A FAMILY VACATION by Anne Whitehouse (best novels in english txt) 📕

it wasn't yet ready to come out. I was always afraid of pulling out a loose tooth. I liked it to get so loose that it seemed it was hanging by a single thread, so loose that it would just fall out by itself if I moved it with my tongue. There was less blood this way, and less pain. It made me afraid, but all the same I couldn't help nudging it, pressing it, feeling its give with uncertainty, discomfort, and fascination.
Outside, by myself, I could almost believe that the evening before was a bad dream. I tried to put my parents out of my mind. I'd rather be worried by my tooth, by thoughts of Margie, by anything. It was her mother's attitude Margie was adopting, her mother she was obeying. I tried to imagine the conversation between Margie and her mother, when she had been forbidden to speak to me, but I had never seen this woman who was so distressed by my being Jewish, and did not know how to picture her, or what she said.
"I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me:" in Sunday School I had won a prize for being the first to learn and recite the Ten Commandments. I had rattled them off before the teacher and the assembled class and received a glitter paint set with pictures of heroes and heroines. Memorization came easy to me, and I wondered about what I had memorized. The part about "visiting the iniquity" troubled me. It was in reference to worshipping God and keeping His commandments, but it was possible to worship wrongly and not to know it. It was possible to live wrongly and not to know it. It had seemed unfair that the children should be afflicted. Would Margie have to suffer for the sins of her parents? Would I have to suffer for the sins of mine?
That morning I took refuge in anonymity. No one knew that it was my parents who had disgraced themselves the evening before. As a treat for the last day, the counselors brought in the monkeys and let us feed them peanuts. I was entranced by their swift hands, by the way they ate the peanuts, shells and all. This day I would have stayed, but lunchtime came and we were delivered back to our families. Our parents, Shelley and Rachel and I discovered, had been making plans.
My father wanted to play golf the next day and have a cookout for dinner, a real one with thick juicy steaks on the charcoal grill. "I haven't played golf yet," my father said, in advance of any censure, "and I understand there's a fine course." He already looked aggrieved.
My mother did, too. She knew how to be a martyr. "We go on vacation, and you leave me with the children. Well, make sure you're back in time to start the grill."
"I'll be back at four," my father promised.
We played jacks on the deck that Saturday morning while my mother remained in bed. We saw our father go. He drove off in the car, we said, "Goodbye," and went back to our game. After awhile we got restless and played, "Red light, Green light" on the stretch of ground in front of the cottage. I turned my back and covered my eyes: "Green light, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, Red light." I whirled around. "Gotcha, Rachel, gotcha. You have to go back. I saw you move."
Rachel protested, but went back. After three tries, I caught Shelley, and she was It. "Green light, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, Red light. I saw you! I saw you," she shouted at me.
Our mother came out on the deck, in her housecoat. "Must you make so much noise?"
"We're playing a game," said Shelley.
"You left a mess in the kitchen. Come and clean it up right now, and make your beds."
"Oh, Mom," we trudged in the house, objecting. This routine was familiar to us all. She did not want to walk anywhere, and we had no car, so we stayed around the house all day, playing every game we knew of, until we had exhausted them all. We had hot dogs for lunch. My mother put the steaks out to defrost and sprinkled them with seasoned salt and powdered garlic. We were excited about the cookout. We were going to bake potatoes inside the oven and have instant rolls and a salad. There were four steaks. My sisters and I talked about how much we'd eat.
At four o'clock we were waiting for my father, but he did not arrive. Four-thirty went by, and five. Then five-thirty. "I don't know where your father is. I guess he doesn't care if we starve." At six o'clock we begged her to start the grill, but she refused. "It takes a long time for the charcoal to burn down. Let's just start without him. We're hungry," I pleaded. We were out on the deck, looking at the lowering light through the pine trees and behind the other cottages, and at the sack of charcoal next to us, and the cold, empty grill.
