Chapter 2

“Je vous aime. Memere,” Cat said to her grandmother. Having been warned minutes before, she walked to her decorously and hugged her legs. Kate returned the hug. “Sharl!” Cat then cried. She raced to him and collided with him. It was something between a hug and a tackle, but Charles could handle it. He lifted her for a mutual hug, and she ran her hands through his hair. Charles was one of her favorite people, and his kinky hair was one thing which she enjoyed most about him. When he could set Cat down, Charles helped tote their stuff up to Bob’s old room.

“Sorry about this,” Bob said. “When you figure that each outfit weighs less than half of what one of mine does, it’s incredible how much you have to pack for a little girl.”

“Well, the books weigh more than yours do. Maybe not one volume, but one hour’s reading sure does.” Bob laughed in agreement.

“I’m glad to see you,” Kate Brennan greeted her son, “but don’t you want to rest after your trip?”

“Sitting down is the last thing I want now. We didn’t walk here, after all. I’ll move slowly, though. Is it hotter than it was when I was growing up, or has Chicago spoiled me? I feel as if the Carolina sun is punishing me for leaving home.”

“It punishes those of us who stay here, too. With all apologies to Chaucer, July is a crueler month than April.”

“If I’m going to be moving, is there anything useful I can do?”

“Well, the lawn has been drying out. You know where the sprinkler is.”

“I’ll get it. You’ll have to tell me where to put it.”

Bob placed the lawn sprinkler at his mother’s direction. Jeanette and Cat came out to join them and appreciate the breeze. Bob turned the water on at the wall spigot he knew well. Cat looked at the water arching up on the hot day.

“Portcullis!” she said. “Maman?...”

“It’s your grandmother’s. You have to ask her.”

“Memere, my I play in your lawn sprinkler, please?” Cat had been going to ask Memere. Her permission was automatic. Maman was the one who made up all the rules.

“If your mother permits, dear.”

“Maman?”

“Change into your bathing suit, and bring a towel. And wear flip-flops in the house.” Noting that she’d been right about all the rules, Cat scurried inside.

“Portcullis, dear?” Kate asked.

“She knows the real meaning of ‘portcullis,’” Bob said. That hadn’t been Kate’s question. When, for that matter, had Bob learned the word? It had been after his freshman year in high school that the town library was closed for weeks for some building problem. She’d dug up a “favorite poems” book to save Bob from his print-withdrawal -- to save herself, really. Bob wasn’t one to sulk in silence. That had included something about Marmion and a portcullis.

“We have a lot of lawn sprinklers around us in Chicago,” Jeanette began. She knew what Katherine’s question had been. “People let them cover the sidewalk. When we would go walking, your son would say, ‘Let’s run to get through while the portcullis is up.’ The three of us would rush through while the sprinkler was watering the lawn instead of the sidewalk.”

“Dear, really, ‘your son’? You know, children are pot luck. You take what you get. What I got was Bob -- and Vi. Husbands, on the other hand, are a matter of choice. I can remember you being quite insistent that you wanted to marry Bob, and he was as bad back then.”

“Don’t tell him, but I still want to be married to him. That doesn’t mean I approve of all his habits.”

“My lips are sealed, dear. It would only make his head swell worse.”

“Impossible.”

“I think, though, that reporting his misdeeds as those of ‘your son’ is rather implying a blame on my part that I don’t deserve. Cat, for that matter, is more your luck than your achievement.”

“Isn’t life full of enjoyments at that age?” Kathleen asked. She and Charles had followed Cat out the door and were now watching her run in and out of the sprinkler. Charles was holding the towel. “Did I miss anything but my niece’s being cute?”

Bob said, “Jeanette just announced that it was impossible for my head to swell.”

Kathleen looked a question at Jeanette.

“Any more!”

“Do you remember, dear,” Kate asked her daughter, “the summer that the library was closed and I found Bob the book of poems that were not by Kipling?”

“Who could forget?” asked Kathleen. Bob had first learned a poem and then sought an audience. ‘Bob’s hitting me,’ would probably bring protection from a parent. ‘Bob’s reciting poetry at me,’ wouldn’t.

