Spoonbenders

Irene couldn’t remember why she’d gone upstairs to look for her. It was a school day, so perhaps Irene wanted to complain about Buddy or Frankie not getting ready. When she pushed open the door to her parents’ bedroom, she found her mother sitting on the edge of the bed, palms on her thighs, eyes closed. Tears had traced a line down each cheek.

There was something obscene about the sight. It was not just that her mother rarely cried; it was that the tears were falling and she was doing nothing to wipe them away, nothing to hide them. It was the most naked she’d ever seen her mother.

Perhaps Irene gasped; something made her mother’s eyes snap open. And still she didn’t wipe at the tears. She glanced at Irene, but then her attention moved somewhere else, somewhere inside.

Irene said, “Are you divorcing Dad?”

Her mother seemed to take a moment to parse the words. “What?” Then: “Why would you say that?”

There were so many reasons Irene could name. The fact that Dad slept on the basement couch now. That when he woke up he stalked the house in silence, scowling at every noise the kids made, barking at them, For Christ’s sake go play outside! He was not a drunk, Irene decided later, when she’d come to know a few, but he had the alcoholic’s tunnel vision, the addict’s hollowed wound. This was the winter Dad got into a car accident and spent weeks with bandages on his hands, the winter after the summer of The Mike Douglas Show and the family’s public humiliation. Somehow he made the house feel as small as one of those hotel rooms they’d stayed in when the Amazing Telemachus Family had been on tour.

“You didn’t say no,” Irene said, as if catching her in a trick.

Anger flashed on her mother’s face, raw and fierce. Her hands had not moved, but Irene felt as if she’d been slapped. For a long moment, no one spoke.

Irene realized that Buddy had come up behind her. His sixth birthday would be soon, but he looked younger, a big baby head on a skinny body, no hint that he’d someday be the tallest of them.

Her mother, finally, wiped one cheek with the knuckles of her hand. “You’re a bright girl, with a great talent, and I love you.” She stood up. Her mouth was set in a hard line. “But you’ve got to learn some manners. And no, I’m not divorcing your father.”

She walked out of the room and downstairs. Irene followed her, and Buddy trailed silently after. Her mother took her winter coat from the coatrack and pulled it on.

“Where are you going?” Irene asked. It was not yet eight in the morning.

“To work. Walk Buddy to the bus stop. Make sure Frankie gets out of bed.”

“You have a job?” Irene was outraged that she hadn’t been told this.

“Don’t wake your father.” Her mother opened the front door. Cold rushed in and circled Irene’s bare legs like a frantic dog.

Outside it was gray on gray, snowflakes hovering in the air, the world rendered as a pencil sketch. Her mother walked toward a dark sedan parked in the driveway, its exhaust puffing clouds. A man in a long coat stepped out of the driver’s side. He said something to her mother that Irene didn’t hear, and opened the passenger door for her. He touched the small of her back as she stepped around him, and then closed the door behind her. Then he turned, and saw Irene standing in the doorway, Buddy holding on to her legs.

“You two will catch cold!” he said in a friendly tone. He was square-jawed and tall, twice the size of her father. And twice as handsome. His black hair was parted with Ken doll precision.

Irene shut the door—and immediately stepped to the picture window and pushed aside the drapes. The car backed out of the driveway, leaving tracks that she was sure her father would notice when he awoke. But no: by the time she escorted Buddy to his bus stop a half hour later, the snow had already filled them in.

Here’s a question of etiquette that could only come up in the Telemachus family: Who should blow out the candles on a dead woman’s cake? They used to let Buddy do it, but then Cassie and Polly started begging for the honor, and not even Buddy could turn down the twins when they were in Full Cute mode.

“Go to town, girls,” Irene said to the twins. There were seven candles on the cake. There should have been fifty-two, but Irene didn’t dare have that much fire around the girls. So five yellows, one for each decade, and two reds for remainder. Buddy watched anxiously until each candle was extinguished.

Maureen Telemachus had died twenty-one years ago, when she was thirty-one, the same age as Irene was now. This is the last year I have a mother, Irene thought. From now on she’ll be younger than me.