Free Eat Cake: A Novel by Jeanne Ray Page A

decline.”
    “What about you? Are you going to have one?”
    “I don’t mind if you don’t mind. You feed beer to an old guy without arms, you’re just making more work for yourself.”
    The two of them had a good long howl over that.
    Sam stuck his head in the kitchen. “Just going to grab something.”
    I was making them sandwiches. I was, at that very moment, putting the pickles on the plates. “Sam, I can hear you in there, you know.”
    He came over and kissed my cheek. He took a pickle off a plate and nibbled at the end before putting it back. “I’ve become completely debauched,” he said. Then he took me in his arms and we made three short circles in the kitchen. “Why did we never take ballroom dancing? We used to talk about it, remember? Your dad says he loves to watch the couples in the bars who really know how to dance. Maybe we could start dancing after dinner.”
    “You think we should do a floor show?”
    “It could be a new career for both of us. We could go into people’s kitchens and dance for them while they digested their food.”
    I laughed and went back to the sandwiches. “I’m not sure my father is the best influence in the world.”
    Sam rested his chin on my shoulder. He seemed so light-hearted that I realized for the first time what a toll his job must have been taking on him all these years. Maybe for a little while unemployment wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “The old guy’s having a rough time of it. I’m just trying to cheer him up.”
    “I appreciate it. I really do.” I handed Sam the two sandwiches, but he put them down and piled all of the food onto one plate. What difference did it make if they ate off the same plate since one of them was handling all the food anyway? With his free hand Sam grabbed two beers and a straw. The extra-long bend-neck straw had proven itself to be a real friend to our family. With a straw, Dad could at least drink without having to ask someone to lift up his glass. He even had lukewarm coffee through a straw. It gave him a sense of independence.
    My father had been in our house for five days now and things were not going at all as I had expected. I had not taken into account the enormous amount of work it would be to have a man with useless arms around. It was like having a baby with perfect verbal skills, a baby who could say, I need my nose blown (often), or, I have an itch on the side of my neck. So far he did not appear capable of doing anything for himself, and a human being, no matter how pleasant, who can do nothing for himself must be carried by those around him. I felt like I was running every minute of the day, bringing in a pillow to wedge against his aching back, counting out pills, making the bed, driving him to the doctor, washing his hair. But I never lost sight of the myriad ways it could be worse. It could, for example, have been my mother with two broken wrists. My father was grateful, not overly demanding, and he complained about exactly nothing. The closest he came to reminding us that he must be in excruciating pain was the fact that he disappeared regularly to take naps. He didn’t talk about the future. Still, there was something about the way he seemed not too entirely displeased about things that got to me, the way he let out a sustained, “Ahhhhhh,” when he spread his wingspan over the sofa, the way he made frequent references to the fact that
this
was thelife. Any doubts I may have had I kept to myself, but my mother kept nothing to herself.
    “How do we even know they’re broken?” My mother caught me later that day while I was folding clothes. She was having to watch Oprah on Camille’s little TV now that the big one in the den was permanently occupied. She stayed in a bad mood. “Surely there’s some bum doctor out there who would stick pins in your arms for twenty bucks. He could have won them in a card game.”
    I shuddered at the thought. My mother was the only one who never seemed to notice that