“What, warder, ho; let down the portcullis fall,” recited Bob. “I’d forgotten.”

“I didn’t know you could ever forget a poem.” said Jeanette.

“You know, dear, you can complain about your brother all you want...”

“No!” said Kathleen. “It bores Charles.”

“ ... But your famous vocabulary only partly comes from reading Britannica. Part of it came from having an older brother with a use vocabulary well advanced for his age.”

“Who talked all the time.”

“Well, yes, dear. But you weren’t exactly a sphinx yourself.”

Charles was splitting his attention between Cat’s cavorting and what he privately thought of as the ongoing Brennan debate. He tried to defend Kath against any accusations, but ‘not exactly a sphinx’ was too accurate -- or too great an understatement -- for him to refute. He never understood how his talkative wife could bear to practice Freudian analysis. That involved so much silent listening!

“He forgot the book, dear,” Kate explained, “He remembered the poem.”

“Not far advanced was morning day,” Bob began. He rather proved her point by continuing until “the grate descending razed his plume.” The others talked around him without taking notice.

“Isn’t she a dear,” asked Kathleen.

“Then you can dry her off and get her into her regular clothes,” said Jeanette.

“Gladly. Are you sure that you want her out of the swimsuit? The weather is hot.”

“Not until she wants to do something else or it’s nearly dinner time. And she can really dress herself. It’s just that being a mother is a full-time job.”

“Yes, dear,” said Katherine, “but it is another thing that you wanted. And, I must say, Cat is quite able to find ways of amusing herself.”

“True. My job is seeing that those ways don’t put her in danger or invade some stranger’s privacy. And, for all your ‘potluck,’ it’s the Brennan in her. For all his complaints about faculty meetings, I’ve never seen Bob actually bored.”

“And Cat is starting to read, isn’t she?”

“She still prefers to have books read to her.”

“Yes, dear. But when the tipping point comes, you’ll have more time to yourself. I can remember checking on them both. You realize that there has been silence for hours. Have they snuck off? Have they died? Are they plotting some mischief? Instead they were each lying down with a book. Now, Kathleen would lie on her bed. Bob, on the other hand, preferred the floor.”

“A carpet was soft enough at that age.” Bob, having finished Scott, was ready to rejoin the conversation. “Probably relates to the square-cube law. And, you’ve never seen me bored because you’re so fascinating yourself. If I don’t have something else to look at, I look at Jeanette. One, only one, of the many reasons faculty committee meetings are so dull is that I don’t have the option of looking at you.”

“Come here and dry off, Cat,” Charles called. He thought she was starting to look tired. He dried off face and arms, lifted her onto the porch, and dried off her legs and feet.

“Stay in the sun for the next ten minutes, mon Chat.” Jeanette felt that politeness required speaking English in front of the others. Endearments don’t count. All of them knew that much French.

“Oui, Maman.” The sun felt good; Cat was a little chilly. She sat down on the porch step. Memere, Sharl, and Tante Kathleen were all here. When she felt too antsy to sit, any one of them would come with her to explore the streets outside. And, when they did, Maman would insist she wear the flip-flops, if not shoes. Elle aime Maman, mais elle commande trop. She twisted her toes and listened to the talk over her head.

Cat nearly went to sleep while they talked about Congress and global warming. Her listening was rewarded, though, when they got around to talking about her.

“I still can’t believe,” said Kate, “that Cat can learn three languages at the same time. I’ll admit that her English is still wonderful, aside from silliness like ‘portcullis.’ I’m not saying that it isn’t happening; I’m saying that it isn’t possible.”

“The ability to learn language is something we don’t understand,” Bob replied. “One of the Berlitz family was the clear heir to the schools from his birth. They decided that he should have some command of most of the languages they taught. Each member of the family was assigned a single language. He was raised speaking a different language with each person. If Jeanette wanted me to talk with Cat in French, she’d learn Jeanette’s accent and my accent. It’s happened.”

“Which is why I don’t want you talking to her in French.”

“D’accord, ma femme.”

“See?”

