Chapter 24

Sunday April 7, 2002

I woke up, momentarily disoriented. I wasn't sure where I was, and for a horrid second I thought I was upside down again, since I was sitting up. I felt something warm pressing against my side. Things snapped back into focus as I realized it was Jenny, and I was on the couch in the family room. The lights were out, and so far as I could tell, Jenny and I were by ourselves.

I shifted slightly, and Jenny spoke up. "I'm awake."

"Hi, everyone else go to bed?" I asked.

"Mary, Elizabeth and Shannon went home. The others went upstairs a while ago."

I turned towards her, saw her smiling at me. "You and me, together again," Jenny said.

I think she meant it to be funny; instead, her voice cracked. I leaned close and kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose, just for a second.

"You okay, Jenny?"

"Do you think I'm terrible?" she asked.

I shook my head, a little mystified. "No, of course not."

"The other day, they asked me what I wanted to do about funeral arrangements for my parents," Jenny paused. "I told them they'd kicked me out, they should get in touch with the others in the family and let them decide. My dad has an older brother; my mom two younger brothers and a sister."

"Jenny, if there was ever someone who had a right to just let them go, it's you.

"I'm not sure any more about some things, but I do believe in right and wrong. What they did, what they let your brother do, was wrong. You did a good thing, getting out of there when you did."

She hugged me, hugged me tight.

"Tom, could we do like we did the first night? Just curl up in bed?"

I smiled, resisted the urge to lean close and kiss her on the forehead and say of course. "Yes, Jenny. With me, it will always be what you want, not what I want. I'm fine with just knowing you're next to me, and safe. In fact, I'm better than fine with it."

The hug was repeated, only much, much harder. I stood up, gave her a hand up off the sofa, and didn't try to hold onto her. We went up the stairs and into my room. I stripped down to my underwear, Jenny put on a nightie.

"Thank you, Tom," she whispered. "Thank you."

I glanced at my clock, it was after one in the morning. "You should sleep. Dad wants to go to the zoo later. It's going to be a warm day; odds are we'll come home exhausted."

She spooned in behind me, putting her arm around my waist. "Good night, Tom."

"Good night, Jenny."

I slept soundly, and while I could remember dreaming, my dreams were ephemeral, dreams that I couldn't remember at all when JR came to wake us. My sister had an idea she wanted to try, and wasn't interested in hearing our opinions. "I want us all to take a shower together. Just washing and touching... not getting carried away."

I didn't want to tell JR that I didn't think it was going to work, because she was so bubbly happy and enthused about the idea.

It didn't really work, either. A regular shower enclosure just doesn't have enough people for three people at a time. One person was at the end, chilled. Another person was getting drowned and the one in the middle, splashed.

I was really proud of JR, though, because when we were drying off, she said, "Well, that was an idea whose time hasn't come."

"The shower's too small," Jenny said, looking serious.

JR snorted in derision. "The shower's way too small!" We all chuckled at that.

It was an idea that had been perking in my head for a couple of days. "JR, what would you say if we moved to a new house? One with bigger tubs?"

She slapped me playfully on the butt. "I don't think I want to move just to get a bigger tub. And I sure don't want to change schools."

I contemplated if Uncle Craig or Mom had mentioned home schooling to JR. So, since I was curious, I just out and asked.

JR snorted. "Mom might like Uncle Craig, but he's such a jerk! No, I don't want to give up my friends at school! No, I don't want to study how to live the life of the rich and famous! Not for Joanna Ferguson! Not going to happen! I told them where they could put the idea!"

"But what about a larger house, close to here? There are a whole slew of them."

"You mean the country club houses?" JR asked, and I nodded, because that was what I'd been thinking. Some of them were like small castles; dozens and dozens of rooms.

I turned to Jenny. "What do you think, Jenny?"

"It's not for me to decide," she said, sounding like Mary the night I'd been in the accident.

I was going to speak, but JR beat me to it. "Jennifer! Aren't you forgetting you're an orphan? Mom and Dad are going to adopt you? You became a member of this family right after you moved in. Please, Jennifer, please. You're not just our friend, you're our sister, too!"

Jenny started to cry softly, and we both hugged her. That didn't last long, because Dad bellowed up from the bottom of the steps that he wanted to go see animals. So, we went to our rooms to dress.

I've never understood what my dad sees in going to the zoo. He's an engineer! You'd think he'd find looking at displays of desert tortoises, mountain lions, deer, elk, antelope and the myriad other critters that live in the desert boring. Instead, it seems to fascinate him.

Once, back in sixth grade, I'd made the mistake of voicing my opinion to him. He'd grinned, and the next thing I found I had to do was make a list of all the animals at the zoo that lived in Arizona.

It might sound like a simple thing to do, but the first night he'd checked it, and told me I had less than half. He told me I'd have to write a one-page paper on each animal that I missed. We'd went back the next day, and I learned a lot about the zoo that I'd not known before. I'd not seen the rodent collection before, for instance. I didn't like the bird tent, either. You tended to come out daubed with bird poop.

How did I do? My father is really smart, really, really smart. He added a hundred and fifty names to the list I'd already made, that had more than two hundred names already on it. I'd not gone into the insect or spider buildings either.

So, we spent the day, wandering the zoo. It was clear that Jenny had never been before, so JR and I took turns taking her to places we really liked. About one, we met at the restaurant, sat at an outside table and had lunch, then back again looking at everything, even the birds. Jenny really liked the bird tent; she was utterly fascinated by the riot of color, the sounds of their songs and chattering.

Around four, we were all suffering the usual zoo day afflictions: sore feet, aching legs, and entirely too much sun. The only member of the family who was at all chipper was Dad, which was something that always amazed me.

Mary had invited us over for dinner at her house, and we went straight from the zoo there. We got to listen to Shannon play her violin for us, while Mom and Mary worked on the last preparations for dinner.

Pot roast. People make jokes about pot roast, but that's because they aren't all that smart. Mary had put the roast in a baking pan; the roast perched on a rack. She'd put an inch or so of water in the base of the roasting pan, plus carrots, potatoes, garlic, onions and celery.

Not only did we have some killer roast beef, but the soup she made from the veggies was just as good.

I know all this stuff because Dad made some stupid comment about how Mary really knew how to roast beef. Some people, Dad averred, actually boiled the meat; obviously he thought boiled beef was terrible. Mary explained what she'd done to cook it. The water kind of half steamed the beef, while the oven was baking it. It was cool, seeing Dad looking silly.

Mom called Kim after we ate, while the five of us kids took care of the cleanup chores. Kim and Penny were back; Aunt Shirley had followed them in her car as well. Tomorrow evening Mom told everyone we would have a big dinner at our house, with everyone coming.

Again, the sheer logistics was daunting. Our family was five. Mary's was three. Kim and Penny, my aunt and uncle. Twelve for dinner? It was I thought, going to be interesting for sure, because we only had eleven dinner plates; one of the double set having given it's all months before when JR had dropped it.

Elizabeth had been talking to Jenny; all of a sudden they were talking up Elizabeth's idea of eight person Scrabble. You can't play Scrabble with eight people, or so the rules said; the game was designed for four people.

I was sent home to fetch our game set, while everyone else was sitting around, enjoying after dinner conversation.

Karma, fate... call it what you will, but it works in strange ways.

I got out to the first big street, and there was a funeral procession going by, going the way I wanted to go. Since a left was impossible, I made a right, planning on circling around. My thought was that rather than just sit and wait, it would feel better driving.

I'd gotten well along, when my cell phone went off. I mean, when the phone rings, it's kind of ingrained. You answer it, right? Except I was driving Mom's car and it was a pain to drive one handed.