“Okay, go have fun with your pals. Please tell the Vikarioses our road hasn’t been plowed. They might want just to leave you off on Main Street.”
“Oh, great, and me with plain old shoes.” Someone nearby spoke in the background. “Never mind,” Arch said. “Gus just came into the living room to find me, and he’s going to loan me a pair of snow boots. Gotta run, Mom.”
And with that he was gone. I looked out our front window and checked the street. It was still snowing. I glanced over at Jack’s dark house. An older couple, with young kids about to start school? Well, a lot of folks didn’t start having children until later these days. I would have to ask Trudy more the next day.
Ferdinanda’s ham and cheese casserole was delicious. I’d give her this: She could do wonders with egg- soaked bread. That morning she’d served us a bread pudding with rum sauce. The dinner featured layers of cheddar melting over ham and buttered sourdough, over which she’d poured a mixture of eggs, cream, and spices, and on top of which she’d sprinkled green chiles and picante. She’d garnished the dish with fresh chopped cilantro, which gave it a snazzy gourmet appearance. The fruit was a perfect complement, and it looked lovely on the plate. For the first time, I realized that it was probably Ferdinanda who’d given Yolanda her passion for food preparation.
I opened one of Marla’s extra bottles of red wine to go with our dinner. Beer would have worked better with the Mexican food, but we didn’t have any. Anyway, with all the snow outside, it was more of a red wine kind of night.
Neither Yolanda nor I mentioned the incident with Father Pete at the ethnic grocery store, which was probably just as well. Instead, Yolanda talked about how nice the kids were at Christian Brothers High School, and how much they’d appreciated the food. Ferdinanda beamed; she knew CBHS was a Catholic school.
It was then that I ventured to ask her about our trio of visitors. Ferdinanda’s face darkened. “They had a bad aura,” she said. “They were bad people.”
“Is that your professional opinion?” I asked, pouring us all more wine.
Ferdinanda set her chin. “I know about these things.”
I didn’t ask her if she’d been able to read Raul and Fidel Castro’s auras, too, and what they had told her. We were having a relaxing evening after a long day, and I wasn’t going to wreck it. Arch was coming home soon, and Tom would be along.
Ferdinanda again insisted on doing the dishes. “I’ve been doing nothing all day—”
“No,” I said, interrupting, “you haven’t been doing anything except making a wonderful dinner and—”
“Whatever you say, Goldy,” she said, interrupting me right back, wagging that crooked index finger of hers at me, “I am more stubborn than you and will last longer—”
“You’ve been up since half past four!”
“I had a nap!” she retorted as she piled plates in her lap and wheeled toward the sink. “Now go make phone calls or something! Yolanda, you look terrible. I know you didn’t sleep well. I heard you thrashing around. Go to bed.” Once I handed Ferdinand the throat of our faucet, which was placed at the end of an expandable hose, she was able to squirt water on dishes and then expertly pivot to put them in the dishwasher.
Yolanda yawned. “It’s only eight o’clock.”
Ferdinanda said, “So?” I had the distinct impression she won every one of these discussions.
While Ferdinanda banged about in the kitchen, I took the phone and my wineglass out to the living room. Was it too late in the evening to build a fire? I knew that after getting up early, cooking, catering, running hither and yon, and then slogging home in the snow, if I now sat down on the couch with a second glass of wine, it would be about ten minutes before I was fast asleep. So I fancied myself actually exercising as I moved around the living room, piling up logs and kindling, crumpling newspaper, and finally setting a match to my creation.
It was for Tom, I told myself, and Arch. The fire would welcome them home from the blizzard. I said this to myself as I settled on the couch in front of the blaze and took a sip of my wine. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before I was in Slumberland.
I awoke to a horrific scream. It was not the shriek of a woman, either. I listened carefully and heard another prolonged “Aargh!” It was as if someone were being tortured, and nearby, too. It was a grown man’s voice, and now he was yelling, “Stop it! Hey!” This was followed by yelling and . . . banging. Where were these noises coming from?
A loud thud crashed against the side of the house and rattled the windows.
Yolanda and Ferdinanda both were screeching. Groggy, I looked at the clock. It was twenty to ten. Arch wasn’t home, and neither was Tom. Or at least I hadn’t heard them. With Yolanda and Ferdinanda yelling, I raced into the dining room first. Blinking madly, I thought I should have picked up the phone en route.
“What is it?” I cried. It was still dark in there, so I turned on the light, a used chandelier I’d bought at a garage sale and Tom had rewired. “What’s wrong?” I persisted. “Why are you screaming?”
They both pointed at the dining room window. This was my house, damn it. Undaunted, I walked across the room and looked outside.
The light spilling from the window illuminated Arch’s face. He was wearing a woolen hat. My son stood facing me, knee-deep in snow, openmouthed. He blinked. In one of his hands he was holding Tom’s long, sharp-pointed weeder. It was covered with blood, and the blood was dripping into the snow.
11
“Come inside,” I called. “Arch!” I motioned to him. “Quickly!”
When Arch turned, he clung to Tom’s weeder, as if to protect himself. I raced outside, heedless of the snow, and embraced him, avoiding the weeder.
“Is that your blood?” I yelled. “Arch? Are you all right? Did someone hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” he said weakly. “I want to go inside.”
I put my arm around him. He was still clinging to the weeder as we plodded as fast as possible to the front. Yolanda pulled the door open as we traipsed in.
“Did you call the cops?” Arch asked me. He tossed the weeder on the floor, where it clattered against the wall. I tried not to look at the blood, but couldn’t help myself.
“I did,” said Yolanda as she closed the door. Barefoot and shivering, she hugged her sides. “They’re sending a couple of cars and notifying your husband of a Peeping Tom or possible intruder.”
To Arch, I said, “What happened?” Arch’s teeth were chattering, and his hands were shaking. I said, “Wait. Come out to the kitchen and warm up.”
He unzipped a borrowed white parka, which he dropped on the other side of the hall from the weeder. “I’m freezing.” He paused in the hallway and hugged his sides. “I just stabbed somebody.”
I said quickly, “Somebody was trying to break in?”
Arch’s brown eyes were huge as he looked at me. “Yeah. At least, I think so.”
“Oh my God, Arch,” I said, embracing him again. He pulled away from me awkwardly. “I wish you wouldn’t have—” I wished he wouldn’t have what, exactly? Tried to protect us?
Arch pulled off the borrowed hat. He was bald.
“What the
“Oh, Mom, don’t. We really did decide we were all going to shave our heads, in sympathy with Peter.” He used his heels to push off the borrowed snow boots and clomped out to the kitchen.
Ferdinanda and Yolanda’s mouths dropped open when they saw Arch’s hairless head, but to their eternal credit, they said nothing.
Ferdinanda, who was busily making my son cocoa, said, “You are a good boy.” She slapped down the whisk and, despite what she’d said about Americans and hugs, leaned out of her wheelchair and pulled Arch’s waist toward the metal frame. “I know your mother is proud of you. We are all proud of you.”
“You are a
As Ferdinanda continued to hold him, and without Yolanda and Ferdinanda able to see him, Arch gave me a helpless look. I shrugged.
“Did you see who was outside?” Yolanda asked Arch, once we were all gathered around the kitchen table. “Was it someone trying to break in?”
“I think so,” said Arch. “I was coming up our road, once the Vikarioses left me off on Main Street—”
He was prevented from continuing by the crashing sound of our front door opening.
