It’s Sunday night and you are watching television with your brothers and your grandfather is dozing in his brown plaid easy chair when a stranger appears in the living room. Instead of knocking or ringing the bell, the man has let himself in through the door on the side of your grandfather’s cottage. You never heard him walking on the gravel road outside, the groan of the rusty hinges when he opened the screen door, or it slapping shut behind him. As if he put some effort into getting inside the cottage without making any noise at all. One minute, it’s just the four of you in the living room and then the next, there is also this man.
“Who are you?” your little brother, Bear, asks. He lies on top of his green sleeping bag, which is spread out on the floor, wearing only pajama shorts. Although the ceiling fan is turned up high, and there’s another one by your grandfather, the living room is thick with July heat-wave heat. Nighttime temperatures have not gone below eighty degrees for days now.
The man doesn’t answer Bear’s question and towers over your sleeping grandfather. He’s turned away so you can’t see his face. His thick arms are covered in tattoos and there are more crawling up the back of his neck and onto the base of his bald head. He ignores you and your brothers and, after a long minute of watching your grandfather snoring, flicks him hard on the forehead.
Your grandfather, who you all call Big Daddy, sits upright, rubs his face and opens his eyes, startling when he sees the man. Although he doesn’t say hello or introduce the man to you, it’s clear he knows him.
“I gotta go to the can, first,” Big Daddy says to the tattooed man. He looks scared as he rouses himself out of his chair.
The man continues to act as if you and your brothers aren’t there before heading into the kitchen. You hear him open a cupboard and turn on the faucet in the sink as your grandfather flushes the toilet. Big Daddy passes quickly through the living room without looking at you or your brothers. He’s got on his baseball cap with a faded B on the front, which he only wears when he’s going out somewhere. “Don’t wait up for me, I’m gonna be late,” he calls to you from the kitchen.
Outside, their footsteps crunch along the road, getting fainter and fainter until they disappear altogether. Then the only sounds are the grasshoppers and crickets and the low din of conversation from the next-door neighbors who are no longer speaking to Big Daddy.
“Where are they going?” Bear asks.
“The IGA,” Desmond, your older brother, says with as much certainty as if Big Daddy said so himself. He’s sprawled out next to you on the couch and his gaze never leaves the television, yet another old episode of The Simpsons.
You don’t want to worry Bear, who upsets easily, so you don’t say anything. Besides, it seems vaguely possible that Big Daddy is going grocery shopping at nine o’clock at night because there’s barely any food in the refrigerator or the cupboards. Even the last of the milk ran out so you have been using a box of long-life for your cereal at breakfast.
Your mother gave Big Daddy an envelope filled with cash when she brought you and your brothers out here to spend all of July at his cottage near Highland Lake. She told him that it was enough to cover the food expenses for the whole time that he’s looking after you. After she left, Big Daddy took you to the IGA so you and your brothers could show him what you like to eat. You took the opportunity to select groceries that your mother never allows: Coco Pops, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks with marshmallows, variety packs of Lay’s potato chips, Ruffles, Pringles, Doritos, Cheese Whiz, salami, Marshmallow Fluff, Root Beer, Cherry Coke, Sprite, Super Sweet Iced Tea, Hostess cupcakes, chocolate pudding, Cool Whip, Sara Lee cakes, Double Stuff Oreos, frozen White Castle burgers, frozen waffles, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, an ice cream cake, ice cream sandwiches. And hot dogs, which used to be considered a special treat dinner, something your mother only allowed on weekends or vacation. But you finished off all the other things for dinner after the first week or so, and the hot dogs became the only option. The buns eventually got moldy and had to be thrown out and you used up all the ketchup. So now it’s just boiled pink meat night after night, which is close to impossible to chew and swallow all on its own.
You might never be able to eat another hot dog again in your entire life.
You only went grocery shopping with your grandfather that one time, and although he has picked up a few things here and there, occasional gallons of milk, bread, a bunch of green bananas and once a watermelon, you don’t know what happened to the rest of the money your mother gave him when you got here almost a month ago.
