Family  

I knew I looked stupid riding a bike—a freakishly gangly twenty-something man in dress pants smoking a cigarette, head rendered encephaloid by the mandatory helmet. I pedaled out of the parking lot, past the liquor store/nail salon/payday loan strip malls, including the one containing my beloved workplace Mondo Mart. Sunday morning meant no middle fingers or honking drivers. Me and the rag-wrapped guy passed out on the bus bench. That was all.

I could have maybe afforded a shitbox car, but I was holding out for an El Camino. A coffee can in my freezer was supposed to be devoted to the cause. Once a week or so, though, it got raided for books or take out Chinese.

I left the ghost town retail strip and turned into my parents’ neighborhood. I coasted down the street, no hands, smoking the last cigarette I’d get to have until I went back to my dust bunny, old pizza box of a bachelor hole.

As the light filtered down through dying leaves, I had a moment out of time. Nothing and infinity both at once and not at all. Maybe it was the golden light sifting through detritus or maybe just the anticipated church going, but the squeeze of anxiety loosened so I could breathe deeper, sit up straighter, and then the normal movement of my hand was in slow motion with everything else.

My reverie was broken when Mom and Dad came out of the house just as I approached. I nearly swerved out of control trying to get rid of the cigarette before they saw it. I squealed to a stop in the driveway and time returned to normal.

“James!” my mom said. “I’m so glad you’re here. You can baste the turkey while we’re at church.”

“I was thinking I’d go with you guys.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. Mom was wearing her usual blue Sunday dress with matching hat. I didn’t know how a fifty-six-year-old woman could still walk in three-inch heels, but she somehow managed it, at least on the Lord’s day.

“Son, your jacket’s on fire,” my dad said. His voice was so deadpan that for a second, I thought he was making an uncharacteristic joke. Still, I looked down.

My jacket was on fire.

“Dang it!” In my panicked haste I’d somehow put the still-lit cigarette in my pocket. I pulled off the jacket, threw it on the driveway, and stomped out the flames. 

We all stared at the dead sport coat. I picked it up. The pocket was scorched through, but since the fabric was dark brown, it was barely noticeable. I put it back on. “You guys ready to go?”

“Sure,” Mom said. “Come on, honey.”

My dad took longer to recover. His jaw moved from side to side, a tic I’d long ago come to associate with irritation or anxiety, usually caused by me. I thought he was going to tell me to leave the jacket or maybe just stay home and baste the turkey. Instead, he shook his head and got into the Oldsmobile.

“You sit in front, James,” my mom said.

I did not want to be next to my dad with his moving jaw, but before I could argue, she slipped into the backseat. I didn’t fit back there, anyway. I’d have to sit sideways and even then, I wouldn’t be able to feel my legs by the time we got to church. Though maybe that was preferable to being less than two feet from radiating waves of parental disapproval.

My dad started the engine, his chin still doing that angry sideways rhumba. Next to his average five-foot-ten height, I felt like one of those circus clowns on slits. I got my height from my mom’s side. For a woman, she was pretty tall, five foot eleven or so, though it was hard to tell because she slouched. One thing I could never figure out was why she wore heels if she thought she was too tall.

My dad expressed his disappointment by jerking the car into reverse and backing down the driveway just a little faster than his usual five miles an hour.

“How are things at Mondo Mart?” my mom asked.

“The same,” I said. “Busy.” My mom had been proud when I made supervisor. She still hoped I would make something of myself. Dad had no such illusions.

At the church, he dropped us in front so Mom wouldn’t have to negotiate the length of the parking lot in her pumps. She beamed as we went inside together, and I suddenly felt guilty for skipping church the last few years.

Mom liked to be near the front, in one of the rows with a cushion. We sat down and she adjusted her hat. I bowed my head and tried to feel a connection, a sense of peace, anything.

“Aren’t those lovely flowers? I think they’re left over from Dotty’s funeral. Poor old gal. She was ninety years old, but she didn’t look a day over sixty. Just out in her yard gardening one day and fell over dead. Right among the begonias.”

I raised my head. I’d failed to account for the fact that my mom was only quiet when asleep. Luckily, she would almost certainly nod out soon.

The organ started up. I gave Mom a look that I hoped expressed my regret over Dotty, whoever she was.  

Mom raised her voice slightly so that I could hear her over the pipes. “I would have gone to the funeral, but I had my book club meeting. And it was my turn to bring the snacks. We were reading Emma. Jane Austen was such a card, don’t you think, James?”

