Chapter 20
The next morning the three of us bolted upright like dominoes in reverse as if awakened by the same terrifying nightmare. We could hear voices coming from the room below—familiar but foreign to the Luoto house. I looked around the room to make sure I was still at Beth’s. The thought that I might have gotten up during the night and gone home crossed my mind. But I would have remembered something like that; unless I walked in my sleep which was a distinct possibility given my state of mind in the previous weeks.
“What are your mothers doing here?” Beth asked frantically, leaping out of bed and slipping into her shorts. She was halfway down the stairs by the time Harold and I got out of bed. “Ah jeez,” Harold moaned. “I knew this was all too good to be true.”
“Why’s Ma here?” I asked.
“Same reason my mother’s here,” Harold said brushing his hair out of his eyes, “to ruin our lives.”
“Seriously. Something must be wrong,” I whispered as I pulled the zipper of my cut-offs up and smoothed out my tee shirt.
“How do I look?”
“What?” Harold looked at me like I had just taken a crazy pill. “You look fine,” he said irritated, standing on one leg and slipping the other into his faded jeans, then losing his balance he fell backwards onto the bed. “For crapsakes can we just get down there before those two ruin everything.” He kicked his way into his jeans, stuffed his tee shirt into the waist, licked his teeth with his tongue, checked his breath, crossed his eyes and bolted for the door. “Aren’t you being a little over dramatic?” I called after him. “How can you say that?” he growled. “You know my mother: the over-protective Finnish bulldozer. She’ll flatten anything she thinks is trouble. Especially to me.”
“Your mother maybe,” I argued following close behind him,
“but not Ma.”
“Oh please,” he groaned, buckling his belt. He was halfway down the stairs at this point. He took the last three steps in one stride. Somewhere over the course of the summer, Harold had grown up. He’d finally grown into his height; there were muscles where sharp bones and self-conscious knobs once protruded. As if overnight he stopped tripping over himself and there he was leaping in one bound with the grace of Superman.
Ma, Mrs. K. and Mrs. Luoto were sitting around the kitchen table sipping coffee, with a plate of Ma’s special blueberry muffins in the middle, half eaten muffins sat on white sandwich plates in front of each of the three women. Beth was at the stove pouring herself a cup of coffee when Harold and I landed in the kitchen like a couple of aliens, refugees from Neil Armstrong’s trip to the moon.
“Coffee?” Beth asked, holding up the pot.
“Love one,” I said, grabbing a cup from the cupboard and holding it out to Beth to fill.
“Sounds good.” Harold had already sat down at the table next to Ma. I brought him his coffee and squeezed in next to Mrs. K. The four of us sat across from Beth’s mom. This was the closest I had ever been to her. All summer Beth’s parents had been these phantom people, there but not there, lurking in the background, perpetually running off here and slipping away there, never standing still, always in motion, blurry figures, out of focus, backdrops to Beth’s drama. In the morning light, with her face relaxed, her blonde hair hanging loose around her face and her cheeks flushed from whatever conversation she was having with Ma and Mrs. K. or maybe from the blueberry muffins, she looked beautiful and not much older than Beth. They had the same green eyes and curl to their smiles, tilt to their heads.
Beth pulled up a stool next to her mother. “Well isn’t this nice and cozy,” she said smiling, “a regular old coffee klatch. Neighbors gathered around the table sharing a friendly cup of coffee, muffins, and gossip. What’s going on?”
“We came looking for you,” Mrs. K. said looking at Harold for some sort of lifeline. Harold being Harold shrugged, and of course, threw her nothing. Some things never change. “With blueberry muffins?” Harold gasped.
“It was late and you know me Harold. I start to worry,” Mrs. K. said all nervous and self-conscious.
“I told you we were spending the night. And surprise! Here we are,” Harold said sarcastically. I felt kind of sorry for Mrs. K. at that moment but like him I was a ticked to find our mothers invading our turf.
“Yeeees,” she said and took a deep breath and exhaled as she spoke, “well here we are too.”
There was this pregnant pause, this awkward silent moment around the table that seemed to last a lifetime. Ma hung her head in embarrassment. Mrs. Luoto flashed Beth this puzzled look and I eye-rolled Harold, who was beet red beneath his sun-tanned skin, and kicked him in the shins.
