“Don’t we all? I’ll be right back as soon as they’re fed.”
In the twins’ room, Timmy picked up Allie and sat in the rocker. I took a bottle, curled up with Sophie on the daybed, tested the milk on my arm and stuck the nipple in her mouth. She grabbed it, started sucking like a madwoman and looked up at me, gratefully. What did she think? That we’d let her starve to death?
I looked over at Henry, who was standing behind Timmy, making faces at Allie and poking her tummy with his finger. Allie giggled and spit out the nipple. I smiled and began to relax. We’d be all right, I thought, we’d make it through this.
I looked down at Sophie’s eyelashes; she blinked as she drank and her lashes swept her cheeks. My two little baby sisters were precious. If I spent more time with them and less time trying to figure out the grown-ups, I’d be better off.
“Hey, Henry!” I said.
“What?”
“Wanna feed Sophie?”
“Sure!” He bounced on the bed and reached out for her. Carefully, I put her in his lap.
“Watch her head. And don’t drop her. Babies don’t bounce.”
“I know, I know. Jeesch!” Henry rolled his eyes at me and I smiled.
“Hey, how’s Maggie?” Timmy asked.
“Barfed her guts out but I think she’s gonna live.”
“Well, thank God for that!” Timmy said.
“Yeah, around here, you never know,” I said, sliding off the bed. “I’m gonna look in on her again. Be careful!” I pointed my finger at Henry.
“Yes, Mother!” Henry teased.
“Don’t worry, I’ll watch him like a hawk,” Timmy said.
“Be right back.”
Walking down the hall to Maggie’s room, I felt marginally restored. We children were inside a ring, living in our own circle, almost self-sufficient. We all loved each other, and each of us could depend on that. And we still had Livvie.
The reality of the funeral hit me again. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have my father and my grandmother in caskets before my eyes. Maggie and I would figure out a plan to get through it. I opened her bedroom door again. She was gone. The bathroom door was closed. I put my ear next to it to listen. I could just barely hear her, gagging and coughing. I almost gagged myself. Poor Maggie. At last, I heard the water running in the sink.
“Hey! You need me?”
“No, I’m okay.”
I opened the door anyway, barged in, and soaked a clean washcloth with cold water.
“Brush your teeth and go lie down. Put this on your head,” I said.
“God, I feel awful. Thanks.” She took the cloth and, hands shaking, she put toothpaste on her toothbrush.
“I’ll bet. Think you have the flu or something? Your eyes are glassy.”
“No. Just my stomach is so bad.”
“Well, today’s enough to make anybody sick.”
“Yeah.” She brushed her teeth while I waited, sitting on the side of the tub.
“I wonder how Momma is,” I said.
“I went downstairs a little while ago. Would you believe she’s sleeping in Sophie’s bed?”
“Gross me out! You’re kidding!”
“Nope, and Aunt Carol is in the kitchen with Livvie. I guess they’re gonna be here for dinner.”
“Some lousy Thanksgiving this is gonna be,” I said.
She hit her toothbrush on the side of the sink a few times and put it back in the holder. She looked in the mirror and held back her hair. She swayed back and forth. “No lie. Speaking of lousy, I look green!”
“You’d better get back in bed. I guess the wake will be tomorrow or the day after. You’d better get well.”
“I’d rather stay home, if it’s okay with you.” She stumbled toward her room and flopped down on her bed. I pulled her spread and sheet up over her, then laid the cloth across her forehead.
“Oh, no. I don’t care if you have to wear a bucket around your neck, you’re coming. No way am I going through this without you.”
“I’ll be all right. Don’t worry, I’ll be better.”
“Why don’t you try to get a nap or something and I’ll go change the twins. Then I’m gonna go help Livvie. Call me if you need anything.”
I closed Maggie’s door and went back to the twins’ room.
Henry had Sophie up on his shoulder, hand poised to slap her back. Timmy had Allie on his shoulder, his hand extended in the same position.
“One, two, three!” Slap!
