“And remember her mustache?”
“Sure do. She shaved more regular than the boys in the junior class. Matter of fact, I think a lot of them envied her. Not me though. I ’member, I had a pretty thick beard already by that time.” Clyde rubbed his jaw, squinting one eye. “Girls were eyeing me up pretty good already.”
“Oh, sure. I suppose you were goin’ to whorehouses already, too.”
Clyde only chuckled, self-satisfied. “You jealous, Wesley?”
“Shee-it.” Wesley pressed back on his kitchen chair, expanded his chest, and scratched it with two hands. “At’ll be the day I’m jealous of a pack of lies from a man with blood pressure that’s four times higher than his IQ.”
Tom let them carry on, watching Kent’s face, catching his eye occasionally and exchanging secret smiles of amusement. At the mention of the whorehouse, the boy looked a bit startled, but he was bright enough to figure out this was an ongoing refrain between the two old men. After they were done showing off, Wesley got out some photo albums and showed Kent pictures of Tom as a boy.
“This here’s your dad right after we brought him home from the hospital. I ’member how colicky he was and how your grandma had to walk the floor with him, nights. Here he is with the little neighbor girl, Sherry Johnson. They used to play together in the backyards, and I used to take them to swimming lessons together. Seemed like your dad was born swimming though. Did he tell you he went all the way up through Senior Lifesaving? Now this here”—Wesley’s hard fingertip tapped the page—“this I remember.” The photo review went on through Tom’s high school football pictures to college graduation and his wedding day.
The albums were still strewn on the kitchen table when a car horn sounded and everyone looked at the back door. It had a window with a limp red-and-white-checked curtain through which four people could be seen getting out of a red Ford Bronco.
“Danged if it isn’t Ryan and the kids,” Wesley said, rising and going to the door. “Doesn’t look like Connie’s with ’em though.”
He opened the door and called, “Well, look who’s here!”
An assortment of voices called, “Hi, Grandpa!” and “Hi, Dad.”
Tom rose, too, feeling a faint grip in his stomach. He hadn’t been expecting this—his older brother and kids, who knew nothing about Kent. They lived an hour and a half north, in St. Cloud, so Tom didn’t see them very often unless their get-togethers were planned.
Things happened all at once. The four new arrivals crowded into the cabin, Kent rose to his feet in slow motion, casting a questioning glance at Tom; Clyde got up to do some hand shaking and back whapping, and Ryan spotted his younger brother.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Thought I’d have to go over to your house to find you.”
They shook hands and gripped arms affectionately. “It’s your lucky day, big bro. Where’s Connie?”
“At some big antique show with her sister. I rounded up the kids and said, ‘Come on, let’s go visit Grandpa.’ ” He cast a curious glance at Kent while inquiring of Tom, “Where’s Claire?”
“At home.”
“Kids too?”
“Yeah.”
“They okay?”
“Yeah. Everybody’s fine.”
“And who’s this?” Ryan turned his attention fully on Kent. He was a big, bluff replica of Tom, gray above the ears, full-chested, wearing glasses.
“This...” Tom moved near Kent. “This takes a little explaining.” Certainly fate had handed him this opportunity for a perfectly good reason. He curled a hand over Kent’s shoulder. “Which I’ll be happy to do if it’s all right with you, Kent.”
Kent looked directly into his father’s eyes as he answered, “Yes, sir.” But the boy’s fascination could not be held from this unexpected gold mine of relatives: a real uncle ... and cousins—three of them!—close enough to his age to maybe become his friends, if things went right.
Tom squeezed his shoulder and in a strong, resonant voice devoid of apology, announced, “This is my son, Kent Arens.”
The room grew so silent you could have heard moss growing on the family tree. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Then Ryan, suppressing his bewilderment, reached out with a mitt like a boxing glove and shook Kent’s hand while Tom spoke.
“Kent, this is your uncle Ryan.”
“How do you do, sir.”
