Everyone thinks that I had a lot of playmates as a child because of all my siblings. In some ways, that is true - people to give me piggy back rides, take me to the mall on special occasions, teach me how to glue shingles on a dollhouse, and keep on eye on me swimming in the pond. But for the day to day stuff, like let's play "War" with the same deck of cards over and over and over until we get bored with it, or, let's race home after school to pick up that game of monopoly where we left off last night, still set up on the old wooden card table in the basement - well, for THOSE things, it was like I was in a 2-child family. My brother Wesley was the playmate - 3 years older, sometimes wiser, but not always.
I remember punching him as hard as I could in the stomach, at his request, to see if I could knock the wind out of him. "Nope, I can still breathe. Do it again." Then there were the common moments of sibling fustration: like "You're a fool" retorted with "no you are!" followed by "no you are!" and finally, "No YOU are, infinity!". Ah, the old "inifinity" safety - inarguable in kid-world. At any rate, I think we worried my mother a little, the poor woman trying to slide gracefully into her twilight years from intensive-11-kid-motherhood.
Today, at ages 36 and 39, I can say we are still stupid. Wes is stupider, of course, but we are still wreaking havoc on my mother. Today I called my mom, like every Sunday, and like every Sunday, Wes is over visiting my mom, checking in. Like every Sunday, she struggles with the buttons but manages to put me on speaker phone so he and his son Wayne can hear our conversation. After a while I say "Go up and get the Easter eggs out of the attic for Mom". He dutifully obeys, and as he goes picks up a portable extension phone and tells my mom to turn off the speaker phone, claiming it will create feedback. Off he goes upstairs, cordless phone in hand.
"Good, now I can talk to you..." And we proceed to have a solid 10 minute conversation (or more) about not only my surprise trip to the states next Friday to see my mother, but the much bigger picture--and the main reason why I am coming: her impending decision to move out of our house and where she's going next, due to her health. We discuss the latest news, which brother or sister said this or that, who thinks what, our concerns, her options, what we see as good, what worries not just us, but the whole gang. I break in at one point and say "Where are you? Do you see the boxes with the Easter stuff?"
He locates them, with his son gleefully trailing behind with a dancing singing chick that pops out of an egg held by a bunny. But in the two old worn Milwaukee's Best cardboard boxes are our Easter eggs - ones made in the mid-1970's by he and I with guidance from our mom, the pungent smell of hot vinegar lingering. The eggs so lovingly packed away and protected, year after year, so that 30 years later, we can pull out the one that says on it with a magic marker: "This great egg was made by Wes for Easter 1979. It is great because Wes made it." What he lacked in originality he made up for in bluntness.
He heads back downstairs, and suddennly I hear him suck in his breath and then choke out a "Mom, mom---is the speaker phone still on? Have you been listening this whole time?" This is when I sat right up on my couch here in France cringing. Ah, if only I was standing in the room to REALLY punch my brother in the stomach.
We fumbled, we covered, we think we pulled it off - but who cares about the surprise - we were more worried about all the other stuff. I think, though, that after 11 kids, there must just be times when stuff rolls off you. I got Wes to get Mom off the phone with a cover about a Mother's Day gift, at which point I said "Why didn't you CHECK to make sure the speaker was off, you DUMMY!"
It felt like that time when she left us alone during the day on a Saturday and we ate an entire 13 x 9 inch deep dish apple pie she had made for a family dinner the next day. We didn't touch any of the other perfectly yummy food she had left us. I don't know how it happenned - it just happenned. He took a piece, then I did - suddennly there was just one edge left.
After much reassuring apologies from me and my bumbling brother, today's phone call ended when I said, as always: "Bye Mom, love you". She said, as always: "You too". They she paused and added "Despite all those things you said about me." and she burst out laughing. I heard Wes sigh in relief in the background. Poor Wes--I was always the sneaky one - he was, and still is, just all heart.
