Free Warm Wuinter's Garden by Neil Hetzner

my
family’s reunion, it’s my responsibility.”
    “Yes, but…”
    Before Raoul could finish his thought, Peter
cut him off. He didn’t want to hear someone else say the things he
had to fight himself not to say. His theory, which he had practiced
since Gaby had left, was that if he were quiet and polite and
charitable long enough, the thoughts that often careened around his
head like balls in a Bingo cage and the hungering feelings that
ever wormed through his belly, would finally leave.
    “She’s busy.”
    “Lover, we’re all busy.”
    “I know. She said she could pick them up on
Monday. Do you think you could take them down?”
    “What might some statesman, Cabot Lodge,
Foster Dulles, have said? I can and I will. But, aren’t you worried
to have your two blessed nubbins in a car alone with a dancing
Nancy?”
    “Bob, don’t.”
    “See. This is it. Another example. You poor
hets want the world to change toward you, but you won’t change. You
bring it upon yourselves. You ask for it. You hets are always being
accused of being irresponsible. This is why. Putting those
delicious boys in a car with a pouf. How will I ever keep my hands
on the wheel?
    “What’s the itinerary?”
    “Could you leave by nine?”
    “I could. But at what price? No, no. It’s
fine. It’s only my frail and fading beauty that will suffer. Just a
soupcon of sacrifice for my master.”
    “Thanks.”
    “So lavish in his praise. No wonder I can’t
say “non.” How can I resist? Anything for Sweet-eyes.”
    Peter stood clutching tight the blue canvas
deposit bag while staring at the rose-walled emptiness of the
dining room. He hadn’t wanted to ask Raoul for the favor. He should
go himself, but if he did, he was sure that his family would talk
about Iraq and the stream of soldiers moving to save Kuwait. That
parade of men and materiel was dislodging something in him that had
been carefully stowed away a long time before.
    He was tired. He should go home. But, his
house hadn’t been home for almost three years. There was nothing to
be found under the covers except sheets that had been on the bed
too long. He was very tired. So tired that a fine tremor pulsed
through his hands and flashes of light, like soundless small arms
fire, flared at the edge of his vision. But, even more, he was
tired of muddling through, of slogging through a day, of pushing
through time’s syrup, just to get to more of the same. Another
week, another month, and soon, another winter.
    Peter wondered why he worked so hard to keep
something that he wasn’t even certain that he wanted. And how he
had lost something that he craved.

Chapter 6
     
     
    “Mother, Mother, has Dad been feeling okay?
He looks so terrible.”
    Bett took her time looking up from the bowl
of pistachios she was shelling since she knew that her eyes were
going to meet the fierce, focused, probing light of Dilly’s stare.
Her oldest daughter had always had such a great intensity. While
the other three children had Neil’s blue eyes, Dilly had the small
brown eyes of Bett herself, but with a difference. Rather than
Bett’s easy warmth, Dilly’s eyes often were fixed with a dark
stare. Dilly did not ask questions; she interrogated. Even as a
small child the intensity of Dilly’s stare was such that neither
Bett nor Neil could conjure up a child’s answer to such questions
as those concerning the existence of Santa, the source of babies,
and the tendency of dogs to lick certain parts of themselves. If a
four year old Dilly asked why Buster was sniffing Daisy’s hiney,
she wanted, and invariably received, a forthright answer. Yet, even
though given an honest answer, Dilly would continue to stare as if
she thought that some additional information had been denied
her.
    As her head came up high enough to meet
Dilly’s eyes, Bett gave an imperceptible nod to her daughter’s
persistence. Dilly added an extra measure to everything she did. If
a soup recipe called for a cup of barley,