The Lunch at Penny Lane Pub

I was in shock at the dramatic change in our tenuous relationship.

"This is fun, Brother. I haven't been here in years. Stan and I used to come here. He lived in England, you know.” Stan was Neva’s ex-husband.

The afternoon was cool. We were sitting on the patio of Penny Lane Pub. Katie, my dog, was at my feet. I spread out twenty black and white photographs on the table, the fragments of our childhood, unfinished business, maybe always unfinished.

My sister stared at them, then reached tentatively to one, rotating it a bit. "I recognize Punky. Does he still look the same?"

She pulled the photograph closer, her eyes jumping from Punky to his bicycle to the elm tree in the background. "Punky?" She furrowed her brows. "Wasn't he the one who lived down the street?"

"Yes, but Punky is now Charles and a successful painting contractor. He's getting close to retirement."

Just a few weeks earlier, Punky and I met for the first time in years. "Didn't your mother get committed to a hospital?" I was a little shocked that he knew or remembered. Punky continued, "You knew my Dad had problems. I always felt we had that in common."

I considered that bridge that he had built between us. Bridges to people outside our family and even within are fragile. Maybe Punky struggled to cobble together connections like me, or maybe he was better than me.

I responded, "It gives us both a strange childhood, having parents with mental illness."

The waitress approached with two plates, looking to me as if asking permission, and then placed the plates to the side of our scattering of photographs.

An hour earlier, at the retirement home, Neva introduced me. "This is my brother and his dog, a border collie. She's a good dog." My sister continued to cycle through Groundhog Day. "That dog is always with him. She doesn't even need a leash."

This meal was our new Groundhog Day, but not 20 years of Groundhog at war. She seemed to have forgotten that.

Eisenglass curtains protected us from the chilly wind. Katie's eyes darted to our slightest movements. I imagine her annoyance at so much attention paid to photographs, not something important like food.

My sister tentatively pushed at her shepherd's pie with a fork and then took a cautious bite. They considered and then passed judgment, "This isn't bad." My sister always evaluated things carefully.

"The food they feed us at that place is fine, but I can do better. As soon as I get a ride, I'm going home." She paused, not particularly looking at anything. "You know our mother taught us how to cook. She taught us a lot."

Neva barely took a breath. "Kami has probably already sold my things. She threw away the antique sugar bucket. Kami doesn't know a thing about antiques. Who knows what she's done? Kami doesn't tell anyone anything." Neva had three daughters, Vicki, Kami, and Emily.

Neva fiddled with the photographs, moving them back and forth as if she couldn't decide where they went. I imagined she was trying to reassemble the past.

Suddenly, she said, "This is fun, Brother I haven't eaten here in years."

"It's fun for me too. I enjoy coming back to the old neighborhood."

My sister and I seemed to be back to our old relationship years before the first Groundhog Day. We laughed back then.

Katie snapped a piece of chicken out of the air. Neva pulled a photograph closer. She studied the two children, me in a metal stroller and her squatting beside me in front of our Elkton house. Our mother sat beside us, her legs crossed, wearing brown and white saddle shoes and a wool skirt. Her hair was pulled back like Greta Garbo. She liked Greta Garbo.

"That's you in the stroller."

I couldn't resist looking at the little craftsman house perched on a hill near the railroad tracks. I was never sure of what I remembered versus what was described to me.

Neva took another bite of her shepherd's pie. "Our mother wasn't all bad. She taught us about nice things: silver, antiques, and rugs. She taught us to cook. She invited foreign students to stay in our house. We traveled and met interesting people. She loved our dog, Skipper. She even boiled liver for him. Remember the chickens in our kitchen, every Easter, purple, green, and blue in a cardboard box with the heat lamp."

I added, "I remember her telling me that I had killed Blackie's puppies, beat them to death with a stick under the porch in Elkton. I could barely walk, maybe two years old. Who the hell knows the truth, but she recycled that story a million times, with feeling, pointing at me as if I were doomed."

My sister jerked her head up, looking directly into my eyes. "She let you get by with murder. You could say your stomach hurt or moan about some pain and then let you stay home to watch television. You got anything you wanted."

I didn't mention Hawse's Laboratory, the glass syringes full of blood drawn every other week, and my parents arguing back and forth, night and day over whether I was to be believed. Finally, a doctor found a bone tumor.

Neva suddenly said, "You know, Daddy took me to Washington. We stayed together at the Mayflower and ate in nice restaurants. He tried to get me away from her."

I was shocked. While our mother snapped off forsythia branches for a switch to tear up my legs, my father and sister were off in Washington.

I replied, "I never realized he took you to Washington. He took me to the same hotel, but mostly we went camping and to the beach."

