I was sitting on the grass and Nicholas was rubbing my forehead, saying, “Sorry, Dia,” when Mark and Theodore ambled out of the house. My parents, momentarily distracted from their lecture, watched Mark with apprehension.
Nicholas abandoned me when he spotted the mammoth feline. “Teo,” he cried and raced across the yard. Before Nicholas reached him, Theodore lay down on the grass in slug position beside Mark.
I stood, still rubbing my forehead. Carmen deflected my parents’ attention by asking Mark what he did on the Fourth.
“India didn’t tell you where I was yesterday?” Mark asked.
My mother whirled around.
“Mark, geez,” I replied, unable to stifle a whine. I shot him a warning glare.
“I was at the Blocken house, visiting Olivia. India was there, too,” Mark said.
I wondered if Carmen could think of something worse than eating chicken to distract my parents.
“What’s this?” Mom asked me.
I ground my teeth. “I was invited to a picnic there.”
“You were?” She sounded dubious.
“Olivia invited me. She was here . . .”
Mark piped in, “For the wedding. Right?”
“Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Mom’s blood pressure was getting a workout.
“It would’ve upset you.”
She scowled. “I wouldn’t get upset.” She started piling dishes on a tray to take back into the house. She stopped cleaning up and squinted at Mark. “And why were you there?”
“I wanted to see Olivia. I just wanted to talk to her,” Mark said, barely above a whisper.
Carmen got up and wrapped an arm around Mark’s shoulder.
Mom was wise enough to let Mark’s comment go. I wasn’t so lucky. “What’s your reason, India?”
“I’m a bridesmaid,” I muttered.
“What’s that?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m a bridesmaid. There. Happy?”
“Why would you agree to that after how Olivia treated you brother?” she asked.
“Because she asked me. Because she was my friend long before . . .” I trailed off, afraid to finish the sentence. Before Mark lost it over her.
“He’s your brother.”
“See? You’re upset. Can I call it, or what?” I took a breath. “Let’s drop it. I was there—so what? It doesn’t change Olivia’s condition now.” I didn’t add what Mains had told me about Olivia’s accident, or that attack would be a better word for it.
Mark stared at me with barely contained tears in his eyes. I glanced down at the spongy grass. More than ever, I regretted my agreement to be part of Olivia’s wedding. The childhood memories that had led me to say yes were so far away in the presence of my brother.
Dad rolled over to Mark. “Everything will be fine. Olivia will recover, and you will get your chance to talk to her.”
“I just wanted to talk,” Mark said.
Carmen directed Mark to the table.
“Come get something to eat,” Dad said. “We have plenty of tofu dogs left, your favorite.”
Mark slid onto the bench. Dad asked Mark about his latest mathematical discovery. My mother opened her mouth as if to ask me another question.
“Nicky, do you want a rematch?” I asked.
“Okay,” he shouted, and we raced to the safety of the tetherball.
As Nicholas and I played, I remembered playing the same game many times with Olivia. I wondered how she was in the hospital. I hoped well on her way to recovery.
Chapter Eleven
I had trouble falling asleep Saturday night. I tossed and turned with worries for my brother and for Olivia. I finally drifted off at five in the morning, but my sleep was tortured with dreams.
Mark and I raced through our parents’ house, the old one, the one of our childhood. We careened through the dining room, kitchen, family room, and living room in a continuous loop around the stairs until we were silly with dizziness.
Carmen sulked in her upstairs bedroom, listening to the same annoying pop song on her boom box over and over again. Occasionally, she yelled at us to be quiet.
Heedless of Carmen’s threats, I hounded Mark who held my beloved stuffed wolf, Humphrey, for ransom. I changed directions, hoping to trap him in a corner, and swung open cabinet doors in an attempt to hit him on the head. An old hand at our game, Mark fell for none of these tactics and whooped at my near misses.
Frustrated, I felt hot tears prick my eyes. “Come on, Mark. Just give ’im to me. Please. I didn’t mean to trip you in front of Olivia.”
We both knew this was a lie. I had purposely snaked my left foot out in front of my brother as he’d run out the front door to see Olivia that morning. While Mark brushed dead leaves and dirt off of his blue jeans and red sweatshirt, Olivia and I dissolved into giggles.
Mark yelled something back, but it escaped his mouth in a cacophony of bells, loud and insistent. He yelled again, in the kitchen now, shaking Humphrey over his head and enticing me to pounce, but the harsh bells overpowered his cries . . .
I opened my eyes and arched out of a tight ball. The clock on my nightstand read ten ’til nine. I cursed its existence. The phone continued to ring with mounting urgency.
Unable to ignore the clatter, I grabbed the receiver.
“Good morning, India. I hope that you’re up.” A voice filled with reproach said. “I’m ready to leave for the service.”
“Ina?” I rasped. My mouth tasted like something akin to a week-old litter box. Not that I had ever tasted one; I just imagined that it tasted that bad.
“You are awake, aren’t you? I hate to be late for service.”
“Yes, yes, I’m awake. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“I will be waiting by the car.” She hung up.
I dropped the phone back on its cradle and fell back into the bed. After a few seconds of staring at my ceiling and tickling scant images of the dream from my mind while debating how to weasel out of church that day, the awful taste in my mouth forced me to my feet.
Grappling for my glasses, I stumbled over castoff shoes as I struggled to the bathroom. When my teeth were brushed and other urgent matters attended to, I flew back to my bedroom and threw on a lame outfit that clashed horribly with my shoulder bag and five-dollar flip-flops.
Ina fidgeted by my car, wearing a prim polyester suit complete with pill hat. Green, of course. Nearly tripping in the gravel driveway, I debated telling Ina that being one of my mother’s flock and a Protestant she should wear an orange suit, but thought better of it—she’d set an Emerald Isle hex on me for sure.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
The question didn’t deserve a response, and I didn’t get one. On the way to Stripling Presbyterian Church, where my mother officiates as pastor, Ina blathered on without my encouragement or involvement.
“I’ve been thinking of becoming Catholic, you know. All good Irish people are Catholic.”
I grunted a response, hoping it was a coffee hour Sunday, heavy on the donuts, low on the coffee.
“But on the other hand, it’s a little late now. Catholics have so much more to think about. I really don’t think I could fit confession into my schedule. Plus, think of all the bingo you have to play to be accepted. You know, I’m always on the run. Busy, busy. And the kneelers. I don’t think I can kneel that long anymore. Nope, these old bones couldn’t take it. Of course, you can be Catholic. You’re young and have a lot of kneeling in you yet. You’re sharp enough for bingo, too. “And”—she added the coup de grace—“the Catholics on West Avenue have a twelve o’clock mass.”
I ignored her and spun the car around the town square and into the church’s parking lot.
A couple of dozen sedans and minivans sat in the lot. Attendance dropped in the summer months with lawns to mow and barbecues to stoke. Add in a holiday weekend and you had a ghost congregation. Ina scampered out of the car and into the building without waiting for me.
The church, consisting of three stories and the standard bell tower, is located on Stripling’s central square. Constructed in regimented Western Reserve architecture, the building has sharp corners, red brick, and leaden windows. The congregation’s elderly janitor tended the lawn and gardens with fatherly devotion. Deciding I’d dawdled long enough, I stumbled through the heavy wood doors into the church. The morning ushers were already gone.