Earlier tonight, Big Daddy’s hands were so shaky when he got the hot dogs out of the refrigerator, he dropped the package and the four remaining ones splattered onto the linoleum. Desmond took over, rinsed them off because they were covered in dirt and crumbs before placing them in the large pot filled with water. Big Daddy retreated to his chair in the corner of the living room, turned on the fan so it was blowing right on him and fell asleep. He slept while you and your brothers ate the hot dogs and the last of the potato chips, slept through you turning on the television and didn’t wake up until the tattooed man arrived.
Bear accepts Desmond’s explanation that Big Daddy has gone to the IGA and you watch a few more Simpsons episodes before getting ready for bed.
In the morning, you wake up first, like you always do. Because you’re the girl and you turned twelve in June, Big Daddy said you should have the spare bedroom all to yourself and you didn’t have to share it with your brothers like you did last summer. Instead, they’re on the pull-out sofa bed in the living room. You walk past them, still asleep, the shades pulled all the way down, flapping against the window screens in the slight breeze.
Usually by this time in the morning, you’d find Big Daddy in the kitchen, already on his second cup of coffee, hunched over the Daily Eagle, doing the crossword at the yellow Formica table in the middle of the room. But he’s not in here and the coffee maker is empty and unplugged. Some mornings, he brings his mug and the paper out to the screened-in porch which is just off the kitchen and settles into his favorite wicker chair, the one with green pillows and an ottoman. But he isn’t out there either. You cross back through the living room to see if maybe he’s still asleep. The door to his bedroom is open and you peer in, but his bed is made up just like it was yesterday. He isn’t in the bathroom and his dentures aren’t soaking in a glass of water by the sink like they usually are in the mornings. Maybe he’s on a walk?
Except you have not seen your grandfather go on even one walk so far this summer. There is no new food in the refrigerator or the cupboards and nothing to indicate that he’s been in the house at all since he went out last night with the tattooed man.
This isn’t the first time he has left you and your brothers alone all night. Last week, when you got back from the lake, there was a note on the kitchen table explaining that he wouldn’t be home until very late. “Don’t wait up for me, xo your Big Daddy,” the note ended. You didn’t see him again until he came home the following morning and went straight to his bedroom and slept until dinner time. A couple of other nights, he went out after dinner instead of falling asleep in his easy chair and didn’t come home until well past your bedtime.
Last summer, everything was different during the month you and your brothers stayed with Big Daddy. Your mom wasn’t trying to get better so she could come get you every Friday and bring you back home with her for the weekend. Then she’d drive you back here early on Monday morning before turning around to work all week. You were at Big Daddy’s only four nights at a time and sometimes your mom came and took you and your brothers home on Thursdays.
Last summer, there was always food and you didn’t have to eat hot dogs every night for dinner. While you and your brothers went to the lake during the day, George Bachus, Big Daddy’s best friend, came over and they spent the mornings watching game shows until the “girls” came by. Gladys and Janelle fixed lunch which they ate at the card table on the screened-in porch and they played canasta for the rest of the afternoon. You came home most days to find the four of them still going at it. Often, Big Daddy’s friends stayed on well into the evening. Gladys and Janelle made dinner which they served on the screened-in porch and you all ate by candlelight. On some nights when they were in a particularly good mood, everyone pushed the furniture to the side and Big Daddy put on music they used to listen to when they were teenagers. He turned on the lamp with the red lightbulb and the room filled with a warm glow. Everyone danced, even Desmond, swinging from one set of arms to another, Big Daddy dipping you backwards when you got to him.
But this summer during the first week you were here, Desmond told you he thought Big Daddy was drinking again. Your grandfather used to show off his AA coins, boasted about going to meetings every, single Friday for ten years straight. It explained his shaky hands and the cloudy look in his eyes and why he gave you and your brothers drinks that resembled cocktails, juice and lemonade mixed with seltzer. Desmond said he saw Big Daddy slipping vodka into his drink as well as his cans of Fresca. George Bachus hasn’t been over once the whole time you’ve been here and neither have Gladys or Janelle. Last summer, the next-door neighbors took you out on their motor boat a few times, dragging you behind on a large inflatable round disc with their grandsons. But now they’re so mad at Big Daddy about something, they won’t even say hello.
