By L. J. Gouveia
I was one of the few passengers who actually wanted to stay at the Newark airport bar, gladly pounding $28 margaritas. I desperately did not want to drive farther into New Jersey to meet my in-laws, especially on my own that 4th of July. The Taliaferros are basically good people, I guess, but it would be easier to be there with Mike.
I wasn’t the reason he moved to Texas, but I was the reason he stayed there. In their eyes, I stole their baby brother but wouldn’t take their name, and now we were knockin’ on fifty, never had kids, and don’t even go to church. So we usually just stayed in Austin and made excuses for not visiting more.
I sat at the bar, watching the news. I almost laughed out loud when it showed a gathering line of severe thunderstorms converging over the area. Yeah, that’s just perfect.
The storm would likely delay his flight. That would be awkward. We had fibbed a little about when our flights were getting in so the Taliaferros wouldn’t know I had actually been sitting at the airport bar all this time, rather than heading their way.
It wasn’t just any 4th of July gathering we were flying in for. Mike’s father, eighty-four, two years into a battle with lung cancer, was coming home from another round in the hospital. He was getting a hospital bed delivered to the house, and a nurse was going to be around a couple times a week to check on him. You know, just till he’s better. All the Taliaferros insisted he was gonna beat this. They even had red T-shirts made that read TALIAFERRO TOUGH! in white letters across the front with clip art of a muscular arm flexing and making a fist. On the back, KICKIN’ CANSUH’s ASS! (spelled just like that, I swear), with an upraised leg and boot. They had posted a photo of all eight of them in those shirts, gathered around their patriarch’s hospital bed, where he lay suddenly so much smaller and thinner and older. But he did smile, however weakly but gamely. He looked even paler amongst all that red, which loomed more like a warning.
In past years the Taliaferros always did a big 4th of July shindig on Long Beach Island, and Mike had fondly recalled the amazing food, including Pop’s special shrimp oreganata. But this year they had to bring the party home to him. We’re celebrating freedom from the hospital, they said. Of course nobody said “for the last time,” but we all heard it.
“So we have to go this time,” Mike had said, biting his lip.
“Yeah,” I had agreed. No excuses this time. “Just tell work you have a legit family emergency and you have to fly home to see your dad with cancer. Come on, any boss will understand that.”
“I can’t, I really can’t.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Jesus, the timing. I can’t miss Tucson. I’m a keynote speaker. And it’s 4th of July weekend.”
“So what?”
“So all the other people on my team are on vacation with their kids. If I blow off Tucson, one of them will have to blow off their trip, then they’ll blow me off for Executive Director of Marketing. I won’t get another chance. I don’t get this, we’ll never be able to afford a house house.”
Mike had wanted the promotion so we could sell our little condo and buy an actual house, like with a yard and a deck and a driveway. Maybe we’d even get a dog. I suddenly felt bad about sending him all those Zillow listings. So I told him it could all wait. We argued a little more about him blowing off Tucson, but in the end, wrangling last-minute flight schedules and other logistics, we settled on me flying from Austin to Newark, then him heading out after his keynote. We’d meet at Newark, then ride together to Pop’s house together for the “party.”
Of course that didn’t work out quite as planned.
The storm front that had started as a cosmic joke on me soon billowed up into everybody’s problem. I had landed in Newark, barely ahead of it. Then other flights started getting delayed, including Mike’s. So I settled in at the terminal bar and started a tab.
Two hours passed. After he got delayed yet again, he texted me. Go on ahead to the house. I’ll meet you there instead. Just a few hours. You can handle that easy!
I replied Dear God NO, I’m not going without you. I’m fine waiting here.
He replied You keep drinking airport margs we’ll never afford a house house lol.
But srsly please go.
So I finally had to Uber in by myself. It was crazy expensive instead of having them pick me up, but I knew they had their hands full with the big party and their father. Besides, I saw it as money well spent for every extra minute of peace to ground myself before hurtling, alone and unbuffered, into a loud, crowded house full of chaotic in-laws and their terminally ill patriarch, plus a huge, threatening storm bearing down. Even a perfectly normal woman would have trouble with all that.
