Remember Me, Irene

step closer to homemade than popping open a tube of refrigerated dough.

“Maybe it was just time to come home, anyway,” Rachel said quietly, bringing me back to the memories of my father’s illness.

“Maybe.” Think of something else.

“Isn’t Frank from Bakersfield?” she asked.

“Yes. We were just friends in those days. It took us another dozen years to meet up again, but that’s where I first met him.”

“So-I guess I still don’t understand why you formed this SOS.”

“We all said things like, ‘I wish I had talked to you back then. It would have helped to know I wasn’t the only one.’ Becky-one of the women there that night-suggested we go around picking up survivors after Andre broke up with them. You know, let them know that they weren’t the first person to go through this routine. Someone said that the only thing Andre didn’t do was batter us.”

“Hmm.” She shook her head.

“Well, the comment made us think. ‘There but for the grace of God,’ and all that. As it happened, around the time we were having this conversation, the battered women’s shelter had lost some grant funding. We decided to make something positive out of what had been a negative experience for us. Sort of mush roomed after that.”

Cody protested as Rachel stopped scratching him. I looked up to find her staring at me. “Tell me the truth. This Andre didn’t hit you, did he?”

“No, Rachel. As far as I know, he never physically abused anyone. Psychologically-that’s another story.”

She looked as if she wanted to comment on that, but the dogs started barking. The doorbell rang.

“I’ll answer it,” she said. “Your hands are covered with dough.”

IFIHAD ANY WORRIES about Lisa and Rachel feeling comfortable with one another, those fears were proven groundless within the first few moments after Lisa’s arrival. Throughout dinner, they talked as much to one another as with me, discussing Rachel’s move to Las Piernas and Lisa’s upcoming candidacy. If Rachel thought it strange that Andre’s name didn’t come up until the meal was nearly finished, she didn’t show it.

“By the way, Andre’s condition hasn’t changed much,” Lisa said. She turned to Rachel. “I don’t know if Irene has told you about the person who is nominally my father. He suffered a heart attack the other night.”

“Yes, I know about his illness,” Rachel said. I knew her well enough to see that she was displeased by Lisa’s flippancy. At first, I doubted Lisa saw it. I was wrong.

“I’m sorry. I’ve offended you. I did the same thing with Irene the other day at lunch. The problem is, I don’t think very highly of my father. Among friends, I tend to let my guard down. My father’s illness hasn’t changed my relationship with him. No miraculous healing of old wounds or finishing of unfinished business. To Jerry, his son, he has been a very affectionate father. To me, worthless.”

“That seems a little harsh,” I said.

She lifted a brow. “Does it? Think back to when you were dating him. When it was my father’s weekend to have custody, what happened?”

“We all shared-”

“Notwe, Irene. You and I. I’ll grant you, there was always the ‘doting father’ show. It drove me crazy for years. He put this big act on whenever he first dated a woman. I was baffled-going from being adored to ignored, unable to comprehend what was triggering the change. What was I doing that made him suddenly turn cold? Until I grasped the fact that his affection was connected to the impression he wanted to make on his date, and not on my behavior, I never knew what to expect.”

“You seemed to have that figured out by the time I met you,” I said.

She laughed. “Rachel, when Irene first met me, I was an absolute monster.”

“You were not,” I protested. “You just tested me. Kids do that to adults.”

“Oh, sure. But most women in their twenties didn’t catch on. Trust me. Itested lots of them.”

“Tested how?” Rachel asked.

“At first, just by whining a lot and generally being obnoxious. Irene would pretend to be bored by it-she’d just yawn and say things like, ‘Most people quit that baloney by the time they’re three years old.’ So then I moved into phase two. Let’s see…there was the time I put cod liver oil in your shampoo bottle-”

“It washed out. Eventually.”

“The times I put shoe polish on the rims of the eyepieces of your binoculars, so that when Andre took you to a hockey game, you-”

“-looked like a raccoon until Andre finally broke down and told me why people were laughing at me. Yes. An old trick, but Andre was deeply amused.”

“Actually, I think most of them were old tricks. The plastic wrap beneath the toilet seat, salt in your cola-”

“Makes it foam up, right?” Rachel asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, there was also the time I put laxative in your coffee.”

I made a face. “That was one of the worst.”

“If Irene was reading an article in a magazine and got interrupted,” she told Rachel, “I’d tear out the last page of the story.”

“That one was irritating, but at least it didn’t ruin my day.”

“You see, a brat.”

I shrugged. “You were just trying to get my attention. I wasn’t an angel when I was twelve, and I didn’t expect you to be one. Besides, you were treating me the way I treated my older sister. I figured I was doing penance.”

“I don’t know about the penance, but you’re absolutely right about the attention.” She turned to Rachel. “I was devastated when Irene moved to Bakersfield. She was one of my favorites. I really hated Alicia.”

“Alicia?” Rachel asked.

“Alicia Penderson,” I said. “A girl I had known since grade school, was the one who-”

I caught myself, but Lisa just laughed. “She was the one who was in bed with my father when Irene whipped his butt with a fishing pole!”

She saw our mutual discomfort and said, “Oh, please! I’ve been an adult for years now, Irene. You don’t need to act embarrassed about the fact that I knew about my father’s sexual activities. Lots of sounds carry up along that heating vent to the attic.”

“Maybe I’m still a little old-fashioned about some things,” I said. “I know you didn’t get it all from eavesdropping through the furnace. Your father thought it was oh-so-progressive to tell you things most parents keep from their children. I think you had to grow up a little too fast as a result.”

“Nothing can be done about it now,” she said. “I survived. I didn’t turn out so badly, did I?”

“No,” I said, smiling. “Not at all. I’m very proud of you.”

She looked down at the table, turning a deep shade of red.

“Nothing to blush about,” I said. I turned to Rachel. “Lisa graduated from high school when she was fifteen-”

“You told meyou graduated early,” Lisa said.

“Only a semester early. And I wasted it completely. If I hadn’t taken college classes during a couple of summer sessions, I might still be an undergrad. You, on the other hand, finished your master’s degree when you were nineteen-and graduated with honors.”

“You’re a sociologist, like your father?” Rachel asked.

“Oh no. My life is in politics. But I did get a degree in sociology.”

“There seems to be a family love of the subject,” I said. “Her brother is also a sociologist.”

“Are you close to your brother?” Rachel asked.

She hesitated for a moment before saying, “Close? No. He’s six years older than I am-”

Rachel glanced over at me. “You dated a guy who had a son your age?”

“Thank you, Rachel,” I said dryly. “Jerry’s three years younger than I. He was just starting college when I was about to graduate.”

“Oh, I see. You weremuch older then.”