“This is all I have left of Hungary,” Eva said matter-of-factly. “Corey, come here!” The boy was hesitant, but his mother pushed him towards the couch. Donna and Peter knew what was coming, but Chris was curious as he sipped his wine.
“You know what these red eggs are?” He shook his head. “They represent the blood of Jesus and rebirth, but they are more than that. It’s a promise. Corey, you have to promise me that you will work hard and be a good boy. Will you do that?” He nodded. She reached down into the basket and pulled out an egg covered in pink foil. “This is for you.” She handed the chocolate egg to Corey. Eva looked at her people placed around the kitchen table with eyes that seemed to look into her own version of dusk, “I don’t change my beliefs. I saw what you get if you work hard in Hungary. If you work hard here in the US they understand it. You get all of this.” Her arms weren’t long enough to show everything she had.
# # #
Things were different in Hopkinton at Kelly’s house. She had spent most of Saturday trying to clean up as neither she nor Bert could get any free time from work during the week. Last year she thought they let them go early on Good Friday, but that was last year. Kelly was already worn out and they hadn’t even sat down to dinner yet.
“Jackie, no! Dad can’t have fruit juice. It doesn’t mix with the Razadyne.”
“Sorry, I didn’t…” Kelly’s sister didn’t know what to say or do next. She escaped into to the kitchen as Bert came back from the garage with a folding card table. Between guarding her sputtering father, mothering two young children, and absorbing anything else that could happen at the house, Kelly sometimes liked the reprieve of work. Headquarters would tell her what to do and she’d do it to the best of her ability. It was a little bit dry at times. In the quiet moments she had with herself on her commute home, before she put on her Suzy-Homemaker mask, she could grumble about her job. Kelly wasn’t a perfectionist, but she expected a lot from people. She sensed accurately that co-workers she depended on were beginning to go through the motions with their work. The job’s not done until all of the nails are cleaned up from the floor. You don’t want anybody stepping on them later. That’s what her dad used to say when she’d sneak out to the garage to smell the sawdust and watch him checking his cut. He was a statue now full of dusty advice. When Kelly sat in her car she concluded that even though work let her down sometimes it would get better again someday. Sadly, the Alzheimer’s wasn’t getting any better. He was not a statue. He was a dying child.
“No, Jackie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Things change every day. We take him to the doctor and suddenly there’s new medication and they all got side effects.” The living room was starting to warm up when the front door opened to the chilling rain. Kelly saw the rust stain below the number fifty-four in the clear light and was dissatisfied. Maybe she was a perfectionist. She was sure the disease would capture her one day too. Maybe her kids would also have to fight over who took care of her. Uncertainty had rooted itself in the family long before it snagged the economy.
Kelly’s sister, Diane, came through the door with raindrops lying on top of the plastic wrap that covered her famous “loaded stuffing” that nobody particularly liked. Diane’s husband, Mitch, came through next with his big boots scuffing against the mat.
“Sorry we’re late. I should not be taking calls from work on Easter. It’s ridiculous,” explained Mitch. “We’ve got a big week coming up and somebody got nervous. Di gave me the stink eye so I think we’re even now.” He stopped in front of Kelly’s dad. “Danny Boy, how goes it?”
“I’m OK son. I’m OK.” Dan Reynolds said with a hint of a smile. He was now Danny to all, even the grandkids.
Mitch took his wife’s coat and his and hung them in the closet. The Reynolds’ house and, by extension, their children’s homes were not fond of etiquette. If you wanted something done you did it yourself as Brett learned quickly. Kelly was certainly that way. She never really tied in that it was that quality that made her father so lost in the early days of the disease. He refused to ask for anyone’s help especially any doctor. If she and Bert hadn’t broken from that mentality and had the sentiment to take her parents in, Mr. Reynolds would likely have been much further gone by that point.
Mitch’s energy was a nice change of pace for the family that was slowly folding inward like a circus tent after the final show. He was talking while reaching for a couple of glasses in the cabinet.
“Everybody’s running around at work trying to do multiple jobs.”
“Sounds familiar,” Bert interjected.
“You know, when I made the jump from Sears a couple years back it was mostly for salary and benefits, not necessarily growth potential. I kept asking myself if that made sense. But, look at it now. People aren’t upgrading washers and dryers. But they’re going to come to the drug store and buy shampoo. There’s not much of a choice. I’d love to say I predicted all of that, but I kinda lucked into it. CVS doesn’t have the layoffs that Sears does. It’s like being on a hill during a flood. You’re not perfectly safe, but you’re safer. Kelly, how’s your stuff going? I know when Product, what was it..?”
“Wave.”
“Yeah, Product Wave purchased you guys there were some hiccups. You guys past that?”
The daffodil in her bay window caught her eye for a second as she thought how to answer. “Um, yeah, we’re doing OK. I’m not in the numbers, but I’ve got a feeling the first quarter wasn’t so hot.” Kelly continued to search for a good way to summarize everything.
Mitch sensed he had put her on the spot. “I think we’ve got an opening in payroll. I think it’s payroll.”
“CVS, Kelly,” Mrs. Reynolds re-stated as if CVS was some sort of Rolex compared to PW’s Seiko-styled time-keeping.
“I mean, you can look into it, Mitch. I appreciate it, but I’m not really looking to bounce around. I’ve got friends at PW. I know the system. Management doesn’t really listen to me, but they don’t listen to anybody…I’m probably going to wait it out there. It’s a paycheck, you know. We’re lucky to have jobs. Look at Di. She doesn’t choose to not work. It just happens for a while.” She reached up and scratched her head while looking at her sister. “I get calls every day from recruiters. I got this job through a recruiter, but he had been in HR and knew the kind of experience and person this job required. These recruiters that keep calling are like twenty-two years old trying to place people like me who are in the middle of their careers. Those kids have never even seen an office. How the hell do they know where I fit? The worse thing I could do is take one of their jobs; they get a three grand commission, and I sit around wondering what the hell I’ve done. I’d be better off sitting at home with Dad. At least then I wouldn’t be alone in trying to figure out what’s going on. That right, Danny?” Kelly smiled as she looked at her father lovingly. She missed those days where he would cover her in shoulders and pound his advice into her ear like tack nails. Those days weren’t coming back. He was a magic eight ball; expressions in short bursts when you shook him.
“Right as rain, little miss. Right as rain.” His eyes were sharp and it lifted everyone to see him smile.
# # #
“Bud Light, alright?” Tim’s neighbor, Mark handed over the can to Tim and sat on the brownish afghan quilt covering the couch.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he looked at the blue of the can as if it were somehow different at his neighbor’s condo than his before popping it. He slurped the first sip