The Last Romantics(15)
Only Coach Marty did not leave us alone. Maybe it was the week after that first ride to the field, or the next month, or next season. I don’t remember exactly, but I do remember that one day Marty Roach came home with us.
That night there was a baseball game, a midseason corker between the Mavericks and the Eagles from neighboring Milford. Joe scored three runs, committed no errors, caught a high fly ball to close out the sixth inning, and you could see the hope drain from the faces of those Milford boys. The sun lingered in the sky after the game, bright pinks and orange, and in the air there was a buzzy warmth. My hands were sticky from melted ice cream. Joe’s purple-and-green uniform looked regal in the dying light, a worn-out king touched with glitter and dirt.
After the game Marty drove us home. I remember standing with him at our front door, which was painted the same dingy gray as the rest of the house. Our screen was torn, broken long ago during a game of pirates between me and Joe. The corner hung down, nearly touching the ground.
Renee used her key to let us in. She did not hesitate. She threw open the door as if to say, Here it is. Look and tell me, is this okay?
Coach Marty stood in the middle of the living room—a mess of unpacked boxes and dirty dishes, games, forts, discarded clothing, a trail of checkers I had laid days ago for a lost stuffed bear—and called for our mother.
“Mrs. Skinner? Mrs. Skinner? Antonia?”
No answer. And so Renee yelled, “Noni! Noni, come here!”
After a spell we heard a creak of floorboards. Noni emerged at the end of the hall in her bathrobe, which was dirty, her long hair wild around her head, and in that moment we saw her anew. Her face was indoor pale, her feet bare. I noticed the musty stench of the house, of unwashed floors and dirty dishes, damp towels, dusty corners. What before had been only Noni resting, always resting, now appeared to me terrible.
Our mother looked at Marty and said, “Oh. Hello.”
*
Not long after this, our Aunt Claudia arrived from Cleveland. She was childless, our father’s much-older sister whom we had met only once before at his funeral. She had tightly curled gray hair that sat like a bathing cap on her head and a long, horsey face. Claudia brought with her one pink suitcase and an air of rigorous competence. Our mother left the house; our mother returned; the house became clean; we became clean. Our mother left the house again, only this time she wore a neat blue skirt suit and lipstick colored a race-car red. Claudia told us that Noni was looking for a job, and about time, too.
“You’ve got to get on with things,” Claudia said as we watched Noni drive away. “Too much laying around isn’t good for anyone. Remember that. Keeping busy is the best defense against feeling sad. It’s simple, but it’s true.”
Aunt Claudia was proof of this lesson. She was the least sad and most busy person I had ever met. She swirled around our house with a cloth and a spray bottle like a bird looking for an exit, and everything she bumped into became clean, tidy, sparkling. Back home Aunt Claudia worked as a teller at a bank in North Royalton, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb. She described for us the intricate details of her job, the piles of twenties wrapped in special paper, the safe as big as a room, the secret slots of the safe-deposit boxes where people placed the oddest things.
“Once a man came in and rented one for a pair of shoes, ladies’ shoes,” she told us. “Now, why would anyone do such a thing?”
For four weeks Claudia cooked large, well-balanced meals that we ate until our stomachs groaned; she cycled load after load of dirty clothes through the washer and dryer; she read aloud books we had read before, but still we listened; she bought us art supplies, and we colored diligently the pictures of forest animals and trees, though we were far too old for coloring books.
I wrote muscle, broom, thick, bristle, warm, squeak, soap, gravy, meat, full.
What we liked best of all was Claudia telling stories about our father when he was a boy: his extreme fear of ants, his favorite food (meatballs), the operation he had when he was ten to fix the knuckle of his right thumb (trigger thumb, she called it). When she recounted these episodes, her eyes would become glassy and she’d dab at them with a tissue she pulled from a small plastic pack that accompanied her everywhere.
One day we were eating lunch when Aunt Claudia said, “Joe, you look just like your father.” She paused to blow her nose into a tissue. “You’re the man of the family now. Don’t you forget it.”
We had never before considered the word man with reference to Joe. When Claudia said this, we all turned toward him. We were eating pink boiled hot dogs with white buns that disappeared like cotton candy in your mouth. Noni was out on another interview.
Suddenly Joe seemed altered. He felt it, too. He stiffened his shoulders, brought up his puffy chest. “I’m the man of the family,” he repeated, and I giggled because it struck me as both absurd and momentous. Joe was ten years old. A man.
Although we basked in Claudia’s attentions and listened avidly to her stories, inside we remained watchful. There was so much information, so much nutrition and stimulation that we barely spoke during the month that she stayed with us. We did everything she told us to do. We did not fight or talk back or make large messes because we were too exhausted by her capable, forceful presence. But secretly each of us wondered: what will happen when Aunt Claudia leaves?
On her last night, Aunt Claudia took us all to the International House of Pancakes. We were celebrating Noni’s new job as a receptionist at Dr. Hart’s dental practice across town. Dr. Hart, our father’s old competitor, had been looking for someone like our mother, someone who knew the ins and outs of the business, the peculiar dental vocabulary, the complexities of a dentist’s life.