My Macrofamily⁵

What a dreary autumn! It was hard to concentrate on schoolwork, even harder, on music. I couldn’t play my flute without thinking of Judy. The more I played, the more my eyes misted and they eventually shed tears. Often, I had to give up in the middle of a piece. Sympathizing with me, Mrs. Adams was patient.

“You have to keep playing, Felix. You have to accustom yourself to doing it alone. Judy wouldn’t want you to give up.”

So I tried and tried, wondering if I could ever return to the level of proficiency that had seemed so easy playing with Judy. Both of my families gave me their wholehearted encouragement and John even more than the others. He was also doing everything he could to ease Mom’s pregnancy and, without neglecting Florin, preparing for the little girl they expected in October. They were already discussing names for her and trying them out on each other. One evening at supper, I blurted out:

“Why don’t you call her Judy?”

Surprise and embarrassment.

Mom: “Even the most wonderful little sister wouldn’t replace the one you lost. If we named her Judy, she would only make you sad.”

John: “Either she would remind you of Judy or she would remind you that she isn’t Judy. Both would turn you away from her.”

“ I guess it would be unfair to her.”

Mom: “Of course it would!”

John: “I’m glad she’s a girl. She will have two big brothers to look after her. What a family we will have!”

He didn’t have any siblings himself and his mom had raised him alone because his dad had been killed in Viet Nam before he was born. Although I never questioned his sincerity any more, he made me nervous when he said things like that. I couldn’t understand why and I still don’t.

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A few weeks before the date set for the birth of the baby, John was excited when I came home from school. He was trying to do so many things at once that he wasn’t getting any of them done. His worst distraction was Florin running, reaching, grabbing and throwing things on the floor. I took my little brother on and kept him away from everything he could damage or break. Every time I stopped him, he made a terrible face and wailed for a minute or two, then he ran off again trying to wreck more havoc. Indefatigable. I had looked the word up just yesterday. Though relieved of responsibility for Florin, John was still frantic.

“Something must have happened! What was it?”

Grinning: “Something sure has! I got a call from the editor who was reading ‘Fervio and Elysia.’ He’s going to publish it if I make a few changes.”

I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say.

Laughing: “I had always dreamed of getting a call like that. I hope I didn’t sound like a novice.”

Mom came home overjoyed and John popped a cork of Fossez, which they split. I even drank a little so they wouldn’t drink too much and I didn’t mind the taste as much as I had the first time.

Mom worried about getting Eunice tight. That’s how I learned her name.

I assumed and Mom as well probably that John would calm down. He didn’t. Staying up late that first night to revise his manuscript became a habit. Shadows began to circle his eyes and Mom worried about his health. I could tell that she was worried about the baby’s too and I was worried about hers. John had been devoting most of every day to Florin and the household, while writing in his spare time, but now he reversed the proportion. Instead of the kitchen, his office became his headquarters. Instead of letting Florin run, he kept him in a playpen next to his desk. Rather than shop and cook carefully, he did both quickly. His neglect incited first tactful and then explicit remarks by Mom, ____________________________________________________________________

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but to no avail, so she resorted to hiring Maggie every day after school and on weekend afternoons. John’s reaction showed at least that he had the merit of embarrassment. When I came home from school, he no longer met me at the door, but called “Felix?” when he heard me open it. Rather than follow him to the kitchen for orange juice and cookies, I got them myself and brought them to his office. Instead of asking me about school, he told me how his revision was coming along. Once I had washed the plate and the glasses, I took Florin to the living room. While I was playing my flute, he played with his toys on the rug and I only had to run after him once in a while. However repetitious, my music seemed to keep him out of trouble. I took that as a compliment, which I needed after Judy’s death.

When I returned after staying with Dad, John brought me up to date on his revision. Then Mom brought me up to date on her pregnancy as soon as she came home from work. Every time I returned, each seemed less concerned by the other’s preoccupation. Although Mom’s obstetrician foresaw complications with her delivery, he reassured her that he and his staff could handle them. The revision required by John’s editor was taking more time and trouble than he had realized. Neither John nor Mom told me that the deadline would come ten days after Eunice’s expected birth. When I discovered that, I guessed that they had had an argument. Fortunately, Maggie was assuming more and more of John’s former duties. Mom asked Dad to let me stay with him during the entire week of Eunice’s birth. Accepting at once, he offered to bring me to see her and the baby. Neither mentioned John. Millie had an idea that she told none of us until she had permission to realize it. She had learned what you could get away with in state bureaucracies. In the first of two interviews with Lena Schopf, the girls’ warden at Upper Creek, this robust, tight-lipped female conceded that Midge was behaving herself. In the second, she admitted the possibility of letting Midge have a day’s leave to see her baby ____________________________________________________________________

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half-sister. Millie knew that Schopf wasn’t going to question a fellow bureaucrat’s word, let alone check up on her. She was too busy anyway. Aren’t they all?

