Bob's Big Break, chapter 1

MT. ZION, OHIO   2015

      I’ve never met Nomi and there she is, plopped at the family table, grey-haired, frowning, solid as a bulldog, in a speckly green dress she could have worn to a wedding. But this is a church luncheon after a funeral. Her daughter’s funeral.

      I grip Dylan’s hand harder.

     The church lady escorting us taps Nomi’s shoulder. “Nomi, here’s Bob, Esther’s husband, and”—the church lady bends over—“what’s your name again, sweetie?”

     “Dylan,” my daughter says. She drops my hand and seats herself in the folding chair across from Nomi at the same time she plucks from her craft bag a handful of plastic strings. Dylan may be nine, but she’s nine with aplomb.

    “Isn’t she precious?” the church lady says to Nomi. “Your grand-daughter!”

     I didn’t see Nomi at the service, she must have sat in back. But I know all about her. Nomi Baloney, No-no Nomi, Nomi of a thousand hateful stories. Nomi who kicked my dead wife out of the house two days after Esther turned sixteen.

     Nomi eyes rest briefly on Dylan before she raises them to me. “Hello, Bob.”

     Years ago Nomi sailed around a corner at the IGA and almost crashed her cart into me and Esther. Esther grabbed my shirt and turned us away. “It’s okay. She didn’t see us.” The two of us were nose-to-nose with plastic bags of rice. Esther was breathing fast. “This is perfect,” Esther said. “Mom hates rice.”

      I glanced down the aisle at Nomi’s broad back. “How can someone hate rice? It has no flavor.”

     “Bob. Slant-eye food.”

     “Jesus.” I see Nomi reaching for a long box of spaghetti. “Pasta’s okay?”    

    “Of course. Dad’s Italian!”

     Now, in the church basement, Esther’s dad Tone Bello struggles to his feet. Getting over a knee replacement, I heard someone whisper during the service. Tone’s third wife, Little Mary, rises beside him. Tone and I shake hands. We know each other a bit. Hellos in passing, the yearly wassail gala at his house. “Nice service,” Tone says. “Helluva thing.” His right eye twitches.

    “It was asthma, Tone.” Trying to keep my voice steady. Hoping to cancel some of the words the preacher used. Brokenness. Battles. Eternal freedom.

     You can patch a girl together

     But you can’t stop the weather

     Wish I was made of pleather

     Why did Esther call herself girl? She was eight years older than me and she didn’t call me boy. But there were things I couldn’t ask her. “Why pleather?” I said.

     “It’s plastic! Indestructible.”

     “I know everything, Bob,” Tone says now. “You should sue those bastards.”

     As if suing could bring Esther back. I want to close my eyes and wake up anywhere but here. A cave, the dock of a ship, a rocket headed to the moon. Get mixed up with a lawsuit and for weeks, months, years I’ll be reliving Esther’s death. I have a daughter. We have a life to lead, a better life.

     Bob, don’t think that. A different life.

     Tone’s third wife Little Mary reaches across the table and grabs my good hand, her fingers soft and warm as a declawed cat paw. “Thanks, Little Mary,” I say. Little Mary’s no longer little, but she still has that sweet face. I’ve known her as long as I remember. Before she quit to marry Tone, years before Dylan was born, Little Mary was the helper in the daycare where Mom worked.

    Only five of us at the family table. My mother is dead, gone of a bowel infection. Bad bowels after a good heart surgery, how does that happen? Dylan had just started kindergarten. My father then was three years gone.  A storm, a drive to check on his great-uncle, a falling tree. “Out of the blue, bam,” Mom always said. “He didn’t suffer.”

    I sit across from Tone, technically my father-in-law, although I don’t even know if he’s right or left-handed. The church ladies serve our food family-style. “These gals can sure fry chicken,” Tone says, spearing three pieces for his plate. Little Mary meets my eye and smiles. She and I pick at our plates as Nomi keeps her gaze on Dylan looping and weaving her plastic cords. “Way I see it, Bob,” Nomi says, eyes not turning my direction, “you’ll be married in a year. Every single gal around’ll bring you meals.”

     “I don’t want another wife.”

     Little Mary stops eating.

     Nomi turns her gaze to me. “That’s the good thing about her being older. You even thirty yet?”

     “Yeah, thirty. Exactly.”

     “You still living in your folks’ old place?” I nod, wondering how Nomi knows this. Nomi says, “I got plenty of room in my house, if it comes to that.”

     What is she talking about? I have a job. I have money.

     Nomi shakes her head. “Never thought I’d lose my only child.”

     You lost her years ago, I think.

     “For crying out loud, Nomi,” Tone says, “let Bob eat in peace.”

     Nomi makes a growling sound. On the other side of Tone, Little Mary closes her eyes. In a moment, everyone but Dylan is eating. She’s still busy with her strings.

     “Business going okay?” I ask Tone. Stupid question. Tone nods and waves a drumstick. He’s built half the new houses in Mt. Zion.

     “Dylan?” Nomi says. No response. Nomi raps her knuckles on the table. “Dylan, you probably don’t remember me, but I bet you know my house. Big brick place across from the Fairy Castle. Your mom used to bring you there when you were just a toddler.”

     Nomi saw Dylan? My wife took our daughter to Nomi’s house? Esther talked as if her mother lived continents away. I had no idea Esther visited her.

     So many things I learned too late about Esther. Dear God, if you are up there, please please please don’t tell me more.

     “Cute as a button,” Nomi says. “Last time I saw you, you had on a blue t-shirt with raccoons.”

     I got that shirt for Dylan. The color matched her and Esther’s eyes. A beautiful grayish blue, the color of Mom and Dad’s old bathroom sink. “I do miss that pretty sink,” Mom said to Esther when they met, “but now I have it in your eyes.”

     Dylan lifts her head. “I like animals.”

     “I like animals, too,” Nomi says. “I grew up on a farm. Whatcha making?”

     “A lanyard.” Dylan holds up the length of knotted cord. Dylan has Esther’s looks, sable hair, full lips, those eyes. Every year her beauty scares me more.

     Nomi reaches across the table and wiggles her thick fingers. Dylan passes the lanyard to her. It’s probably ten inches long, almost finished. “Pretty simple knot.” Nomi hands the lanyard back. “You make a lot of these?” Dylan nods. “What do you do with them?”

     Dylan shrugs. They’re all over our house. On tables, in drawers, under sofa cushions.

    “Plastic,” Nomi scoffs. “Ever string them into a vest? Be kind of scratchy.” Dylan giggles. Pleather, I think. “You sit there doing things,” Nomi says, “might as well do something useful.” She points at a furry pink triangle draped around Little Mary’s neck. “See that? I’m a knitter.”

     Little Mary nods and smiles. “Birthday present.”

     Dylan bites her lips together, eyes wide.

     “I make scarves, socks, sweaters. Some people knit little animals. Itty-bitty toad, maybe? Baby owl?”

     “What about a possum?” Dylan keeps a life-list of mammals.

     “I never thought of knitting a possum, but sure. I can make up a pattern if you need it.”

     Dylan breaks into a grin. So does Nomi. My God. Happy as a dog with two tails. My father’s line when I married Esther, the day she and I lay on the roof of my parents’ garage bellowing out Living on a Prayer.

     A month later I find out my money’s gone. Two months later I sell my parents’ house and Dylan and I, carload by carload, move ourselves in with Nomi. I’m an only child with one dead wife and two dead parents. My childhood friends pretend that they don’t know me. How can I deny my daughter knitting?