Clean Slate

Chapter 4

Mac McGladrey exited the River Highway Liquor Lotto store, wrapped bottle in hand, precisely five minutes after the Sunday morning alcohol ban ended. The strip mall sidewalk and parking lot were busy with shoppers, many in after-church attire: suits and dresses and slacks and jackets. Mac himself wore jeans and a loose, comfortable sand colored shirt. His Sunday mornings had not for many months included church.

As he crossed the parking lot for his car, a woman walking alone a couple rows over caught his eye. Since her back was to him, he could not see her face, but he sensed somehow she was pretty. She was medium-height, on the heavier side, with blond hair bundled by a scrunchy in back, and wore a simple black dress and sandals, walking with energy and purpose. Interesting, Mac thought, amused; once quite the woman-watcher, his appetite for that had faded with marriage and grown even more dormant since --

Just then the woman stopped to wait for a passing car, and when she turned her head Mac realized she was Suzanne. The awareness stopped Mac in his tracks. She continued, and Mac saw she was bound for a maroon GMC Jimmy, which had once been his, and technically, Mac figured, still was. He had his hand up, and was about to call her, but then realized she'd walked right by Mac's deep blue '51 Ford Tudor sedan -- a vehicle that had occupied half their Montcalm garage for five years, and that Suzanne had ridden in many times -- without even the slightest reaction. He dropped his hand. I don't talk to people who aren't in the room, he thought, remembering an old line from a long-ago argument.

Dropping into his Ford, Mac fired it up and motored east on 33 into the suburb of North Liberty. His thoughts were a turbulent babble. She's gained weight, he thought; quite a bit, it looks like. Wonder if she's really going to the folks's, as Julie had speculated? How will I handle it if she shows up there? Fully understanding how unreasonable his feelings were, Mac still felt resentful that Suzanne had clung tight to his parents, family, turf. It was as if she had co-opted them all, he thought. The better angels of his nature -- which, at this point of his life, were at times muted by the bitterness that still dogged him – reminded him that he had checked out, voluntarily, a year ago. Suzanne was a free agent. She was still, as Julie had pointed out, Mac's wife, entitled to her own relationship with her in-laws. Even so, Mac wondered: what does she say to them, about herself, me, us, Nicholas? What does she want, really? And – the larger, looming question – what the hell really happened up there in Detroit, 15 months ago?

Ten minutes later Mac was rolling up Buckingham Court. Small lush lawns fronted large-footprint colonials, close enough together to be arm-in-arm, but with deep lots that ended back at Whiskey Run. Thick full trees posted at strict intervals between sidewalk and street extended shade almost up to the porches. At 887, the curb was parked dense with large gleaming vehicles, mostly SUVs and minivans. Though Mac did not recognize any of them except for Julie's -- most of his sibs made a point of trading in their rides once per year -- he could, had he cared to, using as clues the brand, color, and options, have matched each vehicle up with its owner. (For example, the Chevy pickup with the fat tires, roll bar, and Confederate battle flag front plate -- that had to be his brother Paul. The bright red Dodge Ram pickup, with the trademark spotlights mounted on the cab roof, was certainly Dad's.) But of more interest to him was the absence of a certain maroon GMC Jimmy. Hmm, he thought, as he parked his '51 Ford along the empty curb two doors up: could I be this lucky?

Alas, no. For, as Mac reached his parents' sidewalk, a honk sounded from the street and he turned to see his old Jimmy whip into the Blaskowitz driveway across the street. Trapped, Mac realized, as Suzanne got out and started across the street for him, her black dress making her look pale in the sunshine. Certainly, Mac figured, she'd been watching for him, probably from up the street, wanting to walk into his parents' house with him, as if they were still a couple. He couldn't duck that, not without appearing rude.

One for her.

(Bitch.)

"Hi there," he said.

She broke into a run, and came hard into his arms, sobbing. He held her easily, patting her back, her familiar scents triggering a war of memories, 14 years' worth. "It's okay," he said into her hair, feeling inane.

She stepped back, sniffing. Up close he could see the effects of age and appetite. Her face, always round, was fuller, making her green eyes seem smaller, and the frown lines between her eyes and around her mouth were deeper. She still had the slight gap between her front teeth, which seemed to him much whiter, as if they'd been capped. She wore her wedding ring, and around her neck glinted a gold chain that he did not recognize. To him she looked more heavily made up; she'd always been fairly abstemious that way, before. "I was hoping you'd be here," she said, then took a deep breath and laughed shakily. "My God!" she said. "I'm so nervous!"

