With a towel around his waist he stopped in the living room, where Alfred leaped to his feet. The sight of Alfred’s suddenly aged face, its disintegration-in-progress, its rednesses and asymmetries, cut Chip like a bullwhip.
“Well!” Alfred said. “That was quick.”
“Can I borrow some clothes of yours?”
“I will leave that to your judgment.”
Upstairs in his father’s closet the ancient shaving kits, shoehorns, electric razors, shoe trees, and tie rack were all in their accustomed places. They’d been on duty here each hour of the fifteen hundred days since Chip had last been in this house. For a moment he was angry (how could he not be?) that his parents had never moved anywhere. Had simply stayed here waiting.
He took underwear, socks, wool slacks, a white shirt, and a gray cardigan to the room that he’d shared with Gary in the years between Denise’s arrival in the family and Gary’s departure for college. Gary had an overnight bag open on “his” twin bed and was packing it.
“I don’t know if you noticed,” he said, “but Dad’s in bad shape.”
“No, I noticed.”
Gary put a small box on Chip’s dresser. It was a box of ammunition — twenty-gauge shotgun shells.
“He had these out with the gun in the workshop,” Gary said. “I went down there this morning and I thought, better safe than sorry.”
Chip looked at the box and spoke instinctively. “Isn’t that kind of Dad’s own decision?”
“That’s what I was thinking yesterday,” Gary said. “But if he wants to do it, he’s got other options. It’s supposed to be down near zero tonight. He can go outside with a bottle of whiskey. I don’t want Mom to find him with his head blown off.”
Chip didn’t know what to say. He silently dressed in the old man’s clothes. The shirt and pants were marvelously clean and fit him better than he would have guessed. He was surprised, when he put the cardigan on, that his hands did not begin to shake, surprised to see such a young face in the mirror.
“So what have you been doing with yourself?” Gary said.
“I’ve been helping a Lithuanian friend of mine defraud Western investors.”
“Jesus, Chip. You don’t want to be doing that.”
Everything else in the world might be strange, but Gary’s condescension galled Chip exactly as it always had.
“From a strictly moral viewpoint,” Chip said, “I have more sympathy for Lithuania than I do for American investors.”
“You want to be a Bolshevik?” Gary said, zipping up his bag. “Fine, be a Bolshevik. Just don’t call me when you get arrested.”
“It would never occur to me to call you,” Chip said.
“Are you fellas about ready for breakfast?” Enid sang from halfway up the stairs.
A holiday linen tablecloth was on the dining table. In the center was an arrangement of pinecones, white holly and green holly, red candles, and silver bells. Denise was bringing food out — Texan grapefruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, and a stollen and breads that she’d baked.
Snow cover boosted the strong prairie light.
Per custom, Gary sat alone on one side of the table. On the other side, Denise sat by Enid and Chip by Alfred.
“Merry, merry, merry Christmas!” Enid said, looking each of her children in the eye in turn.
Alfred, head down, was already eating.
Gary also began to eat, rapidly, with a glance at his watch.
Chip didn’t remember the coffee being so drinkable in these parts.
Denise asked him how he’d gotten home. He told her the story, omitting only the armed robbery.
Enid, with a scowl of judgment, was following every move of Gary’s. “Slow down,” she said. “You don’t have to leave until eleven.”
“Actually,” Gary said, “I said quarter to eleven. It’s past ten-thirty, and we have some things to discuss.”
“We’re finally all together,” Enid said. “Let’s just relax and enjoy it.”
Gary set his fork down. “I’ve been here since Monday, Mother, waiting for us all to be together. Denise has been here since Tuesday morning. It’s not my fault if Chip was too busy defrauding American investors to get here on time.”
“I just explained why I was late,” Chip said. “If you were listening.”
“Well, maybe you should have left a little earlier.”
“What does he mean, defrauding?” Enid said. “I thought you were doing computer work.”
“I’ll explain it to you later, Mom.”
“No,” Gary said. “Explain it to her now.”
“Gary,” Denise said.
“No, sorry,” Gary said, throwing down his napkin like a gauntlet. “I’ve had it with this family! I’m done waiting! I want some answers now.”
“I was doing computer work,” Chip said. “But Gary’s right, strictly speaking, the intent was to defraud American investors.”
“I don’t approve of that at all,” Enid said.
“I know you don’t,” Chip said. “Although it’s a little more complicated than you might—”
“What is so complicated about obeying the law?”
“Gary, for God’s sake,” Denise said with a sigh. “It’s Christmas?”
“And you’re a thief,” Gary said, wheeling on her.
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You sneaked into somebody’s room and you took a thing that didn’t belong—”
“Excuse me,” Denise said hotly, “I restored a thing that was stolen from its rightful—”
“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!”
“Oh, I’m not sitting here for this,” Enid wailed. “Not on Christmas morning!”
“No, Mother, sorry, you’re not going anywhere,” Gary said. “We’re going to sit here and have our little talk right now.”
Alfred gave Chip a complicit smile and gestured at the others. “You see what I have to put up with?”
Chip arranged his face in a facsimile of comprehension and agreement.
“Chip, how long are you here for?” Gary said.
“Three days.”
“And, Denise, you’re leaving on—”
“Sunday, Gary. I’m leaving on Sunday.”
“So what’s going to happen on Monday, Mom? How are you going to make this house work on Monday?”
“I’ll think about that when Monday comes.”
Alfred, still smiling, asked Chip what Gary was talking about.
“I don’t know, Dad.”
“You really think you’re going to go to Philadelphia?” Gary said. “You think Corecktall’s going to fix all this?”
“No, Gary, I don’t,” Enid said.
Gary didn’t seem to hear her answer. “Dad, here, do me a favor,” he said. “Put your right hand on your left shoulder.”
“Gary, stop it,” Denise said.
Alfred leaned close to Chip and spoke confidentially. “What’s he asking?”
“He wants you to put your right hand on your left shoulder.”
“That’s a lot of nonsense.”
“Dad?” Gary said. “Come on, right hand, left shoulder.”
“Stop it,” Denise said.
“Let’s go, Dad. Right hand, left shoulder. Can you do that? You want to show us how you follow simple instructions? Come on! Right hand. Left shoulder.’”
Alfred shook his head. “One bedroom and a kitchen is all we need.”
“Al, I don’t want one bedroom and a kitchen,” Enid said.