WATCH
CONTINUED
“No, no, don’t help me,” Anigel said, entering the house with two grocery bags, “I can do this all myself.”
Rob went to get the remaining bags, while Chayne began unloading what Anigel had set down, and as shel unshouldered her canvas bag and put down the others on the counter, Anigel said, “Damnit, I almost forgot mayonnaise, but I DID forget bread crumbs, and I am not going back to the store. You know they have a goddamn self checkout now? I had that. And as I was checking my own self out, being my own cashier and bag boy, this bitch was looking at me, a worker who should have been working, and she asked me, she said, were you going to get all three of those juices, because you only paid for one. So I ended up paying for everything she saw in that cart!”
“Were you planning not to?”
“Of course I was!” Anigel shouted as Rob returned with the last bags. “Shit is too damn high? And what about employee discounts? If I’m being the bag boy and the cashier, I should get discounted twice. As it was, I planned to spend about seventeen dollars. Treat myself! And because of that bitch I ended up spending twenty-eight.”
“So you’re mad at her because you couldn’t steal?”
Anigel looked at Rob like he was stupid, and pulled two loaves of bread out of a bag, motioning for him to stick them in the fridge.
“I didn’t say I didn’t steal, I said I didn’t steal as much as I wanted. By my count, I didn’t pay for at least….” She looked around, “half of this.”
“How do you do it?”
“On closer thought,” AnIgel continued, “probably two thirds. I definitely didn’t pay for this.”
“You honestly don’t have a problem with just taking shit of shelves and absconding with it?”
“How come,” Anigel began, “when rich white people steal it’s called taxes, the law, and the cost of living, and when poor people try to get a little back for themselves it’s call theft?”
“Chayne, listen to her?”
“The only reason you’re so high and mighty is because…. You’re high and mighty, Rob,” Anigel said. “Middle class people can have middle class values, and rich people can afford to follow the rules. The rules are made for them.”
With that, Anigel went up the stairs and Rob, gestured to her departing back and swinging hair.
“Can you believe her?”
“I can’t believe how much our grocery bill has fallen since she moved in.”
“You approve of this?”
“Rob, stop,” Chayne said. “Really. You’re better than this. You’re going to eat these stolen pork chops and this red hot shrimp, so stop posing and but up the groceries.”
“Who the fuck has seen my tampons?” Anigel shouted down the stairs.
“Chayne! Have you seen my goddamn tampons?”
“How the fuck would I—? Hold on,” Chayne came up the stairs while Anigel was going through the closet beside the bathroom.
“I can feel it, Chayne. I’m about to have a heavy flow and I’m fresh out. Honestly, all those pro-life motherfuckers who talk about how great children are and how muc they prize women… they might want to give us free Tampax.
Anigel murmured, “Not that I pay for them anyway.”
The phone rang, and they both looked at each other.
“Rob’ll get it—oh, thank God. I can breathe easy.”
She brandished the box.
“Bleed easy,” Chayne said.
“You’re so nasty.”
“You love it.”
“Most of the time,” Anigel agreed. “Yes.”
Rob came upstairs with the cordless.
“It’s Patti.”
They both frowned. Rob held the phone to Anigel. “It’s for you.”
“What’s up?” she said.
“Can you or Chayne go pick Russell up from school?”
“We could,” Anigel said, looking to Chayne who could overhear the conversation.
“We’re out of town, and… we want Russell home.”
“Okay,” Anigel said. “well, we can certainly do that.”
Anigel was not a prying person.
“Thom’s father is dying,” Patti said. “We’re bringing him home. Everyone’s going to be there, so….”
“Shit!” Anigel said.
Chayne took the phone from her.
“Patricia, we’re on our way to get him. We’ll leave now. How soon are you bringing RL back?”
“As soon as possible. We’re signing him out now. Thanks. Both of you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Love you,” Chayne said as briskly as possible and hung up the phone.
He told Anigel, “You found your Tampax just in time.”
“You just spoon on a little, and then you fold. Like this. It’s easier than you think.”
Denise McLlarchlahn Ridecki was in the rectory kitchen, teaching Ann Ford to make pierogi.
She said, “My mother always said never go to a house of mourning and not bring anything.”
Overhearing, Hannah Decker, who was on her way out the door said, “That’s why I’m taking these cupcakes over.”
