Through the French doors, I watched the three boys while I opened yet another address book, looking for anybody else I could call to take over. The book was old—from the bottom of the stack. There were entries in my mother’s handwriting—friends, old coaches and dance teachers, the PTO president from seven years ago. My mother was vice president then. It seemed strange that you could be vice president of the PTO one year, and heading off to Ecuador with a mission group the next. But that was my mother. When she was into something, she went all the way. My mother was
The Purpose Driven Life
in a good pair of running shoes.
Outside, Mark and Daniel were using the climbing rope to scale the wavy yellow slide on the playscape. They knew they weren’t allowed to do that. The rope, in fact, was supposed to be wrapped around the beam overhead and tied there, so they couldn’t get it down. The last time they rope-scaled the slide, Daniel had ended up in the emergency room getting four stitches in his curly blond head.
I stood at the door, trying to decide whether to grab Jewel and take her with me, or leave her where she was while I went out to save lives in the play yard. Jewel was almost through pushing Cheerios off the tray and watching them bounce across the tile. She had a bored, tired look that said,
Look out. I’m gonna blow.
When Jewel got wound up, she could literally scream and wail for hours, and nothing would stop her. The pediatrician said she had some digestive issues. My father said she took after Barbie, but he didn’t say that within earshot of Barb, of course.
Outside, Daniel was halfway up the slide. Mark and Landon had picked it up from the bottom and were shaking it, either giving Daniel a ride or trying to knock him off. With the brat pack, there was a thin line between good clean fun and murderous intent. If I’d ever acted like that when I was little, my mother would have put me in the time-out chair until my rear end took on its shape, but since I’d been an only child, there wasn’t much incentive for me to compete in any way.
Yanking open the French door, I hollered, “Cut it out!” The boys, of course, ignored me completely and shook the slide harder. In the high chair, Jewel jerked her head up, looked around the kitchen, and let out a wail.
Daniel stumbled sideways on the slide, caught himself on one foot, and teetered there, clinging to the rope. My body tensed as I waited for him to swing through the air, careening toward the nearest solid object. He’d end up in the emergency room right next to his mother.
“Cut. It. Out! Get down!” I screamed out the door, but it didn’t do any good. The sibs were used to Barbara hollering, nannies yelling, the white noise of one another, and Aunt Lute occasionally popping in with an outburst unrelated to anything. Loud sounds and sudden displays of emotion meant absolutely nothing to them.
I heard Aunt Lute’s squeaky pink house shoes come down the stairs and cross the living room as I was trying to undo some new plastic thing that was holding the screen door closed—Barbara’s latest attempt at child safety. As the Four had grown in size and dexterity, efforts to keep them locked either inside or outside had turned my father’s house into a Fort Knox of the latest kid containment devices.
Perfume and pink chiffon floated by as Aunt Lute shuffle-squeaked into the kitchen, where Jewel was howling like a banshee and trying to push her way out of the high chair. Aunt Lute passed by on her way to the sink, seemingly oblivious.
“Can you get her?” I snapped, grabbing the screen door with both hands and throwing my weight against the child lock. “Aunt Lute, can you get her?” Glancing over my shoulder, I took in Aunt Lute’s weird combination of fluffy pink housecoat, slippers, and a poufy bathing cap that looked like something from
I Love Lucy
.
Calmly filling her glass, she swiveled my way. “Whose is she?” It was impossible to tell whether Aunt Lute was asking a question or making a point, as in,
Whose problem is the screaming baby? Certainly not mine.
Which was exactly how
I
felt about it. However, blood was about to be drawn in the backyard, and I really didn’t want that on my conscience. Technically, those were my father’s children, flesh of my flesh, even if my father rarely crossed paths with them.
“Barbara wrecked the Escalade again.” Yanking a jelly-covered butter knife off a plate on the counter, I prepared to commit mayhem on the child lock. It was either kick down the screen door, or let Mark and Landon assassinate Daniel. He was hanging on to the rope and the slide now, tossing out threats and preschool potty words in a growl-shriek that sounded remarkably like my stepmother’s.
