We Were The Mulvaneys Part 46

Of course, he might still have used the knife. There was that terrible possibility-Patrick might have used the knife. For what had my brother said, boasted-he was accustomed to "dissecting" animals in the lab? Was that actually what Patrick had said?

I carried the rifle back to High Point Farm, smuggled it into the house amid back to Dad's cabinet, locked the cabinet door. I was desperate to hear from Patrick what had happened, but he didn't call until 10 P.M. that night, from Ithaca; and then he said only, tersely, "It's over-justice has been executed."

"But, Patrick-what happened?"

"Look, Judd: the less you know, the less you're involved. It's over."

"But what does that mean? Did you actually-"

"I don't think he'll ever tell anyone what happened even if he recognized me which I'm not convinced he did, or didn't-you understand?" Patrick was speaking rapidly. "It's over and I'm through and I might not be speaking to you or Morn for a while."

"But, Patrick-"

"Can't talk now, Judd. But thanks! And, hey-I love you."

Quickly hanging up, before I could stammer any response.

So I'd think in the months and eventually years to come Patrick loves me, what I'd risked was worth it.

Which I still believe, to this day.

It was in early June just before the "incident" (as Morn woule subsequently call it) between Dad and me, and maybe this had somnething to do with the incident, that, suddenly, Marianne was back ix touch. Calling one Sunday evening as if nothing were wrong, an we hadn't heard from her in months.

"Oh, my goodness! Marianne," Morn exclaimed. "I picked ui the phone and-my goodness, it's you."

Pressing her hand against her heart, leaning against a doorftam

Marianne was fine she said, living in Spartansburg in the ver northwestern corner of Pennsylvania, south of Erie; her address w- in care of a woman namned Penelope Hagstr"m, a poet, a philan thropist, in her sixties, a wonderful person for whom Marianne w-

"a sort of all-around a.s.sistant and friend." Miss Hagstr"m was con- fined to a wheelchair, she'd been stricken with multiple sclerosis at the age of twenty-nine. She'd been engaged but the young man had broken it off and she'd never married, had no children and just a handful of distant, not very involved relatives. A wonderful person, Marianne reiterated, with high standards of integrity, behavior. Mom was guardedly pleased, hoped that Marianne was still managing to take some college courses?-and Marianne vaguely murmured yes, or she would be, soon, at a local community college. Mom hoped that Marianne was being paid "decently" by this Miss Hagstrom and that she wasn't being taken "criminal advantage of" as she'd been at the Green Island Co-op or whatever that place was called. In turn, Mom reported that our new house was just a little cramped, and the highway was closer than they would have liked (those d.a.m.ned trucks!-everything rattled including Corinne's teeth practically, she had to press a hand over one ear to talk on the phone), and Dad was having trouble finding the ideal location for the business, but otherwise things were fine, just fine! Everyone's health was fine! Marianne had numerous questions about the house, what did it look like, how large, what were the views from the window5, which pieces of furniture were in which rooms, which artworks on the walls? Did Mom remember that old painting "The Pilgrim" that Marianne had always liked so much? Mom said hurriedly that it had only been a print, not a painting, and she hadn't seen it for years-probably it had been tossed out with the mountain of trash when they'd moved. And there wasn't much point in describing the new house because it was just temporary, they planned to build a house of their own design- "Once your father gets Mulvaney Roofing back on its feet."

Every time I overheard Mom say this to whomever, a weird grin would crack over my face. Back on its feet. Like a drunk or a stroke victim who'd just crumpled.

On the phone with me, Marianne was cheerful, sunny-sounding. Questions about my new school, new friends I'd made, how did I like Ma.r.s.ena I managed to answer in the same tone, saying what sounded plausible There was in the background beyond Marianne's voice a muted clatter like dishes being washed, cutlery-I had a quick flash of my twenty-one-year-old Sister holding the phone receiver awkwardly between her shoulder and one ear as she stooped over a sink in someone's kitchen. Would she be wearing rubber gloves? Was her hair still so short, shorter than mine? I could see a gloomy high-ceilinged kitchen with gla.s.s-k.n.o.b cupboards neatly lined with oilcloth, I could see a large chipped old gas stove, one of those old-fashioned refrigerators on legs, whirring motor on top like a pillbox hat. Elsewhere, in another part of the house, a chisel-faced gray-haired woman sat in a wheelchair, blanket tucked in tight over her knees, waiting for Marianne to please hurry, to push her out into the garden before it gets too chill. The walled garden was soft-rotted old brick, crumbling masonry. Wild ragged English ivy nibbled by aphids. Leggy black-spotted rosebushes. Was that scrawny speckled-white cat picking his way through the lichen, all backbone and tail, m.u.f.fimi? Was m.u.f.fin still living? I was afraid to ask.

