CHAPTER
twenty-three
Mom Sweet had always been of the opinion that celebrating birthdays was every bit of an occasion as Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. She’d plan the day to suit the birthday boy or girl with streamers and special meals and heartfelt gifts. The presents were never anything extraordinary, but they were well thought out.
And she’d sing “Happy Birthday” at the very top of her lungs, not caring that she couldn’t carry a tune to save her life.
Oh, how I missed her.
Ever since Stan became a part of our family, his birthdays meant cinnamon rolls for supper and taking in a movie. That year his birthday fell on a Friday, just right for a family trip to the drive-in.
He insisted on all of us riding together in the station wagon. It was a tight fit—the three boys in the way back and Pop and Albie on either side of me in the middle—but we liked each other well enough and didn’t mind too terribly.
I thought it was a good thing that Clara had decided to stay home. It would have been hard to decide which twin to strap on the roof.
“I heard sometimes people hide in the trunk so they don’t have to pay,” Nick said from the back as soon as Stan pulled into the line for the tickets. “They get six people in free that way.”
“We could get under this blanket,” Dick said. “Then you wouldn’t have to pay for us kids.”
“Son, that’s stealing,” Stan said.
“Yeah, Dick,” Nick said. “Dad’s right.”
“Golly,” Marvel said. “A man turns thirty-six and starts sounding like Ward Cleaver.”
“Well, and Nick is doing his Eddie Haskell act.” Stan winked at her.
“Who are all these people they’re talking about?” Pop asked me.
“From a show on television,” I said. “Haven’t you ever seen Leave It to Beaver?”
“Beaver? Is it a show about a beaver?”
“No. It’s about a family. The boy’s name is Beaver.”
“What kind of name is that for a child?” Pop shook his head.
“Well, that’s not his real name,” I said. “His name’s Tom or Tim . . .”
“Theodore, I think,” Marvel said, turning halfway in her seat.
“They just call him Beaver. As a nickname,” I said.
“Is something wrong with his teeth?” Pop asked. “Or does he chew on wood?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Pop had a glint in his eye, the one that was always just in the corner when he was up to no good.
“You,” I said, batting at his arm. “All right, you stinker.”
The rain from earlier in the day had dried up but left mud puddles in the tire tracks and ruts of the dirt at the drive-in theater. The rest of the ground looked absolutely gushy.
“Don’t you boys splash in those puddles,” Marvel called back, giving Nick and Dick a severe look. “Do you hear me?”
“Aw, Mom,” Dick said, putting his head between Albert’s and mine. “What if we take off our shoes?”
“Yeah. We’re just wearing shorts,” Nick added. “We promise we won’t get too dirty.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Marvel turned back around in her seat.
Stan found a spot as close to the middle of the lot as he could, claiming it was good we’d gotten there so early. Marvel sent the boys to the playground, making them promise to stay with Hugo the whole time.
“When it starts to get dark, come back to the car, all right?” she said. “We’ll have hot dogs and popcorn if you can behave yourselves. And stay together!”
“Come on, Hugo,” Dick said, cocking his head to the side to show which way they’d go.
Hugo hesitated, waiting for me to nod that it was okay. Then he ran along between the twins, all three of them hopping over puddles.
“You know they’re going to get muddy, don’t you?” Stan said. “They’re boys.”
“Oh, I know.” Marvel sighed.
“How about I get us something cold to drink.” Stan pulled the latch of his door. “Coke all right for everyone?”
“I’ll go,” Pop said. “I wanna see what they’ve got.”
“Do you think they’d make me a cherry Coke?” Marvel asked.
“Don’t know,” Stan answered. “Why don’t you come along and ask for yourself. I’ll even let you hold my hand if you’re nice to me.”
Marvel giggled and got out of her seat.
They all shut their respective doors and I slid out of the middle and pivoted, resting my arm on the back of the seat.
“How are things, Albie?” I asked.
“All right.” He turned his upper half so he could face my way. “Hugo seems to be enjoying the twins.”
“He sure does. They’re good for him.”
Albert nodded. “Didn’t Clara want to come?”
“Oh, not tonight.” I crossed my ankles, finding it hard to sit like a lady in the position. “I think she wanted the house to herself.”
“Is it something I did?” he asked after a pause.
“Albie, it has nothing to do with you,” I said. “She’s just having a hard time right now. She’ll bounce back.”
A car carrying at least a dozen teenagers drove past, the radio turned up so loud I could hear every word of the song that was playing. It was Elvis belting out “Return to Sender” in his crooning, trembling voice.
“Do you like Elvis?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from my sister.
“I guess I’ve never listened to him very much.”
“Norm thought he was something else,” I said. “He insisted we watch whenever he was on TV.”
