Part 30 (1/2)

By the tihbors who once kept their kids fro in our yard noap stories about her tantrums like baseball cards There was the ties in the supermarket display, the fit she threw about parmesan cheese She flipped off a motorcycle cop A Baptist deacon who dared to scold her for wearing shorts in the yard heard that he could see evil in the crotch of a tree Now church ladies holler hey hey in the afternoon Mornings, old rocery store in the afternoon Mornings, old rocery store

Alrim focus on a brisket Mother promised to fix Whenever we drive home, Mother tes, fudge, red beans and rice-but never, not once, follows through

Lecia's ongoing capacity to hope for these dishes just stue of ravy with a side of buttery potato hunks Does she bounce up and down a little in anticipation like a kid on a carousel? I believe she does, though the next instant, her face clouds It won't be there, will it? she says, shooting me a look

There's a newspaper cartoon of a bucket-headed boy repeatedly talked into running at the football held by a wicked pigtailed girl who yanks it away so the boy falls on his ass every ti to run at that football?

Many, it turns out With scads of costly professional help, I gave up pining for o But Lecia had once hired Mother to pick up her son Case at kindergarten until-a feeeks in-Mother forgot the boy in the parking lot Given fat sums to answer Lecia's insurance office phones, Mother tended to snipe into the receiver What? What? The way Stalin trusted Hitler not to invade Russia, Lecia trusts Mother In a way, I admire the si, Mother's under The way Stalin trusted Hitler not to invade Russia, Lecia trusts Mother In a way, I admire the si, Mother's under

On any given holiday, Mother sits on her spreading white ass on either porch glider or couch Which idleness-in some perverse way-I also envy It takes fortitude to station yourself immobile before the classic-movie channel for days at a pop while hordes of individuals bake and whip, saute and sear; serve and clear; and eventually scrub cheese crusts off casseroles and pan drippings from a blackened oven

For weeks I've hounded Mother daily about brisket, and she's sworn to ante up But yesterday her corns hurt, and as late as dawn thispalpitations, but I swore if the stove was cold alked in, I'd head back to the airport

It could killthis way, she said

If you drop dead ht up to live with Baby Jesus

I' a Buddhist, she said

Then you'll escape the wheel of rebirth, I said

Minutes after we pull in, my sister's face floats cherublike above an electric skillet holding a mess of peppery brisket She uses her hand to wave toward her nose the white ribbons of stealasses, then wipes the deal

Oh, she says with a distracted look, I forgot to get the blow-up mattress (Lecia and I sent her-separately, it turns out-cash to buy an extraup saucy ht not exactly undo past hurts, but theyserved up

That night, at opposite ends of the bulbous sofa, Lecia and I have lain our respective heads like characters in a storybook rowboat under tinfoil stars, with a faded blue quilt covering our y double bed we used to share, our boys have sacked out-Dev blond like her, Case dark like me

At the schoolyard basketball court today, atched Dev drag in Case's wake as I had Lecia's Just thirteen, Case can just barely paliant spider holding it aloft as Dev gapes Ready? Case said, and he bounce-passed it to the se ball slipping through the white net, which pro for the rebound, Case stepped back and started to lecture, detailing proper foror of a ballet master Bend your knees Hold it here Finish with the tips of your fingers right over the front riht on Mother's sofa, Lecia asks, Who does Case remind you of?

In terhtening, she says

About then Mother stu into herabout so late?

Our deep and abiding love for you, Lecia says

Mother slu carpet When she lifts her head, there are tears in her eyes I wish your daddy was here for this, she says, us all together this way

Look at both those boys, Lecia says, Pete Karr times two

He's the only person who ever really loved s The only man, I mean I miss him like crazy

He did adore you, I say

He felt sorry for me, she says, but he stood by, thick or thin

She runs a hand over her spiky hair, asking, Does this haircut look like feathers?

In the library the next day, Mother's bridge clubinto the s as coffee tables

The day unfolds like that old TV show This Is Your Life This Is Your Life, where producers conspire to drag before you the past's every character In aging forht Mother went to the hospital; rade teacher; the principal who told me I'd be no more than a common prostitute John Cleary, the first boy I ever kissed, is there with his daughters My friend Clarice froarb and big as a linebacker), Doonie with his whole tribe There's the judge Mother char me from jail-nearly a hundred, he is, his liver-spotted hand still clutching Mother's, and he still gazes at her like she's a jauy who ran the luirls who didn't

I feel every school photo I ever took pass over my face to melt into the forty-year-old I am now Seen by so many pairs of old eyes, I become my every self

Then above the crowd, a dise as if carried on a pole From the corner of my eye, I catch the silhouette, and my head whips to track it The profile vanishes behind a pillar The room around me clicks off as the face eases back into view-black-haired with snow at the temples I stand so fast, the chair I'm in tips over The crowd parts, and the eras collapse into each other All the notches on the ti h it's not Daddy, of course, but randpa's funeral in sixth grade, wearing the exact face Daddy had at fifty, and Lecia must think so, too, since she's rushed to his side, hand over her mouth

Maybe that day's bounty bu copies on virtually everybody she knew-clients, friends, cleaning people Out of the trunk of her car, she hawks the as she could sell snow to an Eskimo, she reorders often In any bookstore, she remerchandises so that my book's in front

So the book was a sleeper hit, which floored me Before it came out, I'd actually warned the publisher not to print socobwebs in warehouses floodedto a few loyal pals, I was shocked to find that now bookstore crorapped around the block as I signed till azines would paysums to write a few thousand words Lecia and Mother ith glee, ain

But in another way, nothing one Mostly I lived like before I taught I stood around a Little League field with a clipboard and a whistle around ht say she'd seen azine Then once or twice a ht trip where I felt-as writer Ian McEwan once said-like an eazine Then once or twice a ht trip where I felt-as writer Ian McEwan once said-like an e win? Money My bills were paid I could hire a student to help with Dev, grocery shop, fold laundry Other than that and so reading or lecture-I was a single mom in a s the books Before I went on the road, I pro best-seller list, I'd take him to Disney World For a week: my idea of an electric chair with no off switch

Still, being there turned out to be a thrill, but for one hair-raising ride called the Tower of Terror, where they dropped us in an elevator a dozen floors In the group photo, everyone's hands are up in the air as they grin I'm hunkered down as if for a bomb blast (I have too many frames per second for Tower of Terror) After five days ofpark, so I can rent a speedboat we can't afford With his new blue captain's hat on, he steers us bouncing over the waves

At night, while he soaks in the bathtub, I talk to Walt for way longer than I pro soht in a car factory as a teenager Now it's devouring the lungs in his barrel chest, and every breath costs him

In St Paul the year before, I'd visited hien bottle

Froht, I ask what can they do

Not ressive

You're telling ht