In a lowered voice, hurried as if she was running out of time, or in fact someone was calling her, Marianne said, "m.u.f.fin's in great shape, Judd. I forgot to tell Mom, so will you? m.u.f.fin says h.e.l.lo and he misses you all."

"Well-h.e.l.lo to m.u.f.fin, too. We miss him, too."

"He loves it here. It's so much more peaceful than the Co-op."

"It sounds sort of-busy."

"Have you heard from Patrick?"

"Oh, Patrick-he's in Denver studying geology, or-no, he's in Fargo, North Dakota working in a children's hospital-"

"Is he all right? Is he happy?"

"He sounds very happy. Not like Pinch at all."

"Can you give him my number? Next time he calls?"

"Do we have your number?"

There was a m.u.f.fled sound in the background as of creaking, rolling. A door with hinges needing to be oiled-unless it was a voice. "Oh, dear-I guess I have to hang up now, Judd. Love you! I-4iss you!''

"Marianne, wait-"

"Love to Daddy, too-but don't tell him if he won't want to hear, please? Bye!"

And in an instant it all vanished-dishes being washed in a sink, humming-vibrating refrigerator, Miss Penelope Hagstrom in her wheelchair, m.u.f.fin picking his way through a stranger's walled garden, my sister Marianne with her head at a sharp angle holding a telephone receiver against her shoulder. Not even a dial tone, just a dead line.

Naturally Mom didn't tell Dad that Marianne had called, and I surely didn't. Nor did Mom say mnuch about Marianne to me, even

to fret aloud about why Marianne wasn't going to college, preparing for a career. Maybe she worried I might take up the conversation again in Dad's hearing. And Dad was in such a mood these days, swinging between lethargy and mania, it was hardly the right time to speak to him of Marianne.

But a few days after Marianne's call, there Mom was with a book she'd driven seventy miles to a Yewville bookstore to buy- The Selected Poems of Penelope Hagstrom. The publisher was a "real" New York publisher and the poems, Mom said, were difficult to understand but very good, she thought. In fact, profound.

"Oh, I'm so proud of Marianne" Mom said excitedly. "I'm thinking of calling some old friends, in Mt. Ephraim. Finally my daughter has been recognized by someone of quality."

Next night was the "incident" between Dad and me.

In fact just for the record, I guess I feel guilty about this-, there'd been plenty of "incidents" for a long time I'd tolerated in silence. I mean months, years of mny father ordering me around, half the time in a sarcastic voice, as he'd never ordered Mike or Patrick. I felt that hurt as keenly as the hurt of being treated by my father like a dog. Well, worse-Dad had a soft spot for poor almost-blind Foxy. He'd never have been sarcastic to Foxy!

This was the night of June 11, a damp windy nothing-day, by coincidence exactly a month before my eighteenth birthday, when Mom's rattletrap old station wagon finally broke down and died. She'd been doing errands in Ma.r.s.ena and the motor just gave out, lucky for Mom practically in the front yard ofJimrny Ray Pluckett and his wife Nanci-"The Reverend and the Reverend of the New Church of Christ the Healer of Ma.r.s.ena, New York" (the Plucketts were both ordained ministers and had a dual appointment-_and even before the Buick's motor ceased sputtering, Jimmy Ray had trotted out to offer a.s.sistance He was a tall rangy freckle-spotted man of any age between thirty and fifty, in khaki shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. Not only did Jimmy Ray call a tow truck for Mom inimediately, but when the mechanic told Mom the bad news that the motor was "beyond repair," Jimmy Ray and Nanci drove Mom out to the house, five mniles away; and Nanci, a short plumpish woman with vivid eyes, offered to drive Morn wherever she needed to go next day, and the day after next-saying, with a child's frankness, that Mom looked like she'd about come to the end of her tether.

"And I know what a 'tether' is, around the neck," Nanci Pluckett said, stroking her mieck reflectively, "-I have to confess, I been married before. Not to a Christian man."

