Marlinchen worried about her father constantly. She’d heard him talking to someone on the phone about having an ulcer. That was new, in addition to the back pain that came and went, and Marlinchen knew that stress aggravated it. With Mother gone, Daddy had to do the shopping for six now, and drive them to school and buy them their clothes and school supplies.
Daddy used to kiss the top of her head and say, “What would I do without you?” He sampled the dinners she started cooking at eight years old, her first recipes, and proclaimed every one of them “superb,” even the ones she knew she’d messed up. He came to stand in the doorway sometimes when she was reading bedtime stories to Colm and Donal. She’d always pretend she didn’t see him, keeping her pride in his approval to herself.
There were other compensations: a little extra spending money. A white kitten on her birthday. Marlinchen was the first girl in her class to have pierced ears, with permission from Daddy, who said she was mature enough for them at nine.
Lost in the unconscious narcissism of childhood, she didn’t realize for a long time that Daddy never really made eye contact with Aidan much, or spoke directly to him. If Marli was around, that’s who he talked to. When Marlinchen did begin to notice this, she thought it was because Aidan was so quiet all the time, and self-sufficient. Not like Colm and Liam, who got scraped knees and had arguments that needed to be refereed, or Donal, who needed everything. Aidan never required much of anything.
Then, one midwinter day, he got sick.
It wasn’t serious. Shouldn’t have been, at least. It was a flu, one of those things that runs around schools in wintertime. Aidan caught it, but kept going to school until a teacher sent him home.
When Marli got home that day, she went to his room to see how he was doing. He was very sleepy. When she touched his cheek, it was like a furnace covered by a thin layer of muscle and skin. She took his temperature with the little thermometer from the bathroom. What it showed her made her run to her father’s study.
Daddy was working on a lecture he was giving at Augsberg College. She found him deep into his writing.
“Daddy?”
“Hi, honey,” he’d said, not stopping his work.
“I think Aidan’s really sick,” she said.
“It’s the flu,” Daddy said. “Bed rest is the only thing you can do for it.”
“I think he needs a doctor,” Marlinchen said. “His temperature is 104.”
“Really?” Daddy said. “Better give him a couple of ibuprofen, then. That’ll take the fever down.” He was still typing.
Marlinchen swallowed. “I really think he needs a doctor, Daddy.”
Daddy had stopped typing, but he hadn’t turned around. “Did you hear me? Give him the ibuprofen,” he said. His voice had become sharp. “I’m giving this lecture tomorrow. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“All right,” she said faintly.
Marlinchen had seen a movie where people saved a man with a high fever. She made Aidan wash the ibuprofen down with a big glass of ice water, and then another, and she ran him a very cold bath and made him get in it. In an hour, his temperature registered at 100, and she knew he’d be okay.
Daddy came out of his study three hours later. “I’m sorry, Marli,” he said.
Relief warmed her.
“I shouldn’t have said that four-letter word in front of you,” he said. “That’s a bad word, I know.” He pressed $20 into her hand. “How about ordering pizza tonight, so you don’t have to cook?”
Daddy’s back had been hurting of late, Marlinchen decided later. That was probably behind his short temper.
Another year passed, and another. She was taking on more and more responsibility around the house. Despite the fact that he wasn’t teaching, Daddy seemed busier than ever, staying behind his study door for long hours, working on the new book. Outside, the other kids looked to her not only for meals but for homework help, reprimands, discipline.
All except for Aidan. He was a help. He watched Colm and Donal- Liam was already well into his love affair with books- when she needed to study, playing catch with them or taking them for rambles along the lake. And Aidan was her friend in a way the other boys weren’t. They shared jokes and secrets, and when Daddy went to bed early with pain in his back, sometimes they’d stay up together and watch forbidden R-rated movies on cable.
Aidan alone among her brothers could be described as tall. And when they were both 11, her brother had a growth spurt. One day, while the family was assembling around the dinner table, she’d noticed Aidan standing at the open refrigerator door, his maimed hand resting casually on the side of the appliance, looking in. It hit her suddenly how tall he was, how his arms were beginning to take on that smooth ripple of muscle that men had. He looked older than 11.
And then Marlinchen noticed her father. He was looking at Aidan, too, and his blue eyes were oddly narrow. He didn’t say anything. In fact, he was quiet all that night.
Dad had been quiet a lot of late. Marlinchen began to suspect his writing wasn’t going well, and she knew his ulcer was acting up. He spoke tersely and was short-tempered. It was around that time that the Photo Incident occurred. Marlinchen always thought of it like that, like some historical event that would be capitalized in a history textbook.
Daddy had put Marlinchen in charge of the family photos from long ago; she enjoyed making albums. She’d given Aidan a photo that was too big for an album, an eight-by-ten of their mother holding him in her lap under the magnolia tree. Aidan had never done much to decorate his half of his and Liam’s room, but he bought a frame for the picture and hung it up next to his certificate for being the fastest miler in his grade at school.
It had been up for two days when Dad, passing the older boys’ room on his way out, saw it.
“That photo doesn’t belong to you,” he’d said to Aidan, “and I don’t like seeing it in that cheap drugstore frame.”
“The photo’s mine,” Aidan had insisted. “Marlinchen gave it to me.”
Dad had simply walked over and picked up the photo and the frame.
“That’s mine,” Aidan repeated.
Dad pulled the photo free of the velvety backing. “You can have the frame,” he said. “I believe you when you say you bought it. The photo isn’t yours.”
“Yes, it is,” Aidan said, one last time, but Dad had ignored him, walked away.
The next day was the anniversary of their mother’s death. They always went to put flowers on her grave on that day, every year. It was a family tradition.
This day, when Aidan went to the garage with everyone else, Dad had laid his hand on the car door when Aidan reached for the handle, and shook his head. “You’re staying home,” he said.
“What?” Aidan’s throat had worked, as if he’d misheard.
“You know, you’ve been doing poorly in school again this year,” he’d said. “Your teacher suggested I restrict you from outings and family trips until your work improves. I think she’s right.”
Marlinchen’s eyes had been trained on her twin brother’s face. She knew how much their mother’s memory meant to him. Aidan had waited, as if Dad would relent. Then, color flooding his cheeks, he’d gone back to the house.
It wasn’t for two days that Dad realized what Aidan had done with his time alone in the house. That afternoon, Dad came out of his studio and down the hall to find Aidan laboring over his homework.
“Where is it?” he’d demanded.
“Where is what?” Aidan asked.
Aidan had taken the photo from his father’s study, and wherever he’d hidden it, Dad couldn’t find it. He’d torn Aidan’s half of the bedroom apart, he’d searched the bathroom and old hiding places around the house, but without luck. He refused to ask Aidan again where the photo was, but his black mood hung like a cloud over the house. Aidan said little, his face closed, but Marlinchen was deeply frightened.