A Hard and Heavy Thing (29 page)

Levi hugged her back. He lifted his chin and set it on top of her head. He patted her back. “It's okay, Mom.” His dad waited at the bottom of the stairs, hands behind his back with an air of self-confident patience. Levi brought his eyes up. His dad met them, smiled, and nodded. “Okay, Mom,” Levi said. “I need to say hello to Dad too.”

She let him go and put both hands on his cheeks again. He raised his eyebrows. She patted his right cheek. “Okay,” she said, wiping a tear away. “Okay.”

Levi kissed her forehead and walked up to his dad, who hugged him tightly. His father closed his eyes and exhaled. Nick could see the weight lift from his shoulders as they embraced. He rubbed Levi's back. “Welcome home, Son.”

Levi's sister, brother, and brother-in-law all waited at the top of the stairs and one by one they came down to greet him. Levi hugged and kissed Elizabeth. “Good to see you, Sis.” She couldn't speak because she was crying like her mother, mascara-filled tears drawing black lines in the thick foundation on her face.

Levi rolled his eyes and pointed at his sister as he shook hands with her husband, Chris.

“Welcome back, Bro.”

Then Levi moved in to hug his brother, Paul, who stuck out his hand for a formal handshake. Levi recovered by grabbing Paul's hand to pull him in for a one-armed hug. “Long time no see,” he told him.

“No kidding,” said Paul.

“So, couldn't hack it in DC? Working for the old man now?”

“Something like that. You know we still have an opening at Hartwig and Sons.”

Levi pulled away. “It's probably time he renamed it Hartwig and Son.”

“I've been telling him that for years.” Paul reached his hand up and tousled his little brother's hair. “You sure do look older.”

“Go figure.”

Having completed all his formal greetings, Levi stood at the bottom of the stairs and crossed his arms. His family stood around him shivering and smiling. “Geez,” Levi said looking around at them. “Take a picture.”

“Right,” said his dad. “No sense in standing out here freezing your
tuchis
off.” He spread his arms out as if to gather his family under his wings. He gestured for everyone to walk up the stairs. “In, in,” he said. “We've killed the fattened calf and we've prepared a feast in your honor. Please, inside.”

Nick fell in next to Paul, behind the rest of the family. Paul put his arm around Nick's shoulder. He wore a cruel smile as if he were doling out congratulations after losing a hard-fought game. “Must be nice,” he muttered to Nick. “I didn't get a party like this when I got back from DC.”

Nick patted him on the back in consolation. “Who needs a party when you inherit the family business and get your name on the door of a law firm?”

Paul frowned and nodded, as if thinking of that for the first time. “Touché,” he said. “Touché.”

She recognized many, but she knew none. Eris tried her best to give polite smiles to the many guests at the party, and she graciously uttered her thanks when she accepted her drink from Mrs. Hartwig, but she was all too happy to find herself alone in the back den where she could look up and down the bookshelves without having to make small talk.

Levi had already barreled through the house giving bear hugs, patting backs, shaking hands. He disappeared out the back door only moments before entering the front.

Nick came up behind Eris and put his hand on her shoulder. She turned, holding the stem of a wineglass in her right hand near her chest. She traced the edge of the glass's circular bottom with her left index finger. Nick put his hand on her waist and kissed her cheek. He turned so he stood next to her and faced the same direction. In a low voice he asked, “Whatchya got in there?”

She ran her eyes over the crowd. “Champagne. It's a celebration.” She took a sip and went back to tracing the bottom of the glass.

Nick reached to grab it. She turned her body to protect it and she sent an elbow into his stomach, but with playfulness and not malice. “Oh relax, Dad. It's ginger ale.”

He grunted. “Was that really necessary?” He grabbed his stomach.

Annoyed now, she hissed at him. “Like it would make a difference. You'd still hover around like a little hawk.” She then threw her voice into her nose, “Whatchya doin? Whatchya drinking? Ginger ale? Lemme taste it.” She rolled her eyes. “Four hundred and twelve days, Nick. Four hundred and twelve days sober. But you probably know that better than I do, don't you, Nick, because whenever I start to forget that I had a problem, you have to remind me, right?”

