The Color of Family (26 page)

Aaron only stared blankly into the flickering candle at the center of the table while he finished his salad. What if, he wondered, someone managed to make it all the way to adulthood without knowing—like Clayton. So Aaron fought with everything in him to keep quiet a sliver of sentimentality that wanted to creep up for Clayton, if it all was true. But it wasn't, so the pity wasn't needed, and he would put it away for some other man who'd grow up to find out that the one true thing, in which he would always know himself, was painted, half of it, another color. When his salad was
done, he looked up at Tawna, who was still eating hers in small bites and said with a fresh, sideways smile, “Well, at least I can take comfort in knowing that you wouldn't turn down a marriage proposal from me because of my color.”

Tawna laughed heartily, filling their little space in the room, then replied, “You never know, Aaron. The one thing we know about this world is that nothing is as it seems, and no one is as they seem.” Then she did laugh, staring at him through her squinty, amused eyes as if to make it clear that she knew there was far more to him than what he seemed right there in front of her.

And though he laughed, laughed with every ounce of true mirth he could find in himself in that moment, it wasn't funny to him. It wasn't funny at all.

When the laughter faded, Tawna was left with a faint smile that would not leave when she said, “You think far more than you speak, don't you?”

Aaron looked into the flickering candle again, then up into Tawna's eyes. There was no telling why he should let her in, he only knew he had to. So he said, “Yeah, Tawna. I think a lot more than I speak. But the circumstances of my life have made that necessary.”

“To protect yourself, or something? Or is it not quite that simple?”

“It's not quite that simple.”

Tawna sipped her water, then put it down quickly when the waiter arrived with their meals. She leaned back to make way for the waiter's arm, then smiled graciously at him. Once Aaron's plate was placed in front of him and the waiter was on his way, she picked up her fork and speared a portion, then said, “So, do you ever speak of what torments you?”

Aaron stared blankly at her as he chewed for several long seconds. He shifted where he sat. Then he shifted again the other way. He took out his glasses and slid them onto his face. Then he took them off, folded them up and placed them on the table next to his plate. How dare she reveal him. “How do you know something torments me?”

“It's in every part of your way, Aaron. But mostly I know because the only reason anyone thinks more than they speak is because they're afraid of what would happen if they give voice to their torments.”

“And you think I'm afraid.”

Tawna chewed a bite of potato, then looked plainly at Aaron and said, “I think you're afraid.” She ate a few more bites of food in the quiet that had slid between them, and then she snapped toward him and said, as if with a desperation to explain, “But that's not to say that you have to tell me what torments you.”

Aaron laughed with a low chuckle, aware of and quite sobered by her truth. Then he looked at her and let his laughter fade to a smile for her that was churning with everything in him that not even he understood, and said, “I will, though. One day soon, I will tell you.”

 

Aaron had just gotten back into his car after leaving Tawna at her doorstep. He did what any man raised by a woman whose sensibility was screaming in his ear
don't you dare go in there.
As badly as he wanted to go in, and with the way she invited him out of her southern politeness, he knew it was no place for him to be. Not on their first date. So as he turned the ignition, put his car into gear, and pulled away from her apartment, he was struck smack in the face with the memory of his first date with Maggie. It had left him warm, he remembered. Warm with a comfort that made him feel as if he had just slipped into an old and familiar sweater. And he remembered how they'd laughed and talked as they danced on the surface of everything that didn't have the least bit of a chance to chafe.

So as he drove toward home, he found the juxtaposition between that long-ago first date with Maggie and the still-present first date with Tawna far too troubling. Tawna had made him itchy in a way that left him not knowing what to do with himself.

He drove along mindlessly with Tawna in full focus. And as he did, he missed by mere inches the puffy coattail of a jaywalker who stared him down with the impudence of a streetwise toreador.

Then his thoughts went back to the comfort and acuity he had gained from the years with Maggie, knowing how to balance so elegantly on one heel atop a bed of eggshells. And though at first the stance was discomfiting in every way, it became part of everything he knew. But now there came another comfort. The comfort of serenity. And even though he had never seen it, never thought
about it, never knew it existed, when he watched serenity approach him in Tawna, Aaron knew he could finally put his feet down—those shells be damned and crushed to crumbs.

