I found Grandma sitting on the back steps. She didn't say anything when I dropped down beside her.
"Looks like everything's peachy-keen now," I muttered.
I knew Grandma knew what I meant, but instead of saying anything about the old man, she murmured, "I wish it would rain. Everything in the garden is doing poorly except the weeds. Why do they thrive when nothing else does?"
It seemed to me that was the way it went. Good things died, bad things lived. And not just in gardens, either. But I had other stuff on my mind, important stuff I wanted to talk about.
"What's wrong with Mama?" I asked. "Why is she so dumb about the old man? You know how he used to treat her, don't you?"
Grandma didn't answer right away. For a minute, I thought she was going to tell me such things were none of my business. A lot of grown-ups would have. But Grandma wasn't like most people. "Virginia told me a lot before she brought you all down here," she said at last. "Then, after Roger started writing to her, she clammed up again."
She shook her head slowly. "My only child," she murmured, "and we can't be in the same room for five minutes without quarreling. I don't understand her. She's a stranger to me." Grandma sounded about as sad as a person can sound.
"Did Mama tell you he broke her arm once?" I asked. "Gave her black eyes? Knocked out a tooth?"
Grandma nodded. "She claims he's changed."
"Sure he has." I spit as far as I could into the dark. "You saw how he acted at dinner."
"Maybe I shouldn't have antagonized him," Grandma said.
"Baloney." I spit again, harder this time. "He was just showing a little bit of his true self. He can't hide it for long, you know. Especially if he starts drinking."
"I haven't seen any sign of alcohol," Grandma said. "Maybe he really is trying, Gordon. Maybe we should give him a chance."
"You're just as dumb as Mama if you believe that," I said, daring her to get mad at me.
Grandma sighed and got to her feet. "I'm going to bed now, Gordon. Don't stay up too late."
After she went inside, I sat on the steps watching the heat lightning snake back and forth, leaping from cloud to cloud like fires burning in heaven. I wondered if that was how the sky looked at night during a battle. Shells exploding, bombs falling, flares lighting up the ground. And all the time the rumble and roar of guns louder than thunder. Guys like Gerald dying. Guys like Donny crouching in foxholes, scared to raise their heads.
A burst of laughter from the front porch reminded me of the old man sitting in the swing with Mama just like he belonged there. Grandma had said she hadn't seen any signs of alcohol, but what if she'd missed something? I knew where to look, I knew his secret places.
My eyes moved to the black car sitting in the driveway. The old man used to keep a pint of Lord Calvert in the glove compartment and a couple more under the seat. I knew because Donny had bragged about stealing a bottle for a last bash with his buddies before he went off to basic training.
Careful to stay in the shadows, I sneaked around the side of the house to see what was going on. Just as I'd thought, the old man and Mama were still sitting in the swing.
Bobby had fallen asleep in Mama's lap, but June, Victor, and Ernie were playing statues on the lawn. June swung the boys round and round by their arms, calling out to Mama and the old man every time one of her brothers fell into a new pose. "Guess what Victor is! Guess what Ernie is!"
Spinning herself around till she fell, she cried, "Look, look! Guess what I am!"
Mama and the old man ignored her, but she kept on trying to get their attention anyway.
Thinking I was safe, I ran to the car and opened the door real quietly. The dome light went on but I figured nobody'd see it. First I searched the glove compartment. Out tumbled gas-ration books, maps, a pack of Camels, a snapshot of Mama taken on a long-ago, smiling day at the beach, matchbooks from different places between here and California. But no whiskey.
I put the Camels in my pocket and looked under the front seat. Nothing there. Was I disappointed or relieved? I didn't know, so I kept on searching.
I was just about to open the trunk when somebody grabbed my arm.
"What the hell are you doing, Gordy?"
It was the old man.
I pulled free and backed away, stumbling on loose stones. He didn't come any closer. A flash of lightning lit his face but it didn't show his eyes.
"There's no bottle in the car," he said, "if that's what you're thinking."
