"I know when it's overdone." he insisted. He started to serve himself the vegetables.
I reached for a steak and then some bread, and when he put down the vegetable dish. I scooped out some of the mixed vegetables. Brenda just sat staring across the table at Daddy, who looked very distracted and in deep thought. Mama hadn't put anything on her plate, either. Daddy looked at her.
"What now Nora?"
Her lips quivered. "We don't even have a birthday cake for her," she said.
He looked at Brenda as if he once again had just remembered it was her birthday. "We'll have o
ne tomorrow," he said. Then he glanced at me. "Not that everyone needs it."
"I don't need it." Brenda said. "I don't need anything from you," she added.
"Brenda," Mama said.
"Don't get smart," Daddy warned.
Brenda looked away, and then she suddenly changed her whole demeanor, reached for a steak, and began serving herself as if she were famished. I knew she was doing it just to annoy Daddy and show him nothing he could do would change her. Mama held her breath.
We ate in silence. Daddy ate very fast, his eyes avoiding us. When he was finished, he literally jumped to his feet and mumbled about having to return to the offices in downtown Hickory.
"Do you really have to go back. Matt?" Mama asked him softly.
"What?" he asked her, acting as if he hadn't heard or had already forgotten the question.
"I'm just wondering if there isn't a way for you to postpone the work one night. We can still go somewhere to have dessert and celebrate."
"Of course I really do. What do you think? I'd go back if I didn't?"
Mama said nothing. I could see she was having trouble swallowing. "Don't you want to give her our present first, Matt?" she managed,
"Our present?"
"You know," she said. nodding. "In the back of the garage."
"Oh. Well, you take care of it," he said.
Before she could argue. Daddy left the room, and then we heard the door open and close to the garage.
I looked at Brenda, who looked at me. We both realized it at the same time.
He hadn't even said happy birthday. Not once.
2
Mr. Hyde Days
.
I suppose the thing that made Daddy's new
behavior at home and toward us scary was the fact that we had very little immediate family anymore. Both Mama and Daddy came from families that had only two children. Mama had an unmarried brother, who was now an entertainer, a traveling magician who called himself the Amazing Palaver. Although he was unmarried, he had a female assistant we simply knew as Destiny, and we all assumed she was his love interest. Destiny was one of the most unusual names we had ever heard, but Mama imagined it was because she was an entertainer, too. We had never met her, and we didn't see Uncle Palaver often, but when we did visit, we enjoyed seeing him and spending time with him. Whenever he visited us, he said Destiny was taking advantage of the down time to visit her family as well. Up until Daddy's Mr. Hyde days. he enjoyed Uncle Palaver, too. Even though he didn't approve of Uncle Palaver's lifestyle and career, he always found him amusing and sweet, and at times Daddy even had helped him financially.
Mama was very appreciative of that. Uncle Palaver was three years younger than she was, but they always had been close while they were 'owing up and remained in close contact even when she was in college and he was on the road trying to be an actor, a comedian, or whatever. Mama and Uncle Palaver had lost their father in a car accident when Mama was twenty-two and Uncle Palaver was nineteen. For a while, he remained at home with their mother, caring for her. She was the only grandparent Brenda and I had ever gotten to know. However, four years ago, she suffered a serious stroke and was now living in a nursing home that catered to people her age with her sort of maladies. We visited her whenever we could, but over the last six months. Brenda and I had gone to see her only once. She had reached a point where she didn't know whether or not we were actually there. We heard that from time to time. Uncle Palaver had visited her and put on shows for all the patients at the facility.
The only other relatives with whom we had any contact were second and third cousins who were children and grandchildren of our grandparents' brothers and sisters. We would see one another at weddings and funerals, and everyone would always exchange telephone numbers and addresses and promise to stay in touch. Few actually made any effort to do so.
In the end, we had only each other, and with Daddy acting as he was acting, the three of us felt like some poor Eskimos left floating on a laver of ice. The winds were cold: the days were bleak. Happiness and joy became like air seeping out of a tire, leaving us flat and lost in confusion and sadness.