I thought about texting Mike that after all this he better get the job and I better get quartz countertops. But I knew he was upset about his dad and stressed out about the promotion. He needed to be able to fly in from Tucson in triumph, to tell his Pop, on probably his last visit, that everything was gonna be great, his baby boy was finally hitting the big time, finally getting a house house.
The rain hadn’t hit there yet, but right on cue, the wind gusted and blew a wide strand of hair over my face. Distant thunder grumbled as I stood at the bottom of the Taliaferros’ front steps with my tote bag and rolling suitcase, and looked up at the huge five-bedroom, three-bath, two-story, block-shaped house. At least three times bigger than anyone in my family ever had, with at least three times as many people in it right now, and nearly three times as loud. I could hear some of them, loud even out on the porch. Laughing, talking, shouting over each other “did you get the–” “hey, hand me that–” more laughter, more crosstalk. Someone’s baby started crying. I took a deep breath and started up the steps. Please please get here as soon as you can, Mike.
The screen door on the side of the house swung open, and Mike’s brother Tom was striding over from the side yard. He was a younger brother, stocky but fit, kind of gruff and workmanlike about most things. The red TALIAFERRO TOUGH! shirt matched the red ball cap he’d worn in every photo since 2016.
“Hey, Kim! What’re you doin’ at the front door?” He didn’t hug me or anything, just grabbed the handle of my rolling suitcase and motioned for me to follow him back. “You been here. Family always goes in the side door.”
That’s also how it is back in Texas at my grandma’s, but I’d only been here a couple other times, several years before, and with Mike. So I wasn’t sure which door I was this time, alone.
“Yo, Kim is here!” Several of them yelled when I walked in, and greeted me with quick, light hugs.
Tom wheeled my bag away down the hall to another room. One of Mike’s cousins steered me into the wide kitchen, where several women were prepping food, jamming stuff into the fridge, and unloading the dishwasher.
I remembered Angela—“Angie!”—but wasn’t sure if she was Mike’s sister or sister-in-law. Either way, I guess that made her my sister-in-law. She stood up from the table where she was icing red-white-and-blue cupcakes. She was decked out in a red taliaferro tough! T-shirt, dark jeans, red-white-and-blue chunky necklace, and red-white-and-blue earrings.
“You made it!” She pulled me into a bewildering cloud of long dark curls, hairspray, soft round arms, flowery perfume, and clacking jewelry. I suddenly felt under-made-up and under-perfumed. I felt like I should’ve gotten my nails done before I flew out. Instead of that last marg, I probably should’ve redone my makeup. She pulled back and handed me one of the red T-shirts. It was an XL. I hoped that was simply all they had left.
“Where’s Mikey?” asked Mike’s sister, Gianna. I took a deep breath and forced a smile. She sat at the kitchen serving bar in a leopard-print cocktail dress, gold rings on nearly every finger. Her thick curls piled high on top of her head and cascaded down the sides of her expertly made-up face, partially hiding giant gold hoops.
Even the barstools made me feel plain and underdressed. They were whitewashed wood with ornate iron scrollwork arms, and padded, tufted, taupe leather seats with golden brass studs around the side. They were either very expensive or very cheap.
Before I could answer, someone else replied, “He’s coming from some work thing. Tucson or somewheres. Getting in around six.”
Gianna glanced down at my cowboy boots, then back over at Angie.
I held up the T-shirt and said, “I’ll go get changed,” and sought out a nearby bathroom. Mainly I just wanted to get away from Gianna for another few minutes. Every time I saw her, the first thing I thought of was the fistfight we’d almost gotten into at our rehearsal dinner, years ago. I’d stepped into the ladies’ room and caught her and her friend laughing and mimicking my grandmother’s Texan drawl in the mirror. I’d responded in my best Jersey Shore accent, “Oh, yeah, well, you sound hilarious, too. So freakin’ chawmin’ an’ shit.” Gianna swung around but her friend caught her arm and said, “Fuck her, let’s get outa heah,” and led her out. Over her shoulder, Gianna said, “I can’t wait till you get divorced!” I wish I’d added that she really wasn’t all that different from the redneck in-laws she was snickering at—that they all watched the same shitty TV shows, voted the same way, never read books, and layered themselves in cheap clothes and cheap food and cheap culture, like they all came from the same catalog, just with slightly different trimmings. I know I should let that go. Especially now, all these years later, especially now with Pop. Gonna be a long and exhausting few hours, Mike. Just get here.
