Chapter 18
Harold never asked me why I came barreling into his bedroom at five o’clock in the morning and I never mentioned the photos on his dresser. I slept for a couple of hours in his bed. He must have gotten up at some point because he wasn’t there when I woke up. I left the way I came in. Our house was empty when I got home. Ma must have had Dan at some outing, wheeling her around in her chair like she did when she was a baby. Ma would take her out for walks around the neighborhood for hours, with me hanging onto the handle of the carriage as Ma walked quietly, occasionally saying a few words to me, but mostly just humming softly to herself, deep in her own little world. Since the episode with the tree, Ma was completely preoccupied with Danny. Although Joe Senior blamed me, I know Ma blamed herself, not only for Dan’s broken legs but for everything, all the bad things that Joe did to wound his family. Somehow by staying, she was Joe’s accomplice. But Ma was a woman trapped in a life she had no way of escaping; and although she had a million reasons to leave she couldn’t come up with one creative idea as to how to do it.
I had the house to myself but I was restless; my body wanted to stretch out on the couch and fall back to sleep for a few days but my mind was racing with anticipation as if something really great was about to happen. I went into the bathroom and filled the tub with water hoping a warm bath would settle my brain and maybe help me fall back to sleep. I had dirt in my hair from Hobo Creek and mud stains on the backs of my legs. I lowered myself into the tub, the water warm next to my skin, penetrating deep into my pores and soothing every ache my soul held locked inside. I closed my eyes letting the water take me away.
The water was ice cold and my body was goose fleshed and fingers raisin-tipped, when I was awakened by voices in the kitchen. I had a headache from sleeping with my neck scrunched up against the cold steel. It was Beth and Harold talking to Ma. Their voices were muffled like they were talking through a pillow so I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I dragged myself out of the tub, grabbed a towel and quickly started to dry myself off. Even though the air was warm, I was shivering from the cold water and the thought of having spent hours dissolving my flesh, just another piece of evidence that I had to have been losing my mind. I threw on my shorts and tee shirt from the night before and emerged from the bathroom rubbing my hair with the towel. They were all sitting around the kitchen table drinking cups of tea. In the center of the table was a huge platter of sandwiches made with bread from Joe’s bakery, a selection of Italian favorites that Beth had grown to love. They were the only things I saw her eat lately that its main ingredient wasn’t sugar.
“Jo!” Ma cried when she saw me standing in the doorway. “I was beginning to get worried that you might have drowned in there.”
“I guess I fell asleep. What time is it?” I asked, pulling a chair up next to Dan and grabbing a prosciutto and cheese sandwich. I bit into it, the familiar taste of the Italian ham with the warm mustard filling my mouth, caressing every taste bud with pure delight. I was starving and nothing could have brought me more pleasure at that moment than one of Ma’s sandwiches, the soft white center with the crunchy crust that you had to tear a bit when you bit into it because it had just the slightest toughness. Ma always said Italian bread was just like Joe, “tough on the outside and real soft and tender inside.”
“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon. Do you want some tea?” Ma asked as she jumped up to put the kettle on without waiting for me to answer. She ran the cold water in the sink for a few minutes before filling the kettle. I watched as she brushed a piece of her hair off her face with the back of her hand, her skin moist and shining from the heat and humidity. The relentless hot spell was taking its toll on everyone even Ma who could stand the heat better than anyone. She never complained though. “It’ll just take a second to make a fresh pot,” she said.
“Thanks Ma,” I said, my mouth full of food. I swallowed and smiled knowing Ma was thinking I shouldn’t be talking with my mouth full but she didn’t say anything. I knew she wouldn’t, not in front of Harold and Beth, well maybe in front of Harold but definitely not Beth. “That’d be nice.”
“We were just talking about yours and Harold’s sixteenth birthdays coming up soon,” she said. “Beth thought it might be fun to plan something special. What do you think?” “I don’t know Ma. I’m not in much of a party mood these days,” I said taking another sandwich from the platter and wiping the corners of my mouth where the mustard had collected. “Come on Jo,” Harold said, swallowing a bite from his sandwich and washing it down with a gulp of tea. “It’ll be great eh! Beth had this really cool idea. Eh Beth?” Beth nodded her head in agreement but didn’t offer any big clues about her great idea. “I’m afraid to ask,” I said, taking another mouthful of sandwich. “I thought we could have a small family birthday party here,” Beth said, “maybe sometime in the afternoon or early evening with cake and ice cream, the whole enchilada and then afterwards, just us three amigos will go somewhere to celebrate.” “We do the whole family enchilada thing every year,” I said. “What’s so unusual about that?” I wasn’t actually trying to give Beth a hard time; it’s just that I failed to see anything so fantastic or unique about having a family party. I expected better from the great one, the Goddess of Adventure.
“Nothing I guess,” she said, giving me one of her looks that said I was being a royal pain in the butt. “I don’t want to break with tradition. And besides I’ve never been to one of your family birthdays so if you really want to get technical, and I know you do, this won’t be like any other family party you’ve ever had. And your mom just gave me permission to take you guys somewhere special afterwards, somewhere totally cool.”
“That true Ma? ’Cause you don’t have to feel pressured into agreeing to something you don’t want to eh.”
“Honestly Jo Frances. I have a will of my own. I know I don’t have to agree to anything I don’t think is good idea. But this sounds nice. You’re going to be sweet sixteen. That’s a special birthday. You should spend it with your friends.” The kettle started to whistle and Ma got up to answer its call. She poured the hot water into the Brown Betty teapot, slipped one of her knitted tea cozies that looked like a little sweater for a fat man over the pot and brought it to the table.
I was convinced Beth had taken occupancy of my mother’s brain. No matter what she said or did, Ma thought it was the grandest idea. Although I went along with every one of Beth’s plans and schemes, her ever-changing interests from acting to body painting, I didn’t always think they were good ideas, much less grand ones. Instead of my mother stepping up to the plate and putting a stop to Beth’s daft ideas, she went along with her. She was not only charmed by Beth but obviously completely possessed. I was beginning to think we were going to need a priest to perform one of those exorcisms—on everyone! We were all possessed. Except for Joe Senior. No one could control him.
“To hell in a hand basket,” that’s where he’d say we were all going if we continued to hang around with Beth. “Just like those Kennedy’s,” he’d say, “they’re all wild and not to be trusted. Except for Jackie. She’s one classy lady and not a real Kennedy anyhow. And still beautiful too even in the pictures of her on her fortieth birthday.” As far as Joe was concerned we were all going to end up like Mary Jo Kopechne and go flying off a bridge on Chappaquiddick, wherever that was.
While Joe might have been seduced by Jackie’s beauty, Beth’s charm and persuasiveness was wasted on him. Partly because Joe didn’t know her very well and partly because I don’t think he trusted her. I think she reminded him of the kind of girls he could never have—the ones in high school who used to walk by a guy like Joe without even noticing and if they ever did become aware of his presence an automatic scowl would form across their lips, the kind that was preserved for grease balls and nerds. Beth rarely, if ever directed any of her conversation Joe’s way. She was polite and showed respect when she spoke to him, but there was never any conversation between them. It was like the entire summer there was this play going on and Joe was the only one who didn’t get a main part. He was like the sick guy who spends the whole play in a coma or something, with all the actors having conversations around him like he’s dead or not even there.