Staying at Big Daddy’s this summer is not as much fun as last summer. But finally, it’s the last week here and soon you’ll be going home. Your mom is going to ask her boss for Friday off from work, she told you and Desmond on the phone over the weekend. All things being well, she’ll pick you up Thursday evening. That means it could be just three more days you have to get through at Big Daddy’s. She didn’t need to tell you to keep it from Bear, in case her boss said no. Although he just turned nine and is the tallest boy in the entire third grade, still he’s your baby Bear, will always be your baby Bear and you and Desmond are used to protecting him. He gets teased a lot because he’s only friends with the girls and loves princess movies. It didn’t help that he dressed up like Elsa for Halloween one year or wet himself in first grade after your dad moved away, which no one has ever forgotten. Some boys in Bear’s class started calling him Ed, which is what they call the kids in the Special Ed classes. So Desmond hunted down the ring leader, telling him if he didn’t leave Bear alone, there would be trouble, and that was the end of that.
But neither of you could do anything about Ron, your mom’s ex-boyfriend, who taunted Bear, called him a sissy, a cry baby, made fun of him for watching Little Mermaid and Frozen, said those were “girl” movies. “What is wrong with you?” he always asked Bear. All you could do was comfort Bear when he cried and give Ron the dead-eye stare. Finally, your mom realized that Ron was a jerk and kicked him out. When he refused to leave, she put his things out on the street. He kept calling her and following her until she had to call the police. That was April. That’s when you overheard your mom asking Big Daddy if he would take you and your brothers for all of July after school got out so she could “focus on getting better and feeling stronger.”
Now you sit in Big Daddy’s chair and wait for your brothers to wake up. The day before you left home and came out here, the three of you dyed your hair a mixture of gray and purple. Sometimes, you pretend to yourself that you are all in a band, like one of those family bands, called the Unaccompanied Minors, which is what they call you on the airplane when you go visit your dad and his new wife in Ohio. When your mom checks you in for the flight, you’re given bright orange bracelets to wear so the flight attendants can identify you.
It’s not even nine in the morning but already it’s sweltering and you sweat and wait for your brothers to wake up, sweat and wait. Then you get your sketch pad and begin a drawing of them sleeping on the sofa bed, which is only a few feet away. You sketch the lumps of their bodies under the sheets, curled away from each other. Bear is turned toward you, his eyes fluttering slightly as he dreams. He sweats doing everything, including sleeping and his dirty hair is damp. You start to draw his face, adding a rivulet of perspiration that has formed along his hairline. Desmond is on the other side and he has the sheet pulled all the way over his head. You are working on drawing the television opposite the couch when your brothers wake up.
“Where’s Big Daddy?” Bear asks. His purple and gray hair is sticking straight up.
“Big Daddy is out.” You look at Desmond. You have a way of communicating with your older brother using only facial expressions.
“I want to call Mommy.” Bear sticks out his lower lip.
“She’s at work. We can’t bother her,” Desmond says.
“Why isn’t Big Daddy back?”
“He’s at that hardware store,” Desmond says. “The one he likes in Lanesboro. Isn’t that right, Nia?” Desmond looks at you and widens his eyes.
“Yeah, he went there.” You nod slightly at Desmond, as if to say, I’m on it. “Come on, let’s eat breakfast quick, okay Beary Bear. So we can get to the lake. It’s so hot.”
“We always go to the lake,” Bear grumbles. “Can’t we stay here today. Just once. And wait for Big Daddy to come back.”
You and Desmond exchange another look.
“He’s gonna be a while,” Desmond says.
“Yeah and what are you talking about, silly? You love it at the lake.” You jump onto the pull-out bed and start tickling him. Desmond joins in until Bear is giggling and pleading with you to stop and all three of you are laughing, as if it’s like any other morning at Big Daddy’s.
Breakfast is crumbs and dust from the boxes of Coco Pops and Froot Loops, the last of the cereal. The long-life milk is gone so you pour water into the bowls and spray Cool Whip on top of the gooey mixture until the can only squirts out air.
