A Face in Every Window

  ***

  BOBBI AND I rode with Pap to the hospital. While we waited in the waiting room, I lectured Bobbi.

  "What is wrong with you, anyway? How could you take up with someone just like your father? Don's exactly like him! You're just asking for it. You said you could handle it—well, why didn't you? Why didn't you fight back? 'Stop it! Stop it!'" I whined, imitating her, flapping my arms. "Why didn't you haul off and flip him, or kick him? You could have at least done that, instead of acting like a limp noodle. You sure had no trouble flipping me to the ground last spring, remember?"

  "Yeah, but I didn't love you!" Bobbi said, jabbing at my chest with her finger, her face red with fury.

  I felt stung by her words, but I ignored my hurt feelings and shot back, "Love? Love? You call that love? Are you crazy?"

  "What would you know, O'Brien?" She squinted her eyes. "You've never loved anyone in your life, and no one loves you. You're like a piece of deadwood. Don has passion and fire, but you wouldn't know about that, would you? You think you've got all the answers because you're so smart, you read all those books—but you don't know anything about real life."

  "Oh, and real life's letting someone beat on you? You can have it!"

  I could see out of the corner of my eye people watching us. I turned away from Bobbi and waited for Pap by myself near the nurses' station, mulling over her words. She didn't love me. Well, I supposed I'd known that all along—but to hate me? I could see the hate in her eyes. Did everyone hate me? She said I had never loved anyone and no one loved me. Just a couple of months ago she had said I'd always had my parents' love, that I had been surrounded by love but couldn't love back. I thought her earlier judgment was more accurate, but I knew, too, that she had never loved anyone, either, not with real love.

  Then I saw Pap hobble down the hall toward me on crutches with a cast running all the way up his thigh. He was jabbering away with the nurse, explaining to her that he had broken his leg in two places, and watching him, I thought, I do, too, love someone. I loved Pap. Until that moment I had never realized how much, but I did. I loved Pap with all my heart.

  It was late when Larry and the others picked us up at the hospital and brought us home, and as soon as we all walked in the door, Bobbi got on the phone and called around looking for Don. She finally found him at a friend's house and asked him to come pick her up. Pap and I were working our way up the stairs to Pap's bedroom when Bobbi came down with her grocery bag filled with her belongings. She made sure I saw the bag, and I shrugged and said, "It's none of my business what you do."

  Bobbi stopped on the steps and said, "It's about time you figured that out." She switched her bag to her other hip.

  "But how you could go off with that maniac instead of staying here, where it's safe, is beyond me."

  "Everything's beyond you." Bobbi marched down to the bottom of the steps and Pap, who sat on his bottom inching his way up the stairs backward, said, "Are you leaving us, then, Bobbi?"

  Bobbi stopped and turned back around. "I love him, Pap," she said in the meek tone she used with Don.

  "Well, congratulations," I said, shaking my head and nudging Pap to continue up the steps by poking him with one of his crutches. "You've turned out just like your mother."

  I heard the door slam shut behind me.

  "There goes Bobbi," Pap said.

  Larry shot out into the hallway. "Was that Bobbi leaving?" he asked.

  "Yup," Pap said.

  He hurried outside and joined Bobbi on the porch. I could hear the two of them arguing, and I said under my breath, "Good luck."

  I'd gotten Pap settled in his bed with everything he wanted, including his Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed toy, when I heard Larry come back inside the house. "I can't believe it!" I heard him shout.

  "Believe it," I said under my breath, and Pap said, "What?"

  "Nothing, Pap, just lie back and take it easy and tomorrow I'll make you one of Grandma Mary's special meals with a chocolate cake, and you can lick the bowl, okay?"

  "Yeah, okay, but I make the soda bread with raisins," he said, smoothing back his wild mass of hair and exposing a pale and tired face.

  I patted his arm. "You'll be okay, Pap," I said, searching for some kind of comforting words to say, more for myself than him.

  Pap nodded and slid down in his bed, wrapping an arm around his Winnie-the-Pooh. "Yup, I know it. And you know what? The nurse said I'm very handsome, like a model."