"You must have hidden it someplace else, then."
"I told you I've quit drinking."
"I've heard that before."
The old man reached out and grabbed my jersey, yanking me closer. "Ginny's right," he muttered. "Your grandmother's turned you kids against me. Brainwashed you."
He started cussing Grandma, calling her names, blaming everything on her. She'd always hated him. Now she'd made us kids hate him too. Nobody liked him in this town, never had, never would. He shouldn't have come back, he should've stayed in California.
"Grandma's got nothing to do with how I feel about you," I shouted. "I hate you because of what you've done, not because of anything she's said."
The old man tightened his grip on my jersey, twisting the neck so it nearly choked me. "Don't sass me, you little SOB," he said, cuffing one side of my face and then the other. "I'm your father, goddammit! Show me some respect!"
Before he could hit me again, the back porch light flashed on, flooding the driveway and the yard beyond. "What's going on out there?" Grandma called.
The old man let me go with a curse. Dizzy from the blows he'd landed, blood spurting out of my nose, I ran past Grandma and pounded up the stairs to my room. Slamming the door shut, I shoved my bureau in front of it and waited for the old man to come banging on the door, threatening and cursing me.
Let him try it, just let him. He'd see I wasn't a little kid. He couldn't beat me the way he used to. Not anymore.
Twenty-one
After fifteen or twenty minutes, I decided the old man wasn't coming, but I left the bureau where it was just in case. My heart slowed down to normal and my nose stopped bleeding, but I still felt pretty edgy. To calm my nerves, I lit one of the Camels I'd stolen from the car and sat in the dark, blowing the smoke out the window so Grandma wouldn't smell it.
I hadn't smoked for a long time and it made me feel kind of sick and dizzy, but I didn't want to waste a cigarette. Once you lit one you had to finish it. That's what Donny told me when he taught me to smoke.
Besides, smoking helped me think. There was no way on earth I was going to California or anywhere else with the old man. As much as I longed to see that redwood forest, I'd find some other way to get across the country.
For now, I wanted to stay right here at Grandma's house. She was strict and sometimes as cross as an old maid schoolteacher, but she never hit me or yelled at me or cussed me out. Never called me stupid, either. She fed me three meals a day—not just something from a can but good stuff. Best of all, I could fall asleep at night without being scared of what might happen before the sun came up the next day.
The trouble was, I didn't know if Grandma wanted me. It was true we got along better than we used to, but she never kissed me the way she kissed June and the little boys, never hugged me or called me honey. Not that I wanted her mushing over me or anything. But I was still Gordon to her, for Pete's sake, not even Gordy.
While I thought about all this, I smoked my cigarette right down to the end and ground it out in a little china dish on my night table. I hid everything—the cigarettes and the dish—in the bottom drawer of my bureau. I didn't want Grandma to find the Camels. If she knew I smoked, she definitely wouldn't want me living in her house.
I lay down on my bed but it was too hot to sleep. I'd read all the Hardy Boys mysteries William had loaned me and every Captain Hornblower story in the old Saturday Evening Posts I'd brought upstairs. I'd even tackled a few of Grandma's books, like Around the World in Eighty Days an
d The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which were longer and harder than anything I'd ever read. But I kept going, skipping words I didn't understand and long, boring descriptions, because I wanted to know what happened next. I also had an idea I'd impress William when he came back by telling him how much I'd read.
Now all that was left in the bookcase was Heidi and some other girl books from Mama's childhood. I wasn't about to read them.
So I lay there, hot and sweaty, staring at the ceiling with no way to escape from my own thoughts, till a noise at the door made me sit up and take notice.
"Who's there?" I whispered, scared it was the old man coming after me just when I'd thought I was safe.
"It's me," June whispered. "Let me in, Gordy."
I shoved the bureau aside and opened the door. June ran into the room and jumped on my bed. In the dim light, her face was nothing but a pale oval, but I could tell she'd been crying.
I sat down beside her. "What's wrong?"
