The Big Shuffle Read online

  I certainly hope Bernard is right, but I fear that he's just trying to make me feel better.

  THREE

  WE QUICKLY DELIVER GIL AND THE GIRLS BACK TO THE STOCK tons, and then Bernard drives me to the hospital. The big glass doors automatically slide open as if someone is expecting us. When I ask the woman at the desk about my father, she says he was taken to cardiac care, but if I'll take a seat the doctor will come out and speak to me. I ask to go back, insisting that my mother is all alone. The receptionist explains that the cardiac care unit is different and that I'll have to wait.

  Bernard and I slump down into the armless blue molded plastic chairs so that our shoulders meet and we're leaning against each other. Having basically moved in with him when I was sixteen, and then worked two summers as a yard person, we've become so close that we can read each other's thoughts most of the time. At least Bernard always seems to get mine exactly right. But since neither of us dare speak what's on both our minds, we say nothing at all.

  There's nobody else in the brightly lit room and all the magazines have been arranged into neat stacks on the attached Formica end tables. The beige linoleum floor is spotless but for the gray puddles under our shoes. It's oddly quiet for a hospital. There aren't any gunshot victims or passengers who were just pried out of car wrecks with gaping wounds hurtling past us on stretchers, nor are sweaty blue-smocked doctors diving at patients with paddles while yelling “clear,” the way one regularly sees on television shows. Cosgrove County is filled with people descended from solid midwestern farming stock who go around declaring they're “fine” until the moment when they are no longer fine, but in fact seriously dead. If you inquire about someone's chronic pain, they're likely to tell you that it helps pass the time.

  “You don't have to wait here with me,” I tell Bernard.

  “Don't be ridiculous,” he says.

  A tired-looking doctor emerges from the swinging doors wearing a white coat and carrying a clipboard. It's like a scene out of a movie. We both rise to our feet as he approaches. The doctor's mouth is expressionless, but his dark brown eyes appear anxious and his furrowed brow telegraphs tragedy.

  “Are you Mr. Palmer's brother?” he asks Bernard.

  “No, just a friend of the family.” Bernard nods toward me. “Hallie is his oldest daughter.”

  The doctor glances down at his clipboard and then back up to Bernard in his blue button-down shirt and neat gray slacks, as if given the choice between the two of us, Bernard is the official representative. Obviously my Lucky Charms T-shirt with the torn jeans does not exactly exude an air of responsibility. But I thought I was only going to a frat party.

  “There are ten children?” The doctor asks this as if maybe there's a typo in his notes.

  Bernard nods his head up and down. “Eric, the oldest, is twenty, and the twin boys just turned two months old,” he explains in his new capacity as Palmer family spokesperson.

  The doctor sighs as if this is going to be worse than he thought. He squints into the fluorescent light and then shifts his gaze back to me. “I'm very sorry but I have some bad news. Your father succumbed to a massive coronary. And your mother is in a state of shock. We're going to have to keep her here, at least for a day or two.”

  It's way too much to comprehend. Life without dad is unfathomable. My mind comes to a crashing halt, suddenly there is no oxygen, and I feel something tear deep inside of me.

  “Is there a relative who can help you in the meantime?” asks the doctor.

  “Mom has a sister.” I somehow manage to get this out even though my mouth is now the Sahara Desert and my stomach continues to experience an elevator-drop sensation.

  “All right then. Why don't you go home and try to get some rest and come back tomorrow to see your mother.”

  “Can't I see her now?” I ask.

  “I'm afraid it wouldn't be a good idea. We've given her some medication to help her sleep. Come back tomorrow and hopefully she'll be feeling better.” He pats me on the shoulder and turns to leave. On the way out I see him exchange looks with the receptionist that seem to say, “Oh God, is this ever a bad one.” Which is not nearly so reassuring as his gentle tone of voice and comforting pat on my shoulder.

  FOUR

  BERNARD AND I SLOWLY WALK OUT TO THE CAR. THE SKY IS STILL dark and snow swirls and spins under the glare of the parking lot lights like bits of lost soul. No one else is on the road and the town is covered in a deep blanket of white. It's as if someone suddenly took the needle off the record player and the world went silent. I open the window on the passenger side and let the cold wet flakes melt on my face.