So definitely, he thought, Tawna was the gift of serenity he'd give to his life, but mostly, she'd be the gift he'd bring to his family. And just as serenity approaches, hers will come and cover so softly and so gradually that nothing will ever be the same and only he will know why.

And this made him wonder what his mother would think if she were to understand, as gradually as a sunrise, that nothing ever comes down to this or that, right or wrong. And what his sister would think if the palette of life's logic had more colors than black and white. Neither would know the sieve of reasoning through which their sensibilities had gently been squeezed and shaped and made lithe. But he would know. And so he smiled as he pulled into his driveway with the thought of Tawna. Then he couldn't help himself when an out-loud laugh just jumped from him as he got out of the car and made his way toward his front door, because the funny thing was that he'd never heard of such a thing and most likely neither had anyone else—one woman's salvation for one man's life.

 

Antonia was in the kitchen peeling potatoes when she heard Junior step into the front hall from the cold and close it out behind him. There was a time, she thought, when only the sound of him could send her to a placid place inside herself. Just knowing he had come in from the cold to her had always given her a belief in the constancy that her love was safe with him and his with her. When Junior came home in days past, it was because there was no other place he wanted to be, no other place he could be. Now, there was another place, and perhaps he'd never go, or perhaps it was only a question of time. No matter what his decision might be, there was no more peace she could find in his opening the door to close out every element of the world.

When he reached the kitchen, he went to her and offered her a kiss on the cheek that became awkward due to her stiffness.

Antonia glared at him with everything she knew. Then, after several long seconds, when it was clear to her that he was not
aware that she was staring him down, she went back to peeling her potato. While she peeled, she couldn't imagine how he'd come to believe that he lets her do anything, as if he ruled her and everything in her. And with his mistress down in New Orleans, she thought, he ought to know that he no longer had the same intensity of power in their home. Then again, she thought, even days after finding that locket and shooting the venom of her hatred at him with her eyes, Junior still had no idea she knew about Cora. If, she had to remind herself, there was even anything to know. But there had to be, because that locket and its inscription made it quite something to know.

And when Junior made no attempt at conversation, Antonia noticed there was something about the way he sat in the comfort of one of his worlds. Did he sit like that at Cora's, she wondered. So that's why that unknowable demon in her compelled her to disturb his peace. “When is your next board business down in Tulane?”

“I have to go down next month to discuss hiring this doctor from out of Atlanta. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, just because I thought I might come along,” and without lifting her head, she looked over at Junior to see his immediate reaction. There was no measuring her silent ire when she saw that it was nothing. He didn't even seem to as much as blink, from what she could see from where she stood. So she pressed, “Is that okay?”

“I guess, Antonia,” Junior replied with a slight edge. “Although, I don't know why you want to go back down there after all these years. You haven't been down to New Orleans in nearly twenty-five years, and then we didn't even stay in New Orleans that long since we were on our way to Plaquemine to visit Momma. You don't know anybody down there anymore, anyway.”

She gave him a sly smile, then said, “That's not true. My cousin Vera Sue lives there, and her three children. Well, two of them live in Baton Rouge, but that's close enough. And then there's Cora Calliup.” She waited to see what he would do, how his face just might change. But nothing. He was even in every way. Then she continued, “I haven't seen her nearly since I left
New Orleans to come live here. I know she has all those children named after herbs. Do you ever run into her down there, Junior?”

He didn't answer her. He just slid the newspaper that sat on the other side of the table toward him and proceeded to read it.

But she knew he was only pretending that he either hadn't heard her or wasn't paying attention. So this time, she said it quite loud enough for the deaf to hear. “I said, do you ever run into Cora Calliup when you're down there?”

