My Uncle Ed was at the opposite counter, wrapping ears of corn in tinfoil. I went over and hugged him; his shiny bald head came exactly to my chin. “Where’s Aunt Clarisse?” I asked. “And where are the kids?”
“Clarisse took them off to the bedroom so Charlene could get some peace,” Ma said. “She’s telling them stories.”
“Uh-oh.” I glanced at Charlene, and she shrugged. Aunt Clarisse was a good storyteller, but she had a lurid imagination. The kids would probably be unable to sleep tonight, after being regaled with tales of witches, ogres, and dismemberment.
“And Joey?” I asked.
“Picking up his date,” Charlene said.
“A date?”
“Her name’s Cindy.”
“A new one, of course.” Joey changed ladies as quickly as he changed careers.
“Yes.” Charlene grinned companionably at me. “This one’s a computer programmer.”
“My, he’s coming up in the world.”
“Don’t scoff,” my mother said. “Programmers make good money. Maybe she’ll marry him and support him.”
“And where, while all this preparation is going on, is Pa?”
“The garage, of course. You can fetch him when you put the corn on.”
“And John?”
Ma patted the last hamburger into shape — none too gently — and slapped it down on the plate. “Your brother John has taken himself off into the canyon — with a six-pack.”
“Hmm.”
She turned from the chopping block, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sharon, I wish you’d talk to him. At least make him join the party. You always could talk to him better than any of us.” The vertical lines between her brows deepened, and her mouth turned down woefully.
“I’ll see what I can do, Ma.” I patted her arm and went to take the platter of corn from Uncle Ed. “You want to help me with these, Charlene?” I said.
“Sure.” She pushed away from the fridge and waddled out the door after me. “God,” she said when we were out of earshot of the kitchen, “Ma’s as bent out of shape as John is.”
“Well, it’s not easy being asked to raise two more kids at her age — especially after what she went through with us.”
“I know.”
I set the platter down on the edge of the barbecue and looked for the tongs. As usual, they had fallen off into the dirt. I brushed them off on my jeans and started putting the corn on the coals. “Even with Nicky leaving you alone as much as he does,” I went on, “you’ve never come down here from L.A. and dumped your kids in Ma’s lap.” Ricky was Charlene’s musician husband; he had a pattern of getting her pregnant and then going out on tour with his country-and-western group. As soon as the baby was born, he’d return and work at local gigs until the next rabbit test came up positive.
“Yeah, that’s me — good old self-sufficient Charlene.” Her mouth twisted bitterly.
I looked sharply at her. “Now what did I say wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s not you. Maybe I’m just tired of always being the dependable one.”
“Don’t you go causing problems now! It’s bad enough with—”
“Don’t worry.” Her wonderful smile lit up her face and, with her mop of curly hair, she looked just like her three year old. “I’ll be good.”
“You better. I’m going to find Pa now.”
The garage was at the extreme side of the lot, beyond the bedroom wing. As I approached, I could hear my father’s guitar, and his reedy voice raised in song.
I stopped, listening. The song was a new one. For years, my father had concentrated his musical talents on Irish folk ballads, but my mother had informed me in one of our weekly phone calls that his interests had expanded recently to American songs — and the bawdier the better.
Quickly I knocked on the side door of the garage. The guitar issued one last plaintive chord and fell silent.
“Enter, if you must,” Pa called.
I entered. He was seated on his workbench — a big man with a full head of snowy-white hair. When he saw me, his ruddy face broke into a smile.
“You caught me at it, Shari,” he said, using the pet name only he called me.
“What’s this with the dirty songs, Pa?”
He stood up and laid the guitar on the bench. “A man’s got to have an interest in life — that’s mine.”
I looked around the garage, with its lathes and drills and sanders. Ever since he’d retired after thirty years in the Navy, Pa had been a cabinetmaker. “I thought your interest was carpentry.”
“That’s my work; there’s a difference.” He came over and put an arm around me. “You’re not going to begrudge your own father a little pastime, are you?”
“No, Pa. Sing all the dirty songs you like — I’ll even join in.”
He gave me a mock-pained look. “Please don’t. You know you can’t sing worth a damn. I suppose your mother sent you for me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Frankly, I’d rather stay out here. Parties, family gatherings...” He shut off the light and followed me outside.
“Frankly, Pa, I’d rather stay here with you.”
“What, you don’t like your family?”
“I love my family. But I think it’s going to be kind of a hectic evening.”
“What other kind do we ever have?” He stopped, his eyes studying my face fondly. “Your mother asked you to talk to John, didn’t she?”
“Yes.” I felt a sudden flash of resentment. Here I was, home two days, and already the burden of family responsibility was being heaped on me.
“See what you can do, Shari,” Pa said, his face suddenly lined. “He needs help, and it’s something he can’t accept from the rest of us. Maybe he can from you.”
“Maybe,” I said somewhat ungraciously.
“Try it.”
“All right, all right!” I turned and went toward the rear of the property where it backed on the canyon.
This part of the city was full of little finger canyons that stretched behind what looked like ordinary square lots. The canyons were overgrown with scrub oak, eucalyptus, and Torrey pine, and all kinds of animals, from chipmunks to coyotes, lived in them. For a time when I was small, we had had ducks in the yard, but one by one they fell prey to coyotes that would hop the fence at night. Finally one had even got our proud black cat, Gilroy, and after that my mother had said no more pets.
I took off my high-heeled sandals and stepped over the place where the rough rail fence had been pushed down ever since my childhood. There was a series of stone steps that my father had set into the side of the hill so his kids wouldn’t break their necks climbing down. I followed them deep into the canyon, toward the ruins of our treehouse.
My mother had been right — John had taken himself into the canyon. He sat on a log under the oak that held the shell of our abandoned aerie, drinking a beer. Ma had been wrong about the beer, however; it was not one six-pack, but two.
He heard me coming and looked around, his fine blond hair falling against his forehead. With a shock, I saw how much the last few months had aged him: there were worry lines like my mother’s between his eyebrows, and his blue eyes were peculiarly without light.