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       LORRAINE

 

    Yeah.  You'll never see her for the selfish little

    Lorraine!

    I would have said bitch.  I would have.  I would have called her that.  I've never used that word but I would have if he hadn't stopped me.

    See?  You can't even bear to hear it.  I want to get back at him so bad.

    I'm going now, he says.  His voice is resigned and yet bitter somehow.

    All of a sudden the idea of being here alone scares me.  Letting him have his way on just one more thing is more than I can stand.  This whole house thing has been that way.  I can't figure him like I could,  and as much as that galls me, it scares me too.  He turns to go out the door.  Going to leave me here alone to wait for them?  It's out before I realize I've even thought it.

    He stops.  Smiles a little.  He thinks he sees a weak spot.  Come along.  If what you say is so then a note on the door saying where we are would be worse.

    No.    Let him keep that pitying look, that little smile that knows he has gotten that close.  Damn.  Damn him.  I'll stay here, I say.

    Okay.  He stands for just a second then edges his was through the half open door.  I hear another okay before it closes.  If he had asked again, coaxed a little          I don't know.

    I stand there alone, the first time I've thought about aloneness and all that in a long time.  I've been alone, but the meaning of the word never came to mind.  I'm always alone; I just don't think about it.  He was alone too, and that was the way we seemed to get along, the two of us making believe we were sharing something.  But now he doesn't seem the same and I'm alone alone now.  It is much more alone that way.  Not just a little.

    The smell of the brown sugar burning on the baked beans.  The sweet smell of that boiling over on to the cookie sheet I sat the casserole on.  By the time I get there, it is burnt a shiny black to the teflon.  Later, I'll chip it off and eat it.  It is like a bitter-sweet candy.  It almost always happens.  Sometimes I wonder if I don't put in too much sugar on purpose.  A kid's trick, like making too much icing for the cake.  But I never think of the hard black chips when I mix the stuff.  It's only later when the smell of the burning fills the kitchen that I wonder and think maybe I do this little thing to reward myself for something.

    Selfish.  I would have never called him that.  If anything, he was too much the other way, always helping out somebody when I wanted him to stay here at home.  Since Earl passed away Elvira hasn't wanted for anything.  Between him and Doug, she has things fixed--porch roof tarred, new clothesline up, bushes under her kitchen window trimmed--before I do.  Helping fix somebody down the street's mower or just moving old Missus Lowell's furniture around the living room when the whim strikes her.  Even if that's as much for him as it is for them, I'd have never called him selfish, but that is what it is now, I think.  It makes him different, more alone than before but not lonely, just alone.  There's a difference. 

    This house has changed him.  He does it for himself.  I didn't realize it myself until a few weeks ago.  No matter how much he complains or says it's because my father asked him to do it, it's for him now.  He may believe it, but I  know better.  No one knows what's next.  We sit and wait to see what little addition or subtraction or joke he has for us next, and there is nothing for it but to smile and watch and hope that when he is done that there will be room in it for more than him and whatever it is that          drives him.  If he was twenty-five years younger, I'd say it will pass, it's just a stage, but I don't know now, I don't know.

    Elvira said something to me the other day.  She said, You know Lorraine, I think Art is a changed man.

    What do you mean?  I asked her.

    Well, just look at him.  Look how he moves.  Look at him smiling to himself like that.  Lost some weight, hasn't he?

    We were standing in the front yard of the house, looking over the marigolds and the snapdragons and the portulaca, and he was carrying big sheets of wall board, one at a time, through the open kitchen door.  Some, I said.

    He looks younger.

    I laughed.

    Go ahead.  Laugh.  Did you see him last night at the fireworks?  Him and Eric laughing and going on like I haven't seen  them in years.  He helped him set up that scope thing, and when he looked through it you'd have thought he was just a kid seeing fireworks for the first time.  Throwing that frisbee thing and all.  Whatever you're doing, he seems happy.

    I was about to tell her that I wasn't doing anything but she knew that.  She knew that, and it was just her little dig,  so I let it get by.

    Yep, he certainly looks full of himself these days.  She went on like that till I changed the subject.  So it's not my imagination.  He is different, and since I have nothing to do with it, I can't have anything to do with undoing whatever it is.  Him and that house.  It's changing him as much as he's changing it.  And he don't seem to know when to stop; he's hardly done with one thing before he starts to think of the next thing he can do to it.  He won't rest until you won't be able to recognize it, until it'll be gone like it was never there.