“But,” Charles said, “you still have time on task. If she can learn a thousand words of French, a thousand words of English, and a thousand words of Spanish in a given time, why can’t she learn three thousand words of English in the same time?”

“A guess?” Bob got nods from the others. “She isn’t learning words so much as she is learning concepts. The world is a blooming buzzing confusion when you’re dumped into it. That the swing-back-and-forth source of water is the same as the twirl-around-in-a-circle source of water is the same as the other designs is a task. And, remember, when you first see them, they are shiny shapes; it’s not at all clear that those shiny arcs are streams of water. Compared to this, learning that they are called ‘portcullis’ and ‘lawn sprinkler’ and whatever the French and Spanish are is a minor task. Where Cat’s language skills will be truly trilingual is in her thinking of the word meaning the thing. I, sometimes even Jeanette, think of ‘chien’ as meaning the English word ‘dog.’ I don’t think of it as meaning some animal running down the street.”

Cat got up to look at the dog Papa was talking about, but she didn’t see it. It must have gone. Her front was dry, but her back was still wet. It, particularly the seat, was beginning to feel bad. She lay down on her front on the porch to get that into the sun.

“See,” said Kate gesturing to her granddaughter, “Bob used to lie like that.”

“Genes,” Jeanette guessed. She looked fondly at her daughter. If they tried to make Cat lie down in a soft bed for an hour, they would have a battle royal. But she was quite content to lie on a hard wooden porch in the way of anyone who wanted to go back in the house. Maybe it was the nickname. She was behaving remarkably like a house cat. “How long to dinner?” she asked.

“Well, dear, if there is something you want to do...” Jeanette shook her head and pointed to Cat. “Then, I was planning for an hour and a half from now.”

Kathleen saw the problem. If Cat dropped off now, her whole schedule would be off.

“Want to walk the neighborhood?” she asked Charles.

He nodded. He managed to suppress his anxiety. Alone, he wouldn’t be the only black face out there; with Kath and Cat, he’d be quite conspicuous. Kath never worried, and it was her town. For that matter, he’d seldom had a problem here. And there were bigots in Philadelphia, too.

“C’mon, Cat. Change clothes and we’ll go out for a walk. Tante K’leen will help you change.” Cat got up.

“Flip-flops inside the house,” said Jeanette. Cat obeyed, and she and Tante Kathleen went upstairs to change. She didn’t need help, and Tante Kathleen didn’t insist on giving it. Except for drying her back, she merely watched. And Cat was happy having an audience. When they came downstairs, Charles joined them.

They walked together, while Kathleen told Charles -- and Cat were she interested -- her memories of the places they passed. They got back shortly before supper.

At dinner, Cat was hyper to fend off sleepiness. Jeanette, Kate, and even Bob guessed the reason; the other two adults noticed the behavior. For once, the Brennan table had only one conversation. Whenever an adult started to say something on another subject, Cat objected. “Papa, you are not listening!” Bob, figuring it was better than the alternative, listened. The obvious alternative was to send Cat to bed right then. That would mean to stay there keeping her in the room physically until she collapsed into sleep. Which would risk having her wake in the middle of the night, ravenous. His preference for this bad choice didn’t mean that he enjoyed it. Kathleen, Charles and his mother were seeing a side to Cat he would have preferred that they didn’t.

“Now, mon chat, it is time for bed,” Jeanette said at the end of the meal.

“Pourquoi?”

“Because you need your rest for tomorrow.”

“Pourquoi?”

“Because you have had a busy energetic day today, and we got up early.” Jeanette had sworn not to tell her child ‘because I say so.’ That didn’t mean that she was never tempted, and it certainly didn’t mean that she never cheated.

“Pourquoi?”

“Because we had to catch the train to get here.”

“Pourquoi?”

“I keep six honest serving-men,” recited Bob,

“(They taught me all I knew);

“Their names are What and Why and When

“And How and Where and Who.”

“I can’t hear that,” Cat screamed. She climbed down from her chair, turned her back, and stuffed her fingers in her ears.

“I send them over land and sea,” Bob continued remorselessly.

“I send them east and west;

“But after they have worked for me,

“I give them all a rest.