I nodded. My dad arrived, sitting down and studying his bulletin like he expected a pop quiz halfway through the service.

Mom turned her attention to the bulletin. She seemed to have talked herself out, at least for the moment. I bowed my head again and tried to empty my brain of thoughts.

Just as I began to feel something close to the oneness with the universe I was searching for, a female voice entered my consciousness. “Now, I know Jesus wore them, but I can’t get used to seeing a minister in sandals.” For a split second, I was confused. Was God trying to tell me something about footwear? Then, I realized it was just Mom again. Of course.

I looked up. Pastor Jim ascended to the pulpit wearing Birkenstocks. He had hairy feet. At least Mom might stop her running commentary now. The pastor, I could ignore. He started the announcements: don’t forget the potluck next week, sewing circle on Wednesday is looking for new members. I closed my eyes and asked the question, “What should I do? What is the point of spending my days stocking and selling plastic items from China?”

The congregation stood for the first hymn. Mom had drifted off, head resting on her shoulder. Dad woke her with a well-practiced nudge and she grabbed a hymnal. “Onward Christian soldiers. . .”

My sister never went to church either. She used her three children as an excuse. But she always managed to get them to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner. Ever since her fink husband (she called him that) ran off with some floozy (again, her term) from the office, she’d been raising the kids on her own. With my parents’ help.

When we got back from church, they had already taken over the dining room. Five-year-old Martha sat in her usual chair, drawing with a red crayon on a piece of used computer paper. I sat down next to her because it seemed like the safest place. The two younger boys were running around hitting each other in the head with whatever they could find—pillows, silverware, the dog. I scooped up Badger and put him on my lap. The little half Chihuahua mutt gave me a thank you lick.

“Whatcha drawing, Martha?” I asked.

“A horse.” She didn’t look up from her work.

My sister appeared from the kitchen. Deena was taller than Mom and favored spiky heels. She had a curly mop of dyed red hair and make-up that must have occupied thirty minutes of every single morning. It exhausted me just thinking of the effort involved. Today, she had on tight jeans and a floppy turtleneck sweater.

“James, get in here and help us. Please,” she said, turning on her red alligator heel and returning to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

I set Badger on the floor and started to follow. I didn’t even make it into the kitchen before Deena shoved a bowl of mashed potatoes and another of peas into my arms. I barely managed to catch both before she clattered away again.

Martha sighed and filed the drawing into her My Little Pony backpack. She went into the kitchen and within minutes, we had dinner laid out. Deena rounded up the boys and strapped them into booster seats where they proceeded to lean over so as to be able to hit each other with their spoons. Bob grabbed the salt shaker from across the table and emptied half of it into his mother’s water glass. Martha gave me a conspiratorial eye roll.

Deena sat across from me and began to fill the boys’ plastic plates. “What happened to your jacket?”

Dang. I should have hidden the evidence. Deena was always the real troublemaker in the family, yet she somehow managed to blame everything on me. She was the pothead in high school, but I was the one who got caught with the baggie in my room. Deena convinced me to help her eat the pudding my mom had made for her Junior League meeting and I was the only one grounded.

“Nothing,” I said.

“The pocket’s burned off. Don’t tell me it caught fire when you were helping Mom cook.”

Mom gave her a look asking her to please let it drop, but Deena ignored her.

“I was…” I shrugged and stuck a forkful of mashed potatoes in my mouth.

“He was riding his bike over here and his jacket spontaneously combusted,” Dad said. “Good thing he put it out in time.”

Deena grinned her snarky Deena grin. “Spontaneous combustion? Like those oiled rags in Grandpa’s barn or all those dead fat people in the Weekly World News. Maybe we should call them about your jacket.”

I shrugged again.

“Well, I sold another house on Friday,” she said. “That big colonial by the golf course.”

“Good for you, honey,” Mom said, slathering her roll with butter.

“I’m going to be salesperson of the year for sure,” Deena continued, tasting her water without apparently noticing its abnormal level of salinity. “I mean, I’m not bragging, but I have the best sales record in the office. Jean and Brianna try, but they just don’t have it. They should get bank teller jobs or something. Sales takes panache.” She flipped her hair. “It’s like acting.”

“You were the best actor at Eastdale High,” Mom said.

I was so anxiety-riddled in high school I couldn’t even read poems out loud in class. Deena had the same genes as me, but didn’t share my affliction. I always admired that, even though, to be fair, her famed high school run in Tales of the South Pacific had been gilded somewhat in family remembrance.