"Tell that to your father then when he comes home. If he comes home." Abruptly she went into the house and slammed the door. We heard her pacing inside, muttering, slamming things down on counters. I looked at the charcoal and at my sisters. "I'm not allowed to use fire," I said. "She'd get mad at me if I tried to start it."
I was simply stating aloud what we already knew. "I wonder where he is," Shelley said. Our worry began to grow and consume us. By seven o'clock, my mother's rage had hardened. She was implacable.
"I'm starving. Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" Rachel's voice was a whine; she looked about to cry.
My mother eyed her narrowly. "I don't care what you have. But it won't be steak."
It seemed like we were being punished for our father's transgressions. We could tell our mother was ready to go on a rampage, and though we felt anxious and reproachful towards our father, and worried about him, we were afraid now of what would happen when he finally did come home.
"Do you want a sandwich, too?" Rachel asked me.
"Okay," I said. "I might as well."
"I'll eat one," said Shelley. "Mom, do you want one, too?"
She did not answer, but left the kitchen, slamming the door to the deck between us again. We made our sandwiches and ate them, and hardly said a word. We listened for cars outside, but none stopped; none carried our father. The deck light was on. It was after eight o'clock and nearly dark when headlights shone on the cottage, and our car pulled up, and stopped. Its lights went off.
Before he was out of the car, she had started. "Son of a bitch, son of a bitch! Where the hell have you been?"
He stood in the door of the car, his golf clubs over his shoulder. On his face was the furtive, guilty look I knew so well.
"Where were you, Daddy?" said Rachel, and started to cry.
"We waited for you," said Shelley.
He looked from my mother to us. "I was playing golf," he said. "Eighteen holes. It took longer than I thought. I assumed you'd start without me." He shut the door and began to walk to the cottage. We can cook indoors then if it's too late for outside."
"Bitch! Bastard! Your children are hungry, and you can just fucking blame yourself! Fuck, shit, screw! Asshole!" She spat those words out at him, as he approached the circle of deck light around us. His face went white, then red, as her screaming filled the air. For a moment I thought he'd say nothing, like he often did, but in the light I saw the color of his face deepened until it was like the raw meat lying inside on the kitchen counter. His nostrils flared.
"God damn it," he said. "God damn it, I can play golf when I damn well please."
"No, you can't. No, you fucking can't."
It seemed that sparks were about to fly out of his nose. His language was not as offensive as hers, but his voice was louder. He was about to explode. I took my sisters by the hand and brought them inside. I did not want them or me to have to see any more. I climbed the ladder to the loft and lay huddled on one of the beds. Shelley and Rachel crouched together on the sofa. Outside, they were still screaming at each other.
Our mother came in once, choking with rage, the tears streaming down her face, and grabbed the platter of steaks. "I'll show you what I'll do with these steaks! I'll show you what I'll do with them!" and she disappeared, but left the door open behind her.
There was a sound of protest, then more screaming. "You bitch!" It was my father. Shelley had crept behind the door to watch, and then climbed the loft ladder up to me. "You won't believe this," she said. "She just threw the steaks in the dirt. I was hoping we'd still eat them." Rachel was whimpering below at the foot of the ladder. "I'll help her come up," Shelley said.
Shelley went down and talked to Rachel; and they climbed up, Rachel first and Shelley right behind, encouraging her. I waited at the landing and pulled Rachel up.
"Hey, it's kind of neat up here," said Rachel, looking around.
"It's not so hard to get up, is it," said Shelley, "when you try."
"Sleep up here tonight," I said, "you better."
"Okay," said Rachel, and broke into a flood of tears. Shelley walked listlessly down the narrow aisle between the beds and looked down into the empty living room, scattered with our things. I sat on the edge of my bed, disconsolate.
I felt sick for my sisters and me. Outside, I knew, our parents were still fighting, and I felt powerless to stop it, helpless in the pain of it.
I thought to myself, I have to make them stop, I have to. If I can only make them stop. I felt a kind of panic to come up with something, I racked my brains, and then an idea occurred to me. It was my only recourse.
Rachel's crying was more muffled, but had not ceased. Shelley stood with her back turned to us. Without a word to either one of