Junior looked at her firmly for several tense seconds. Seconds that seemed as if at the end of them, Junior just might unburden his soul. Instead, he stood from the table, newspaper in hand, and said crisply, “No.” And with that, Junior floated from the room like an amorphous vapor that was headed for anywhere it could twist and turn and eventually vanish.

Antonia only stared after him, part of her wanting to follow him, but most of her simply wondering if Junior's reality had been able to be split in two—life in Baltimore, and life in New Orleans. And she supposed that when a man had polarized his life with two disparate women like herself and Cora, reality could only be so—in halves. So she put her attention back on her potatoes, and could not fathom just how it might come to pass that she would be able to throw that locket in Junior's face and simply say,
I know.

C
layton sat in the master's throne at the dining room table waiting for his dinner, wearied from a weeklong European tour, not to mention the oddity of Europeans that never failed to amaze him. There was nothing specifically anomalous about them other than their unrivaled arrogance in believing they could lay claim to him simply because it was from European stages that he had been catapulted to the heights of his renown. And as he noticed the old wooden clock that made itself the center of attention atop the buffet, his mind was forced back to his first night on the continent in Milan. It was at a reception in his honor where he found himself in the company of a woman trying to do the same thing as that clock—make herself the center of attention. The only thing was, as offensive as that clock was to him, she was nowhere near as charming. She was an Englishwoman, the wife of some bloated-belly Englishman who moved and spoke with the superciliousness of a man who, under less cultured circumstances, might try to pass himself off as aristocracy. Clayton could barely abide what the English accent did to his ears to begin with, but he could still hear the woman's nasally accent as she spoke with rather proficient haughtiness at the way America was only capable of producing the lowest levels of talent, among the likes of which were Madonna and Britney Spears.
“And whether a performer can play the kazoo or sing like a badly wounded animal, Americans don't care because they're merely seduced by the celebrity,”
he heard her shrill voice echoing in
his head. And Clayton actually laughed out loud when he remembered that in less than two minutes of berating Americans' seduction by celebrity, she was inviting him to take summer holiday with her, her husband, and his belly at their villa in Lake Como.
“Everyone would just die of envy if they knew you were taking holiday with us.”
Was someone as narcissistic as this woman capable of seeing the irony in which she was swathed?

Susan came into the dining room carrying a casserole, and before she could set it down in the middle of the table, Clayton said, “I've been thinking that we should find something else to put on that buffet. What do you think?”

“What's wrong with my grandmother's clock?” she asked with a guarded tone.

“Well, Susan, I've never bitten my tongue about the fact that I think it's a terrible-looking thing. I'm just saying, now that we're here in Baltimore and considering we've been dragging that thing up and down the road since we've been married, maybe we should rethink the clock and all this stuff that we've had since we first moved up to New York from New Orleans. You know, get a more updated look in our home.”

Susan stood straight and settled her hands on her hips. “You know I don't like that modern stuff, Clayton. Half of it looks like it belongs in the waiting lounge for a shuttle to outer space. All that glass and chrome, and chairs that look like they're not meant to hold a bottom for longer than five minutes. Why you'd think that they'd never even heard of wood.”

“I'm not saying it has to be modern, just more updated.”

“I like our antiques. That clock is an antique, Clayton.”

“And there is no law that says every antique is a beautiful one, Susan. That thing is just plain old ugly. All I'm saying is that maybe we can update the look of our home without going too far in the modern direction. I love antiques just as much as you, but I like attractive antiques. I just want us to get some attractive antiques in here.”

“Well fine, Clayton,” she said as she turned to go back into the kitchen. “Let me get the rest of dinner on, now.”

Once she left, Agnes came through the swinging door so quickly Clayton wondered how it could have happened without them crashing headlong into one another. He followed his
mother's movements intently as she placed another dish in the middle of the table, then asked, “So what's that?”

“It's kale. I made it,” Agnes said, as if to assure her son of something.

“Oh” was all Clayton said at first. Then he continued, “Did you make it the way Susan makes hers? Because I like the way Susan makes it. She sautés her kale with onions and garlic and pepper sauce instead of boiling it with meat.”