No kin to Midge or Millie, of course, Eunice arrived on time causing the complications expected by the obstetrician. Both the baby and the mother underwent an operation that saved her life and ended Mom’s ability to have children. While she and John laughed this result away, their laughter seemed a little forced to me. When mother and baby had recovered enough for visits by others beside John, Florin and me, Millie called Schopf and wheedled a day’s leave for Midge out of her. Six hours on the road so the delinquent could visit a mother and a baby who shouldn’t have meant anything to her! I realized that Millie was counting on the trip more than the visit, so I volunteered to accompany her and Mitch. Delighted, Midge asked me to bring my flute, a happy surprise for all of us. In Upper Creek, she kissed us as soon as she came through the door and me even more tenderly than her mother and brother. She was dancing her way to the car. We enjoyed her company all the way to the hospital, three hours that only seemed like one. Although she sat in front next to Millie, she kept turning around and asking me to play this or that tune, while she, Mitch and even Millie sang along. How many verses of “Old MacDonald’s Farm” did she teach us? Between songs, she questioned us about everything and everybody she missed: home, Fragra, etc. On and on it went. As we passed through Mapleton, she wanted to know all about Mom, the baby and John. Her happiness was striking some desperate chords! Dad was waiting for us with Fragra at Xokchi Hospital. As soon as Midge saw Fragra, she yelped, swooped down on her and hugged her as if she had always adored her. Fragra looked scared, but Midge had tears in her eyes. Midge also lavished her affection on Mom, whom she hardly knew, and John, whom she had never seen before. She even wanted to hold the baby in her arms, which scared us all -- what if she threw her down on the ____________________________________________________________________

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floor? -- but Mom insisted on letting her, while Millie hovered over her just in case. The tenderness with which she held Eunice and the reluctance with which she gave her back to Mom impressed us all.

As we were leaving Mapleton, Midge suddenly slid across the front seat and kissed her mother on the cheek.

“Thanks, Mom!”

Soon, however, she began to complain about going back to the Purvis Center. The other girls were even cruder than the ones at St. Polly’s and, without the kind of influence exerted by the sisters, they acted like wild animals in their jungle. Threatened by bullies, Midge had made friends and, together, they defended themselves. Fights started by scratching and finished by kicking unless one of the girls could find something sharp or heavy to inflict more grievous injury. If a guard heard them screaming, she intervened and the girls scattered. Guards could hit harder and faster than any of them. The prompt appearance of a sister at St. Polly’s had always nipped fights in the bud and exposed the belligerants to a humiliating interrogation. After an hour, Midge’s complaints had become so bitter that Millie asked me to play.

Midge twisted in her seat, looking back at me sweetly and imploringly:

“Please, Fi Fi! I miss your music!”

So I played and she fell silent. After five or ten more miles, she asked:

“Mom: may I change places with Mitch?”

When Millie came to a place where she could pull off the road, she stopped while Mitch and Midge changed places. From then on, Midge snuggled up to me while I played and, before long, my shirt felt damp.

Imagine my dilemma! Judy and I had loved each other, not as a man and a woman would have, but rather as much as a little boy and a littler girl could have. I had lost her and now, what was happening? The other little girl responsible for her death was

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clinging to me as desperately as she would have if she had been drowning. Recalling how she had exposed herself to me, I begun to wonder if, unlike Judy, she had been jealous of her as one grown woman would be of another. Here she was crying on my shirt! I had never liked her and I had come along on this trip because I felt sorry for her. How could she be my girlfriend after what she had done to Judy? We all gave Midge a hug before she had to go back through the door at the Purvis Center, but it took her a while to let me go and tears were streaming down her face. Her back reminded me of a crumpled sheet of paper as it disappeared on the other side. As Millie drove us back to Mapleton, I was sitting in front and Mitch, sleeping on the back seat. Flashbacks of that day were tormenting me. The more I wondered how I really felt about Midge, the worse my confusion.

“You know, Fi Fi,” said Millie suddenly, “you are the only one who can save Midge from herself. That isn’t fair, but Midge can’t do it. Neither can I.” She gave me a grownup look.

“ I guess you are right.” Then my voice groaned: “What can I do?”

“You don’t have to do anything and I wouldn’t blame you.”

“ But I can’t not do anything!”

“Well, you could try to be friends with her and leave it at that. Isn’t that what usually happens at your age.”

“ I don’t think she would leave it at that.”

“That depends on you, not her... She had a good time singing with us and she likes your music now. Maybe you could get her interested in singing, playing an instrument, even dancing. She was dancing on the way to the car this morning.”

The next time Millie called Midge, she let me talk to her afterwards and I asked her how she had learned “Old MacDonald’s Farm.”

“There’s a group that sing silly songs. It keeps us out of trouble.”

“ Maybe you could get them to sing some that aren’t so silly. Keep on singing. When you get out, try music. I will help you.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it.

