Chapter 8

There are uncomfortable situations.

And then there are uncomfortable situations.

Hannah, for her part, simply turned around and left the room. With the suitcase still in hand.

We had stopped kissing, of course. Both our startled faces had turned toward the open door. Our hands were frozen in place.

“Shit!” whispered Caitlin, and she slid sideways as I stepped back.

She darted out the door, running after her mother.

I stood there. I mean, really, what do you do in that situation? Where do you go? What do you say?

My mind was tumbling. I felt like I should sit down before I fell down. But, eventually, I sort of wandered out of the door. I didn’t hear any screaming, so I didn’t know where they were. I remember being glad her dad was at work.

I found them in the living room, both standing, Hannah still holding the suitcase. I stood in the opening between the dining room and living room, uncertain whether to go further or not. I might have shifted from foot to foot. I have this vague memory of wondering what to do with my hands.

I also remember finding them by hearing their voices, but they weren’t loud, angry voices. When I appeared, it was just as Kat was saying, “Because I love him, Mom. I’ve loved him for years.”

“I knew that,” said Hannah. “But I didn’t think you loved him that much.” She glanced at me, and then back to her daughter. “Or like that.” She looked at me and back to Caitlin again. “Is that why you’ve wanted to go visit him every year?”

Caitlin shocked us both by laughing.

“Are you kidding? He’s been the perfect uncle and perfect gentleman the whole time. It took me all those years to break him down. If we hadn’t been in that tent I’d still be frustrated. But he couldn’t get away from me in the tent, and I finally got my way.”

Hannah’s cheeks flushed. She was clearly shocked by her daughter’s casual confession that she had more or less hunted me like some kind of game animal.

“I thought it was a crush,” she said, softly. I felt a brief flutter of pride as she proved I had been right when I predicted that’s what she’d think.

“It probably was, when I was twelve,” said Kat. “But every year, when I went back, it never seemed to be long enough, and his hugs were never tight enough, and even though he looked at me when I wore a bikini in his pool, he didn’t do anything except look. And that wasn’t enough. And these last couple of years, all I could think of was that I wanted to spend more and more time with him. I know I have to grow up and leave home and all that. Everybody has to do that. But I don’t ever want to grow up and leave him.”

“But you can’t do that ... with him,” moaned Hannah. “He’s your uncle!”

Caitlin seemed to draw herself up, to stand a bit taller. I saw her chin move into that position that I knew meant she was digging in her heels.

“I don’t care about that,” she said.

I had planned on staying the night. It wasn’t to be around Caitlin longer. If anything, sleeping in a different room than her would make it hard for me to even get sleep. I’d probably spend all night jerking off, wishing I was in bed with her.

No, the reason I had planned on staying the night was the same reason you would have stayed the night. I was going to spend some time with my sister, catching up on things. While my sexual desires aren’t in the mainstream, the rest of me is.

Now, I wasn’t so sure staying was a good idea.

All the things had been said that were likely to be said right away. I was quite sure the subject would be discussed more in the future. Quite likely for years. I knew Caitlin pretty well, and I knew how stubborn she could be. I also knew she got that from her mother.

“I should probably go,” I said. I know it sounds trite, but that was all I had.

Kat’s “No!” was said at the same time Hannah barked, “I don’t think so, you son of a bitch!”

That was when I remembered that, while Hannah had discussed things with her daughter, she hadn’t discussed them with me. I’d been more or less like a fly on the wall while they raged back and forth for the last hour.

You’ve heard the term “saved by the bell”? Well I was saved by a car door.

“Daddy’s home!” said Caitlin, in a hushed whisper that was somehow very loud. Suddenly she didn’t sound so confident.

“He cannot find out about this,” said Hannah, sounding just as worried. “Not yet.” She looked at me. “Everybody act normal,” she said.

I laughed. It was hysterical laughter, just my way of trying to deal with the tension of the situation, but that’s what happened. I had no control over it, and I couldn’t stop doing it, even when both Caitlin and Hannah started shushing me and touching me. By touching, I mean Kat touched my shoulder, and then Hannah poked me with a finger. Caitlin gripped my upper arm with that grip moms use on errant little boys, when they’re dragging them to wherever punishment will be dealt out. Both were scared, or worried or whatever it was, and both were flushed, and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

But the Anderson women were troopers. They’d have made good thespians, because not only were they good actors, they also ascribed to “the show must go on” theory of things. When Phil walked in the front door I was still laughing. Hannah timed it perfectly so that, when Phil first saw us all standing there, she slapped me on the shoulder.