He looked surprised. “I wasn't trying to—”

“Listen. As many problems as I've had, I'm in control. Remember our wedding? With my mother there? I was sober there, remember?”

“I was sober too.”

“Not the point. If I could make it through that outrageous and depressing display of drunkenness bordering on debauchery, I can make it through this.” She noticed but could not help that her voice rose as she spoke.

A woman Eris didn't know bent down in front of them to grab a slice of summer sausage and cheese from the plate on the coffee table. She looked over her shoulder at them as she stood up, and she gave a patronizing smile as she lingered. “Excuse me,” she said. She walked to the other side of the room, tossing one more glance at the couple fighting in the corner.

Nick crossed his arms and lowered his voice, trying to get Eris to do the same. “How many times do you have to bring up the wedding? I'm sorry. I should have thought about it more. I should have thought about your mom. I'm sorry. The Hartwigs are sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay? Need me to say it for the rest of our lives together? I'm sorry.”

He leaned in. He tried to kiss her. She pushed him away.

“Not the point.” She turned to him. “The point is, you can take the kid gloves off any day now and try a little thing called trust.” She lifted the wineglass to her lips and sipped, pretending she was in control.

As if by instinct, Nick leaned down to her glass to smell it.

“Are you kidding me?” She spun on her heel and stormed away two steps, though she had nowhere to go. She turned around to face him. “Seriously?”

He reached out. “I didn't—”

“Unbelievable.” She huffed and turned to the window.

And then he was there in her vision again, but she could not see him clearly. The husband she saw on the back deck—gregarious, laughing, and gesturing to other guests with a beer bottle—was not the husband that she knew. The Nick she saw through the window was the man she recognized from the bar, from the backyard barbecues, from the coffee hour after church, from the chance encounters in the grocery store. This was not the Nick she knew from home, from the kitchen table, from the bedroom. That Nick was quiet, pensive, suspicious. The husband of the home lived almost entirely within himself. Even their arguments were punctuated by brutal and agonizing silences. She did not know if he didn't speak because of his great anger or because of his great indifference.

She also recognized Levi, but barely. He was no longer a little boy, although he still had no substance to his frame. When she first walked to the window, he lay supine in the snow, waving his arms and legs to make an angel in the snow. A little girl she did not know jumped on top of him and kneed him between the legs. He sat up and picked her up in the process. His movements were decisive—explosive—and she flew up and out of his hands as he threw her into the snow. Another girl made a tiny snowman by herself. She watched patiently, waiting for her turn with crazy Uncle Levi.

A boy of about ten—Eris remembered it was Levi's nephew, his sister's child—jumped on his back. He wrapped his arms around Levi's neck. Levi stood up and roared. The boy lost his grip and fell in the snow. In retaliation, he packed a snowball and threw it, hitting his uncle in the face. Levi brought the two young girls to himself and spread his arms around them. He gently folded up the stocking cap of the older girl and he whispered in her ear before rolling her cap back down. He patted her head. The girls spread out, and they all pelted the young boy with snowballs. He squealed so loudly Eris could hear it through the window, and he ran across the yard in retreat. Levi and the girls chased after him. The boy ran behind a tree and Levi stooped to pack a snowball. He waited a beat, and as soon as the boy stuck his head around the tree, he was met with a frozen splash to his face.

Though Nick stood in a circle of men smoking cigarettes on the deck, he had relinquished the center of attention to someone else. He followed the backyard battle with his eyes. He laughed when the boy was hit in the face. Nick's head and eyes followed Levi as he moved through the yard.

Levi's sister Liz appeared on the deck with her hands on her hips. She was blond, beautiful, put together, painfully nice, and entirely too high-maintenance for Eris's liking. The little girls ran inside. Levi sat in the middle of the yard in the snow with his hands in his lap. The little boy stood half-behind his mother, crying into the hem of her shirt.