“Hey!” Beth said slicing through the silence with false phonybaloney, enthusiasm. Everyone around the table jumped like dogs after a bone. “That was an amazing birthday party yesterday.” “Happy birthday to both of you,” Mrs. Luoto said. “Imagine that. You’re practically twins.” Beth’s mom didn’t have a Finnish accent exactly, just that way of speaking and the inflection in her voice that the Finns had. They tended to linger over some vowels every now and then. “Beth was a twin,” she said.
The collective gasp around the table could have blown us all to Kalamazoo and back. Had Joe been there he would have said, “you could have knocked me over with a feather” like he always did when something was so shocking like that. Harold and I both looked over at Beth in disbelief. With all the things she had told us that summer, you think she might have thought to mention that little juicy tidbit.
“I didn’t know,” I said catching my breath.
“Me neither,” said Harold.
Ma and Mrs. K. looked over at Mrs. Luoto waiting for her to spill the beans and offer up some explanation but she just looked at Beth with more confusion.
“She died when we were babies,” Beth said, “that SIDs thing.”
“SIDs?” we all said at the same time, in the same perplexed tone with the same puzzled expression.
“Yeah, sudden infant death,” Beth said very calmly at first and then it was like she went into a hypnotic trance as she told this gutwrenching story, that even for melodramatic Beth was shocking beyond belief.
“Nobody knew what it was back then. Except that their baby was all fine and healthy and beautiful. You put her to bed one night, feed her, kiss her, touch her soft head, caress her cheek, everything is fine, you’ve done this for three months, nothing out of the ordinary this night, just like any other night, so you walk out of the room, turn around for one last look just like every night, one last look. You wake up at five-thirty the next morning, look over at the clock and at first you’re happy because it’s the first night you’ve slept through since your babies were born and then panic replaces the happiness. You fly out of bed, your husband is still snoring unaware that his life was about to end in some way and you run into the nursery, the nausea, a reminder of your pregnancy, makes its way to your throat and you look into the crib. And then you’re afraid, for a fleeting moment, you’re afraid to look in the crib but you do and you scream. One baby has slept through the night for the first time. She’s lying there examining her hands with cross-eyed intensity unaware that her sister, her mirror image was blue and cold and silent forever. Your mother screams. You stop looking at your hands and start to cry. You’re not sure why. Something must be really awful to make mommy scream. Then mommy’s confused. She doesn’t know which baby to pick up. The one that’s crying or the one that’s blue. So she does nothing. She stands there staring at both babies until daddy comes and sees and he picks up the screaming baby and puts her into mommy’s arms and grabs the blue baby and runs down the stairs and out the door, gets into the car and leaves. And when he comes back there is only one baby.” When Beth stopped speaking the room was completely silent. You could have “heard a pin drop” is how Ma would describe it years later. She and Mrs. K. were dabbing at their eyes with their napkins and Harold’s head was slumped on his chest like a dead man. Beth’s mom’s eyes were glassy but she wasn’t crying. Instead she reached over and put her arm around Beth and kissed her on the top of her head like she was a little girl then Beth rested her head on her mother’s chest and closed her eyes. I watched them both afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to think. The whole thing was surreal, a scene from a Salvador Dali painting. How could Beth say those things, such personal intimate family things in front of us like that? Those were the kinds of things that Ma always said were “best kept behind closed doors and not aired in public”, not that we were public but we weren’t Beth’s family either. “It has been sixteen years,” Beth’s mom said softly. “You never forget. But it doesn’t hurt so much either. You wonder sometimes. What it would have been like? But then you realize how pointless it is to think that way. So we dwell on what we have. And not on what we don’t.”
“Yeees,”Mrs. K. said shaking her head in agreement. Then she reached over and touched Harold gently on the shoulder at the same time that Ma pulled back a piece of hair that had fallen over my face and tucked it lovingly behind my ear. In those simple quiet gestures our mothers not only expressed their love and gratitude for what they had but a deep understanding and sadness for another mother’s pain.
“That’s best,” Ma whispered. “Can I get anyone some more coffee?” She asked, jumping up and grabbing the pot and filling cups before anyone could answer.
