Page 71 of Winter in Paradise
“He jumped out of the car, actually,” Baker says. “We had an argument. I wasn’t very nice. I was upset… he knew Anna and Floyd were coming and he didn’t tell me.”
“He didn’t tell me, either,” Irene says. “I had no idea who Anna was when I saw her. I introduced myself to her. She was so out of context and I haven’t laid eyes on her for so long…”
“Three years,” Baker says. Anna hasn’t been back to Iowa City since just after Floyd’s first birthday. “Listen, Mom, Anna and I are getting a divorce.”
“She told me,” Irene says. “She’s fallen in love with a person named Louisa.”
Baker’s eyebrows shoot up. “She told you that?”
“She did.”
Well, yes, Baker thinks, she should have. It was Anna’s news. The dismantling of their family was Anna’s doing. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re disappointed.”
“Hard to register any kind of feeling about Anna, I’m afraid,” Irene says. “She’s always been a mystery.”
“You should probably also know… if he hasn’t told you already… that Cash lost the stores. They went belly-up.”
Irene gives Baker a sharp glance. “He hasn’t told me, no. I figured as much, but it’s Cash’s responsibility to tell me, not yours.”
“Right,” Baker says. He knows his mother favors Cash, or feels more protective of him than she does of Baker. “None of my business, sorry. So listen, Mom, a gentleman just stopped by…”
“Gentleman?” Irene says. “Was he older, with a reddish beard?”
“Huh?” Baker says. His mother is on her feet now, at the front window, searching. “No, it was a West Indian gentleman. Paulette’s husband, Douglas. He brought Dad’s ashes.”
“Dad’s ashes?” Irene says. “Where are they?”
“Downstairs,” Baker says.
They get to the kitchen just as Cash stumbles through the door. Baker can smell him from across the room—tequila.
He opens the refrigerator door. “Any barbecue left?”
“Plenty,” Baker says. He’s relieved that Cash seems to be either numbed or neutralized by alcohol and that there will be no rehashing of their earlier argument.
As Cash pulls the various to-go containers out of the fridge, Irene cuts open the cardboard box.
“Actually, Cash, you may want to wait on eating,” Baker says.
“Fuck you,” Cash says. “I’m starving.”
“How’d you get home?” Baker asks.
“That tall chick that works at La Tapa picked me up outside Mongoose Junction,” Cash says. “Tilda, her name is.”
“Yeah, I know who you mean,” Baker says.
“I guess she has the hots for Skip, the bartender,” Cash says. “Funny, we’ve been here less than a week and we know everyone else’s personal drama…”
There’s a sound.
It’s Irene, wailing in hoarse, ragged sobs. She’s holding a heavy-duty Ziploc bag that contains white and pale-gray chunks. Without warning, she collapses on the kitchen floor.
For an instant, both Baker and Cash stare. They are grown men and they have never seen their mother act like this. Baker, although not surprised—he’s been wondering if his mother would break, if she would finally act like a woman who has tragically lost her husband instead of a woman moving around in an extended state of shock—doesn’t know what to do. Cash is holding the take-out containers of food and a bottle of water, seemingly paralyzed.
Cash is better at dealing with their mother. Do something! Baker thinks.
Cash sets the food down and approaches Irene cautiously, as if she’s a ticking bomb or a rabid dog.
