Here So Far Away(49)

Dad grabbed his walker and did his best to storm out. He paused in the doorway. “George, did you say you’re going to the farm tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Why not Thursday?”

“I don’t always go on Thursdays.”

“When will you be back?”

What was he playing at? Were we going to pretend that he suddenly had a clue, any clue at all, when my earlobe had just been in Francis’s mouth and my hamper probably held traces of his DNA?

“Ten thirty. Maybe eleven.”

“I’m holding you to eleven. Marlene, when you’ve calmed down, I could use a tea.”

He lurched onward. Only my father would attempt a grand exit to stage left as though anyone would be sorry to see him go.

Mum stared down at the catalog, lips pressed together tightly. “I’ll do it,” I said. “You want a cup too?”

Into the silence the radio announcer boomed: “And finally, a special request for Chad Harkness of Greeeenville! If you’re still on your way to the grocery store, please pick up an extra bag of milk for your aunt Delores!”

Before I met Francis I used to think that love was A plus B equals C. That if you were good friends with someone and you thought they were attractive enough to have sex with, that was love. But C is not A plus B—C is C, and I didn’t know how exactly you got to C, but I did know it had something to do with conversation, at least for me, and wanting to take care of that person, needing to know they’re okay, plus an almost irresistible desire to snack on their neck.

As I drove out to meet Francis, for a record two times in one day, I thought about the impossibility that my parents had ever had that. It seemed like they’d gotten married for what you might call practical reasons. Dad needed someone to pick up after him, inject his medication, and force-feed his children Solomon Gundy twice a year to build their characters via briny pickled herring. For Mum, being married to a police officer, that was making it. The dangers a cop faced in the valley weren’t much worse than what her family had faced at the meatpacking plant, in the forests, at sea. Now she was worried about money and running away from home because Dad had stepped on a pebble.

Maybe we were lucky, Francis and me, not to have a dream about what our lives were supposed to be like or to be sure about what we wanted. If you don’t have expectations, you can’t let anyone down.

“Say car,” Francis said, after we’d given the lighthouse floors a good scrubbing, as I’d come to think of it.

“No.”

“Say it. Say car.”

“No.”

“Okay, fine. . . . Say car.”

“Car!”

He rolled over laughing. “I found George’s accent. She left it in the . . .”

“Ugch. Car?”

He cracked up again.

“Who’s the adult here?” I pushed him onto his side so I could draw on his back. “Hey, did you get along with your parents?”

“Uh-oh. Gonna get heavy.”

“You never talk about them. I guess I already know you weren’t a big fan of your dad’s.”

“He did introduce me to some good books, I’ll give him that. And I, in turn, gave him the greatest disappointment of his life.”

“What was that?”

“Me.” Francis rubbed his face vigorously. “Sorry, too heavy.”

“What about your mum?”

“Am I being interviewed or interrogated?”

“Just curious.”

“She’s hard.”

“Hard to describe?”

He rapped on the wood floor. “Hard. But the family’s pilfering of natural resources got me into private schools, so—”

“Ooh, uniforms.”

“This is why I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Do you keep in touch with the people you went to school with?”

“I’ve moved around too much, and I’m bad about letter writing. There are a few people I’ll visit when I can. Not so easy now. Can we change the subject?” He rolled me onto my back and pinned my shoulders to the floor. “Let’s see if George can say something romantic.”

“She cannot.”

“Come on, deep inside I bet you’re the most syrupy, sentimental—”

“Get off me, you commie bastard.”

I’d learned this in Modern World Problems: You can make any sentence more interesting by inserting the phrase “commie bastard.” For example, President Clinton plays the saxophone, the commie bastard. The drugstore is going to start opening on Sundays, the commie bastards.

Francis tried it out. “Easter Bunny is coming, the commie bastard. Not bad, Frances.”

“Thank you, Francis. The key is to be as random as possible.”

“They’re giving me a medal, the commie bastards—”

“I mean, you weren’t that good.”

“No, the force. They’re giving me a medal for bravery. So that’s something.” He rolled back onto the floor beside me.

“Why don’t you sound very happy about it?”

“I am. It bothers me that you can’t come to the ceremony.”

Was there a day on the horizon when Francis and I could be together, really together? I had never slept with him—actually slept with him. What would that be like? Did he snore? Would he want to cuddle all night? I always slept with one leg on top of the blanket to stay cool; what would I do with a man in my bed? Just lying with him was like snuggling an electric space heater. Then again, what would it be like to not always be watching the clock, not wanting to say, It’s time, but also not wanting him always to be the one to say it?