“Thanks Ma Fasano,” Beth said, smiling up at my mother. At some point during the summer she had taken to calling my mother that. Ma never objected. In fact, I think she liked it, was tickled that Beth felt close enough to her to call her something so familiar. “I think I’ll take mine outside. See what Danny’s doing to Sam this morning. Did you see that cape she had on him last week? Super Dog, she called him.”
“I think I’ll join you,” I said, anxious to exit.
“Me too,” Harold said as he quickly kissed his mother on the cheek like I had seen him do a million times throughout his life. It was just a little reassuring peck that let her know he loved her and that he was still her boy.
Danny was playing fetch with Sam, who was wearing a yellow bonnet that she had tied around his neck. I recognized it immediately as one of hers from when she was a baby. For some reason, Ma saved some of Danny’s baby clothes—just a few precious things she kept in a lingerie box in her bedroom closet. The only thing she kept of mine was my silver baby spoon but then Dan used it too so I guess in a way that didn’t count. Dan was getting really good at pushing herself around in the wheel chair and in the house she had begun to use the crutches Joe borrowed from one of his customers.
“Hey squirt! What’s that rag you’ve got tied around that poor animal’s head?” I asked.
“He likes it,” she answered. “He’s been getting too much sun lately. Keeps it out of his eyes.” “He looks stupid,” I said.
“Does not. Do ya boy?” She grabbed Sam by the head and started to kiss him on the nose. “You’re a handsome boy aren’t ya. Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know nothin’.”
“It’s a little small,” I teased, stretching out on the grass with my coffee cup resting on my stomach. “Don’t ya think?”
“So.”
“Hey Sammy! Remember me?” Beth crouched down next to Dan’s wheel chair and started to pat his back while Dan rubbed behind the ear. The dog was definitely in Doggy Heaven. “I’m sure glad I introduced you two. I haven’t had much time to spend with old Sam this summer. You’ve been great company for him Dan-e-o.
He’s come back to life since you’ve been giving him all this attention.
Haven’t you old boy. You’re a good boy Sam. And you’re a good kid Dan-e-o.”
“Thanks,” Dan said, so proud I thought her head was going to pop. Beth started calling her Dan-e-o shortly after she got out of the hospital—which pleased her a lot, like the queen herself had given her this special name.
My sister was a good little kid. She accepted things and made the most of the cards she was dealt. And she rarely complained. Once and a while she would get on my case and give me those big old Danny eyes to get her own way about something. But mostly Dan didn’t want much or expect much either. It was her greatest asset and her worst liability. I worried that she’d end up like Ma and settle for a life she won by default. At least she didn’t worry so much about stuff or question every little thing like me. I’m not sure who was better off.
Beth looked tired. Every day she looked worse than the day before. Not less beautiful. Just like there was less of her. She was still scheming and plotting and you never knew what she was going to come up with next. Her spirit was intact but her body was falling to pieces. She was spending a lot of time in the can vomiting like everything she ate made her sick. She never talked about it and acted like we didn’t know or maybe she thought we were that stupid but there wasn’t enough patchouli oil in the world to cover the smell of vomit especially the amount Beth was hurling every day.
I found myself pissed off with God a lot that summer. And with his son too. I had picked up this bad habit of taking his name in vain under my breath whenever something irked me. Ma heard me though and threatened to wash my mouth out with soap. She was forever asking God to “forgive Jo Frances for saying such terrible things.” It was that summer that I realized what a big sinner I was. I was a lousy daughter and wasn’t very great as a sister either. I had been the worst best friend to Harold his whole life. And whatever this was with Beth, it had turned me into a foul-mouthed, dishonorable child of God. Ma’s prayer life went into overdrive that summer. Good thing too since it’s probably what saved me in the end.
“You know when I was talking to Josh last night, he said a bunch of people are going to Woodstock at the end of the month. I thought it might be fun to go,” she said clear out of the blue. “Whadoya think?”
“What’s Woodstock?” I asked squinting into the sun. I put my hand over my eyes like a visor so I could see Beth better as yet another of her schemes unfolded. What next I thought? Fly to the moon? Join the circus?
“It’s a place in up-state New York,” she answered as she twisted her body into some strange yoga pose. “They’re having this amazing music festival there in this farmer’s field. All the big bands will be playing. I think Jimmy Hendrix will even be there Hank. It’s going to be so groovy. The ultimate love-in.”