“Barbie had to go to the . . .” I paused to wedge the knife into the plastic lock in an attempt to pop it loose. “. . . stupid . . . doctor.” If it didn’t give in the next thirty seconds, and Jewel didn’t shut up, I was going to go crazy. I really was. Tomorrow, no matter what, I wasn’t coming home. I was telling everyone I had a late lesson, and then I was spending the night someplace else. Anyplace. Anywhere that wasn’t a flippin’ nuthouse for munchkins.
I smelled Aunt Lute’s perfume, and a whisper of chiffon tickled my arm. “This way,” she said nonchalantly, then slipped a finger around the jelly knife and pressed some mysterious, invisible switch. The plastic security loop popped loose so suddenly it shot across the room.
I slid the door open and ran across the yard, pointing the drippy jelly knife at the boys like a weapon. “Cut it out! Right now! Mark! Landon!” They were unfazed, of course, and kept shaking the slide right up until I got to the playscape and started grabbing little body parts. I got Daniel first, because he was the one in mortal danger. Yanking him off the rope, I stuck him on the platform above the slide, then went after Mark, since sending his twin brother to the hospital had probably been his idea.
Mark dropped his side of the slide and ran. The slide fell, knocked Landon down, and landed on his leg. Landon let out a howl. On the playscape, Daniel seized a plastic bat and ran down the slide, pinching Landon’s leg and causing him to scream bloody murder. Daniel hit the ground running and went after Mark with the bat, hollering, “Doo-doo, dookie poop face! I’monna mop you!” Mark tripped over Barbie’s cat, the cat squalled, and Daniel caught up, then whacked both his brother and the cat with his weapon of choice. The cat screeched, retreated, and ran for her life, looking for a hole in the play area fence.
Dragging Landon from under the slide, I set him on his feet, swiveled toward the other boys, and yelled, “Cut it out!” Again.
The pool gate alarm went off. I wanted to scream right along with it.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Aunt Lute’s pink housecoat fluttering against the iron gate. When I turned to look, she was entering the water in her swimsuit and bathing cap, the squeaky pink slippers still on her feet. She held Jewel in one arm. Naked. My mind flashed to a picture of
la tía loca
drowning the baby. “Aunt Lute, wait!”
The bloodcurdling tone of my voice attracted the boys’ attention. All three froze instantly, looked at the pool, then ran to the play yard fence, grabbed the iron bars, and stuck their faces through, suddenly captivated.
“Why’za Jewee swim?” Landon babbled, his three-year-old voice suddenly sweet and inquisitive, and his blue eyes wide beneath fluffy blond curls.
In the pool, Jewel gurgled happily and kicked her feet as Aunt Lute dipped into the water just enough to cover the baby’s legs, then bounced up again.
“Why’za Jewee swim?” Landon repeated. He followed me through the play yard gate and across the lawn, while the other boys stood at the fence, fascinated by the sight of
la tía loca
and the baby. In the pool, the diaphanous puffs of pink fabric on Aunt Lute’s bathing cap caught the late-afternoon light, giving her a sunny rose-colored halo as she bounced up and down with the baby, both of them giggling.
I remained cautiously silent until I’d made it to the pool fence, just in case
la tía loca
had completely lost it this time, in which case I’d need to dive in and rescue the baby. Opening the pool gate, I held Landon off and stepped inside by myself. “Aunt Lute, what are you doing?”
She bounced in a semicircle until she was facing me. Her violet eyes were bright in this light, reflecting long rays of evening sun. “Come on in. The water is lovely.” Fanning a hand across the surface, she altered the shape of the light, causing it to bend and dance. Jewel babbled and flapped her arms in appreciation, then wanted to touch the water herself. Aunt Lute leaned her over so that Jewel could reach. Holding my breath, I moved a step closer to the edge.
“Aunt Lute, I think we’d better get out of the pool,” I suggested cautiously. “Barbara’s not home.” Once upon a time, I would have gladly gone in for a swim, but I hadn’t been in the pool during daylight hours since the twins got old enough to walk. After that point, I couldn’t go into the pool, or anywhere else, without them hanging all over me. Taking a swim meant getting stuck with babysitting duty while Barbie took advantage of the time to bleach her roots, or arrange her shoes, or whatever else was pressing on her agenda. It was easier to go swim at Emity’s house.