Bill began to lather mashed potatoes into his brother’s hair. I wondered if he would rinse it with his gravy. Nope, he unscrewed the top of his sippy cup and used apple juice instead.

As I ate, I silently thanked the universe for the nourishment of anything besides takeout pizza and Doritos. I wanted to cook for myself, to eat healthy. The problem was, I didn’t know if the stove in my apartment actually worked.

As I pondered this, a single pea appeared on my now-empty plate. What did this mean? 

“Bob, please eat your peas, don’t throw them,” Deena said. “God, James, don’t you eat during the week? If you can’t support yourself on your Mondo Mart salary, I’m sure Mom and Dad would let you move back in with them.”

“Huh?” I was looking at the pea. It could still be a sign.

“You inhaled that food like you were starving.”

“Do you need money, James?” my mom said. “Because you can always ask us, you know.”

I raised my head. “No, I’m doing fine. I was just hungry. You know, from the bike ride. And I forgot to eat breakfast.” I was out of Pop Tarts, bread, milk, and pretty much anything edible except mustard. I picked up the pea and ate it.

My sister shook her head. Bob and Bill stopped playing with their food long enough to give me identical smiles and, for some reason, everyone started to laugh. Family.

My sister lived on the very edge of Mom and Dad’s neighborhood, which is to say, not the really good part. Her little ranch house needed a paint job and the overgrown lawn was littered with toys and food wrappers. I picked up a few empty Cheetos bags and deposited them in her trash can on the way to the door.

Deena answered my knock with her make-up half done. She looked pretty rough with one eye sporting three shades of shadow and the other completely bare. Her skirt was so short that I couldn’t look, but I also had to avoid her drape-y sweater, which kept falling down over her shoulder revealing a red bra strap.

In a moment of weakness, I’d agreed to watch Deena’s kids while she went out on a date. She claimed that her normal babysitter was unavailable, but the state of her yard made me wonder if something else was going on. Was it possible that my sister wasn’t doing as well as she claimed?

“I’m almost finished getting ready and then I’m leaving. I’m meeting my date at the Red Lobster by the mall. I put the number on the fridge,” she said, turning and trotting into the depths of the house.

The kids were seated at the dining room table. Bob and Bill had identical ketchup masks and were flinging slices of strawberry at each other. Martha ignored them with obvious effort. I grabbed a plate and took the last three chicken nuggets and the rest of the berries. I also got a beer to wash it all down. I was going to need it.

My sister returned, her makeup now complete. “Okay, I’m leaving. I’ll be back around eleven o’clock. Put the kids to bed by eight. Martha knows where everything is.”

Martha rolled her eyes and poked at her berries with a fork.

“Goodbye, everyone. Be nice to Uncle James!” Deena trilled.

“Just like you are?”

“Martha! Don’t you backtalk me!”

I dipped a chicken nugget in ketchup. It wasn’t as awful as I’d imagined. But I was still hungry. I drank some beer as Deena flounced out the door.

“You’ll have to give Bob and Bill a bath,” Martha said.

“Really?” Oh, God. I hadn’t thought of baths. What if they fell and hit their heads on the porcelain and then inhaled water before I could save them? Bathrooms are supposed to be the most dangerous rooms in the house. How do you keep three-year-olds from braining themselves on all that slippery tile? Why can’t they make stuff like that cushioned?

“Yeah. They’re covered in ketchup.”

True. Bob was now rubbing crushed strawberries into his own hair. I guessed they were done eating. I unstrapped Bob from his booster seat, brought him into the bathroom, and stripped him down to his diaper. I gave him some tub toys and went back to get Bill. I was only gone a few seconds, but when I returned, Bob was naked and standing in a puddle of urine.

I put Bob in the tub and turned on the water. In the cabinet, I found paper towels and bathroom cleaner. I looked for Bill. Had he escaped? No, he’d somehow managed to climb into the tub with his brother. Wearing all his clothes.

I cleaned up the pee, got drippy Bill out of the tub, and peeled off his clothes and sopping diaper. I was just about to put him back into the tub when I saw something floating. Something brown. Something I had occasionally encountered on the floor of Mondo Mart. It was at least as disgusting bobbing around with all the plastic toys. I shut my eyes and reached in for the drain plug, then fished the ball of shit out with my bare hands so I could transfer it into the toilet. The bile rose to the back of my throat but didn’t make it out of my face. Then dry heaves as I scrubbed my hands, grabbed the liquid soap dispenser, squirted half into the tub, and ran the water again.

