“He’s very cute,” I tell George, scrutinizing what does, indeed, look like a hurricane off the Bahamas.
“Dad’s all skinny,” Andy continues. “He smells like the hospital. Looking at him freaks me out. It’s like he’s this old man suddenly? I don’t want an old man. I want Daddy.”
Jase winks at her. “He just needs more of Alice’s pancakes, Ands. He’ll be fine then.”
“Alice makes the worst pancakes known to humankind,” Joel observes. “These are like coasters.”
“I’m cooking,” Alice observes sharply. “You’re what? Critiquing? Doing a restaurant review? Go get takeout, if you want to be useful. Ass-hat.”
Jase glances around at his siblings, then back at me. I understand his hesitation. Though things at the Garretts’ are unbalanced—mealtimes off, everyone more cranky, it all still seems normal. Not right to detonate the bomb of some big announcement. Like barging into Mr. and Mrs. Capulet’s argument about whether they are overpaying the nurse with “We now interrupt this ordinary life with an epic tragedy.”
“Yo.” The screen door opens, letting in Tim, laden with four pizza boxes, two cartons of ice cream, and the blue-zipped bag in which the Garretts keep the contents of the till from the hardware store balanced on top.
“Hello, hot Alice. Wanna put on your uniform and check my pulse?”
“I never play games with little boys,” Alice snaps without turning around from her position at the stove, where she’s still doggedly turning out pancakes.
“You should. We’re full of energy. And mischief.”
Alice doesn’t bother to answer.
Taking the boxes, Jase begins piling them on the table, batting away his younger siblings’ questing hands. “Wait till I get plates, guys! Jeez. How was the take at the end of the day?”
“Actually, surprisingly good.” Tim hauls a wad of paper napkins out of his pocket and fans them out on the table. “We sold a wood chipper—that freaking big one in the back that was taking up all the space.”
“No way.” Jase pulls a gallon of milk out of the fridge, carefully distributing it into paper cups.
“Two-thousand-dollar way.” Tim flips slices of pizza onto plates, shoving them in front of Duff, Harry, Andy, George, and the still-scowling Joel.
“Hey, kid. Good to see you here.” Tim smiles at me. “Back where you belong, and all that crap.”
“Mines!” Patsy shouts, pointing at Tim. He goes to her, rumples her scanty hair.
“See, hot Alice? Even the very young feel the pull of my magnetism. It’s like an irresistible urge, a force like gravity, or—”
“Poop!”
“Or that.” Tim removes Patsy’s hand, which is now tugging up his shirt. Poor girl. She really hates drinking from bottles.
He grins at Alice. “So, hot Alice. Whaddya think? How about putting on that uniform and checking my reflexes?”
“Stop putting the moves on my sister in our kitchen, Tim. Jesus. Just so you know, Alice’s nurse’s uniform is a pair of green scrubs. She looks like Gumby,” Jase says, returning the gallon of milk to the fridge.
“I’m starving, but I don’t want pizza,” Duff says heavily. “That’s all we ever eat anymore. I’m sick of pizza and Cheerios, and those used to be my two favorite things on the planet.”
“I used to think it would be fun to watch TV all the time,” Harry says. “But it’s not, it’s boring.”
“I stayed up until three last night, watching Jake Gyllenhaal movies, even the R-rated ones,” Andy offers. “Nobody even noticed or told me to go to bed.”
“Are we all sharing grievances now?” Joel says. “Should I get out the talking stick?”
“Well, actually,” Jase begins, and then there’s a knock on the door.
“Joel, did you order out even though you knew I was making pancakes?” Alice asks angrily.
Joel raises his hands in self-defense. “God knows I wanted to, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I swear.”
The knock sounds again, and Duff opens the screen door to let in…my mother.
“I wondered if my daughter was here.” Her gaze drifts over everyone at the table, Patsy with her hair smeared with butter, syrup, and tomato sauce; George without his shirt, little rivulets of syrup edging down his chest; Harry lunging for more pizza; Duff at his most truculent, the teary Andy. Jase, who freezes in his tracks.
“Hi, Mom.”
Her eyes settle on me. “I thought I’d find you here. Hi, sweetheart.”
“Yo Gracie.” Tim drags an armchair from the living room to the kitchen island. “Take a load off. Let your hair down. Have a slice.” He cuts a glance at my face, then Jase’s, eyebrows lifting.
Jase is still staring at Mom, that confused look he had in her office returning. My mother regards the boxes of pizza as though they are alien artifacts from Roswell, New Mexico. Her preferred pizza toppings, I know, are pesto, artichoke hearts, and shrimp. Nonetheless, she sinks into the chair. “Thank you.”
I look at her. This is neither the broken woman in the silk robe nor the brittle hostess offering Jase a beer. There’s something in her face I haven’t seen before. I glance over to find Jase still studying her too, his expression impassive.
