Chapter 17
DEB
Two Days After the Fire
OTTO IS HUNGRY, AND SADIE pinched her finger.
Josie is packing for a red-eye, feeling guilty about leaving April, and Cameron is waiting to talk to us about “something important.” I grind my teeth so hard that Billy shuffles up behind me to massage my shoulders.
It’s his biggest pet peeve, my teeth grinding. I lean into him, but only for a second.
When the kids were younger, we had many lovely days together.
Then we had other days that looked something like this: April would catch a violent stomach bug, Josie would sob inconsolably because her best friend sat with someone else at lunch, and that would be the moment Cameron would gash his knee open and need stitches.
In his unflappable baritone, Billy would acceptingly say, When it rains, it pours, and I would very flappably say, For once I’d like some easy London drizzle, some light Seattle mist. Enough of these Texas take-cover thunderstorms.
I assumed those downpour days would stop when the children grew; it was what helped me survive them.
But I didn’t understand the shape-shifting nature of parenting, that there will always be days when the clouds empty themselves with bellicosity.
The rate of those days has dwindled, but the stakes are higher.
So I do what I’ve always done: I work from the youngest up.
As I step into the kitchen for Otto’s applesauce, the specter of my George Clooney chef waves goodbye—he must sense that it isn’t a day for flights of fancy.
I get the applesauce with one hand and a Band-Aid for Sadie with the other.
Josie trails us, fretting on account of will April think I’m abandoning her, but what else can I do with a show in two days?
Billy instructs Josie to follow him upstairs. They can talk while she packs. Over his shoulder, he gives me a knowing look, and I smile gratefully. I spoon applesauce into the baby’s mouth while somehow also unwrapping the Band-Aid. Childcare gives a woman’s hands an exponential power.
I’m ready for Cameron, who reaches for the little plastic spoon and says, “Here.” He takes over the feeding, so I go turn Bluey on for Sadie in the living room, return to the kitchen, and exhale.
Moving to wipe down the counter, I focus on my son, who—I remind myself—is no longer a braces-mouthed kid with a learner’s permit.
He’s a college graduate diligently applying for jobs across several states, and he is good-hearted enough to fly a spoon into his nephew’s mouth when his poor mom needs a breath.
Affectionately, I ask my current favorite kid, “You wanted to talk about something?”
Cameron navigates the spoon as Otto squeals happily, gripping his uncle’s hand and “helping.”
“Yeah.” He hesitates. “But it can wait for Dad, if that’s okay.”
He got a job, that must be it. I swipe a sponge across the granite countertop and smile to myself.
Cameron is a bit status quo, nothing wrong with that.
We need a little status quo to balance out Josie.
Cam went to Oklahoma State for business.
He keeps his room tidy, his car maintained, his face shaved, and a savings account topped off.
Ever since his very first paycheck for mowing lawns, he has given at least five percent of his income to some charity or another.
Savvy with a heart of gold. In the squeaky-clean granite, I see his future.
He’ll take whatever this job is, get a 401(k), and eventually settle down, giving me more scrumptious grandchildren, maybe even in or near Dallas.
Billy reappears and snacks on a handful of cashews. Josie is now belting Mamma Mia! songs upstairs, so I assume he helped her make peace with flying away from her sister. The pride is off to Chicago for the rest of June.
Humming in the back of my mind is the awareness that April knows about the diagnosis.
We’ll have to tell the other two soon. How will this fit with their tour schedules and new jobs?
Part of me is relieved by these distractions, but the other part just wants a minute to breathe.
To plan. To huddle up and prepare before we’re in the eye of the storm.
Cameron clears his throat and stands up. I focus, because I’m not sure which specific job he might get with something as broad as a business degree.
“I’m glad y’all finally got to meet Rachel, because there’s something I need to tell you.” He takes a breath. “We’re engaged! I proposed last weekend!”
All that escapes me is a flat “What?”
Billy’s arm immediately encircles my waist, a knowing buoy.
“I know the timing’s weird with everything with April, but we—”
Cameron is talking, smiling like a goof, but I only hear fuzz.
Suddenly, Josie is my favorite kid. The girl is a purple-haired, red-faced contrarian with all kinds of drama, but she tells me everything.
So many details. If this were Josie, I would have heard an exhausting number of deliberations about the ring and proposal and plan.
That’s the problem with these other two Russo kids: they’re so tight-lipped.
I had no inkling this was coming. Can my kid just decide something like this without even talking to me?
The same kid who once needed my help just to spread a pat of butter?
I interrupt whatever my son is saying with his flushed cheeks and dimpled grin. “You’re so young.”
He frowns. “I’m the same age you and Dad were.”
My arms go akimbo. Regardless of age, we were adults, and he is a baby.
