Just One of the Guys. Kristan Higgins
do!” shriek Claire, Anne, Livvy and Sophie.
“Who wants to be the hurt bunny?”
“Me! Me!”
I get down on the floor and begin snarling. “Grr! Oh, man, it’s been a hard winter, and I’m so, so hungry! Oh, look! A poor wounded bunny rabbit!” The girls scream with joy and try to crawl away, dragging their legs behind them. I pounce, drag and chew, their screams of joy piercing the air.
“So how’s everything else with my little girl?” my father asks as I gnaw on his grandchildren. His black hair, heavily laced with silver, is mussed. “Did you start work yet?”
“Just the meet and greet. Grr! Gotcha! Delicious! And you’re the only man on earth who refers to me as little,” I answer. “I’m starting Monday, actually.”
“Can’t wait to see your byline.” He winks.
“Hey, Chastity.” I turn to see Trevor leaning in the doorway, smiling, and my knees tingle shamefully.
“How are you, Trev?” I ask briskly.
“Great. How are you?” He smiles in conspiratorial knowledge—ah, yes, the Scorpion Bowls—and my stomach tugs in embarrassment.
“So what’s new at the firehouse these days, guys?” I ask both my dad and Trevor, while still chewing on Claire’s chubby little foot.
“Oh, the usual,” Dad answers. “Fifty pounds of shit—”
“In a five-pound bag,” Trevor finishes amiably.
“Porkchop,” Dad says, “what’s this about you wanting a boyfriend?”
My jaw clenches, but I’m saved by my niece, who crashes into my father’s knees. “Grampa, can you eat us again?” Sophie begs. “Can you pretend to be asleep, and then we’ll play with your hair and then you can open your eyes and say you’re hungry for children and pretend to eat us? Please? Please?”
“Not now, honey. Grampa wants to eat real food.”
“Should have stopped somewhere first, Dad,” Jack calls. I wave to him.
“I won’t have you kids insulting your mother’s cooking. It’s perfectly wonderful,” Dad states loudly. “Of course, I stopped at McDonald’s, so…” he adds much more quietly.
Trevor wanders off to get a beer, so I am saved further humiliation as my father picks up the thread of our earlier conversation. “Anyway, Chastity, why do you want to start dating? Don’t you know what schmucks men are?”
I finish chewing on Graham, who’s the most recent wounded bunny, and stand up. “You need to get over that weird Irish idea that it’s my destiny to wipe the drool off your chin, Dad. And, yes, of course I know what schmucks men are. Look around! You gave me four brothers.”
He smiles proudly.
“I’m a normal person, Dad,” I say with a sigh. “Of course I want to get married and have some kids. Don’t you want more grandchildren?”
“I have too many grandchildren already,” he answers. “I think I may have to start eating more!” With that, he pounces on Dylan, who bursts into tears.
“Dad! Come on! I told you he doesn’t like that!” Mark yells, scooping his son into his arms. “Don’t cry, buddy. Grampa was just being an idiot.”
He pushes past Elaina without so much as a glance. She hisses at his back, then cuts her eyes to me. “Come over later. I’m so fricking mad I could spit acid.”
“Sounds like fun,” I answer. “Eight o’clock?”
“Dinner!” Mom barks.
We file into the dining room—Mom, Dad, Jack, Sarah, Lucky, Tara, Elaina, Matt, Trevor and me jammed around the table. Mark, in order to avoid Elaina, announces with great martyrish resignation that he’ll eat in the kitchen and supervise the kids.
Mom leans over and snatches the cover off the platter, unveiling her creation. Calling it dinner would be inaccurate and somehow cruel.
Jack stares at it despondently. “That pot roast will come out of me the same way it goes in,” he announces. “Stringy, gray and tough. And with a great deal of effort.”
“John Michael O’Neill! Shame on you!” Mom sputters as the rest of us try unsuccessfully to hide our laughter.
“Thanks for sharing, Jack,” Sarah says with resigned amusement.
“That was really gross, buddy,” Lucky says. “True, but gross. If it comes out, that is. Last time we ate here, I was bound up for a week. Lamb stew that made my legs hurt. I think I actually bled when—”
“Luke!” Mom barks. Lucky ducks just in time to miss her halfhearted slap.
While I understand that Irish cuisine is very popular right now, Mom’s Irish cooking is more in the potato-famine style. Large hunk of poor quality beef—boil it. Huge pot of grayish potatoes, bought in twenty pounds sacks and stored indefinitely in the cellar—boil them. Carrots? Boil. Turnips? Boil. Green beans. Boil. Gravy? Burn.
“Mmm,” I say brightly. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Kiss-ass,” Matt mumbles next to me.
“Bite me,” I mumble back.
We pretend to eat, shoving food around furtively, occasionally risking a bite of something when we can’t avoid it. I try slipping some meat to Buttercup, who just stares at me dolefully from her pink-rimmed eyes, then lets her head flop back on the floor with a hopeless thump. From the kitchen, we can hear Mark refereeing the kids. “Dylan, stop throwing, buddy. Annie, that’s not cute, hon. Put it back in your mouth. I know, but Grandma made it. Here, Graham, I’ll hold that for you.” He’s trying very hard to sound saintlike. Elaina pretends not to notice. I can’t really blame her.
“Well, this is as good a time as any,” Mom says, putting her fork down. “Listen up, people. I’ve decided to start dating.”
The rest of us freeze, then, as one, look at Dad—except for Elaina, who continues to cut her green beans into tiny molecules that she doesn’t eat.
“What are you talking about?” Dad asks.
My parents got divorced about a year ago. It wasn’t traumatic or angry—more like a game they play with each other. While Dad now has an apartment downtown, things have remained pretty much the same. If the furnace goes out, Mom calls Dad. If the car needs fixing, Mom calls Dad. They eat together a couple of times a week, go to all the grandkid events together, and I’m guessing they still sleep together, though this is not something on which I wish to dwell.
“Dating, Mike. We’re divorced, remember? For a year now. As I said to you on eighteen thousand occasions, I want certain things. Since you have refused to give them to me, I’m moving on.”
So begins their traditional argument. “More wine, any-one?” I ask.
“Yes, please,” comes the chorus.
My parents love each other, but it doesn’t seem like they can live happily together. It’s not easy to be a firefighter’s wife. Every time Dad was late coming home, Mom would slap on the TV and sit, grim-faced, in front of the local channel, waiting to hear news of a fire. And if there was a fire, she’d twist her wedding ring and snap at us kids until Dad came home, sooty and tired and buzzed on adrenaline.
In addition to the terror of losing one’s spouse to a horrible death, there’s the reality of being married to a firefighter. Sure, it’s a heroic job. Yes, the spouses are so proud. You bet, those guys are great. But how many Christmases and Thanksgivings and games and school recitals and concerts and lessons and swim meets and dinners took place without Dad? Dozens. Hundreds. Even when he was home, the scanner was on, or Dad was talking on the phone to one of the guys, or going to a union meeting or organizing a training