Worry by Ron Wallace
She worried about people; he worried about things. And between them, that about covered it.
“What would you think of our daughter sleeping around?” she said.
“The porch steps are rotting,” he replied. “Someone’s going to fall through.”
They were lying in bed together, talking. They had been lying in bed together talking these twenty-five years: first, about whether to have children–she wanted to (although there was Down’s Syndrome, leukemia, microcephaly, mumps); he didn’t (the siding was warped; the roof was going fast)–and then, after their daughter was born, a healthy seven pounds eleven ounces (“She’s not eating enough;” “The furnace is failing”), about family matters, mostly (“Her friends are hoodlums, her room is a disaster;” “The brakes are squealing, the water heater’s rusting out.”)
Worry grew between them like a son, with his own small insistencies and then more pressing demands. They stroked and coddled him; they set a place for him at the table; they sent him to kindergarten, private school, and college. Because he failed at nearly everything and always returned home, they loved him. After all, he was their son.
“I’ve been reading her diary. She does drugs. She sleeps around.” “I just don’t think I can fix them myself. Where will we find a carpenter?”
And so it went. Their daughter married her high school sweetheart, had a family, and started a health food store in a distant town. Although she recalled her childhood as fondly as anyone–how good her parents had been and how they worried for her, how old and infirm they must be growing, their house going to ruin–she rarely called or visited. She had worries of her own.
Dining Out
There are fourteen of us all together. I am second from the top, with only one boy older. We fill several tables at Old Country Buffet, where I can eat as much macaroni and cheese as I want. It must be someone’s birthday: It’s always
someone’s birthday with fourteen of us, and the boys are always sneaking back in the buffet line for lemon slices.
It’s my job to tell on the boys. They are always spitting lemon juice all over the table and that table isn’t even yours, you know, and I’m second from the top so you have to listen to me. And when they don’t listen to me, it’s the yelling uncles’ job to yell and make them listen to someone. But one uncle laughs and the other uncle doesn’t listen to me either. Instead, he yells over the laughing to draw attention back to the television in the corner that is too far away to read. Dad doesn’t yell or laugh, but looks at the television and holds Dean because he doesn’t feel good. Dean is too little to be one of the boys, so he just watches the spitting from Dad’s lap.
“Pablo, will you quit with the game already?” says Aunt Kelli, the one with the laugh.
“It’s almost over. Guy, did you see that pummel? Bam.” He claps once, louder than he yells.
“We’re about to sing.” Aunt Lori is lighting the sparkler candles that always scare me.
“Do you want to help sing, Deanie?” Dad puts him on Mom’s lap, right on top of the scarf she was knitting. Dean still watches the boys.
“It’s time to sing!” I’m yelling at the boys, whose shirts are
wet down the fronts.
“Happy birthday, dear Brandon, happy birthday…”
I don’t feel good because I ate too much macaroni and cheese, but Dad can’t hold me because I’m not little anymore. We’re filing out into the parking lot, and someone is counting to fourteen behind me. The boys are laughing and running in the street, so I have to go tell on them. Dad opens the car door and stops at thirteen. “Where’s Dean?”
The uncles and aunts and the boys stop yelling and laughing and look for my brother. He comes out the door of the restaurant holding a lemon, but Dad can’t run to him and hold him again before the crying starts.