Parade Day

“This was tucked in your Paul Revere hat.” I hold out a note written on red-and-blue star-spangled paper. His replica tricorn hat is balanced on the flat of my other hand, as regal as a dressed turkey on a platter. I come from the garage, come from hoisting large cardboard boxes onto foldout tables: boxes of costume parts, of bugles and drums and piccolos, of torn-sheet bandages and yardstick splints, all collected over years of digging into dime-store bargain bins and pawing through secondhand clothes racks. While I was unpacking the heaviest container, a slip of paper fluttered toward the concrete floor. It hung for a moment on the stagnant air before landing in silence at my feet.

When I entered the bedroom, Wyatt was sitting on the edge of our bed. His back is to me. Fresh from a shower, his skin looks cool and smooth as lake water. He twists to view my offering, sees the hat and scrap of paper. It takes a moment, but his reaction is clear. I watch his pupils dilate to darkroom size, see his fair skin flush. So it’s true, I think. Turning back to the wall, he takes a deep pull on his first cigarette of the day. When he doesn’t speak, I crumple the note and toss it toward him, underhand, like I imagine lobbing a grenade into an enemy foxhole. It lands on the bed, next to his Faneuil Hall commemorative ashtray. He flinches but doesn’t otherwise move. I walk to the window and raise the aluminum blind. The sun illuminates the wicker furniture and orange crocheted bedspread my grandmother made as a wedding present.

“Are you going to read the note?” I say. I notice the bald spot on the crown of his head. It has spread since I last looked — more the size of a quarter now than a nickel. I hold my body still as best I can. “Wyatt? Seventy-some guests will be arriving in less than two hours. We still have a lot to do to prepare.” The words come out in a rasp. My bare arms, already sticky from heat at nine in the morning, still clutch the tricorn.

Wyatt smooths the balled paper in his hand. He stares at the few words before tearing it to confetti and dropping it into the woven wastebasket next to the bed. Without looking at me, he turns back to the wall, his attention on a framed photograph. It is of the three of us before the younger girls. We are on vacation in Boston, posing at the foot of the Bunker Hill monument. I remember a honeymoon couple from San Francisco volunteered to snap the picture. Tracey, a year old, is on his shoulders, her chubby chin resting on the same hat I now hold, a souvenir we bought earlier that day in a giftshop on the Freedom Trail. On tiptoe behind the two, I mug for the camera, my long curly hair puffed like cellophane noodles in the humid summer air.

“Remember when Tracey was born with that tiny hole in her heart,” Wyatt says, his voice a thread of unspooled sound. “We were so terrified. You never put her down that first month. You tucked her tiny body in the crook of your arm and went about your business. You made dinner with her, you vacuumed with her, you slept with her against your heart. It was as though she was still growing inside you. It was your will, Yolanda, that closed that hole.” His hand shakes as he flicks ashes into the tray.

“Yes, and now she’s 14 and hates me.” I know my words sound strident. I’m not often so self-indulgent. “Who wrote the note, Wyatt?”

He stands at last and faces me, covering himself with a yellow towel I bought to coordinate with the bathroom’s daisy wallpaper. The pungent scent of soap from his shower leaves me lightheaded.

“I screwed up.” No sharp edge to his voice, as if that will make the words cut less. “I ended it that night, I swear.”

He pulls the towel tight around his hips, pushing up a thumb-sized rope of fat. He has gained weight in recent months. We both have. I walk to the door and lean into the door jamb, still cradling the traitorous hat.

I feel like the doctor just told me I have cancer.

“You promised this would never happen to us.” I close my eyes to a memory of 16 years earlier.

I was a senior in high school, working weekends at a department store lunch counter. One Saturday afternoon my father came in with a woman I didn’t know. The woman was pregnant, her abdomen impossibly low and large as a basketball. The counter was full except for a couple of empty stools on one end. She squeezed into the corner, him next to her. He introduced her as “Bonnie.” Nothing more, no explanation for her presence. I studied her as I brought them water. Up close Bonnie looked older than I first thought, past prime for someone soon to give birth.

I handed them menus and waited, my pencil poised on my order pad.

“I thought it was time for you two to meet,” my father said.

This was how he chose to reveal everything — right there at a full lunch counter on the busiest day of the week when I had other customers to wait on, coffee cups to fill, catsup bottles, packets of Sweet N Low, butter patties to fetch. A ding signaled an order was up.

“Does Mom know?” was all I could manage.

He pretended to read the menu.

I pushed, “Are you going to tell her?”

“Yeah, well,” he said and paused. “I intend to.”

“So, no,” I said.