"I must've been in Saint Anne's when he took you." She took a breath and said quietly, "I thought you didn't go because Bubbo and you were always lying on the bed talking. She never told me stories; she just barked at me to sit up straight and comb my hair."

"At least you spent most of your time at private school. The stories she told me would've had you screaming into the night. There was the guy who fell into the saw blade down at the farm." I paused. "Split wide open, Bubbo said." We called our mother Bubbo.

"Maybe that's what happened to her?"

Neva looked off as if she heard something again.

I replied, "It'd be nice to think her illness had nothing to do with us, no bad genes nor family weakness." I continued the story, "They placed the body in Bubbo's bed. When she came home from school, she found it, bloody sheets and all." I sometimes doubted my mother's stories, but I never doubted her fear.

Neva seemed lost in thought.

"You know I have Alzheimer's, very early stages. I just forget things."

I wasn't sure what to say. I reached out to rub Katie's head, but she pushed my hand to the side, trying to keep an eye on my plate.

"That must be hard," was my Groundhog Day answer.

The change in our relationship started a year earlier when she called out of the blue. "Hello, brother, how are you? "

I was stunned. We hadn't had a civil word in 20 years. She didn't accuse me of stealing our mother's money or antiques. The conversation centered on her job at the YMCA, stupid doctors, and how her daughters didn't help, but never criticizing me, only her daughters and doctors. She mentioned my ex-wife had been leaving her cat with her when she flew off to visit our sons on the West Coast. I figured they had at least one thing in common: criticizing me.

A month later, after the first call, my sister invited my wife and me to a family party at Kami's house. I was a little surprised, but I showed up cautiously. Cindy was afraid to go, too much psychodrama over the years for her to trust my sister so quickly.

At the party, my sister talked. "I go to the Y every day. It's my little routine. I work the desk, clock out, and get on my machines. The doctor gave me exercises, but they don't know a thing. I know what to do better than they do. I have my machines."

A few weeks later, I took a chance and asked my sister to lunch. She jumped at the offer and suggested something ethnic. "Yes, maybe Church Hill. I haven't been there for years. I'd like to get out of the house. You like to eat interesting food.”

I didn't know what I’d find. My sons report from their mother was that my sister's house was a wreck, unkempt, and dirty; food left on the counter and pans on the stove. Everyone had their worries. Her daughters worried about her walking across Patterson Avenue to get to work at the YMCA. Everyone expected her to be fired at any time.

I was surprised to find her townhouse fine. The kitchen was a little cluttered, but our kitchen was cluttered. In the living room, an oriental rug was rolled up. She noticed me looking, "I think some cat used it. Someday, I'll have it cleaned."

We drove towards Church Hill. I turned off Boulevard onto Floyd Avenue, then she corrected me. "This isn't the way to Church Hill. Go straight and then right on Monument. I know this neighborhood. I lived right over there on Monument."

In the past, she would have added, "You don't know the way," which might have careened off, but her voice lacked intensity.

I responded. "This is more fun. I'll bet you haven't driven down Floyd Avenue in years. We'll see what's changed."

She put her hand on the dash, "Look, I remember that. Wasn't there a market somewhere around here?"

She turned to me. "I know the names of the streets but don't know where I am. I hope you know the way."

I wasn't sure what to say. Like my mother, my sister did not readily admit weakness or uncertainty. This new doubt was a marvel.

"I'm sorry you didn't bring Cindy. You should bring her the next time and make sure you bring the dog. She's a nice dog."

Her daughters were shocked when they heard we went out to lunch.

"You and Mom really went out to lunch? I thought she made that story up, like talking about Stan staying at her house the week before he died. He was in the hospital, dying, not visiting mom." There was a long pause. "She went out to lunch with you?"

Every month or two, we went to lunch: someplace interesting, ethnic, out of the way, and possibly quirky. "It's so normal, being with you," she said. "It's fun."

Our family didn't actually seem normal, possibly interesting, dramatic, and sometimes slightly cultured, but far from normal.

From the restaurant table, Neva picked up a photograph of a squinting 12-year-old ballerina, beaming her chubby smile in the glare of footlights. That's me, isn't it?

The waitress approached. "How was your food?"

"Fine," we said in unison.

After the waitress left, my sister leaned over. "This is only mediocre food." She pushed her unfinished food away. "But this has been fun. I haven't been here in years. You know, Stan lived in England, some teaching job, but he probably exaggerated. I don't know why I married him."

I said, "Fulbright Scholar isn't too bad, but Stan was a mixed review." I waited for a response, a counterpoint, but there was silence.

Katie whined. I threw her more chicken. Neva put down the squinting ballerina and reached for the pictures of our mother in front of our Elkton house. "You know we had a good childhood." Neva hesitated and then laughed. "You were her favorite. You could do no wrong. I never was her favorite. She called me, stupid, ugly, and fat."

