“I can understand that, all right. Nobody likes to be around somebody who’s mad. But . . . she’s your daughter. She can’t stay mad forever.”
Marilyn struggled within herself for a moment. Should she flat-out lie to him? Claim Sylvia was indeed her daughter? Or could she answer the question in a more roundabout way? “Oh, but she does have a temper.” Something vague like that, just short of a lie.
Instead she took the conversation in an entirely different direction.
“I was glad to see you up and around again. And just a handful of days after you suffered that big loss. It reminded me of a story. Kind of a parable, I guess you’d call it. I’m not sure where it’s from, but someone told it to me once. About a man whose son was sick in bed, and he wouldn’t leave the boy’s side. He was very distraught, and wouldn’t do anything else but tend his son. And everybody thought if the boy died, that would just about be the end of the man. That he’d just fall apart. And then one day the son died. And the man got up and washed his hands and went back to work.”
They walked in silence for most of a block, save for the rattle of his wagon wheels.
“That’s a sad story,” he said after a time.
“I suppose it is.”
“I’m not sure . . . I’m not sure how to say what I’m not sure about.”
“You don’t know what I meant for you to take away from the story.”
“Yes, ma’am. That.”
“I suppose . . . that it’s more appropriate to put that kind of caring in with someone while they’re alive. After they’re gone you might feel devastated, but if you don’t get back to your own life, you’re doing that for yourself, not for them. They’re gone. It’s too late to show you care. Do you understand what I mean by that?”
“I think so,” he said. But he sounded a little confused. “I just mostly figured people needed their fresh eggs.”
The boy’s sister was in the kitchen, setting the table for dinner. Marilyn did not remember her name. But she didn’t know if she had forgotten it, or had never been told.
The young woman looked up at them standing in the kitchen doorway. She looked first at Marilyn with mild surprise, then at her little brother’s bandaged hand. Her eyes filled with alarm.
“Stewie! What happened to you?”
“I burned my hand.”
“On what?”
“I can explain,” Marilyn said. “That’s why I came here uninvited. I wanted to explain.”
Her eyes came up to Marilyn’s face again. She looked . . . Marilyn wasn’t quite sure how to describe what she saw. A bit . . . skeptical? Impatient? It struck her that Stewie’s sister was not her biggest fan, which hurt more than she would have imagined. More than she likely would ever want to admit.
“Stewie,” the sister said, her eyes still locked with Marilyn’s. “Go wash your hands.”
“Now how am I supposed to—”
“Okay. Fine. Got it. Go wash your hand. And then after dinner I want to take a look at that burn.”
The boy shuffled out of the room, leaving the two women standing on opposite sides of the table, considering each other.
“I put ice on it,” Marilyn said. “And ointment. And that’s sterile gauze.”
“I’m sure you did a good job. It’s just that I’m a nurse, and I want to see it with my own eyes.”
“Understood,” Marilyn said.
An awkward silence fell. Marilyn knew it was her turn to speak. She knew what it was she needed to explain. It seemed clear that they both knew.
“There was a small cooking fire at my house,” Marilyn said. “He took it upon himself to put it out. He had the pan in his hand before I even knew what was going on. Before I’d even gotten into the kitchen to see. He was too fast for me. I would never want you to think that I would tell him to do a thing so dangerous.”
For a second or two, Stewie’s sister only continued to consider Marilyn. As if weighing something. As if deciding how much of Marilyn she wanted to buy.
“Oh, I wouldn’t have thought that,” she said, cutting her eyes away.
She went back to setting three places at the table. Forks, knives, spoons.
Marilyn wasn’t sure if she had just been given a vote of confidence. And she wasn’t sure she was prepared to ask.
“You wouldn’t?”
“I’ve met Stewie,” she said, still looking at her work. “When you know Stewie like I do, a thing like that isn’t very surprising. He wants to fix everything. He doesn’t want there to be any disasters in the world, so he tries to single-handedly prevent them.”
Marilyn had no idea what to say in response to that, so she said nothing at all. She only stood there, watching the sister step over toward the hallway and call for Theo and Stewie to come to dinner. Marilyn thought about the long walk home. Her empty stomach ached and burned.
Stewie’s sister turned back and considered her again. “As long as you’re here, would you like to stay for dinner? We’re having homemade macaroni and cheese.”
“Homemade?” she breathed, almost unable to believe her good luck. “Why, I haven’t had homemade macaroni and cheese in as long as I can remember. I used to make it for my husband, but that’s been a very long time ago now. Thank you. That’s a kind offer and I believe I’ll take you up on it. I’m very hungry, because I never got to have that bacon sandwich I was making for myself.”
“I’ll set another place.”
Stewie and Theo spilled into the kitchen and took their places at the table. Stewie held his burned hand aloft, as though he didn’t dare touch it to anything. Based on the look on his face, Marilyn imagined that even the air that touched it seemed to worry him.
“Bacon sandwich?” the sister asked from the far side of the kitchen, where she was taking more flatware out of a drawer. She asked as if the concept confused her.
“Yes,” Marilyn said, and sat at the head of the table. It was the only spot that did not seem to be expecting someone else.
“Is that like a BLT?”
“Something like it, yes.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I didn’t have any lettuce or tomato in the house.”
“Oh. I see.”
She handed Marilyn a plastic plate, and the three pieces of flatware with a paper napkin wrapped around them, and Marilyn placed them on the table herself.
Then Stewie’s sister put on hot mitts and brought the casserole to the table.
Marilyn could only stare at it in admiration. It had been baked golden brown with buttered bread crumbs on top. It was the most beautiful dinner she had seen in as long as her memory served to remember.
The boys held their plates out anxiously, but their sister shot them a stern look. First one boy, then the other.
“Who gets served first?” she asked in a grave voice.
“The guest,” they both said. Dejectedly, and nearly at the same time.
Marilyn held her plate out and watched a mountain of the golden cheesy heaven being served onto it. She pulled the plate back, and set it in front of her. And fidgeted, wishing she could begin eating.
“Don’t let it get cold,” Stewie’s sister said. “Eat.”
Marilyn shoveled in a huge bite, and it tasted even better than it looked.
They ate in silence for a time. It wasn’t an awkward silence. The food was just good, and nobody seemed to want to stop eating it long enough to chat.
Marilyn watched the dusk set through the kitchen window, nursing an unfamiliar feeling. After a time she decided what it was. What it must have been. She felt safe and content.
No wonder it felt so unfamiliar.
Chapter Seven
Flight Limitations
Stewie
It was the following Sunday, and Stewie’s burns had improved enough that he was wearing only two extra-large adhesive bandages on his palm. He was walking down the hall past Theo’s room when he heard his brother speak to him. He couldn’t make out the words, though.
He stopped. Backed up two steps.
“What’d you say, Theo?”
“I asked if you’d ever heard of a chicken flying contest.”
Stewie felt a tingling that started in his scalp and moved down around his ears. Even without knowing more, it was an inherently exciting idea.