“I'm not excited about it,” Charlotte said with a shrug, and then disappeared to use the phone.

Alice got dinner going then, and eventually Jim came home. They went through the usual rituals, and as always now, dinner was a joyless meal, and went too fast. All any of them wanted to do was eat and run, and go to their own rooms. Jim parked himself in front of the TV afterward, and after she'd put the dishes away, Alice stopped for a minute to talk to him before she went upstairs to lie down on their bed. It had been a long day for her.

“Is everything all right at work?” she asked, as she sat down next to him on the couch.

“Fine,” he said, without turning his eyes or his attention to her. “How do you feel?”

“Great.” It was hard to believe that only a few days before she'd been so sick.

“Don't forget to take your medicine,” he said, glancing at her, and she was touched by his concern. It was so rare that they talked now. They had been best friends once, and very much in love when they first married, but then things had never quite panned out for him, his business had never really gotten off the ground, and he had started drinking, not too much at first, but just enough to make a difference. And then he'd had the accident, and everything had changed after that. He had shut himself away in a place where Alice couldn't reach him anymore. But as he looked at her tonight, for just a fraction of a second, she saw the shadow of the man she still remembered and had always loved. “I'm glad you're feeling better. You really scared me. I couldn't…” He started to say something and then stopped himself. “We've had enough bad luck around here,” he said gruffly, and then turned away to concentrate on the TV again, and before she could even answer him, he had dismissed her and disappeared.

“Thanks, Jim,” she said, leaning over to kiss his cheek, but he pretended not to notice and didn't respond. He got up to get himself another beer, and left her sitting there. And he lingered in the kitchen just long enough for her to finally give up, and go upstairs, thinking about him.

She checked on both children, and they seemed fine. Bobby was throwing a ball against the wall in his room, and Charlotte was doing her homework. And as Alice walked back to her own room, she heard a sound in Johnny's room. She opened the door quietly, and saw him standing there in the moonlight, smiling at her. He had put on his beloved varsity jacket, as she walked in and closed the door softly behind her.

“What are you doing in here?” she whispered. Neither of them dared to turn the light on, for fear that someone would see.

“I'm just going through some stuff. I found some great pictures of Becky from last summer when she went to the lake with us.”

“I see you found your jacket.” He had grown so much in the last four years he had nearly outgrown it, but he loved it so much he didn't care even if the sleeves were a little short, and the shoulders tighter than they had been. “Why don't you go through that stuff tomorrow? Someone is going to hear you in here.”

“I'll bet no one ever comes in here.”

“I do,” she said sadly, looking around the room and then at him. It was so good to see him back in it.

“How come you didn't put any of it away? I was afraid it would all be gone, or packed up in boxes somewhere.”

“I couldn't do that,” she said as her eyes held his.

“Maybe you should,” he said sensibly. “It's kind of sad seeing it all sitting here like this … even though I'm glad you left it for me.” She smiled at what he said, sat down on the bed, and looked up at him.

“I never thought you'd be back here. But how could I take apart this room? It would be like losing more of you than we already had.”

“The room isn't me, Mom. You have me here,” he said, pointing at his heart, “and you always will. You know that.” He sat down next to her on the bed and put an arm around her. “I'm not going anywhere, even after I go back again. I'll always be here with you.”

“I know. But I love all this stuff … your pictures … your trophies.” The room still smelled of him, even more so now that he was sitting beside her. He had a fresh clean smell, of soap and boy and aftershave, that always made her think of him, and lingered in the room.

They sat there talking for a while, and eventually he went back to her bedroom with her, and the room was so warm he took his jacket off and dropped it on a chair, as they went on talking. Charlotte came in once, and looked at her oddly. She'd heard her mother talking again, and was beginning to wonder about her. She wanted to borrow a sweater to wear to assembly the next day, and Johnny scolded his mother when she left them and went back to her room.

“You shouldn't let her wear your stuff, Mom. All she wants to do is show off for the boys in her class, and the upperclassmen. Let her wear her own stuff.”

“She's only got one mother. And I only have one daughter, Johnny. It's okay for her to borrow my ‘stuff,’ as long as she returns it.”

“And does she?” He raised a cynical eyebrow at his mother, and she laughed, and looked at him sheepishly.

“Not always.”

“Be careful if she borrows my varsity jacket. I don't want her to lose it.” They had already agreed that it would go to Bobby eventually.

And after a while, he went back to his own room, to look around again, and she was putting on her nightgown when Jim came upstairs, and he looked startled, and frowned, when he saw Johnny's varsity jacket on the chair where he had left it.

“What's that doing here?”

“I… I was just looking at it,” she said, turning away from him, so he wouldn't see her expression. Jim always knew when she was lying to him, which she rarely did.

“You shouldn't go in his room,” he said firmly. “It'll just upset you.”

“Sometimes it feels right to just sit there, with his things, and remember him,” she said quietly, and he shook his head as he walked into the bathroom to put on his pajamas. He was a fairly modest man, but she had always liked that about him. In the days before he drank too much there had been a lot she had liked about him. And for some reason, in the last two days, those memories had come to mind more and more often. It was as though she was not seeing who he was, but remembering who he had been.

And when he came out of the bathroom, Jim reminded her to put the jacket away the next day, and leave it in Johnny's closet. “Don't let the kids play with it,” he admonished her, “they'll just lose it. And it meant a lot to him.”

