The Witch (13 page)

“Not that I've noticed.”

“Noticed? You do live there, don't you?”

Tim didn't answer. There were days when he and his father only saw each other in passing, or not at all. Neither of them did any real cooking either, which made the prospect of a Thanksgiving dinner that much more difficult to imagine.

Richard broke the silence on his end. “I guess I'll be there. It's not like I have to be anywhere else.” He had recently called things off with his longtime girlfriend.

Another silence drooped between them. Tim said, “It'll be all right. It's just a dinner.”

“Why is it so hard for people to . . .” Richard trailed off.

“To what?”

“I don't know. Stick with the plan. All right, see you Thursday.”

Gabe called next. “Hey bro, what in the world? The old man's stepping out?”

“Looks like.”

“Damn. Should we be happy about it?”

“I guess it depends on the lady.” Tim tried to match his brother's jaunty tone. He had no idea, really, what sort of woman would take up with his father. It was even harder to think of his father engaged in courtship, making the kind of effort required to charm and attract. Maybe it had been one of those online things.

Gabe said he hoped she could cook, whoever she was, and Tim said that would be a plus. Their mother had a repertoire of dishes that nobody else in the world made exactly as she did: chicken pie, short ribs, sausage and macaroni, lemon cake. Was it childish and stupid to miss her for her cooking?

“Anyway,” Gabe said, “he's at least trying to go forward. Mom made her move, he's finally making his.”

“Do you think he ever talked to Mom after she left? Tried to change her mind?”

“Doesn't sound like something he'd do. Even if he did, he wouldn't tell us.”

“Not if it didn't work.”

“Huh.” Gabe considered this. “He wouldn't in the first place.”

“Maybe he should.”

“Dude, that train has left the station.”

“Mom's not a train,” Tim said, irritated at how easily his brother seemed to be dismissing her.

“Well, duh. But honestly, guy, you ought to be more worried about Dad's new girlfriend moving in and wanting to paint the bathroom pink.”

“You know, not everything is some hilarious moron joke.”

“Whoa, where did that come from? This little wounded-sensitivity thing?”

“Forget it,” Tim said, retreating.

“You think you're the only one who has to deal? Huh?”

“No.”

“I do the best I can. You don't have to like it. In fact, I don't give a rusty fuck if you do or not. See you Thursday. I'll have to leave early, we have a band practice.”

The father prepared for Thanksgiving by consulting a grocery list and bringing home a turkey and all the things that went along with turkey, the bags and jars and cans. There was an effort at cleaning. Tim swept the front porch and used the leaf blower on the driveway because the father fretted about the house making a good impression, which told Tim that she hadn't been there before.

“What's her name?” he asked, the night before Thanksgiving, when the father was digging around in the good china, trying to find things like gravy boats and pickle dishes.

The father looked like he was wondering if this was a trick question. “Francine.”

“That's pretty.”

The father gave him a look of deep suspicion. “Where do you guys know each other?” Tim asked, pushing his luck.

“Through some friends.”

“Yeah?” His father didn't have any friends. Tim thought it was what you said when you met somebody in a bar. “Well it's really nice of her to come over and help with Thanksgiving.”

“Yes, it's very nice of her, and I don't want any attitude from anybody.”

Tim retreated to the basement for the rest of the evening. He woke up late the next morning to industrious sounds coming from the kitchen overhead. Cupboards slammed, pots and dishes collided, water ran in the sink. High-heeled shoes trotted across the floor, then his father's more lumbering tread, the woman laughing, saying something with a teasing lilt to it. More of the collisions and thumps. It sounded like a herd of cattle, flirting.

He took his time showering and getting dressed. Good smells were percolating through the house: onions, sage, roasting bird. When he climbed the stairs to the landing just off the kitchen, his father said, “Come on in here, don't just skulk around. Francine, this is my youngest, Tim.”

The father was wearing a sporty plaid shirt that Tim had not seen before. The father caught him staring at it and Tim looked away.