“And your cousins Brent, Allison, and Erica.” Everybody stared at everybody else. Quite a few faces blushed. The two old men watched carefully, gauging reactions.
Wesley finally said, “Well, isn’t anybody going to say anything?”
The girls murmured, “H’lo,” and the boys shook hands perfunctorily. Erica, age fifteen, still gaping at Kent, breathed, “Well, gee... I mean, gosh, where have you been all these years?”
A few chuckles eased the strain, one from Kent before he answered, “Living with my mother in Austin, Texas.”
Everyone looked embarrassed again, so Tom said, “Sit down, everybody, and Kent and I will tell you all about it. There are no secrets anymore. Everybody at school knows, and everyone in the family—with the exception of Connie, of course, and you can tell her when you get home. It’s not every day you find an extra relative, so we might as well start this relationship out right—with the truth. Dad, maybe you better make an extra pot of coffee.”
They all sat down and Tom told them the unvarnished truth, omitting nothing. Sometimes Kent filled in details, exchanging gazes with Tom, or running his eyes past the others, awed yet by this plethora of relatives after a lifetime of having nearly none. They drank coffee and root beer and ate some store-bought cupcakes, and Kent found personal trivia to exchange with Brent, who was in his last year of college at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, studying to be a speech therapist. Allison was nineteen and working at a bank. Erica seemed unable to get over her stunned amazement at Kent’s existence, and every time she spoke to him she got rattled and red.
Ryan and Tom found time to be alone later in the afternoon when dusk was gathering and it was nearly time for Ryan and the kids to head home.
“Come on outside for a minute,” Ryan said, and the two brothers put on jackets and went out into the frosty gloom of October. Side by side, they leaned against the cold fender of Ryan’s truck, looking up at the lowering clouds that were stacked like corrugated steel in the opening between the pine trees. A pair of mallards wheeled past. The wind swirled in the clearing around the cabin, plucking at their hair and twisting the long dried grass beside the untended driveway. Sometimes they thought they felt flakes of snow on their faces, but could not see it against the metallic sky.
“Why didn’t you call?” Ryan asked.
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“Hell, I’m your brother. You don’t have to dream up what to say, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know.” Chin tucked, Tom stared at the toes of his shoes.
“You left Claire,” the older brother said empathetically.
“No, she left me. It’s just a technicality that I’m the one who moved out.”
“I can’t believe it.” Ryan sounded as if he was still in shock.
“Neither can I.”
“I always thought you two had it so together that nothing could bust you up! Hell, Connie and I fight more than you do.”
They spent some time feeling as gloomy as the day, each sensing the sadness in the other. Finally Ryan dropped an arm across Tom’s shoulders.
“So how you doin’? You doin’ all right?”
Tom shrugged and crossed his arms and ankles. “Living with Dad is for shit.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
“I’m going to have to get an apartment. The dirt is driving me nuts.”
“You got furniture?”
“No.”
“Then what are you going to do, live with somebody?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“So there’s nothing between you and this woman?”
“N
o, not a thing.”
“Well, that’s good. At least you haven’t got that complication. You going to try to get back together with Claire, or what?”
“If she’ll try. So far she’s sticking to her guns. She doesn’t want me around at all. She says she needs space, needs to figure things out, needs to get over the hurt.”
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
Tom sighed and tilted his face to the sky, closing his eyes. “Hell, I don’t know. I can’t figure her out.”
Ryan tightened his arm around Tom. “Yeah, who can figure out women?” After a while, he offered, “What do you want me to do? Anything, you name it.” “Nothing you can do.”
“I got some old furniture, a recliner that wouldn’t fit in Brent’s dorm room, and a couple of old Formica-topped tables.”
“Naw, thanks anyway, but I’ll probably go and rent some. Nothing too permanent, you know?” Permanent or not, it still sounded pretty dismal to them both. “I’ve just been putting it off because it’s going to be pretty lonely living alone, especially with the holidays coming. Dad’s not the cleanest, but at least he’s company. And Uncle Clyde comes over every day and they throw bullshit at each other, you know how they do.”