I responded, "Well, it lasted until I could talk, then Forsythia switches and hairbrushes. You escape to boarding school. I had to fend for myself."

"You know she made me stand in a chair in front of our mantel clock."

I knew the story, "Yep, trying to teach you to tell time."

Neva didn't miss a beat, "Roman numerals. Can you believe hitting me with a yardstick until I learned to tell time with Roman numerals?"

"That's why I worked my ass off to know shit. By the time she thought I needed to tell time, I had it down: quarter to three, five thirty, six o'clock. My plan was to outsmart her."

My attention drifted back to Elkton. I had no way to know what happened under that porch. Did I really kill Blackie's puppies? I have grainy, black-and-white mental photographs of a stick-wielding little boy. I remember the woven wire fence, the porch steps, and the darkness, broken by slanting light. I have combed my memory for shreds of the truth.

"I still can't believe that while I was getting to know a Forsythia switch, you and Dad were having lobster bisque and drinking Shirley Temples. My God, if I had known that, I would've burned the house down."

"I thought you tried. Wasn't there some explosion?"

"Smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails, but that was later. At least I didn't kill her."

"I had private schools, but you had those Hickman meals. I wanted to be with my friends."

"Those meals were great, arguing back and forth, Dad quoting Plato, Walt Whitman, Virgil, and Shakespeare, trying to prove points like he was in court. All the Hickmans were like that, enjoying a good argument. Bubbo wouldn’t have been at one of those meals.”

"Bubbo hated them. She said the Hickman's had no education and didn't know good china."

"Your birthday party last August was a little like a Hickman event, without the fireworks, sitting around a table, talking and telling stories."

My sister looked up. "I really had fun. It was a good birthday party. I love the Fan. I've eaten at Joe's many times."

Just after the birthday party, her daughters moved her to the retirement home. When I returned her to the retirement home that first time, she said, "This isn't my home."

The wind blew the patio's eisenglass curtains, and the chill brought me back to our photographs. Neva said, "You know we lived over there on Monument Avenue." Neva pointed north towards Monument Avenue and then asked, "What was Punky's mother's name?"

"Polly. She went to college and became a teacher and artist. She did very well. She just died."

"You know, Daddy would come to our house in Richmond for the weekend, drink too much, and cry. He worried about how you would turn out."

"He thought reading to me would help, Huckleberry Finn, Old Yeller, Arabian Nights, and Robert Service. He told family stories. Any mention of his dog, Shep, and he teared up. It meant a lot to him that our family coat of arms had a dog." I reached down to rub Katie's ears.

"Remember that Christmas," my sister added, "When she was in the hospital?"

"I still feel guilty, but it was our best Christmas ever."

My sister laughed, "That housekeeper, the Mennonite girl, the look on her face when Dad brought home sparkling burgundy, brandied pears, kippered herring, and oysters. The three of us, that outrageous Christmas tree with colored lights and garish balls. Bubbo would've died if she had known that was going on in her house."

"It was our best Christmas. We drank sparkling burgundy, ate fudge, and very rare roast beef. We laughed so hard because we could."

My sister organized the photographs into a pile in front of her.

"We had an odd childhood." She pushed a few photographs around. "Can you believe it 80? I'm 80 years old." She looked at me. "Are you really 74? Can you believe that?"

Neva puzzled over our situation. "You know my children don't care a thing about antiques or family china. They don't know oriental rugs."

"I have the same worry. Peter wants things. Brendan is interested, but I'm not sure about Ian or Amy. These things might be important to the grandchildren or even their children."

My sister looked at me. "We took care of our mother. That's the way it should be. Remember how we drove to Harrisonburg to buy her groceries, taking turns?" My sister stepped over the landmine: our arguments over who drove the most, who got her silver, and who she loved the best.

We left the pub for the retirement home. "This has been fun, Brother."

At the retirement home, she introduced me again. "This is my brother and his dog, a border collie. She's a good dog."

Katie wandered over to the first gray-haired lady and sat at her feet, looking up, whining for a pat. She moved from person to person. One woman using a walker commented, "She's working in the crowd. That's a sweet dog."

"Thank you, brother. Let's do this again."

On the interstate, heading west, I thought about the similarities between my mother and my sister, the same edge, focused on defending themselves, and yet, luckily, my sister wasn't psychotic. My family was always a struggle, yet I dreamed of a bit of caring, a bit of fun, something quirky, with no psychodrama.

I planned to ask my sister questions on my next trip. We might discover something, even with our dwindling time. I wanted to know what she remembers about Blackie and her puppies. You never know. She might remember something important.