Francine said, “Why, you two could be twins. Hi Tim, I'm so pleased to meet you.” She held out her hand and they shook, though there was a moment when he thought she might be preparing to hug him, and he braced himself. She was short, curvy, thick-bottomed, perfumed, with curly dark hair and a made-up face. She wasn't going to quit smiling. She was doing her damnedest.

Tim said he was pleased to meet her also. He and his father avoided each other's eye. Neither of them believed they could be mistaken for twins, or wanted to believe it. “Wow, look at
this food,” Tim said, safely diverting the conversation. “Did you do all this?”

“I made the pies last night,” Francine said. “Everything else, your dad helped. Oh of course you did. You got that big old heavy turkey in the oven for me.” Francine made as if to squeeze the father's arm, then thought better of it and veered away. The father looked glum.

“Can I help with anything?” Tim asked.

“You can find the good wineglasses and set them out,” his father said. “Try not to break them.”

“I brought some Chianti,” said Francine, wagging a bottle. “It goes with anything. Can I pour you some? Oh, but you haven't had breakfast yet. Are you hungry, hon? Can I fix you anything?”

The food smells were making the sides of his empty stomach rub together, but it was just too weird, seeing Francine wearing one of his mother's aprons, addressing him with her same anxious concern, and while Tim didn't necessarily dislike Francine, he was pretty sure he disliked her being here. He said he'd grab something to eat later, thanks.

Richard arrived at the appointed time, and then Gabe, and both were presented to Francine. “I just can't decide which of you is handsomer,” she declared, seeming to involve all four of them in the competition. She gave the father a mirthful look. “Now you know I'm just kidding.”

“Ha ha,” said the father, gamely.

“He's kind of a sexy daddy, isn't he?”

Nobody said anything. The brothers all wondered just how far things had gone. There was a hectic, unconsummated quality to such talk.

“So Francine,” Gabe said, rescuing them, “do you always
cook a big Thanksgiving dinner? I mean, this is huge.” He indicated the kitchen, where ranks of serving dishes were deployed, waiting to receive all the different foods that were baking, stewing, browning.

“Oh, not always. Not when it's just me. But I'm Italian, see, and we always did food in a big way. I miss that. You know?”

They said they knew, yes. About missing things.

“So when your dad said he didn't have any plans, I thought, why not? Why not make the effort. Food, it's such a universal whaddyacallit. Language. My grandma? Nonna? She didn't speak a word of English, but everything she cooked spoke of love.”

“That's nice,” Richard said. He had adopted a stoic, ironic manner that the father liked to call “wiseass.”

Francine said, “She passed away two years ago from this horrible cancer. It got into her brain and made her spit at the people who were taking care of her. Spit, spit, spit.” She put her wineglass down, picked it up again.

It was then that the rest of them realized she was rather drunk, in a voluble way.

“I'm sorry to say, once she died, a lot of family things just fell apart. There has been some very negative behavior. From my supposed nearest and dearest.”

They all nodded. Sure. Unfortunate.

“But listen to me, such a bringdown, and anyway I'm not going to waste any more breath on the son of a bitch. Well, back to work.” She headed into the kitchen, walking with care on her high heels.

There was a football game on, and the three brothers sat in the den to watch while they waited for dinner. The father stalked in and out, keeping track of the score. It was hard to tell if he was happy or embarrassed or what. From time to time, Francine
came in, holding herself erect, humming under her breath, carrying plates of cheese and crackers, or olive spread, or little sausages baked in biscuit wraps. “Now, don't spoil your appetite!”

They were all drinking beers by now, slamming them back just to cope with the strangeness of everything. Increasingly, it felt as if they had been assembled under false pretenses. They watched the football players collide and get up and do it all over again, and though they didn't talk among themselves, little cartoon thought bubbles were almost visible over their heads. This was a bad idea, and, Who is this gal anyway?

Scraping noises came from the kitchen, then they heard Francine say, “Phooey.” The dropped lid of a pot rang on the floor. “Ouch!”