“That’s awful, Bob! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” said Phil, grinning and setting down his briefcase. “Pray tell, what did you do that was so terrible?”

“He told the most awful blond joke!” said Hannah, sounding hurt.

“To two blonds?” Phil grinned. “You should know better than that, Bob.” He grinned even wider. “How many times did you have to explain it to them?”

Then he laughed, and that was somehow what it took for me to get control of my run away emotions.

“I have to hear this joke,” said Phil.

“It was stupid,” said Caitlin. “It was about a girl seeing sheep and asking the shepherd if she could have one then picking the sheep dog. No woman is that dumb.”

Phil lost his grin, and looked stern.

“Sir, you have offended my ladies. Their honor has been besmirched!”

The jaws of the three people in the room who weren’t named Phil dropped. Flushed faces suddenly got pale instead, as everybody in the room who wasn’t Phil assumed he had somehow, against all odds, found out that I really had besmirched the family honor. It wasn’t rational, but sometimes nervous people don’t think rationally.

“I challenge you to a duel, varlet!” said Phil, striking a pose. “Whoever can eat the most White Castle hamburgers gets the blonds!”

He grinned again. He also shifted his feet, as if to be prepared to run. The rush of relief was like electricity jolting my body, and I decided that I’d jump on Phil’s bandwagon. It beat trying to pretend there wasn’t an elephant in the room. True, Phil didn’t know about that elephant yet, but the longer we concentrated on other things, the longer it would be before his weekend was ruined.

“Quickly, to the Batmobile!” I said. “Missouri is far, and I am eager to begin the duel!”

“Missouri?” Hannah sounded confused.

“That’s where the closest White Castle I know is,” I said.

“What’s White Castle?” asked Caitlin, frowning.

“What? Your ladies know not of White Castle?” I said, sounding way too outraged. “Have you hidden them away in the dungeon lo, these many years?”

“Nay, varlet,” said Phil, who didn’t mind acting silly at all. It’s been my theory for years that real men both wear pink and are willing to act silly in the right circumstances. “‘Tis only that, as your wisdom has displayed, my humble cottage lies too far from the Camelot that is White Castle. I wished not to taunt them with the knowledge of such delights, only to have to inform them they were unavailable.”

“What’s White Castle?!” asked Caitlin, impatiently.

“White Castle is the abode of fine dining,” said Phil, dramatically, in a long, drawn out sigh. “Alas that they build them not, west of the Mississippi.”

“Missouri is west of the Mississippi,” said Hannah, dryly.

“You speak truly,” said Phil, with dignity. “Perhaps I painted with too large a brush stroke. Yet, I beg point out that it is barely west of the great river.”

“A magnificent river, agreed Hannah, “which has the primary purpose, in my view, of separating those of us who have a decent palate from that which would destroy it.” She shuddered, but I suspected it was deliberate, because it preceded, “White Castle! Ugh!”

“What?” Phil’s eyebrows rose impressively. “Are you saying you’ve actually eaten at one?”

“Sadly, I have,” said Hannah, smiling thinly.

Phil actually looked hurt. “You’ve had White Castle? I am shocked! How is it that my lady knows of White Castle, and yet has never spoken of it to her lord and master?”

“Your lady is from Chicago,” said Hannah. “Where White Castles dot the landscape, and where a boy named Jack took me to one on a date one time.”

“What’s this?” Phil apparently loved to role play, because he kept it going. “There exists competition for the affections of my woman?”

“I never went out with him again,” said Hannah, sweetly. “But if it’s White Castle my lord and master desires, I will hie forth instantly to Sam’s Club and purchase a case of the frozen ... delights.” She made a face that communicated flawlessly that “delights” was the farthest word from the truth.

“They have White Castle at Sam’s?” Phil was suddenly just Phil again.

“You should go shopping with me more often,” said Hannah. She curtsied, which looked silly, since she was wearing jeans and a T shirt. “But I know my lord and master has much better things to do than accompany his wench to the market place.”

