“The snake? Am I bringing the snake home? Are you kidding? And no. It escaped the second I opened the door.”
I shook my head for Ana. She scrunched her face, but she didn’t seem that sad about it.
“Nancy,” Chuck said. “This woman is destroying our lives.”
Right then Ana leaned over to kiss me on the head. I wondered if she’d heard Chuck through the phone.
“Chuck?” I asked the dead air. “Chuck?”
I looked at the phone. Call Ended.
“Ana, I can’t believe you did that!” I called to her in the bathroom.
She popped her head out of the doorway. She was wearing my hoop earrings. “So biblical, right?”
“But Portico’s gone.”
“A sacrifice,” Ana said. “I was happy to make it for you. Plus Portico’s smart. She’ll figure it out.”
I imagined Portico getting run over, becoming a flat S in the Costco parking lot, or turning into a crisp pile of just scales somewhere in the lava fields. “Right,” I lied. “She’ll figure it out.” And then I touched my head, which felt like it was full of cotton balls. Those pills.
“Ana?” I called. She was back in the bathroom. “Who’s Alan Jeffries?”
A pause. “Nobody important.”
“You smoked pot with my kids last night.”
“I know,” she said. “Are you mad?”
Before I could answer, my phone beeped. Text from Cam: Don’t forget dinner tonight. Dad promised to show them the ball.
“Damnit, Chuck.”
“What, honey?” Ana reappeared again, her whole body this time. She was wearing my green dress now, which looked a lot more comfortable than the purple one. She stated the obvious. “I’m wearing your dress. And your makeup. Is that okay?”
I sighed. “Sure.”
“What’s wrong, Nan? You look concerned.”
I told her about the dinner. She told me there was a simple solution. “Just tell Chuck to behave himself.”
I sent a text: Dinner with Tom and Liko tonight so you please FIND BALL and BEHAVE yourself. 6 p.m.! Right as I hit Send, I said, “This is going to be a disaster.”
?
Ana made the executive decision that we would have pasta all’Amatriciana again instead of sloppy joes, and the boys happily agreed. I was relieved not to be in charge of the meal. Like last time, we became her sous chefs. Jed chopped the garlic, Cam stirred the sauce. I cooked the pasta while Ana lit the candles and put on music. Not jazz tonight, but reggae. Jed, slicing the fat off the bacon, said, “Sweet, Liko loves reggae.”
Ana, floating by in a flutter of green fabric, said, “Jedi loves reggae more,” and set two Buddhas on the far end of the table. “We’ll put these near Chuck so they can bless him with good energy.”
“Great,” I said. And then to Jed, “Is your new name Jedi?”
Jed smiled like he was flattered to have received this nickname. “I guess.”
Ana winked at me first. Then to the boys, she said, “Do you guys know how cool your mom and I are?”
“So cool.” Jed stuck out his tongue.
“Oh, Jedi, don’t be a little dick. Your mom and I are so cool. And here’s why. Remember when it said ‘You are loved’ all over the sidewalks in town?” Ana put her hand on her hip and waited, looking at the boys, who were standing beside each other at the stove. They looked almost exactly the same in this moment.
“Wait,” Cam said. “Did you guys do that?”
Ana raised her eyebrows twice. “And we handed out sandwiches to homeless people. Well, needy people. Ugh, I should have been saying that the whole time, Nan. Needy not homeless. Boys,” she said, “your mother and I are basically Mother Teresa.”
“Mom,” Jed said, turning toward me with the knife.
In my Mom voice, I said, “Careful with that, please.”
He lowered it. “Is that why you gave that homeless guy a Big Mac?”
“Naaaaan,” Ana cooed, “you gave a needy person a Big Mac?” She fluttered over and wrapped her arms around me from behind. She set her chin on my shoulder. The boys stood across from us, still looking almost exactly the same—same height, same eyes, same freckles on their noses. The only difference was that Jed was holding a knife and Cam wasn’t.
?
Tom arrived first, a pack of Maui Caramacs in his hand. Fully dry, his hair was even blonder, almost albino blond, and, again, it seemed like a mistake that Tom lived in Hawaii because he looked like he’d just stepped off a snow-ridden field in Norway. He wore a nice sand-colored polo shirt and gray shorts, and I thought he’d probably dressed up a little for the occasion, which was adorable.
“Sorry I’m kinda early,” he said, slipping off his cotton shoes.
Cam went to open the door for him. “No problem, dude,” he said. “Come oooon in.” I could tell he was a little nervous.
“Hey, Tom! Want some bacon fat?” Jed held up a strip.
Tom looked at it as though actually considering. Then he seemed to understand this was a joke and his face relaxed. “Sure!” he said, with overcompensating irony so that it wasn’t ironic anymore.
“Thank you for the Caramacs, Tom,” I said, trying to rescue him. I covered the pasta, wiped my hands on my apron, or my Mom apron, as Ana had called it. I shouldn’t have resented this because it literally said MOM on the front, but I still felt resentful—how many things of mine had she called Mom things? Point made. But then, I was being silly. And I couldn’t resent her. She was dying.
“Can I get you something to drink, Tom?”
“No, let me get it.” Ana rushed toward him. Was she skipping? “Hi, Tom, I’m Ana.” She stuck out her hand and gave him a firm shake. “I live here now. This family has adopted me.”
Tom seemed unsure if this was a joke or not.
“Do you want some apple juice, Tom?” I asked.
Cam gave me a look: No, Mom, apple juice equals not cool.
“I love apple juice. Isn’t it the best drink?” Ana rolled her eyes in delight. Before Tom could weigh in, she said, “I’ll get you some, Tom.”
And then Cam said, “Can I have some, too?”
“Everyone can have some!” Ana bellowed, skipping toward the fridge.
Tom stood by Cam, watching him stir the sauce.
“I just have to…do this,” he said to Tom. “But you can sit or whatever.”
“Okay, yeah,” Tom said, moving toward the couch. Portico’s tank was still on the coffee table, and it was now filled with offerings. Ana had been performing “a new kind of burial” all day by dropping things into the tank. So far they included twigs and clumps of grass and a bird’s nest she’d found in the driveway and the core of a pear she’d eaten earlier and most of the huge tub of Costco salt we had in the pantry.
Ana fluttered to Tom with his glass of juice. “Here you go, Tom,” she said. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” Tom said, and they clinked.
“And a little for my dead homies,” Ana said, pouring some of her juice into the tank.
Tom didn’t ask. He sipped his juice. The song switched to Bob Marley, which reminded me of Chuck in his college days.