Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler [93]
Two of the children, Jacob and Peter, were playing with the Ouija board in front of the refrigerator. Jenny had to step over them when she went to get the tomatoes. “Excuse me,” she told them. “You’re in my way.” But they ignored her; they were intent on the board. “What will I be when I grow up?” Jacob asked, and he set his fingertips delicately upon the pointer. “Upper middle class, middle middle class, or lower middle class: which?”
Jenny laughed, and Joe glared at her and wheeled and stamped out of the kitchen.
On the evening news, a helicopter crewman who’d been killed in Laos was buried with full military honors. An American flag, folded into a cushiony triangle, was handed to the parents—a gray-haired, square-chinned gentleman and his fragile wife. The wife wore a trim beige raincoat and little white gloves. It was she who accepted the flag. The husband had turned away and was weeping, would not even say a few words to the microphone somebody offered him. “Sir? Sir?” a reporter asked.
One white glove reached out and took the microphone. “What my husband means to say, I believe,” the wife declared in a feathery, Southern voice, “is we thank all those who’ve gathered here, and we know we’re just going to be fine. We’re strong, and we’re going to be fine.”
“Hogwash,” Slevin said.
“Why, Slevin,” said Jenny. “I didn’t know you were political.”
“I’m not; it’s just a bunch of hogwash,” he told her. “She ought to say, ‘Take your old flag! I object! I give up!’ ”
“My goodness,” Jenny said mildly. She was sorting Ezra’s photos; she held one out to distract him. “Look,” she said. “Your Uncle Cody, at age fifteen.”
“He’s not my uncle.”
“Of course he is.”
“He’s not my real uncle.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew him. You’d like him,” Jenny said. “I wish he’d come for a visit. He’s so … un-brotherly or something; I don’t know. And look!” she said, alighting on another photo. “Isn’t my mother pretty?”
“I think she looks like a lizard,” Slevin said.
“Oh, but when she was a girl, I mean … isn’t it sad how carefree she was.”
“Half the time, she forgets my name,” Slevin said.
“Well, she’s old,” Jenny told him.
“Not that old. What she’s saying is, I’m not worth her bother. Old biddy. Sits at the head of the table with a piece of bread on her plate and sets both hands down flat and just stares around at us, stares around, face like one of those rotating fans, waiting for the butter but never asking, never saying a word. Till finally you or Dad says, ‘Mother? Could we pass you the butter?’ and she says, ‘Why, thank you,’ like she was wondering when you’d realize.”
“She hasn’t had an easy life,” Jenny said.
“I wish just once we’d get all through the meal and nobody offer her the butter.”
“She raised us on her own, you know,” Jenny told him. “Don’t you think it must have been hard? My father walked out and left her when I was nine years old.”
“He did?” Slevin asked. He stared at her.
“He left her, absolutely. We never set eyes on him again.”
“Bastard,” Slevin said.
“Oh, well,” said Jenny. She leafed through some more photos.
“Jesus! These people! They try to do you in.”
“You’re overreacting,” Jenny told him. “I can’t even remember the man, if you want to know the truth. Wouldn’t know him if I saw him. And my mother managed fine. It all worked out. Look at this, Slevin: see Ezra’s old-fashioned haircut?”
Slevin shrugged and switched the TV channel.
“And see what I was like at your age?” She handed him the picture with the tam-o’-shanter.
He glanced over. He frowned. He said, “Who did you say that was?”
“Me.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. Me at thirteen. Mother