Rabbit Remembered

"She and Pru had a big fight about it and finally Pru gave up. After all the kid will be twenty next month, and she didn't ask to go to Akron, she's just trying to make the best of the situation her messed-up parents handed her. She drove all the way herself, Pru, just with Roy; she was beat when she arrived, about nine o'clock Monday night, they had kept stopping at what used to be Howard Johnson'ses." It makes him weary just to think about his aging, uncontrollable family.

"Where are they staying?"

"What's with all these questions? At Mom's. It's too small and crummy here, and the morning traffic out on Eisenhower shakes the place." He does not tell her that last night, Tuesday night, he went over after work for a dinner Pru had made in Mom's kitchen and stayed the night in his old room at the back of the house, while Pru took Judy's old room in front and Roy the little room with the computer, on a cot. They all just fell into place, except that he wanted to be in bed with Pru, or at least see her in her underwear, and had tossed and turned. There were too many people in his head, like that Christmas plaque Jo Foote had made him. Among other things he was afraid if he fell asleep he would see that man practicing chip shots in the back yard again.

"That's sad, Nelson," his sister was saying. "Roy at least should be over with you."

"Yeah, but I have to work, the Center is shorthanded this week, the suicide has driven the clients crazier. And Roy and Ronnie get along oddly great. They talk about megabytes and RAMs and sit up there at the computer all day, cruising the Internet for God knows what. Filth, probably. Last night Ron took him to a high-school basketball game. I guess there's this holiday tournament on in the county, a big deal, girls' and boys' teams both."

"And how do you feel about your daughter's not coming to visit? Are you hurt?"

"Relieved, in a way. She's gotten to be a handful. She's a redhead, like her mother."

"But she needs to see her father."

"Pru told her that, and Judy said if he doesn't care enough about me to come out here why should I go there and miss an event that only comes once every thousand years? She doesn't seem to think it'll happen in Brewer, only in Akron."

"Well," Annabelle says primly, "it doesn't sound very satisfactory. When am I going to meet Pru, and my dear little nephew?"

"That's what we need to talk about. What are you doing Friday night?"

"That's the-"

"I know. The last of the last."

"I was just going to go to bed and let it all wash over me."

"Yeah, me too, but Pru is as bad as her daughter. She wants to do something. I didn't want you to come to Mom's house ever again, not after Thanksgiving, but maybe we could swing by that evening and pick up Pru and say hello to Roy and go out to a meal and a movie. I don't want to go to any dance or anything."

"You with two women? That's weird, Nelson."

"No kidding. I agree. But there's this guy I used to play with as a kid, my best friend you could say, now he's a dentist who does Swedish implants, who called me up for lunch the other week and really seems a kind of lost soul. He was married twice but isn't now. Suppose he joined us? His name is Billy Fosnacht."

"It still sounds weird. Two people I never met, and you."

"Listen, do you trust your brother or not? You'll have no problem with Pru, everybody likes her, she used to be beautiful, and Billy's a kind of loser-my father used to call him a goon-but it's not like it's a date, he'll just be along. He makes great money, by the way. You have any better plans? Like with that girlfriend and her husband? Or have they seen enough of you lately?" This is cruel, perhaps.

She doesn't say yes or no. She says, "They say there may be terrorist attacks."

"In Brewer? On what, the pretzel factories?"

"The mayor of Seattle cancelled their celebration today."

"He has the Space Needle to worry about."

"Nelson, I hope you know what you're doing." This is Annabelle's way of agreeing.

"No," he says, feeling cheerful for the first time this terminal week, "I don't, frankly."

"And this is my son, Roy."

Annabelle says in auntly fashion, "What a tall boy! It's wonderful to meet you, Roy."