“Hmmmm,” said Phil. “And a comely wench you are, my sweet.”

Then he was just Phil again. He shook my hand, and hugged Caitlin, and then his wife. I noticed he squeezed one of Hannah’s butt cheeks. She slapped his hand away, but didn’t make a big deal about it.

“You can tell me the joke later,” said Phil, conspiratorially. “And, since going to Sam’s to get White Castle and then cooking it would take too long, I’ll spring for dinner at some lesser place.”

“Smart man,” muttered Hannah.

“What, Dear?” asked Phil with a grin.

“I never went out with Jack again,” Hannah reminded him, firmly.

“Oh,” said Phil. “That.” He pulled her against him with one arm. “We wouldn’t want that outcome.”

There is an interesting dynamic that sometimes comes into play in a situation like the one I was in. Let’s use a similar kind of scenario to the one I was in: the surprise birthday party. Those who know about the secret often exhibit behavior that isn’t normal for them. They dart warning looks at each other. They carefully avoiding talking about certain things, and if the discussion gets too close to the issue, they change the subject, sometimes precipitously. Trying to keep the secret alters their normal behavior. And if the person the secret is being kept from is paying attention, that’s the kind of thing that commonly leads to the well-known question: “Okay ... what’s going on, here?”

Which brings us back to my situation. There were four people present in the house, two males and two females. Three of those people knew an explosive bit of information that was being kept from the fourth. Of those three, two had very different feelings about the secret than the third did. You could say that Kat and I were “used” to our new relationship, and were more comfortable when we thought about it. Hannah, of course, didn’t think about it like we did at all. She wasn’t used to the idea that her brother had spent the last three-odd days porking her daughter. She might never be used to that idea. And the half hour it took to get to the restaurant didn’t really give her time to process things.

The conversation along the way didn’t help her any.

“So!” said Phil, when he got us on the road. “What kind of mischief have the two of you been up to for the last month?”

Hannah made a strangled sort of coughing sound. She had, without thinking about it, gotten into her normal seat, in the front, with her husband. Caitlin and I had gotten in the back. Hannah’s head turned to look at us just as Kat’s hand reached to touch my leg. I’m sure Caitlin’s only intent, in that situation, was to communicate what she would think of as “the humorous component” of his question to me. I’m sure she wouldn’t have left her hand on my thigh, or grabbed my basket or anything like that.

But Hannah’s hand appeared between the two front seats and slapped at her daughter’s arm. Granted, she pulled it back immediately, blushing furiously as she recovered from something that was instinctive and unplanned on her part.

Caitlin, who could become a normal teenager with startling quickness, said, “Geez, Mom. Take it easy!”

“What?” asked Phil, turning his head. “What happened?”

“Nothing!” came Hannah’s strained voice. “I thought I saw a bee on Caitlin.”

“A bee?” All four windows began smoothly sliding down as Phil manipulated the buttons on his door handle.

“Okay, he’s gone,” said Kat, deciding to end that particular game.

The windows slid up again.

“Anybody get stung?” asked Phil.

“No,” said Kat. “We’re fine.”

“Okay. Good.” Phil continued down the street. “So, where were we? Did you have fun this summer? Did you try anything new?”

Hannah developed a sudden and avid interest in the yards we were passing on her side of the road.

“I had a wonderful time, Daddy,” said Caitlin. “We did all kinds of things.”

“Like what?” asked Phil, who is like most parents of teenagers who provide only minimal information about their lives. He wanted to know more. He wanted details. He wanted to enjoy what his child enjoyed, if only on a vicarious basis. “What did you do that you’d never done before?”

Hannah moaned, and coughed again. Her forehead landed on the window with a soft thud.

“You okay, honey?” asked Phil, looking over at his wife.

“I’m fine,” she croaked.

Phil looked over his shoulder at us, for some reason.

“What did you try that was new?” he asked, looking at his daughter.

I know this sounds like Phil was akin to a dog with a bone, worrying off every scrap of meat. But all he was doing was trying to have a conversation with his daughter, and possibly his brother-in-law, about what they’d done over the last month. His life had been the boring, normal routine. He wanted to hear about something else.