Aunt Lute smiled and bounced Jewel up and down in the water again. “Everyone can come in.” She nodded toward Landon, and then the terrible twosome hanging on the play yard fence. “Let’s all go for a swim.”
Well, this is it
, I thought. La tía loca
has finally snapped. She’s lost it completely.
Squatting down, I reached over the water. “Here, I’ll take the baby inside.”
Aunt Lute’s gaze lifted slowly, locked onto mine in a way that would have seemed entirely lucid, if not for the fluffy hat, the pink slippers, and the naked baby. “Let’s have a swim,” she repeated. “It will be good for them.”
I shook my head, trying to figure out how to get the baby away from Aunt Lute without jumping into the water and getting my golf togs all wet. If I got wet, I’d have to change clothes, and there was no telling what the sibs would be into while I was up in my room. “They don’t have suits on. I’m not even sure where their suits are.”
Barbara probably took them to the resale shop so she could buy new ones.
The corners of Aunt Lute’s mouth twitched upward, forming half-moon wrinkles under her sunlit eyes. “Let them swim in their shorts. We’ll hang the clothing over the fence when we’re finished.”
“Barbara’ll have a cow.” The boys were wearing some kind of matching Baby Gap stuff that looked like it’d never even been washed before.
Aunt Lute checked the yard. “I don’t see any
Barbara
.”
I laughed, and
la tía loca
nodded, smiling slyly. Every once in a while, I had the feeling that Aunt Lute was a fox in a sheepskin, not nearly as out to lunch as she pretended to be.
“The water tires them out,” she said. “They become so exhausted”—pausing, she yawned and stretched her free arm—“they can’t help falling asleep. Just like little angels.”
All of a sudden, Aunt Lute and I were on the same wavelength, and her point was as clear as the water in the pool. The Four were at their best when they were asleep—their puffs of curly blond hair like rays of curving light against the pillow, their cheeks red, and their lips pursed into tiny Cupid’s bows.
“Come on, guys. We’re going swimming,” I said, and headed out the pool gate to spring Mark and Daniel from the play yard. Landon trotted along behind me, and when we retrieved the twins, everyone was so happy about going swimming that nobody smacked, bit, or pushed anybody on the way across the yard.
I stripped off the boys’ shirts, put water wings on Landon’s arms, grabbed a swim diaper for the baby, and the pool party commenced. Aunt Lute showed the boys a few maneuvers she’d learned in some imaginary life as a synchronized swimmer in Vegas. The twins could swim like fish, so they weren’t too bad at the aquabatics. It kept them entertained, anyway, and by the time we dragged everyone out of the pool well after dark, the sibs were so tired they barely made it through peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches before passing out in front of a Disney movie. I carried the boys to their beds, and then put the baby in her crib. At the bottom of the stairs, Aunt Lute and I gave each other a high five.
“Glorious evening,” she pronounced. “Princess Stephanie loved to swim, as well. She had beautiful golden hair, and the softest brown eyes, just like yours.” Making a motion to illustrate flowing locks, Aunt Lute smiled, then turned away and headed for the bonus room over the garage, her wet slippers leaving twin slug trails on the tile.
No telling who Princess Stephanie was.
“Good night, Aunt Lute,” I called after her.
“Good night, Princess.” She finger-waved over her shoulder as she disappeared around the corner, adding, “I’ve some dry underwear in the laundry room.”
Still contemplating the weirdness that was Aunt Lute, I cleaned up the sandwich crusts on the bar, then went to the living room, turned off the Disney movie, and flipped through the cable channels.
My father was on channel forty-three in one of his “We take shabby homes” commercials. He was wearing a cheesy Superman suit, and his favorite advertising partner and former second-string fullback, Randy Boone, was dressed as Superboy with dreadlocks. They were rescuing some lady from back taxes she couldn’t afford on a house that needed costly repairs. My father gave her a market estimate and made her a purchase offer in twenty-four hours or less. And solved all her problems. Behind them, the house changed in an instant, going from shabby blue with a weed-filled yard to a bright, clean Householders yellow. Another derelict property rehabilitated by Householders, television magic, and my dad’s superpowers, as easy as one, two, three.
From outside, the glow of headlights panned into the front room, traveling from one end to the other as a car rounded the circle drive on the way to the garage. I changed the TV channel in case it was my father pulling in.