“Yeah.” Ryan chuckled. “I know how they do.”
A couple more ducks flew over. During happier times one of the brothers would have said, “Teal,” or “Blue-bills,” or “Mallards.” Today they watched the colorful pair whisk past and said nothing. When the whistle of wings had faded away, Ryan said, “I know how much you love her. This must be hell for you.”
“Pure, living, unmitigated hell.”
Ryan gripped Tom and jostled him in a side-by-side hug, then rubbed his jacket sleeve a bunch of times. “The boy is mighty impressive.”
“Yeah, isn’t he something? I have to admit, his mother did a fine job of raising him.”
“Listen, you want me to talk to Claire or anything?”
“I’m not sure what good it would do.”
“Well, I can try.”
“Yeah, I suppose you can try.”
“I’ll give her a call one day next week. Anything else I can do, just say it.”
“Well, I might need someplace to go on Thanksgiving.”
“You got it.”
They both got quiet. Ryan looked at the rectangle of light coming through the window of the cabin door. “Well, I suppose we should be going. Connie will be home by now, and we’ve got a ninety-minute drive.”
“Yeah, I suppose ....”
Tom boosted off the car. Ryan boosted off the car. They could easily count the number of times they had forthrightly hugged. They did so now, with the sadness of a broken marriage bringing them close, and the knowledge that more sadness lay ahead for Tom.
“Hey, listen, little brother, you call if you need me, okay?”
“Yuh.” Tom backed away, blinking hard, turning toward the cabin. They walked to it together, and on the step Tom turned, his hand on the doorknob. “Hey, listen, in case you try to call Claire, she’s got play practice every night, so call late, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
“And call me afterwards, okay? Tell me what she said.”
“I will.”
Ryan again dropped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. It slid off as Tom turned to go inside, his usual vigor sadly absent.
Ten minutes later Tom stood on the stoop watching the two vehicles back up and turn around. He raised a hand as they rolled away. Full dark had fallen, and he thought of Ryan going home to Connie, with the kids all gathered around, talking excitedly over the supper table. He pictured his own home without him: Claire, Robby, and Chelsea, subdued now, with nothing much to say. He imagined Kent going home to his mother and telling her about the cousins, grandfather, uncle, and great-uncle he’d spent the afternoon with. Behind him the two old men had shut the door and were probably going to get out the playing cards and settle down for a long night of squabbling over canasta or cribbage. There had been many sad moments since the day he’d told Claire about Kent, but none seemed as forlorn as today, when everyone moved off into a world that operated mostly in pairs. Even the ducks that flew overhead did so in pairs. And here he stood, mateless and lonely while the autumn gathered force for the coming winter.
He went inside and found he was right. The cribbage board was on the table and his dad was coming out of the bathroom. Uncle Clyde was getting out a couple of beers. “I’m going to go out for a while,” Tom said.
“Where to?” his dad asked.
“To the drugstore for some cough drops.” Wesley’s expression said he wasn’t born yesterday. “All right,” Tom relented, exasperated at having to explain himself to these two. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I was going to the whorehouse.”
“Nope. I wouldn’t.”
“Okay, I’m going to talk to Claire.”
“Now, that I believe. Good luck.”
He wasn’t at all sure what he felt as he drove toward home. Fear, yes, and hope. A lot of self-pity and a tremendous mantle of insecurity, to which he was unaccustomed. He kept thinking, What if I make it worse? What if she’s got somebody there? Would she ask John Handelman over? Would she do that? What if I upset the kids again? What if she cries, yells, tells me to get out?
Sometimes a quick flash of anger would strike and it would feel good; after all, he’d done the best he could to ask her forgiveness for his past mistakes, and she was putting too much emphasis on one single misguided night of his life, and not enough on the years since.