  Bernard turns down Main Street and we pass all the darkened stores locked up for the night. A light glows in the back of the card and stationery store, but that's only because Mrs. Jamison thinks the three live-in cats need it to navigate at night. We pass Bernard's antiques store, The Sweet Buy and Buy, and a silver tea service glints in the display window.

  A few houses still have Christmas lights up and plastic Santas on the front lawns. Alongside the curb lie discarded trees with half their needles missing, patiently waiting for the garbagemen to take them away.

  Bernard offers to come inside, even to stay overnight if I want. And if he didn't have the girls to look after I might take him up on it. But I tell him that Louise and I can manage. He gives me a hug and it's at that moment I finally start to cry, heaving big sobs that make me lose my breath.

  Bernard switches off the engine and accompanies me into the house after all. The second Louise sees us she knows that dad is dead. Her eyes are already red from crying and her face is blotchy, but the tears come all over again. We hug each other and it feels as if all of our childhood fights and other sibling nonsense was such a long time ago. Another lifetime.

  I try to describe what's going on with mom but can't even remember what the doctor said was wrong with her. Bernard is the one who explains to Louise that she's in shock and will probably be okay tomorrow. He goes into the kitchen and, after a few minutes of kitchen noises, returns with two mugs of hot cocoa. As we sit looking at each other across the dining room table it grows cold.

  “Eric will be here in a few hours.” Louise finally breaks the silence. “Aunt Lala is flying in from London tomorrow.”

  “So what do we do?” I ask Bernard, since he's the full-fledged grown-up. Louise also looks to Bernard for counsel.

  “You go to bed,” he states firmly. “When the little ones wake up, your hands will be full. I'll come back tomorrow to help you sort things out.” Before leaving, Bernard gives us both big hugs and kisses, but I notice he doesn't say anything while doing so, such as “Don't worry” or “Everything will be okay.” It's pretty obvious that there's a lot to worry about and that everything will not be okay.

  As Louise and I trudge up the stairs it dawns on me that I no longer have a place to sleep in this house. With eight children still living at home, space is rather at a premium. Darlene now has my bed, Teddy and Davy share a tiny room with bunk beds, and Francie and Lillian have a converted attic space with a sloped roof in which they share a trundle bed. The youngest

  twins, Reginald and Rodney, have one crib in Mom and Dad's room and another opposite their bedroom door in the hallway.

  “I guess you'd better sleep in Mom and Dad's room,” says Louise.

  Before going to bed I check on the babies, who are sound asleep, and quickly realize it's impossible to spend the night in that room. Dad's watch is on the bedside table and his wallet and black pocket comb sit atop the dresser, all waiting for him to get up in the morning. Eventually I grab a blanket out of the linen closet and hunker down on the couch in the living room. There's nothing left to do but sit and try not to think anymore and wait for morning.

  However, sleep doesn't come for a long time. The house creaks as if it's badly docked at a rickety old pier and about to come loose. And tears continue to roll down my cheeks as I stare up at the ceiling.

  FIVE

&n
bsp; THE TWINS CRYING IN STEREO WAKES ME FROM A DEEP BUT DISTURBED sleep filled with upsetting dreams. There's a foggy moment when I'm not registering all that has just happened and then it quickly rushes back and I remember that Dad is dead. Those howling children will never know their father. Maybe they're the lucky ones, since you can't miss what you didn't really have in the first place.

  Their cries grow and it doesn't appear to be the moment to philosophize about the rest of our lives. Climbing off the couch I feel like the monster being raised from the dead in a late-night creature feature, as if I haven't moved a muscle in years and it's an effort just to lift my arms. Thrumming inside my head over and over like the bass notes in a heavy metal song are the words: “Dad is dead, Dad is dead, Dad is dead.”

  I turn on the hall light and peer down at the red faces and grasping fingers. There's no point in trying to isolate the problem—they both need to be changed, held, and fed. The hall clock says half past seven. At least I had a solid fifty minutes of sleep.