“I let them rest from nine till five,

“For I am busy then,

“As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

“For they are hungry men.

“But different folk have different views;

“I know a person small --

“She keeps ten million serving-men,

“Who get no rest at all!

“She sends ‘em abroad on her own affairs,

“From the second she opens her eyes --

“One million Hows, two million Wheres,

“And seven million Whys!” As soon as he had finished, Cat unstuffed her ears and turned back.

“I didn’t hear that,” she said. But her mother was there to catch her hand.

“We are going upstairs now.”

“Will Cat walk with Maman, or will Cat be carried by Papa?” asked Bob. Given the choice, Cat limped sulkily towards the stairs.

“Still want?...” Jeanette asked Kate over her shoulder.

“Definitely!” Kate had handled tantrums. She wasn’t going to let one deprive her of her granddaughter’s company.

“Sorry about that,” said Bob.

“She’s tired,” said Kathleen. “Maybe we shouldn’t have taken that walk.”

“At that point, all we could do was choose when. Had she gone to sleep, she’d have had the tantrum when we woke her for dinner. And, flexible as young limbs are, I wouldn’t have known how much was sleeping on the bare boards. It isn’t the exercise; she had little on the train, though she walked the aisle more than she sat in her seat. It’s the lack of sleep. When do you respond to sleepiness by heading for bed, anyway?”

“Good question.” Charles took that question to be directed to him. He was a pediatrician, after all. “I think it is something you learn slowly over time. Certainly, once you have finished a residency, you head for bed when the opportunity offers.” They laughed.

“Sometimes,” Kathleen put in, “you even sleep.” She had been the baby of the family for far too long. Since nobody else would, she liked to make the point that she was an adult.

Charles kept quiet. He didn’t know whether his embarrassment at Kath’s mentioning their sexual activities to her family was because they were her family or because they were white. Although it was the 21st century, although they had a marriage license, he still felt a frisson of fear about fucking a white woman south of the Mason-Dixon line. And, really, although her family knew that those activities were part of marriage -- they’d even provided opportunities before the marriage -- it was still something you didn’t say. The list of things the Brennans didn’t say was quite short.

They shared stories of all-nighters. Some of Kate’s stories were ones her children hadn’t heard. The matron they remembered had once been an art-history major romantically involved with an older man at the graduate school of business.

“Two years, Mother,” said Kathleen.

“Well, two years -- nearer three in age -- was significant back then. He was a grad student, and in business school. I was an undergraduate, and in something pure. My parents weren’t scandalized, but many of my classmates were. And, of course, I didn’t tell my parents enough to be scandalized until I was enrolled in the MAT program.”

“And you complained about me.”

“Well, I introduced them to Russ when everyone came to my second graduation. He was out and employed by then. I didn’t announce it to them by saying he’d be sleeping in my bed.”

“And was he?”

“Now that would be telling,” she said. Charles laughed.

“I was just wondering whether there was anything that Brennans didn’t say.”

“That depends, dear, on the Brennan. And, of course, to whom. Kathleen, as I just said, kept you very secret from us. She may have told her classmates. Bob didn’t tell us much about Jeanette, but we never figured out whether that was keeping secrets. He later claimed it was something that should have been obvious.”

“You knew I was dating her. If you didn’t know it was love, it took me a while to figure that out for myself. And it took longer for me to tell her. Besides, at some point quite early, it became Bob-and-Jeanette. After that, Dad would have been shocked were I to betray a confidence. Even the louts who bragged to their friends ‘I got to second base last night’ weren’t saying that to their parents. What was Dad’s memory of my report before I signed the app for road construction?”

“‘I really think she really likes me.’ Not terribly clear, dear.”

“But that was the news. That was what I brought away from the discussion. Jeanette liked me, or I thought she did.”

“Well, dear, for someone so articulate, you never actually said anything about how you felt about her. I’m glad you told her. Indeed, the first time that you mentioned love for her within my hearing was when you were addressing her. Now, we did have hints. You told us that you had to get to the track meet because Jeanette was running. Did you ever watch a boys’ track meet?”