    Lunch is almost ready, but a lunch is something that you can always add to, always do one more thing so you won't have to sit and look at it.  It's not like a dinner that way.  You never have to sit and watch it go sad on you if the people are late.  A lunch is always ready, no matter if you have just a minute to get it ready or all morning.  So it is almost ready until I hear their little car pull up and the scrape of their feet on the concrete outside.  Then it's ready.

    Hi!  I say it too loud; it sounds funny even to me.  Hi, here let me get that.  I hold the door for them; their arms are full.  Bearing gifts.  Guilt.  She is tanned.  Your father isn't here.  My, you look nice and brown.  Hi, Wes.  Here, just put that down over here.  Hungry?  Lunch is ready.  You haven't eaten yet, have you?

    She shakes her head.  Is he up at Grandpa's?

    Of course.  How was the traffic?

    Fine.  Everybody's at home trying to rest up after the Fourth, I guess.  Wes smiles.

    Where's Eric?

    I don't know.  In the back maybe.  You know I'm always the last to know anything.  I don't go anywhere.  Call anytime, and I'll be here.  But  those two, who knows when you'd catch them home.  I think he's in the back.  Something slipped on his bike or something.

    How are you?  She asks, her nice tan turning to me.

    Oh, you know.  Busy.  Never a dull moment with your father.  I laugh, feeling silly and uncomfortable.  Her eyes don't look away, and for the first time laughing doesn't work for me; I still feel uncomfortable.  Exposed.

    I've seen mothers and daughters hug and tell each other things they wouldn't anyone else.  It was on Janice that Elvira cried when Earl died.  Janice told her mother when she was pregnant even before she told Jim.

    How's he coming along with it?

    You'd have to ask him that.  I don't really know.  He'd said before that he'd be done by the end of the month, but I doubt that now.  Hard to tell; he just seems to see something new to do every time he goes up there.  I think he's going to start ripping things apart inside pretty soon.

    Why didn't he just build a new house?  He'll have enough money and time wrapped up in it.

    Yeah well, I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into when he started.  Who knows  Like I said, you'd have to ask him.

    Do you like it?

    I shrug.  The thought never occurred to me before.  I don't know, I say to her.  I don't know.  It doesn't seem to matter, so I never thought much about it.  I guess it's okay.  Of course it's a lot nicer looking, and he plans to fix it up real nice inside, I think.  It's hard to say; it's mostly dust and mess right now.

    I guess we should drive up and see it.

    Yeah, I think he expects us to come up.  Lunch is ready.  Sit down for a minute while I cover this with Reynolds Wrap and you can help me carry it.  We'll eat up there.  Your grandfather asks about you.

    You told him we were coming, didn't you?  I sent him a card the other week, but I know how he forgets and gets things confused.

    He's expecting you.  I told him just yesterday, and he called last night wanting to know if you were here.

    How is he?

    You know.  His joints ache him.  Some days he seems fine and then other days he won't say a word to you.  He seems quieter this summer.  Just sits and watches your father.  Seems to make him tired, but he don't have much interest in the baseball games or his shows.  He used to sit and watch those stories on the television from noon to four everyday.  Now he either watches your father from the window or from out on the porch or he just sits.

    Daddy's up there on weekdays?

    About half and half,  Jerry said he could take off some time.  You know, he had all that time built up and all. 

    What does Grandpa think of it? 

    Your guess is as good as mine.  He just sits and watches.  He asks your father things sometimes, but he never seems to like what he hears.

    But I thought it was what he wanted.

    I shrug.  Who knows.  We have baked beans, and I got some fresh lunch meat.  Salami and that honey loaf you like.  And a nice Jello mold.  And that Swiss cheese from the deli section.  Jarlsburg.  Here take that, and Wes, can you get the door?  Okay, I guess we're ready.  I guess we'd better take your car.  He has the station wagon, and the other car is so dirty inside.  Would you believe he carried home big bags of cement in the back seat?  We have a station wagon and he's carrying cement around in the Olds.  Maybe Eric will be up there.  I don't see him out back.  Can you get that?  There, I think we're all set.  Watch that step.  Ever since he's been up there, it's been like pulling teeth to get anything done around here.  See, it moves when you walk on it.  I guess I'll have to just get a hammer myself and          Watch that!  Okay, I guess that's everything.  You can pull that shut.  It'll lock itself.  Uh huh.