Benton was finding cups, putting the filter in the coffee pot. Benton turned off the burner. The bubbles grew smaller. Steam rose from the pan.
“We’re both thinking the same thing, aren’t we?” Benton said. “Capsized boat, life vests floating free, middle of winter.”
“ ‘Lake Champlain: 1978,’ ” Nick said.
Ena was knitting. The afghan covered her lap and legs and spilled onto the floor, a wide flame pattern of brown and tan and green.
“You look like a cowboy, Nickie,” she said. “Why do young men want to look like cowboys now?”
“Leave him alone,” Elizabeth said.
“I didn’t mean to criticize. I just wanted to know.”
“What am I supposed to dress like?” Nick said.
“My husband wore three-piece suits, and ties even on Saturday, and after thirty-five years of marriage he left me to marry his mistress, by whom he had a five-year-old son.”
“Forget it,” Uncle Cal said. He was leaning against the fireplace, tapping his empty pipe against the wood, looking at Ena through yellow-tinted aviator glasses. “Spilled milk,” he said. “My brother’s a fool, and pretty soon he’s going to be an old fool. Then see how she likes him when he dribbles his martini.”
“You never got along with him before he left me,” Ena said. “You can’t feign objectivity.”
“Don’t talk about it in front of Jason,” Elizabeth said.
Jason and Benton had just come inside. Benton had been holding a flashlight while Jason picked the mint Benton and Nick had discovered earlier.
“Pick off the leaves that the frost got, and then we’ll tie the stalks with rubber bands and hang them upside down to dry,” Benton said.
It had gotten colder outside. The cold had come in with them and spread like a cloud to the living room, where it stayed for a minute until the heat began to absorb it.
“Why do they have to be upside down?”
“So the leaves can’t speak and criticize us for picking them.”
“You don’t hear all that stuff about plants having feelings anymore,” Uncle Cal said. “That was a big item, wasn’t it? Tomato plants curling their leaves when the guy who’d burned them the day before stuck a book of matches in their face the next day.” He lit his pipe.
Squeals from the kitchen as Benton held Jason upside down. “Can you talk upside down?” Benton said. “Talk to Daddy.”
Jason was yelling and laughing.
“Put him right side up,” Elizabeth said, going and standing in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room.
Benton stood Jason back on his feet.
“Aw, Lizzie,” Benton said.
“Who’s Lizzie?” Jason said.
“She is. Lizzie is a nickname for Elizabeth.”
“No one has ever called me Lizzie in my life,” Elizabeth said.
Uncle Cal was putting logs in the fireplace. Above the mantel was a poster of the Lone Ranger and Tonto on horseback. Cloudy sky. Mountains behind them. The Lone Ranger was positioned directly in front of a tall cactus, so that it appeared the cactus was rising out of his hat.
“Lizzie is also the nickname for a lizard,” Benton said.
“It’s nice you’re so clever,” Elizabeth said to Benton.
“Lizzie loves me,” Benton said. He put his thumb to his lip and flipped it forward, blowing her a kiss.
“Beautiful, beautiful,” Uncle Cal said. He was admiring the fire, with strong yellow flames crackling out of the logs. Ena had explained to them that there was only wood for one fire, and she had decided to save it until the family could be together. It seemed impossible for everyone to be in the same room at the same time, though, so finally she had told Cal to lay the fire. Benton and Jason were in the kitchen; Olivia was upstairs taking a bath. She was humming loudly.
“I’m going to stay here a while,” Ena said. “No one should feel that they have to stay with me.”
“I’m staying,” Uncle Cal said.
“I’ve already called Hanley Paulson, and he’s delivering more firewood tonight. I can always count on Hanley. I think Wesley would have liked him, and the other people around here. Wesley didn’t move here just to take care of me.”
“Is there something wrong with you?” Uncle Cal said.
“No. Nothing is wrong with me. He wanted to be closer to me because sometimes I get lonesome.”
“Don’t tell me you ran down some sob story that made Wesley feel guilty for living in the city,” Benton said, coming to the doorway.
“Some people,” Ena said, staring at him with eyes hot from the fire, “think about the needs of others without having to be told.”
“Christ,” Benton said in disgust. “Is that what you did to Wesley?”
“I love it,” Uncle Cal said. “I wish I’d never blocked up my fireplace.”
“Take down the paneling,” Elizabeth said.
“And I wish I’d never painted my living room green,” Uncle Cal said.
Nick was playing solitaire. Elizabeth was sitting and looking bored, shifting her eyes from the fireplace to the empty doorway to the kitchen. When things were silent in there too long, she got up to investigate. Benton was holding Jason on his shoulders, and Jason was fastening the bunches of mint to the wooden ceiling beams with tacks.
“Come to kiss us?” Benton said to Elizabeth. “Legend has it that when you stand under mistletoe — or mint — you have to be kissed.”
She looked at Jason, grinning as he sat high above them, one bunch of mint left in his hand. She went over to Jason and kissed his hand.
“Kiss Daddy,” he said.
Benton was standing with his eyes closed, lips puckered in exaggeration, bending forward. Elizabeth walked out of the room.
“Kiss him,” Jason hollered, and kicked his feet, in damp brown socks, against Benton’s chest.
“Kiss him,” Jason called again.
Elizabeth sighed and went upstairs, leaving Benton to deal with the situation he’d created. Nick put an ace on top of a deuce and had no more cards to play. He went to the kitchen and poured a shot glass full of bourbon.
“Would anyone else like a drink?” Nick said, coming back into the living room.
“I swore off,” Uncle Cal said, tapping his chest.
“Give me whatever you’re drinking,” Ena said to Nick.
Everyone was ignoring Jason, crying in the kitchen, and Benton, whispering to him.
Nick went into the kitchen to get Ena a drink, and Jason broke away from Benton and tried to kick Nick. When Nick drew away in time, Jason made fists and stood there, crying.
“I’m your friend,” Nick said. He put half a shot of bourbon in a glass and filled it with water. He dropped in an ice cube.
“I go to bed at ten,” Uncle Cal said.
“Why can’t I?” Jason screamed in the kitchen.
“Because she’s a naked lady. Decency forbids,” Benton said. “It will take me one minute to tell her she’s been in there long enough.”
Olivia was singing very loudly.
“I want to come with you,” Jason said.
Benton walked out of the kitchen and went to get Olivia out of her bath. She was doing her Judy Collins imitation, loudly, which she only did when she was stoned. Obviously, she had taken a joint into the bathroom.
Uncle Cal followed Benton up the stairs. It was nine-thirty.
“Early to bed, clears up the head,” Uncle Cal said. He was sleeping in Ena’s room, on a Futon mattress he had brought with him that he tried to get everyone to try out. Jason liked it best. He used it as a trampoline.