I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked like I had run every mile to get here. I was so plain and pale, my hair all windblown. I had put on eyeliner before I left the house, but it was almost non-existent now. How does a nap upright on a plane make that disappear? The T-shirt they gave me was kinda baggy and wrinkled and made me feel complicit in a terrible lie. An eighty-four-year-old man with stage four cancer doesn’t kick anything’s ass anymore. But what could we do but still hope for some miracle or at least try to keep all our spirits up. I told myself I just had to hold on for a little longer, and make nice and normal, and play with my phone. And drink. Then put on my noise-canceling headphones at bedtime. Easy peasy.
“Come see Pop,” Tom said when I stepped back into the hallway. Maybe he’d have gotten a little better since that picture in the hospital. Maybe he’d even be sitting up and talking. He had always been pretty decent to me, especially ever since his wife had passed away. Maybe I could hang out in his room until Mike got there. My cowboy boots clunked so loud down the narrow, paneled hall. I should’ve worn sneakers.
Tom opened the door and said, “Hey, Pop, Kim’s here.”
I stepped in, and my stomach dropped. I was oversensitive to noise and already craving peace and quiet, but this was not very peaceful, and it was the wrong kind of quiet. The room felt eerily still, as if suspended. Pop looked way too much like he was already lying in state, a grim preview of what we would probably be flying right back for, and way too soon. He was lying flat on his back, eyes closed, sheets still perfectly tucked and straight. He didn’t seem aware anyone had entered the room. For a few seconds I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
Ribbon-sashed pots of ivy, carnations, roses, and lilies lined the windowsill and dresser on the other side of the bed. Colorful cards were propped up around and in between them, some storebought and some lovingly drawn by the grandkids. A shelf above the windowsill held a sepia-toned photo of him in his uniform in front of the flag, and what was probably his old service revolver propped up next to the picture frame. I hoped it was up high enough to keep those artistic little hands away from it.
Tom nodded at me, stepped out, and shut the door. Pop hadn’t heard that, either. I caught myself breathing very shallowly and hesitantly, as if cancer and mortality were somehow hanging in the air and contagious.
“Uhh…hi Pop?” I said haltingly. “Been a while, but it’s good to see you. How’re you doin’?…So, listen, Mikey’s flyin’ in. He’ll be here in another couple hours.” I had never called my father-in-law Pop, and had sure never called my husband Mikey. And it was gonna be a lot more than a couple hours. Still nothing from him, not even a twitch. I thought, Mike’s gonna fall apart when he sees him like this.
“Well…anyway, I, uh, gotta go help set up for the party. You know how that goes.”
I tiptoed out as best I could in my boots. Everything about me felt big and loud and clunky and out of place. I rejoined Angie in the kitchen and studiously ignored Gianna.
“Okay, Angie, put me to work.”
All around her, women were opening and closing cabinets, opening packages, chopping parsley and oregano, gossiping, laughing. Everyone had their jobs. Angie glanced around the kitchen and handed me a tray piled with unopened packets of cheese, olives, deli meats, and roasted red peppers. She placed a pair of kitchen shears on top of it all.
Gianna glared and took the tray away from me. “You know what?” she said, setting it on the counter. “Why don’t you take these and help Paulie tie ’em to the railing out there?” She handed me a large, clear plastic bag of decorations, mostly long red, white, and blue streamers, with silver and gold cardboard stars. At least it would be quieter out there. I headed down the hallway toward the deck.
I dodged a cousin cradling a huge foil tray of marinating shrimp, a woman right behind him carrying a couple grocery bags, and two kids chasing each other. I stepped out onto the deck to tie all the dollar-store patriotic cheer to the railing. I hoped it wouldn’t rain till after the party. We would need every square inch of space we could get.
