A Face in Every Window (23 page)

Then, riding in the van that afternoon with Larry and Ben, I realized that I was just trying to find my way, too. I had believed the chaos tumbled all around me, that it didn't touch me, because I wouldn't let it. I was the only thing stable, unchanging. I believed that I could hold myself to my ideas, hold on; but just by spending that brief time with Tim, I realized I too had changed, the molecules had shifted and rearranged themselves inside me without my noticing it. I didn't belong in that neighborhood anymore. I had outgrown my past, just as Larry had outgrown his. I still wasn't exactly on Larry and Ben's side, but I knew I couldn't be on Mr. Seeley's side, either. I thought maybe there didn't have to be sides. Maybe I could just learn to care about Larry without making a judgment either way—maybe.

I leaned forward and tapped Larry's shoulder. "Sorry," I said.

Larry lifted his head.

"Really," I said. "I'm really sorry."

He nodded and lowered his head again.

Larry, Ben, and I lugged the table back to the cabin when we got home, and then Larry said he wanted to be left alone for a while. Ben and I closed the cabin door behind us and left him standing over his table, his hands dug into the pocket of his jeans.

That night I helped Larry and Pap prepare dinner. I sang "I've Been Working on the Railroad" along with Pap while he
kneaded his bread, and Larry kept to the dinner preparations, smoking his cigarettes, saying little, deep in thought.

I stayed at the dinner table with the rest of the crowd after I had finished eating. We sat around the table, again with the candlelight, and talked about Mam coming home soon, and how surprised she'd be with the house and Aunt Colleen living with us. I thought how surprised she'd be when she saw the change in Aunt Colleen, and I hoped, too, that she would find me changed as well. I had resolved to be more accepting, more tolerant of her attempts at finding her way. I looked around at the group seated at the table and smiled to myself. I resolved to be more accepting and tolerant of all of them.

***

I
TRIED TO
speak to Bobbi in school. I wanted her to see how I had changed. I wanted her to know that I was willing to be there for her, without judging her. This was more of my resolve. I wanted Bobbi back home with us, where I felt she belonged. Larry had told me she'd moved with Don into some nearby apartment. After Pap's accident she'd skipped school a couple of days and I thought that maybe she wouldn't be coming back at all, but she did, only she wouldn't talk to anyone except a few girls who hung around with her. I had noticed she had dropped out of chorus and that Don waited for her at the main exit every day after school.

Monday, I found her at her locker by herself, and I went up to her.

"I just want to know if you're all right, that's all. I just want you to tell me how you're doing once in a while."

Bobbi slammed her locker door. "It wasn't his fault, you know."

"What?"

"Pap got tangled up in the cord. Don didn't push him. He wasn't trying to hurt him, so I'm sick of everyone thinking it was his fault."

"Hey, he was hurting
you,
remember? Listen to yourself trying to stick up for him. You're making excuses for him."

Bobbi shrugged. "I made him mad."

"So what does that mean? He should try to toss you headfirst off a roof?"

"No! He just wanted me to come inside. He never would have pushed me off."

"He just wanted you to do what he wanted. He just wants complete control over you. I see him waiting for you every day."

"Sounds a lot like you, O'Brien."

Bobbi started to leave and I said, "Thanks, and the family's just fine, so glad you care."

Bobbi halted, started to turn around, changed her mind, and strode away down the hall.

***

L
ATE THAT NIGHT
, after Leon, Jerusha, and Melanie had read some of their poems, Larry stood up and I thought he planned to read us one of his poems, but instead he held up a magazine he had in his hand. He no longer wore the scarf around his neck. He didn't speak with an English accent. I couldn't recall when he'd changed. He just wore jeans and a sweatshirt and talked like the old Larry.

He stood with the magazine in his hand and said, "I have an announcement to make," and I thought about what Tim had said about Larry always making some upsetting announcement.

Larry cleared his throat and said, "I've come to a decision. As soon as I can get into a class, I'm going to the Fox Maple School of Traditional Building in Maine. I'm going to learn how to build timber-framed homes."

"What are those?" Melanie asked.

Larry opened up the magazine titled
Joiners' Quarterly
and passed around a picture of a room with large exposed beams up near the roof, no ceiling.

