They May Not Mean To, But They Do(2)

“Come if you dare, our trumpets sound,” he sang. “Come if you dare, the foes rebound…”

He could not tell you what day it was, but he remembered his Purcell.

It was Sunday and she had ordered him a dinner of French toast from the coffee shop. New York was good for the elderly in that way, the deliveries. She had come to include Aaron in the category of “the elderly,” she realized with a pang. And where does that leave me, she wondered vaguely. At any rate, it was too difficult sometimes to herd Aaron and his walker out of the apartment and down the street to the coffee shop. She could have made French toast, she supposed. If there had been eggs. Or bread. If she still cooked.

“Isn’t there a joke, we could have ham and eggs if we had ham…”

“… and we had eggs!”

They laughed, repeated it, “We could have ham and eggs…”

Aaron took a bite of French toast and made a face.

“You love French toast, Aaron, so stop it.”

“Do I?”

He was hunched over the dining-room table. There was a bath mat on the seat of his chair as well as a blue chux pad. Joy leaned over and straightened them.

“You going to work today?” he said.

“No, dear, it’s Sunday.”

“Oh yeah?”

He took a bite of French toast and made another sour face.

“Stop that,” she said. “Anyway, you need a haircut.”

“You going to work today?” he said.

Sometimes Joy thought he was doing it on purpose. “No, not today. Today is Sunday.”

“Oh yeah? What is this, anyway?” he said, poking at the French toast.

“Your dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Joy grabbed his plate and brought it to the kitchen and scraped the French toast into the garbage.

“Joy! Joy!”

She stuck her head back into the dining room.

“You going to work today?” he asked.

“If you ask me that one more time, I’m putting a bag over your head,” she said mildly.

Aaron brought his face down to the teacup and took a sip, then looked fondly at his wife. He pointed to the cup of almost colorless liquid. “Join me, sweetheart?”

He began to sing in his once clear voice, now heavy and hoarse. “Tea for two, me for you…”

He sang pleasantly to himself while Joy fetched herself a cup of tea, and they sat looking out at the traffic’s red brake lights, something they’d both always found festive as the evening drew in.





2

Molly had been a daddy’s girl when she was very young. Her father was the only father she knew who had a beard, and the beard, a neatly combed beard that came almost to a point, was her pride and joy. He would carry her inside his coat, against his chest, like a kangaroo, and she would snuggle her face against his, against that extraordinary beard. Her father and his beard were so obviously superior to other fathers with their flabby pink cheeks. Her father was superior in height, as well. He was so tall that she and Daniel used him as a unit of measurement. How many Daddies high was that tree in the park? What about the elephants at the Museum of Natural History? It was Aaron who read to them when they were little. Push-me-pull-yous and the cat’s meat man; bump, bump, bump down the stairs—books that had been his, books he wished his father had read to him. He bundled up the children and led them to the roof to look at the constellations. He took them out to the park to climb the rocks and along the river to the boat basin to play pirates and launch paper boats that tipped and sank while they sang “Blow the Man Down.” It was Aaron who encouraged them, egged them on, when they begged for a dog, Aaron who went to the animal shelter with them to get a cat when Joy had expressly forbidden it. Aaron’s father had failed him when he was a child, too busy steering the business out of the Depression. Aaron would never do that to his children, he told Joy. True to his word, she would say later: it was the business he failed.

Aaron and Joy were so different from each other that Molly and Daniel had been able to recognize the distance even as young children, Aaron sentimental and unreliable and brimming with love and obvious charm, a man who made you feel you did not have to work too hard because good things were coming to you, from somewhere; Joy distracted, forgetful, thoughtful, brimming with love, too, and oddly inspiring, causing Molly and Daniel to want to work their hardest because working hard seemed such fun. Molly wasn’t sure why she compared them to each other like that, as if she had to make a choice, as if she could make a choice, because different as they were, there was no choice between them, no space between them. They were as one. They held hands when they walked down the street, they fed each other tidbits like lovebirds. It was embarrassing for the children, having such lovey-dovey parents. And reassuring. Like the trumpeters and singers in the Bible, they were as one.





3

“You’d better come home,” Joy said to Molly on the phone. “Daddy’s on the floor.”

“He fell?” Molly tried to calm herself. “Is he okay? Did you call 911?”

“He slid out of his chair. I never should have gotten it in leather. I gave him a cracker.”

“Mom!”

“The handyman’s coming in a minute. He’ll get Daddy up. Never a dull moment, right, Aaron?”