  To Mom's credit she doesn't dress the identical-looking boys alike, and she also keeps a little blue ribbon around the ankle of one of them. Though that's for Dad, since Mom can always tell her kids apart. Only I can't, and therefore don't know which one is Rodney and which is Reginald, nor are there any labels on the cribs. But I suppose at this age they don't know the difference either and so “Hey, you” won't exactly trigger an identity crisis.

  Dawn is tinting the horizon pink and I'm halfway through feeding the second twin his bottle when ten-year-old Davy comes crawling into the kitchen on all fours, apparently motivated by his Spider-Man pajamas.

  “Where's Mommy?” He quickly glances around the room as if she may be trying to hide somewhere.

  “She took Daddy to the hospital.” I give the reply that I've been going over and over in my head all morning. “He doesn't feel well.”

  I have absolutely no desire to break this news to the kids. Hopefully Mom will be home this afternoon and she can do it.

  “Oh,” says Davy as he climbs up the counter in Spider-Man fashion to retrieve a bowl for his cereal. “Does Daddy have a stomachache?”

  “Yeah.” I wipe the faces of the boys with their bibs. “He has a stomachache.”

  “That's because it was Francie's birthday last night and we ate cake and ice cream,” Davy informs me. “It was really good.”

  “Hey Davy, do you know which one of the twins is wearing the blue ribbon on his ankle?”

  “Roddy,” answers Davy.

  He scoops generic cereal into his bowl from a big plastic bin on the counter. The minute Davy tips the full gallon of milk toward the bowl I can see what's going to happen, only I'm trying to burp Roddy and don't make the save in time.

  “Whoops,” says Davy as the milk washes over the top of the bowl like a giant wave, taking half the cereal with it.

  “Don't worry, I can still eat it,” he assures me while sliding the bowl through the puddle, which is now trickling between the leaves in the table and creating rivulets across the linoleum floor.

  I put Roddy back in his cradle and look on the counter for paper towels, briefly forgetting that the only disposable items allowed in this house are diapers, and reach for one of the many neatly folded rags under the sink.

  Darlene comes bounding into the kitchen trailing six-year-old Francie and twenty-month-old Lillian. The two youngest girls have purple Magic Marker covering their hands and faces.

  “Hallie ith back!” exclaims Darlene. “Where'th Mommy?” There's a faint note of concern in her voice.

  “Mommy took Daddy to the doctor because he doesn't feel well.” I eject the words “hospital” and “sick” from my story.

  The front door opens. It must be Mom! Thank goodness.

  “How's Dad?” Eric shouts before he's even through the door.

  SIX

  ERIC'S HULKING FRAME TAKES UP PRACTICALLY THE ENTIRE ARCH way. Though he may not resemble Dad when it comes to physical features like hair color and jaw construction, Eric is built exactly like Dad—big, strong, and square. His cheeks are flushed from the cold and snowflakes dot his brown crew cut.

  “Oh my God!” Eric correctly guesses the worst.

  He and I escape to the living room so that we can talk. However, Teddy is plunked in front of the PlayStation blowing up a city. Eric follows me upstairs to the room that Louise now shares with Darlene, and I switch on the overhead light. Louise is the only person I haven't seen yet this morning. She's in bed looking every bit the shot-down pilot, lying on her back with eyes closed and enormous earphones covering the sides of her head.

  I yank off the headset. “Louise, get up! Eric is home.”

  She opens her eyes and stares up at us, blinking into the light.

  We fill Eric in on the details of last night, bursting into tears at the end. He sits there on the edge of Darlene's bed in stunned silence, as if we might eventually revise the story to have a happier ending.

  “Someone has to go and pick up Mom at the hospital,” I finally say. “I guess it should be Eric.”

  Louise raises no objections. But then Louise has never been what one would call an avid volunteer when it comes to family life.

  “We'll get all the kids dressed, clean up the kitchen, and shovel the driveway,” I say.

  The next two hours are spent scrambling eggs, giving baths to the twins, and doing several loads of wash. It's amazing that one day of clothes and nightwear for this family can result in two full loads of laundry. A repairman once informed my mother that she was the first person he ever knew to actually wear out a lint trap. There's an ironing board in the corner but I decide that, under the circumstances, gravity will have to take care of the wrinkles.

