Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts (26 page)

“Stop doing that and look at me.”

“Hold on—this is important.”

“Why, are you winning?”

“It’s not about winning,” he says. “It’s about creating. You don’t understand.”

I get up. I forcibly swivel his chair around so he has to face me. “Do you have any idea how much she does for you?”

“Mom? Yeah, I guess. Let go.”

“She told me you threw a fit last night.”

“It wasn’t a fit. I was just mad.” He won’t meet my eyes. Then again, he never does. “She keeps saying she’s going to sell the house, and it’s a bad idea. I’ve tried to tell her why, but she won’t listen to me.”

“That’s because she’s going to sell it no matter what you say.”

“She shouldn’t. It’s not a seller’s market. I’ve looked at the comps—”

“That stuff doesn’t matter, Milton. Mom doesn’t want to deal with the house anymore. Hopkins and I and Dad have all moved out—”

“Dad would move back in a second.”

“But that’s not what Mom wants. She wants to live in a nice small apartment.”

“What about me?”

“What about you?” I hold on to the chair, certain that if I let go, he’ll spin away from me again.

“I don’t want to live in an apartment. This is my home.”

“I know, but it’s not your decision to make. It’s hers. And it’s not like she’s going to throw you out on the street. You’re just moving somewhere new.” I let go of the chair and stand up. “Now get up. Come keep me company downstairs. I want a cup of tea.”

“You’re just trying to get me out of the room so Mom can clean it before the real estate agents come.”

I shake my head, laughing. “How did you know that?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Well, come on anyway,” I say and tug on his arm, pulling him up out of the chair. “Give Mom a break for once.”

Mom must hear us coming down the stairs because she suddenly appears at the bottom with a vacuum, a can of Pledge, and some rags.

“Don’t move my stuff,” Milton says to her as she passes us.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she says without pausing.

“She’s going to move my stuff,” he tells me as we make our way into the kitchen.

“She’s just going to make it look neater. It’s a pigsty in there. You don’t want strangers seeing it like that, do you?”

“I don’t care. I don’t want them in my room anyway.” He sits down at the booth. “Will you make me something to eat?” His assumption that the rest of us will wait on him always astounds me.

And yet, of course, we
do
. “What do you want?”

“An egg in a frame?”

That sounds good actually. I decide to make one for myself, too. We still have over an hour before the agents come—plenty of time to clean up any mess we make. I find bread in the freezer where Mom keeps it, defrost a couple of slices in the microwave, pull out butter and eggs, and turn the burner on under the pan. I haven’t cooked in this house for a while, but everything’s where it’s been for the last two and a half decades.

Milton watches me as I cook. “Make it crispy but not burned,” he says. “I hate when it tastes burned. And keep the yolk runny. Not raw, just runny. It’s safe to eat so long as it’s pretty hot. Salmonella’s killed at fifty-five degrees. Celsius, not Fahrenheit.”

“What’s that in Fahrenheit?”

“One hundred and fifty degrees.”

“And what’s boiling again?”

“Are you serious? Two hundred and twelve. Come on, Keats.”

“Right. I knew that—I just forgot for a second.” I cook our eggs and take them on plates to the table.

“Celsius is so much more logical than Fahrenheit. I wish the U.S. would switch over to it already. Can I have a glass of milk?”

“Get it yourself. I made the eggs.” He doesn’t get up, just starts eating. I eye him. “You have it pretty good here. I don’t blame you for not wanting to leave. You get half the house entirely to yourself, Mom waits on you hand and foot, and you don’t have to work or study or do anything.”

“I study,” he says. “I’m taking courses.”

“Right.”

“I am. Seriously, Keats. I’m working toward a degree.”

“And then you’ll get a job?”

“Yeah, probably,” he says but without a lot of conviction. “And I work, too, you know, it’s just on stuff you guys don’t appreciate.”

I raise my eyebrows skeptically but don’t respond to that. I stick my fork into the middle of my egg in a frame and the yolk runs out dark yellow and steaming, just like Milton wanted. I feel absurdly pleased with my success. “I’m thinking of going back to school myself and getting a graduate degree,” I say idly.