"It's Daddy," she whimpered. "He told me I was a show-off trying to hog everybody's attention. Then I heard him tell Mama I looked just like Grandma. He said I was all Aitcheson."
She barely got the last words out before she started crying again. "And I've been trying so hard to be good, Gordy. I didn't mean to spill the tea, I didn't mean to make him mad, I just wanted him to love me, but he doesn't, he doesn't love me at all."
"Oh, Junie." I patted her skinny little shoulder, hating the old man even more for making her so unhappy. "It's not your fault," I muttered. "He's always been mean. You just forgot, that's all."
When June calmed down some, I got another cigarette and lit it.
June drew in her breath. I thought she was shocked to see me smoking but it was my eye that upset her. She must have seen my face in the flare of the match. "Did Daddy hit you?"
I touched my eye, feeling the old, familiar stab of pain. "What do you think?"
June took another deep gulping breath. "I don't want to go with Daddy. Not even if he gives me a pony. I want to stay with Grandma."
"She'd love that," I said, trying not to sound jealous.
"Do you really think so?"
"Grandma's crazy about you," I said, "probably because you're all Aitcheson." To make it sound like a little joke, I laughed. Unfortunately, I'd just taken a deep drag on my cigarette and I practically coughed a lung out. Boy oh boy, that's how out of practice I was.
"How about you, Gordy?" June asked. "Are you staying with Grandma too?"
"I doubt she wants me," I said. "Maybe Donny will take me in. If not, I'll go back to College Hill and live in the woods. It can't be more than five or six hundred miles from here."
June didn't say anything. When I looked at her, I saw she'd fallen asleep, thumb in her mouth, taking up almost the entire bed. I finished my cigarette and curled up in the space she'd left.
When I woke up, June was gone. I dressed and went downstairs. The old man was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. Mama perched on a chair beside him. Her suitcase and several bags of stuff sat by the door. Nobody said a word about my eye, which was puffed nearly shut. I doubt Mama even noticed.
"Get your things packed, Gordy," the old man said, "and tell June to get a move on, too. I sent her upstairs half an hour ago."
I looked at Mama. "Where's Grandma?"
Mama shrugged. "Out back, weeding the garden or something."
The old man glanced at his watch. "I want to leave at ten," he said. "That gives you fifteen minutes to get ready, Gordy."
I folded my arms across my chest and said, "I'm not going with you."
In the sudden silence, I heard my brothers playing war in the backyard. "Ackety-ackety-ack," Victor shouted. "You're dead, Ernie!"
The old man stared at me as if he'd never seen me before. "What are you talking about, you little snot?"
I took a step backward and nearly bumped into June. She'd come up behind me so quietly I hadn't heard her. "I'm staying here," I said. "So's June."
"The hell you are."
I took another step backward. Getting to his feet, the old man came toward me, his fist raised.
"Don't hit Gordy again!" June hollered, throwing herself between the old man and me. "Don't you dare!"
At the same moment, the screen door opened and Grandma stepped into the kitchen. She took in the scene like someone arriving late for a play and trying to figure out what was going on.
"No one will be hit in my house," she said firmly, never taking her eyes off the old man.
He shrugged and picked up his coffee cup. "I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered. "I'm just trying to get these kids packed and ready to go."
"We're not going with you!" June and I yelled together, as if we'd rehearsed our lines.
Grandma put her arm around June. "You can leave the children here if you want to," she told the old man.
I waited to see if Grandma would put her other arm around me. When she didn't, I moved several feet away and leaned against the wall. She wanted June, not me. I didn't care. I had other plans anyway—Donny, College Hill, maybe even Stu.
The old man started yelling then. We were his kids, he said. Grandma was an interfering old busybody, she'd turned us against him. He wouldn't let her keep us, no, siree. He'd take her to court, he'd sue her for every cent she had, she'd die penniless in the gutter.
While the old man ranted and raved, Mama sat at the table like a zombie. No expression on her face. Saying nothing. Not even looking at anybody till Bobby came running inside and climbed onto her lap.
