April & Oliver by Tess Callahan Page B

“Don’t you think so, Oliver?”
    “It hadn’t occurred to me.”
    “Yes,” Bernadette says. “His father says so, too.”
    “Not the eyes,” Nana says, “but something about the chin, and that small, triangular face. Oh, she was a lady, wasn’t she,
     Oliver?” She turns to Bernadette. “Oliver was the apple of her eye. He got all her good manners and common sense. How could
     he do otherwise, with his big brother keeping her up worrying all night?” She laughs. “That Al, he liked to party, didn’t
     he, Oliver.”
    “Still does.” He sighs.
    “Oh, Al had them biting their fingernails,” she says to Bernadette. “The problem was that Al got all of his mother’s charm
     and none of the logic.” She pats Oliver’s arm. “I understand what it’s like. My oldest sister in Malaga, she was a harlot.
     I had no choice but to be good.”
    “I hate to break it to you, Nana,” says Oliver. “But I’ve got my vices.”
    “Well, I certainly hope so,” she says, giving him a wink. “A man who goes through life without burning a piece of toast will
     never get what he wants.”
    Bernadette grins. “If that’s the case, Oliver, I think you’ve got some catching up to do.”
    He smirks.
    “Now, my granddaughter, April, she’s another story,” says Nana. “Can’t put a slice in the toaster without burning down the
     house.”
    “Well,” Oliver says wisely. “I’ll try not to go that far.”
    “Unless that’s what it takes,” Nana says.
    Oliver smiles back weakly, unsure what she means.
    Nana sighs, glancing out the window. “April, working on Christmas Eve.” She frowns. “Do you know that when her father was
     a teenager, he used to disappear every Christmas? Just take off for God-knows-where and reappear a week later? He was mad
     at
his
father, of course. He liked having the power to disappear, too. Spencer and I were sick until he came home. And it scared
     Hal. When Bede meandered back, he never would say where he’d been.”
    Oliver touches Nana’s hair gently. “We’ll all be together tomorrow. April, too.” But as soon as he says this, he realizes
     it is a lie. No one has told her about Buddy. “Come,” he says. “We’ll be late for dinner.”
    As Oliver goes to the closet for Nana’s coat, he notices a picture on the mantel, April in her crisply starched Holy Cross
     uniform, fourth grade, eyes sparkling, teeth sweetly crooked. Her face is framed by a nebulous backdrop, a blue ethereal haze.
     In the two months since their clash in the bar, he has not spoken to her.
    In the kitchen, he helps Nana with her coat.
    “Are these your sons?” Bernadette says, looking at the sailor-suit picture.
    “Sometimes a lie is more like the truth,” Nana says. “The truth isn’t always the way it happens.”
    Oliver thinks of Buddy. How long can they deceive her?
    “I thought of him as my boy,” Nana says. “No less than that.”
    Oliver smooths her lapels.
    “It was a car accident,” Nana says. “Who can explain that?”
    Oliver gives Bernadette a furtive look. Has someone told Nana?
    “Stone drunk,” Nana says. “And he was driving that Packard like a race car. The poor woman never saw it coming. The carriage
     was mangled, but Hal landed in the grass without a scratch.” Nana touches the image beneath the glass. “God caught him in
     the palm of his hand.” She looks up at Oliver and strokes the side of his face.
    Oliver shivers, glancing at Bernadette. He takes Nana’s hand. “I haven’t heard that story before. Did you ever tell my father?”
    “I wanted us to be a family,” Nana says.
    “Of course,” he says. “We are.” He brushes lint from the shoulder of her coat. Nana reaches for the frame and takes off the
     back. A second photo slips out. “Your grandmother was a beautiful woman,” she says. “I suppose she would have wanted you to
     know that.”
    It is a studio shot, the kind women sent to their boyfriends during war. The woman is attractive in