Agnes took her son in with seeming incredulity, then replied, “I made it the way
I
make kale. You ate it when you were a boy; now all of a sudden my kale's not good enough for you?”

Clayton only laughed, nearly under his breath, then said, “Momma, in case you haven't noticed, I haven't been a boy for some time now, and I've had a lot of years eating Susan's kale, that's all.”

“Ummf,” was all Agnes said before she went back into the kitchen. And when she walked right back in behind Susan, with the twins trailing behind her, she went to her seat for dinner, settled herself, and said to Susan before her daughter-in-law could get into her chair, “All of a sudden, my kale isn't good enough for him now. He wants
your
kale.”

“Oh, Mother Cannon, I'm sure Clayton still loves your kale, don't you Clayton?”

“Of course I do, Momma. I never said I didn't love your kale.” And he thought to say that he simply had his mouth set on tasting Susan's kale, but he couldn't see how that would make anything better, so he simply left things as they were. He reached past Noah for his mother's kale, then scooped a good helping of the soupy limp greens—that had been cooked to their certain death and hardly resembled their former form—onto his plate. He gave the dish to Noah, and before he had anything else on his plate, before they had even blessed the food, Clayton took a forkful of greens and ate them eagerly. “Wow, Momma! This sure does bring back memories, come to think of it. They sure are good.”

Agnes gave her son a smile that said she had been duly placated. “Thank you, baby.”

“So, Momma,” Clayton said as he proceeded to dish more food onto his plate, “how come you didn't go back to New Orleans once I left for Europe?”

“Oh, well honey, I just wanted to spend more time with my beautiful boys here,” she said in a way that said that was all she would say.

But Clayton was clearly expecting more. He looked at his mother with questioning eyes, then at Susan who was watching Agnes in much the same way. So he shifted his gaze back to his mother and said, “Well, what did you all do?”

Agnes put the spoon back in the bowl of kale, then placed her hands in her lap like an uncertain child being taken to task for her actions. “We just spent time together, Clayton. Susan went to dinner and the boys and I stayed here and played cards and popped popcorn. There aren't many other details to tell you.”

Then Susan, as she plucked boiled potatoes from a dish, said, “Speaking of that dinner, Momma, I got the distinct impression that there was some tension between you and that woman you were having lunch with that day. I've been meaning to ask you about that. What in the world were the two of you talking about? Because you sure were agitated enough.”

“We were just having a disagreement about something that happened in the past, darling, that's all. She saw things one way, and I saw them another.” She looked at Clayton, and then to the opposite end of the table at Susan and defended herself. “That does happen, you know?”

“Oh, of course it does, Mother Cannon,” Susan said as if to assure her mother-in-law that she wasn't accusing her of anything. “I was just wondering, is all. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“Well, everything was just fine. Who's going to say grace?”

“I'll say it, Grandma,” Noah said.

“Isn't that just like my good boys,” she said, giving them a grandmother's fawning smile, as if Noah and Luke were one, no matter what, just by virtue of having been born together.

Glancing around the table, Noah began, “Dear Lord, make us truly thankful for the food we're about to receive for the nourishment of our bodies. Amen.”

“Wasn't that just wonderful?” Agnes said, her voice filled with inflated pride.

“That was quite nice, son,” Clayton said as he cut into his meat. Then he turned to his mother, still with her contentious visit with
her friend on his mind, and went to inquire but was cut off by Susan.

“What was your friend's name, anyway, Mother Cannon? I forgot it.”

But since Agnes didn't rush to answer, it gave Noah plenty of opportunity to blurt out, “Antonia. Her name was Antonia. Right, Grandma?”

“Yes, that's right, honey.”

“She has a nice face,” Noah said. “I think she liked us.”

“Of course she liked you,” Agnes said, smiling at the boys. “What's not to like about you two sweeties?”

