The Mulligan (7 page)

“Are you going home?”

I can't help but hear my seatmate's question since I have yet to turn on my music.

“I am. What about you?”

I don't realize being polite means I will be connected to this stranger for another thirty minutes. I actually hate that she intrudes on my time to think about what lies ahead of me, but I decide to be sorry for her instead. She can't help it if her mother just died and she's headed home for a funeral. Can I blame her that she's seated next to me who has my own set of problems to deal with? After losing my grandmother so recently, I understand grief.

So I try not to hate her and instead listen politely until she runs out of words and tears.

In the silence that finally shows itself, I close my eyes and think about my father. I will need to speak to him soon. My heart races as I consider what I will say. I want to tell him how much he hurts the family, that his actions are cowardly, and that Mom deserves better.

I dab my eyes with my napkin. My mother's letter didn't give a hint to her pain. She isn't that way at all, so I'm not surprised. One Christmas, she surprised my father with a new rifle. He'd wanted to hunt small game on our back property for a few years but never took the time to get a license or a gun.

“It's a beauty,” he said as he fondled the sleek metal. “It'll come in handy.”

“Will you teach me to use it, too, Dad?” Robert moved closer and his eyes practically bugged as he took in my mother's gift.

She smiled from across the room and reached for the discarded wrapping paper.

“Better yet, this gun will be yours. I'll teach you to shoot those old squirrels that keep ruining our roof.” He handed Robert the gun.

My mother's smile froze. “But I thought you always wanted one, dear.”

Dad tossed his shoulders and scooped up the rest of the Christmas wrap. “Not anymore. That was last year. Robert will make good use of it.”

Her expression tipped downward, but she hurried to the kitchen to make us blueberry pancakes. I never saw her cry, but I know he broke her heart that morning. He breaks her heart almost every day but that particular memory has stayed with me the longest. Maybe because it was Christmas, or maybe because of what he did with that gun a few years later.

He didn't always own his own business. He worked as an accountant for a firm in the next town. But the economy slumped, or so Mom told us, and Dad came home one day jobless. Too old to do much else except accounting, his mood quickly turned ugly.

I twist in my seat and tighten my seatbelt as the plane bumps with my memories.

“Never did like turbulence.” My seatmate clutches her drink tighter.

I don't like turbulence in my family, but my father is determined to give it to us. A week after he lost his job, he and Mom got into a huge fight.

I was upstairs at the time but couldn't help but hear their words as my father's voice grew louder.

“It's entirely your fault. If you hadn't pushed me to study accounting, maybe I wouldn't be in this situation now. I'd be doing something I really want to do.”

I hid back on the stairs and motioned to Robert to wait next to me when he came up behind me. We were old enough to understand the rage that came from my father. And the accusations.

“You needed to do something. You know that. I was helping.” My mother fairly whispered her reasons, and hearing her do that made my skin crawl.

“Stand up to him just once!” I wanted to scream. Robert placed his hand on my arm and pulled me up two steps.

“We shouldn't be listening.” His color had reddened. He hated it as much as I did when our parents fought, but I was powerless to leave my place of hiding.

“You don't have to, but I am.” I slid back down and trained my ear. Nothing but silence greeted me until I heard mother's broken sobs. It took everything in me to not run down and rush into her arms. A burst of air hit me in the chest as my father flew past the bottom of the steps to the closet where he kept his gun.

“Don't, Rick. Put it away, please.”

“I should shoot all of you and then myself. That's what I should do.”

“Give it to me. You're upset. We'll work it out.”

Robert pulled me up to his room, his hands gripping my shoulders. “He doesn't mean it. He's just mad. In a few minutes we'll go downstairs and everything will be OK.”

I didn't believe him then, and I don't now.

I open my eyes to see the attendant leaning over me. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

“Not long now. I can't wait to get my feet on the ground again.” Click. Click. My seatmate's needles move faster.

