Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [59]
But I still looked forward to these dinners, to Mom’s wonderful cooking, to her flirting with Pop and he flirting with her. He’d look her up and down and tell her how beautiful she still was, that nobody could cook like her. She’d say, “Oh, be quiet, Andre,” and she’d reach for a spoon or knife or loaded dish, but she’d be smiling, her cheeks flushed. I looked forward to all four of us kids leaving our separate bedrooms to sit at a candlelit table and see each other over all this abundance, and for a little while we’d forget that Mom had to skip paying some bills to do this, we’d forget that this was all just temporary and everyone was an actor in a play none of us had written.
It was three-thirty and Pop wasn’t here yet. Suzanne had come down from her room, Nicole too. Jeb was still up in his practicing guitar to his metronome, and Mom had me pull the turkey from the oven and set it on the counter. It was copper brown. I could smell its warm meat, the onions and cornmeal of the stuffing. Mom covered it loosely with foil and kept glancing at the clock. Pop should have been here a half hour already, sipping something in the kitchen with her like they used to. At four o’clock, she called his number and got no answer. At four-thirty, she pulled the foil off the turkey and began to carve it with a steak knife. She had me and Suzanne carry the side dishes out to the table and set them on the ironed sheet.
“Well, goddamnit,” she said, “we’re just going to have to start without him.”
But we didn’t. To start without him would be to start the play without the audience. We couldn’t. We waited.
Mom tossed her wine into the sink and began washing dishes. I don’t remember helping her, but I hope I did. Nicole and Suzanne ate some rolls, cool now.
Sometime between six or seven, a car pulled up to the curb. Its headlights stayed on a while, and when they finally turned off I could see from the front room that it was Pop’s old Lancer. Then both doors opened. At first I thought he’d brought a girlfriend with him, but in the light from the porch I could see it was a man in an overcoat. He held a bag to his chest, and he turned and waited for Pop to walk around the hood of the car, both of them moving unsteadily up the sidewalk to the porch.
The house had been quiet for a while. I stayed in the front room long enough to lower the needle back down onto the Brubeck album, then I met them at the door. The front hallway was dark, the bulb in the ceiling fixture blown long before, and both men were shadows walking into the house smelling like booze. My father put his arm around my shoulders, and he said, “Lou, Louie, this is my boy. This is Andre.”
The man said something, and I shook his hand and he pushed the bag at me, two bottles of wine I carried past the loaded dining table, half the candles still burning, out to the kitchen where Mom leaned against the counter smoking a Pall Mall, drawing deeply on it, her eyes wary.
“Pop’s here. He brought a friend.”
“What?”
But then Pop was behind me, his buddy too, and her face produced a smile, her eyes still wary, and Pop said, “Pat, this is Lou. Lou, Pat. He’s sharing Thanksgiving with us.”
Lou was taller than Pop, but his cheeks were jaundiced and under his eyes hung gray bags above a withered mustache. He moved swiftly to my mother, nearly stumbling, and he took her hand in both of his, apologized for the intrusion, said he’d brought some wine. Pop leaned close to me and whispered thickly, “He’s dying, son. And, his wife just kicked him out.”
I nodded. Pop took the bag from me and pulled out the bottles and soon we were all sitting in candlelight at the table, Pop at the head, me to his