No one else said anything, either. Not even Grandma. We just rode out the storm, waiting for the old man to run out of steam.
When he finally stopped shouting, Grandma said, "Listen to me, Roger. I'm offering to help. Go back to California, take Virginia if she insists, but leave the children here. You can send for them later, when you're settled."
The old man started to argue but something stopped him. He eyed June and me as if he was calculating what it would cost to feed us and clothe us and take care of us. Pouring himself another cup of coffee, he went to the screen door and stood there with his back to us, drinking the coffee and staring at the yard.
I looked at Mama, expecting her to say something. After all, we were her children, too. Didn't she care what happened to us? But she looked as confused as the rest of us.
June edged away from Grandma and slipped her hand into mine. It felt boneless, tiny, easy to hurt.
We waited for the old man to finish his coffee. I thought he might turn around and throw the cup at Grandma. Or pick up a chair and hurl it out the door. Kick a hole in the wall. Beat me.
Finally he said, "If any of you kids stay here, I never want to see you again. I disown you. You will be dead to me." He kept his back turned while he spoke.
That was fine with me. It was exactly what I wanted. But June whimpered as if she might change her mind and run to the old man. I tightened my hand around hers, keeping her with me.
Still without looking at any of us, the old man opened the kitchen door and stepped outside. "I'll be waiting in the car," he said. "Ten minutes. Then I'm gone."
The door slammed shut behind him, and Mama got to her feet, still holding Bobby.
"Think carefully, Virginia," Grandma said. "If you go with that man, I won't take you back."
"Don't worry," Mama said coldly. "I'll never set foot in this house again."
June started to cry. "Don't go with Daddy, Mama. Stay here. Please, Mama, please."
Mama turned to Grandma, her face dark with anger. "See why I'm leaving? You've turned my own daughter against me."
"You think I'm responsible?" Grandma grabbed my shoulders and whirled me around to face Mama. "For God's sake, Virginia, look at your son. Look at his eye. How can you think about leaving here with a man who'd do something like this to his own son?"
Mama held Bobby tighter. "Gordy asked for it," she said. "Roger caught him looking for whiskey in the car. A boy like
that belongs in reform school!"
"You don't believe that, Virginia," Grandma said, letting me go.
"You wait," Mama said. "Gordy's rotten to the bone. Whipping's the only way to make him behave. You'll see."
Grandma swore, which shocked me even more than Mama's opinion of me, but Mama paid no attention. She was done with us. Without looking at me, she went to the door and called Victor and Ernie. "Come get your bags, boys. We're leaving now."
When my little brothers came into the kitchen, Grandma drew them close for good-bye kisses, but they pulled away, anxious to please Mama. I wanted to warn them about so many things, but there wasn't time. Instead I watched them stagger down the steps with their bags and hurry to the old man waiting in the car.
I thought Mama might say good-bye to me or at least wave, but she didn't. The last I saw of her was her back disappearing into that black car. She was still wearing the flowered sundress the old man had given her. The bottom of the skirt hung below the car door after she closed it. By the time she noticed, the dress would be ruined.
As the car backed out of the driveway, June broke away from me and ran after it, crying and calling out to Mama. "Wait, wait, I changed my mind," she screamed. "I want to go with you. Don't leave me, Mama, don't leave me!"
If Mama or the old man heard my sister, they gave no sign. The car picked up speed and vanished. Long after it was out of sight, the sound of its bad muffler echoed in my head.
Twenty-two
"What now?" I asked Grandma, feeling more uneasy than I wanted to admit.
Instead of answering, Grandma opened her arms to comfort June. "It's all right, honey, it's all right," she murmured over and over again, patting her hair and shoulders, trying to calm her.
But it wasn't all right. Grandma knew it, June knew it, I knew it. Our mother had gone off with the old man. Who hadn't changed. And never would. Drunk or sober, he'd shown us his true self over and over again. Worse yet, Mama had taken three poor little kids with her.