I reach into my backpack and bring out the bag of pretzels I'd thought to bring. I'm sure I can wait.

 

 

 

 

7

 

My mother looks the same wearing her T-shirt and Mommy jeans and a pair of white sneakers. Her hair needs highlights badly, but at least it's still shaped around her head, not all wild looking as it tends to get some days like mine. I don't know what I expect; it has only been a few months since I left. Maybe I expect to see more sorrow painted on her familiar features. But no, she smiles widely when she catches sight of me coming from baggage claim.

When I reach her, she grabs hold of me and pulls me into her strong arms, hugging me as though I might disappear from her grip. Only then does she give away any of what she is feeling. I hear the sniff and grab on tighter.

“I missed you, Mom.”

“I missed you more.”

I grin at the silly game we played whenever I returned home from school. She'd be standing at the kitchen sink with a red and white checked dishtowel wrapped around her waist waiting for us.

Robert and I always tried to outrun each other to the back steps after the bus dropped us off out front. I usually lost, but I think Mom held onto me a fraction of a second longer when I finally arrived and Robert moved away.

Now I step back and look into her eyes, wrinkled around the edges with age, or stress. I am never sure.

“What's happened?”

She hooks her arm through mine and turns me toward the parking garage. “It can wait until we get home. I want to know every little detail about what you've been doing.”

I know better than to argue, and maybe this is her way of keeping some sort of control in her life. I understand because I'm so much like her when it comes to certain things. I need to know that my life isn't going to fall down around me if I can stop it somehow. I let my mother have her time for now.

I love Pennsylvania in the summer. We drive past field after field of blazing corn ready to be picked and boiled, roasted, or grilled. I hope we will still smoke some. It isn't summer without our fire pit and racks of corn.

“How's Grandpa doing today?” I ask when we turn down the country road that leads home. So far, my mother has managed to stall my peppering her with questions by asking me questions. What grocery stores do I shop in? How about the Laundromat I use, and is it safe enough? Do I take my pepper spray with me when I go (I say yes, of course) and have I met any female friends (not yet, because my attention is on Drew)? And do I mind the humidity on my hair?

“Grandpa's fine. Just like he usually is. Moving around a little less, but that happens with age. Mom got the same way.” It's my mother's turn to lie or refuse to see the truth.

“And Robert?”

A side of her mouth turns up. “Robert's doing well too. He misses you and wanted to ride down to the airport to get you, but I hated to have him wait in the hot car. Tonight we'll play cards like we always do.”

“Sure. I haven't played any since leaving. I met a neighborhood woman—I think I wrote you about her. She tried to teach me how to play pinochle with some of her friends. I couldn't get the hang of it.”

“I'm glad she took a liking to you. That makes me feel better. It's always nice to know your neighbors.”

We turn into our driveway. I almost make her stop the car and let me out so I can stand out front and steady the ache in my chest from seeing home. Has it only been a few months since I left? It could have been years by the dizziness that overtakes me. Honestly, I didn't think leaving home and returning would cause me so much emotional turmoil. I want to bury my head in my lap and cry. I don't because I need to save my tears for what lies ahead of me.

I look for Dad's gray Honda where he always parks it by the barn. Only Robert's old truck sits in its usual spot. My gaze drifts out back to the charred remains of my studio. New grass has grown up where the building once stood. Soon there will be no visible reminder of my dream or my nightmare.

“Let's get your stuff inside. I've got a roast in the slow cooker.”

I get out and go around to the trunk and reach for my backpack while my mother takes my small suitcase.

From where I stand, I see Grandpa sitting in his favorite chair on the screened-in porch. We added the porch when I was twelve. Before that, it sat open to the elements and bugs. When a small tornado came across the river, the damage was extensive.

My father hired a local carpenter who suggested screening it in and adding windows and heat for the winter. My mother balked at first, but when Grandpa and Grandma stopped by and agreed with the plans, she relented.

A swirling starts in the pit of my stomach and I swallow bile. I hate what is coming. I hate pretending along with my family.