“We always had different taste in music.” Albert grinned. “I can’t tell you how many times we argued over it.”
“Do you remember when he bought that plaid jacket?” I shook my head. “It was after the first time Elvis was on Ed Sullivan.”
“He did look smart in it, even if I never would have told him so.”
It had been cream colored with black and gray plaid and fit him to a tee. When he put it on for me, he grabbed the collar, tugging at it just like Elvis had on the show. Then he swayed in front of me singing “Love Me Tender” and I felt light-headed, trying not to swoon like the girls in the audience.
Norm couldn’t croon, and only about half of the notes were on pitch. But the way his eyes stayed locked on mine made him every bit as dreamy as Elvis. Quite a bit more, if I were to be honest.
I regretted that I didn’t have a single photo of Norm wearing that jacket. It certainly had been a good fit for him before he outgrew it and gave it away.
As a matter of fact, I didn’t have nearly enough pictures of him. Of course, I had the ones Marvel had managed to take over the years and a few from other people. But I had missed so many great opportunities because I’d never thought I needed a camera of my own.
“I need to buy a camera,” I said, not realizing it was out loud until Albert perked up.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked.
“That I need a camera so I can get some pictures of Hugo.” I sat up straight. “And Nick and Dick. And the rest of the family.”
“All right.” Albert’s voice betrayed his confusion at my sudden divergence of conversation.
I’d never been a woman of great resolve and determination. I’d usually left that for people like Norman or Marvel.
I couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to make a decision.
As soon as it was full dark, a trumpet sound came through the speakers we had hanging in the windows of the car with a slight crackle that almost sounded like fire. The screen turned dark with three slashes of light.
“What’s this?” one of the twins asked, hanging over the driver’s side of the car from where he and the other two boys sat on the roof.
“It’s a newsreel,” Marvel said before shushing him.
“Yeah, quiet, son,” Stan said. “Your mother doesn’t want to miss a moment of President Kennedy on the big screen.”
“What’s he doing in Germany?” Pop asked before placing a piece of popcorn on his tongue.
“Well, I don’t know, Dad. Maybe if we listen, we’ll figure it out.” Marvel plastered a smile on her face before turning her attention back to the film.
The reporter spoke of “East Berlin” and the “wall of hate.” “The miracle” of West Berlin and the “stark desolation” of the east. The shiny motorcade carrying the president rounded a corner, and he stepped out, shaking the hand of a uniformed man.
“Ma,” Nick said, hanging down from the roof, his face in the passenger side window, making Marvel jump. “How long you think the news is gonna be?”
“As long as it needs to be,” she said, shaking her head. “Have a little patience.”
“What’s the big deal anyway?”
“Hush,” Marvel said.
The music took on an urgent tone, violins screeching and drums pounding.
“What’s a dictatorship, anyway?” Nick asked from Marvel’s side. “Is that like Hitler?”
“Hitler’s dead,” Dick said from Stan’s side. “Everybody knows that.”
“Do not.” Nick’s face was getting red from hanging upside down. “He coulda escaped.”
“Boys, would you please be quiet,” Stan said. “If I knew you’d talk all the way through the movie, I would have brought your muzzles.”
The twins pulled themselves from the windows, and there was a rustling and bumping from the roof as they got settled once again.
It seemed to me the day the president spent in West Germany was a bright one and warm. I wondered if the sun had shone on the eastern side of the wall that day too. Surely, those on the other side had heard the roar of cheers for Kennedy. Maybe they’d even heard his words.
“Ich bin ein Berliner.”
“I am a citizen of Berlin.”
I tried to imagine what it might have been like the day the city was partitioned off, east and west. I’d heard stories on the news—we all had—of families separated, not knowing when they’d see each other again.
It had been just about two years. The only thing holding them together, their memories of one another. Even if those memories weren’t always happy, I could only imagine how desperately they wanted to be reunited.
I closed my eyes, trying to picture someone on the eastern side of the wall, ear to a gap between the bricks, trying to hear President Kennedy. Straining for hope.
On the way home from the movie, the twins chattered on and on about Jason and the Argonauts.
“How did they find somebody with just one eye to play the cyclops?” and “Was Triton really a giant?” and “Why’d all the men have to wear dresses?” and “Was the skeleton army made of real bones?”
Neither Stan or Marvel could get an answer in edgewise between those two boys and their questions. I wondered just how many Jujubes they’d had.
Hugo, on the other hand, sat on my lap, his sleeping head resting on my chest. In the dark of the ride home, I couldn’t see much of him. But every once in a while, the light from a streetlamp would flicker across his face.
All I could think of was how we were on one side of a wall of Clara’s making. How she seemed to be very far away even though she was just in the other room.
And I wondered if she knew how much she still belonged to us.