? ? ?
I trudged through the front door when I got home from school, and all I wanted to do was make a sandwich, take a nap, and sleep through the weekend. But Mom and Nana were huddled around the kitchen table, staring at a shoe box stuffed with papers and envelopes like they were water moccasins. Mom’s cheeks were flushed, and she was sucking on her cigarette—puff-puff-ash, puff-puff-ash. I considered skipping my snack and retreating to my room, but I couldn’t sleep on an empty stomach.
I regretted my decision immediately.
“Henry, tell your mother she’s not putting me in a nursing home.”
Mom rolled her eyes, which she knew Nana hated, and blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Mother, you need someone to look after you.”
“I can look after myself.”
“Before I moved you in with us, you were eating rancid meats and hadn’t paid your water bill in three months.”
Nana crossed her arms over her sagging breasts—fucking gravity. “I had water.”
“Because you ran a hose from Mr. Flannigan’s house through your kitchen window!”
“I am not an invalid, Eleanor.” She spoke with a quiet fury, her anger reducing to a hard crust you’d need a hammer to chip away.
Mom laughed in her face. “When was the last time you showered? Or brushed your teeth?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“I’ve got two children, Mother, I don’t need a third.”
“I would rather die than live in one of those places.”
They glared at each other across the table. The air between them a toxic cloud of cigarette smoke and resentment. I was certain they’d forgotten I was there, and the intelligent decision would have been to sneak away, but I was thinking with my rumbling stomach rather than my brain.
“Nana doesn’t belong in a nursing home, Mom.”
“Mind your own business, Henry.”
Nana stood and shuffled to the fridge. “Go to your room and wait for your father to get home.” She lingered before the open doors, staring at the shelves of food.
“Daddy’s gone,” Mom said, her fight evaporating. “He’s been dead a long time.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Nana mumbled. “I think he’d like pot roast for supper.”
Nana’s forgetfulness was cute at first—she’d call us by the wrong names, mix up our birthdays, send us Christmas cards in the middle of summer—but it isn’t cute anymore. Sometimes she looks at me, and I see nothing but a deepening abyss where my grandmother used to be. She’s becoming a stranger to me, and I’m often nobody to her. Then she’ll turn around ten minutes later and tell me I’m her favorite grandson. Nana’s doctors believe her memory will continue to deteriorate. Good days outnumber the bad now, but eventu-ally only bad days will remain.
“I’ll come home right after school,” I said. “Don’t put her in a home.”
Nana unloaded butter, tomatoes, and a package of chicken thighs onto the table. Whatever she was cooking, it wasn’t pot roast.
Mom fumbled with her cigarettes and lit another. “What-ever. It’s not like we can afford it anyway, especially with the way you and your brother eat.” She glanced at the shoe box of unpaid bills. “Waiting tables isn’t exactly the path to riches.”
“Get a new job then,” I said. “You studied cooking in France. You should be running a restaurant.”
“Henry—”
“Come on, Mom. You know I’m right. I bet there are tons of restaurants that would hire you. If you’d just try to—”
“Henry,” she said. “Shut up.”
Charlie and his girlfriend, Zooey Hawthorne, barged into the kitchen, carrying grocery bags, oblivious to the tension that clung to the walls like splattered grease. I never thought I’d be glad to see Charlie.
“Who’s hungry?” he asked, dropping his bags onto the table, which pushed Nana’s growing collection of odd ingredients aside. “Zooey’s making pasta carbonara, and I thought Nana could bake an apple pie.”
Zooey kissed Nana’s cheek and led her away from the fridge. “You have to give me your recipe. It’s so yum.” Zooey is taller than Charlie, slender, with skin like a buckeye, and spacey brown eyes. Way too good for my dipshit brother.
I was still waiting for Mom to pick up our argument from where we left off, while Charlie and Zooey unpacked groceries like we were some kind of happy family. Like this was normal.
“I’ll skip the food poisoning tonight,” I said.
Charlie grabbed my arm, squeezing hard, and pulled me into an awkward hug. It threw me off-balance. Charlie doesn’t hug me—we don’t hug each other—it isn’t our thing. Wedgies, wet willies, dead legs, and broken noses—those are our things. “Family dinner, bro.”
Mom shook her head. Her shoulders were slumped and her back bowed, giving her the impression of having a hump. “Charlie, I don’t think tonight—”
“We’re pregnant.”