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While John was driving Mom with Eunice in her arms home from the hospital, she had to repeat every question and some even twice to get an answer out of him. He couldn’t seem to remember whether he had set the crib up in their bedroom, the baby bath up in their bathroom, bought huggies, baby oil and baby powder, etc. I was laughing because Maggie had done some of those things herself and nagged him to help her do the others. You would have thought she was his age and he, hers. He was preoccupied with whether his editor would accept his revision. The editor did approve it a week later, except for a few little things that gave John a lot of trouble. Even after he had given his final approval, John was devoting more time and energy to his novel than his baby daughter, more to his career than his family. As if to tease him, Mom insinuated that he had fathered Florin and me better than Eunice. The remark irritated him. After their operations, Mom and Eunice needed rest and care, which added to the burden of looking after Florin and doing the housework. John was rushing through these duties so he could concentrate on writing a short story. His editor had told him that it would help sell his novel if he published it in a reputable review. When I and Maggie arrived after school, however, he was upset because he hadn’t made much progress. The few household duties he had done were slipshod. Mom was calling us upstairs to take care of the baby and her. She and John were losing patience with each other and finally, one evening, they were hardly speaking. From a few remarks they made during the next few days, we gathered that Mom had come downstairs that morning and given John the kind of scolding that use to humiliate Dad and Rex. Though especially worried about the baby, she looked tired and unhealthy herself. We pleaded with John to take her to the obstetrician until he agreed. When they came back, he began to try harder, but reluctantly and Mom chided him for his reluctance.

“I got it backwards, didn’t I Maggie?”

She nodded. “John was a good boyfriend as long he couldn’t publish anything.”

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I was playing my flute as well as I had before Judy’s death. Maestro Kakxis asked me if I would be willing to perform Alexei Borodovsky’s Concerto for Flute and Piccolo with the Mammoth Philharmonic in Concordia, Mapleton and Mammoth. Technicians in the ZU Music School were eager to separate Judy’s piccolo from my flute and the orchestra on the audio track of last summer’s performance. Others in the Communications School had proposed to isolate her from the orchestra and me on the visual track. Both teams were ready to collaborate in synchronizing a movie of her playing on a large overhead screen and a recording of her performance on loudspeakers. The project would require separate adjustments of their equipment to suit each of the three auditoriums. Maestro Kakxis, the Philharmonic and I would all have to learn an unfamiliar discipline. Rhythm and attacks would no longer depend on him, but rather on his perception of the recorded Judy and his remembrance of the premiere. Although none of the musicians in the Philharmonic except him had performed in that concert, they had to reproduce it. When I began to practice for the concert, I had a lot of trouble trying to synchronize my playing with the sound track of Judy instead of collaborating with her. Mrs. Adams noticed that I was glancing at the spot beside me where she used to stand. She put a small table there with a loudspeaker on it and hooked it up to the tuner. From then on, I heard Judy as if she were playing right there beside me and I learned more quickly.

Rehearsals for the concert series took place in Mammoth, where Maestro Kakxis had invited Uncle Alex back from Russia to help. He gave me at least one bear hug every day. As we rehearsed, he appeared and reappeared everywhere in the huge concert hall, interrupting, suggesting and occasionally demanding improvements or even changes in the score. From the center of the lower balcony, he told the tuba player to aim his instrument at him and blow a few notes to make sure. From a box high on the left side, he chided the three last rows of the second violinists

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for slurring his trills and made them repeat them until they got them right. Minutes later, he reappeared on the right in the upper balcony and took the oboists to task for flatting his Bs. Each of them had to play the measure separately to show that they had corrected the mistake. I got my share of his advice as, for instance, when he interrupted us once from the back of the left aisle. He explained that, although he couldn’t correct Judy, he could tell me how to cover a defect in her phrasing. The busy sound technician backed the tape up a few times so I could apply his lesson. Another time, Uncle Alex startled us all by running out on the stage behind us and shouting that he was going to change a passage. He hummed it as it was and as it should be in his high pitch. All of us were trying not to smile or laugh and Maestro Kakxis had his hand over his mouth. After correcting it on our scores, we played it a few times to satisfy his request for more cello or less kettle drum. We all wondered how he could run around, up and down in that enormous auditorium without losing his breath or collapsing. Did he play rugby for exersize? A rumor to that effect was circulating among us. Bishkin, who was covering the rehearsals, wrote that the Anti-Putin must have the best ear in Russia and certainly one better than any in the US. Coming from a critic who rarely praised anybody, this praise raised eyebrows and incited polemic, which he ignored as usual.

We played the concerto to full houses in Concordia, Mapleton and Mammoth. The applause kept bringing Uncle Alex, Maestro Kakxis and me back for more bows. On the overhead screen, the clip of Judy holding Uncle Alex by the hand and bringing him out on the stage had everybody on his feet. As the sole encore, I played the fourth movement of the Lucello Suite with a recording of her playing her part. After the performance in Mapleton, the Bingles found me backstage and we hugged each other as if it would bring Judy back. I was mourning Judy all over again.

Midge had continued to behave after her trip to Mapleton, so Millie pried another concession out of Schopf. Let her watch and

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hear the concert in Mapleton on television, since it honored the memory of the girl whose finger she had smashed. The other girls might have revolted against such a broadcast on their screen at a time when their favorite programs were airing. Schopf let Midge watch the one in the staff lounge, usually empty at that time, while she kept an eye on her from her office across the hall. The broadcast displayed the orchestra, Maestro Kakxis and me with a loudspeaker on a table beside me, while Judy appeared in a little square on the lower right-hand side. The first time Schopf crossed the hall to check up on Midge, she found her doubled over with her face in her hands and shaking with sobs. Schopf did something she had never done in over twenty years at the Purvis Juvenal Facility. She went over to Midge and put her hand on her shoulder. Startled, Midge glanced up at her, sat up, watched and listened despite the tears streaming down her face. Schopf admitted to Millie that it was the first time one of her girls had really convinced her that she was sorry.