If it was an act, it was award-caliber, but then, Suzanne had always had a flair for the theatrical. Interestingly, the sobbing had produced no visible tears. "It's all right," Mac answered, which was about as big a lie as he was capable of telling. "But maybe you should park up the street? You're in Danny's driveway."

"Oh, they won't care," she said, and took his arm. "Come on! Let's go in! Your mom's waiting!"

Mac let her precede him across the porch and through the storm door. The spacious house was as he remembered, to the most minute detail: lots of knotty pine, throw rugs, ceiling beams, large windows. The place was filled with familiar food smells and familiar sounds: voices atop voices, over a layer of drone from the perpetually-blaring TV in the living room. Mac's mom, at the far end of the living room, spotted them first. "Well, well!" she cried, over the racket: "Look who's here, all lovey-dovey!"

Greetings and comments filled the air as Mac and Suzanne walked into the living room. For an instant Mac's conflicted feelings, and annoyance at his mother's greeting, lifted as he basked in the sights and sounds of the McGladrey clan: Julie and her husband Ray, Ross and his wife Caryn, Paul with his latest woman-chum, and then the younger sisters, identical twins Nicole and Bonnie, with their husbands and broods. Not to mention Todd, who was Ross's fraternal twin, and his wife Gladys, situated at their usual spot, as close as possible to Mom. Julie and the twin sisters, and Ross and Caryn, gave Mac smiles, handshakes and hugs, and he said hi to the various nieces and nephews who motored about, some shockingly advanced into their teens already. Suzanne, he noticed, had parted from him ostentatiously to greet his mother with arm's length embrace and air-kisses. Presently, when Mac did not cross the gulf to her, his mother came over to him.

"You're thinner!" she greeted, looking up into his eyes, and then gave him her patented one-arm zero-contact hug. Marie McGladrey, at 67, was grasshopper-thin and dark, with short black hair and a face composed mostly of edges and chin and dark all-seeing eyes. Dressed for comfort today in white short-sleeve shirt and navy twill capri shorts spangled with small white stars, Marie was an engine that never rested, ever bursting with the urge to push and to pull, to go and to do. "Tanner, too," she added.

"You're looking well, Mom," Mac said. And he smiled, for despite how hard she made it for him, he loved his mother. For this unique moment, back home after a year away, he felt nothing more than pleasure at seeing her again. "It's good to be back."

"Well, it's high time you buckled down and got focused," Marie said.

Mac handed her the wine he'd bought. "Where's Dad?" he asked.

"Oh, he'll be in. I need that wife of yours. Suzanne!" Marie piped, turning and bustling toward her daughter in law, engaged in conversation with Mac's sister Nicole, who was no doubt trying to sell Suzanne something.

"Dad's out back," Julie told Mac, drifting up to him. Her husband Ray was in the corner by the bookcase, talking in low tones with Mac's brother Paul, which could not, Mac felt, bode well. They both looked like parolees, though Mac was pretty sure they had not been, at least not in St. Marys County. "I can't believe what I just saw," Julie added softly.

"She ambushed me," Mac whispered back.

"You just be careful!" Julie urged Mac, voice low. "Look at that make-up, and those come-fuck-me shoes. Suzanne's gunning for you."

"I don't know --"

"Hey!" Marie horned in. "Now that the guests of honor have finally arrived, let's get to the table."

The adults obligingly drifted toward the long table in the dining-room end of the living room. Hanging back, Mac saw his father cross the back patio, and he met him at the door. "Hey, big guy," Mac said, as they shook hands in the male McGladrey manner: right hands gripped, left hands patting the opposite shoulder.

"Welcome home, son," Nick McGladrey said quietly. If anything, Mac thought, his dad at 73 was even lighter than before; a virtual bag of bones. His head looked huge on his whittled-down body: gray hair in its burr cut, skin perpetually leathery and tanned from all those decades of outdoor construction work. He wore a roomy blue dress shirt and tan trousers cinched so close the belt-end drooped. Mac thought, and not for the first time: here's me, thirty-five years from now. Same squarish ruggedly handsome face, same wavy hair (except Nick's had once been a deeper red instead of reddish blond), same thick shoulders and hands, male bodies built to build things. Only real difference was the height. Mac was six two, a good four inches taller. Nobody could figure how that happened. "Good trip in?" his dad asked.