Usually after breakfast, back when there was still food, Bear would help you and Desmond make a picnic lunch to bring to the lake: peanut butter and banana sandwiches on Wonder bread wrapped in tin foil, a Tupperware container of grapes, bags of potato chips and water bottles which you would put in a cooler bag. This morning, you take three cans of Big Daddy’s Fresca and a half bag of Doritos and head out. When you wheel your bikes past Big Daddy’s car, you worry Bear will ask how he could have driven to the hardware store in Lanesboro without his car. You can tell Desmond is thinking of an explanation, but Bear doesn’t seem to have noticed.
You peddle along Dalton Ave, take a right onto Alpine Road, following it until you reach Parking Area A. Highland Lake is long and seems to stretch on forever, well past the beach where you spend your days. People are always leaving behind water toys, inflatable flamingos, dolphins, rubber rings. Last week, you found a paddle board that had drifted onto the shore and didn’t seem to belong to anyone. At the end of every day after that, you stashed it in the bushes so no one else would find it. It is still there in the same place as yesterday and Bear lies on top of it while you and Desmond push him out into the deep water, beyond where any of you can touch. You spin him around and then you swim over to the part of the beach with life guards and a roped-off swimming area with a raft that you dive off for a while. Then you drink the Frescas and eat the Doritos until the bag is empty and your fingertips have turned orange.
Big Daddy has been giving you money to get ice creams from the truck that arrives around midday. But today you have nothing when it pulls up, so you lie on your towels and watch as the other kids swarm it. A little boy drops his entire cone onto the sand. You long to run over, pick it up and eat it anyway. You can tell that Desmond and Bear are thinking the same thing.
At the beginning of the month, a group of families with a bunch of kids close in age to you and your brothers were at the beach every day and you folded in with them, playing together like you all had always known each other. The moms seemed to feel sorry for you and made sure to bring extra food for lunch every day for you and your brothers. They brought amazing hero sandwiches filled with salami and provolone and diced tomatoes and hots and lettuce, tuna salad with pickles and cheese and lettuce, black pepper turkey and Monterey Jack. They brought fried chicken and potato salad and watermelon slices and peaches and plums and strawberries from the local farm stands, giant-sized chocolate chip cookies for dessert. They fed you that whole entire week and let you be part of their large clan. And then, just like that, they were gone.
Another week, there was a boy around Desmond’s age who was there with his mother and that boy joined in with your games. Yet another week, a group of girl cousins invited the three of you to play water tag and Marco Polo with them, and you had races with their boogie boards. The month has been passing by quickly enough. Until today.
You swim some more and then lie on your towels and nap before getting on your bikes and following the same route back to Big Daddy’s cottage. When you get there, Big Daddy’s car is parked in the same position in the driveway as when you left. The phone on the wall in the kitchen is ringing, but the person hangs up by the time you answer it, so you hear only dial tone. Big Daddy is not in the house.
The cottage sucks in heat all day long, so that by late afternoon every inch of it, both bedrooms, the kitchen, the screened-in porch, the living room and the tiny bathroom feel well over 100 degrees. You take a freezing cold shower and change into shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. But a layer of sweat forms as soon as you sprawl out on the couch. Desmond drapes his legs on the other side and Bear takes his usual position on top of his sleeping bag on the floor. You watch Sponge Bob Square Pants, Family Feud, and the local news. Dusk comes and still Big Daddy hasn’t returned.
Bear starts to whine about being hungry. Even the hot dogs are gone, so you search the freezer, remembering a Tupperware container underneath the now long-gone ice cream. The blue cover is crusted into a block of ice and stuck to the wall so you and Desmond chip away at it until the container loosens. After running warm water over it, you pry the lid open to find something brown and defrost it in the microwave. Eventually it gets warm enough to eat, some kind of stew with potatoes and carrots and chunks of meat which resembles dog food, but you are all so hungry that you eat the whole thing, wiping the container clean with your fingertips.
Bear asks about calling your mom again, but Desmond says no.