“That’s not what I meanr, but you do that,” Denise said. She didn’t even trouble to not shake her head.
“Is Hannah pregnant?” Denise wondered, while she quickly dolloped and folded.
“No,” said Anne who was having a harder time with pierogi than Denise’s simple directions indicated.
“Oh,” Denise said. “So, I guess she;s just fat.”
“Those look delicious,” Robert Heinz declared, walking into the kitchem.
“They look like dough wrapped around bits of cold potato,” Denise said with no resentment.
“I can’t believe this is happening to poor Thom,” Father Heinz said in a tone that made Ann and Denise look at each other.
“Thom’s almost forty. His father is almost seventy with bad health. What is it you can’t believe?”
“After I finish cooking, will you come with me to my sister’s house, help me drop off some of this food?”
“I don’t know that I’ll even be wanted,” Geoff Ford said.
“You’re they’re priest, and frankly you’ll be wanted far more than Robert.”
“I can’t argue that. Yikes. Have you seen Patti’s face when he speaks?”
“Everyone’s seen Patti’s face when he speaks.”
` “I’ll go say Vespers, then I’ll be on my way.”
“Good, I’ll put on a coat and dig up your keys.”
“What?”
“Your keys,” Denise said. “I was going to hold them hostage if you refused me.”
“You know I’d just get Robert’s and take his car.”
“You thimk I hadn’t thought about that?”
“Denise!” Geoff frowned in not quite unbelief.
“And it was a rickety table with three legs at that.”
“What?” Geoff said, as usual, confused by the woman.
As she tied a scarf around over her head, and headed to the basement, Geoff asked, “Where are you going?”
“To get your keys.”
“You fold in the eggs and the butter,” Chayne was telling Russell. “It’s easier than you think.”
All afternoon, Russell had been close beside Chayne in the kitchen. Cooking wasn’t easy, but it was the thing you could do. After Chayne and Anigel had gotten the call from Patti, they headed out to OLM, went to the main office and told them they needed to bring Russell out of class earlier. The secretary would have argued and asked for ID, but Father Branch had been in the main office.
“That’s Chayne, and this is the young woman with the cheerleaders.”
“Anigel Reyes, Father.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
He turned to Mrs. Jankowski the secretary.
“Russell should be in 137. Latin right now.”
Father Branch nodded and said to Nick, the office aid. “137. Russell Lewis. Right down the hall.”
They’d everything to Russell in the main office and he went to get his books, followed by Anigel.
“So this is OLM,” she murmured.
“You’ve never been inside?”
She shook her head.
“Never had a need to. It’s more fragrant than I like.”
“It smells like belches and farts.”
“Like eight hundred teenage boys in one spot.”
Russell shrugged.
“You get used to it. Is RL really dying?”
“It seems that way.”
“I hardly know him. We hardly know him. He and Dad were just starting to be OK.”
Russell looked through his locker, which Anigel noted was a mess, pulled out three slim books and stuffed them into his bag.
“Life is a stupid bitch,” he declared.
They had taken Anigel’s car, and on their way to the school, Chayne had made a list of what they should cook and what ingredients they already had including what Anigel had just brought back from the store.
“It’s ungracious,” Anigel had said, “but I wish Patti had called before I’d gone shopping.”
They had coordinated things. Chayne and Felice never imagined that white people would cook the same things as Black people or that, if they did, they would taste anywhere as good. So they only coordinated among themselves. Sharon immediately baked a ham. Chayne was putting a macaroni in the oven and had done a sweet potato pie while his mother made potato salad. Anigel was making hop-in-john and Chayne decided, as he poured himself and Russell a cup of coffee, this was enough for three people in roughly the same family to bring, and other people would or should be able to provide more.
“Kristin’s on her way.”
“Kristin’s all the way in Minnesota.”
“She was the first person I called,” Jackie said. “I called her even before I called Patti.”
“You thought…” Abby Devalara began, and then she said, “You knew, didn’t you?”
“I think I did. I called her around nine o’ clock. If she and Reese drive with a lead foot they should be here before midnight.”
“Sharon, this is so much food,” Patti said.
“It’s not that much. Not when you look at all the people here, and then you think about tomorrow and what’s ahead.”
“Right,” Patti said. Her blond curls were dull today and her eyes tired.
“You should get a shower or something.”
“I can’t do that, Sharon.”