“They held a couple of joint meets. Otherwise, to echo my daughter, pourquoi?”

“My point, exactly. We were clear, indeed you sometimes told us, that you went there to watch Jeanette run.”

“And it was incredibly important that he was there.” Jeanette had come downstairs. “Once Greg brought me to a meet, and I fell down. I came in dead last. Greg tried to console me. He was being nice, but all I could think of was that Bob couldn’t hug away the embarrassment.”

“We were talking about how little Bob told us, dear.”

“Well, part of the secrecy was for me. Like when he asked me to go steady.”

“I never heard about that, dear.”

“Precisement! I told him I didn’t want to have dates with anybody else, but my mother would kill me if I went steady with him. They had to know when he took me to the dance. They didn’t know about the other times we met. By that time, I was telling my mother as little about my life as possible, but Bob was especially secret. High school was a real worry. You never knew when something your fellow students knew would get back to your parents. After all, everybody went into the pharmacy.

“Anyway,” she continued, “Cat is sleeping on the pad in your room. I’m sorry for the behavior.”

“Don’t worry about the behavior, dear. I’ve raised two, and seen worse. Believe me. The pad, on the other hand...”

“Do you remember what happened the last time you two shared a bed?”

“It wasn’t the last time, dear. And the sheets were washable. So, for that matter, was I.”

“The mattress...”

“It’s a water bed. You know the cover is waterproof. And Cat enjoys it so much. When you lie on it, the bed jiggles.”

“Well, you don’t mind, but Cat does. I don’t want her strongest memory of this trip to be embarrassment.”

“In that case, dear, as the adult who wants it, it’s my duty to have a plan to eliminate the occasion for embarrassment.”

“Really, she’s getting better. But I have fears for tonight. When she finally got to sleep, she went deep.”

“And so should we all,” said Kathleen. “It’s been a long day. Sorry I wasn’t more help on dinner.”

“You were a great help, dear. That walk was precisely what was needed. And it wasn’t a long day for me -- expectations, of course. But I’m not the one who drove all day. Really, I enjoy your presence. I’m not expecting you to entertain me.”

Bob and Jeanette stayed downstairs with her, though, while Kathleen and Charles went up to bed. The day had been grungy enough to suggest a shower before bed, though they had showered in the morning before starting out.

“Save water?” asked Charles.

“Not here.” Not that sharing a shower really saved any water. At home, the hot sometimes ran out; it never did when one showered after the other. She took her robe with her and headed for the bathroom.

When Charles replaced her, he mused on Kath’s odd sense of propriety. They couldn’t be in the shower together when her family was downstairs, but she would make suggestive comments to them. Well, understanding Kath was hard enough; understanding Kath when she was dealing with her family was impossible. Actually, there were four interactions. She genuinely loved her mother, but she hadn’t quite got over adolescent rebellion. Fighting her brother was too good a sport to abandon. The truth was that she and Bob had enjoyed their childhoods and reenacted them on visits home. She and Jeanette were good friends. Her relationship to Cat was close to adoration -- mutual adoration, often enough. He returned to the room wondering what limits Kath’s propriety would place on their sex life. She’d packed her diaphragm. He didn’t need sex every night, but his picture of a vacation involved relaxed sex.

“Lock the door,” Kath greeted him. He did so before hanging up his clothes. He put his pajamas and robe on the other bed beside Kath’s nightie and robe. When he had put his glasses on the night stand, neither of them wore anything but rings. He slid under the covers to touch her everywhere along her length. The twin bed with a footboard was confining after the queen-sized one they shared at home which would let his feet hang over. But the close quarters could be fun, too.

Kathleen felt the familiar warmth of Char beside her. After their kiss he started to speak.

“No words,” she whispered. “Let’s be absolutely silent.” She felt him nod against her head. Then he began stroking her again. She eased back against his warmth while his hand played all over her body. A huge hand as it encompassed her breast as her hand certainly could not -- a clever hand as two fingers rubbed her areola on each side of the nipple while another brushed the nipple very lightly. Their next major purchase had to be a piano. Those clever fingers had to play something more than her body, pleasant as it was to have them play her body.