“What about going over to Gladys’ house,” Bear suggests. “Remember when we went there last year? Before we went to the baseball game?”
You do remember and look over at Desmond. It’s not a bad idea, you try to say to your older brother with your face. But Desmond says that you need to stay here, for when Big Daddy comes home.
“But what if Big Daddy doesn’t come back tonight? What if he’s in trouble?” Bear asks. You are thinking the exact same thing. He has never left you alone by yourselves for this long and it can only mean that something is very wrong.
“He’s fine,” Desmond says. “Go get ready for bed, okay?”
Bear’s face crumples, but he listens, like he always does. He’s used to obeying you and Desmond. It’s your job to collect him from his classroom at dismissal every day. You bring him out to the yard where the little kids run around on the grassy area or chase each other in the school playground while parents and baby sitters sit on the benches and talk to each other and the bigger kids shoot hoops into the basketball net. If it’s raining, you take him to the library instead. Desmond goes to Mattison Regional, the 7-12 school, where you will go in the fall, and he meets you an hour later. You have to take a city bus and then there’s another mile walk before you get home and your mom doesn’t want you and Bear doing all that without Desmond.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays though, Desmond can’t meet you because he has practice: soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter and track and field in the spring. Instead, you and Bear have to get a ride home with one of his classmates, Lucas, just because your mom and Lucas’ mom are friends. Which would have been okay except for Lucas’ older sister, Anna, who’s in your grade.
Last winter, your mom had to start going to the food pantry at St. Michael’s, which Anna found out about, because she makes everyone else’s business her own. She came up to you one day at recess, with all of her stupid friends trailing behind her, holding a brown paper bag in her hand. Her friends were screeching like seagulls hovering above an overflowing garbage can.
“Anna don’t,” they cried after her. But she kept walking towards you with this funny look, like she might be suffocating, trying to swallow back laughter.
“Look at her, look!”
“She’s doing it, she’s doing it!”
“No, Anna!”
“Oh. My. God!”
You didn’t understand what was happening until she was right in front of you. “Thought you might need this.” Anna shoved the bag at you and skipped away.
“I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it,” her friends sang and ran after her. Inside the bag was a dented can of Spam with a St. Michael’s Food Pantry brochure inside.
It only got worse after that. Anna corralled her friends to say under their breath, St. Michael’s or Ed’s Sister, whenever the teacher called on you. Then she told everyone that your mom was a slut, and got kids to whisper, slut daughter, whenever you passed them in the hallway. She made up a story about how your dad left and moved to Ohio because your mom slept around so much. He had to move to Ohio and then he became all religious, Anna told everyone. And everyone believed her lies. One day when Bear was going home with a friend, you fought her after school. A couple of her friends joined in and you got beat pretty bad. And it didn’t stop them calling you names. In fact, it only made them do it more. And then every Tuesday and Thursday when Desmond was at practice, you had to sit in Anna’s stupid mini-van with her and her mom and Lucas and Bear. You always made sure to ride in the way back and just stare out the windows, not saying anything to any of them. Her mom thought you were rude, but really, it was Anna. She’s the one who is rude, not you.
Big Daddy is still not back when you wake up in the morning. There is one last bag of Jiffy Pop popcorn in the cupboard so you have that for breakfast when your brothers wake up. It’s raining so you can’t go to the lake. Instead you lie on the pull-out sofa bed and watch Simpsons reruns over and over and try to forget how hungry you are, but it’s hard. There are so many commercials featuring food and even the ones about soup, which you hate, make you nauseous and dizzy with hunger.
It clears up in the afternoon so you bike out to the lake, but only because no one can stand being inside the cottage anymore. Desmond is irritable and storms off. Bear keeps getting upset over everything. He refuses to put on sunscreen and water gets up his nose. “I hate this stupid lake,” he screams at you. “It’s so boring. I hope I never have to come back here ever, ever again.” Eventually, he wanders over to the beach and plays in the sand with a group of boys his age.
