The Joyce Maynard Collection by Joyce Maynard Page B

your mother doing OK? he said. His voice had that sound where I knew he was feeling sorry for us, at the same time he just wanted to get off the phone and back to his other family, where things were easier.
    We’ve got friends over, I told him. As Frank would have said, I could pass a lie detector test with that statement.
    Evelyn also called. Traffic had been so bad on Route 93 it had been two o’clock when she reached the hospital. They were waiting to talk with the doctor now. She was hoping Barry could stay on till after dinnertime.
    Just get here when you can, Evelyn, I heard my mother say into the receiver. He seems to be doing all right.
    Evelyn must have asked about the diaper situation then. That was the part that worried her. He was a big boy now, Barry. Not the easiest thing anymore, lifting him out of the chair.
    My mother didn’t say Frank was the one who’d changed him. Frank, the one who’d carried him back into the house after the baseball practice and run him a bath, filled it with ice cubes and shaving cream. From where I sat, in my room, I could hear the two of them: Barry making small, cooing noises; Frank whistling.
    What kind of idiot am I? Frank said. I never got around to introducing myself, buddy. My name is Frank.
    Barry made a sound then.
    That’s right, Frank told him. Frank. My grandmother called me Frankie. Either one is fine by me.
    He made us dinner again. My mother sat on the edge of the counter, sharing a beer with him. She had dug up an old Chinese fan, probably from some dance routine she’d done one time. Now she was fanning him.
    I bet you could think up a nice dance to do for me with that one, Adele, he told her. You’d probably have some great-looking outfit to go with it. Or not.
    Nobody was hungry, due to the heat, but Frank had made a cold curry soup with the last of the peaches and the last of an old container of hot sauce we had, from some take-out food we got once. After, my mother fixed root beer floats, and Barry and I sat in the backyard, beyond the sight lines of the Jervises’ aboveground pool, where we could hear the splashing of the girl with asthma and her little brother. When the bugs got bad, we came inside and turned on the television. They were showing Close Encounters of the Third Kind . Frank propped up Barry in his chair and wrapped another cool cloth around his neck. My mother made popcorn.
    When we heard the sound of Evelyn’s car pulling up, Frank slipped up the stairs, as they had planned he would. As far as Evelyn was concerned, it had been just the three of us here. Me and my mother, and her son.
    She had stepped into the living room now. Her father was stabilized, she said. Still in intensive care, but no longer critical. How can I ever repay you, Adele? she said.
    I knew my mother just wanted them to go, but Evelyn had been driving for two hours. You look like you could use a cold glass of water, my mother told her.
    She had just come back with the water when the news came on. An update. Energy consumption during the day’s heat wave had left the area in the danger zone for major power outages, and there was still the rest of a long hot holiday weekend ahead of us.
    We know it’s hot out there, folks, the newscaster was saying, but our friends at Public Service are asking us all to turn off those air conditioners whenever possible. If the heat’s getting to you, consider a cold shower.
    In other news, he said, police in the tristate area continue their search for the prisoner at large in the region since Wednesday.
    The photograph of Frank flashed on. Up until this moment, Barry had seemed only marginally aware of his surroundings, but as the image of Frank filled the screen, he began to wave his arms and call out, as if greeting an old friend. He was making noises, slapping his head, slapping the television.
    In the past, I knew, one of Evelyn’s themes in her conversations with my mother had to do with