This was topped a little later by Michael, who in all seriousness asked me, “Irene, what is it you want?”
We all looked at him.
“I’m fine, Michael. I’ve got all I want.” I meant it.
“But Grandma said you were a wantin’ woman.”
Bea was mortified, but Frank started to howl with laughter and was soon joined by everyone but Michael and Brian, who exchanged that look that says adults are nuts.
“Did Grandma get it wrong again?” he asked when he could be heard.
“Not that time, Michael,” Frank answered.
No one would let me help with the cleanup, so I sat outside watching the boys play. Brian had a toy clown that they were punching and flinging around, but the clown had the signs of being well-loved otherwise. Frank came out before long and sat next to me. Brian and Michael wore down and sat next to us. Brian wanted to sit on my lap, and Frank figured out a way for him to do it. “You have to sit very quietly,” Frank said. “Irene has been hurt.”
“How?” Brian asked, poking a hole in the clown’s neck with his finger.
“We’re not supposed to ask that, dummy,” Michael chided.
“I’m not a dummy. Irene, can you take your casts off?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“When you do, can I wear them?”
“They have to saw them off,” Michael said with relish.
Brian’s eyes grew wide. “How do you know?”
“A kid at school broke his arm and he had a cast and we all signed it and they cut it off with a saw.”
“Can we sign your cast, Irene?”
“Sure,” I said.
Frank laughed. “Boys, I wonder why we haven’t thought of it up to now? That’s a great idea. But I have dibs on the ankle cast. You guys can take the arm.”
“I’m not sure I appreciate being divided up by you, Mr. Harriman.”
But the boys were racing inside to ask Grandmother for marking pens. We went inside to a desk, so that my shoulder wouldn’t bear the weight of my arm. The boys went to work eagerly and that is how the cast on my right arm was decorated with stick figures, unidentified swirls, airplanes dropping bombs, and the scrawled names of the artists.
They ran out of available arm cast and were eyeing the leg cast covetously when Cassie and Mike told them it was time to go home. They protested loudly to no avail, and I got a gentle kiss from each of them before they left. “Good-bye, Aunt Irene,” Brian had said, and no one corrected him.
AFTER THEY WERE GONE, the house seemed a little empty. Or a little larger. Frank came over to me and asked me to sit on the swing with him for a while. He held me against him and rocked the swing back and forth.
“We have a decision to make,” he said.
Uh-oh, I thought.
“We either stay here in separate bedrooms or go to a hotel.”
I smiled. “Oh, is that all? Let’s stay here.”
He gave me a wry look. “I’m that easy to give up?”
“Not at all. I’ll miss you terribly. But think of what it will be like when we get back home.”
“You have a point. Aren’t you worried about nightmares?”
“Lately I’ve been able to wake up from them a little more quietly.”
“I’ve noticed. But I don’t like the idea of not being there for you. I’ll be in the room across from yours. Call me if you need me for anything — Mom or no Mom, okay?”
“Okay. Are you still going to undress me?”
“You really know how to torture a guy, you know that?”
BUT WHEN IT CAME time to get ready for bed, Bea shooed him out of my room and helped me instead. Even though she was another woman, it was embarrassing to me to have her do it. Frank knew all my tender spots and was able to avoid causing any additional discomfort when he helped. Bea tried, and I bore with it, but by the time I got into the bed I was sore in a couple of places; my blasted shoulder was already throbbing from when the boys had gotten overly enthusiastic about their artwork.
She tucked me in and sat on the edge of the bed. “I owe you an apology,” she said after a while.
“I’d prefer we just forget about it and go on from here, if that’s all right with you.”
She nodded. “Frank’s a man now. I guess I have to learn to let him make his own mistakes.”
I laughed and she quickly said, “Oh dear, I didn’t mean that to sound quite like that.”
“It’s okay. Good night.”
“Good night, Irene.” She smiled, adding, “It’s like the song.”
She left humming it.
I heard her open Frank’s door and say good night to him as well. “And you stay on your side of the hallway, you