You lie on your towel, trying not to think about how hungry you are or where Big Daddy is or what has happened to him. Then you get out your sketch pad and start drawing Rufus, Big Daddy’s emotional support dog who died right after Christmas. Big Daddy got Rufus years ago because of his PTSD. He’s a veteran, like George Bachus, and suffers from nightmares and panic attacks. Sudden noise, like a car back firing or thunder, can make him agitated. But Rufus was specially trained to get behind Big Daddy to steady him whenever that happened to help him calm him. Now he’s on the waiting list for another emotional support dog, but there are so many people with PTSD and not enough dogs so it will be a while, your mother explained when she told you and your brothers that Rufus was gone.
Last summer, you and your brothers used to go to the lake with Big Daddy in the early mornings before breakfast to walk Rufus. The lake would be quiet and still and sometimes smothered in fog. Off in the distance, you could see people fishing but the fog made them look not quite real, as if they were in a painting. Rufus liked chasing the ball into the water and you could throw it to him over and over again and he never got tired. You add a ball, a motorboat off in the distance and fog on the lake to your drawing.
Your brothers come and find you when the sun is low in the sky and you bike home. The cottage is empty when you get there and the only thing left to eat is a half box of stale Saltines. There is some relish and grape jelly and mayonnaise and an almost empty jar of Marshmallow Fluff that you and your brothers spread on top of the crackers. It helps dull the gnawing inside for a little while and you lie on the couch and turn on the television. Desmond sits in Big Daddy’s chair and flips aimlessly up and down through all the channels, until Bear tells him to cut it out, cut it out. You are slick with sweat but you don’t have enough energy to take a shower and you are so dizzy, you feel like you might fall over if you stand up.
“I’m so hungry,” Bear starts to cry and Desmond tells him not to be such a baby.
“I’m scared.” Bear gets up off his sleeping bag on the floor and curls up next to you on the couch. “What if he never comes back. What if we never see Big Daddy again. What if…”
“Shut up!” Desmond shouts. “Just stop talking okay? You’re making everything worse.”
“It already is worse. I want Mommy.” He lies with his head in your lap and cries and you stroke his forehead. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” he whimpers, sniffing and wiping his face.
Last summer, the night you went to Gladys’ house, you drove past the Lantern Bar and Grille and two men were fighting outside on the sidewalk. There was a crowd gathered round and you could hear the smacking sound that the men’s fists made when they connected with each other’s faces. One man got knocked to the ground and the other one was screaming while being held back by some of the bystanders. There was bright red blood coming from his nose and his mouth that spilled down onto his white T-shirt.
“Jesus, look at that bullshit,” Big Daddy had said quietly. “I don’t miss that, I really don’t.”
You wonder if that’s where he went. Maybe he got a black eye there and doesn’t want to come home until it goes away. The way you felt after Anna punched you so hard that the left side of your face was streaked red and swollen. You lied to your mom and Desmond, told them it had happened during gym when a basketball hit your face. You didn’t want your older brother saying anything to Anna because it wouldn’t have helped. You faked a stomachache for two days straight so you could stay home until your face healed and no one could see what Anna had done to you.
The three of you fall asleep in the living room with the television on, first Bear atop of his sleeping bag on the floor, then Desmond starts snoring slightly, his head tilted back, and eventually you must have as well because when you open your eyes again, the room is filled with mid-morning light. The television is still on. Your neck twinges from sleeping at a weird angle on the arm of the couch. You look around one last time, even though you already know that Big Daddy is not in the house.
You go in the kitchen and pull the long phone cord out to the screened-in porch and call your mother, even though Desmond has kept saying that you shouldn’t. You need to know when exactly you are going home.
“Hey baby,” she says and the sound of her voice makes you well up.
“How are you feeling, Mommy? Did you get Friday off?”
“I’m feeling so much better, baby. And Sheila said I could take Friday as a vacation day. Yeah! So I can come pick you guys up tomorrow. I can’t wait. I need to see my babies. Oh I miss you guys so much.”
“I miss you too, Mommy.” Tears start streaming down your face and you cry quietly, hoping she doesn’t notice.