I looked around. Bill was gone. Martha came in with two sets of PJs and two diapers. “Where’s Bill?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Can you watch Bob while I find him?”

“Whatever.”

“Bill? Come on, you have to take a bath!” I went into the boys’ shared bedroom. Nothing. Next, I tried Martha’s room. It was so pristine that I couldn’t imagine they ever went in there. Laundry room: no. Kitchen: no. Deena’s room. Uh oh.

Bill’s ketchup mask was gone. In his hand was a pair of my sister’s pink underwear, now enhanced by a red stain across the butt portion. The rest of the underwear drawer was strewn across the room. A lacy black bra was under his bare butt and he’d looped a red one around his wet shoulders. I scooped up the boy, tore the bra off his front and headed to the bathroom.

Martha was sitting on the floor reading a book. Bob was gone.

“Where is Bob?” I asked.

“Huh? I thought he was in the tub.”

“He’s not.”

“Oh.”

I sucked in a breath. No use yelling at a five-year-old for not doing my job. But Martha was so preternaturally mature in so many ways that it was easy to forget she was only a couple years older than the boys. I toted Bill with me on my second tour of the house. Bob was in the kitchen, surrounded by a mound of cereal. Three empty boxes were discarded on the floor and he rooted through a third, stuffing a handful of Froot Loops into his ketchup-smeared mouth.

I shifted Bill to the side and picked up Bob. Glancing at the floor, I saw a brown streak. Chocolate? I didn’t think so. I lifted Bob and examined his nether regions. Poop. My life: crap and underwear. I brought the boys to the bathroom and deposited them in the tub. They both stood there, staring at me.

“Sit down. You have to sit in the tub.”

Blank stares. They knew what I was saying, they just weren’t going to do it. I shoved my arm behind Bob’s knees and forced him into a sitting position. I handed him a toy boat and then did the same with Bill. They started splashing each other. I grabbed a cup and dumped some water on Bill’s head. He began to scream. Bob joined in.

I squeezed a little shampoo into my hand and lathered up the boys’ hair. They responded by sending identical tidal waves in my direction. I was soaked. I pulled a towel off the rack and wiped the water from my eyes.

How did my sister do this every single day?

Deena arrived home two hours later to find no dirty dishes, no messes. She might notice the empty cereal boxes, but I’d be gone by then. She stood in the doorway with her hand on her hip, surveying the room. Then she dropped her red sequined purse on a chair. “You are not going to believe my date.”

“What?” I couldn’t care less about her date. I was exhausted. I wanted to go home.

“Okay, so my friend set me up with this guy. After dinner, he starts sucking on a pacifier. He didn’t even try to hide it. Said that if I can’t accept his method of comforting himself then we can’t date.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, at a loss for anything else to say.

Deena flopped down on the chair. There were tears in her eyes. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen that before. It was frightening. “My life is crap.”

“But you are the top salesperson in your office.” I couldn’t believe that all of a sudden I had to build up my sister.

“My ex doesn’t send child support or visit the kids, ever. That fink. And I can’t afford to take him to court again. I can’t afford anything. Bob and Bill are holy terrors. The babysitter quit, but I couldn’t afford her anyway. I can’t get anyone to date me except some guy with a pacifier. Don’t tell Mom about that, okay?”

“I won’t.” I wanted to reach over and hug her or something. But she’d probably just shove me or tell me I was an idiot.

“I was always the smart one, the talented one. How did I end up like this? I’m supposed to have a better life than this.” She took off her red shoes and threw them across the room.

“I’ll mow your lawn,” I said. “I’ll even weed eat it. And I can watch the kids anytime you want.” I didn’t want to tell her how hard the evening had been, and yet at the same time I did. I wanted her to know that I had gotten a little glimpse of her life—wrangling three small children that weren’t any easier to deal with than wild animals. But I could also tell her about how I’d tucked the boys into their toddler bed and read them one of my favorite picture books—Where the Wild Things Are. Martha had hovered nearby, listening, and I felt that comfortable cocoon of family. Then, it all seemed worth it. But I didn’t tell her any of it. I just looked at her and she looked at me. We had those same oddly brown-green eyes. And we seemed to understand each other. I’d found that thing I was looking for, in church, on the bike ride. It was family.

Emily Beck Cogburn is the author of the novels Louisiana Saves the Library and Ava’s Place. Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of literary journals, most recently In Parentheses. She holds master’s degrees in library science and philosophy. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking and playing in the band Southern Primitives.