It was the damnedest thing, walking up to his own house and wondering if he must knock before going inside. He’d paid for this house, damn it! He’d painted this very door and replaced the doorknob when the tumblers got fouled up. The key for it was right in his pocket! Yet he should knock?
No damned way.
He walked right in. The kitchen was empty, the light on over the table. Somewhere upstairs a radio was playing.
He walked to the bottom of the steps and saw a bedroom light faintly illuminating the ceiling at the far end of the upstairs hall.
“Claire?” he called.
After a pause, “I’m in the bedroom!”
He climbed the stairs slowly, passed the open doors of the kids’ empty, dark rooms, and stopped in the last door on the right.
Claire was standing at the dresser mirror inserting an earring, wearing high heels, a midnight-blue skirt, and a pale floral blouse he’d never seen before. The room smelled of the Esteee Lauder perfume she’d worn for years.
“Hi,” he said, and waited.
“Hi,” she returned, picking up the second earring and tipping her head sideways while putting it on.
“Where are the kids?”
“Robby’s out on a date. Chelsea’s at Merilee’s.”
“Merilee Sands’?” Merilee was a girl neither of them particularly liked. “She’s been spending a lot of time over there lately, hasn’t she?”
“I make sure she’s home when she should be.”
“What happened to Erin?”
“Chelsea hasn’t been seeing much of her lately.”
He stayed in the doorway, feet planted wide. Watching Claire lean close to the mirror and twist both earrings in her earlobes, he felt the first stirrings of arousal and wondered what to do about it.
“And where are you going?”
“I’m going to a play at the Guthrie with Nancy Halliday.”
“You’re sure about that?”
She went to her nightstand and opened a drawer, selecting a long gold chain he had given to her for their fifteenth anniversary. “And just what is that supposed to mean?” She returned to the mirror to put the chain over her head.
“You put on perfume and high heels to go out with Nancy?”
“No, I put on perfume and high heels to go to a theater where a lot of classy people hang out.” Facing the mirror, she arranged the chain flat against her blouse.
“Who are
you trying to kid? I’ve been to the Guthrie. Half the people who go there look like leftover flower children from the sixties. The women wear black tights and stretched-out sweaters, and the men wear corduroys worse than anything my dad ever put on!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tom.” She headed for the bathroom to switch off the radio and light.
“Look, Claire!” He advanced two steps into the room and pointed at the floor at her feet. “We’re separated, not divorced! That doesn’t give you the right to go out on dates!”
“I’m not going out on dates! I’m going to the Guthrie with Nancy Halliday.”
“And where’s her husband?”
“At home. He doesn’t like the theater.”
“And where’s John Handelman?”
Glaring up at him, Claire blushed. Realizing her mistake, she spun toward the closet to yank her suit jacket off a hanger.
“Yeah, I hit the nail on the head there, didn’t I, Mrs. Gardner?” He stalked her and grabbed her arm, swinging her to face him while her half-donned jacket hung from one arm. “Well, you listen to me!” he shouted, trembling with anger. “I’ve watched that man eye you up for ten years, sidling around your door between classes and waiting like a damned vulture for his chance. Now that the word is out that we’re separated and he’s got access to you every night at play practice, I suppose he thinks he’s got free rein, doesn’t he? Over my dead body, Claire! You’re still my wife, and if John Handelman so much as lays a hand on you, I’ll have the sonofabitch castrated!”
She jerked free of his grip, massaging her arm. “Don’t you dare yell at me, Tom Gardner! Not when you’re standing there accusing me of what you did just so you can feel vindicated! I am not doing anything with John Handelman but directing a play!”
“Are you denying that he’s been drooling at your classroom door since the day he laid eyes on you?”
“No!”
“Because it’s true!”
“I’ve never encouraged him! Never!”
“Oh, come on, Claire,” he said disdainfully, “how stupid do you think I am? I come up with an illegitimate son and your ego is hurt, and John Handelman is hovering in the wings every night after play practice, slobbering all over you, and you expect me to believe you’re not encouraging him?”