“Need any help in there?” the father called.

“No, no, it's really easier if everybody stays right where they are!”

The brothers looked at the father, who shrugged. “She's used to running her own kitchen,” he said, but he got up and went in to see what he could do.

Eventually the dinner was ready. Some portion of the food had not made it to the table, and some of it was missing components, but there was enough variety and volume to smooth it over. “That damned turkey,” Francine said cheerfully. “The little thermometer thing popped out too early, the drumsticks were all red and bloody.”

“There's plenty of white meat,” the father said as a warning, and the brothers all murmured that white meat was really their favorite.

Francine filled her plate but wasn't eating. “Come on,” the father said, noticing. “Don't tell me you spent all day cooking and you aren't going to have any.”

“I promise I'll get around to food,” Francine said. She dipped a finger in her wineglass and put the finger in her mouth. “Right now I need a little vacation from it. How's that stuffing, Ray?”

She meant Rich, but they let that go. “Real good,” he said. “Tip-top.”

“I apologize for the gravy. Gravy's not one of my strong suits.”

“It's fine, Francine,” the father said. “You're not going to hear anybody complaining.”

“They are wonderful young men. You're wonderful too. In your own way. But I can see how you all might take up so much room, you'd make a woman sick at heart.”

They all ate quietly for a time, then Tim asked to be excused. He took his plate to the kitchen, then went downstairs and fired up his pipe, blowing the smoke into the bathroom exhaust fan.

A little later, he heard Francine's high heels on the stairs. “Hi,” she said. “You mind? I'm making what they call a strategic retreat in good order.”

She was already descending. “Sure,” Tim said. “Be my guest.”

“You are so busted! I don't suppose I could have some of that pot.”

He waited for Francine to get comfortable on the other end of the couch, then passed the pipe to her. Her lipstick had rubbed off and it made her look shifty and blurred, like an out-of-focus photograph. She drew in the smoke and coughed, but managed to hold it in. “Thanks,” she said. “I can feel a definite mellowing. My Nonna? Every year before the holidays she'd go down to the hospital, and I'd go with her and help her take out her hairpins and her earrings and take off her rings, and she'd get a good old-fashioned electric shock treatment, and then she'd be fine to come home and cook cook cook for everybody.”

“Whatever it takes, I guess.”

“I shouldn't have said that, about your mom. I mean, what do I know?”

Tim kept silent. She said, “That doesn't necessarily mean it was wrong.”

“Families are messed up,” Tim offered, not sure if he was saying something wise, or just being a jerk. His brain felt sludgy.

They passed the pipe back and forth a few times. Francine said, “I made apple and pumpkin pies. I forgot to ask what kinds you guys like.”

“Those are both great, really.”

Francine squinted at him through the pillowy smoke. “You're a nice kid. You're tired of being the baby, aren't you. Who could blame you.” She stood, steadied herself on the couch back, then bent over Tim and kissed him on the top of his head. “Bye now.”

“Bye,” Tim said, but by then she had already climbed the stairs and was gone.

He waited awhile longer, though he could not have said how long, until everything was quiet upstairs. The kitchen was empty except for the wreckage of pots and pans and plates strewn about. In the dining room, his brothers sat on each side of the cleared table. “Where's Dad?”

“He'll be back. Sit down,” Rich said.

“Where's—” Tim began, but Gabe made a gesture with his thumb and closed fist, the sign of an umpire signaling, “You're out.” Tim sat.

The father came back in and put a piece of notebook paper on the center of the table.

“That's her address. I couldn't find a phone.”

Tim almost asked, Who? But there was no need. The father said, “You have to talk to her. Get her to come home.”

The brothers kept silent. The thought bubbles above their heads were blank. Finally Richard said, “Dad, we can try and talk to her, but you're the one she ought to hear from.”

“She won't believe a word I say.”

They considered the truth of this. Gabe said, “So why now? I mean, it's been a pretty long—”

“How many more nights like this you think I can stand?”