the cards, starting to deal, the air still and blessedly cooler as the night wore on. ‘Last round up!’
It had gone quiet in the car, the smoke yellowing and humid. Addie was resting her head against the window, a small floral cushion propping her up. Becca had gone back to sleep in the back seat. Though admonished to shut up, Ben was humming operatic arias, conducting with one hand and steering with the other. Jake was neither reading nor looking out the window, had jellybeans aplenty but was not eating them, had taken out a pad and pencil and was doing some figures. After a time he looked up to see if he could locate an audience.
‘Ben?’ he said, looking down at his pad.
‘What, honey?’
‘I am trying to figure it out. Today is July 6th, isn’t it?’
‘Yup.’
‘And Addie says we are going to the bungalow until after my birthday. That’s August 25th. So . . .’ He paused to count, dividing the number of days by seven. ‘So, that’s over seven weeks, isn’t it?’
‘Sure enough,’ said Ben lightly. ‘It is.’
‘How come? We usually only go for a month, right? In August. Why are we going so early this time?’
There was a slight pause. Addie raised her head from her cushion.
‘I already explained this,’ she said. ‘I thought you would remember? This year we get the whole summer at the bungalow. That’s an extra treat, isn’t it? Who’d want to be in sweaty old Alexandria when they could be with Poppa and Granny and go to the beach?’
He remembered, but he hadn’t done the sums. ‘A little longer this summer’, that was how she’d explained it. It wasn’t an entirely appealing prospect. He shared the fiction that he loved it at the bungalow, though he was bored there most of the time, particularly when Ben and Poppa were away. Too many girls! Becca, and cousins Jenny, Naomi and baby Charlotte, with their silly games, dolls and dressing-up outfits. Of course he lorded it over them, got to be conductor of the swinging seats, had first call on the hammock, was the only one allowed on the roof or near the septic tank. He needed boys to talk to about baseball, but even if he found some at the beach they would be stupid Yankee fans. Or maybe the Dodgers or Giants. That was pretty bad too. None of them had even heard of Mickey Vernon! And what was worse, no one to play baseball with. Not like in Alexandria, where he could play softball three mornings a week in the summer.
But at least there was plenty of time to read, to nosh fruit and jellied candies and ice cream, to go swimming at the beach, or into Huntington for a hotdog at Wolfie’s, with sauerkraut and mustard, and a Dr Pepper straight out of the bottle.
The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. But something was wrong, and he could sense the evasiveness in his parents’ immobile shoulders, their tones of voice, the inappropriate pauses and emphases. Nothing looked or sounded right.
‘Yeah, OK,’ he said, ‘but I don’t get it. Why extra this year . . . Nothing’s different, is it?’
From the rear seat, Jake watched as Ben turned slightly to his right and nodded. Addie could do it, she was better at that sort of thing, had more of an anxious child in her, could respond to the uncertainty, get the tone right. He would be too matter of fact, too calm, too reasonable. There’s nothing more worrying than being reassured.
It wasn’t clear what to tell the kids, or how, or when. They’d avoided the moment until plans were further advanced, to spare them the anxiety of knowing both too much and too little. But the boy was already on edge, and likely to get more so. Becca thankfully was asleep, though she would take the news and accommodate the changes more easily than Jake.
‘We’re moving, aren’t we? That’s it!’
His voice was unsteady, and rising in volume. ‘I don’t want to! I won’t!’
Addie didn’t want to either.
Leaving Washington, renting an apartment in Huntington on Nathan Hale Drive (God forbid), where Frankie and Michelle lived, the loss of income and status, the dependency on Poppa’s random largesse. Removing the children from their happy, progressive school in the Virginia farmlands, enrolling them in the Long Island public-school system with the suburban dopes. How utterly dreadful for them, for all of them. She searched in vain for someone to blame. They’d done nothing wrong, done things well and rightly and justly, believed in what was good. Son of a bitch!
‘I’m not going!’ said Jake. ‘You can’t make me!’
At the weekends Maurice worked on the bungalow, made it more comfortable, more attractive, more his own. Dug a flower bed along the southern hedge, planted two hydrangeas and some phlox, installed a double swing at the bottom of the yard, paved an area for a swinging seat for the children, made wooden planters for the side of the house and filled them with red geraniums. He spent most of his time in his workshop in the garage, emerging occasionally to measure this, adjust that or install the other.
Put on the radio, listen to the news – though that was depressing enough – perhaps catch an afternoon Yankee game. Sometimes Jake would wander in and he could teach the boy, who was fidgety and had a short attention span but was greedy for the time the two of them spent together, could teach him how to use a lathe, a chisel, do simple joinery.
Last year he’d taught the boy how to hammer in a nail: took a good piece of sawn-off two by four, fit it into the vise, turned the handle firmly, then told Jake to finish it off with the final twist. The boy tried to show how strong he was, heaved and grunted, got it to move a little, gave a satisfied little smile.
‘Good boy!’ He passed him the hammer – not the titchy ball peen, a proper hammer with a hefty wooden handle and large head – and a two-inch nail.
‘Here you go. Remember what I showed you?’
The boy took the hammer, gripping it halfway up the handle, fearful concentration on his face.
‘Not like that, down at the bottom.’ He shifted the boy’s grip, the hammer sagged slightly from its own weight.
‘Now don’t just go tap, tap, that won’t drive the nail in. You have to hit it. Like Mickey Mantle!’
‘Mickey Vernon!’ said Jake. He was a Senators fan and loved their great first baseman, and though he was stuck with the Yankees for the summer, he didn’t like them. Big show-offs! Mickey Mantle! Yogi stupid Berra!
Jake raised the hammer, holding the nail tense against the wood, his fingertips whitening. Poppa took it back from him.
‘Let me show you again.’ He held the nail just below the top, its point against the wood, raised the hammer, cocked his wrist, drove it three-quarters of the way into the board. He left the rest, handed the hammer back.
‘Now you. No need to hold the nail.’
It took the boy three taps, but the head of the nail now rested against the wood.
‘Good!’
Knowing he’d been spared, the boy felt patronised.
‘I want to do it myself! Let me do it!’ He gave a girlish pout that made his grandfather’s heart contract.
Yet