John’s writing career continued to interfere with his obligations to Mom and their baby as well as his share of the household duties. Interviews, readings, autographing, etc. kept him travelling. Although Mom hadn’t completely recovered from her operation, she began to do what she could and leave the rest to Maggie. What could she have done without her? We were all worried about a depression. Rex and Dad offered to help and she sometimes accepted the offer. Yet she had learned a bitter lesson from her experience with Rex. Let me tell the story from John’s viewpoint. After a week in Washington, Oregon and California, John flew back to Mammoth and drove down to Mapleton according to his new routine. Parking his car in the driveway, he rolled his suitcase to the front door and rang the bell. Even after the second time, nobody came to the door, although it wasn’t late and lights were on. Annoyed and tired, he fumbled for his key, which took all the more time because he was annoyed and tired. Inside, he called Mom two or three times, but she didn’t

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answer or come. Leaving his roll-on at the foot of the stairs, he took his laptop to his office. His desk, his desktop, his printer, his desk lamp, his papers, his books, his filing cabinet and even his wastepaper basket had disappeared. The room had been restored to the state it had been in before he moved his office equipment in. Stunned, he hesitated and then he heard someone behind him. Turning around, he saw Mom with Eunice in her arms and a determined expression on her face. Without a word, she handed him an envelope, which, after a few seconds of further hesitation, he opened. He found a set of keys, a street plan, a list of his belongings drawn up by a mover and a letter to him from her lawyer. Rex had found a suitable apartment, which she had rented for John and she had hired Fossez to pack and move all of his belongings. The letter informed him of the sums he owed her and urged him to pay them promptly.

Now we were afraid he was going to have a depression. He was calling Mom on the phone, regretting his neglect and pleading for forgiveness. Though tempted, she refused kindly but firmly, for which I admired her. Despite his disappointment, he paid her what he owed her and took care of Eunice while she was at the office. He even admitted that she had found him a nice apartment,

“although no apartment is nice enough without you.”

She refused to let him visit her, Eunice, Florin and me until he had signed an agreement with her over visiting rights. His humiliation over justifying my suspicion of him seemed sincere to all of us. Only with pain and anxiety did he resign himself to the status of Mom’s faithful exes along with Rex and Dad. This time, she found peace of mind more quickly. The more she recovered from her operation, the more she could relieve Maggie of John’s duties and responsibilities. They kept her too busy to feel sorry for herself. Yet none of us thought she would resign herself to life without a man.

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One of the flutists in the Mammoth Philharmonic came down with the flu two days before a concert in February. Maestro Kakxis asked me to substitute for him and offered me more money than I had earned cutting grass and raking leaves during the entire previous year. He, Mrs. Adams, Millie and all my dads talked Mom into letting me accept it on condition that I deposit it in my savings account. Who was going to drive me up to Mammoth and stay with me in the hotel? On such short notice, none of my moms and dads wanted to take a Thursday and a Friday off, except John who volunteered before the others had a chance to consider it. Taught by Maestro Kakxis, I learned the music quickly enough to rehearse with the other two flutists on Friday afternoon and with the orchestra on Saturday before the concert. Maestro Kakxis, invited the flutists, John and me to lunch, where we talked about nothing but music. I almost forgot that I was only twelve, while the others were between three and five times as old. I felt that I was playing well in the concert that evening and, although everyone confirmed that impression, I knew it was true when Maestro Kakxis confirmed it.

At Mom’s, Florin seemed to enjoy my music while playing with his toys. Fragra too at Dad’s. They didn’t meet until Fragra went to the same kindergarden as Florin. Friends by then, Mom and Millie were taking turns driving the kids to school in the morning and home in the evening. They expected them to be friends too, but Florin and Fragra soon proved to be both more and less. Only four and five years old, they were a caricature of the love-hate curse that threatens adult couples. One minute, they were playing together, even holding hands and kissing on the cheek; another, he was shouting and she was screaming, he was slugging and she was kicking. They were evenly matched despite the difference in age. When they fought in a car, the driver had to pull over, stop, give both a slap and separate them. Even when one sat in front and the other, in back, they would fight over the back of the seat. Their moms never knew when hate

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would revert to love or vice versa. Mom was visiting Millie one evening after school, while Fragra was showing Florin around. As long as she treated him as her guest, they held hands and spoke affectionately. Showing him her toys in the family room, however, she reminded him that they belonged to her. In the office, I heard them fighting, so I got my flute and went downstairs playing it. By the time I entered the family room, they were playing with her toys on the floor.

From then on, Mom and Millie wanted me to come with them to take or get Florin and Fragra. I was losing a lot of my time although I only accepted some of their requests and mostly in the afternoon. Twice Millie called me at Mom’s asking me to come and play my flute so the kids would stop fighting. Mom called me once at Millie’s for the same purpose. The kids were always nagging their moms to let them invite each other. If one got a new toy, book, CD or DVD, the other one nagged his or her mom for the same or a similar one. When Fragra got a small recorder, which I had suggested for her birthday, Florin nagged Mom until she bought him one too. Soon they were honking and tooting the worst for our ears. If one mom was taking her kid somewhere or, worse, had already taken him, the other one wanted to go too. To a circus, for instance. I had never seen one, so I accepted Mom and Millie’s request to join them and keep the peace. I hated the organ. The stink of horse and elephant droppings almost made me sick. I felt sorry for the lions and tigers when the tamer cracked his whip in their faces:

“I hope they eat him alive.”