She waved a hand and said something to scold Levi. She knelt down and examined the boy's face, and she kissed his forehead. The kid's face was red and his eyes were swollen from crying, but it didn't look like he had any cuts or bruises. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and shook his head no, burying his face in his mom's shoulder. She patted his back. Eris wondered what it would be like to have such a helicopter for a mother. She would never know.

Levi, still sitting on the ground, messed with the snow between his outstretched legs. He was nearly laughing. Eris heard his muffled shout through the window: “He started it.” He staggered as he stood up. His eyes were wild and young and they searched around, looking for kicks. Eris recognized this Levi.

His sister turned and went into the house. She slammed the sliding patio door. Eris quickly turned away from the window, not wanting to make eye contact with Liz as she stormed in, but then she felt silly. She was practically invisible at her station, surrounded by a sea of people moving and talking. Everyone else sharing of themselves.

She turned back to the window to see Levi's face darken. He threw a snowball where his sister had been. It smacked and rattled against the patio door. He walked over to Nick. He put his hand on her husband's shoulder and leaned on him. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He took a single drag and waved it around. He stepped back and gesticulated; he threw his barely smoked cigarette on the ground and stamped on it. “Tell your kid to stop being such a pussy,” he yelled at the door. Eris did not know this Levi.

Nick and Levi walked in together. Her husband didn't look her way as the two old friends tumbled through the patio door and through the room next to her. Levi reached into a cooler and pulled out two beers. He put his canine tooth under each cap and pulled the bottles down in turn, prying the caps off. He handed one to Nick and held out his bottle as if they were the only two people in the room. “Cheers,” he said. They walked to the stairwell by the door that went to the basement, bottles tilted the whole way, draining down their throats. When the bottles came down empty before they even reached the other side of the room, Levi slapped the back of the closest person, a thick old man in a suit. “Hey, thanks for coming,” he said. Nick slapped someone's back. “Great to see you again.” They reached the stairwell to the basement and Levi nudged Nick and whispered something. They looked around as if partners in a conspiracy.

Eris had been in this house once before, when they were juniors in high school. Levi's older brother and sister were off at college, and his parents were out at some fundraiser for La Crosse's aspirant district attorney. The night began with Nick, Levi, and Eris mixing orange juice with a bottle of Grey Goose pulled from the fully stocked basement bar. It ended with Levi puking in the sink while the DA's wife—looking fun in a little black dress overflowing with all her embonpoint—rubbed his back and informed Levi's dad that she'd have whatever the boy was drinking.

She knew all about that basement, and those boys were idiots if they thought they were fooling anyone.

Eris turned back to the bookshelves. She set her glass down and flipped through a poetry anthology. “Oh, Ezra,” she thought. “How I've missed you.” She had once loved to read. She had loved art, poetry, and music. Then life happened. She put the book back and traced the bottom edge of her glass again. When she could no longer take the combination of boredom and anxiety from standing alone in a room full of people, she looked for an opening in the crowd.

When she was halfway down the switchback staircase, she could see Nick, Levi, and an older man slamming shot glasses down on the bar. By the time she reached the bottom, the older man was holding up a chunky brass challenge coin in front of Nick's face. “You see that there, Nick?” the man said.

Nick nodded politely while Levi stood behind the man's shoulder making the shape of a gun with his thumb and forefinger. He placed the forefinger inside his mouth, pointing up through the roof, and he mimed cocking the hammer with his thumb. He then jerked his head back as if he had shot himself, and he dropped his chin on his chest and let his tongue hang out.

Nick put his hand on the man's shoulder. A gesture to reassure. “Yeah, I see it Robert. I see it.”

The man turned around, and Levi popped his head up and raised his eyebrows. The man slammed the coin down on the bar next to Levi. “One Hundred and Eighty-Second Airborne.” The man enunciated every word. “Da Nang Air Base. Sixty-nine.” He nodded silently as if he were remembering something significant and serious. “I never saw much action, but let me tell you, it was the constant fear that got to you.”

As Eris approached, she made eye contact with Levi for the first time. He cocked his head like a curious dog, as if he disbelieved his own eyes. Eris grabbed Nick's elbow and pulled him toward the empty media room.