!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
I took the train home at the end of July. I needed time to myself, no crowds, no rush. On the way, I stopped in Rhode Island to see Eddie, Arlene, and Denise, hoping for a shot of their calm domesticity. Once there, we all packed up for a weekend visit to the Vineyard.
“We’ll look at some houses, see if we can find one to buy. They all turn over the weekend between July and August, most of them should be empty,” Eddie explained.
“Are you guys going to move there?”
“Not right away. We like it here, it’s cheap, it’s easier to find work at the hospital for Arlene. No, we want someplace small, near the shore in Edgartown, something I can work, fix up during the off-season. Then rent it out for a few years, put a little in the bank. Move there permanently in, I don’t know, three to five years.”
“What would you do, can you find a job?”
“Arlene’s a nurse, if we come at the start of summer, it should be easy to get on at the hospital. Me, I want to find a little hole-in-the-wall downtown, set up a shop where people can bring things they make, sell to the tourists. A lot better for Denise I think, than going to a city, all crowded, noisy. If we’re lucky, we can find something with a little yard, grow some of our food.”
While Eddie and Arlene scouted the real estate market, I got to escort Denise, now four and a half, on her own miniature adventures.
“Auntie Yane” – she was still having trouble with her “J’s” – “can we get some shells?”
“What would we do with them?”
“Pick them up. Then we throw them. They break on rocks.”
The high tide line was easy to spot, a mix of glistening brown seaweed, small white clam shells, and tiny black and grey rocks. Towards the ocean, the sand was firm, newly dried, filled will tiny bubbling air holes from the receding surf. Above, dry sand quickly faded into dune grass, the breeze rolling it along, tickling our legs at ankle level.
“Auntie Yane, are you a mommy too?”
I laughed nervously. “Not yet, Denise. Why?”
“Do you wanna be?”
From the mouths of babes, I thought. When I didn’t answer right away, she added, “Do you like babies? Do you?”
“What babies do you know?”
“A friend of mommy, she has a baby. Mommy says babies are fun, I was her little baby doll. He can’t walk, he can’t talk, I can’t play with him, he’s no fun at all.”
“Sometimes you have to let a baby just be himself. When that happens, you can learn who they are, what they like, that’s how they’re fun. To Mommies.”
“Mommy says she can’t wait ‘til I go to kinnergarter. Did you go to kinnergarter? what’s that like?”
“It’s where you’ll meet a lot of kids, a lot of friends. You’ll learn to how to go to school.”
“What happens at school?”
“You learn how to read, to write, how to grow up.”
“I can’t wait to grow up.” She put on a serious face. “I wanna be bigger. I don’t wanna be a baby, I don’t want to be little. I want to be big like you.” She sat down, crumbling a shell between her pudgy little hands. “You never told me, do you wanna be a mommy?”
“If I had a little girl like you, I would so much want to be a mother.”
“Well, why don’t you then.”
“Why don’t I what?”
“Be a mother. Get a little girl like me, someone who could be my friend.”
“It’s not that easy.” Uh-oh, I thought, shouldn’t have said that. “What I mean is, the best babies also have daddies.” I was digging a bigger and bigger hole.
“Like Arlene and Eddie?”
Relieved, I quickly said, “Yes. Exactly like Arlene and Eddie.”
“Daddy says you have a boy friend. He says he hopes you know what you’re doing. What’s he mean? Can a boy friend be a daddy, too?”
“Well…”
Luckily, Eddie and Arlene came up from behind, Eddie picking up Denise, spinning around full circle. He tossed her in the air, caught as she laughed and screamed, then tucked her under his arm like a giant football.
“Did you find anything?” I asked.
“Maybe a couple. Now’s not the time to buy anything, we’ll come back after the season, see what’s what then.” Looking down at Denise, he went on, “You two get along?”
“She’s such a perfect little girl. Are you going to have another, someday?”
Eddie looked at Arlene, who was busy with Denise’s shoes and socks, trying to put them on while she wiggled in her father’s grip. She stopped, let out an exasperated sigh, then said, “Your brother’s going to have to learn how to share the load a little more, I think.”
Eddie started to complain, but Arlene stopped him with a quick, sharp look.
After the weekend, I spent three more days with them, mostly helping corral Denise while Arlene was at work. Eddie took that as a signal he could sail with some friends on Narragansett Bay. Denise was fun at first. Having a kid to manage, all day, was a new kind of exhausting for me. In the psych lab, all I did was observe, and sometimes play a little before or after with the older ones, but their mothers were always there. I realised what people meant about being the primary caregiver.
I got home on Thursday. Mike’s first free evening was Saturday. He said he’d leave the swim club about 6:30. With the new freeway, he should be in Clifton before 7. I went out to the front porch about 6:45, hoping to see him pull up. The air felt shimmery, almost electric. Thunder rumbled to the north, while a breeze rustled, then turned into a gust which bent the hardwood trees all along the street. Rain began to fall, at first dainty little drops, than bigger and bigger plops, quickly soaking my hair before I could run back inside. I wandered into the kitchen, where Mom was getting the food into serving bowls and onto platters.
“Where’s Mike, honey? I thought you said he’d be here for dinner.”
With a sour look on my face, I grumbled, “Maybe something was more interesting at the club.” Or someone, I said under my breath. The rain grew stronger still, beating against the windows like a snare drum and cymbals.
I ate dinner without him, sullenly picking at the lamb chop mom had dressed up for us. Finally, a little before 8, I heard Mike’s car outside. The rain had stopped, the wind was gone, but I was not going to greet him, I decided.
Dad got the door, let him in. Mike seemed shaken, nervously glancing form side-to-side.
“What happened? That was some storm,” Dad asked.
Mike sat down. “I think there was a tornado,” he asserted.
“What!” my mother exclaimed. “Where? When?”
Now that he was inside, seated at the dining room table, eating the plate mom had warmed up for him, he relaxed, launching into the story. “I was coming down Reading. It had just started raining, that thunderstorm rain where you just can’t see even though the wipers are going double-time. I thought I should slow down, got down to 25, but the wind kept getting worse. Then the car started to shake, quiver like it was being jiggled by the Jolly Green Giant. I had to stop. Right then, this big old wall, like a grey curtain, just swept across in front of me, I don’t know, 400 yards away. Everybody, all the cars were stopped like me, all waiting like for a train to pass. It took less than a minute, then it was gone, so we thought it was OK to start up again. After a couple hundred yards, it was impossible. Power lines down, truck camper tops from that lot there near Galbraith, branches, trees even, all across the road. I had to go forever to get past it, all the way to Colerain almost to get around. All the roads were covered, blocked. So, I finally made it, here I am.”
“Sounds like a tornado,” Dad said. “Car’s OK? You OK.”
Mike nodded, then silently finished his dinner.
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