ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching
Book Two, Chapter 137: Mother’s Day
Joshua calls this afternoon. “Happy Mother’s Day, Hoot Owl.” He sounds loving. He tries to stay cheerful.
“Happy Little Boy’s Day, or Son’s Day.”
“Do you want me to drop over later? We could go out for a bite to eat.”
“If you come over, perhaps you’ll tell me what to do with all your tennis shoes still here. And maybe you’ll go through the tool box, tell me what to keep and what to give away. And look over the clothes in the closet.”
He wants to celebrate Mother’s Day, and I suggest weeding through shoes and tools and Ernie’s clothes? Jesus. What’s wrong with me? Do I want to hurt him?
“I have a three o’clock appointment to look at a HUD house for sale — the one all of us looked at before. It’s advertised for thirty-three thou. HUD usually settles for ninety percent of the asking price. Maybe it can be had for twenty-nine or thirty thou.”
Is Joshua dreaming? He doesn’t have thirty thousand dollars. Or is this just a way of escaping reality for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon? It can’t hurt him, can it? Still, I say: “You don’t have thirty thousand dollars, Joshua.”
I remember looking at the house with Joshua and Ernie that Sunday of Ernie’s last summer. I remember how weak Ernie was that day. A bit of wind would have blown him over. A bit of hill would have toppled him. I knew he was dying. I just couldn’t bear to say it aloud. So we three went to look at the house, acting as if everything was normal.
But how normal was it that Ernie was dying? He’d never done that before. So this is strange to me, that Joshua is going back to this particular house. But maybe that’s why: it’s a house he and his daddy looked at together. It’s a house Ernie was inside of, sitting on a leather sofa in the living room. It’s a house Ernie and Joshua talked about buying. It’s a house Joshua made an offer on that the owner didn’t accept. So now the house is in HUD’s hands.
“I’m curious about it, that’s all,” Joshua says. “I’ll stop by your place after I see it.”
It’s five o’clock. Now five-thirty. Still no Joshua. I warm the bean soup Bella brought over. Eat a cup of it. Finally I call him. “Are you coming over?”
“I’m at the brotherhood with Joe.” I hear lots of background noise. “I’ll call you in a couple of hours.”
He doesn’t. And why would he? He doesn’t want to weed out his daddy’s closet. He doesn’t want to answer questions about his consumption of alcohol.
It’s Mother’s Day, and Joshua’s with my brother.