Billy moves away from me to put a hand on his son’s shoulder. He gives me a pointed look and says, “I think what your mother means is congratulations. Rachel is lovely, and we’re happy for you.” He pulls Cameron into a hug.
I huff. This has nothing to do with whether or not Rachel is lovely. I start scouring the already-clean counter. “Josie isn’t even married. You barely know Rachel, and you just graduated. Don’t you need a job first?”
“Josie doesn’t want to get married, and weddings don’t have to go in age order anyway.”
It pisses me off how assured he sounds. This is a lifelong commitment we’re talking about! At twenty-three years old, can you know what you’ll want when you’re sixty?
“Rachel and I have been together all year. I have like seven leads and decent savings. She has a job too. You seriously don’t need to worry.”
I squint my distaste at being told not to worry, and a wave of reality breaks against me: Cameron is not asking permission.
He is heralding news. News that flings me back to the day I signed a marriage license while a baby took shape beneath my ribs.
I gasp and look up. “Wait. Is Rachel—” For some reason I glance at uncomprehending Otto as I lower my voice. “Pregnant?”
Cameron has just popped a cashew in his mouth and nearly spits it out. He barks out a laugh, and again this irritates me. “Mom, no! God, we’re not stupid. We’re getting married because we’re in love and want to spend our lives together. I thought you’d be happy.”
I bite my tongue. There are two implications I take issue with.
One: that I am stupid—never mind that Cameron has no clue his own parents got married because I was pregnant.
Two: that love isn’t stupid. I watch my husband and son both coolly crunching cashews, and I nod to myself that yes, love is at least a little stupid.
I thought you’d be happy. Cameron isn’t wrong about his age, about Josie not wanting to get married, or about his proven responsibility.
My regret beginning to surge, I say, “Sorry. I got caught off guard, but”—I glance at Billy, who nods—“we should celebrate!” I toss my words ten feet in front of my heart, willing it to follow, and I hug my son, getting the same sense I got when they were babies hitting milestones hand over fist. Like, When did you get old enough to smile, sit, crawl, walk, talk, read, stink, drive, get married?
But they did get old enough. The proof is enveloping me in a bear hug, my head at his chest.
I look up at the boy who used to sleep on my shoulder and pronounce his name Cam-won, and I pat his arm. “You should go up and tell Jo.”
He grabs another handful of cashews and darts away with that dimpled half grin and his socked feet. I raise my eyebrows at Billy, who raises his right back and says, “I’ll go buy some champagne?”
I sigh. “Yeah, go on.” Then under my breath, “When it rains, it pours.”
Billy chuckles and kisses the top of my head. “It’s a good thing, D. Try to act like it?”
It hits me all at once. The inconvenience of these major changes happening in such rapid-fire succession, but also this: Cameron has his dad.
Billy will get to have this. Is that what he’s thinking about as he goes for champagne?
That this is actually happening in the nick of time, while I’m here worrying that Cameron is rushing?
Billy is here with his faculties, and this makes my thoughts turn on a dime.
Cameron should get married tomorrow, today, right this very minute, while his father can still sit in the front row.
I’m not yet in the habit of considering a future Billy who is not fully Billy.
We need a wedding, a bucket list, we need to fill our life with life.
And we need it now. The important things must become more urgent.
Otto blows raspberries in his high chair, and I clean him up with a sigh. It doesn’t go fast, but it will have gone fast. Sadie prowls around for a snack, and there’s a pause in Josie’s singing upstairs, followed by whooping and hollering. Sadie and Otto both look at me in curious concern.
I explain, “Uncle Cam is going to get married.”
Sadie cheers, so Otto copies her. By the time April comes through the door an hour later, Sadie has made at least four congratulatory cards for Cameron and Rachel, and she races to share the news with her mom.
April looks at me over Sadie’s head. “Really?”
I nod, and her eyes go vacant. It’s not that she doesn’t have crises, but that they stay inside her.
She kneels to kiss her children. She cups their chins and meets their eyes and says thickly that she missed them today.
Then, with a crisper voice, that she better go congratulate the groom-to-be, life plowing forward around her.
She rises, giving my arm a squeeze. “Thanks for babysitting again.”
About an hour later, Leo makes a similar entrance and receives a similar greeting. Sadie’s card count is up to six and a half. Cameron promises to show the cards to Rachel, who will come over for dinner again next weekend.
Speaking of dinner, I check the clock. Hunger is a consistent rhythm that makes life more predictable, and what we all need is a good meal.
Fish tacos should be easy enough, so I start to retrieve ingredients.
Leo is the one to ask where Billy is, and at this I gasp, dropping a bag of shredded cheddar.
Billy went out to get champagne over two hours ago.