"It's the way our house here was built," Larry said, "only most of our beams and posts are hidden by plaster." Larry took the magazine back and set it on the table next to him. He leaned over the picture and placed his index finger on it. "These houses are built to last," he said, tapping his finger. "I've been reading all about them. They've got integrity, and so do the people who build them, and I'm going to become an apprentice up there in Maine and learn how to build them." He raised his voice, his eyes widened. "I'm going to build houses, great, big, beautiful houses, and mountain retreats—and ... I'm going to build a career out of it. This is what I'm going to do with my life. I've decided. I'm going to do it!" Larry grabbed the magazine and sat back down.

Harold clapped his hands and the rest of us joined in. I knew Larry had been thinking of his father when he spoke. The determination in his voice, the pride, the spirit, all were meant for his father. If our house was, as Jerusha claimed, the
great incubator, then I figured Larry had become our first hatchling.

***

T
HE NEXT DAY
Mam came home, arriving a day earlier than she had planned. She rode up to the house in a taxi, appearing tired and dazed and even more so when she took the tour of the house and learned that Aunt Colleen now lived with us.

"Of course, I'll leave whenever you say, Erin," Aunt Colleen said, and Mam, coming out of her stupor for just a moment, reached out her hand and grabbed Aunt Colleen's arm. "No, I'm so glad you're here. It's perfect. Everything's perfect, thanks."

Then she hugged Aunt Colleen, and Pap hugged them both and almost fell, and Mam cried. I thought it was because of Pap and his leg. Every time she had looked at him her face had clouded over, her mouth turned down as if she was trying to hold back her tears, and then when he hugged them both she let go.

"What is it, Erin?" Aunt Colleen said.

Mam shook her head. "I'm just so glad to be home." She looked around at all of us, wiping her eyes, trying to smile. She reached out and took Aunt Colleen's hand, then released it and laughed. "It's just good to see you all, but I am tired. It's been a long day." She looked at all our faces, then frowned again.

"Where's Bobbi?" she asked.

We explained the rest of the Pap-and-his-broken-leg story, and Mam nodded, but I knew she didn't hear a word of it.

"Well," she said, letting out a big breath of air, "I think I'D get myself a bath in my newly repaired bathtub, thanks to Colleen, and get a good night's sleep." Mam took Aunt Colleen's hand again. "Colleen, will you come with me?"

The rest of us tried to figure out what had happened, why Mam had come back early, why she'd arrived in a taxi and not in Dr. Mike's car. We all agreed Mam and Dr. Mike must have had a fight, and I couldn't help but feel pleased inside, even if I had resolved to be more accepting of their friendship.

***

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I got up early so I could fix Mam breakfast in bed before I left for school. I wanted to tell her so much about what I felt, what I had been thinking about, how I had learned to let go of things a little bit, how I understood her need to have friends, how I had made a real effort to fit in. I didn't think I could really tell her all these things, but I figured bringing her breakfast in bed could be a peace offering. I thought she'd understand without my having to say anything.

I knocked on Mam and Pap's bedroom door and she called for me to come in. She sounded as if she had been crying.

I opened the door and found Mam sitting on the edge of her bed with her back to me. She had drawn the curtains and turned on the lights of the Nativity set, which Aunt Colleen and Ben had hauled upstairs and placed in front of the fireplace. The set filled that whole side of the room. Mam turned around to face me when I came in. She saw the tray, closed her eyes, and shook her head.

"JP, could you get that out of here? Quick."

"What's wrong? It's just eggs and toast and—"

"Please!" She put her hand up to her mouth.

"Sure." I turned around and set the food on the floor outside her door. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

"You okay?"

Mam nodded and backed herself onto the bed, leaning against her propped-up pillows.

"Where's Pap?" I asked.

"He slept downstairs. I think in the parlor in one of the chairs Colleen bought."

"Are you sure you're all right?" I asked again, stepping closer.

Mam nodded and reached for a cracker. She had a package of saltines on the bed beside her, where Pap should have been.

"What's that?" I asked.

"What, this?" Mam held the half-eaten cracker up. I saw her blush. "A cracker."