Mike’s brother Paul had gotten started at one end, so I headed to the other. He was the oldest brother, slightly paunchy and he looked the most like their father. Dressed nicer than Tommy, he wore expensive sneakers instead of work boots. A small gold cross hung on a thin chain around his neck, above a St. Christopher medal just like the one Mike still wore, more out of superstition than anything else. Paul looked up and nodded.
“Oh hey! You got decoration duty, too, huh?”
“Gianna doesn’t trust me with the food.”
“You see Pop?” he asked.
“I sure did. He’s, uh, takin’ a nap. So I didn’t disturb him. Just poked my head in real quick.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said, low and fast, getting back to work but staring miles past his decorations.
I figured Mike would be at least over Virginia about then, but I worried he might not beat the storm. The wind kicked up and nearly blew off the big silver cardboard star I’d just twist-tied to the railing. I reached over, frowning, and twisted it a little tighter.
Tom came out and started taking the vinyl cover off the barbecue grill. Two other guys brought out some folding chairs. Tom squinted up at the deepening gray clouds.
“It’s supposed to get real bad,” I said. “Mike’s flight got delayed a few times already.”
“Eh, those weathermen, what do they know?” Tom said, with a wave of his hand.
“I know, right,” Paulie said. “I wish I got paid to be wrong half the time at my job!” They chuckled.
“And you know they gotta hype it up, too. Storm of the century, fellas. Take these precautions, go buy a buncha stuff, let’s look at the radar again.”
“Yeah, then let’s cut into the game to tell you it’s fuckin’ rainin’, like we can’t see it out the window!”
They all laughed some more, shook their heads, and went back inside to get more chairs. I watched a stray white ribbon blow across the deck like a sidewinder rattlesnake. I tightened the twist-ties a few more times and tried to remember if New Jersey ever has tornadoes. Come on, Mike. Just get here.
When I stepped back into the kitchen, Angie poured me a glass of Chianti. She glanced up at the ceiling as a little thunder rumbled in the distance.
Gianna said, “We can’t keep waiting on Mikey. It’s gonna storm, and Pop’s gotta get some sleep.” Then she leaned into the hallway and yelled, “Tommy! Didya start the grill?”
Paul and Tommy agreed.
“Let’s start the barbecue.”
I winced a little. Back home, hamburgers and hot dogs were not barbecue. But I wasn’t about to get into that here. I reminded myself at least there would be marinated shrimp.
Paulie must’ve seen my face. “Sorry,” he said, “We tried to get some possum brains so you’d feel at home, but they was all sold out.” He and Tommy and Gianna laughed so hard they didn’t hear me say, “That’s not exactly an Austin thing.”
I texted Mike: My family doesn’t think you’re white, and your family doesn’t think I’m human.
When the hospital bed and wheelchair had been delivered a few days before, someone had laid out plywood ramps in the deck doorway so Pop could roll out there for the party. But now we all just clonked hollowly back and forth over the boards, pretending not to know they were there or why.
The wind picked up a little more, and I wished I’d brought a jacket. It was July, so I didn’t think I’d need one. I thought maybe I felt a drop, then heard more thunder, but it could’ve been the bass from the speakers. I couldn’t tell.
The wind kept gusting. All of us women kept having to wipe hair out of our faces while we tried to eat. The cardboard stars flapped like tiny wings. Or tiny silver and gold hands frantically waving.
The pasta and sauce, which they called gravy, were zesty and garlicky, and so were the braciole. Cousin Matt had made what everyone agreed was a very fine approximation of Pop’s shrimp oreganata. But somehow the hamburgers were half burnt and already lukewarm and chewy. I think Tommy had done those. I tipped mine into the trash can in the corner when nobody was looking. I couldn’t eat any more, anyway. The wine had joined the margaritas from the airport, along with the shrimp and so much other great food. Between that and the storm and the stress and the noise, acid reflux seared the back of my throat. Mike should’ve arrived hours ago. Why hadn’t I heard from him? I hoped it meant he was about to land. He could still make it before the bottom fell out of everything.
