Cheated By Death (11 page)

“Uh, yes, thank you. And you?”

“The turkey was very dry this year.” She
risked a glance at Ruby across the room, lowered her voice. “Some
people don’t know what a baster is.”

I nodded, not knowing what else to say.

“I’ll get you a plate, Chet.” She patted my
father’s hand, then waddled off in the direction of the
kitchen.

I glanced at my father. His skin tone was
ashen, his lips were a blue line: oxygen starvation. “How’re you
feeling?”

He shrugged. “Not good. But I’m still here.”
He studied me, and slowly a smile crept across his puffy, wrinkled
face. He held out his hand and I took it. Cool and dry, his grip
was surprisingly firm. He held on tight, and I was flooded with a
relentless fatigue. And yet, the old man felt happy because I’d
come to his family’s party. Tears filled his eyes—and suddenly
mine, too. But they were his tears—I was just a mirror of his
emotions.

I disentangled my hand, patted his arm and
turned away.

Maggie caught my eye and bent low.
“Overloaded?” she asked.

I couldn’t catch my breath, and nodded
dumbly.

She smiled. “You’ll live.”

I wished I could be so cavalier.

“You must be Maggie,” the old man said.

She reached over to shake his hand.

“You’re very pretty,” he said.

Her smile was genuine. “Thank you.”

“Are you going to marry my son?”

I nearly choked on my beer. “Hey—!”

Maggie smiled. “So far he hasn’t asked me.”
She looked at me speculatively. “How ‘bout it, sport?”

“I—I hadn’t thought about it yet today.”

She leaned toward my father. “You just scared
him silly.”

The old man laughed and started to cough.

“Jeffrey!”

Patty shouldered her way through the crowd,
with a beer bottle clutched in her hand. I stood, taking in her
dark velvet slacks and the low-cut, clingy, gold lamé blouse that
accentuated the contour of her full breasts. I felt like a pervert
for noticing. She was my sister, after all.

She hugged me. This time she smelled like
perfume, cigarette smoke, and beer. “Glad you made it.”

“Patty, this is my friend Maggie.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.” She gave me the
once-over, saw the camera beside me on the floor. “Oh good, you
brought it. Take lots of pictures tonight. Can you do a portrait of
me?” she said, showing off her profile.

“They’re not my specialty, but—”

“Dad, you should see the pictures in Jeff’s
apartment. They are the best.”

“Thanks,” I murmured.

Patty tipped back her beer bottle, paused,
squinted at it. “Damn. Empty. Are you ready for another?” she asked
me.

“I’m fine.”

“The food’s getting cold!” Ruby called from
the kitchen.

“I’ll be right back,” Patty said.

Chet shook his head, his mouth drooping as he
watched her stagger back to the kitchen. “She drinks too much.”

“She’s young yet,” I defended her, instantly
wondering why. Maybe because the old man looked so worn out. Like
he saw his daughter on a collision course with a bad fate and was
unable to steer her away from a danger he knew too well.

“Who was the woman that went to get your
dinner?” I asked, changing the subject.

“My sister. Your Aunt Vera.”

“Do you have any brothers?”

He shook his head. “You’re the last of the
Resnick line, boy. When are you going to have kids?”

Not any time soon. I just shrugged.

Vera returned with a plate of food, and set
it on Chet’s lap. “You’d better get something to eat before it’s
all gone,” she advised us.

I looked back toward the kitchen, where Patty
motioned us to join her. “We’ll be right back.”

Most of the family sat on folding chairs at
the table in the living room, while another group crowded around
the kitchen table. Bowls and serving dishes heaped with meat and
vegetables covered the worn Formica counter, buffet style. Several
cakes stood waiting to be cut for dessert. We served ourselves and
rejoined Chet in the family room. Vera had set up TV trays that
wobbled precariously but made a better table than would a lap.

Patty joined us, followed by her friend, Ray.
He settled on a folding chair, with his plate on his lap. Patty set
another beer down for me, sucking back one of her own. She ignored
the half-empty plate on the tray before her. My father had no
appetite either. He shoved the plate of food away, and leaned back
in the recliner.

Conversation stayed at a minimum. Ray didn’t
join in, but alternately stared at me, my father and my sister. It
was probably just my imagination.

