Two

AT the Texas Roadhouse the next night, we’d already put our name on the list for a table when Mark arrived. Mark looks like he’s Tolliver’s brother, all right; they have the same cheekbones, the same chin, the same brown eyes. But Mark is shorter, thicker, and (an observation I have kept to myself) not nearly as smart as Tolliver.

I had so many great memories of Mark, though, that I knew I’d always be fond of him. Mark had done his best to protect all of us from our parents. Not that our parents had always intended to hurt us… but they were addicts. Addicts forget to be parents. They forget to be married. They’re only addicted.

Mark had suffered a lot because he had more memories of his dad when his dad was a real person than Tolliver did. Mark remembered a father who’d taken him fishing and hunting, a father who’d gone to teacher conferences and football games and helped him with his arithmetic. Tolliver had told me that he remembered that passage in his own life a little, but the last few years in the trailer had overlaid most of that memory until the hurt had extinguished the flame that kept it alive.

Mark had recently become a manager at JCPenney, and he was wearing navy slacks, a striped shirt, and a pinned-on name tag. When I spotted him entering the restaurant, he looked tired, but his face lit up when he noticed us. Mark had clipped his hair very short and shaved off his mustache, and the cleaner look made him seem older and more confident, somehow.

Tolliver and his brother went through the guy greeting ritual, thumping each other on the back, saying “Hey, man!” a number of times. I got a more restrained hug. Just at the right moment, we got a buzz to tell us we could be seated. When we were in a booth and supplied with menus, I asked Mark how his job was going.

“We didn’t do as well as we should this Christmas,” he said seriously. I noticed how white and even his teeth were, and I felt a stab of resentment on his brother’s behalf. Mark had been old enough to get his teeth aligned, unlike Tolliver. By the time Tolliver should have been getting his middle-class-American-teen complement of braces and acne medicine, our parents had started their downward spiral together. I shook off that unworthy twinge of resentment. Mark had just been lucky, on that count. “Our sales weren’t as high as they should’ve been, and we’re going to have to scramble this spring,” he said.

“So what do you think happened?” Tolliver asked, as if he gave a rat’s ass why the store wasn’t performing as well as it ought to have.

Mark rambled on about the store and his responsibilities, and I tried to show a decent interest. This was a better job than his previous position managing a restaurant; at least, the hours were better. Mark had put himself through two years of junior college, and he’d taken night classes since then. Eventually, he’d earn a degree. I had to admire that dedication. Neither Tolliver nor I had done that much.

The truth was that though I made sure I looked like I was listening, and I truly was fond of Mark, I was bored silly. I found myself remembering a day Mark had knocked down one of my mom’s visitors, a tough guy in his thirties who’d made a blatant pass at Cameron. Mark hadn’t known if the guy was armed (many of our parents’ buddies were), and yet Mark hadn’t hesitated a second in his defense of my sister. This memory made it easy for me to pretend I was hanging on Mark’s every word.

Tolliver was asking relevant questions. Maybe he was more into this than I’d thought. I wondered, for the hundredth time, if Tolliver would have enjoyed having a regular life, instead of the one we led.

But I figured he’d pretty much set that fear to rest the day before.

We’d left Iona and Hank’s in a very subdued state. We’d been stunned equally by Iona’s news. Though we’d tried to congratulate her and Hank with enthusiasm, maybe we hadn’t sounded excited enough. We’d been a little shaken by their reaction to our relationship, and it had been hard to be delighted for their good news since they’d been so aghast at ours.

Of course the girls had picked up on all the stress and anger. In the course of a few minutes, they’d gone from being happy for us to being confused and resentful about all the emotions swirling around. Hank had retreated to his tiny “office” to call his pastor and consult with this unknown man about our relationship, which had made something tiny in my head explode. He’d taken Tolliver with him, and Tolliver had emerged looking indignant and amused.

Since we’d left Hank and Iona’s, we hadn’t said another word to each other about the marriage issue, which had popped up like a jack-in-the-box.

Oddly, not talking about it felt… okay. We’d gone to the workout room for some treadmill time and then watched a Law and Order rerun. We’d been comfortable with each other and relieved to be by ourselves. While we’d been walking on the treadmills, I’d realized that every time we visited our sisters, it was the same emotional wringer. After a short time in that cramped house, we needed to retreat, regroup, and refresh ourselves.

I worried about the bad feelings between my aunt and myself until I reflected that all was well between Tolliver and me, and that was the only relationship I really cared about… well, other than the one I was trying to form with my little sisters.

Still, at odd moments during the past evening, I admit that the uncomfortable situation occupied my thoughts. I know it was naïve of me, but I was shocked every time I thought about Iona’s pregnancy. I’d lived through my mother’s two pregnancies with my sisters, and it still seemed amazing to me that Gracie had been born with all the correct physical attributes and no apparent mental or neurological problems, considering my mother’s extensive drug use. She’d had enough will left to restrain herself somewhat during the time she was carrying Mariella, but with Gracie… Gracie had been awfully sick when she was born, and many times after that.

I was thinking about those bad days after our treadmill workout the night before. After I’d had a break, I’d taken our hand vacuum out to the car to give the trunk a once-over. I’d taken a shopping bag with me for the trash. When you’re in your car as much as we are, it tends to get pretty junky in a short time. While I tossed old receipts and empty cups into the bag, and got all the corners with the vacuum, I worried about my aunt. Iona was healthy, as far as I knew, and she never drank or used drugs. But she was definitely on the older side to be experiencing a first venture into motherhood.

While part of my brain had been trying to remember if I’d seen an oil-change place down the access road, the other part tried to pooh-pooh my own fears. I told myself that lots of women were waiting until later in their lives to start their families. And more power to them, waiting for financial security or a good relationship to form a foundation for child rearing. The problem was, I knew from personal experience how exhausting caring for an infant was. Maybe Iona would be able to quit work.

While I pretended to listen to Mark and sipped the drink our waitress had brought me, I was reliving our little sit-down at Iona’s kitchen table. Something I’d seen had troubled me, something I hadn’t been able to recall after the hubbub over our family revelations.

As Mark and Tolliver spent way too long discussing retail, I mentally examined every person who’d been sitting around the table. Then I reviewed my memory of the objects on the table. Finally, I succeeded in tracking down the source of my unease. I waited until the brothers fell silent before I obliquely introduced the subject.

“Mark, do you go over to see the girls very often?” I asked.