Rabbit Remembered

"Mom, she's my sister. Listen. If she can't be a guest in this household, maybe the time has come for me to move out. Pru always said I should anyway, for my self-respect."

"She did? Pru said that?" Janice had imagined that she and her daughter-in-law had shared the house pretty well, all those years after Harry died and they agreed to sell the Penn Park house Harry had loved. She had been off most of the day doing real estate, and Teresa had had to be home with the children and naturally had cooked the meals and did housework and some light outdoor work. It was only right, instead of paying rent. After Ronnie came into the household, it was never so easy. There were currents. Ronnie had his own ideas about how things should be done, in the kitchen and everywhere else. The way Thelma had always taken care of him, he was particular. Thelma spoiled men: it was a kind of malice, and lasted after her.

Poor Nelson. He has this bee in his bonnet-doing something for this girl nobody knows. It clutches at Janice's heart, to think that he always wanted more of a family than they could give him-a bigger, happier one. He had loved her parents because from them descended this sense he craved of a clan operating in the world, this big stucco house a fort of sorts. The boy had wanted her and Harry's happiness so. When they quarrelled even without much meaning it his little face would go white with worry like a bubble trying not to burst. And all this healing he still wants for everybody, it makes her heart gripe to think of how they must have hurt him.

"I don't know, Nelson." Janice yields. "Maybe at Thanksgiving. She'd get lost in the crowd."

"Mom, that's forever away."

"Close enough for us to get used to the idea. I'll have to approach Ronnie. I know he'll be dead set against it."

But when, that night or the next, in their bedroom, she describes to her husband Nelson's silly sad desire, and puts forth her Thanksgiving suggestion expecting it to be knocked aside, Ronnie says, his voice dragged into a more youthful, thuggish register, "Well, I guess it wouldn't kill us. I'd be interested to see how Ruth Leonard's daughter turned out."

He pronounces her name, which Janice always has trouble remembering, so easily; it brings home to her that Ronnie and this slut had been lovers, some weekend down at the Jersey Shore, back before Harry got to know her himself, which had always galled him, though Janice could never see that he had the right to mind. But Harry had been like that: he thought he had a lot of rights, just by being his wonderful self.

Chapter 3

From: Roy Angstrom [royson@buckeyemedia.com]Sent: Friday, October 22, 1999 8:04 PMTo: nelsang.harrison@qwikbrew.comSubject: Happy birthday jokes

Dad have a great party with whoever!!! Heres an oldie but new to me and it struck me as pretty droll. President Clinton was visiting Oklahoma City after the may 3rd tornado and a man whose house was demolished put up a sign: HEY BILL HOWS THIS FOR A BLOW JOB? The Secret Service made the man take it away. I guess this is a true story what do you think?

Nelson, sitting in the little upstairs front room staring at the computer screen, shifts in his swivel chair, pained. If this is the only way his son can communicate, it's better than nothing, but he wonders how much the kid knows about blow jobs. Though after this Lewinsky business even kindergarten kids know about it, it's right at the top of the news hour. Pru used to do it to him at first, especially before they got married, but as the marriage went on did it less and less, even when both were high on something or when he went down on her, her fuzzy little redhead's pussy, skimpy compared to, say, curly-haired Melanie's. One such time he got into position for her to reciprocate and she confessed outright that she hated the smell. What smell? he had said, feeling himself beginning to wilt. I wash.

You can't help it, she had said. It's a smell that won't wash off. It's kind of acidy. Anyway, I'm afraid you'll come in my mouth.

Why, honey? Why are you afraid? That's so nice, once in a while For you it is.

You used to like it.

I don't remember that. I just said it because I knew you wanted me to.

You lied to me?

People can get AIDS, you know, that way.

Well my God. If I have AIDS you'll get it anyway. How could I have AIDS? I haven't been with anybody but you for ages.

So you say. What about those coke whores, before you got clean?