he’s known her. “They’re pretty good, all right,” he says. “Got them at that roadside fruit stand on the edge of town.”
“Well, I just want you to know I appreciate it,” she says. “And I appreciate how good you’ve been to my daughter and grandkids. I don’t guess I’ve let you know that before.”
I’m thinking, That’s right. You sure haven’t, but Dad’s all, “Oh, you don’t need to say anything. I’m just getting by the best way I know how.”
“No,” Grandma says. “I do need to say it—and I need to say it in front of everyone sitting here—because they all know I haven’t shown my appreciation like I should have.”
Dad chuckles. “Don’t you worry about that. I didn’t take any offense. After all, it couldn’t have been easy having some uncouth, hot-tempered teenager like me sneak in and steal your prize possession from you.” He winks at Mom.
“You didn’t steal a thing,” she says. “I think my little girl had a good head on her shoulders, and she saw what she wanted.”
“And she’s regretted it every day since,” says Dad, and Mom just laughs along with him.
“No, she hasn’t,” says Grandma. “But I’m afraid you might have regretted having me as your mother-in-law a few times.”
“A man doesn’t complain about winning the lottery,” says Dad. “And that’s what happened the day I got married. Don’t you know my temper would’ve got me in all sorts of trouble if it wasn’t for your daughter? She straightened me right out.”
When the parents get on a lovey-dovey trip like this, it usually makes me want to gag, but not this time. After hearing about Ms. Big Tits, it’s actually kind of welcome. I mean, it’d be just too weird if the parents split up. Even if I do find a way to move in with Bobby, I’d probably have to go visit them separately on holidays.
Grandma’s got something she wants to say, though, and she’s determined to get it out in front of the whole audience. “It’s just that we got off on the wrong foot, and I guess I was too proud to change my ways for too many years. Looking
back, I can see the things I couldn’t see when you two first started dating. I’d just lost my husband. One day we were as happy as a husband and wife have a right to be, and the next thing you know, a senseless traffic accident took him away from me.”
“That had to be hard,” says Dad, patting Grandma’s arm.
“I was lost,” she says, her voice trembling. “I was lost. But that’s not any good reason to take things out on you. You’re a good man, Don McDermott, and I’m blessed to have this family of yours around me.”
By now, Mom’s crying, and everyone else but me has tears welling in their eyes. It’s not like I’m hard-hearted about it—I mean, this is pretty heavy stuff to lay out in front of the whole family—but still I’m like, Really? Can you pretend you’re going to make up for about an eon of treating someone like crap in one evening? Sure, it’d be hard to lose your husband and everything, but you don’t have to take it out on everyone else.
Dad’s sympathetic about it, though. He leans over and kisses Grandma on the cheek and says, “I appreciate that. It means the world to me.”
For a while everyone sits there in awkward silence, but Dad’s not one to let things get too serious. “Say, have you all heard the one about …,” he says, and goes on to tell one of his usual awful jokes. This time it’s just what the moment calls for.
Later, it’s just me and him straightening things up on the deck after everyone else has gone in, and he tells me to sit down next to him. So there we are sitting on the deck with our legs dangling over the edge, and I figure he’s going to start in on how I need to soften up toward Grandma.
“You know,” he says, “I’m really proud of the way Lacy’s sacrificed so much to help your grandma.”
“Yeah, she’s done a lot more than I gave her credit for,” I tell him. Of course, I’m not surprised he’s proud of her—he’s never made a secret of that—but I hope he doesn’t expect me to start giving Grandma baths or something.
That’s not what he’s getting at, though. “I want you to know I’m proud of you too,” he says. He even wraps his arm around my shoulder. “I always have been, but I’m especially proud of how you’re sticking by Bobby. I guess I haven’t known how to act with him, but you seem to, and I think that’s as important as anything.”
This is about the last thing I expected. I’m like, What? He’s actually admitting he could’ve done better by Bobby? Maybe he thinks he can get me to be all nicey-nice like everyone else is pretending to be, but I’m not ready to let him off the hook as easy as he did Grandma.
“Well,” I say, “it’s not so hard to know how to act around someone if you love them.”
“You know I love your brother.” He tries to look me in the eyes, but I turn away.
“Yeah, right. If you loved him, how could you send him off to the army in the first place?”
He takes his arm away from my shoulder and folds his hands between his legs. “I didn’t send him off. You know that. We had a tough choice to make. Sometimes that’s how life is—you have to choose between two bad things. I sure couldn’t see him going to jail.”
“You could’ve fought harder for him.” I don’t yell or even raise my voice. I just state it like a fact on the news.
“Maybe so. Maybe I could’ve fired our lawyer and got a different one. But none of us thought the war would be like it has been. We’ve talked about this whole thing before, Ceejay. You know as well as I do we all thought our troops would just go in and get out and it’d all be over. It was supposed to be finished by the time Bobby even got out of boot camp.”
“Well, you were wrong about that, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was. You’re right. I trusted the wrong people. But I always wanted the best for Bobby, just like I want the best for you. And I admire how you’re standing by him. Sometimes that’s about the best you can do. But, you know, standing by someone doesn’t mean you have to go along with everything they do.”