“You should.”

“Why do you say that?”

He shrugs, forks some more bread and egg into his mouth, and chews noisily, his mouth open. There’s yolk at the corners of his mouth and a fleck of white on his chin. His manners are atrocious. He says with his mouth still full, “You’re too smart for that stupid job.”

“It’s not a stupid job. As jobs go, it’s a good one, but you wouldn’t know since you’ve never had one.”

“Mom thinks it’s a stupid job. She says so all the time.” He stuffs the last bite of yolky bread into his mouth, chews, and burps. “I’m really thirsty now.”

“Then get yourself something to drink. You’re a grown man, for god’s sake.”

He’s so startled that for a moment his eyes actually meet mine. “I know,” he says. “I was just about to.” He rises to his feet. As he gets a glass out, he swings the out-of-joint cabinet door back and forth a few times and says, “Maybe no one will want the house anyway. It’s kind of falling apart.”

“Someone will want it. It’s a big piece of property in a great neighborhood in a good school district. The house doesn’t matter that much—I wouldn’t be surprised if the new owners tear the whole thing down.”

Milton puts the glass down on the counter still empty and turns to me. “Mom should put in the contract that they can’t do that.”

“Once it’s not our house anymore, what difference does it make?”

“So long as it’s not destroyed, it will still be the same house we grew up in. I was even thinking that maybe one day I could buy it back with my own money.”

“Come on, Miltie. Be realistic. Is that ever going to happen? You buying this house with your own money?”

“It could.”

“It’s going to sell for over a million dollars.”

He shrugs. He stares down at the empty glass, his face morose.

I get up and touch his arm. “I know you love this house. I do, too. It’s our home. But that’s going to change. And it
should
. Just because you’re used to things being a certain way doesn’t mean that’s the way they should stay. Change is scary, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” He keeps shaking his head. I can’t even tell if he’s really listening, but I keep going anyway. “You can’t just cling to something because it’s all you know, Milton. Being an adult is about making new choices, accepting that what was right for you once might not be right anymore, that sometimes you have to give something up to move on to something better, that—”

I stop. Milton’s staring at me.

“What?” I say.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.”

“Yes, you are. You have tears in your eyes. And your voice is all shaky.”

“I’m just frustrated that you can’t see this.”

“No,” he says. “You’re not just frustrated. You’re crying. Why?”

“Will you just go get your milk?” I don’t want to admit that he’s right, I’m crying, because I can’t explain it. It’s just weird.

He obediently walks away and opens the refrigerator door. I take the opportunity to rub my face hard against my sleeve. It helps. The tears stop.

“The milk’s all gone,” Milton says, almost in amazement. “But I know we had some this morning. Mom brought me a glass.”

“She must have used it up.”

“Rats.” He shoves the door closed again. “I really wanted some.”

“Yeah? Then let’s go get some.”

“You can,” he says, backing away quickly. “I have some stuff to do. Don’t forget: I like two percent.”

“You have to come with me.”

“I’m not even really dressed, Keats.”

“You’re fine. People go out in sweats all the time. You just need shoes.”

“I don’t know where mine are.”

I believe him. It’s probably been months since he’s worn them. Maybe years. “I’ll run up to your room and see if I can find them. You wait here.” I don’t trust him to get within a few feet of his computer and be able to tear himself away again.

“It’d be faster for you to just go by yourself.”

I get up close to him and fix him with as steely a look as a short, curly, red-haired girl can pull off. “You are going with me to the supermarket if I have to kick you in the butt every single step of the way. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I understand you,” he says in an aggrieved tone. “I just don’t see what your problem is.”

“My problem is that my brother never leaves the house. But that’s going to change right now. Don’t move, or I swear I’ll make Mom promise never to run an errand for you again.” Before he can respond, I’m racing out of the kitchen and up the stairs, yelling for Mom, telling her that I need Milton’s shoes.

She meets me at the doorway to his room. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s coming with me to the supermarket.”

Her mouth falls open. “Really?”

“If I can find his shoes.”

“He hasn’t left the house in two years.”