“Hi, darlin’.” Bonnie’s voice was overly loud, like she was talking to someone on the other side of a convention center. “Your daddy’s told me a lot about you.” Physically, Bonnie was everything my mother wasn’t: big even without the basketball, voluptuous, earthy. Dressed in a flowered smock with rouching around the collar, she wore garish red lipstick and kept her fingernails long and tapered. Black hair reached down her back. There was a proprietary air in the way she snuggled up against my father.

Wyatt knew all about this part of my past, knew my father’s infidelity had crushed me. Until then I had retained some childhood belief in the general integrity of the human spirit. It was more than that, though. It was the cowardice of it, showing up at the lunchroom unannounced. Wyatt had promised nothing like that would ever happen to us. We would meet life head-on no matter what. That promise had been partly why I chose to be a homemaker, maybe to somehow right a wrong.

Sounds from downstairs bring me back to the present. I hear chairs scraped across the pink speckled linoleum, the refrigerator door opened with that telltale sucking sound, Cheerios rained into bowls — our girls getting breakfast. Three-year-old Patty squeals as something splashes onto the table. I can tell from Wyatt’s face he hears it too. A sudden realization lands like a second blow. I fall back against the door jamb. “If she was at last year’s barbecue, I must know her.”

He stares at me for a long moment before speaking. “You met her that one time,” he says. “Someone from work. She’s gone, I swear; transferred to another city.”

I toss the hat over to the bed, unable to bear its weight any longer. I want to yank his towel away, to make him as defenseless in some small way as he has made me. I glance at the clock radio on my nightstand. So much left to do. Time has become my enemy. Even if I chose to, I can’t call off the barbecue now, can’t hear his sorry tale or absorb its ramifications. That will have to wait. First, I must get through this day. With such dignity as I can muster, I turn to leave.

“To be continued,” I say. “In case you forgot, we have a party to give. Happy fucking Fourth of July.”

* * *

Later, standing at the kitchen sink, I knife avocados into bullet-sized chunks for my special guacamole. Wyatt and I haven’t spoken since the bedroom. We’ve each gone about our usual preparations for the holiday, although I’ve avoided the garage and the parade provisions. Through the kitchen window I watch him skim the swimming pool. He’s not wearing his tricorn on its special day, his exposed monk’s cap already a rosy glow. Back and forth he goes with the long aluminum pole, making neat turning swirls with the net at each end. Guests are due soon and still he surrounds then captures the tiniest blade of grass, as if he has time to orbit the moon and return. How is this calmness possible? Does he care at all? About me? About our girls?

My cancer localizes in my stomach.

I jump when Tracey walks past me. Juggling disposable tableware in both arms, she kicks open the screen door to the backyard. “You want me to put out all this junk?” My daughter throws the words at me over a bony shoulder without pausing for an answer. Dressed in skimpy shorts and a denim halter top, she drops the picnic supplies onto the closest redwood bench, the plastic utensils and sparklers rattling like broken glass. She glances back to make sure I’m watching as she floats the cotton tablecloths — depicting major battles of the American Revolution — over the picnic tables. Forks and spoons are placed perfectly upright in a wire caddy and plastic cups stacked in towers, all the way I taught her. Red paper plates get fanned in large spirals. Each gesture is punctuated with a dramatic sweep of her arm like a matador at a bull fight. I remember when she enjoyed helping me prepare for the annual event. Turning with faux military precision, wobbly in platform shoes, she heads back through the kitchen. She salutes but doesn’t look at me.

“Happy, Mother?”

I scoop minced onions into a bowl. My eyes tear. I’m not sure if it’s my daughter’s current state of mutiny, the onions, or my mess of a marriage.

I wonder if Wyatt has noticed the way our daughter treats me. He has segued to raking tree debris away from the edge of the pool. I stomp across the yard, talking before I reach his side. “Do you see how rude Tracey is to me? She practically threw the sparklers into the blue vases. You never back me up.”

He shrugs but doesn’t otherwise respond. I follow him to the portable barbecue where he tosses the waterproofing cover to the side and starts scraping the grill with a metal spatula.

“Well?” I shout the word, mad at myself for my lack of control.

Finally, he looks at me, shielding his eyes with a hand as he squints into the overbearing sun. “For once, Yoyo, come down to earth. You don’t let her breathe. You don’t let any of us breathe.” Old bits of gristle are catapulted into the air like shrapnel. “You put so much pressure on everyone and everything to be perfect.” He motions at the yard with the spatula. “Look around. Really look. The cedar fence needs repairing. There are brown spots on the lawn where the sprinklers don’t reach. God knows the house needs painting. Tracey hates that she’s taller than the boys in her class. Did you know that? Heather is struggling in school with some new type of long division. Nothing is perfect for any of us.”