Right at sunset, a loud clap of thunder made everyone jump, then laugh nervously. Paulie and Tommy yelled up at the sky, “Oh yeah?” and started lighting Roman candles.
I headed back inside for more wine, despite the reflux. Maybe Angie would have some Tums or something. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I just drank a whole lot more wine, nodded off to the TV, and hoped someone would put a blanket over me until I’d wake up with Mike kissing me when he finally got there, and the storm would be over and everything would be fine. Maybe Pop would even wake up for a while. I looked down and wiped a drizzle of wine and a dot of red sauce off the white lettering on my shirt.
Angie tried to joke, “You’re afraid Mikey won’t make it and you’ll be stuck with us, huh?”
“That’s what the big stockpot is really for, right?” We laughed a little.
“He’ll be okay,” she said. “They’re probably just circling the clouds for a good break in ’em. He’ll be here soon, honey.”
I knew she meant well, but it really didn’t help to think of the love of my life so far away, going round and round, thousands of feet up in the air above us, trying to chance it with a monster storm walloping most of the eastern seaboard.
She seemed to consider this, too. Then sighed and grabbed my empty glass and poured from her large metal cup with a huge, scripty A inlaid with Swarovski crystals across the front, and a big handle on the side.
I put a hand on my stomach and said, “I can’t take any more wine right now.”
She whispered, “It’s vodka-cran with a Xanax crushed in’o it.” I thanked her and told my heartburn to go fuck itself.
Gianna came in, complaining about one of the cousins’ kids. I excused myself to the den, hoping to settle in and watch something light or goofy, something to take the eyeballs off of me. Instead, two boys were playing some jumpy game with lots of gunfire and explosions.
The only room free of explosions, gunfire, shouting, cussing, laughing, and crowding, was Pop’s room. He looked so serene in the dark with the one little nightstand lamp. I sat down in a chair beside the bed.
I sipped the cup and scrolled my phone I’d already checked countless times. I asked Pop, “So, what happens to people like me who get born into families like this? Do they run away? Go crazy? Or just die really young or something?”
If this were a Hallmark movie, this is when Pop would open his eyes, say some wise, sweet, funny thing, maybe tell me some captivating story about how their family got here from Italy or, maybe, how he met his late beloved Rosie, but her family didn’t approve. “They’ll come around” I imagined him saying, “They’ll love you just like I do,” just like I had assured Mike.
But Pop just lay there, unresponsive, and let out a weak, bubbly fart. I was embarrassed for the proud patriarch. I’d danced with him at our wedding, and now I was horrified that I’d selfishly sought shelter here at such a private, undignified time for him. I didn’t want to remember him like this.
I searched for any other room to try and blend into. Everyone in the family always had to be the center of attention, the loudest person in the room, the funniest, the most colorfully dressed. Meanwhile, even on a good day, I just wanted to chameleon myself into the drapes. I was irritated and envious at the same time.
I watched through the French doors as some of them partied on, out on the deck. They were ignoring the occasional wind gusts and the ripples of thunder, shooting off fireworks and whooping and hugging and eating and drinking, dancing, and laughing, and smoking cigarettes. I tried to remember the last time my family did anything like that. We don’t even gather for holidays anymore since Grandma died. I’ve never met any of my cousins’ kids. I only see them in occasional Facebook posts.
Not long after that, just as it was getting dark enough to bring out the good fireworks, the rain hit, sudden and hard. It blew sideways, and it took all of us to run out and grab food, cups, plates, chairs, speakers, and bring them inside. Paper napkins flew off the table out into the dark, swirling rain. Cups tipped over and tumbled away too fast to catch them. I tried to grab a wineglass rolling down the wet table. Gianna barked “Leave it!” and we ran back in, drenched and shivering. The ribbons and stars flapped and whirled frantically. Some had already blown off.
Thunder cracked so loud someone’s child started wailing for his mama. The lights flickered, and everyone gasped.
“We got any candles or flashlights?” someone yelled.
“I need to charge my phone!” one of the teenaged girls whined.
I checked my phone. 42%. Still nothing else from Mike.
The guys weren’t laughing anymore. Now every time a clap of thunder hit, they cussed and peered between the blinds at the downpour drumming against the windows.
