Free Watching Jimmy by Nancy Hartry

on the linoleum in the kitchen as Aunt Jean settles.
    Andrew comes back to the vestibule for Jimmy. He lifts him in the air, clamping Jimmy’s flailing arms to his side. Then he swoops Jimmy’s face down close to Aunt Jean’s head. She grabs that poor boy’s neck and smothers him with kisses. Wet, teary kisses.
    Jimmy bellows.
    “Mommy has a hurt,” says Andrew. “Gentle. Gentle.” Andrew lets go of one of Jimmy’s hands and guides it to Aunt Jean’s shoulder. Jimmy paws at her shoulder makingsure she’s real. My mom helps Jean off with her hat and coat. Her galoshes.
    “Will you stay for dinner, Ted?” my mother asks. She says it coldly just to be polite.
    “Much as I’d love to, I have things to do.”
    I can see Aunt Jean muscling herself together and sitting up straight. “Thank you, Ted, for bringing me home. It’s so much better to be in my own house. I’ve been looking forward to my own bed.” Aunt Jean stresses the word
own.
It’s her new favorite word.
    That night, it seems strange to be back in
my
own bed on
my
own side of the shared wall. Just me and my very
own
mom. In the morning, it’s luxurious to stretch like a cat, touching right to the bottom of the bed with my toes and wiggling them under the blankets. It’s all so new that it takes me a while to realize that something has changed in the night. The light’s too bright and too soft in my room.
    Snow! The first snowfall! I rip open the curtains. The street is silent and lumpy and clean and so white like someone has rolled out a cotton batting carpet. My heart leaps high with excitement. There are things to be thankful for. I mean, Aunt Jean’s home. Andrew’s like Jimmy’snew big brother looking out for him, only better, because he pays rent. I close my eyes tight.
Thank you, God.
    When I open my eyes, I see what I didn’t see before.
    Boy, oh boy. Ted meant it last night when he said he had things to do.
    There’s an orange and white sign right in the middle of Aunt Jean’s lawn. Some time after we’d gone to bed, Ted pounded a for sale sign into Aunt Jean’s frosty grass!
    I feel a spasm in my stomach so deep and so cold, it travels all the way to my toes.
    Our Jimmy will be moving away from me.
    It’s true. I have to believe it. Ted is selling Aunt Jean’s house right out from under her! How can he do this? To his own sister? And her so sick and just home from the hospital!
    Bastard.
    Ted’s a bastard. And I don’t care anymore who knows it.

W hen Mom sees the sign, she puts her coat on over her flannelette pajamas. She stuffs bare feet into boots and slams our front door so hard that both houses shake. I watch from the front window as she tries tugging the sign out of the ground. Then she tries to knock it over with one good kick. Finally she grabs the garden rake and swings it like a baseball bat, splintering bits of wood across the lawn. She stuffs the sign and what’s left of the stake into our garbage can. Then the two of us troop over to Aunt Jean’s for coffee and breakfast.
    Mom goes into the kitchen to put on the kettle. She’s making a big, big racket in there.
    I discover Aunt Jean dressed and dozing in a chair in the parlor. The curtains are drawn and there’s only a faintglow of orange coals in the fireplace to warm the room. Poor Aunt Jean. She looks wizened and old, her mouth open, her glasses, which usually hide some of the puffiness under her eyes, rest on an end table. Gently, I tuck a quilt around her.
    She stirs, but doesn’t open her eyes. “Is … that … you … dear?” Every word has a sigh and a pause in it as if there’s just too much — too, too much effort required to form the word and push it out of her mouth.
    “Yes, Aunt Jean. Guess what? It snowed last night. It’s a winter wonderland outside.”
    “I know dear. I … saw … it….”
    We both know we are not talking about the snow but the for sale sign. A single tear leaks from her eye, catches in a wrinkle furrow, slips off