“Have you been having fun at the lake this week? You guys are so lucky to be out there right now, this heat is unbelievable. I need to get going though, okay baby? I gotta get to work. I’ll call you guys later. And tomorrow, I’ll drive out as soon as I finish work, so I should be there around 6. I can’t wait.”
“I can’t either, Mommy.”
You hang up the phone and check to see if your brothers have woken, but Desmond is still sprawled out in Big Daddy’s chair, and Bear is on the floor, both still asleep. You are too excited to sit down. You pace back and forth between the kitchen, the screened-in porch, the living room and back again, trying to resist the urge to wake your brothers and tell them the good news. You are going home. You will eat again. Soon.
You go into Big Daddy’s room and sit on his bed. Sometimes in the middle of the night, you wake to the sound of him crying out for help. Your mom said when she was little and Big Daddy was still drinking, he once got so angry that he hit your gran. You don’t remember her, but there’s a photograph in your kitchen back home of your grandmother holding your head in the palm of her hand when you are only a few weeks old.
You go over to Big Daddy’s bureau to look at the framed pictures he has on top of it. There is one that was taken four years ago of you and your brothers with both your parents standing in front of your Christmas tree. Before your father left.
Desmond has been angry with your father ever since he moved to Ohio. You have a baby brother there, or at least your father says he is your brother. But he’s not your brother in the way that Desmond and Bear are. You’ve met him twice since he was born last year. The first time was at Thanksgiving when Desmond refused to hold him and your father said if he was going to be like that, he wasn’t welcome in their home any more. But his new wife, Lisa, took your father into the kitchen and talked to him in a soft voice. When he came back into the living room and told Desmond he was sorry, so sorry, he really looked it. He even cried a little and hugged Desmond, holding onto him for a long time until your brother hugged him back.
You like holding your baby brother, even though he will never be your real brother. And at first, you tried not to like Lisa. But she is really nice, and not in a fake way where she lets you do whatever you want when you go visit her and your father. She always talks to your mom, before you go, to find out what you and your brothers like to eat and do, what your mother’s rules are, bedtimes, things like that, to be sure they do everything the same way.
Although Ron was the worst, most of your mom’s other boyfriends have been pretty awful. They treat you and your brothers as if you’re the most badly-behaved kids they’ve ever met. Even though you all have good manners and help out at home. Even though your mom always says how lucky she is, that you are the best kids, the best thing that ever happened to her.
Behind the photograph, you notice a jam jar full of change in the far corner of Big Daddy’s bureau. You tip it onto the floor and sort the coins into piles of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. You make rows on the rug and start to count. It’s eleven dollars and 43 cents. You rush into the living room to wake up your brothers.
Everyone is giddy as you get on your bikes and start off for the McDonald’s on Route 7. You went once at the beginning of the month and it’s only a few minutes away by car. But it takes much longer by bike and you have to go up a steep hill and the sun radiates off the asphalt as if you are pedaling inside a pizza oven. You take a right onto Route 7, the truck route through town, which doesn’t have a bike lane. 18-wheelers and tractor trailers keep speeding past you. You look back from time to time to make sure Bear hasn’t been run over. Finally, you round a corner and there it is, just up ahead.
Ten minutes later, the three of you sit on the curb in the parking lot with cheeseburgers and French fries and Cokes spread out before you. You’re so hungry, you can hardly wait to put the ketchup on. It’s an incredible feeling to eat real food again with your brothers, their purple and gray hair, damp with sweat, glistening in the hot July sunshine.
Sometimes when you’re at the lake, you pretend to yourself that you and your brothers are famous and everyone on the beach knows it, all the moms with their kids and babies, the baby sitters, the campers wearing the same T-shirts, the life guards, the people walking their dogs, the groups of families, the kayakers, the water-skiers, the people fishing on outboard motor boats, all of them are staring at you, admiring you. Later, they will tell their friends, their families, guess who we saw at the lake? Yeah, that’s right. We saw that band and it was definitely them. They were there all right, they were totally there.
Image: by Hasmik Ghazaryan Olson on Unsplash, licensed under CC.2.0
- Unaccompanied Minors - August 25, 2023