“I know that. I promised him I'd save it for Bobby,” she said, not thinking how it sounded.

“When did you promise him that?” He looked puzzled.

“A long time ago. When he first got it.”

“Oh,” Jim nodded, satisfied with her explanation. He hated even seeing it there. It just reminded them of everything they had lost and would never have again. If he could have, he would have put it back in Johnny's room then, but he didn't want to go in there.

Jim got into bed next to her, and turned off the light, and the house was silent around them. Alice couldn't help wondering where Johnny was, if he had disappeared again to wherever he went these days between the times he spent chatting with her, or if he was still in his room, going through his papers, and rummaging in his desk. And she smiled, as she lay next to Jim, thinking of their son, and she was surprised when Jim put an arm around her. It was so rare that he was amorous with her anymore. Most of the time, he drank too much to even think about it, although he still did occasionally. But the opportunities were rare. More often than not, when the kids were in bed, he was passed out in his chair downstairs. It was something Alice accepted. Their love life was yet another casualty of their life and broken years.

“Don't get sick again, Alice,” he said, in the same tone he had used when he talked to her earlier on the couch, filled with tenderness and worry, and love for her.

“I won't. I promise.” He nodded, and then turned over on his side, and went to sleep, snoring softly, as she watched him, wondering if life would ever be the same again. It seemed unlikely that it would.





Chapter 6


For the next few days Johnny came and went, going back and forth between his own house and the Adamses'. He seemed to be spending a lot of time watching Becky, and he looked unhappy late one afternoon when he came home to his mother.

“Where have you been?” She sounded like the mother of any teenager, and he laughed at the question when he walked in.

“I was at Becky's. The kids were all going wild and driving her crazy.”

“I don't suppose you helped her with them,” his mother teased.

“I would have if I could, Mom.” He had always been good with them, and he liked them. “All I could do was keep an eye on them, and make sure none of them got a book of matches and burned down the house. They're a handful. She stayed home from work today to help her mom out. Two of them had the flu and couldn't go to school. But it sure isn't much of a life for Becky. She needs more than just that in her life. At least when I was around she got to go out and have some fun sometimes. She never goes anywhere now, Mom.”

“I know. I keep telling Pam that. They both need to get out more.”

“I'm not sure they can afford to,” Johnny said honestly. But much as he hated to see her move on, he knew that Becky needed a boyfriend. There was nothing he could do about it, but he realized that at eighteen, she had a right to more than the life she was leading. Her siblings were as much her responsibility as her mother's. Sometimes more, because her mother worked longer hours. It saddened him that Becky never had fun anymore.

“I offered to baby-sit for her. Charlie could help me.”

“If you can drag her off of the basketball court once in a while, which I doubt, sometime between basketball and baseball season. Why don't we try to get Dad to one of her games, Mom?”

“I have,” she said unhappily. “He won't go. He never has. You know as well as I do, he thinks it's stupid for girls to play sports.”

Johnny looked instantly annoyed. “She's a fantastic athlete, better than I was. He'd see that if he'd ever go to watch her.”

“Well, he won't,” Alice said, closing the subject. She had said it to Jim hundreds of times herself, but he said he wasn't going to waste his time, watching a bunch of girls play boys' sports, badly. It was useless to discuss it further with him, and Alice knew it. She had tried for years.

“He's the one who's missing out, as much as she is,” Johnny said, looking frustrated.

“I go. That's something.” But they both knew it wasn't what Charlotte wanted, or not all of it at least. She wanted her father's attention and approval, and so far she had never won it. Alice worried about what it would mean to her later, when she looked back and remembered that her father had never seen her win a single game, hit a home run, or win a trophy. And she had nearly as many as Johnny, including an award for MVP in the league for her last baseball season. Her picture had even been in the local paper. And Jim hadn't even mentioned it to her. But if Bobby had been able to play he'd have noticed, and told all his friends.

Johnny came with her to pick Bobby up at school again that day, and he and his mother chatted all the way there in the car. And Bobby seemed in better spirits when he got in. He turned and stared straight at Johnny in the backseat, and then turned around and looked out the window as they drove home, and his mother chatted with him. She always acted as though she expected him to answer her, but wasn't upset when he didn't.

And once they got home, she gave him milk and cookies. Johnny had gone upstairs, back to his room, to put away his jacket. And a few minutes later, Bobby rushed upstairs, and Alice stayed in the kitchen to slice some vegetables for dinner. She had promised to make Charlotte's favorite dinner, of southern fried chicken, and mashed potatoes, with the zucchini fritters she loved.

Charlotte came home late that afternoon, and she went outside almost immediately to shoot some baskets, just as Johnny had done at her age, and after a while Alice was chilly, and went upstairs to get a sweater. She could hear sounds coming from Bobby's room. He was playing one of his talking tapes that she had bought for him, to inspire him, but the program had never worked. It had been a nice thought though. She poked her head into the room and blew him a kiss, and she saw Johnny sitting on the window seat, watching Bobby and saying nothing. And Alice winked at him, before going back downstairs to the kitchen. She had almost finished making dinner when Johnny came back downstairs and looked longingly at a plate of cookies. But no matter how normal he looked to her, he could not eat them. There were some things he didn't do, and few he missed as much as her cookies and apple pie.