I recoil as if slapped. “You don’t get it, Wyatt. I’m a full-time homemaker. That is my profession. This party is my moment. The parade is the one thing that sets me apart, something no one else has the time or imagination to pull off. I don’t put on a suit every morning and sell fancy homes to rich people. You and the children, this house, this barbecue, are what I do. If I don’t do them well, if every detail isn’t perfect, then who am I?”

Locked now in mutual hurt and frustration, neither Wyatt nor I notice the sound of Fords and Chevys heading up our drive to park behind the garage.

Tracey squawks out the door: “Hey you guys, people are arriving. Are you coming in or what?”

I throw up my hands and hurry into the house. Nothing is ready. The younger girls are still in their pajamas. Parade preparation was barely begun when everything imploded. I haven’t churned the traditional homemade ice cream or swished the toilets, cut flowers for centerpieces, even combed my thicket of hair. From the front window I glimpse my father and Bonnie walking around the corner of the garage. Although I can’t hear her, Bonnie is talking nonstop. My father looks to the horizon, probably envisioning his first beer of the day. Slouching along behind them are my half-sister, Charly, and her latest boyfriend, Sam. Even in the middle of a heat wave, Sam sports a leather vest with a “bite me” patch over the heart. She dresses like a Goth in black lace, her hair long and stringy. Heavy silver chains dangle from both of them. Tracey runs over and links arms with my half-sister. They have become buddies of late. I don’t like it.

Wyatt’s coworkers arrive together. Most years they put in token appearances before heading off to their own family events. Some, who have children, stay to participate in the parade. There’s one face in this year’s group I don’t recognize. Wyatt introduces her as Margret. Margret is lovely. Impossibly young. New to real estate, according to Wyatt. Before this morning’s discovery I wouldn’t have given her a second thought. Now my radar starts spinning like a whirligig. Is this instant suspicion how it’s going to be every time a pretty woman comes on the scene?

The rest of the guests arrive in a mishmash of fruit salads, pool floats, and excited children. My friend Darla and her four-year-old, Seth, walk up the drive from their home around the corner. Seth bangs drumsticks against each other as they approach. Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap. Darla mouths “thank you” when I send him to stash his noisemakers in the garage with the other parade preparations. Darla is midway through a painful divorce. Most mornings we drink coffee at the kitchen table and brainstorm the next part of her life. Her house is up for sale and she needs to make big life decisions. Having stayed home to raise her children, she laments her lack of employable skills. I am trying to convince her to go back to college. It comes to me as she heads to the kitchen with her tray of cupcakes that her situation and mine may not be all that different. I look for Wyatt and find him over by the pool talking to Margret.

My cancer spreads to vital organs.

My mother arrives last, as usual, coming up the drive alone. Wanda has always liked an entrance. This year she’s pulled out all the stops in a formfitting paisley jumpsuit with a yellow silk scarf knotted at the neck. Brown suede boots come to her knees, even in the heat. She smells of White Shoulders.

Her hug is perfunctory. “Is your father here?” She looks over my shoulder.

“Last I saw, he was headed for the beer cooler.”

She sets off when I point her in the right direction.

Ever since Bonnie and the basketball, my mother’s goal has been to make my father regret every decision he ever made. For my part, I don’t think he’s ever been happier. Unlike Wanda, Bonnie is willing to make do with whatever paltry income he brings home from driving a taxi. She caters to his every whim, cuts up celery for his tuna fish sandwiches the way he likes, walks to Food Mart for his cigarettes and beer, waits up for him to come home from the card room on Market Street.

I’m sad for Bonnie, who will try like anything to please her man but never be anything more than a marital convenience. I’m sad for my mother and her obvious efforts to impress her ex-husband. I’m sad for Darla, who must start from scratch and figure out her life again. I’m sad for me, suspended now in a limbo of hurt and anger.

* * *

The heat ratchets up without sympathy to the historic or personal importance of the day, slaying the century mark shortly after noon. The women scoot aluminum lawn chairs into what shade they can find. The men huddle around the beer cooler next to the barbecue, talking sports and downing Bud Lights like water. Slathered in Tropicana, the children run about the yard playing tag and cannonballing into the pool. As designated lifeguard, I hide behind sunglasses at a spot next to the deep end. I keep one eye on Wyatt as he tours the yard greeting our guests, introducing himself to newcomers with an outstretched hand. What a fine salesman he must be, I think, walking couples through state-of-the-art kitchens and two-car garages, pointing out crown moldings and gas fireplaces. Occasionally he looks my way, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Once he smiles and cocks his head. His carefree manner hurts. I pretend to be watching Patty gyrate her hula-hoop above nonexistent hips.