“Why not? What’s being tired going to do?”
“I have to be here for Thom.”
“How can you be here for anyone if you’re almost not here at all?”
Patti nodded and she could hear Denise by the bean dip saying, “Just spoon yourself a little bowl There’s enough Dixie bowls for that. No need to double dip in the sauce. There’s enough sickness here, already.”
“Besides,” Sharon said, “it looks like your sister has things covered.
Patti nodded and squeezed Sharon Kandzierski’s shoulder. She left the crowded living room and went into the kitchen where Lee Armstrong and Dena were arranging casserole dishes.
“I did cheese and potatoes,” Lee was saying, “and Dena did her string bean casserole.”
“It was my mother’s recipe,” Cameron’s mother said.
“Thank you,” Patti said.
She didn’t know Lee well, but considered Bill’s sister well intentioned, and she moved between pity and rank dislike for Dena. She wanted to say something profound, but she was tired, and all she could do is repeat: “Thank you.”
“Have you gotten a hold of Finn?” someone was asking Jackie, and she and John exchanged crying infants before she said, “Not yet. And he was the closest to Dad.”
“I’ll keep trying,” John promised.
Upstairs, Anigel had the television on, and beside her was an ashtray with three stubbed out cigarettes while she smoked a fourth.
“So they think that the man from the strip club killed her?”
“I don’t know who they think killed her,” Anigel was saying to Jill. “I wasn’t really following the show.”
“Then why are we watching it?”
“Because I like to pretend I’m Olivia Benson, and Christopher Meloni is the finest white man I’ve ever seen,”
“How many spare rooms do you have?” Jill asked Russell
“Too many.”
“It’s not too many,” Jill said, “if you want to open a hotel. It’s a great place to have a bunch of people that’s for sure.”
“Or for your grandfather to die in,” Russell added.
“Fuck, Russell!” Anigel said to that, and then, standing, asked, “Is anybody hungry? I want some more macaroni.”
“I want a whole plate,” Gilead said, “so I’m coming with you.”
Russell followed them down the hall and toward the stairs.
“I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do,” he said.
“Nothing,” Gilead told him. “We just wait. We’re just all together.”
Russell wanted to say, “Thanks for being here,” but he knew that Gilead would have only shrugged or pretended he didn’t hear.
“I’m not that hungry.”
“Why would you be?” Gilead said. “Your grandfather’s dying.”
“I didn’t even really know him.”
Anigel was at the bottom of the stairs. She looked up at them. Gilead motioned for her to go on.
“What’s wrong with me?” said Russell. “I should be more moved than this.”
“But it’s like you said,” Gilead told him. “You didn’t really know him.”
“I’ve never lost anyone,” Russell said. “I’m almost seventeen, and I’ve never lost anyone. This is the first death in my family. That I remember. And I don’t really feel the way I should.”
Gilead thought of saying something helpful, but anything that came up felt like a platitude.
At last he said, “If you don’t want to eat, follow me and watch me eat.”
They were downstairs, but Russell saw his grandmother going to the backroom where RL was, and he lifted a finger.
Gilead nodded and went on toward the kitchen and Anigel.
The room Kathleen entered only a small lamp for light, and RL had been sent home with a breathing machine. By the time Chayne, Rob, and Anigel had brought Russell back, his grandfather was already there.
Around him sat Father Ford and Father Heinz, and Jackie was here now, as well as Kathleen. When Kathleen came, hugging herself and looking more as if she was considering something than mourning, Patti got up and squeezed her arm, then walked out, kissing Russell on the cheek. Russell sat down beside his grandmother and the two of them looked at an old man under a blanket who looked incredibly tired, fallen down into his wrinkles, his cigarette ash grey hair now touched with white. Jackie looked old too. In her sadness, though barely thirty two, her face seemed to have sunken into its own folds.
“Did you do Last Rites?” Kathleen said.
“We didn’t know he was a Catholic,” Father Heinz said.
“I don’t know that he was much of anything,” she said, taking the wet cloth and dabbing his lips.
“Does it matter?”
“No,” Geoff decided, reaching into the bag beside him to pull out a purple stole.
While Robert Heinz did the same thing, Kathleen took Russell’s hand without looking at her grandson. Her face softened.
“He wasn’t much of a husband,” she observed. “Or a father. Or anything really.”
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