"It was fine. Just long," Mac answered.

"Any day now, you two!" Mac's mom called over the clamor. "Todd's about to offer the blessing!"

"On our way, Miss M," Nick said, with that mix of calm assertiveness and dignified acquiescence formed by years of experience. During his time in the school of hard knocks, Nick McGladrey had evolved into the calmest and most amiable of men, yet deliberate and firm. Mac admired him. Though calm and judicious most of the time himself, Mac, next to his father, felt like a hot-head.

And so the father and his eldest son proceeded to the table. On the way Mac leaned and whispered: "Word with you later?"

"Tonight okay?" his dad murmured back.

"Out there?"

"'Bout seven?"

"Why not?"

Marie commanded, "Sit down, boys. Todd, say the grace. Make it the short one."

---

Dinner was ham and scalloped potatoes and fixings, as usual. As specified by the latest rotation of Marie's table place cards, Mac sat near the south end of the broad table, flanked by Julie and Ross, as usual. Presiding over the crowd of 22 – still not the whole family; Paul's kids were with their mother, and Tina, the youngest of the nine siblings, was AWOL – Mac's parents sat side by side at the other end, Nick silent, Marie voluble, also as usual. Suzanne sat across from Mac and three places down, which was also per usual. But, departing from the usual, she carried on in nonstop chatter with Nicole and Paul's date and everyone else whose attention she could get, giving every evidence of having a good time – most unusual. Mac, eating heartily and chatting quietly with Julie -- and, in the main, enjoying his soft landing back in the McGladrey clan, which he felt fit him like a well worn glove -- couldn't help but remember one of Suzanne's favorite tirades, repeated so often it was acid-etched in his heart: "And those dinners at your parents are just always the same. So incredibly boring. Same bland food. Same boring people. Same stupid topics. Todd's ‘incredible' construction business, and Nicole's latest Ponzi scheme, and Paul's silly Civil War -- excuse me: War of Northern Aggression -- re-enactor meet. And is Joe Schmo uncle to Mary Blow, or second-sibling twice moved? And your father sitting there like a pathetic pussy-whip while your mother rants and raves -- she thinks you all are so fucking perfect, putting on all her rich airs. While everybody knows how bad she and your dad fucked all you kids up –"

Watching his wife's masquerade today, Mac had to grin as as the table topics revolved among, what else: Todd's construction business (booming), Nicole's new marketing enterprise (set to take off any day now, after which time she would be "rolling in dough"), and Paul's upcoming re-enactor meet (Battle of Gettysburg Day 1, only this time Old Bald Head obeys orders). Driven by Marie, the conversation explored second-tier topics, including a just-completed dog show, in which Marie exhibited her prize chow-chows; and the fortunes of Paul's firm, Eyeball Drywall, which seemed always to be struggling. Paul took the floor to whine about how tight-fisted his brothers Todd (who now ran their father's business) and Ross (who had his own roofing outfit) were with sub-contracts and referrals. That elicited Nick's sole comment of the meal, to the effect that until Paul overcame his reputation for overpricing and under-delivering, his brothers had every right to send prospects elsewhere.

Of course, Mac noticed, not a word was breathed about Nicholas. Not by Suzanne or anyone else, certainly not by Marie. For Nicholas, there was no place at this table, literally or figuratively. Mac kept his peace, and tried to keep the ache from reaching his face, and generally stayed out of the table-talk until a debate broke out over the exact degree of kinship between the McGladreys and a woman Nicole met on the internet, who claimed to be related.

"She's a third cousin, twice removed," Mac said, after hearing the details. "Her great-grandfather Simmons was the next-oldest brother of our great-great-grandmother Barlett. While the clan was still in Glashnacree."

"That's exciting!" Nicole said. "I can't wait to tell her!"

"How do you know all that, Mac?" Paul's girlfriend asked.

"I was out in Indiana a while back, read a scrapbook somebody compiled on the family genealogy."

The young woman, who in build and brains was typical of Paul's companions, seemed puzzled. "But how do you remember all that?" she murmured.

"Important thing," Marie said briskly, "is that he knows. Boom! Done! He's useful that way." By now Marie was starting to serve the apple pie. Mac had been thinking, with no small hope, that the conversation would not bear down on him after all. But he should have known better; his mom had just been biding her time. "So, Mac," she said, handing a plate to Todd to pass.

