Marina cried out. He let her go. She spoke to him passionately, her hands held out. He tried to take one of them and she slapped it away. Then she raised those hands to the ceiling, dropped them, and walked out the front door. Lee started to follow her, then thought better of it. The brothers had put two ratty old lawn chairs on the porch. Marina sank into one of them. There was a scrape below her left eye, and her cheek was already starting to swell. She stared out into the street, and across it. I felt a stab of guilty fear even though my living room lights were out and I knew she couldn’t see me. I was careful to remain still, though, with the binoculars frozen to my face.
Lee sat down at the kitchen table and propped his forehead on the heels of his palms. He remained that way for awhile, then heard something and went into the smaller of the bedrooms. He came out with June in his arms and began to walk her around the living room, rubbing her back, soothing her. Marina went inside. June saw her and held out her chubby arms. Marina went to them and Lee gave her the baby. Then, before she could walk away, he hugged her. She stood silently inside his arms for a moment, then shifted the baby so she could hug him back with one arm. His mouth was buried in her hair, and I was pretty sure I knew what he was saying: the Russian words for
Marina took June back into what had been Rosette’s bedroom. Lee stood where he was for a moment, then went to the fridge, took something out, and began to eat it.
Late the following day, just as Lee and Marina were sitting down to supper (June lay on the living room floor, kicking her legs on a blanket), Marguerite came puffing down the street from the Winscott Road bus stop. This evening she was wearing blue slacks that were unfortunate, considering the generous spread of her butt. She was toting a large cloth bag. Poking out of the top was the red plastic roof of a child’s playhouse. She walked up the porch steps (once more deftly avoiding the bad one) and marched in without knocking.
I fought against the temptation to get my directional mike — this was another scene I did not need to be privy to — and lost. There’s nothing so fascinating as a family argument, I think Leo Tolstoy said that. Or maybe it was Jonathan Franzen. By the time I got it plugged in and aimed through my open window at the open window across the street, the rhubarb was in full swing.
“… wanted you to know where we were, I would have damn well
“Vada told me, she’s a good girl,” Marguerite said placidly. Lee’s rage washed over her like a light summer shower. She was unloading mismatched dishes onto the counter with the speed of a blackjack dealer. Marina was looking at her with outright amazement. The playhouse sat on the floor, next to June’s baby blanket. June kicked her legs and ignored it. Of course she ignored it. What’s a four-month-old going to do with a playhouse?
“Ma, you have to leave us alone! You have to stop
Marina added her two cents’ worth: “Mamochka, Lee say no.”
Marguerite laughed merrily. “‘Lee say no, Lee say no.’ Honey, Lee
At some point the jump-rope girls had drifted onto the bald excuse for a lawn. They watched the argument as attentively as Globe groundlings checking out the newest Shakespeare offering in the standing-room section. Only in the play we were watching, the shrew was going to come out on top.
“What did she make you for dinner, honey? Was it something good?”
“We had stew.
“
“No, I couldn’t eat anything like that,” Marguerite said.
“Hell, Ma, you don’t even know what it is!”
It was as if he hadn’t spoken. “It would upset my stomach. Besides, I don’t want to be on a city bus after eight o’clock. There are too many drunk men on them after eight o’clock. Lee, honey, you need to fix that step before someone breaks a leg.”
He muttered something, but Marguerite’s attention had moved elsewhere. She swooped down like a hawk on a fieldmouse and grabbed June. With my binoculars, the baby’s startled expression was unmistakable.
Her little devushka, scared shitless, began to scream her head off.
