Page 18 of Twice
“With us?”
“Of course, with us.”
I pictured this strange woman sharing his bed. Sharing his bathroom. Eating from our plates. I put down the cheeseburger and sat there tearing up, feeling like a wrecking ball had just knocked me clear out of my life.
“Dad?” I finally said.
“Yeah?”
“Is she going to take down the pictures of Mom?”
“Of course, not, Alfie. She’s not like that.”
But she was. Adeline and my father got married at a courthouse with three witnesses—her older sister, my dad’s friend Larry, and me. An hour later, my new stepmother pulled her 1972 Chevy Impala into our driveway. She adjusted her big sunglasses as my father lugged in three orange Samsonite bags. It was mid-March, and there was still snow on our porch.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Alfred,” she said.
“Everyone calls me Alfie.”
“But your given name is Alfred, right? That’s what your father told me.”
I felt a burn of betrayal. My father was giving up family secrets before the woman even ruffled a couch pillow.
“Anyhow, Alfie is a name for a little boy,” she said. “You’re hardly a little boy anymore. You’re almost six feet tall.”
“Six foot and a half inch.”
She blinked, as if not used to being corrected.
“Six foot and a half inch then,” she repeated. “Alfred.”
We ate our first meal together that night in the kitchen. She made salmon croquettes, which I hated. The next day she packed me a lunch for school, tuna salad, which I also hated. That weekend my father insisted we all go for a drive, and she told him three times in less than an hour, “Slow down, Lawrence, you’re going to cause an accident.”
The following week, while I was down in the basement playing piano, the door opened and I heard her yell, “That’s enough banging now, Alfred. It’s after eight!”
Four months later, I came home to find new furniture in our living room. An egg-shaped chair, an alabaster couch with lime stripes, and a matching ottoman. Missing was our old end table, the one that held my mother’s framed photograph.
And the photograph itself.
“Where’s her picture?” I yelled.
“What picture?”
“My mother’s!”
“Oh. It’s in the closet for now, with some other things. We’ll find a new place for it.”
“Which closet?”
“Does it matter?”
“Tell me which closet!”
“In the hallway.” She tried to change the subject. “How do you like our new furniture, Alfred? You haven’t said anything.”
“It’s ugly.”
Her neck actually moved backward an inch. “That was rude.”