“Whurp!” Both babies belched like lumberjacks.
“Hey! We’re having a burping contest! Listen to this!” Timmy said. “Come on, Sophie. Let one rip!”
Sophie made a huge noise, more like a sailor than a three-month-old baby. Timmy, Henry and I started laughing, loud and long. It was good to laugh.
“Gimme that child, Henry!”
Still laughing, he handed her over to me and I put her on the changing table.
“Ah, Susan! She’s my champ!” Henry said.
“You should’ve heard Allie! ‘Whurp!’” Timmy imitated.
We began laughing again.
“Uh-oh. She’s wet and you know what else she did too. Yuck! Stinko! I’ll put her in the crib. Come on, Henry, let’s go watch the Macy’s parade.”
“Poop!” Henry shrieked. “She pooped!”
“Thanks a lot!” I said.
“Poop! The whole room stinks like poop! Pretty soon the whole house is gonna smell like poop! You’re gonna smell like poop!”
“Henry Hamilton! Hush your mouth! Mr. Struthers will hear you!”
“Who’s going to make him hush?” Timmy winked at me.
Oh, my God. The tigers had been unleashed. I needed to talk to Livvie about the boys right away or they’d run around like wild bandits getting into trouble. Then I thought, So what? Let them run.
Fifteen
Thanksgiving 1999
WE left a message on Simon’s answering machine. It was exhilarating to hear his voice. He sounded exactly the same as he always had, mellow and slightly amused. I hoped he would call us back. We left Maggie’s number and mine.
The following Monday, Michelle Stoney called. The papers were finally ready. I went to her office that afternoon. My hand shook as I signed my name.
“Michelle, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for Beth and me,” I said.
I got choked up and she handed me a tissue. “I know this is hard,” she said.
“Yeah, but it’s the right thing. I know it is.”
“I’ll file them with the court next week and if it all goes smoothly, as I expect it will, it will be final within the year.”
I put the pen down and blew my nose. We talked a little more, shook hands and said good-bye.
“Call me if you need anything, Susan. I mean it.”
“Thank you. I will.”
I drove myself home and took a long walk around the Battery wall on the harbor. Laps of water splashed the sides of the seawall. All the years with Tom crossed my mind in scenes, like a home video. How my life had changed! But it was all right. I felt good. I had another chance to rebuild my future and this time I’d do an honest job with my heart.
As soon as the ink was dry on our papers, Tom called. I guessed that we were both feeling kind of strange about the official end of our relationship. It was the first time I’d spoken to him since the hurricane. I wasn’t angry with him any longer. In fact, once he agreed to the terms of our separation, I was grateful to him. My heart had forgiven him.
His voice sounded odd and when I asked him what was wrong he said, “Nothing. I just was wondering what you’re doing for the holiday, that’s all.”
It seemed that Miss Natural High, his love goddess, had left him again. This time she was off for a trek to Nepal to find herself and to dig for crystals in the Himalayas. He knew I would find that hysterically funny and I thought he was telling me the story to make me laugh. He was.
“Stop, no more,” I sai
d, “my sides are killing me! This girl leaves you so often I can’t keep track.”
“Like you always said, I need a revolving door,” he said. “So what’s up?”
I told him I was cooking dinner for Maggie and her bunch.
“Well, the plan is to have Thanksgiving at my house and Christmas at hers. It’s just us, although there was some noise about Henry and his gang coming from Atlanta. I don’t know.”
“Gosh, that sounds nice,” he said. “Any special plans?”
“Just the usual trough frenzy—turkey, ham and the million mashed things we like. God, you’d think we can’t chew, with all the creamed vegetables, right?”
“Yeah, it sounds wonderful.” A long silence. Then he said,
“Guess I’ll just go out to Morrison’s Cafeteria and eat with the Lonely Hearts Club.”
“Oh, all right, you old pain in my behind. Do you want to join us?”
“I thought you’d never ask!”
He asked if he could bring anything and I said, “Yeah, bring enough wine to float the Queen Livvie.”
