Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“What’s going on?” Helena’s standing in the doorway in a brown silk shirt, her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Didn’t you take the lamb out of the oven?”

And so there’s roasted lamb with peas and baked potatoes. The tasty-looking orange salad sprinkled with chopped parsley. Thomas sits between Maloney and Helena, opposite Patricia. Maloney gorges himself. The lamb is tender and seasoned with garlic, the potatoes oozing melted butter. Everyone praises the meal and Helena. “Don’t think we eat like this way everyday,” Nina says, her mouth stuffed.

“Nah,” Maya mumbles. “We almost never eat meat.”

“But you’ve got so many animals in the freezer?” Patricia sits up straight. “Don’t you eat them?”

“We do,” Kristin says. “But we try to be as vegetarian as possible. As healthy as possible. But it’s not true that we never eat meat, Maya.”

“Almost never, I said.” Maya squashes her potato in the sauce. “That’s why we’re not growing.”

“Maya! Of course you’re growing.” Helena looks at the girls, both startled and cheerful at once. “You’ve grown a couple inches this past year alone. What do you mean you’re not growing?”

Maya doesn’t reply. She lowers her head and shovels mashed potato into her mouth.

“So,” Kristin says. “What do you want to do tomorrow? You’re staying till the afternoon, right?”

Luke and Alice are going fishing. “I don’t have any special plans,” Jenny says solemnly. “If the weather holds, maybe I’ll lie in the sun and read a magazine.”

“Be careful with the deck chairs,” Patricia says. “They can be dangerous.”

“The weather will be fine,” Kristin says, tasting her wine. “But there’s supposed to be rain and wind tonight. And thunder.”

“That means the electricity will go out just like last time.” Maya looks at her mother, defiant. Helena shakes her head. “That’s not always the case, dear. Why are you always so negative?”

“That’s how kids are at that age. Alice was dreadful. Wouldn’t you agree, Alice? You were dreadful !”

“I wasn’t any more dreadful than anyone else. Like you!” Alice points at Jenny and smiles. “We were probably both dreadful.”

“Kristin can also be really dreadful,” Nina says.

“She can be dreadfully dreadful!” Maya snorts sarcastically.

Sitting between Maloney and the gentle Helena, Thomas feels good, he feels comfortable. He scans the faces at the table. There’s color in everyone’s cheeks thanks to the hot food. Seeing his family makes him happy. He’s glad Maloney’s part of the family now. Even for Luke he feels a kind of affection. He’s just a boy, after all. The light strikes his thick, reddish-brown hair, making it shine like copper. Luke looks attentively at Patricia. She’s telling him something, gesticulating gracefully with one hand. It’s okay, Thomas thinks. It’s okay that they’re talking. She sat on my lap a short time ago. She likes it here. And like a swarm of butterflies, or a hot spiral of steam, a wave of tenderness fills Thomas. And so he clinks his glass and gets to his feet. “Dear Kristin and Helena,” he begins.

“Us too!” Maya shouts.

“Yes, and you two. Thank you for inviting all of us dreadful people to your house, and for several days at that.” Helena laughs. “We’re so happy to be here. I was just sitting here thinking that I really do have a family. This makes me very happy. To belong somewhere. I believe we’d all agree that we’re very happy to belong here with you.” Jenny wipes her eyes and loudly blows her nose. “And though I was a little shocked to see Maloney here and together with my sister, well, I couldn’t ask for anything better than having my best friend also belong here. So, a toast for Jenny and Maloney!” Everyone raises their glasses, and the girls refuse to sit until they’ve clinked glasses with everyone. It takes a long time. But finally they’re seated again. Maloney calls out: “Thank you for your confidence, father-in-law!” Everyone laughs; tears roll down Jenny’s cheeks. With a quivering lower lip she says, “I can’t handle all the emotion,” and Thomas clears his throat. The wine’s suddenly making him feel dizzy. “And Alice: You’re our hope for the future. Remember that.” He raises his glass to her and winks privately. Nina shouts: “We’re also your hope!” “Yes, also you two,” Alice says, tugging one of the girl’s many braids, “you two are our very greatest hope.” “That’s right,” Thomas says, sitting. Helena refills his glass and whispers, “Thank you, dear Thomas. That was a fine little speech.” The conversations continue, cheerful, scattershot; the dirty plates are carried into the kitchen, and Jenny gets more and more tipsy and affectionate, with blotches of red wine forming on her lower lip, blue and dry. From time to time she sniffles, dabbing at her eyes. To the girls’ giddy delight, Alice braids Luke’s hair. The twins serve the fruit salad that they made themselves. Maloney makes coffee. “The coffee baron strikes again!” Kristin shouts enthusiastically. Jupiter’s in his basket, still ashamed. But Helena goes to him, discreetly, and squats down to give him a morsel and a loving pat. This seems to cheer up the old boy considerably.

Everyone’s more willing to help clean up tonight. They work at a good clip, and they have fun doing it. The girls chase each other with the dishrags and Jenny regresses to her childhood, kicking off her pumps and chasing Thomas around the kitchen, into the living room, and finally into the sunroom where she smacks him on the back with a towel, so that it stings. “Revenge!” she squeals. “After all these years! You tormented me.” They have to let the dog out because it doesn’t like the commotion. Now it stands outside barking. “If you want to see our stars, then you should do it now,” Kristin says, “the weather’s going to turn cloudy and windy.” Patricia wants to come with Thomas. She’s flushed and in high-spirits. “They must’ve put something in the wine,” she says. “I feel like I’m on drugs, like I’m high ! I’m high.” Jupiter leaps on them one at a time, tearing a hole in Patricia’s tights. But she doesn’t care. She showers the dog with caresses, until it lies down on the flagstones. Thomas lights a cigarette. To adjust their eyes to the darkness, they step away from the house. “It takes ten minutes before our night vision kicks in,” Thomas says. “I read that somewhere. Want to go down to the lake?” They step cautiously so they don’t trip. After some time they find the path, and at last they can see more than just contours. The lake is shiny, black. The slender moon throws light on the water, but not much. They look into the sky. At the sea of stars. The longer they stare, the more stars they see. “Look,” Patricia says. “There are layers of stars. A shroud of stars. As if the more you look, the deeper into eternity you see.” Eternity makes them dizzy. It’s so overwhelming, so frightening, and so magnetically alluring all at once. They have to turn away. Patricia whispers, “We’ll die someday, Thomas. That’s what you see when you look up there.” They walk farther on, along the bank of the lake, where the path isn’t a path but trampled-down grass that, every now and then, isn’t trampled down. Their legs are wet, the dew has long since settled in. At last they can go no farther, the path is blocked by blackberry and willow scrub. The rushes shiver. They turn around and walk back a ways, then sit on a boulder. Thomas recognizes a few constellations, but not many. Patricia’s especially fascinated by Orion’s Belt. The three clear, well-lit stars are lined up straight. “You know that some people call them the Three Kings? While others call them the Three Marys? It’s a mythical constellation.” Thomas didn’t know that. But he does remember an episode of Star Trek , in which Captain Kirk tells Edith Keeler that a famous poet wants to write a poem with three letters, each of which symbolizes a star in Orion’s Belt: “Let/me/help.” Or at least that’s how he remembers it.