“ Go play your flute to a cobra!” scoffed Millie.

Florin agreed with her, while Fragra and Mom confidentially agreed with me. When Dad asked me how I had liked the circus, I said it was dumb.

Black hairs were growing under my arms and over my penis, which was stiff and erect when I woke up in the morning.

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Although Dad had warned me about that, what would I do if it happened in public? Meanwhile, Midge had been pleading with Millie to bring Fragra on one of her Saturday visits. Fragra didn’t want to go without Florin and Florin didn’t want to stay behind. Millie asked me to come along, sit between them and play my flute when they had a fight. They brought their recorders with them so they could play with me, hence a cacophony that made Millie and Mitch laugh. When Midge kissed Fragra, Florin frowned until she kissed him too. At the restaurant, we needed a table for six instead of the usual booth. I sat between the kids on one side and Midge sat directly across from me with Millie on one side and Mitch on the other. The kids not only yelled back and forth over me, but, at one point, threw French fries at each other. I had to play my flute two or three times to stop them from quarreling. Unfortunately, Upper Creek was a rustic town where classical music offended the prevailing taste. Some of the other customers displayed their displeasure by sarcastic grins and remarks, so my waitress asked me to stop. She said I could play the records in the juke box by inserting a quarter in the slot and selecting any song I liked. I have forgotten how many records this antique could play. I wish you could have seen it! We didn’t bother to explain why none of them would do.

During that lunch, another incident eclipsed the objections to my flute. The waitress was beside me asking me a question I couldn’t hear because Florin was yelling at Fragra. I turned towards her to to listen and I felt something slipping between my thighs and poking me in the crotch. The sensation made me gasp and blush, tickling the curiosity of everybody at or near our table. Millie and Mitch asked me what had happened, while Midge hid her satisfaction behind a show of surprise. Her leg was just long enough to reach my crotch by swinging her foot up. I had heard her shoe hit the floor when she kicked it off. Now I had an erection and I began to hope it would subside before we got up to leave. I suspected Midge of hoping just the opposite.

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Everybody but she and I would forget the incident if I could leave without a telltale bulge in my pants. Otherwise, the yokels who had heard me gasp and seen me blush would laugh me out of the restaurant. I saw that Midge was enjoying my predicament despite her efforts to hide it. She infuriated me all the more because she knew I had enjoyed it too. She had learned the lesson she had just put into practice from the other girls at Upper Creek. Luckily for me, I escaped the humiliation I had feared by following Millie closely when we left. I still faced the ceremony of saying goodbye to Midge. Was I going to kiss her on the cheek after what she had done to me? If I did, she would think I had enjoyed it -- which I had!--; if I didn’t, she would take satisfaction in having provoked me. I decided to kiss her for diplomacy, but she pressed her lips against my cheek as if she were claiming a lover. How was I going to handle Midge when she came home?

Once Mom had recovered her health and accustomed herself to her separation from John, she resumed her social activities. Cocktail parties, dinners, restaurants, concerts, art exhibits and another church choir. She threw cocktail and dinner parties herself, to which she invited old friends and new. She continued to hire Maggie, who helped with shopping, prepartion and serving as well as taking care of Florin and Eunice. She asked me to play my flute for the company, both solo and with accompaniment by her on the piano. Sometimes she invited the Bingles, Dad and Millie, Rex and his girlfriend Sadie, eventually even John. The tentacles of my family octopus always seemed to be increasing in number and length. Dad and my grand parents predicted that Mom would sooner or later find another man. She began to date a stout, bald-headed one named Vance with playful eyes, a deep voice and a contagious laugh. This one was ten years older than her. He owned Zeno Liquors, which, after startup in Concordia, he expanded to Mapleton and other locations in Zenia. Invited to a dinner party at Mom’s, he brought three bottles of a Bordeaux

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red with a vintage in the nineties. While thanking him, Mom objected that two would have been enough, but Vance insisted that more than enough was better than less. I could tell that they were enjoying their favorite argument. How long would it take him to move Mom into his big house in Westpark? He and his wife had divorced, his son had married and his daughter, in her last year at St. Jerome’s, had applied to three colleges. She was only spending the night and picking up a few meals at home before running off with her friends.

“ Nothing echoes like silence!” Vance joked.

Maybe it was a nice big house, but nothing could have upset me more than moving away from Dad’s. Especially after I had engineered his move to a house near Mom’s.