“Mr. Resnick, tell me what Jeff was like as a
child,” Maggie said at last.

The old man quirked a smile. “He was a good
kid. Almost never cried. He never woke me up at night. Not like
this one.” He jerked a thumb in Patty’s direction.

“Mom said I had colic,” she whined.

“What else?” Maggie prompted.

His face screwed up in thought. “For a while
he used to sing some damn ABC song—all day long. Thank God that
didn’t last.”

Maggie beamed and I felt my face flush.

Chet’s smile faded, and a far-away look
entered his eyes. “But he didn’t laugh much, either.”

“Still doesn’t,” Patty said, and took another
swallow of beer.

“Eh . . . we didn’t have a very happy home,”
Chet admitted.

A fragment of memory flashed.

My mother and father, screaming at each
other, me crawling behind the couch to get away. Hands pressed
tightly over my ears, I’d curled into a ball of fear, willing
myself to just disappear.

After the yelling came—

My hand tightened around the beer bottle.

I didn’t want to remember any more.

“He didn’t even play with his toys much,”
Chet continued. “We took him to some fancy doctors ’cause someone
told Betty he was probably autistic, but they said he was okay.
Just a quiet kid. Doctors told us we should be grateful.”

Yeah, a quiet kid, who even as a toddler had
known not to rock the boat. Because if you did, you’d hear that
voice that could cut you down to nothing. That could—

The anger flared anew. I couldn’t look at the
old man, feeling cowed—like I was as a kid again. More embarrassing
was talking about it in front of strangers—Ray and Patty. Hell,
except for Maggie, they were all strangers.

“Can’t we change the subject?” The edge to my
voice was unmistakable, the silence that followed was awkward.

“So where did you get the nice camera,
Jeffrey?” Patty asked.

“My brother, Richard, got a new one, so he
gave me this one.”

“Why didn’t he buy
you
a new one?”
Chet demanded. “He can afford it.”

I felt an unreasonable need to defend my
brother. “He wanted something digital. I used to have one just like
this, but it was stolen.”

“Jeff’s sold some of his pictures to a
magazine,” Maggie said.

“Then why are you still a bartender?” Chet
accused.

“It takes time to build a new career,” Maggie
answered for me.

The anger I’d never been allowed to show as a
child threatened to erupt. Who were these people to judge me? To
judge Richard?

“Take pictures now,” Patty said. She smoothed
her hair and plucked at her blouse.

I didn’t want to take any pictures of
her
, yet I couldn’t see a graceful way out of it. I picked
up the camera and attached the flash, glad to hide behind it.

“How do I look, Dad?” she asked.

The old man gazed at her with pride. “Like my
little princess.”

I snapped a couple of shots, started to put
the camera away.

“We have to have a family photo,” Patty
insisted. “Just the three of us. Maggie can take it.”

“I’d be glad to,” she said, reaching for the
camera.

I hesitated, but reluctantly handed it over.
Patty and I perched on opposite arms of the old man’s recliner.

“Lean in closer,” Maggie instructed, looking
through the viewfinder. “Closer.”

I reached out a hand to steady myself against
the back of Chet’s chair, unwilling to touch him. His very
proximity drained my soul, dragging me to depths I hadn’t visited
in thirty-two years.

“Say cheese!” Maggie encouraged.

“Whiskey,” Patty said, and I forced a smile.
The flash momentarily blinded me. “Take another,” Patty said.

Maggie cocked the shutter, advancing the
film, then waited for the flash to light ready. “Nice big
smiles!”

Take the fucking picture
, I mentally
ordered.

Why was that damned Ray staring at us so
intently?

Ruby and Vera had seen the flashes and
bustled into the room, demanding to get into the act. I suffered
through several more shots until Maggie finally surrendered the
camera and I could lose myself in a familiar task.

Patty dragged me into the living room and I
ended up shooting the rest of the roll on the assembled relatives,
with Patty promising prints to people I didn’t even know. She
enjoyed being the life of the party, a feat I’d never been able,
nor wanted, to accomplish. Her laugh was golden—she basked in the
attention.