Somehow, in all the hubbub I miss one of the neighborhood boys running around the far edge of the pool and slipping on the wet concrete. He falls, thumping his chin on the coping. Wyatt gets to him first. He stands the boy up and looks at him from all sides. Finding no visible wound, he ruffles the kid’s shaggy hair and gives a thumbs-up to the bystanders.

“The next person who runs around the pool gets a noogie,” he announces to the swimmers at large, “and no one wants one of my noogies. Just ask Patty.”

Patty grins, the hula-hoop around her ankles. Wyatt is a good father; I can’t argue that. Maybe the note was just a blip in our marriage, like he said.

* * *

Through the years, our Fourth of July extravaganza has evolved to run on a schedule. Lunch comes next. With my signal, Wyatt starts grilling the burgers and dogs. Darla and I head to the kitchen to assemble the food. We uncover casseroles, arrange trays of veggies and dips, put serving spoons in everything, make sense of pandemonium. Margret walks up next to me as I deliver a vat of baked beans to the serving table.

“Hot,” she says and looks to the sky. She cools herself with a delicate Japanese fan like some geisha girl.

“Hot,” I concur. I notice sweat rings under my arms.

“Wyatt’s always bragging about what a great homemaker you are.” She makes a sweeping motion with her fan. “Everything is lovely.”

I glance to see if Wyatt is watching us talk. He’s busy flipping burgers, looking as innocent as warm milk.

For the next few minutes Margret helps set everything out. When we’re ready I ring an old metal triangle kept for the occasion, signaling everyone to come eat. Margret grabs a tablespoon of coleslaw and a plain meat patty before heading off to join her coworkers. For the next 30 minutes I monitor the food station, restocking when necessary. I watch the red Jell-O turn to soup. I throw a dishcloth over the pile of cooked meat to keep the flies away. I stir salads. Just when I think everyone has finished, Bonnie comes back for seconds of the macaroni and cheese. “I don’t usually eat like this, but everything is so good,” she says and winks at me. Round two begins as others follow her lead. I surrender to my total lack of control. The day will run its course regardless of my desire to plow through it. Lunch lasts longer than the Battle of Gettysburg.

* * *

Parade time arrives at last. Over the years, our homemade Independence Day reenactment has become the highlight of the party. The first parade was spontaneous. Wyatt pulled two-year-old Tracey in her red wagon up and down the long drive while the rest of the family marched behind singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It has grown each year since, guests donating provisions, costume parts, and noisemakers, evolving the parade into something so extravagant the community paper wrote an article about it. This year promises to have a record number of participants. When I clang the triangle for the second time, kids shoot past me like bottle rockets and head for the garage.

In years past, everything would be in order — costumes neatly separated into piles, band instruments and crutches placed side by side, rolled bandages arranged on a tray like cinnamon rolls. When I reach the garage, children are grabbing pieces of clothing from unpacked boxes, tossing unwanted items over their heads. A powdered wig is trampled underfoot, then retrieved by a newcomer to the parade. A tug-of-war over the one trumpet looks ready to give an innocent bystander a shiner before two mothers mediate the controversy with the deftness of King Solomon. Grown-ups wrap torn sheets around tiny soldiers and simulate battle wounds with catsup. Despite the chaos, everyone is laughing. My kids are right there shouting and tugging with the rest. I see Heather jumping up and down as she uncovers the lace shower cap worn by Betsy Ross. Wyatt is there in the thick of it, helping where he can. When the turmoil slows, I call for participants to assemble at the foot of the driveway.

Adults and older siblings line up along the edge of the grass, fanning themselves with anything they can find, squinting against the sun, sucking the ice cubes from their drinks. Out of the melee, Margret appears beside me. Is she following me, studying me the same way I have been studying her? By now, most of Wyatt’s other coworkers have said their goodbyes and headed off.

“This is so fun,” she says. “I don’t know how you do it.”