Worrying about that kept me awake one night at Dad’s. Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard Millie screeching for some time. ‘Uh oh!’ I thought and sat up in bed. Mitch was breathing healthily in his sleep. I got up, went out in the hall and looked out the front window. A breeze was shaking the shadows of the leaves on the street lit by a streetlight. It looked like the last scene in a horror movie. What a happy beginning it had been three years ago when Judy brought me there! I began to remember little things I hadn’t noticed, such as a tightening of Dad’s jaw when Millie felt sorry for Midge at Upper Creek and a suspicious glance by her when he said he was going to play poker with his friends. Had her preoccupation with Midge spoiled their midnight recreation? Did he have another girlfriend already? The lesson Midge had taught me made me wonder if sex could move mountains too. Mom was after her fourth boyfriend! If she and Dad moved away, I wouldn’t be living in my house any more, but only visiting from time to time. I was fond of Millie and Mitch, and maybe even Midge a little bit too. I would miss the neighborhood with Mom around the corner from Dad and the Bingles in-between. Mom wouldn’t need Maggie any more and how about Rex and John? How could I get around to all my moms

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and dads as well as Mrs. Adams? Three more years I had to wait before I could get a driving license!

While relations between Mom and Vance were warming, those between Dad and Millie were cooling, but nothing decisive happened before the end of Midge’s year in Upper Creek. I went with Millie and Mitch to bring her home. This time, she threw her arms around me when she kissed me, though still on the cheek. I was blushing for everybody to see and the other visitors must have thought we were too young for that kind of thing. Midge was so happy she danced around us all the way to the car. Despite Millie’s reluctance, she insisted on sitting beside me on the back seat, where she snuggled up to me and asked me to play my flute. I did so willingly, but I had my elbow ready in case her hand crossed my thigh. I didn’t trust her... and yet I wanted her to try. Taking a break, I suggested that she try music. She said she had continued to sing in the group at Upper Creek, but only silly songs and she didn’t think she had a very good voice. I suggested that she try piano, Millie urged her to take lessons and Midge, suddenly enthusiastic, asked me:

“Do you think I could learn enough to play with you?”

I didn’t know what to say, but Mitch came to my rescue:

Mitch: “Midge, are you crazy?”

The old Midge would have snapped at him, but the new Midge seemed hurt.

“Maybe.”

That evening, she decided to watch a ha! ha! show on TV with Mitch and Millie. Dad said he was going to play polka. I went upstairs to work on the desktop. I could hear Mitch and Millie laughing, but suddenly Midge was standing beside me with downcast eyes.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“ ... About Judy?”

She nodded.

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I looked at my screen. Where else could I look? “Well, you can’t raise her from the dead.” I glanced at her and tears were streaming down her face. Were they sincere? I wonder if she knew herself. “I guess you could go and see her parents... Even that would be hard, real hard.” I looked at her and she nodded.

“What should I say?”

I shrugged: “‘I’m sorry.’”

“That isn’t enough.”

“ Is anything enough? Maybe you better leave it at that. You don’t want to sound like boo-hoo TV.”

“Are you coming with me?”

“ ... If I did that, it would look like I put you up to it.”

“Should I call them up first?”

“ No.” I glanced at the time in the lower right-hand corner of the screen: 7:13. “How about right now? I will go with you and stay out of sight. Ring and, when one of them comes to the front door, say: ‘Excuse me, Dr. Bingle. May I come in, please. I have something to tell you and Mrs. Bingle. I won’t stay long.’”

“Excuse me Dr. Bingle... May I come in, please... I have something to tell you... I won’t stay long.”

Only once did I watch Midge go down the Bingles’ walk, up their stairs, across their porch, up to the front door and ring the bell. Yet I have seen it a thousand times, whether I was asleep or awake, and I’m seeing it again right now. It’s like a scene in a movie shown over and over again. No one has ever looked more humble, more humiliated... let’s face it: more repentant. The door opened, the light shone through it and silhouetted Dr. Bingle looking down at Midge with an open book in his hand. He let her in, the door shut behind her and it seemed like a little eternity before it opened again and the two silhouettes reappeared in the light. I heard their voices saying what must have been “goodbye!” and, as she left, he watched her for a few seconds before closing the door. Midge took my hand:

“They were really... ” She jerked her hand away, kneeled down on the sidewalk with her face in her hands, sobbing and shaking.

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I helped her up, put my arm around her and took her home.

I was playing my flute in the family room, while Fragra and Florin were playing with her toys on the floor. Midge came in, sat down and listened. I was working on some difficult measures at the end of one page and the beginning of the next. Over and over again, I had to stop and turn the page forth or back. Midge stood up and came over:

“Let me do it.”

I nodded, she went around behind me and, leaning over me with her left hand on my right shoulder, turned the page forth or back with her right when I nodded. I had been overcoming the difficulty and yet, now, I wasn’t making any further progress. It was harder to concentrate with her hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t think I should tell her to take it away. Yet my frustration increased to the point where I wanted her hand off of my shoulder more than I wanted to overcome the difficulty. Finally I stopped and mumbled:

“Maybe I better take a break.”

With her hand still on my shoulder, she asked:

“What else can I do?”

It took me a minute to realize what she was talking about. The kids were staring at us wondering why I had stopped playing.

“You could put some flowers on her grave.”

“Will you come with me?”

“ All right.”

I knew what bus to take, where Midge could buy flowers and how to find Judy’s grave. How many times had I done all of that myself? Garfield Cemetery would have been a nice place for a picknick if it weren’t for the company. On the way to Judy’s grave, we passed a tall, slender lady about Mom’s age standing at the foot of a grave and speaking softly. After Midge had put her flowers in the vase at the foot of Judy’s grave, she asked me

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to leave her alone for a few minutes. I guessed that she wanted to talk to Judy, which had never occurred to me. When, after about ten minutes, she joined me, she looked distressed, kept her eyes down and said nothing. Halfway home on the bus, she gave me a desperate look:

“She wouldn’t answer me!”