"You don't eat crackers." I stepped closer to her bed. I didn't know much about such things, but I had heard that women eat soda crackers when they have morning sickness, when they're pregnant.

"Now I do. I had them all the time while I was in Switzerland. I guess I've just gotten into the habit" Mam tried to smile, but her voice sounded defensive and she looked frightened. Her shoulders were hiked up, her eyes looked everywhere but at me. She had her hair pulled back off her
forehead, and I saw that the hair around her temples was wet.

"I can't believe it," I said, breaking my resolve to be more accepting and tolerant.

I pointed my finger at her and raised my voice, "You're pregnant! Aren't you? Aren't you?"

"JP, calm down."

"Calm down? I haven't even begun to get upset."

I paced in front of her bed, my arms waving and shaking and gesturing all over the place. "How could you? How could you? I can't believe it. You're pregnant Are you pregnant? Just answer me, Mam."

"Yes, JP. I'm pregnant."

"You are not!" I said, making no sense at all and not caring. "I can't believe it I'll kill him. How could you be so stupid?"

Mam sat up. "Now, that's enough! You asked and I told you. I'm pregnant."

I stopped pacing and looked at her. She sat with her eyes wide, breathing hard, almost panting.

"Maybe you're not. How do you know for sure? You need to see a doctor."

"I saw one in Switzerland."

"How could they tell so soon? You need to be tested by a real doctor."

"JP, I didn't get pregnant in Switzerland if that's what you think I'm eleven weeks along already and for most of that time I thought I was getting sick again. I thought I was sick, JP, but I'm not. I'm just pregnant."

"So what are you saying? This isn't Dr. Mike's? This is Pap's?"

Mam closed her eyes and sat back against the pillows again. She cocked her head strangely and said, "Yes. Yes, of course."

I didn't believe her. I took a deep breath and then, pointing at her, I shouted, "You cannot be pregnant!" I stormed toward the door. "You cannot be pregnant!" I opened the door and slammed it behind me, and charged downstairs and out the door.

I
RAN TO
the woods not caring that I'd be late for school. I shouted at the trees, at the sky. I cried and shouted some more. I wiped at my tears with the back of my hand and my damp hands felt raw in the nippy air. I stared at them. I held them in front of me and stared at my red knuckles and blinked back more tears. "I hate her," I told my hands. "I hate them all. I've tried. They've never tried. They don't try. It's always me having to make the effort. Why? What for? Why should I try to fit in all the time? Forget it. I refuse to accept this. Mam pregnant! I refuse. I won't accept it." I jammed my hands in my pockets and shouted at the trees again. "I refuse to accept her!" Tears ran down to my chin and landed on my shirt.

I marched deeper into the woods. I thought of the times when it worked, when I fit in, when I made it work, the time I cooked the dinner for everyone—comfort food, they had called it—and the ride back from the Seeleys' with Larry and Ben, when I had been willing to see past their relationship. I
tried, damn it! And there was the night in the cabin listening to Jerusha and Susan play their music and sleeping six across, and even Christmas Eve with Bobbi.

I wanted that. I wanted more of those moments, but they always got ruined by someone doing something stupid, messing up. It wasn't worth it. I stopped walking and shouted to the sky, to all the world, "It's not worth it!" I shook my head and continued walking. "Who's she kidding? Pap's baby. I could kill that doctor. I really could. Mam's just trying to find her way, Jerusha? Well, she's thirty-seven years old. A little late to be finding her way, don't you think? Why'd she have me? I must have been her first accident. She's no mother. She's a child. She's like some wild teenager, always getting herself in trouble. She doesn't even have enough sense not to get pregnant." I looked back up at the trees. "I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!" I threw myself against a maple and sagged to the ground and cried, hugging myself.

I cried a good while, cried and shivered and shuddered. I was still in the T-shirt I had slept in and the wind blew through it as if it weren't there. "Good," I said, and then, "I can't, I can't love her. Pap's baby. Yeah, right. Right! I'm sure!"

I sat shivering at the base of the tree a long time, letting the same thoughts circle in my mind. Then finally I knew what I would do. I would talk to Dr. Mike. I would confront the bastard. I stood up and brushed my hands off on my pants. "Let's just see whose baby it really is."