Long Bright River(39)

* * *



—

It’s hard to find parking. When, at last, we reach the house, I can hear from the stoop a high din of voices. I picture, on the other side of the door, a living room full of people I haven’t seen in years.

There is a particular insult that the O’Briens often use to describe people they don’t like: She thinks she’s better than us. Over the years, I fear that it has been used about me.

Standing there on the threshold of Ashley’s house, my childhood shyness returns to me. Thomas, sensing this, clutches my leg. He is holding, behind his back, the rolled picture he made for Ashley. The tray of brownies in my hands wobbles.

I open the door.

Inside are the O’Briens, talking, shouting, eating off red plastic plates. The drinkers have beers in their hands. The sober ones have Cokes and Sprites. The house smells like cinnamon and turkey.

Everyone pauses and stares at us. Some of them nod, sort of formally; two brave souls, older cousins, come over and give us hugs. Gee’s younger brother, my uncle Rich, is there. He notices me and waves. He’s with a wife or girlfriend I’ve never met. There’s my cousin Lennie, and Lennie’s daughter, about ten years younger than I am. I can’t remember her name. A little bunch of children runs past the doorway, and Thomas looks at them longingly but stays close to my leg.

Ashley, coming up from the basement, spots me and stops in her tracks.

—Mickey? she says from across the room. She’s holding two beers in her hands.

—Hi, I say. I hope it’s all right that we came. I found out at the last minute that I didn’t have to work today.

I extend the brownies out to her. An offering.

Ashley recovers her manners.

—Of course, she says. Come on in.

My hands are full. With a knee, I gently nudge Thomas forward, into the house. He steps over the threshold, and I follow.

Ashley crosses the room, then stands still in front of me. She looks down at Thomas. You got so big, she says.

Thomas is silent. I see him begin to produce the poster board he is holding, and then, changing his mind, he tucks it away again.

—How can I help? I ask, at the same time that Ashley says, Is your grandmother coming?

—I don’t think so, I say.

Ashley nods toward the kitchen. We’re good, she says. Get some food. I’ll be back in one second.

A little boy, five or six years old, comes up to Thomas and asks him if he likes army guys, and Thomas says yes, though I’m not sure he knows what they are.

Then they’re gone, to the basement, where from the sounds of it a war is taking place.

Everyone else has gone back to talking.

As always, at O’Brien family functions, I am alone.





For a while, I wander through Ashley’s house, trying to look casual. I see why they moved to Olney: the houses up here are older and bigger, about twice as wide as the rowhome I grew up in. It’s nothing fancy, and the street it’s on isn’t pretty, but I can see why a family of six would want a house like this. The furniture is run-down, and the walls are mainly bare, except, surprisingly, for crucifixes above the thresholds of each room, in the manner of a Catholic grade school. It seems like Ashley’s found religion in recent years.

I nod at some people and say hello to others. Awkwardly, I return hugs when they’re offered. I don’t particularly enjoy being hugged. When we were children, it was Kacey who kept me sane at these events. I would stick by her side as she skillfully navigated any party, fending off teasing and insults or returning them smoothly, but always with a laugh. As young teenagers, we typically found a corner and sat in it together, eating our food, making eye contact with one another whenever any one of our family members said or did something absurd, and then exploding into secret laughter. We saved up stories to trade with one another for days afterward, categorized our relatives with the cruelty and creativity unique to teenage girls.

I cannot shake a particular image as I round each corner: it’s of what my sister would be like, today, if her life had gone differently. I imagine her as she has been on the rare occasions in her adult life that she has been well: drinking a soda, holding somebody’s baby, crouching on the floor beside some little cousin. Petting a dog. Playing with a child.



* * *



—

    I walk through a back door onto a chilly lawn, bordered by a wooden fence that separates it from adjacent lots.

And there he is: my cousin Bobby, smoking a cigarette, standing between his brother and another one of our cousins.

When he sees me, he blinks.

—Hey, there she is, says Bobby as I approach.

He’s gotten heavier since the last time I saw him. He was about six-three to begin with. He’s four years older than I am, and has always intimidated me. When we were small, he used to chase Kacey and me around the basements of O’Brien households with various weapon-like objects, to Kacey’s delight and my terror.

Today he has a beard and wears a Phillies cap, cocked up to one side. His brother John, to his right, and our cousin Louie, to his left, regard me without much emotion. I wonder, in fact, if they even recognize me.

This morning, I carefully considered what to wear, wondering whether it would behoove me to dress up a little in order to show my respect for the occasion, or whether this would further convince the O’Briens that I’m in some way snobbish or strange. In the end, I decided on my standard off-duty uniform: gray pants that are fitted but not tight, and a white button-down shirt, and flat shoes that are good for walking. I brushed my hair into a ponytail and put on small silver earrings in the shape of crescent moons. They were a gift from Simon on the occasion of my twenty-first birthday, and for this reason I have been tempted to throw them away on a number of occasions, but they are so pretty that I never have. I don’t have much jewelry. It would be a shame, I think, to throw out something I find beautiful, simply out of spite.