 

****

 

The screen door slams behind me as I bend over him. Grandpa hugs me harder than I think he is capable. His tears mirror mine when I raise my head from his chest. “Love you, Grandpa.”

“Love you, Bobbi-girl. Glad you're home with us.”

I nod and look past him toward the sunny kitchen where Mom has already taken my luggage. “I need to find Robert, OK?” I stroke his shoulder and drift inside.

Already the hearty scent of roast beef fills the space.

“We'll be eating once I get the potatoes going.” My mother is grabbing glasses from the cupboard. My favorite red glass is in her hand.

“Where's Robert? I want to see him.”

She tilts her head toward the family room. Robert had mentioned in an email he was getting out of bed more often. Evidently, all the therapy is helping. I poke through the doorway and see him slouched in the corner of the couch, his long legs covered in baggy jeans and stretched out before him. A person would never guess how badly his bones were crushed and how his muscles had been damaged only months before. One brow lifts and he raises his arms toward me.

I fly into them. “I missed you, goof.”

“Not as much as I missed you. Sit.” He pats the cushion next to him.

“You're almost as tan as I am! Do you make them take you outside every day so you can lie out or what?” It's true. His strong features are tanned a coppery color, almost as dark as my legs. When he smiles, his white teeth look even whiter.

“Sort of like that. I wouldn't want you to get ahead of me.” Now he tugs my hand and clasps it tightly. “I missed you. You read my letter, right?” He whispers his last question.

I look behind me for signs of Mom and turn back.

“How long has he been gone?”

He meets my stare. “As far as I'm concerned, not long enough.”

“You don't mean that.”

He drops my hand and looks away.

“Where did he go? Is he in town?” I will see my father and talk to him, even though the idea frightens me more than moving to Florida did. He and I don't see eye-to-eye on much.

His presence over me was more as an added enforcer whenever my mother laid down the law. I've always envied the closeness he enjoyed with Robert and wanted part of that for myself, but it never happened. Talking to him would be akin to talking to a stranger.

“He's staying in the apartment over the office.”

I let out my breath and sink closer to my brother.

Happy Birthday.

My mother comes into the room shortly after wearing that same inane smile. I want to tell her to cut it out, that I know what is going on, but decide to let her tell me in her own time.

“Has Robert given you his birthday gift yet?” She looks first at him and then at me. I have totally forgotten to buy Robert anything in my haste to get home. Now I try to think of ways I can make it up to him. Maybe I'll take him for a ride to Dee's Ice Cream Hut. He must get tired of being cooped up here this summer. How many times did he drive around the county with me in the cab of his truck when I complained how bored I was? We'd blasted the radio and sang oldies until our throats hurt. We'd stop at the Dee's for cones and yack about my ridiculous whining.

That was before I found my job at the gallery and before I started selling paintings for real cash instead of giving them away for everyone's birthday, Christmas, or housewarming gift. The entire town owned one of my paintings. After the fire, I refused to eat at Anne's Diner because she'd hung one of my river scenes over the stone fireplace.

“Not yet. She just got here, Mom,” he says with a bit of an edge to his voice. He reaches over the side of the couch and that's when I see the shiny rolling walker.

“Did Grandpa finally break down?” I grin at the idea that maybe he wasn't so stubborn after all. “Good for him.” Before I left, I'd tried again to get him to use one, but adamant as always, he had refused.

Now Robert turns toward me with a glint of a smile in his eyes. “It isn't for him.” My jaw drops as he positions the walker in front of him and slowly pulls himself up to a standing position. The first time I've seen him upright in months. My stomach flips and I cover my mouth with my hand so I won't sob.

“Robert…when? Oh, my…” I'm not usually a speechless person (well,
never
actually) but I can't get a word out past the lump that forms in my throat. I stand next to him and throw my arms around his neck, hugging him as carefully as I can. “This is the best birthday gift anyone ever gave me.”