Everything Changes

There’s no obvious role for Norm, who was a last-minute addition to the roster, but I will discourage any ad-libbing. Beyond that, I have nothing concrete in mind, except the notion that it seemed like a much better plan on the drive up.
    Before any of this can happen, though, there’s the matter of Norm’s reunion with Lela and Pete, which is something I’d pay good money to not be present for, but I can’t see any way out. I’d love to wait in the car, but we can’t just spring Norm on Lela, even though that would surely be his preferred modus operandi, given the choice.
    “What the hell is that?” Norm asks as Matt throws on the Elton John wig.
    Matt flashes me a look that says he will not abide any remarks from Norm on the subject. “Just go with us on this one, Norm, okay?” I say.
    “You look ridiculous,” Norm says, prompting me to wonder, not for the first time, how he’s made it to the ripe old age of sixty without getting the shit beat out of him repeatedly. The man has no filter.
    “People in glass houses,” Matt says venomously, “should shut the fuck up.”
    Norm defensively rubs the pitiful remnants of his failed hair transplant, but refrains from any further comments.
    “Now, just stay in the car,” I say. “Matt and I need to tell her you’re here.”
    “Got it,” says Norm, checking his teeth and patting down his pate in the rearview mirror.
    Matt and I deliberately crowd the door frame when Lela opens the door. She’s in sweatpants, a white blouse with a faded floral pattern, and an apron, and I instinctively know she will consider this the worst outfit possible for facing her ex-husband again, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.
    “Hi, Mom,” I say. “There’s something we need to tell you.”
    “My Lord,” she whispers, looking past us to the car. “Is that Norman?”
    “Yes.”
    Her breath catches in her throat and she leans against the door frame for support. “What’s he doing here?”
    “He just kind of showed up,” I say.
    “We can’t seem to get rid of him,” Matt adds.
    Lela’s hands operate on instinct. One flies up to gingerly assess her hair, combing it desperately with her fingers, tucking loose ends behind her ears, while the other absently pulls at her apron, smoothing out her blouse underneath it. “He’s so . . . old,” she says, her fingers now worrying the weathered contours of her own face self-consciously.
    Behind us, the car door slams. Norm has apparently done all the sitting still he’s capable of, and he now exits the car and comes up the walk, his face hyperbolically solemn, his gait slow and formal, milking the gravity of this summit meeting. A peculiar half smile twists at Lela’s thin lips, her brows arched, her eyelids at half-mast. The alien expression transforms her, and I realize I’m seeing, for the first time, a side of my mother that has nothing to do with being a mother, the part of her that was all of her before she and Norm procreated and, ultimately, destroyed each other.
    “Hello, Lela,” Norm says somberly. “You look wonderful.”
    “Hi, Norm,” she says, her voice stronger and steadier than I would have thought possible. “It’s been a long time.”
    He nods, but before the scene can play itself out any further, there’s a loud whoop from inside the house and Pete bursts through the front door in nothing but his underpants, eyes wide, tongue hanging out of his gaping mouth, and, leaping down the porch stairs in one bound, throws himself into Norm’s arms. “Daddy!” he shouts, hugging Norm fiercely. “I knew you’d come back! I missed you. Look, Mom. It’s Daddy. He came back.”
    “Hello, son,” Norm says in a choked voice as he hugs Pete and pats his shoulders. “I missed you too.” He holds Pete at arm’s length to look at him, shaking his head back and forth, and suddenly his eyes are brimming with tears. And then he lowers his head and emits a high, strangled wail that seems to suck the energy out of his body, and he collapses against Pete, who isn’t prepared for Norm’s full weight, so they fall to their knees, locked in their embrace, Norm sobbing profusely into the hollow of Pete’s neck, Pete looking concerned, rubbing Norm’s shoulders and saying, “Don’t cry, Daddy. It’s okay. Don’t cry.” And on the porch next to me, my mother says, “I’ll get some coffee,” and then bursts loudly into tears.

    Later, Pete, Matt, and I throw a baseball around outside