THANKSGIVING DAY ARRIVED and Simon still hadn’t called. I told myself that he must’ve been out of town. Roger had sent me flowers. I debated throwing them in the garbage but put them on the coffee table instead. They were extraordinarily beautiful, too fabulous to waste. Every time I looked at them my feet itched.
Maggie, Grant and the boys arrived and Tom pulled up in the driveway at the same time. It took the males about twenty seconds to turn on the football game, grab beers, Cokes and potato chips and start making macho noises at the television. It took another two seconds for the females to suck our teeth in disgust and put on aprons.
Beth, Maggie and I were in the kitchen basting the bird and finding counter space for all the casseroles of vegetables.
“This holiday always reminds me of Livvie,” Maggie said. “I sure do miss her.”
“Yeah, Gawd, that’s for true!” I said. “Lawd have mercy! That woman had us chopping vegetubble, ’eah? Chopping and such till we like to drop!”
“You sound just like her,” Maggie said.
Beth giggled.
“You know, every year I make rutabagas in her honor and collard greens too. Remember how she used to get on us about how we picked collards? ‘You gots to pull out every single vein and put some vinegar to the pot water or he gone stink up the whole house!’ God, was she great or what?”
“The greatest,” Maggie said. “She never gave up trying to teach you to cook, did she?”
“Poor woman, I was hopeless,” I said.
“I got gypped not knowing her,” Beth said.
“Yeah, but you got your momma, and that’s just about the next best thing,” Maggie said.
Everything was finally in a pot or an oven and Beth wanted to go see a friend down the block.
“I’ll be back by three, come on, Mom! I swear!”
“Don’t swear, and take a sweater. It’s chilly. Dinner’s at four.”
I gave her a peck on the cheek and in a moment she was gone out the back door. Maggie and I watched her disappear around the side of the house.
“She’s so grown up,” Maggie said. “Where did the time go?”
“Seems like we ask that question more and more lately.” I put the knives and the cutting boards in the sink and turned on the faucet, squirting liquid soap over the whole mess, scrubbing away.
“Sure does. Where’s the butter? I’ll nuke some more to baste the bird,” Maggie said.
“Second shelf, in the cheese thing.”
She found it, cut some squares into a bowl and covered them in plastic wrap. I heard the door close, followed by the programing beeps of my microwave oven, and I thought, here we were, the older ones now. It made me pause and reflect.
“So, what’s up with Tom?” Maggie asked. “He seems so subdued.”
“Oh, Maggie, who knows? He thinks he’s coming back again, I guess, now that he and Miss Kama Sutra have broken up again.”
“Well?”
“Oh, gimme a break. Our divorce is going through next summer, I hope. I talked with Michelle last week and she said it’s on the books for then. I can’t be with him anymore, you know? No spark!”
“Whoa. Well, if there’s no fire to light, hang it up.”
“We’re practically like old war buddies or something at this point.”
“That’s the best thing if you can handle it,” Maggie said. “You know, considering Beth.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“Did he say why he and what’s-her-face broke up?”
“She ran off somewhere, and I’m sure I’ll hear the details before the day’s over. He gets sentimental around the holidays.”
“Most people do,” she said.
“By the way, I have to tell you that writing this column is about the smartest thing I ever did that you told me to do, O Excellent Sister of Mine.”
“Yeah, tell me what criminal act of genius I’ve committed this time.”
“Well, it’s just that all the things you’ve told me to do, I’ve done—and I really feel better about myself, you know?”
“Big sister is God. All-knowing, always right. How’s the column going?”
“Well, I was gonna wait until dinner to announce it, but what the heck. Guess what?”
“Spill it!”
“It’s being picked up by the Atlanta Journal!”
“Ha! I can’t stand it! And do we earn a bit more in the deal?”
“Yes, we do! And the Miami Herald!”
“Oh, my God! Susan, this is so wonderful! I told you you were the best! Let’s celebrate!”
She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of white wine. It was, after all, a holiday. We clinked our glasses and hugged.