“I
know.
Help me find his fucking shoes before I lose my chance!” I don’t think I’ve ever sworn in front of my mother before. Her eyes grow big, and then she nods quickly and helps me find the shoes.

17.

A
n hour later, Milton’s safely back in his room, two large glasses of milk under his ever-expanding, always-elastic waistband, and Mom and I are up in the attic, hiding from the real estate agents who are crawling all over our house.

I’m telling her about our supermarket expedition. “He tried to stay in the car, but I wouldn’t let him. I had to literally open his door and haul him out. I think I pulled a muscle in my back.” I reach back and rub my knuckle against the sore area.

“But then he went in with you?”

“Yep. I marched him in. I was practically shoving him.”

I’m curled up on the daybed, but Mom is prowling the room, ducking her head when the ceiling gets too low and then circling back around. “I can’t believe you got him out. I don’t know how you did it.”

“By not giving him a choice.”

“You have more power over him than I do. He listens to you.”

“What are you talking about? You’re his mother. I’m just his sister.”

“He respects you more.”

“This wasn’t about respect,” I say. “It was about a combination of physical force, threats, and verbal abuse. I
bullied
him into going.”

“How do you think he feels about it?”

I consider that. “When we got to the milk section, he said there’s really only one kind he likes and he was glad he could pick it out. He said you get the wrong one all the time. And he liked doing the scanning at the self checkout. But he was still pissed at me for making him go.”

“You have to keep doing this,” she says, and I scowl at her because she’s not saying, “
I’ll
keep doing this.” No, it’s “
you
have to keep doing this.”

“I’ll do what I can, Mom, but I’m not the one who lives with him.”

“I’m just so busy these days. And it sounds like it wasn’t easy.” She’s already back to her excuses.

I sit there for a moment, running my hand absently along the worn-out sofa arm. It’s a mess, all holey and bumpy. I close my eyes and see Milton’s face pale with anxiety as we walked into the brightly lit supermarket and people swirled around us.
But he’ll be less afraid next time,
I think. And even less the time after that. It’s the unfamiliar that’s terrifying. “Mom?” I say after a moment or two.

“What?”

“Is it scary?” I ask. “Being on your own? Dating random men? Not knowing if any of it’s going to work out or not?”

“A little bit.” I’m looking down, but I hear her step closer to me. “But once I realized your father wasn’t the person I wanted to grow old with, the thought of staying with him was a lot more terrifying than of being alone.”

“But Dad’s a good guy. He’s not perfect, but he’s
good
.”

“I told myself that for years. It wasn’t enough.”

I don’t say anything else.

* * *

When Mom thinks most of the real estate agents are gone, she heads down to the main floor. I stretch out on the daybed and stare up at the ceiling and think about my life.

I must fall asleep at some point, because I wake up to my mother’s voice calling up the steps. “Keats? Everyone’s gone.”

“Even the Evanses?” I call back with sleepy suspicion. I’m in no mood to make small talk with that smarmy duo.

“It’s just us.”

I rouse myself and go downstairs. There’s some leftover cheese and crackers from the caravan. We snack on that, and I bring a plate to Milton, who doesn’t thank me, and then I help Mom tackle the cabinets in the family room, which are crammed full with old board games, drawings, homework assignments, photos, and other crap, including—inexplicably—an old cheese knife and a troll doll with pink hair.

“I didn’t think I needed to bother cleaning these out yet since the doors hide everything,” Mom says as we get to work. “But Charlie said an agent opened one of the doors to see what it was like inside and a chess set fell on her head. Charlie said, ‘The house doesn’t have to be perfect, but it shouldn’t be
dangerous
.’”

We both giggle at that. I’m not sure why it’s funny, but it is.

Mom’s easily distracted from the task at hand. Sometimes she stops to read the papers she pulls out; sometimes she excuses herself to make a phone call or to use the bathroom, and doesn’t come back for a while; and sometimes she just wanders around the room, grumbling about what a huge chore it is to sell a house. But I keep working steadily and make pretty good progress. I stop only once, and that’s because Mom makes me look at something she’s just unearthed.

“You have to read this,” she says, nudging my arm.