Clayton was barely aware that he was staring dead ahead into the meat in the center of the table when his gaze was disrupted by the intensity of Susan's attention on him. But she would have to wait. All that mattered to him in that particular moment was the Antonia he had met. And how could it be happenstance, he wondered, that two women from New Orleans—one knowing his mother, the other drifting into him at Harbor Place—could be two separate women. Chance simply wasn't that profound. When his eyes did make their way to Susan's and slid into them, he could see that she wanted to know what was the matter; what had sent him off to a most distant place. But Antonia had now become another name, like Emeril, that had come to epitomize a mystery that had long ago perched itself over his life; like the raven, nevermore. And all he knew about this mystery, the only thing possible for him to know, was that it had roots that were planted deep. And it was the very nature of the mystery that always made him question his state of consciousness in the back of that funeral car so many years before. Perhaps, he thought—particularly now with a completely formed woman named Antonia haunting and overtaking his every thought—he was indeed asleep that day when he thought he'd heard his grandmother suggest that his father was someone different than the man they'd just put into the ground.

So he snapped out of the stupor and sliced off a bite of meat from his plate, but before he would eat it, he asked his mother, “So what did you and this friend Antonia talk about that caused so much tension between you two?”

Agnes set her fork down in what seemed to be certain frustration. And when she'd finally swallowed the bite she had been
chewing, she answered, “Clayton, there are far, far more interesting things for us to discuss than some boring old lunch I had with an old friend. Why don't you tell us about your concert tour? How was it? Did you get standing ovations at every performance?”

“Momma, it was no different than any other tour I do over there. Self-important, self-believing aristocracy are the worst sycophants on earth. That is, of course, until I leave and then they can talk about what an unsophisticated, boorish American I am with my southern drawl and simple clothes.”

“That's what makes you so much better than them,” Agnes said. “You're brilliant, and yet you still have the elegance to be humble. Not like those wine-swilling pigs.”

“Brilliance and elegance are subjective ideals, Momma,” Clayton pointed out with a certain unease in his voice that slid into his countenance. This was what had bothered him most about his mother through the years. She had the most irksome way of showing her devotion to him with praise while vilifying anyone she could on the periphery, whether she had just cause or not. And there were times when it made her praise of him lack sincerity. But he didn't want to think about that, so he simply continued, “Even as hard as it is for me to admit it, I think we have to assume that every European is not arrogant Euro-trash.”

“I'm not saying they're all like that, Clayton. I'm just saying that so many of them think that all they have to be is European to be elegant.”

“And you know this based on what, Momma?” Clayton asked firmly.

“Just based on the way they seem,” she said, sounding a bit wounded. And then she lashed back, “I'm giving you a compliment and somehow I end up being attacked and accused of I don't know what.”

“Oh, Mother Cannon,” Susan interrupted. “Nobody's attacking you or accusing you of anything. Are you Clayton?” and she gave Clayton a hard-eyed mother's glare for misbehavior.

“Of course I'm not accusing her or attacking her. I just don't want her going around saying something like that to the wrong people. It only takes one misspoken word to be the lead story on the news with this town being so absolutely, unexplainably
captivated with me moving here. I'll tell you, I don't get it. I'm like the Cal Ripken of classical music, or something in this town.”

“Well, I'm not stupid, Clayton. I would never say something like that outside of this room with just you and Susan and the boys. What do you think I'm going to do, go across the street and shout it from the steps of the Science Center?”

“Now you're being ridiculous, Momma.”

And just the way a child knows how to bring the spotlight of their family's attention directly onto themselves, Luke interrupted with what would seem to most others as incongruous kid-talk when he said, “Today at school, the teacher asked me and Noah to tell the class about New Orleans since Daddy is from there and going down there to play a concert.”

“Did she, now,” Susan said interestedly, as if she were relieved to be drawn into anything other than the nitpicking of Clayton and his mother. “So what did you tell them?”

“We told them about Mardi Gras, and we told them about the music that's special only to New Orleans.”

“That's right,” Luke said. “And we also told them about funerals, right Noah?”

“Yeah, we sure did. We told them about how some people have parades and Dixieland bands to take them to the graveyard. And they laughed and thought we weren't even telling the truth, Daddy.” And the boys giggled until everyone else joined them.