Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Amy Bloom [57]
“Ma.” Lionel is behind her with paper towels. He packs her finger until it’s the size of a dinner roll and holds it up over her head. “You stay like that. Sit. And keep your hand up.”
“You’re up early. The Band-Aids are in my bath room.” Her fingertip is throbbing like a heart, and Julia keeps it aloft. It’s been a long time since anyone has told her to do anything.
Her bathrobe always lies at the foot of the bed. There is always a pale-blue quilt, and both nightstands are covered with books and magazines and empty tea cups. The room smells like her. Lionel takes the Band-Aids from under the sink: styling mousse, Neosporin ointment (which he also takes), aloe-vera gel, Northern Lights shampoo for silver hair, two bottles of Pepto-Bismol, a jar of vitamin C, zinc lozenges, and a small plastic box of silver bobby pins.
When he comes down, Julia is holding her finger up, still pointing to God, in the most compliant, sweetly mocking way.
“I hear and obey,” she says.
“That’ll be the fucking day.”
Lionel slathers the antibiotic ointment over her finger, holding the flap of skin down, and wraps two Band-Aids around it. It must hurt like holy hell by now, but she doesn’t say so. With her good hand, Julia pats his knee.
“I was going to make coffee,” she says, “but I think you’ll have to.” And even after Jewelle and Buster get up for the kids’ breakfast and exclaim over the finger and Jewelle prepares to run the show, Lionel stays by Julia, changing the red bandages every few hours, mocking her every move, helping her with each dish and glass as if he were some fairy-tale combination of servant and prince.
At one o’clock, after Peter has called to say that he is too sick to come and everyone in the kitchen hears him coughing over the phone, they all go upstairs to change. They are not a dress-up family (another thing Jewelle likes, although she can hear her mother’s voice suggesting that if one so disdains the holiday’s traditions, why celebrate it at all), but the children are in such splendid once-a-year finery that it seems ungracious not to make an effort. Corinne wears a bronze organdy dress tied with a bronze satin sash, and ivory anklets and ivory Mary Janes. Julia knows this is nothing but nonsense and conspicuous consumption, but she loves the look of this little girl, right down to the twin bronze satin roses in her black hair, and she hopes she will remember it when Corinne comes to the dinner table ten years from now with a safety pin in her cheek or a leopard tattooed on her forehead. And Jordan is in his snappy fawn vest and white button-down shirt tucked into his navy-blue pants, and an adorable navy-blue- and-white-striped bow tie. Lionel and Buster are deeply dapper; their father appreciated Italian silks and French cotton, took his boys to Brooks Brothers in good times and Filene’s Basement when necessary, and made buying a handsome tie as much a part of being a man as carrying a rubber or catching a ball, and they have both held on to that. Jewelle has the face and the figure to look good in almost everything, but Julia herself would not have chosen tight black satin pants, a turquoise silk camisole cut low, and a black satin jacket covered with bits of turquoise and silver, an unlikely mix of Santa Fe and disco fever. Julia comes downstairs in her usual holiday gray flannel pants and white silk shirt. She has turned her bathroom mirror, her hairbrushes, and her jewelry box over to Jewelle and Corinne.
“Do you mind Peter’s not coming?” Buster says.
“Not really.”
Lionel looks at her. “You must miss Pop,” he says.
“Of course, honey. I miss him all the time.” This is not entirely true. Julia misses Lionel senior when she hears an alto sax playing