and even left me alone, for the most part. She made friends in school who didn't know about her past reputation, and she sang in the school chorus.
Pap didn't wander around the house looking for something or someone to entertain him. He didn't wander outside anymore, either. He had Bobbi now, and they did everything together. They would climb through the second-floor hall window out onto the porch roof and sit with the Nativity set. I could see their still, dark forms among all the lit bodies. They sat together, arms around each other, rarely speaking, as if they were waiting for something.
Mam looked at them through the window one evening
and said, nodding to herself, "Bobbi needs Pap. He's a good father to her."
I didn't say anything, but I looked out at the two of them and wondered. Could Pap ever be a father to someone?
Every morning, the two of them got up at five-thirty and slipped out to go to six o'clock mass. As far as I could tell, most of their conversations were about Jesus, and sometimes I'd see Bobbi reading to Pap from the Bible the same way Larry would read Tennyson's poetry to Mam, as if they were sharing something deep about themselves.
Pap still went to the Center every day with Mam, and he loved this. He took a gym class, an art class, a reading class, and then Mam's horticulture class, where he learned how to propagate, grow, and maintain flowers and vegetables and other plants. He worked in the greenhouse with his classmates, and Mam said he was a natural at digging dirt. He loved his new job, as he called it. He'd come home with egg cartons filled with dirt and seeds, and he'd set them near the windows in the kitchen and talk to them. Sometimes he'd take the poor things into the parlor with him and play the piano and sing to them. We were amazed when the seeds started growing and he had to transfer the plants into pots, but no one was more amazed than Pap.
"I just love to grow seeds, now," he'd say, holding up his pots. "Look what I got, everybody, and we can eat these in our food when they're all grown up."
Mam gave Pap a patch of lawn to turn into a garden, but since it was autumn, and then winter, all he could do was rake leaves and scoop out the snow so he could talk to the
frozen grass, promising it that he and Bobbi would someday turn it into a beautiful wildflower garden.
This was our new life. Everyone wandered off during the day to school, to jobs, but in the early evenings we'd gather again, five, seven, nine of us (not including Bobbi's critters), and the noise—piano music, readings, arguments, cooking—the chaos would begin.
I never knew what to expect. I never knew who I'd find in my bathroom when I came home in the afternoon, or who I'd find napping on my bed. I didn't know which of Larry's friends would help him with dinner, creating even more bizarre concoctions than before, or how many there'd be squeezed in at the table. I didn't know what kind of animal would sit on my feet while I ate or escape at night and crush my chest while I slept. If I wanted Mam, I never knew where I'd find her—listening to poetry, working out in the yard at midnight, on a date with Dr. Mike, asleep in a bathroom or on the living room floor or, sometimes, in her own bed with Pap.
While everyone around me seemed to have found themselves, I grew more and more lost. While everyone else could hear their own voice in the midst of the cacophony, I grew more and more silent. I spent my evenings up in my room, eating and studying with the radio on so I wouldn't hear the others below and have to think about how I didn't, couldn't, fit in. I wanted to tell Mam. I wanted her to know how I felt about our new life, and I wanted her to care. I wanted to say to her, "Okay, Mam, either I go or they do, you choose," but I was afraid she wouldn't choose me, and I had nowhere else to go.
Chapter Thirteen
O NE SATURDAY MORNING after the first snowfall of the year, I found Mam outside sweeping snow off the porch,
Pap didn't wander around the house looking for something or someone to entertain him. He didn't wander outside anymore, either. He had Bobbi now, and they did everything together. They would climb through the second-floor hall window out onto the porch roof and sit with the Nativity set. I could see their still, dark forms among all the lit bodies. They sat together, arms around each other, rarely speaking, as if they were waiting for something.
Mam looked at them through the window one evening
and said, nodding to herself, "Bobbi needs Pap. He's a good father to her."
I didn't say anything, but I looked out at the two of them and wondered. Could Pap ever be a father to someone?
Every morning, the two of them got up at five-thirty and slipped out to go to six o'clock mass. As far as I could tell, most of their conversations were about Jesus, and sometimes I'd see Bobbi reading to Pap from the Bible the same way Larry would read Tennyson's poetry to Mam, as if they were sharing something deep about themselves.
Pap still went to the Center every day with Mam, and he loved this. He took a gym class, an art class, a reading class, and then Mam's horticulture class, where he learned how to propagate, grow, and maintain flowers and vegetables and other plants. He worked in the greenhouse with his classmates, and Mam said he was a natural at digging dirt. He loved his new job, as he called it. He'd come home with egg cartons filled with dirt and seeds, and he'd set them near the windows in the kitchen and talk to them. Sometimes he'd take the poor things into the parlor with him and play the piano and sing to them. We were amazed when the seeds started growing and he had to transfer the plants into pots, but no one was more amazed than Pap.
"I just love to grow seeds, now," he'd say, holding up his pots. "Look what I got, everybody, and we can eat these in our food when they're all grown up."
Mam gave Pap a patch of lawn to turn into a garden, but since it was autumn, and then winter, all he could do was rake leaves and scoop out the snow so he could talk to the
frozen grass, promising it that he and Bobbi would someday turn it into a beautiful wildflower garden.
This was our new life. Everyone wandered off during the day to school, to jobs, but in the early evenings we'd gather again, five, seven, nine of us (not including Bobbi's critters), and the noise—piano music, readings, arguments, cooking—the chaos would begin.
I never knew what to expect. I never knew who I'd find in my bathroom when I came home in the afternoon, or who I'd find napping on my bed. I didn't know which of Larry's friends would help him with dinner, creating even more bizarre concoctions than before, or how many there'd be squeezed in at the table. I didn't know what kind of animal would sit on my feet while I ate or escape at night and crush my chest while I slept. If I wanted Mam, I never knew where I'd find her—listening to poetry, working out in the yard at midnight, on a date with Dr. Mike, asleep in a bathroom or on the living room floor or, sometimes, in her own bed with Pap.
While everyone around me seemed to have found themselves, I grew more and more lost. While everyone else could hear their own voice in the midst of the cacophony, I grew more and more silent. I spent my evenings up in my room, eating and studying with the radio on so I wouldn't hear the others below and have to think about how I didn't, couldn't, fit in. I wanted to tell Mam. I wanted her to know how I felt about our new life, and I wanted her to care. I wanted to say to her, "Okay, Mam, either I go or they do, you choose," but I was afraid she wouldn't choose me, and I had nowhere else to go.
Chapter Thirteen
O NE SATURDAY MORNING after the first snowfall of the year, I found Mam outside sweeping snow off the porch,
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