Not knowing what to say, I smile and wave at Tracey to start the music. The participants whoop as the portable stereo booms “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” No one seems to care that it’s a Civil War song. It’s perfect in its imperfection. I determine to forget about everything and everyone except this moment, my annual homage to all that life can be. As always, George Washington proudly leads the procession, his little body stiff with pride, his eyes staring straight ahead. Two sisters, school friends of Heather, come next. They have decorated a wagon float with a cardboard hull and mast to look like a boat. One of them wears the powdered wig, balancing on one knee as if crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776. Our Heather as Betsy Ross follows. She holds my largest needlepoint hoop and pretends to sew the first American flag, a smile on her face the size of Mt. Rushmore. I direct the other historical figures to step out one by one. The young man who plays John Hancock, an enthusiastic fifth-grader from the neighborhood, rolls and unrolls his pretend Declaration of Independence until it looks as tattered as the real thing. At one point, someone trips over a bit of dangling sheet bandage and scrapes his knee. Tracey, closest to the child, scoops him up, brushing bits of dirt from a small abrasion. “You’re the only real wounded soldier here,” I hear her say. He rejoins the parade with pride, limping as never before. Wyatt catches my eye and nods toward Tracey. I want to smile back, but I can’t. Not yet. Last of all comes Patty, our baby. As the youngest participant, she wears a bright red sandwich board that reads, “The End.” With tongue in cheek, she tries not to smile as she passes her father. He shouts “well done,” his serious face reflecting her gravity.

Start to finish, the parade takes eight minutes.

* * *

Like a tortoise in a marathon, the day creeps toward the finish line. Dessert is served — a sheet cake of an American flag, in addition to Darla’s cupcakes. No one seems to miss the ice cream. Tracey devours a cupcake and asks permission to leave. When I agree, she takes off like the British are hot on her heels. No hug, but I get a wave and half a smile.

For the first time since that morning, I take a deep breath.

Sparklers are the final hurrah. Wyatt ignites them with his cigarette lighter. The children make figure-eights while moms and dads hover close by. Seth runs around the yard like a crazed Statue of Liberty before Darla tackles him and yanks the tiny torch from his hand. Charly writes Sam’s name in the air with big arcing gestures. In her wild exuberance she catches one of his hair coils on fire. When she screams, my father, who happens to be standing nearby, saves the day by pouring beer on Sam’s head. I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of life.

After the last sparkler, Wyatt climbs onto a picnic table and thanks the remaining guests for coming. Everyone applauds when he credits me for the special day. Packing up begins. Frantic hunts locate misplaced sneakers. Rinsed serving bowls are retrieved from the kitchen. Patty and Heather leave to spend the night with cousins. The yard empties like the stands after a football game.

Somehow, I have survived the day. As I wave off the last of the partygoers, a car creeps up the driveway. Turns out it’s Margret’s husband coming to pick her up. They hug like newlyweds. I learn later that a company golf tournament prevented him from attending our party. She waves goodbye to me from a distance, and I realize I have been an idiot.

My cancer goes into remission.

The last to leave are Darla and Seth. Wyatt offers to walk them home. I fall into an Adirondack chair, exhausted, as they head down the drive. Wyatt hoists Seth on his shoulders with practiced ease. Darla takes Wyatt’s arm. There is an intimacy in the movement, even from behind. I don’t know what it means, if anything. All I know is my marriage, as I pictured it all those years ago, was never anything more than a dream. It might survive. It might be fractured beyond repair. In any case, it will never be the same. I give Wyatt his due: He was right there all day, helping, encouraging, troubleshooting. Our children adore him. Even Tracey — on the cusp of womanhood — continues to confide in him. Can I forgive him? I don’t know.

I look to the sky. Darkness has descended like the dropping of a curtain. Even the heat has surrendered to the coming night. In the far distance, the first pyrotechnics pop in blasts of color. From this distance they look like miniatures, a doll’s celebration. Tiny chrysanthemums and peony clusters dot the horizon, rainbows, fountains and cones, strobes, willows and dragon’s eggs, falling leaves, glitter, comets, circles of fire. I close my eyes, wanting nothing more than to think about things bigger than myself, to think about being born in a country that celebrates a person’s right to live life as they choose. I want to remember walking the Freedom Trail all those years ago, to remember big dreams.

After a time, Wyatt lowers himself into the chair next to me. He is holding the Paul Revere hat, running his index finger around its soft edge. He must have retrieved it from the bedroom after walking Darla home.

“Like Woodstock on Monday morning,” he says, looking around.

I follow his gaze, taking in the smashed beer cans, the greasy paper plates, the chewed corncobs, the detritus of the day. There are decisions to be made. Where do I go from here? Does one mistake, if it was one mistake, outweigh all the good in our marriage? God knows I haven’t been perfect either, putting impossible demands on everyone to live up to some standard I realize now is unattainable.

In the distance, I watch the last magnificent burst of pyrotechnics. The grand finalé. “We have a mess to clean up, don’t we?”

“Yolanda, what I did was unforgiveable. I know that.”

I take a breath. “Tomorrow, Wyatt. There will be time for everything tomorrow.”