  "'Night, Pap," I said.

  ***

  AFTER SCHOOL THE next day I stopped by the bank and took out some money and bought groceries for the dinner I'd promised Pap. When I got home I discovered the workers had already left and, stepping inside, I found the place all cleaned up, smelling everywhere of fresh paint and furniture polish.

  I could hear Aunt Colleen explaining something about the piano to someone in the parlor. I set my groceries down in the kitchen and went to find her. She sat on the piano bench and beside her in another chair, with his broken leg resting on the bench, sat Pap.

  They both looked up when I came in.

  "Hiya, James Patrick, and I'm getting a real piano lesson so I don't make that awful noise, 'cause Colleen says."

  Aunt Colleen stood up. She had on a lace shirt and green skirt—no overalls. She seemed tired, maybe sad even, but I felt pleased to see the old Aunt Colleen back.

  "Well, James Patrick, what do you think of the place? It's all done. Do you think your mother will be surprised?"

  "Sure, it's great." I looked around the room at all that she had had done and all that she had paid for, the fresh paint, the shored-up floor, a couple of new pieces of furniture—chairs with a floral print. I nodded. "Yeah, it looks like something out of a decorator magazine. How did you get the place cleaned up so fast?"

  "Easy, I hired a clean team to come out this morning."

  "Well, yeah, it all looks great, thanks. Everyone's going to love it So"—I twisted toward the kitchen and then back—"I've got some groceries to put up and a dinner to prepare."

  I eyed Pap, and he struggled to get up. I rushed over to help him, and Aunt Colleen and I got him up on his feet.

  Aunt Colleen wiped her hands together and said, "Well, then, I'd better get going. I'll still stop by each day and keep Pap company until your mother comes home. I thought we wouldn't try going back to the Center just yet"

  I nodded and began to lead Pap out of the room, then stopped.

  I turned back to Aunt Colleen. "So, uh—why don't you stay for dinner," I said. "We're celebrating Pap's recovery from his fall. I'm going to make a cake, and anyway, we owe you a lot I mean"—I started to blush, I could feel the heat rising up my neck—"I mean, how could we possibly thank you? Mam's going to go into shock when she sees how great this place looks."

  Pap cheered. "Chocolate cake and Aunt Colleen!"

  Aunt Colleen perked up. "Yes. Yes, that would be very nice, James Patrick, thank you." She brushed at her skirt with her hand and followed us into the kitchen, and I felt proud of myself for thinking to invite her.

  I got started on the cake while Pap worked on the bread, and Aunt Colleen offered to make the salad. But after twenty minutes of watching her peeling one cucumber and feeling my blood start to boil, I took a deep breath and asked her if she might like setting the table more.

  She looked relieved.

  "Make it look festive," I added.

  "Festive is what I do best," Aunt Colleen said, setting the knife and cucumber down on the counter and rinsing her hands.

  Soon the others began filing into the room, and before they could get on my case about using the kitchen, I assured them I planned to make enough for everyone this time.

  Melanie ran a finger around the emptied cake-batter bowl, licked it, and raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  "Not bad, JP. When did you learn how to cook, anyway?"

  I smiled. "I didn't. I'm just following my grandmother's recipes. I guess watching her all those years paid off. Anyway, it's e
asier than I thought, kind of like doing a biology experiment"

  Susan said, "That's JP, always has to bring science into it"

  I decided to take her comment as a joke and laughed, and the others laughed, too, and got to talking about something else.

  I watched them from my side of the counter while I sliced potatoes for the soup. The others sat around the old kitchen table, talking and kidding one another, and even though the counter separated us I felt a part of them. I felt included. I joined in the conversation now and again and they didn't attack the things I said any more than they did anyone else's.

  Larry and Ben arrived and I caught a flash of annoyance crossing Larry's face when he saw me dumping the corn and potatoes into the big pot on the stove. I guessed he thought it was fine for me to take over the kitchen for a meal or two, but this was three meals in a row, and he must have figured I planned to crowd him out.