“Fuckin’ ain’t lettin’ up!” someone said.
Another wind gust slammed a forgotten deck chair into one of the French doors so hard I was surprised the glass didn’t break.
Around ten thirty, the power flicked off. People scrambled in the dark, pulling drawers and cabinets open, holding their phone lights up, searching for candles, flashlights, batteries. Pop couldn’t tell us where he kept them. They had brought so much of everything possible for the party—food, drinks, decorations, extra chairs, speakers, fireworks—but nothing at all for a big, dangerous storm.
Tommy caught me watching and said, “You just love this, huh? Get to say I told you so!”
I just turned my head and held up one hand.
“Leave her alone,” Paulie said. “She’s worried about Mikey.”
We could hear faint sirens in the distance, between thunderclaps. I hoped wherever Mike was, he was safe and would stay put. Just get here later, when you can, I thought. We’ll laugh about all this. Someday. In our house house.
Angie, Paulie, Tommy, and I sat at the kitchen bar, dimly lit by a big old red, green, and gold Christmas candle someone had found. We picked at a cheese platter Angie had pulled out of the darkened fridge and said we might as well finish before it went oily. We drank more wine. Paulie and Tommy had switched to scotch, neat. A small, battery-operated radio crackled amid bursts of news about where the storm was moving on radar, looters already taking advantage, and that the governor was calling out the Red Cross and the National Guard.
Hail began hammering the kitchen skylight and windows like rocks, and bouncing off across the deck. Thunder cracked louder, right overhead, the windows rattled as if quivering in their sashes.
“I had no freakin’ idea it would be this bad,” Paulie muttered.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Tommy said between sips, “but I don’t know if this place can even hold much longer. Shit. We’re about to lose the skylight.”
Gianna appeared in the doorway, just at the edge of the candlelight. “Hey. I had to call Pop’s nurse. Somethin’s wrong.”
Paulie and Tommy set down their scotches and took off down the hall.
Angie stood up. “Can the nurse even make it out in this?” she asked.
“She said she’s been stuck at another patient’s house, ridin’ it out over there. Said she’d try to head over as soon as it let up.”
“Should we call 911?” I asked.
“We’re not supposed to, he’s got that paper. She said she’ll keep checking back.”
Angie sank back onto the barstool. “Oh, Pop.”
At first we thought it was the wind blowing something onto the front door, or more hail, then we realized it was somebody knocking. It was past midnight. Angie said maybe a neighbor needed help. Tommy said maybe it was the Red Cross or the National Guard. Gianna said maybe it was Pop’s nurse. I hoped maybe it’s finally Mikey, I mean Mike, and the side yard was just too muddy for his rolling suitcase.
Paulie was saying, “Ask who it—” just as Tommy opened the door. Two men in black, hooded raincoats barreled into the entryway, shaking off the rain.
Tommy asked them, “You the Red Cross? National Guard?”
The two men exchanged glances. Then one of them pulled a large handgun out of his raincoat pocket and pointed it at Tommy, who yelled “What the fuck? I thought you were here to help!”
The other man threw a plastic shopping bag at Paulie and said, “All your money, phones, jewelry, shit like that. Now.”
“You fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Paulie said.
“Do it!” yelled the guy with the gun.
Several other relatives had run from the living room to the entryway. I was just far enough back I could slip into the hallway without the men seeing me. Thankfully all their arguing was loud enough for nobody to hear my boots in the hallway. I tiptoed to Pop’s room as quietly as I could and prayed the door wouldn’t creak.
No signal on my phone. Shit, I thought. I slid it under a corner of Pop’s mattress for safekeeping, then pulled off my wedding ring and stashed it there, too. I hesitated, then reached up and took Pop’s service revolver down off the shelf and headed back down the hall, still not quite sure what I would do next. In the dark hallway, I felt around on the top of the gun (so heavy!) but couldn’t tell where the safety was on this kind or even if it was loaded. Some Texan I am. I should find some way to slip it to Paulie or Tommy.
