used the microwave. There was no way we could cook enough for ten people at one time. So first we had a few sips of vegetable soup, and then we shared bites of spinach and mushrooms, and then the main course of rice, shad, and green beans. We each had two dried figs for dessert.
Then the party began. We’re used to spending the evenings together in the sunroom, Bible studies in one corner, chess and card games in another, but the whole idea of a party is to play the same games together. Charlie suggested charades.
“What’s charades?” Julie asked.
I had the feeling Alex didn’t know, either, but to be fair about it, I doubt Jon does and it’s not like I’ve ever played. Charlie explained about acting out names of songs or movies or books, and we divided into boys vs. girls. The boys went into the kitchen to come up with their titles, and we girls stayed in the sunroom to work out ours. Gabriel was an honorary girl. Mom sacrificed a piece of typing paper for us to write our titles on, and Jon donated the use of his Phillies cap for the girls’ slips of paper and his Yankees cap for the boys’. Then Charlie coached all of us on how to divide words into syllables and to cup your ear for “sounds like.”
It turned out to be hard coming up with names of things. You want something that’s perfect to stump the other team, but it’s not like I’ve seen a lot of movies lately or read a lot of books. And all the songs seemed too obvious. But we each came up with two names, put them in the cap, and played.
Alex went first, and he pulled out Mom’s choice of Little Women, which was much too easy. Lisa went next, and she got Matt’s title, Finnegans Wake, which was impossible, even though Mom said she had tried to read it once.
But it didn’t matter, because whether we did well (Dad and Syl were the best at acting things out, and Mom was the best at guessing) or miserably (Jon, with me a close second), it was a lot of fun. It feels like such a long time since I’ve done anything silly. At least intentionally silly.
We played until the electricity went off, but we were still enjoying ourselves, so Syl ran upstairs and got Matt’s old guitar.
“I’ve been teaching myself,” Syl said. “I’m not very good yet.”
She had to be better than Matt, though. He got the guitar for his fourteenth birthday, played it nonstop for three days, and never looked at it again.
Syl strummed chords and Charlie sang, and then we all sang. Julie, it turns out, has a pretty voice, and with candles and the woodstove for light, you could see Alex’s face glowing with pride. Which made me kind of like him again, at least for a minute or two.
After we’d finished massacring every Beatles song we could remember any of the words to, Charlie said to Syl, “I’d like to learn how to play the guitar. My fingers were always too fat before. Would you mind if I learned with you?”
“Not at all,” Syl said. “That would be fun.”
“I’d like to learn, too,” Julie said. “Could we start tomorrow?”
“There’s no point,” Alex said. “We’ll be leaving in a day or two.”
“I don’t want to go,” Julie said. “I want to stay with Hal and Lisa and Gabriel.” She paused for a moment. “And Charlie, too,” she said. “And Jon.”
“We’ve stayed too long as it is,” Alex said. “You know what the plan is, Julie. It’s not open for discussion.”
“It’s not fair!” Julie yelled. “No one asked me what I want to do!”
I’d write what Alex yelled back at her, but he switched to Spanish. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but there was no doubting the tone.
Matt and I have had our fights, but we never sounded that bad. The fights we had were over hogging the computer or getting in each other’s way. He was mean. I was a pest. We had fights like that with Jon, too.
But this, whatever it was they were saying, was much deeper, much angrier. I guess it was the fight brothers and sisters have when they don’t have parents to stop them.
For a moment I was afraid Alex might hit Julie, but that was just in my head, since he didn’t step any closer to her. But he must have said something really bad and Julie must have said something even worse because she ran outside, slamming the door behind her.
“She’ll freeze out there,” Lisa said.
“No,” Alex said. “She’ll be all right. Let her cool off.”
He had to have felt all of us staring at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She doesn’t want to leave. But it’s the right thing.”
“Is it?” Dad asked. “You know how much we love Julie. She’s family. She’ll be safe with us.”
Alex shook his head. “I know you mean that, Hal, and I’m grateful. But there’s food now and it feels safe. Things change too fast.”
“Even if we left, we’d take her with us,” Dad said. “She’ll always have a home with us.”
“If you have a home,” Alex said. “For as long as you have food. No, the decision’s been made, and it’s the right one, even if Julie doesn’t see that. No matter what happens, we trust the church to protect her.”
Which was more than Alex was doing, letting her run outside without a coat. I got up, grabbed one, and carried it outside.
Julie was standing by the garage, close to where I’d been the night Mom kicked me out. Only it was raining that night, so I got to suffer more. I grinned at winning the martyr contest.
“I brought you this,” I said, handing Julie the coat.
“Thank you,” she said, putting it on. “What’s Alex doing? Explaining how wonderful the church is?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “Would you rather stay with us? Even if Alex goes?”
“Yeah,” Julie said. “But he won’t let me. Carlos said I had to go to the convent. We told him about it, and he couldn’t find anyplace else for me to stay, so he said I had to go there. I told him I didn’t want to, but he said I had to anyway. And Alex said Carlos was right.”
“It’s a shame you couldn’t find your aunt and uncle,” I said. “Alex told me about them, how you could have stayed there while he worked in the oil fields.”
“We didn’t want to live in Tulsa,” Julie replied. “I’d have been stuck taking care of my cousins. You think Gabriel cries a lot? He’s nothing compared to them. And Alex’ll be much happier in a monastery than he would be in an oil field.”
“Monastery?” I said. I don’t think I’ve ever said that word before. “Alex wants to enter a monastery?”
“Didn’t he tell you?” Julie asked. “I thought Alex told you everything. I thought maybe he’d like you so much, he’d change his mind.”
I almost burst out laughing. The last living boy in America drops into my bedroom only he wants to be a monk. I think that pretty much sums up my life.
“He doesn’t like me that much,” I said. “And he never told me.”
“It isn’t what he used to want,” Julie said. “Before. He wanted to be president of the United States. And I bet he could have been. He’s so smart and he worked all the time. But after we left Carlos, Alex said he’d take me to the convent and then he’d enter a monastery. There’s a Franciscan one in Ohio that’s still open. I’m never going to be a nun, though. I’ll stay as long as I have to and then I’ll come back here. If you’re gone, I’ll try to find you.”
“We won’t be going anytime soon,” I said. “Mom doesn’t want us to leave, and since Dad and Lisa and the baby can stay at Mrs. Nesbitt’s, there’s no reason for them to go, either.”
“People leave,” Julie said.
I knew she was right, even though I couldn’t picture us leaving anytime soon. “If we do go, we’ll let you know,” I said. “I promise you that.”
“And I promise you, you’re going to freeze without a coat,” Charlie said, approaching us. “It may be the middle of June, but it’s freezing out here.”
“Not freezing,” I said, gratefully taking my coat from him. “It’s definitely above freezing.”
“You’re right,” Charlie said. “It’s got to be at least forty.” He laughed. “I used to hate hot weather,” he said. “Just breathing made me sweat. But now I think about hot summer nights and everything I would give up for one.”
“What?” Julie said. “What would you give up?”
Charlie laughed again. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not any of you and I don’t have anything else. I guess I don’t