  When that's finished it's already eleven o'clock, the twins are hungry again, and it's time to figure out what's for lunch. I tell Louise to call the pizza parlor and order two pies because I don't want the kitchen messed up just as Mom is arriving home.

  “But Eric's got the station wagon,” she says.

  At first I assume this is just another one of Louise's excuses to get out of doing something. But then I realize that Dad's minivan, which no else one but Mom was ever allowed to drive, has taken on a sacred air. Only there's too much to do and not enough time or money to be become superstitious.

  “Take the van.” I hand her the keys off the rack next to the refrigerator as if we toss them back and forth all the time. She doesn't take her road test for another month, but under the circumstances I can't imagine that anyone will make a fuss.

  Before Louise can take a step toward the garage the phone rings, and for some reason we're both equally startled by this, jumping slightly and then staring at each other rather than lunging for the receiver.

  “Maybe it's Mom,” I say hopefully.

  Louise grabs the receiver. After listening to some high-pitched squawking on the other end, she places her hand over the mouthpiece and whispers, “Aunt Vi.” We both give each other the Aunt Vi eye roll. She's a talker, as Mom likes to say about her mother's vivacious younger sister, our Great-Aunt Vivian.

  Aunt Vi must finally take a breath, because I watch as Louise quietly says, “He passed away.” It's eerie to hear the phrase actually spoken, at least in reference to our dad, and I'm impressed that Louise has opted for the more churchlike version. I probably would have just said that he died.

  There's a tremendous crash in the living room followed by a cry of pain and then shouts of accusation. Running toward the noise, I find Francie on the floor with her mouth wide open in protest, eyes squeezed shut in pain, and hands gripping a spot slightly to the left of her forehead.

  I lift Francie in my arms and carry her to the downstairs bathroom, which I know from experience has the best combination of outdoor and artificial light for inspecting wounds and removing slivers. There's a nice gash right along her hairline, but it doesn't appear wide enough or deep enough to merit stitches.

  Meantime, the phone rings again. Louise must have picked
it up because there was only one ring.

  While I'm wiping away the blood on Francie's head, Louise pokes her head into the bathroom. “What happened?”

  “The girls were walking across the furniture in the living room and she fell.” Francie doesn't dispute this version of events. Nor does Louise ask questions because the younger ones had of course learned the game from us in the first place.

  “Uncle Alan is on the phone,” reports Louise. “He wants to know when the funeral is.”

  Funeral? Such a thing had never occurred to me. But yes, I suppose there would have to be a funeral.

  “Should I just tell him we'll call back when we know more?” suggests Louise.

  “Yeah, that's good. Do that.” I find a Band-Aid and place it on Francie's gashed forehead.

  The doorbell rings. It must be Mom—I'll bet she didn't know that Eric was on his way, so she took a cab but doesn't have her keys. Eric must have accidentally locked the door when he left.

  SEVEN

  THROWING OPEN THE FRONT DOOR, I FIND A WOMAN WHO LOOKS remarkably like my mother, only her hair is coppery red instead of chestnut brown, she's about three inches shorter than Mom, and she's wearing two different gloves—one black and one red.

  “Aunt Lala!” I shout, and hug her tightly right there on the threshold. Her name is really Lorraine, but when my mother was young she couldn't pronounce it, and thus ended up with Lala. No one ever called her anything else after that.

  “How's your father?” she asks hopefully

  I suddenly realize that Aunt Lala's been on a plane from London and hasn't heard the news. But from the way I stop hugging and start staring she immediately understands.

  “Oh dear Lord!” The corners of her mouth tremble and she closes her eyes tightly, as if preparing for a storm. Long drawn-out sobs begin to shake her body. I help her through to the dining room and into a seat at the table. Tears stream from her eyes and she covers her mouth with her hands. A high-pitched screech comes from the kitchen and I realize the twins are still perched atop the table out there. Not that they can go anywhere, but I think I'm supposed to keep an eye and not just an ear on them. And where have the older boys disappeared to? I wonder.