“Up-state New York? Are you kidding? Ma and Joe would never let me go. And Mrs. K. would flip her lid. Wouldn’t she Harold?” I asked looking over at Harold who was lying on his back soaking up the sun like a sponge with his coffee cup resting on his stomach.
“Probably,” he said, “at first. But lately whenever I tell her something I want to do first she goes mental like she always has but after she calms down she’s usually pretty cool. I think she’s changing her ways.”
“Come off it Korkala. She’s been getting a lot better at letting you stay out past ten o’clock not about leaving the country and going to New York for God’s sake. She’ll go nuts. Big time. The only way I could see her letting you go is if she came with you. And you know that’ll never happen. We’re talking New York Korkala.
Think about it.”
“I think I can convince her Jo,” he said. He sat up and took his coffee cup and held it up in the air like he was making a toast, “and if I can’t, I’m going anyway. I want to go to this Woodstock thing to see Jimmy Hendrix and all the other cool bands.”
“It’ll never happen,” I said.
“Yes it will,” he said looking over at Beth who had been pretty quiet throughout this whole discussion. “Won’t it Beth?” “Look Jo-Jo I’ll take care of both your mothers. They aren’t going to say no to me now after that little scene we just had. Dead babies and all. They are primed for submission. By the time I’m through they’ll think it was their idea.”
“Good luck with my old man,” I said. “Joe’s not one for submitting to anyone especially not for something like this. Good Italian girls don’t go to rock festivals thousands of miles away where there’s hippies and drugs and stuff.”
“I don’t intend to talk to him. I’ll leave that up to your mom. Besides I think he’s just about given up on you. And he hates me.” “He doesn’t hate you,” I said, but secretly I think Joe did hate Beth for everything she stood for, things I didn’t even understand. Or want to.
“Sure he does,” she said.
“I think he’s more afraid of you,” I replied. Ma always said, “it wasn’t right to hate anyone” so having this conversation with Beth about my father’s hatred towards her was making me feel guilty. It was okay for Joe to hate his old man because he did bad things and was dead but Beth was a girl everyone loved.
“Afraid. Hate. What’s the difference? Two emotions tapped from the same source in my book. He hates because he’s afraid. He knows he’s lost what little power he did have. And he thinks I took it from him. But I didn’t. You did.” “What are you talking about? Joe hasn’t lost any power. He’s still my father,” I said. “Jeez anyway!”
“A father without a clue. He knows something’s changed but he can’t figure out what or how. He wants everything to be like it was before I moved in across the street. But what he doesn’t know is that all this would have happened even if I hadn’t come along. Maybe not this summer but eventually it would have happened. Because you had it in you.”
“You’re full of crap. Nothing’s changed. And besides even if it has, it hasn’t changed that much that Joe’s going to let me go to some crazy music festival in New York no less.”
“Yes he will,” Dan said suddenly in this voice that didn’t sound like her at all. We looked over at her as she tossed the ball across the lawn for Sam, whose tail was wagging so hard I thought it was going to fall off and waited for her to speak. “He may be able to say no to Beth or you Jo or Ma even but he can’t say no to his little broken daughter in a wheel chair.”
“Right on Dan-e-o!” Beth howled. Then she got up and did this little dance around her. Sam started barking and doing his own little dance right along with Beth. “We’re going! Hi-ho the Dan-e-o we’re going!” she sang.
“Wow! We’re going to Woodstock eh,” Harold said, joining the two dancers as he twirled Dan in circles around a barking hysterical Sam. Beth had this satisfied expression, the ‘mission accomplished’ look she always got when one of her schemes was about to be hatched.
It was doubtful at best that Harold and I would ever see Woodstock but for the time being I could go along with the game and dance their crazy dance. Although I had to admit that ever since her accident Dan had this fierceness about her like Ironside riding around in her wheel chair battling the world. I think some of Beth’s determination was rubbing off on her too. I wasn’t so sure about this new Dan who appeared to be possessed by Beth— just like me and Ma and everyone else, even good old Mrs. K. who was “as sensible as the day is long” Joe always said had fallen under her spell. Maybe Danny could do what the rest of us couldn’t— convince Joe to let me go on the ultimate road trip to the mother of all love-ins, to Woodstock no less. Imagine that.