“ ... What did you ask her?”

“I told her I was sorry.”

“ You can’t just be sorry, you have to keep on being sorry.”

“... You don’t think she can hear me!”

“ I didn’t used to think she could hear you.”

She was looking at me hopefully, so I put my arm around her and gave her a little squeeze. “I will try next time.”

She looked almost relieved.

Millie rented an upright and Midge began to take a music lesson every week. We urged her to practice, but she didn’t want to when I was in the house and, even when I wasn’t, she was doing it less and less. I asked her why and she admitted that she had rather listen to me than try to play herself. After six weeks, Millie let her stop and sent the piano back to the store. I suggested that she sing in the choir at school, but she said she didn’t have a good voice. How about ballet? She agreed to try, so Millie sent her to a ballet school, where she joined a class of girls and one boy her age. That she enjoyed and, as I played a little Debussy, she showed us how much she had learned. When she danced or even when she walked or stood still, she did it gracefully. Though still flat, her body was so supple that you forgot her sourpuss. After three other schools in the previous two years, she was having a lot of trouble catching up with her class at Elmhurst. I was helping her with her homework, she was trying hard and the results encouraged us both. She thanked me so sweetly that I wondered if affection for me hadn’t inflated her gratitude. Why was I so eager to help her? I wondered then and I still wonder now. I didn’t trust her -- how could I? -- and I liked other girls better, yet she appealed to me. Sex already?

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The probability of Mom and Dad both moving away worried me. While staying at Dad’s, I went over to Mom’s one evening to get a book I had forgotten, but nobody was there although she had left some lights on. On other evenings, I looked at her house from the back window at Dad’s and saw the same lights. She wasn’t leaving them on to fool burglars, but rather to fool me. After the incident I had caused with John, she was sleeping with Vance at his house while I was at Dad’s. How long would it be before she moved in with him? Meanwhile, Dad was skipping meals, coming home late and sometimes not coming home at all. Only rarely did I hear Millie screech in the middle of the night and rarely did she say much to him. Instead of trying to get him back, she was dedicating herself to us. If he told her he was going to play poker, she didn’t seem to be listening except for a doubtful glance or a slight shrug. When she left her room, her eyes were often red. On the other hand, Mom seemed almost as happy as she had been at first with John. She was treating Maggie and me even more kindly than usual, which we attributed to her romance with Vance. We also suspected him of treating us and the kids with such noisy affection to make the right impression on Mom. He only made me regret John, Rex and Dad. How long would it be before Dad’s new girlfriend made me regret Millie and Mom? The octopus was growing two more tentacles.

Nothing would do but the biggest church in Mapleton, First Baptist on Gotchtalopee Boulevard. It wasn’t the one where Mom had been singing in the choir. While Vance had been brought up a baptist, we wondered if he had ever gone to church since he left home for ZU. Although it was a second wedding for both, he wanted all the stops pulled out. He, his best man and the ushers, who included his son, rented the traditional clothes for the occasion, while Mom, her maid-of-honor and the bridesmaids

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bought pink gowns off the shoulder and down to the floor. Mom’s shoulders looked a little the worse for wear. She had a train, which Florin and Fragra carried weren’t they cute? Also in formal attire, GrandDad, who had agreed to give the bride away, wasn’t cracking the slightest smile. He hated this wedding, although he was giving Vance the benefit of a doubt. On Mom’s side of the church, we looked miscellaneous; on Vance’s side, they looked rich and tacky. Exactly five minutes late, the organ boomed Mendelssohn’s march silencing the chatter. Photo flashes lit Mom and GrandDad up as they descended the center aisle almost in step. She had a nice smile, but she looked ill at ease and I felt sorry for her. Maggie and I glanced at each other. I had accepted Vance’s request to play a solo and a few pieces together with the organ and the choir. When I finished the solo, a young man on his side stood up and started to clap. An old lady sitting next to him slapped his hands and a middle-aged man sitting behind him reached for his shoulders and pulled him down in his seat, while other neighbors shushed. The incident amused everybody on our side and the minister as well, whose good humor converted it into an advantage. Invited to kiss the bride, Vance slapped his mouth on hers so hard that I wondered if he had knocked her upper front teeth loose. After all, it wasn’t a Hollywood production! As the couple came up the aisle, Mom looked embarrassed and Vance, embarrassed because of her embarrassment. Rose petals thrown by the crowd fluttered down on and around them as they descended the front steps. They entered a huge, light blue Lincoln, which sped away stirring the petals up behind it. The scent was unpleasantly strong.

Cars were parked on both sides of the street at Vance’s and a hundred yards in both directions. It was a brick mansion with wings at either end and a huge lawn. Along with other guests, we took a slate walk past big trees to a semi-circular front porch three steps high. A round arch on two pillars framed the entrance, where Mom and Vance were greeting their guests. The

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bride was trying more or less successfully to accommodate the bridgroom’s exuberance. After handshakes and kisses, we passed through a hall to a patio, where food from potato chips to cavier beckoned on one side and drink from Gatorade to Moët & Chandon, from the other. Beyond the food, we saw a flower garden and, beyond the drink, a swimming pool. In front of us, a hundred guests were making conversation on another lawn, while musicians on a bandstand behind them were playing music meant to be heard without listening. They were competing with the hubbub of conversation and laughter, which were competing with each other. Servants were passing among the guests to refill glasses and replenish plates.

