George returns to the screen, squashing some printout against it. “See. This is my baby brother. He kinda looks like a storm cloud now, but he’s gonna change a lot because that’s what Mommy says babies do best of anything..”
Jase says, “Stand back, buddy,” nudging the door open wide enough for us to pass through.
I haven’t seen Joel for a while. Where he once projected all laidback cool, now he’s edgy, stalking around the kitchen. Alice churns out pancakes and the younger kids sit at the table, watching as if their older siblings are Nickelodeon.
We walk in just as Joel’s asking, “Why does Dad have that thing in his windpipe? He was breathing fine. Are we going backward?”
Alice edges a small, flat, very dark pancake off the pan. “The nurses explained all this.”
“Not in English. Please, Al, translate?”
“It’s because of the deep vein thrombosis—kind of a clot he got. They put him in those inflatable boots for that, because they didn’t want to give him anti-coag drugs—”
“English,” Joel reiterates.
“Stuff that makes his blood thinner. Because of the head injury. They put him in the boots, but someone ignored or didn’t notice the order that they were to go on and off every two hours.”
“Can we sue this someone?” Joel asks angrily. “He was talking, getting better, now he’s worse off than ever.”
Alice chips four more skinny charcoal briquette-looking pancakes off the pan, then adds some butter. “It’s good they caught it, Joey.” She looks up, seeming to notice for the first time that I’m standing beside Jase.
“What are you doing here?”
“She belongs here,” Jase says. “Drop it, Alice.”
Andy starts to cry. “He doesn’t look like Dad anymore.”
“He does so. Look like Dad,” George insists stoutly. He hands me the computer printout. “This is our baby.”
“He’s very cute,” I tell George, scrutinizing what does, indeed, look like a hurricane off the Bahamas.
“Dad’s all skinny,” Andy continues. “He smells like the hospital. Looking at him freaks me out. It’s like he’s this old man suddenly? I don’t want an old man. I want Daddy.”
Jase winks at her. “He just needs more of Alice’s pancakes, Ands. He’ll be fine then.”
“Alice makes the worst pancakes known to humankind,” Joel observes. “These are like coasters.”
“I’m cooking,” Alice observes sharply. “You’re what? Critiquing? Doing a restaurant review? Go get takeout, if you want to be useful. Ass-hat.”
Jase glances around at his siblings, then back at me. I understand his hesitation. Though things at the Garretts’ are unbalanced—mealtimes off, everyone more cranky, it all still seems normal. Not right to detonate the bomb of some big announcement. Like barging into Mr. and Mrs. Capulet’s argument about whether they are overpaying the nurse with “We now interrupt this ordinary life with an epic tragedy.”
“Yo.” The screen door opens, letting in Tim, laden with four pizza boxes, two cartons of ice cream, and the blue-zipped bag in which the Garretts keep the contents of the till from the hardware store balanced on top.
“Hello, hot Alice. Wanna put on your uniform and check my pulse?”
“I never play games with little boys,” Alice snaps without turning around from her position at the stove, where she’s still doggedly turning out pancakes.
“You should. We’re full of energy. And mischief.”
Alice doesn’t bother to answer.
Taking the boxes, Jase begins piling them on the table, batting away his younger siblings’ questing hands. “Wait till I get plates, guys! Jeez. How was the take at the end of the day?”
“Actually, surprisingly good.” Tim hauls a wad of paper napkins out of his pocket and fans them out on the table. “We sold a wood chipper—that freaking big one in the back that was taking up all the space.”
“No way.” Jase pulls a gallon of milk out of the fridge, carefully distributing it into paper cups.
“Two-thousand-dollar way.” Tim flips slices of pizza onto plates, shoving them in front of Duff, Harry, Andy, George, and the still-scowling Joel.
“Hey, kid. Good to see you here.” Tim smiles at me. “Back where you belong, and all that crap.”
“Mines!” Patsy shouts, pointing at Tim. He goes to her, rumples her scanty hair.
“See, hot Alice? Even the very young feel the pull of my magnetism. It’s like an irresistible urge, a force like gravity, or—”
“Poop!”
“Or that.” Tim removes Patsy’s hand, which is now tugging up his shirt. Poor girl. She really hates drinking from bottles.
He grins at Alice. “So, hot Alice. Whaddya think? How about putting on that uniform and checking my reflexes?”
“Stop putting the moves on my sister in our kitchen, Tim. Jesus. Just so you know, Alice’s nurse’s uniform is a pair of green scrubs. She looks like Gumby,” Jase says, returning the gallon of milk to the fridge.
“I’m starving, but I don’t want pizza,” Duff says heavily. “That’s all we ever eat anymore. I’m sick of pizza and Cheerios, and those used to be my two favorite things on the planet.”
“I used to think it would be fun to watch TV all the time,” Harry says. “But it’s not, it’s boring.”
“I stayed up until three last night, watching Jake Gyllenhaal movies, even the R-rated ones,” Andy offers. “Nobody even noticed or told me to go to bed.”
“Are we all sharing grievances now?” Joel says. “Should I get out the talking stick?”
“Well, actually,” Jase begins, and then there’s a knock on the door.
“Joel, did you order out even though you knew I was making pancakes?” Alice asks angrily.
Joel raises his hands in self-defense. “God knows I wanted to, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I swear.”
The knock sounds again, and Duff opens the screen door to let in…my mother.
“I wondered if my daughter was here.” Her gaze drifts over everyone at the table, Patsy with her hair smeared with butter, syrup, and tomato sauce; George without his shirt, little rivulets of syrup edging down his chest; Harry lunging for more pizza; Duff at his most truculent, the teary Andy. Jase, who freezes in his tracks.
“Hi, Mom.”
Her eyes settle on me. “I thought I’d find you here. Hi, sweetheart.”
“Yo Gracie.” Tim drags an armchair from the living room to the kitchen island. “Take a load off. Let your hair down. Have a slice.” He cuts a glance at my face, then Jase’s, eyebrows lifting.
Jase is still staring at Mom, that confused look he had in her office returning. My mother regards the boxes of pizza as though they are alien artifacts from Roswell, New Mexico. Her preferred pizza toppings, I know, are pesto, artichoke hearts, and shrimp. Nonetheless, she sinks into the chair. “Thank you.”
I look at her. This is neither the broken woman in the silk robe nor the brittle hostess offering Jase a beer. There’s something in her face I haven’t seen before. I glance over to find Jase still studying her too, his expression impassive.
“So, you’re Sailor Supergirl’s mommy.” George struggles to talk around a mouth full of pizza. “We never saw you up close before. Only on TV.”
My mother gives him a tiny smile. “What’s your name?”
I rush through introductions. She looks so stiff and uncomfortable, immaculate and out of place in the comfortable chaos of this kitchen. “Should we go home, Mom?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’d like to meet Jase’s family. Goodness. Is this all of you?”
“’Cept my daddy, cause he’s in the hostible,” George says chattily, getting up from the table and circling over to Mom. “And Mommy, cause she’s taking a nap. And our new baby, because he’s in Mommy’s belly drinking her blood.”
Mom pales.
Rolling her eyes, Alice says, “George, that’s not how it works. I explained when you asked how the new baby ate. Nutrients go through the umbilical cord, along with Mom’s blood, so—”