“Well, I’m not the only licensed therapist in the family,” she said. “I have to tell you about Grant and me.”
“Tell it, sugar. Gimme the butter and I’ll paint the turkey again.”
“’Eah, watch your fingers.” She handed the hot dish to me. “Well, after that big speech you gave me the day we were on the beach—”
“What do you mean speech? Damn! This is hot!”
“It was a good speech, okay? I went home and thought about it for days and then I decided to do something I’ve never done with a man before.”
“Suck his toes?”
“Jesus! Now you’ve got me cursing!” Maggie said. “No! I came clean with him. I called him at the hospital and I said, ‘Grant? There are a few things we need to talk about so we know where we stand with each other. When are you coming home?’”
“Oh, God! Did he get nervous or what?”
“No, I don’t think he had time to. I took out a good bottle of wine, made spaghetti and salad with homemade croutons, strawberry shortcake, and sent the boys to their friends for the night. I had my hair done, charged three hundred dollars’ worth of Chanel cosmetics to the American Express card and bought an armload of flowers and some very sexy lingerie and mood music on tape at Victoria’s Secret. I perfumed myself, the bedroom, and changed the sheets. Then, I set the table with my best everything and lit every candle in the house. When he walked in I thought I’d have to give him oxygen! You should’ve seen his face!”
“Oh, my God. Talk slow. I want to remember this. I might need it someday.”
“Don’t write about it, okay?”
“Maggie, I’d never do that. I swear! Continue!”
“Okay. So! He said, ‘What’s all this?’ And, I said,‘ ’Eah Grant, drink this and sit down. We have to talk.’ And he said, ‘What about?’ I took a big gulp of wine and let it roll! I said, ‘Grant? I thought for a long time that you were fooling around on me and I even thought I had proof. I was so paranoid I couldn’t stand it. I think a big part of this just might be my fault. I think that if we understood each other a little better we’d be a lot happier. What do you think?’”
“This is good. Tell me more!”
“Well, at fir
st, he waffled all around, saying, ‘Shoot, honey, I think we’re the perfect couple!’ but I held my ground. I said, ‘Grant, listen ’eah. We’re no better than hamsters on a wheel. You’re running and I’m running. I’m so bogged down with committee meetings and carpooling and you’re at work nine-tenths of the time. How can we be the perfect couple when we never see each other? Sure, we’re nice enough to each other and we do all the right things on the surface, but there are things I’ve never even talked to you about. You must have secrets you’d love to share with someone. Dreams? I do.’”
“So what did he say?”
“Well, at first he just listened to me. I told him about things I’d never told him, about old Lucius and how he broke my heart, and about Daddy and how Daddy terrorized us all the time. I had never told Grant any of that stuff. You have to remember, he only knew Stanley.”
“Right, that’s right, God rest that sweet man’s soul.”
“Amen. Anyway, I told Grant I knew I hadn’t been loving him right, and that, in fact, he hadn’t been loving me right, but that it was probably because we didn’t know what the other one really needed. You never knew his momma and daddy like I did,” she said, “but they were pretty strict Baptists. When Grant converted to the Church, they almost died and never really considered us family after that. That really hurt him, but I was too afraid to say to him that he didn’t have to convert at all! I thought that if we didn’t go to church together we wouldn’t really be a family. Is that dumb or what? Oh, God, Susan, we talked about so much stuff that we had bottled up for years! We stayed up all night.”
“So what else happened? I mean, I was away at college and then when I came home I met Tom and that was that. You were living in Savannah and pregnant.”
“That’s right. I was going through the setting-up-the-parameters part of my marriage and didn’t have a clue what it meant! I mean, all these years, Grant never knew all the secrets I carried. I was so ashamed that we were poor. I mean, we looked so unsophisticated next to his family. Ridiculous, right?”
“Not really. You had the same problem with Lucius’s mother, remember? She wanted him to marry a debutante from Charleston, not a Catholic girl from Sullivan’s Island. Remember?”