Maggie looked nice, so I told her, which made her look even nicer. Girls know how to do that. Rex introduced me to Sadie, who said that my performance at First Baptist confirmed the praise she had been hearing from him. John introduced me to Joyce and said that Fervio and Elysia was selling well. He promised to autograph a copy for me. Eunice, who had been holding Joyce’s hand, left her and took mine.

“I’m going with Fi Fi,” she declared.

We all laughed. Millie was keeping an eye on Fragra and Florin, who were playing hide and go seek among grownups’ legs.

“I hope you aren’t going to forget us in the lap of all this luxury,” she told me.

“ No, your house will be my home as long as you let me in.”

“If she doesn’t, I will,” said Midge coming up behind me.

She tickled Eunice, who giggled. Then she told her how pretty she was, which was true, but maybe she would outgrow it. Seeing the Bingles, I approached them hoping to get rid of Midge. Nope! She stuck with me, yet she did speak and behave decently. Attention focused conveniently on Eunice. Then Mitch appeared:

*“I was looking for you,” he told me. “All I had to do was find Midge.”

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I blushed and tried to hide it by bending over and talking to Eunice. Midge enjoyed my embarrassment. How was I going to get rid of her? Vance was making his way towards us, shaking hands, cracking jokes and laughing with his guests. He asked me to play my flute while the band took a break. I accepted all the more eagerly because I wouldn’t need Midge to turn pages. Leaving Eunice with her, I followed him to the platform, which the band was leaving. He introduced me over the loudspeakers as

“the musician of the family I just married.”

The echo reminded me of the circus. Everybody laughed appreciatively and I began to play favorites. The amplification system distorted the sound. Some were listening with both ears, most with only one and a few with neither.

I stopped when the band returned and, after some polite applause, went through the crowd on the side opposite Midge. By the laughter and the compliments they were paying me, I could tell that more men than women who were going to drink too much had already begun. I was hearing splashes in the pool and lots of noise around it. Mothers were gathering their children and taking them away. I wanted to leave too, but who with? Although I was staying at Dad’s, I knew he wouldn’t want to leave that early. If I left with Millie, Midge would claim me. I came to the pool and saw Dad leading a young woman by the hand on the diving board. Had I ever heard him laugh? His mouth was open so wide I wondered if the corners would tear. I could hear his guffaws over the noise of the crowd around the pool. The woman, who looked like so many others around thirty, was laughing wildly too, but she held back enough so that he had to pull her. The men around the pool, among whom I recognized Dad’s buddies, where cheering him on. Some of the women were yelling too, telling her to hold back, but they weren’t telling her to leave him. Near the end of the board, he threw his arms

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around her -- she was a little taller than him -- picked her up, turned around and jumped into the pool with her. She had just enough time to let out a little scream. I can still hear the cheers and jeers around the pool. When their heads popped up out of the water, her hair fell around her head, covering her face. Dad was coughing with all the water he had swallowed. I felt somebody tugging my sleeve: Millie with a grim look on her face.

“ Your mom asked me to take you home with me.”

She took my hand and led me through the crowd to Midge and Mitch, who were waiting with Fragra and Florin. I sat in the right front seat of Millie’s car with Fragra between us. I could see Midge in the rear-view mirror and she looked annoyed.

I don’t know whether Millie told Dad to move out or he did it on his own. Their separation attracted little more attention than the Fossez truck out front one morning during my half week at Vance’s. The movers loaded his belongings and mine, drove them a mile or two and took them up to the fifth floor in an elevator. I found out when Dad, who had picked me up at Vance’s, took a different street.

“Hey! Where are we going?”

“ Our new home.”

“What was wrong with the old one?”

He shrugged: “When a couple aren’t happy together anymore... ”

“You aren’t happy anymore? How about us?”

“ Kids need both a dad and a mom.”

“I already have four dads. Now I’m going to have three moms.”

“ Ellice will be more like an older sister.”

“I already have one of those too.”

“ She’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“I already saw her.”

Resigned: “At Vance’s?”

“You baptized her.”

Amused: “I guess we substituted baptism for marriage.”

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“How about Millie?”

“ We are still friends.”

“Has she found another boyfriend?”

“ Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t blame her. It’s no fun living alone.”

“Alone? With three kids not counting me.”

“ A woman needs a man just as a man needs a woman. You will need one too.”

“I like Millie better than your new girlfriend.”

“ You haven’t met her yet. I think you will like her. Since we won’t be home until after work, you will have a plenty of time to visit Millie and her kids in the afternoon.”

“So you and Eunice will be coming home from work together!”

“ She works for me. That’s how I met her.”

“Which happened first?”

Annoyed: “What do you mean?”

“You met her, then you made her your secretary.”

“ OK, wise guy! What do you expect me to do? Sign up at a lonely-hearts

website?”

Mrs. Shoetack’s had been my first real home. Now I had lost it.

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