We chatted for a while and sipped our wine, watched as Lily and Grace wove the colored thread. The sky had just started to change color when Rebecca stepped outside, still holding Jonah on her hip. Unsmiling, she said, “It’s time for dinner. Babs is requesting your presence inside.”
—
In the kitchen, Babs and Matt were still talking and Patrick was taking containers of food out of the diaper bag and getting ready to warm them up for Jonah’s dinner. They always brought separate food for Jonah, because he had a dairy allergy, and Rebecca had just told me that they also thought he had a sensitivity to wheat. Babs dismissed these food restrictions as pure nonsense and was always trying to sneak ice cream and yogurt to Jonah. When Patrick would stop her, she’d throw up her hands. “How can his stomach get used to it if he never eats it?” she’d say.
Patrick spooned some vegetables into a bowl and held it up. “Mom, is this bowl okay to go in the microwave?”
“That should be fine,” Babs said.
There was a rumor that when Patrick didn’t get into Harvard, Will overheard Babs talking about it to her bridge club. “Well, Michael will definitely get in, but we all knew Patrick wasn’t going to make it. You know how it is — you always throw the first pancake out.”
Part of me hoped this story wasn’t true, that it was a lie made up by one of the Kellys, just a joke that had lasted through the years. But another part of me thought there was a good chance Babs actually had ridiculed Patrick in front of all of her friends. When Patrick wasn’t around, his siblings referred to him as Pancake, which seemed cruel. Patrick had the same features as his brothers — thin nose, strong cheekbones, blue eyes — but they didn’t come together the same way on him, and he was much less handsome. His eyes were just a little large for his face, his nose just a little too sharp, and something about him reminded me of a deer — he was always so jumpy and unsure.
He tried hard to please Babs, but it didn’t seem to matter. He could’ve moved somewhere far away, but he stayed close by and came to Sunday dinners. I always wondered why. If it were me, I would’ve moved to the other side of the country.
Matt’s dad was standing at the end of the kitchen table, and all of the grandchildren were vying for his attention, interrupting each other with news about school and field trips. Charles was a quiet man who worked a lot — all the time, really. Even now that he was officially retired he spent most of his time in the office. But he also adored his grandchildren and tried to attend as many soccer games and gymnastics meets as he could. He never raised his voice and he didn’t have to — as soon as he started talking, everyone got quiet. I could never figure out how he and Babs ended up together. Did she marry someone quiet to make up for all the noise she made? Did they balance each other out on a kindness spectrum?
The kitchen was full and noisy then, everyone talking at once. Babs looked at all of us and said, “Okay, now. Don’t just stand there like lumps. Go sit down.” And because we always did what she said, we walked quickly into the dining room.
—
The bright side of Sunday dinners was that the food was always really good. I tried to concentrate on that when I was there. This Sunday was roast chicken with lemon and garlic, twice-baked potatoes, and a kale salad.
“Kale?” Meg asked, as it was passed to her. She sniffed. “How trendy of you, Babs.”
Meg was twenty-three and still living at home. She’d had two different jobs since graduating from Trinity, and probably could’ve moved out, but I think she enjoyed the benefits of having Rosie iron her clothes and make her bed each morning. Once, when I said something about how fun it was to live with my friends after graduating, and how I wouldn’t have wanted to move back home, she looked up and said, “That’s because your parents live in Wisconsin. Gross.”
When Matt and I first started dating, I thought I’d become friends with Meg. She was closer to my age than anyone else. But she didn’t have much interest in me and, to be honest, was sort of a spoiled brat. Even Babs didn’t seem to know what to do with her. Jenny and Nellie had known Meg since she was a baby, so they thought she was adorable, and when she rolled her eyes, or christened something disgusting or revolting, they thought it was a riot. They were always commenting on her clothes (Meg had a wardrobe that would make anyone jealous) and asking her for accessory advice or pressing her about her dating life. Meg found them amusing, and tolerated their questions, sometimes even smiling briefly at them.
Most of the time, Meg was on her phone, which made it difficult to have any sort of conversation with her. Babs, who was firm about her grandchildren not having any screen time at the house, seemed to have very little power over Meg and her iPhone — once I watched as Babs tried to take it away from her, and Meg whined like a sick pony or a panicked toddler.
As dinner started, I braced myself. When all of the Kellys were in one place, the noise was constant, like construction. I never got used to the way the grandchildren raced through rooms, running into people and tripping over carpets (which was probably how poor Jonah was mowed down earlier). And there was so much food — enormous platters of food, so many mouths gobbling things down, so many glasses of water and wine being poured. Each dinner felt like a small fund-raiser. More than once after I married Matt, someone said to me, “That’s so nice you finally got yourself a big family,” like it was something that I always wanted, like it was something that everyone hoped for.
Really, most of the time I longed for my own house. Since I was an only child, raised by a librarian and a professor, our house was almost always peaceful. In the evenings, no one yelled up the stairs for everyone to come to dinner, or fought over the TV. Usually my parents watched Wheel of Fortune, and would sound out the puzzles together. When one of them got it right, the other would say nicely, “Good job” or “Well done.”
At the Kellys’ Sunday dinners, I could mostly just stay quiet and zone out as I ate and listened to the conversation. But tonight, as soon as everyone was served, Babs turned to me. “So, Beth, have you heard any more about the job?”
I took a sip of water before I answered, “Oh, no. Not yet.” I’d interviewed at a website the week before, for a position that I wasn’t even sure I wanted. But of all the résumés I’d sent out, it was the only place that had even bothered to call, which was slightly embarrassing and not something I wanted to share at the dinner table.
“Well, I’m sure you will,” Babs said. “You must be going crazy sitting in that apartment all day.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” I said. I took a large bite of kale and willed the conversation to be over. Babs had the ability to make me feel worthless just by tilting her head, and she wasn’t the person I wanted to discuss my job options with.
“You know, we could always use another person at the store,” Nellie said. She smiled at me across the table, and I tried to smile back. I knew she was just being nice, but the thought of selling monogrammed towels to women like Babs made my stomach hurt.
“It’s true. The summer sale is coming up,” Jenny said. “Meg, we got a bunch of those makeup bags you liked. Supercute patterns.”
I knew Jenny was changing the subject for me, and I appreciated it. I concentrated on my dinner while she continued to talk about makeup bags. Matt turned to Michael and started telling him how everyone was already worrying about the 2012 election. “You wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “This one’s barely over and they’re getting ready to do it again.” Babs perked up and turned her attention to him, and for the moment, I was free.