The robbers still had the front door open behind them. While the gunman held everyone at bay, the other one started grabbing things and putting them into the shopping bag. The expensive-looking vase on the entryway table. A pair of brass candlesticks. Angie’s phone. Tommy’s wallet. Paulie’s wallet, phone, and Apple Watch. Several others’ phones and jewelry.
Gianna handed over her rings and necklaces with a deflated glare. She’d taken off most of her makeup or maybe it had gotten rained off, and then I could even see a little of Pop and Mike surfacing around her eyes and cheekbones. I suddenly felt bad for her. That was probably all real gold, and not cheap.
Wind and rain roared in around the two men. The photos hanging along the hallway lifted and rattled. A couple of them crashed to the floor, cracking the glass. One of them was from when Pop and Rosie went to Hawaii. Another was of a child holding up his first communion paper. Was that little Mikey? I couldn’t tell.
The gunman was losing patience. He didn’t think they were getting enough stuff, fast enough. So he grabbed Angie by the hair, pulled her closer, and shoved the gun barrel up next to her right temple. “I better see some money quick!” he said.
The other guy slapped a small ceramic tray off the entryway table, and we all jumped as it shattered on the wall.
“Fuck!” Paulie yelled, “That was our grandmother’s!”
“The fuck cares?” said the robber said. He looked around for a second. “Hey, where’d you come from?” he asked, tilting his chin up at me as I was tiptoeing toward Paulie.
“Texas,” I said, swinging up the revolver and praying it would fire. And not hit Angie.
It sure would have been bad-ass if that had actually worked. But the revolver didn’t fire. I didn’t know if there were no bullets in it, or the safety was on or what. Toddlers accidentally shoot people all the time, but I couldn’t manage to fire on a couple of robbers.
The gunman swung his gun over to me, and Angie bashed him straight over the nose with her big metal, crystal-A cup. Then she socked him in the ear with it. He howled and pawed at his head.
At the same time, Paulie leapt forward and grabbed the guy’s other hand, twisting and bashing it against the wall till the guy dropped his gun. The other robber dove for it, only to meet Tommy’s work boot with his teeth and get launched into the other wall.
From there it descended into a mass of people punching, kicking, struggling, shouting, cussing, and slamming into things. The melee spilled into the living room, then they fought and chased and smashed their way back into the hallway.
Paulie finally stood up with the robber’s gun and fired at one of the men. It was heartstoppingly loud, and most of us froze, including me. The two men slipped in the wet hallway. One robber cried out, and they both scrambled to their feet and out the door, back into the storm, which had still been going strong the entire time. The shopping bag had begun splitting. Some phones and watches and a candlestick fell out as they fled, and a few necklaces I hoped were Gianna’s. But the robbers got away with the rest of it.
Paulie slammed the door shut, locked it, then leaned with his back against it. We all stood there for several dazed seconds, staring at all the broken glass, a few holes in the entryway sheetrock, a couple smears of blood near the doorway. Everything in the hallway was slicked with rain and wet leaves and twigs. In the living room, two large end table lamps had been knocked over and smashed.
Pop’s service revolver had skidded off to one side of the hallway during the fighting. Paulie picked it up and said to me, “It wasn’t loaded. Pop would never leave a loaded gun where kids could get at it.”
Tommy yelled at me, “Stupid ass! What if he shot her?”
Paulie shouted at him, “What if you made sure you knew who the fuck it was before you opened the door?”
“It was still stupid!”
“Well, somebody had to do something!” I shouted back. It was the only time I had ever raised my voice to any of them.
“Yeah,” Angie said. “Sometimes nobody can do anything till somebody does something. Maybe it wasn’t the best something, but whatever. It gave us enough to get the upper hand.”
Angie and Gianna and I dabbed wet washcloths on the others’ wounds by the light of the Christmas candle.
“Might as well use what ice we have left,” she said, folding a few cubes into a dishcloth and handing that to Tommy for his eye. It was already puffy and turning purple.
Gianna grabbed a broom and a dustpan. One of the cousins followed her with a couple trash bags. Paulie went to hand back the phones and watches that had been dropped, then tried to figure out what the robbers had gotten away with.
The storm finally weakened some. We slept in shifts in case those guys came back or the police showed up to take the report.