It took twenty minutes to extricate myself
from the crowd. Now that they’d eaten, my cousins had more
questions for me. Part of me would rather have spoken with my
father—I had a lot of questions, although I wasn’t really sure I
wanted to know the answers.

By the time I got back to the family room,
Chet was dozing in his chair, his rattling breath uncomfortable to
hear. I set my camera down and faded into the background, nursing a
warm beer, letting Maggie take up the conversational slack. I
half-listened, smiling when appropriate, but not actively
participating. Ray had finally wandered off, probably bored.

I stared at my father, trying to remember him
as he used to be. Fragments of memories drifted into my mind—fuzzy
faces and indistinct events that hadn’t entered my thoughts in
years. Yet I hesitated to embrace them. All these years later it
was still all too painful.

I vaguely noticed Patty in the background.
Her voice was getting shrill, her laugh became a cackle. My
half-drunk beer suddenly tasted sour. I set it aside.

Ruby glanced toward the kitchen, and looked
distressed. “I think Patty’s had a little too much to drink.”

“Eileen and Michael said they’d take Chet
home and get him settled. It’s on the way,” Vera said.

“Does this happen often?” I asked.

Ruby nodded, lips pursed. “I’m afraid
so.”

An embarrassing silence fell among us, as
though we shared in a conspiracy.

Chet woke from his uneasy doze, his watery
gaze settling on me. He managed a smile. “Still here.”

Did he refer to me or himself?

Chet straightened in the chair but his
breathing didn’t ease.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked.

He shook his head and a coughing spasm
overtook him. Ruby was instantly at his side, steadying him as she
rubbed his back. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, the choking
noises growing—his distress radiating like a smothering blanket. My
own unease verged on panic. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the
room.

Then Maggie stepped in front of me, and took
my hand. Her calm, blue-eyed gaze, and the tranquil she projected,
was a counterforce against the anxiety building inside me. She
smiled, squeezed my hand, and my breathing eased. She edged closer
and pushed me away from my father.

A gaggle of relatives surrounded the old man,
deciding it was time for him to leave. Vera pushed through the
crowd, Chet’s coat draped over her arm.

Vera’s son-in-law must’ve pulled chauffeur
duty before, because he took charge, guiding the old man and his
walker to his car. Maggie and I followed, and stood watching in the
frigid stillness.

Chet paused at the open car door, his gaze
riveted upon me. “Are you gonna call me, boy? Will you come see me
again?”

“Sure,” I said, not looking forward to
it.

We watched the glow of taillights recede into
the distance. I put my arm around Maggie’s shoulder and walked her
back to the house to say our good-byes to Ruby. We found our coats
and I snagged my camera. I heard Patty’s shrill laughter from
another room. Her friend, Ray, could take her home.

“We’ll see you at Hanukkah, won’t we?” Ruby
asked hopefully.

I’m a lapsed Catholic—I didn’t know anything
about Jewish traditions. “I haven’t made any plans yet. I’ll let
you know,” I hedged.

“I’m so glad you could come,” she said, and I
got the feeling she had restrained herself from pinching my cheek.
“We are your family. We love you,” she said and threw her arms
around me, radiating unconditional love.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

As we headed down the walkway, I turned to
see her wave. Framed in the doorway, she suddenly looked liked
someone else—someone very familiar.

I put the thought out of my mind. I had too
many other things to think about just then.

CHAPTER

8

The ride back to my place had been quiet.
Maggie doesn’t push me when I fall into one of my contemplative
moods. Confusion battered my mind and soul. I wanted to get
shitfaced—a condition I found myself in too much lately.

Like my sister?

The lights were still on in the big house
when we pulled up Richard’s driveway. Maggie glanced at the glowing
clock on the dash. “It’s early. Do you want to stop in to see
Brenda and Richard?”

“Why not,” I said, trying to sound
nonchalant. I’d rather get the inquisition over with.

We went in through the back door. Only the
stove’s hood light illuminated the kitchen. Maggie followed me down
the hall. “Anybody home?” I called.

The big old house felt gloomy and empty after
Ruby’s tiny little Cape Cod overflowing with people. I called out
again and we headed for the study, which was where Richard and
Brenda tended to end up after dinner. A trail of lights led to the
front of the house, and the soft sounds of Vivaldi from the stereo
broke the quiet.