AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Adam!”
“Mom, for the love—”
The sound of a motor from outside silenced both of us, although my mother at least had the decency to look embarrassed. There was the slow crunch of tires on gravel, a car door slamming, and the sound of rapid footsteps approaching. Mom and I looked at each other.
“I guess they forgot something,” she said, walking past me to open the door. But as she did, she leaped back in surprise. A tall, slender man with luxuriant gray hair and an eggplant-colored puffer coat stood in the doorway, the handle of a rolling suitcase gripped in one hand. His other hand had been raised to knock, but now he waved at us with a grin. His teeth were very white.
“Richard!” Mom squawked and stood aside as my uncle strode through the door, set his bag down, and wrapped her in a brief hug.
“Little sister,” he said, and turned to nod at me. “And progeny. All grown up.”
“Hi, Uncle Richard,” I said. He took a few steps and leaned in to give me a perfunctory kiss that landed mostly in the air next to my cheek. I kissed the air next to his.
“Well,” he said, looking around, raising his voice so that it echoed against the high ceiling and marble floor, “what do you say, kids? Shall we set the place on fire now, or get good and drunk first?”
5.
Richard stuck around long enough to register his disappointment in the weather (“disgusting”), the condition of the house (“dilapidated”), and my mother’s appearance (“Have they not heard of moisturizer in Maine?”) before whisking himself and his bags upstairs in search of a shower. He reappeared just as my grandmother finished her nap, the two of them arriving in the kitchen from opposite entrances and stopping abruptly at the sight of each other. My mother came up behind Mimi and squeezed her shoulder.
“There’s Richard, Mother. He’s come to visit with you.”
“Richard?” Mimi said. She frowned, shooting a narrow glance back over her shoulder at my mother. “He looks old.”
Richard let out a bark of laughter. “So do you, Mom. We’re none of us spring chickens here, are we. Even young Del is looking a little pinched around the eyes.”
My mother cleared her throat. “She doesn’t like that nickname, Richard,” she said, and I felt myself gripped by equal parts gratitude and frustration. All Richard had done since he’d arrived was snipe about everyone and everything, like he was trying to make himself feel betterby making the rest of us miserable; something about being here, whether it was the family reunion or the house itself, was obviously making him uncomfortable. My mother always said that Richard moved to the West Coast for the weather, but I was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t another reason why he’d moved so far away—and why, in all these years, nobody had ever suggested he come back.
“Oh, beg pardon, Del-pheeen,” Richard said, running his hands through his damp hair. “Christ, what a name. Honestly, Dora, whose idea was that? No, don’t tell me, I guess we all know the answer to that one. You’d never be that pretentious. That guy you married, though... well. Delphine Lockwood. It’s like a poor person’s idea of what a rich person would name their kid.”
My mother looked like she’d swallowed a bee. Speaking up on my behalf had been hard enough; defending herself, or her choice to marry a man who’d turned out to be a disappointment at much more than choosing baby names, was beyond her.
I flashed Richard an unfriendly smile. “How about this,” I said. “You can call me Del, and I’ll call you Dick. So everyone gets a name that suits them.”
Richard stared. Then he guffawed, and the tension in the room relaxed by a degree.
“Oh, Ilikeyou,” he said, and sighed. “Touché, Delphine. And beg pardon, ladies. I’m cranky. I blame low blood sugar.”
We ate an early supper at the farmhouse table in the kitchen, as the mist outside grew thicker and bolder, rolling up from the bay to press against the windows. Mom had made a batch of potato leek soup that she served with hunks of crusty bread; only I knew that the hunks were shaped the way they were not for rustic effect, but because we’d quietly, strategically sliced away the moldy spots before serving it. It was one of the quirks of the Whispers: food seemed to spoil here twice as fast as it did anywhere else, something about the dampness of the weather. I tapped out a text message under the table—Planstonight?—while the rest of the family small talked over my head. Richard asked Mimi how she liked Willowcrest and said that the soup could use more salt; Mimi said on the contrary, the soup was too salty, as were most soups, in her opinion. They argued halfheartedly while my mother scribbled on a notepad, making a grocery list.
“Do we need a vegetable?” she said. “For Christmas dinner.”
“Yes, but only one,” Richard said. “One vegetable, and we’ll all battle gladiator-style to see who gets to eat it.” Everyone laughed except Mimi, who had gone very quiet, staring toward the window that was practically opaque with fog.
“I think we should keep it simple. Roast turkey, mashed potatoes. We can have a cheese plate or something for an appetizer. I’ll go to the market tomorrow morning, so if anyone wants to add anything to the list—”
“Booze,” said Richard.
“Anything in particular?”
“Extra boozy booze.” He paused. Then he snorted. “Oh my god, she’s actually writing it down.”
Listening to my mother and Richard spatting was unsettling, even though the two of them seemed more at ease than ever, relaxing into the same old patterns. Playing their roles. Her ability to suffer in silence was perfectly matched to his compulsive jabbing—or maybe she was like this simply becausehewas like that first. My mother once told me, in the most casual way, that he’d tried to get rid of her one summer, back when he was ten and she was just an infant. He’d put her in a basket and carried her down to the water, intending to float her out to sea. When I had asked if he’d gotten in trouble, she thought for a second and then said, “I don’t know, but my parents apparently had a big fight about whose idea it had been to let him watchThe Ten Commandments.”
Their bickering stopped abruptly when Mimi dropped her spoon with a clatter. “I want to walk the pine path,” she said.
I stood up, relieved at the chance to escape. “I’ll take you.”
My mother brought Mimi’s winter boots from a closet and bent to lace them, pulling them tight and tying them twice over her protestations.