I was exhausted and wired and buzzed. Angie insisted I try to lie down on a sofa, and poured me a little more from her metal cup, which didn’t even have a scratch on it.
I didn’t think I could sleep, but I must have dozed off at some point, because suddenly there was pale sunlight through the blinds and people were talking in hushed but urgent tones. Some were on phones, some were just talking in huddled groups. Angie was flitting around the kitchen. Now that the power was back on, she and a couple other women were seeing what would still be good for breakfast.
I sat up and looked around for my phone, suddenly panicked that Mike might have been trying to reach me. I didn’t have my phone but I still had the stomach acid in my throat. I rubbed my neck and went to see if my phone was in the kitchen.
Tommy sat with his head down over the kitchen bar. “I can’t believe it,” he kept saying, over and over.
“I know,” Paulie said, clapping his shoulder. “But we gotta be strong for Pop.”
Gianna sat at the table, sniffling into a Kleenex. She dabbed at the bottoms of her eyes to try and keep what was left of her makeup from running.
Angie wiped at hers with the back of one hand while nudging a skillet on the stove to heat some olive oil. I thought oh no and clunked down the hall to Pop’s room.
Pop was surrounded by several of his other relatives, who were sniffling and murmuring amongst themselves. His mouth was slack, and he was even more still and more pale than before. My heart broke for Mike. Then I remembered stashing my phone and wedding ring under the mattress. Well, this would be a little awkward.
In the middle of breakfast, I finally got a phone call from Mike. He had gotten delayed two more times, then finally diverted back to Austin. He’d landed in the wee hours. But he had already booked another flight out for that afternoon. I put him on speaker to let everyone hear him. Then he asked how everything was, and if we had gotten through the storm all right. It was all over the news.
I couldn’t make my mouth shape the words that would shatter his world, so I just handed my phone to Paulie.
“He passed, Mikey, I’m sorry. Yeah. In his sleep, it looks like. Yeah. And get this…you won’t believe this shit…”
Exhausted and raw in the cold morning sunshine, we started cleaning up the deck. The sun was insanely, wrongly bright, and everyone who’d been so loud the day before while we were putting these decorations up, were now way too quiet, somber, and some still sniffling, as we pulled limp, wet, red-white-and-blue trash off the deck and the railing and the yard, and threw it in black trash bags with everything else. Most anything of value in the house had been taken or broken. Yesterday’s proud, waving, patriotic trimmings were today’s crumpled, soggy trash.
Paulie walked up and leaned over to grab a couple of glass bottles that had rolled up against the railing. He straightened up, standing next to me but still staring out into the yard. “That possum brain thing I said. Forget about it.”
I said, “It’s okay. Just one of those things a lot of people get wrong about the South. And about Texas in particular. We don’t eat possum. Or say howdy. Or line dance. Not in Austin, anyway.”
“I hear you,” he said with a wry chuckle. “And we don’t all say bada-bing or gabagool. We’re not all mobbed up.”
“Hollywood thinks there’s only one Southern accent, and they almost never get it right.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love the Sopranos. But we don’t all talk like them. Or like Jersey Shore. They all sound more like New York, y’know.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “You know, the funny thing is you sound kinda like me, on some words.”
“Yeah? Like when?”
“Like when you put that little spin on certain words, just like we do. Maan. Paan. Baad.” Just that slight twang stretching the vowel in the middle, like a guitar player bending a string.
“Maan. Heh, I guess we do.” He tipped one of the bottles up at me and walked back into the house.
A minute later, my phone rang in my pocket. Mike was at the Austin airport. They’d had another delay, but he was finally boarding.
“So now I won’t get there till about seven or eight. You gonna be okay?”
“I’m just fine,” I said, with a small but genuine smile. “Just be safe. I love you.” I slid my phone back into my pocket.
Tommy trudged by, carrying a bulging trashbag, and grabbed the one I’d just filled, without saying anything.
Angie wasn’t far behind, with a broom and dustpan.
She stopped and smiled. “I think I need to get some of them cowboy boots.”
I said, “I think I need to get one of them metal cups.”