Jan Burke - Sweet Dreams, Irene

THEY TALKED FOR a long time. Every now and then I would hear them shouting at each other. Frank is seldom a shouter; you have to really push his buttons to get a shout out of him. His mom must have been hitting them like a kid in an elevator. But I just sat in the swing and admired the garden, thinking that it was probably all for the best.

Cassie and Mike pulled up in front of the house before Frank came back out. The two boys got out of the backseat before their parents had a chance to open their own doors. “There she is!” one shouted, pointing at me. Brian, the four-year-old. Michael, at six, was slightly more restrained, but not by much. Both with light brown hair and freckles.

“Wait here, boys. Remember what I said.” Mike O’Brien was a tall blonde with a dark tan. He gave me a wave and a grin.

“Be gentle, like when we pet Mutt,” Michael Junior recited, as the four of them made their way over to me. Michael and Brian were each holding their hands behind their backs, as if for self-control.

Mike and Cassie probably hadn’t expected to have the comparison to the dog be made public, but I laughed and they joined in on it, leaving the kids confounded. Cassie introduced me to her family.

“You’re in Grandma’s swing,” Brian said by way of observation.

“Yes, I am. Would you boys like to sit on it with me?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, but the casts were too intriguing. They hopped up next to me.

“Careful,” Mike said.

“Where’s Uncle Frank?” Michael asked.

“He’s in having a nice long talk with your grandmother. That’s why I asked you to sit with me on the swing.”

“Where are your fingers?” Brian asked me, studying the sling.

“You can see most of them, can’t you?”

“Yeah. And I can see your toes.” This amused the two of them to no end.

“Where’s your cat?” Michael asked, looking around.

“He’s at home. Our friend is taking care of him.”

“Where do you live?” Brian asked.

“She lives in a place called Sin,” Michael said.

“Michael!” Mike said.

“That’s what Grandma said. She said Uncle Frank and his friend Irene are living in Sin.”

“Grandma must have got it wrong, Michael,” I said easily. “We live in Las Piernas.”

“Oh. Where the beach is.”

“Right.”

Brian said, “When do we get turkey?”

“Soon,” Cassie answered, but looked nervously toward the door.

Sitting was too much for the boys and soon they were running around the front yard, playing tag, laughing and squealing whenever one tagged the other.

Cassie and Mike sat on the swing with me. Like Cassie, Mike was easy to talk to. He was telling me about his work with the Highway Patrol, when the door opened and Frank and his mom appeared, arm in arm. Before any adult could get a word in, the boys were rushing toward them, shouting, “Uncle Frank! Uncle Frank!”

“Hello, you little devils,” he said and scooped them up, giving me a wink.

“You winked at her!” they both shouted.

“Yes. You caught me.”

“Wrestle us!” Brian cried.

“Give Uncle Frank a break, boys,” Mike said, but it was too late.

Frank was out on the lawn, the boys rolling and crawling all over him, amid more giggles and squeals. Mike grinned. “Well, Irene, I wish my kids would warm up to him a little.” He stepped off the porch and joined the melee.

“Why don’t you join us on the swing, Mom?” Cassie said.

Mrs. Harriman hesitated, avoiding eye contact with me. “I’ve got a dinner to get ready, Cassie.” And she turned and went inside.

“We’ll help!” Cassie shouted, undaunted. “Come on, Irene,” she said.

Frank’s mom looked between us as we arrived in her kitchen. “What can I do to help, Mrs. Harriman?”

“Please call me Bea.” She paused then added, “I guess you’ve already been a great help to me.”

I didn’t hear any sarcasm in that, so I tried a smile. “I’m not very useful in this condition, but I’m improving in using my left hand. I’d feel better if there was something I could do.”

“Why not let her stir the gravy, Mom?”

“Good idea, Cassie.”

And so it was that the three of us got a chance to know one another better. Cassie was a masterful ambassador between us. Somehow she managed to get Bea and me to relax, to help with dinner, and get the boys cleaned up again when it was time to eat. I figured that as a working mother, she had learned to juggle this many activities long ago.

Frank sat next to me and helped to load up my plate with turkey and all the trimmings. When it came time to give thanks, there was plenty to give.

Brian was surprised to watch Frank cut up my food for me. “Look, Dad! Like you did for me when I was little.”

This was topped a little later by Michael, who in all seriousness asked me, “Irene, what is it you want?”

We all looked at him.

“I’m fine, Michael. I’ve got all I want.” I meant it.

“But Grandma said you were a wantin’ woman.”

Bea was mortified, but Frank started to howl with laughter and was soon joined by everyone but Michael and Brian, who exchanged that look that says adults are nuts.

“Did Grandma get it wrong again?” he asked when he could be heard.

“Not that time, Michael,” Frank answered.

No one would let me help with the cleanup, so I sat outside watching the boys play. Brian had a toy clown that they were punching and flinging around, but the clown had the signs of being well-loved otherwise. Frank came out before long and sat next to me. Brian and Michael wore down and sat next to us. Brian wanted to sit on my lap, and Frank figured out a way for him to do it. “You have to sit very quietly,” Frank said. “Irene has been hurt.”

“How?” Brian asked, poking a hole in the clown’s neck with his finger.

“We’re not supposed to ask that, dummy,” Michael chided.

“I’m not a dummy. Irene, can you take your casts off?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“When you do, can I wear them?”

“They have to saw them off,” Michael said with relish.

Brian’s eyes grew wide. “How do you know?”

“A kid at school broke his arm and he had a cast and we all signed it and they cut it off with a saw.”

“Can we sign your cast, Irene?”

“Sure,” I said.

Frank laughed. “Boys, I wonder why we haven’t thought of it up to now? That’s a great idea. But I have dibs on the ankle cast. You guys can take the arm.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate being divided up by you, Mr. Harriman.”

But the boys were racing inside to ask Grandmother for marking pens. We went inside to a desk, so that my shoulder wouldn’t bear the weight of my arm. The boys went to work eagerly and that is how the cast on my right arm was decorated with stick figures, unidentified swirls, airplanes dropping bombs, and the scrawled names of the artists.

They ran out of available arm cast and were eyeing the leg cast covetously when Cassie and Mike told them it was time to go home. They protested loudly to no avail, and I got a gentle kiss from each of them before they left. “Good-bye, Aunt Irene,” Brian had said, and no one corrected him.

AFTER THEY WERE GONE, the house seemed a little empty. Or a little larger. Frank came over to me and asked me to sit on the swing with him for a while. He held me against him and rocked the swing back and forth.

“We have a decision to make,” he said.

Uh-oh, I thought.

“We either stay here in separate bedrooms or go to a hotel.”

I smiled. “Oh, is that all? Let’s stay here.”

He gave me a wry look. “I’m that easy to give up?”

“Not at all. I’ll miss you terribly. But think of what it will be like when we get back home.”