  I glanced over the remaining vegetables on the cutting board in front of me and grabbed up a bunch of garlic cloves.

  "Hey, Larry," I said, leaning over the counter toward him with the cloves in my hand. "I was wondering, could you make us some of that salad dressing you made once? That garlic one everyone loved so much? I'm fixing a celebration dinner for Pap."

  Larry blinked a moment, glanced at Ben, and then shrugged. "Okay, sure," he said, and he moved right on around the counter and joined me.

  I grabbed a paper towel and wiped at my sweating face. I noticed the sweat under my arms had soaked the sides of my T-shirt as well. Making friends was tense work.

  The rest of the group continued to chat around the table while Pap and Larry and I prepared the dinner and Aunt Colleen set the dining room table.

  At one point Melanie said, "I don't know what it is, maybe getting the house all fixed up or something, but I've got this feeling like something exciting's about to happen."

  The others agreed and spoke about the changed atmosphere in the house—less fighting going on, less competition, more camaraderie. I agreed. I knew the constant tension I had felt since we had moved to the house had lifted off my shoulders at last. Aunt Colleen had brought a bit of order into the house, making us pick up after ourselves and getting the repairs that we had always meant to do, done.

  That night at the dinner table everyone had second helpings of the corn chowder and salad and bread, and then while we were eating ice cream and cake, Jerusha spoke up and said, "You know what this is? This is comfort food. JP makes great comfort food."

  The others nodded and Susan said, "You notice how we've all been talking as a group all night instead of in separate groups or over each others' heads?"

  "Or fighting," Harold added. "JP, what did you put in that soup, anyway?"

  "Yeah," Susan said, "I feel like confessing all my deepest darkest secrets."

  "It's the lighting," Aunt Colleen said. "I always think candlelight is the best way to eat an evening meal."

  Everyone got quiet for a moment, and we all stared into the candlelight Then Leon said, "Man, I used to be so afraid of the dark when I was a kid."

  Larry nudged him and said, "You still are, who you trying to fool?"

  Larry laughed, but Leon nodded and said, "It's true, I am. I still hate the dark."

  "I hate the dark, but I love the dark cake," Pap said, "and I love Harold."

  Everyone laughed, and Pap wanted to know what he'd said that was funny.

  Harold asked if anyone at the table had ever been to an all-black gathering?

  Melanie confessed that she knew she'd feel weird. "I mean, I don't think anything about you being with us, Harold, but I know I would feel really out of place if it were the other way around."

  We had a long discussion about white and black America, and Harold confessed he acted white around us because he didn't think we were ready for the total African American experience, and Jerusha said, "Then you're cheating us of learning from you and, worse, you're cheating yourself. Give us a chance, Harold."

  Larry said, "Hey, we all act different than we really are. Like Leon said, we're all afraid of the dark—no pun intended, Harold."

  Then Aunt Colleen, who had been quiet during this whole discussion, set down her fork and said, "I've left my husband."

  I choked on the cake crumbs in my throat and took several swallows of water while everyone else consoled my aunt Tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving streaks in her powdered face. She dabbed at her face with her napkin.

  "We haven't been getting along for a long time. I've been putting up with him, he's been putting up with me, but coming here every day and seeing what Erin has here—not that I want this life exactly, but seeing that there are other lives I could be living, that I didn't have to feel dead inside—well..." She shrugged and more tears fell.

  I thought I should say something, but all this baring of the soul felt too touchy-feely for me. I wanted more than anything to announce that I had homework to do and take off the way I usually did, but I had started the whole thing with my comfort-food dinner. I knew I couldn't back out.

  We listened to Aunt Colleen a long while, and we all said we wanted her to stay at the house now that she'd fixed it up so nicely. At long last we convinced her to stay with us, and Larry offered her his room since he never slept there, anyway, and she sniffed her last few sniffs and dabbed at a few more tears and thanked us, and we grew silent again. I thought it would be a good time to stand up and clear off the table and end all the confessions, but then Larry said, "I know I have to try to make it up with my parents, but I don't know—I don't think they'll ever accept me, even if I do give them the table I made. The drugs were bad enough, and not playing football and dropping out of school." Larry laughed, but it was a pained laugh. "What do you think they'd say if I told them about me and Ben?"