Ah, shit, Mac thought, as the table went silent.

"How are things up in Montcalm?" Marie asked innocently, cutting a fresh piece. "Are you and Suzanne having a second honeymoon up there?"

Eyes went to Suzanne, who flushed and smiled demurely and, for once, said nothing. Drinking some water, Mac said, "I'm bunking at Grandpa's."

"Where's that?" asked Paul's girlfriend, soon to be history.

"Wild Rose," Julie replied.

"South of the river," Caryn said.

"B.F.E.," Todd said around a mouthful of pie.

"Whazzat mean?" Paul asked.

"Yes," Marie said, pie trowel in hand, smiling expectantly at her son, "what does that stand for, Todd?"

Still chewing, he answered, "Bum-Fuck Egypt."

Laughter burst out. "Oh that's just awful," Marie sang, laughing, as the rest of the family chimed in, Paul in particular unable to resist pounding the table with his fist. "Don't talk like that at my table, Todd!" Marie added, continuing to giggle.

"True though," Todd deadpanned.

Mac, half grinning, caught his dad's expression: a patient smile, a slight head-shake.

The racket died down. Julie, thin face unamused, asked, "Things all right out there?"

"Pretty much," Mac answered, eating. "Someone's been camping in the barn, though." He looked at Todd. "You see anybody hanging around out there?"

Todd shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Nope. Never went near the barn, actually."

"It was one of my clowns," Mac said. "Pretty sure."

"That's scary," Julie commented.

Mac smiled. "Not really. Eddie's pretty harmless." I'll deal with him tomorrow, Mac thought. If I stick around.

For an interval there, no one said anything. Mac fully expected his mom to make a sharp observation about his job. But instead Suzanne spoke up. "So tell us about Paris, Mac."

What are you really asking, Suze? "Actually," Mac replied, "I was in the countryside east of there, mainly. Eix-Abaucort. B.F.E.," he added, for his brother's benefit.

"I've always wanted to go to Paris," Nicole announced. "When can we go to Paris, Willem?" she asked her husband, whose response did not make it onto the record.

"But Mac was in Cambodia after that," Julie put in.

"Ker-boom!" Paul said, expecting a laugh he didn't get.

Marie, looking impatient, was shaking her head, waving her pie knife. "Issue isn't where Mac was," she said. "Issue is, what does Mac do now that he's home. You going back to DPP?"

"Well," Mac said carefully, "as of eight o'clock tomorrow morning, my leave of absence is up. Judge says I've still got a job, but --"

"You oughta try sumpin new," said Julie's husband Ray, speaking from experience, as he poured himself what Mac counted as his fourth glass of wine.

"New job," Ross said thoughtfully. "Not a bad idea, Mac, little change of pace for you."

"But what kind of work can Mac do?" Marie wondered aloud. "He's been at the Court House forever. He's never really done anything."

"Some kind of sales, maybe?" Nicole speculated.

"Anything where he can sit in an office and talk," Marie pronounced. "That's what Mac's best at, sitting around the office and talking."

"That," Mac commented, "and going to lunch."

"How about a job reading books?" Bonnie asked innocently. "Mac sure reads a lot."

"Ahh, he'll stay at the Court House," Todd said, eating. "Rule-Boy been there too long to ever leave."

"You know something," Ross said, "Paul's been needing sales help. Maybe you could make a place for Mac over there at Eyeball, Paulie."

"Of course, that's the ticket," Marie said. "Boom! Done! You'd best help your brother out, Mac, and make a decent living for once."

Paul, who on his best day was incapable of looking sincere, looked downright shifty as he said, "Sure, bro, stop by the shop tomorrow, we'll talk it over."

"Well --" Mac began.

"Selling drywall!" Marie said briskly, closing the issue. "How hard can that be? Everybody needs drywall."

"There's one slight problem," Todd said, finishing his pie. "Mac's a good reader, and Mac's a good talker. But sell? Mac couldn't sell pussy on a troop train."

The table erupted again in shocked laughter. "Todd!" his mother caroled, dark face beaming with pleasure, "That's a perfectly awful thing to say about your brother!"

The uproar ebbed. Nobody spoke. Eyes glanced to Mac expectantly. Calmly he looked at Todd. "You know what, bro, you got a point."