sent my four-year-old ass running. When I got halfway down the stairs, I heard some kind of clanging noises and voices ahead of me. I stopped, trapped between two scary places. I looked back up the stairs. The entrance to our room was foggy and dark. The witch wasn’t following me, but I still didn’t know what those noises from downstairs were, so I wasn’t going anywhere. I dropped to a stair and held my blanket up to my mouth. I froze. Then the clanging in the distance began to sound familiar—ceramic cups hitting against saucers, maybe. I recognized the voices as my mother’s and Ray’s, coming from the kitchen. As my mind cleared, I realized they were just talking and sipping coffee. It was nothing.
“Ray, what are you doing?”
“Drinking coffee with you. What are you doing?”
“Trying to raise my kids right.”
“And you are. Look how happy they were tonight.”
“They were happy because of the TVs, Ray.”
“Yeah, and if a little TV can make them that happy, do you have any idea what a house of their own and swimming pool could do for them?”
Did he just say … swimming pool? Now I was awake. I poked my head around the corner.
“I’m not worried about what those things could do to them.”
“Are we gonna start with that now?”
“Yeah, we’re gonna start with that now. I don’t see you for ten days. I don’t get to ask where you were or what you were doing. Then you show up at my parents’ house on a Wednesday night with a dozen roses, a black eye and two TVs that don’t have a box or a price tag between them.”
“Why you wanna price tag? You wanna take ’em back to the store?”
“What store would that be, Ray?”
He laughed.
“You’re a shady guy, Ray.”
“That’s why you like me. Admit it.”
“I’m not gonna like you so hard the day they start shoving your meals through a slot.”
“Tough girl here.”
“That’s right.”
“No one is gonna be shovin’ my meals through a slot.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that.” He punctuated that by knocking his rings on the table.
“Then I don’t know that.”
“I’m tellin’ you.”
“But Ray, you don’t know. You don’t, you don’t and you don’t.”
“I know how I feel about you. That’s what I know. Do you know how I feel about you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how you feel about me?”
“Yeah.” She was looking down at the table.
“Do you?”
By her chin, he brought her face up to meet his. Looking right in his eyes, she said, “Yes.”
“So, then?”
My mother stared at her boyfriend longingly, then a smile broke out on her lips. Ray smiled with her. She started shaking her head.
Ray said, “So whaddaya wanna do?”
“What, are you gonna walk me down the aisle wearing concrete boots?”
There was a pause. Ray grabbed her hand and leaned in closer. “Whaddaya wanna do?”
“I wanna drink my coffee.”
Carefully, I walked back up to our bedroom and stood at the side of Catherine’s bed.
“Rin, wake up.”
She was used to this. “What?”
“Ray wants to buy us a swimming pool.”
“Who said?”
“He did. I just heard him say it to Mommy.”
“Where would we put a pool?”
“In the backyard?”
“Is it small?”
“I don’t know. But you know what? You know what I think? I think it’s gonna be one like they have at Sprain Brook Park, only smaller.”
Up until then Catherine could’ve had this conversation in her sleep. But now she cleared the covers off her head and propped herself up on her elbows.
“A concrete pool?”
“Yeah, a concrete pool.”
“He said that?”
“Yes. He said a concrete pool.”
“No way.”
“Yes way! A CONCRETE POOL!” I started punching her mattress. “A BUILT-IN, CONCRETE POOL!”
“Shhh! Stop that. What else did they say?”
“I don’t know, but that would be the best thing ever.” The excitement was too much for me. I jumped on my bed and started beating my face into the pillow. “That would be the best.”
I pulled the covers up to my chin and held them tight. My eyes were darting all over the room and my heart was all over my chest. I looked over my mother’s bed and I struggled in the dark to make out Robert Redford’s face and hat.
THE NEXT DAY, my mother and Catherine were in front of the bathroom mirror. My mother had just washed Catherine’s hair and was now combing it out. I was pushing a Matchbox car along the rim of the bathtub watching them. Catherine said, “Mom, are you going to marry Ray?”
My mother said, “I don’t know, sweetie.” She was being very careful about how to answer questions on this subject and continued, “He’s a really nice man, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, he is.”
“What makes you ask?”
“Well, if you did marry him, would we get another house?”
“We probably would. But like I said, I don’t know if Mommy will marry Ray.”
“If we got another house, would I have my own room?”
“I wish you could.” Her carefulness slipped away for a moment.
“And would Joey have his own room?”