  I dropped the fork I was fiddling with in my hand. It clattered on my plate. "What about you and Ben?" I asked.

  "Take a flying guess, O'Brien," Ben said.

  Susan added, "I can't believe he didn't know. You're blind, O'Brien."

  "But—but that's—sick! In this house? In my house! You guys are—"

  "Spit it out, O'Brien," Ben said. "You can say it, homosexual Repeat after me, homosexual"

  "See what I mean?" Larry said, rocking back in his chair and gesturing toward me with his hand. "Here before you is a prime example of my family's reaction."

  "But what is that you're saying?" Pap asked. "I don't get it."

  Aunt Colleen patted his hand, and Larry said, "Ben and I love each other, Pap, that's all."

  "Well, I love you, too," Pap said. "I love everybody at this table and I love Bobbi, who's not at this table, and Erin, me own wife, who is in Switzerland."

  I tried to pull myself together, to remind myself of all the good times and good feelings: the night in the cabin, the dinner before me, my desire for friends, but it wasn't enough. No way could I accept Larry and Ben as a couple. Forget friends and family and excitement in the air; it was just plain impossible.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I HAD CUT out early from my job in the school office so that I could cook my meal for the crew at home. After Larry's surprise announcement, though, I decided to go back to my old routine of school, work, and homework. I decided to get back to where I belonged. I didn't want to cook anymore, anyway, because Larry cooked. Homosexuals cooked. I gave Larry the jeans he'd worn of mine and the rain forest T-shirt of mine he liked to wear. I didn't like the idea of sharing clothes with him, or sharing anything else. I stayed away from both Larry and Ben as much as possible. I stayed away from all of them when I could, even Jerusha. I had decided that my love for her was just an infatuation. I was in love with beauty and perfection; not her, just her music. If anything, I told myself, I was in love with Bach's Prelude, that's all.

  Whenever I thought of that night when I had cooked dinner and they all sat around telling their deepest darkest secrets, I had to shake my head in wonder. I had been foolish to think I could ever fit in. I had been craz
y to even think I wanted to become a part of the gang.

  Even Aunt Colleen fit in better than I did. Since moving in with us, she had taken charge of tending to Pap. Aunt Colleen, who had recommended that Mam place Pap in a home after Grandma Mary died, who couldn't stand being around him for more than a few minutes, was now with him all day long. She saw to it that he stayed off his leg when it got to hurting him or when his foot started to swell. She had the idea of fixing the broken lightbulbs and bringing the Nativity set inside and placing it in Mam and Pap's room, so Pap could see it from his bed. She worked with him on the piano every day and got him to play the first three notes of "Three Blind Mice." He played them over and over, and she never told him to stop. She laughed when he said something she thought was funny and let him hug her and didn't make the sour face she used to make whenever he said he loved her. Instead she patted his head or hand and smiled and got on with the lesson. She gave him plenty of lessons. She had the piano lessons, the set-the-table-the-right-way lessons, the shake-hands-with-strangers-instead-of-hugging-them lessons, and the proper-way-to-pronounce-just-about-everything lessons. Pap, for his part, taught Aunt Colleen how to make Irish soda bread and how to take care of and sing to plants, and how to have fun in a garage full of junk.

  Then Larry decided the time had come to take the table to his parents and introduce them to Ben.

  "Hey, you're an ex-football star; they've gotta love you," he said one night at the dinner table. "I'm going to call them right now and see when a good time would be to go over there." Larry got up from the table and so did 1.1 took off for the safety of my room, hoping he wouldn't remember my offer to go with him when he took the table to his parents' house. He had Ben, anyway, and I was on his parents' side, so I didn't think it likely he'd want me around.

  Maybe he didn't, but Tim Seeley wanted to see me.

  Larry called me downstairs and handed me the phone. "My brother wants to speak to you," he said, not looking at me.

  "Yeah, thanks," I said. I took the phone and turned away from him. I wiped the receiver before speaking into it.