“Yeah? But it sure doesn’t mean telling Bobby you’re ashamed of him either.”
He winces at that, and I halfway expect him to tell me to quit back-talking him, but he doesn’t. For a moment, he stares across the yard, then he goes, “I wish I’d said something different to him that day, you know, when he told us how he left the army. If I could take it back and change it, I would. Because, the thing is, a soldier does our country’s hardest work for us. That’s the truth. There’s nothing harder. And I don’t care anything about what happened with him in Germany. He did a soldier’s job and I respect him.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell him.”
“I want to.” He studies his hands for a moment. “You know, Ceejay, there’s a lot of things I probably need to tell people that I haven’t. Your grandma got me to thinking. It took a lot for her to say what she did tonight. That’s the way it is. The things you need to say the most are the hardest to get out. And the truth is, I’m afraid I haven’t let Bobby or you, either one, know just how much you mean to me as much as I could.”
Oh God, I say to myself, here it comes—he’s going to hand me a load of sentimental crap that can’t make up for a single thing.
“You see,” he goes on, “it’s just that you two were always closer to each other than you were to the others, and I felt like you were the ones who were the most like me.”
He catches the look of disbelief on my face.
“I’m sure you think that’s foolish,” he says. “You probably can’t see how you’re anything like your old, fat dad, but you sure are. And I guess I never wanted to let on about that for fear the others might think I was playing favorites with Bobby and you.”
Of all the weirdness to hit me this weekend, that might just be the weirdest. I have no idea how to respond, so I look around at the stuff left out on the patio table. “So,” I say, “I guess we better take the rest of these dishes into the kitchen.”
“I guess we should,” he says. “But you think about what I said, Ceejay. And you tell Bobby, the next time you see him, the whole family stands behind him. We want him to come back home.”
“Sure,” I say. That’s all. I gather up the dishes and head into the house, thinking of how desperate I am to get back to my real life. Bobby will probably have a good laugh over Dad trying to pretend he’s like us. Or maybe he won’t. I’m not so sure about anything anymore.
29
The next evening, when we get home, I head straight to my room and shut the door. I can’t wait to call Bobby and see what he has to say about the bizarre stuff that went down this weekend, especially the conversation with Dad. Dani answers but she tells me—and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—Bobby’s at the captain’s. She sounds a little ticked off, and I know how she feels. Okay, so the captain did a great job of taking our backs when Jace showed up with his baseball bat, but does that mean Bobby has to make him his new best friend? I’m sure Dani wants some one-on-one time with Bobby just like I do.
I have to coax Brianna into driving me to the captain’s, but when we get there, she’s not real gung ho about hanging around, so I tell her to go on home. I can always catch a ride home on the back of Bobby’s motorcycle.
“Well,” she says, “if for some reason he can’t give you a ride, just call me.”
I know what she’s thinking—Bobby may be too wasted to drive me home. “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’m sure it’ll be cool.”
In the barn, it’s only Bobby and the captain. I have to admit I’m a little disappointed Mr. White isn’t around. According to the captain, he got a part-time job at the bowling alley and has to work tonight. Anyway, they’ve made progress on the aero-velocipede since I’ve been gone. Seems Bobby ordered wheels online using Dani’s computer, and now that they’ve attached them to the frame, the thing looks more like it really could get somewhere. On the ground, at least. They still don’t have wings or a motor.
But the captain and Bobby aren’t satisfied to just make it look like the pictures they have hanging up all around the barn. Since it?
??s supposed to be a flying sculpture, their next step is to cut the shapes of stars and crescent moons and suns out of tin and weld them to the frame. It’s going to be time-consuming, Bobby explains, but when it’s done, it’ll be the coolest flying sculpture anyone ever made. I feel like asking just how many flying sculptures there are in the universe, but I can’t get sarcastic with Bobby the way I do with my friends.
“We’re naming her Angelica,” he says. “Because, you know, she’s like a mechanized angel.” His eyes are bright, but he’s not drunk, maybe just a tad high. That’s okay—at least he’s happy for a change.
The fact that they still don’t have a motor is more than all right by me. I’d just as soon they never really tried to fly it. For me, the fun thing is listening to Bobby once he starts talking. Sure, it’s a pain that he wants to hang around with the captain so much, but at least he’s starting to open up more.
Tonight, the captain is quieter than usual, giving Bobby a chance to talk about the army, which is something he hasn’t done much of since he’s been back. But still he doesn’t say a whole lot about what went down in the actual war. The one time he mentions confronting hajji on the street, he sounds like he’s reading a military report. Not an ounce of emotion in his voice. He might as well be telling about something that happened to someone else.
Mostly, he talks about the wild things he and his army buddies did. He especially likes telling about his favorite buddy, a Texas dude named Covell. He used to tell me about him on the phone and in e-mails, but hasn’t talked about him for quite a while. Covell was the funniest guy Bobby ever met, had a real bona fide comedy routine about all his brothers and sisters and cousins. His jokes weren’t like anyone else’s. They were really more like funny stories than jokes. Covell was raised on a ranch, but he’d watched enough TV to know how to go about polishing a stand-up act. That was his dream. Once he got out of the army, he was heading straight to New York City to make it big in the clubs. He was going to be groundbreaking.