Winter Loon(97)

“He’s getting in trouble,” Annaclaire whispered, taking some glee in it.

“I think so.”

Annaclaire scrunched her face, huddled against me. I put my finger to my lips.

They returned and we finished decorating the tree in measured politeness. Aveline cupped her hand around her daughter’s ear, and Annaclaire ran out of the room only to burst back in carrying an open shoebox with a shiny gold star inside. My father picked her up and swung her toward the treetop, but she squirmed away from him. “No,” she said. “I want Wes to do it.”

He shrugged and smiled at her, but I saw hurt in his eyes.

“Okay, boss. Here you go.” I scooped her up onto my shoulder and she stretched her arms, pulling the tip down, then releasing the branch. The star wobbled to a stop, a little cockeyed.

“Perfect,” she said, satisfied that everything was the way she wanted it. Elizabeth scooted around my father’s legs, purring up at him. Mrs. Blue stood next to me and patted my hand.

“Merry Christmas, Wes,” she said. The colored lights shimmered in her thick glasses. I couldn’t see her eyes at all.



I LEARNED TO DANCE THE waltz that night. My father and Aveline both had a couple of beers with dinner. The mood was lighter than it had been. The tree lights helped. Annaclaire was splayed out on the floor, folding down the pages of a toy catalog to make some sort of angel decoration. Aveline went to turn on the television and my father grabbed her hand as she walked by, pulled her onto his lap in a smooth motion. He wrapped his arms around her so one of his hands was on her shoulder and the other around her waist. “Wes, we ought to take our girls dancing.”

Aveline nudged his chest, gently enough I could see she didn’t really want him to let her go. “We’re not going out now,” she said.

“Who said anything about going out? Geneva, why don’t you play that song you like so much. What’s it?” He snapped his fingers. “‘The Black Hawk Waltz.’”

“Oh,” she said, setting her knitting down. “I do like that one.”

“Little miss, why don’t you push those things off our dance floor.”

“Only if I get to dance with Wes.”

“Looks like you got yourself an admirer,” my father said.

Mrs. Blue played the piano and sang aloud the sounds she played—“brrring dum dum brrring dum dum brrring dum dum dum.” I watched my father with Aveline, the way he held his arm out and she laid her hand in his, his other hand on the small of her back, stroking the channel of her spine, the way her spread of hips pressed into him. I picked up Annaclaire and clowned with her, though I couldn’t stop watching him, how assured he was, how in control. Only hours earlier he had been so lost. Aveline’s hand drifted onto the back of his neck, her thumb going into the wave of hair. He didn’t take his eyes off her, not for a second. And I knew that look, that way he rounded his shoulders toward her, made himself into shelter. I knew it because I’d felt it in the slope of my own shoulders and in the unflinching way I’d tried to tell Jolene by just looking at her how I was feeling. I was my father’s son.

“You’re a terrible dancer, Wes,” Aveline said. “C’mon now. Let’s switch so Annaclaire can dance with her daddy and I can teach you a thing or two.”

Then Aveline was in my arms and, despite my best efforts, I was on her feet, much to Annaclaire’s delight. Aveline and her mother switched places, and I danced with Mrs. Blue while Annaclaire sat between her parents on the piano bench. I spun her around and she said, “Oh, Moss!” to me and I said, “Oh, Geneva!” Annaclaire tossed her head back and laughed like it was the silliest thing she’d ever seen. Mrs. Blue unpinned her gray hair and let it fall in light wisps around her face. I imagined her as a young woman and tried to hold her in a way that would take her back to that time. Annaclaire cut in on her grandmother. I bowed princely and swept her off her feet, spinning her around with no method or form until we were both too dizzy to stand.

I heard my father whispering to Aveline about California, about the sun. How nice it would be there. A record on repeat. Salmon as big as goats, he’d said. There was always somewhere better where the fish jumped higher, pies were juicier, where money sprouted in the money garden, and happiness fell from the happy trees.





CHAPTER 29

IT WAS THAT night that my father told Aveline he was putting down roots, that he wanted me to stay in Burden Falls, too, that he wanted us to be a family. It was like the demons had been vanquished in his confession to me. He was rebuilding. The next morning, she laid down the law about the house, school for me and a full-time job for him, about helping with Mrs. Blue and Annaclaire. I was swept up by the idea. We agreed with all of it. Even Annaclaire was willing to let us replace her bed with one that would fit me better, though by day that room would remain hers. I would again be sleeping in someone else’s space, but for the first time in my life the mattress would be new.

Two days before Christmas, I placed a collect call and Mona accepted it. Her voice made me more than homesick. I felt a hunger, home craving. I imagined it like a loaf of bread fresh from the oven, warm berry juice sluicing from fork holes in a pie, or the slow, steady sounds of a meal coming together, a table being set, a family gathering. I wanted to use the ingredients that made Mona’s kitchen so good to create its equal in the kitchen I was in. Mona wasn’t much for measuring. She always seemed to know how much of anything to use and how to adjust if it didn’t seem like the right amount. How much love would you need to put in to make a family, and what would happen if it was added too late? She would know that by heart.