To the Plucketts' embarra.s.sment, Mom burst into tears. She wasn't used to being treated so considerately, she said, in a long while.

Then clamping her hand over her mouth, blinking appalled at her newfound friends. "Oh, my goodness, what did I say? I don't mean that at all. That's the most ridiculous self-pity"

The Plucketts gave Mom their joint card-identifying them as "The Reverend and the Reverend"-and told her to call them, any time. And to drop by the New Church of Christ the Healer which was just up the road from where her station wagon had died.

Dad missed supper that evening, didn't call to explain why, arrived home around 10 P.M. sullen and heavy-footed and in no mood for surprises. He'd seen, of course, that the Buick was missing from the driveway and naturally he wasn't happy about it. I heard him and Mom discussing the problem, calmly enough at first and then with tnore urgency as Dad's voice rose in volume with a beat like chopping wood. Don't listen. Stay out of it. He can't seriously blame her-can he? I was in "my" room at a back corner of the house, a room approximately the size of the old claw-footed bathtub we'd had at the farm, and I'd pushed my windows up as far as they could go so the exterior night seemed to be in. I was sprawled on my bed listening to a radio turned low and leafing through some paperbacks I'd brought home-"borrowed"-from the Miracle Mart where I worked four afternoons a week-a handbook Backpacking in the

Mountains: A Personal Odyssey, a "pictorial biography" of John F. Kennedy, Lovejoy's College Guide. That was the way I read most things-three or four at once. Even Patrick's science magazines and books I'd appropriated, I was too restless and my nund too scattered to focus on just one. Even The Selected Poems of Penelope Hagstrom I'd looked into and agreed with Mom they were hard to understand but inipressive and who knows?-maybe even profound.

After a while I couldn't pretend not to be hearing. My drunk bully-Dad cursing my Mom because he's a loser, he's a failure and a bankrupt and all the world's waiting to know.

So I run out there so scared I'm shaking and it's just then that Dad must've pushed or punched Mom, there's her cry of pain, "Oh!-

Michael-" and she's scrambling to escape, out the side door beneath the carport and Dad is grabbing at her, ripping a sleeve of her shirt, tugging at her hair-"G.o.d d.a.m.n you listen to me, just for once you listen to me!" but Mom gets away, and Dad's right behind her, and huddled beneath the breakfast nook Foxy and Little Boots are barking in terror, I'm running into the kitchen and outside where my parents are struggling together, panting, Mom crying, I'm pulling at Dad's arm, you don't touch a man like Michael Mulvaney but I'm pulling at his fatty-muscled arm, "Don't hurt Mom! You're drunk! Leave her alone!" and Dad bares his teeth at me, a vein standing out on his forehead, a red-flushed sweaty face like a mask, one of those Polynesian devil-masks I'd seen in a book, and with one arm as if he's slinging a box of shingles onto a truck he swings me around, slams me against the side of the house, as Mom begs, "No. No. No. No. Michael, no." There's a roaring in my ears but I'm flailing out at Dad-striking with my fists that haven't the force to counter the force conung at me-the sheer weight of my father, two hundred pounds so compact, bullnecked-I'm as tall as Dad now but fifty pounds lighter and he's practically laughing at me, contemptuous, loathing-"Who do you think you are! You punk! You're nothing! You and your brothers! Letting your father down! Insulting your father! Every one of you-ungrateful b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" His hard fist on the side of my head, my head's ringing, suddenly I'm sliding down the wall of the house, sitting on the cold cement floor of the carport, amazed touching my face that's slippery with blood. And Mom is bending over me, crying, "Oh Judd, oh honey, are you hurt?" and Dad backs off, disgusted, "You make me sick, both of you. Y'hear? You make me sick. Get a man in a trap, rat in a trap, his head in a vise, tangled in f.u.c.king barbed wire-"

His voice trails off muttering. He doesn't touch Mom again, luckily because I can't stop him if he does. He might kick, kick, kick me and I don't have strength enough even to crawl away. Instead he fumbles for his car keys in his pants pocket, drops them, gropes for them on the cement with a grunted obscenity, throws himself into the Lincoln and backs out skidding and seesawing to the highway with the twin manic German shepherds next door barking furiously iii his wake and behind Mom and me in the kitchen our dogs are whimpering, that doggy-plaintive-helpless terror you know will smell exactly like dog pee when you get close enough.

ON MY OWN.