She sneers but holds on to her sponge, having deemed my comment not sponge worthy. “Actually six,” she says, “if you include Mom and Dad.”
I hose off the suds and hand her a towel for drying. “Leave it to me,” I tell her, because although I don’t often mess with Mom’s and Dad’s heads, when I do, I’m pretty good at it.
43) AUDACIOUS
Dad’s in the spare bedroom grading papers on Emerson. Mom is out, probably with the Ewok. They’re rarely home at the same time except in the evenings. The first things I notice when I enter the room are the suitcases. Two of them. They’ve migrated from the basement. A pair of no-nonsense gray roll-aboards made of sturdy ballistic nylon. They can catch a bullet, and your suit would still stay pressed.
The cases are not being packed; but they sit ominously in the corner, waiting for the day, the hour, the moment when Dad will use them and move out. I try not to think about them as I approach my father.
“Papers from your grad students?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says, “although to read these essays, you’d never know.”
Looking at the essays, I can see handwritten notes between every line. You could create a whole second essay from what he’s written back to them.
“Busywork,” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re filling the hours with busywork so you don’t have to think about stuff with Mom. I get it.”
He rubs his forehead like Advil is in order. “Is there something you want, Tennyson?”
I pick up one of the essays and casually pretend to read it. “I guess everything’s relative,” I say. “I mean, what’s going on in our family is nothing compared to what happened to Brewster Rawlins. What’s happening to him, I mean.”
Dad continues red-inking his students’ work. “Sometimes you have to count your blessings.”
“Bronte’s all broken up over it.”
Finally Dad puts down the paper he’s reading. “Are they still dating?”
It surprises me that he doesn’t know that; but then, these days nothing should surprise me. Rather than make assumptions about how much he knows, I bring him up to date—the fact that Brew and his brother have no family and that Mr. Gorton’s ancient criminal record leaves everyone royally screwed. I don’t tell him about the healing thing because I’m not an idiot.
Once I’m done with the saga of woe, Dad throws me a glance—I think by now he knows what’s coming— then he returns to his work. “Too bad we can’t help,” he says.
“Actually, we can.”
“Absolutely not!”
This was okay; I was expecting this. Walls don’t fall without effort.
“We’re in no position to take them in,” he says. “Besides, someone else will; and if not, well, I’m sure social services will take fine care of them.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Dad sighs. “Are you completely clueless, Tennyson? Do you have any idea how bad the timing is? Do you even see what’s going on between your mother and me?”
“I see everything,” I tell him coldly. “I see more than you.” And I believe that’s true.
“So then, case closed.”
That expression “case closed” makes me look over at the two suitcases standing against the wall like a pair of hollow tombstones.
“Maybe taking them in will change things,” I suggest to my father. “What if putting ourselves out for someone else is just what we all need? What you and Mom need…” Dad sighs. “Putting ourselves out for someone else? Now you sound like your sister.”
“Then you’d better listen, because me sounding like Bronte is one of the signs of the apocalypse— and if the end of the world is coming, good deeds could earn you Judgment Day brownie points.”
He doesn’t laugh. His shoulders are still slumped; his attitude has not changed. “It’s a nice idea, but we can’t do it. Now, please—I really have a lot of work to do.”
I sit there a moment more, pretending to weigh the validity of the things he’s said. I pretend like I’m getting a clue.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I bothered you.” I shift in my chair as if I’m getting ready to stand up and leave. Then I say, “Mom would never allow it anyway.”
I can practically hear the hairs on his neck bristling. “Then for once your mother and I would be in agreement.”
“Well, yeah…,” I say. “But even if you wanted to take them in, she’d shut it down.”
He still won’t look at me. “It’s not like your mother makes all the decisions around here.”
“No?”
He taps his red pen on his stack of essays. Finally he turns to look at me. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re trying to manipulate me into taking in Brewster and his brother.”
I don’t deny it. “Is it working?” I ask.
He laughs at that. Now all bets are off. I don’t know how this is going to play out. Then Dad says, “If you want it to work, you need to make me think it’s my idea.”
” I t was your idea,” I say in total deadpan seriousness. “You suggested it just a second ago.”
He laughs again. “My mistake.” And he shakes his head at my bald-faced audacity. He thinks about it for a moment, or pretends to think about it—I don’t know who’s toying with whom anymore. Then he says, “I’ll discuss it with your mother, and we’ll make a joint decision.”
“That’s all I can ask,” I say, “that you and Mom give serious thought to a decision that Bronte and I will remember for the rest of our lives.”
He studies me with that tentative gaze of parental evaluation—you know the one: It’s both a little bit proud and a little bit frightened at the same time. Then he says, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
I know this one! I snap my fingers and say, “Shakespeare—The Merchant of Venice.”
“Actually,” says my father, “I was thinking Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, but both answers, A and B, are valid.”
Mom and Dad have their discussion, and the answer is still no. The Gortons are denied foster-parent status less than a week later; and as soon as social services can wade through their own paperwork, Brew and Cody will be sent to “the something home for something-something children,” vanishing into the system, never to be seen again.
If the wall Mom and Dad have erected is going to fall, it has to fall soon. It’s Bronte who completes the erosion process, turning herself into a human tsunami, as if it’s a secret superpower. Although I’ll never admit it to her, I’m in awe, and a little bit frightened of her now. I’m there when Jericho falls. It begins with a phone call, which I’m about to pick up; but Bronte, seeing the number on the caller ID, stops me. It rings one more time, and I hear Mom take the call in the hallway. We both listen.
“Excuse me, you’re from whose office?” we hear Mom say. “An attorney? What’s this all about?”
I don’t like the sound of that. When your parents are living on a fraying tightrope, a call from a lawyer is a very bad sign. I turn to Bronte, but the look on her face is more anticipation than dread.
“Let me get this straight—you’re calling for Bronte? Why would you want to speak to my daughter?” Mom listens for a moment more, then Bronte whispers to me: “They won’t tell her a thing— attorney/client confidentiality.”
“You hired a lawyer?”
“Consulted,” Bronte tells me. “Consultations are free.”
The phone call ends abruptly with Mom saying, “No, wait, don’t hang up,” which they obviously do.
