My Mother Is Now Earth

20. Eyes in the Sun

I always make sure I am the first one up to help Germaine in the kitchen. Sometimes, like this morning, I even get up before she does. I pull out the iron frying pan from inside the oven and place it on the stove burner. I make sure there’s plenty of matches, and I make sure the spatula is clean. I open the refrigerator to see that we’re out of eggs. I grab the ice cream bucket and head out to the chicken coop. Frankie and Germaine got on the Greyhound bus together the day after my mother died of a heart attack during her operation. My father says she had a lot of internal bleeding. He called Irene Cloutier from the Littlefork hospital that morning and told her my mother’s heart just gave out. The doctor and nurses couldn’t do anything for her. They couldn’t bring her back. She was fortysix years old. Frankie would have driven up in his convertible, but he told my father it never would have made it to Duluth. Frankie plans on staying with us for a few more days after the funeral. He would like to paint the kitchen a nice yellow color. He says when the aunts arrive, he’s going to ask if they have enough room in their car for Germaine. She has to get back to her job at the shoe store in Milwaukee. f20g Eyes in the Sun 184 Eyes in the Sun 185 I wish Germaine would stay as long as Frankie. We like the food she cooks. I didn’t think I would like Germaine’s tuna hotdish with melted cheese because I never had it before. My mother never made tuna hotdish. She was like me. We hated the taste of fish. Once I get outside and see the bus roaring down the dirt road, I realize that I had almost forgotten about school. The bus doesn’t stop, hasn’t stopped since the day after my mother’s operation. We’re down to just a handful of chickens now. The rooster and most of the hens were butchered last winter. I wish that rooster would have lived longer. I’m sure I wouldn’t hesitate in clobbering him with my bucket. Sure of it. When I get back with the eggs, Germaine is pacing around the kitchen, brushing her light brown hair. She’s wearing her highheeled boots and short leather jacket because she can’t take the cold mornings. She smiles and asks me why I didn’t wake her up sooner. She says she’s embarrassed by sleeping in. I don’t think Germaine has ever been this far away from the city. She stands back with her hand in front of her face while I light the stove for her. She really thinks if she tried lighting it, the whole house would explode. I stand next to her at the stove and watch her flip the eggs. I ask her if she likes the ring that Frankie bought her. She turns her hand and looks at it. “It’s a pretty small rock,” she says, laughing. “You’re brother’s such a cheapskate.” “I wish we could go to your wedding,” I say. “Ah, there’s so many of you guys,” she says. “I don’t know where you would all sleep. Frankie was going to get your mother a motel room because he didn’t want her staying in his apartment alone.” Suddenly it gets silent like it sometimes does since my mother’s death. Sometimes in the middle of playing football, my brothers 186 1973 and I will stop bragging or even fighting over the score. We keep playing, but we don’t say a word. We heard that silence last night while passing around the photographs that Germaine took of us making faces at the camera, laughing and shoving each other. But it goes away when Germaine switches the subject, when she asks us if she can cut our hair, if we would like to go shopping for some new clothes. The silence goes away because Germaine doesn’t say how much she misses my mother. She doesn’t tell us that she wishes my mother would have lived long enough to see Frankie get married. “Will you show me where the Laundromat is today?” she asks when I hold out...