“So, you’re Sailor Supergirl’s mommy.” George struggles to talk around a mouth full of pizza. “We never saw you up close before. Only on TV.”
My mother gives him a tiny smile. “What’s your name?”
I rush through introductions. She looks so stiff and uncomfortable, immaculate and out of place in the comfortable chaos of this kitchen. “Should we go home, Mom?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’d like to meet Jase’s family. Goodness. Is this all of you?”
“’Cept my daddy, cause he’s in the hostible,” George says chattily, getting up from the table and circling over to Mom. “And Mommy, cause she’s taking a nap. And our new baby, because he’s in Mommy’s belly drinking her blood.”
Mom pales.
Rolling her eyes, Alice says, “George, that’s not how it works. I explained when you asked how the new baby ate. Nutrients go through the umbilical cord, along with Mom’s blood, so—”
“I know how the baby got in there,” announces Harry. “Someone told me at sailing camp. See, the dad puts—”
“Okay, guys, enough,” Jase interrupts. “Settle down.” He looks over at Mom again, drumming his index finger on the countertop.
Silence.
A little awkward. Not to mention unusual. George, Harry, Duff, and Andy are busy eating. Joel has unzipped the cash register bag and is sorting through the bills, separating by denomination. Tim’s opened one of the cartons of ice cream and is eating directly out of it.
Which gets Alice’s attention. “Do you have any idea how unsanitary that is?”
He drops the spoon guiltily. “Sorry. I didn’t think. I just needed sugar. All I do these days is eat sweets. I may be sober, and not smoking much, but morbid obesity is my future.”
Alice actually smiles at him. “That’s part of the withdrawal process, Tim. Completely normal. Just…get yourself a bowl, okay?”
Tim grins back at her and there’s this funny stillness there before Alice turns away, reaching into a drawer. “Here.”
“I want ice cream. I want ice cream.” George bangs his own spoon on the table.
Patsy, getting into the spirit, whacks her high chair with her hands. “Boob,” she yells. “Poop.”
Mom frowns.
“Her first words,” I explain hastily. Then shame prickles my face. Why do I feel as though I have to explain away Patsy?
“Ah.”
Jase meets my eyes. His are stormy with bafflement and pain so intense it hits me like a slap.
What is she doing here now? Jase and I were fine, we were connected, and here she is. Why?
He jerks his head toward the door. “We’d better get some more ice cream from the freezer in the garage. Come on, Sam.”
There are two full cartons on the table. Alice looks down at them, then at Jase. “But—” she starts.
He shakes his head at her. “Sam?”
I follow him out. I can see a muscle jump in his jawline; feel the tension in the set of his shoulders as though they are part of my own body.
As soon as we’ve cleared the steps, he wheels on me. “What is this? Why is she here?”
I stumble back. “I don’t know,” I say. My mom’s acting so normal, so calm, the friendly neighbor dropping by. But nothing is normal. How can she be calm?
“Is this more of Clay’s bullshit?” Jase demands. “Is he having her come over here and act all nicey-nice, before everyone else finds out?”
My eyes prickle, tears so close. “I don’t know,” I say again.
“Like maybe my family will think that this sweet lady could never do something so bad, and I’ve just lost it or something and—”
I grab his hand.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. Could this be yet another part of Clay’s game? Of course it could. I’d been thinking, somehow, that Mom was making a gesture in there…a peace offering, but maybe it is just another political tactic. My stomach coils. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to feel. The tears I’ve been fending off spill over. I scrub at my cheeks angrily.
“I’m sorry,” Jase says, pulling me to him so my cheek rests against his chest. “Of course you don’t. I just…seeing her sitting there in the kitchen, eating pizza as if everything’s all great, it makes me—”
“Sick,” I finish for him, shutting my eyes.
“For you too. Not just Dad. For you too, Sam.”
I want to argue, repeat again that she’s not a bad person. But if she really has come over here at Clay’s bidding to show the “softer side of Grace,” then…
“Got that ice cream?” Alice calls out the door. “I didn’t think it was possible, but we’ll actually be needing it.”
“Uh…just a sec,” Jase calls back, hastily lifting the garage door. He reaches into the Garretts’ freezer case, always loaded from Costco, and takes out a carton. “Let’s get back in before they eat the bowls.” He tries for his old, easy smile, falls short.
When we return to the kitchen, George is saying to Mom, “I like this cereal called Gorilla Munch on top of my ice cream. It’s not really made of gorillas.”
“Oh. Well. Good.”
“It’s really just peanut butter and healthy stuff.” George searches around in the box, tipping it, then heaps cereal into his bowl. “But if you buy boxes of cereal, you can save gorillas. And that’s really good, ’cause otherwise they can get instinct.”
My mother looks at me for translation. Or maybe salvation.
“Extinct,” I supply.
“That’s what I meant.” George pours milk on top of his cereal and ice cream, then stirs it vigorously. “That means they don’t mate enough and then they are dead forever.”