Finishing the Bear Puzzle

My cousin takes my plate from me without me asking– I almost feel insulted. I’m seventeen, well old enough to take care of my own dishes. I don’t even know why she’s here to babysit– I can be home alone just fine. The twins aren’t even here.

“When’s Mother getting home?” I ask her.

Joyce frowns, just for a second, but when she looks back up at me, she’s smiling. “When do you think she’s getting home?”

Today is Tuesday– she goes to her supper club, I think. Or is that Wednesdays? “She gets home around eight on days when she has her supper club.”

“Well–” Joyce checks her watch. “It’s four-thirty now. She’s probably still at her supper club.”

That makes sense. Still, I wish she would hurry home. Joyce is so bossy, as if she’s not only a few years older than me. When Mother comes home, Joyce will finally leave. It’s not like I don’t see her enough as it is– our families are always together. She’s like an annoying older sister that I wish would go away.

She doesn’t sit back down after she puts the dishes in the sink. “Do you want to work on the puzzle more?”

“The puzzle?” Joyce puts her hand on my forearm to help me up, but I swat it away.

“The one we were working on. It’s the one with the trees and the black bears.”

I don’t remember what she’s talking about, but her face looks so hopeful, I don’t want to tell her so. “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Joyce has always been a little sensitive, prone to fits of hysteria. I let her lead me into the parlor room and we sit across from each other once I settle into my chair. Now that it’s in front of me, I do remember this puzzle.

“Since we got all the corners, do you want to work on the frame?”

“Sure.”

Joyce puts on some classical music, which is kind of her– while she’s always known I’m not into that teenybopper claptrap, she usually doesn’t care since she’s older than me. Father always says Aunt Sharon is too lenient with her and that’s why she’ll never get married.

We put the puzzle together without talking for a while, which is nice. When the twins are around, I can’t get a moment of peace now that they’ve learned to talk. It is strange not to have them around, though– they’re such troublemakers, I’ve learned that silence is tantamount to mischief. Maybe they’re out with Mother.

“Where’s Mother, do you know?”

“Where do you think she is?”

“Probably at her supper club.”

“That sounds right.” Joyce squints at the puzzle pieces on the table before grabbing a piece of the sky.

She must have the twins with her, then. Poor Mother. They’re such a handful.

I’m trying to pick up a particularly tricky piece of a black bear’s face when I notice the ring Joyce has on her finger.

“Is that Grandma’s?”

Joyce looks startled. “Oh. Um, yeah, I guess it is.”

“Your sister not want it after all then?”

“My… sister?”

Is she thick? “Cassandra?”

“Oh! Well, I’m, uh, I’m just borrowing it.”

“That was nice of Sandy.” I finish the last bear’s face. I’ve always liked bears. “She never lets me borrow anything.”

Joyce tilts her head. “She let you borrow that necklace, didn’t she?”

She gestures to my chest, and I know without looking that she’s talking about my pearls. I’ve worn them every morning for the past thirty years– I honestly had forgotten they were originally Sandy’s. I can’t picture her with them on. I can hardly picture Sandy at all, which is strange– we see her at least every week for church, and usually more. Maybe she’s missed because of the baby. “Oh yes, that’s right. My bribe.”

“Your bribe?”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Don’t pretend like you don’t remember, Joyce. You were there too, it’s how you got the earrings.” Joyce had wanted Grandma’s ring but Sandy had refused to part with it since she was the oldest. She kept the pearl bracelet, I got the necklace, and Joyce the earrings. When Mother and Aunt Sharon asked, we told them that Sandy was just being nice since we were jealous of her sweet sixteen present and since she was getting married soon her new husband would give her plenty of jewelry.

“My aunt– my pearl earrings?”

“So we wouldn’t tell Robert the baby isn’t his.” Joyce is acting like this is all brand new information but she was right there in the room with me when Sandy swore us to secrecy about her dalliance with Michael. “Come on, don’t play dumb.” I finish another edge of the puzzle. It’s like Joyce isn’t even trying to work on the treeline. “You remember.”

Joyce’s eyes are wide, and it suddenly strikes me that they’re not blue. Joyce’s eyes were blue, weren’t they? I must have forgotten that they were brown. “Robert– as in Robert Anderson?”

“Of course Robert Anderson. Who else? And thank goodness too.” Maybe this’ll help. Joyce loves bashing Sandy’s stupid husband. “Or else Michelle might have inherited his awful chin.”

Joyce doesn’t say anything for a second, and then very carefully and deliberately asks “Who is Mo– Michelle’s real father again? I forget...”

I squint at her. “Michael, obviously. How could you forget? It’s right in the name. Michelle. Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes,” says Joyce, although she looks faint. Despite the fact that she’s older than me, I feel some strange pang of maternal instinct for her.

“Maybe you should go get some water, dear.”

“That would be good. I’ll be back in a second.” Joyce rises from the table and turns into the kitchen. I look over at her seat and then down at the puzzle. Someone has already put together all the bears, which blows. I like bears.

There’s some kind of commotion in the kitchen, and if my knees didn’t hurt I would go see what all the fuss is about. The twins always say I'm too nosy for my own good. Whoever is in there is vacillating wildly between a shout and a hissed whisper that I can’t make out. Something about a Michael and someone’s grandma? My cousin was courted by a Michael once. Probably not the same one, since he’s been dead nearly fifty years. I finish the fourth edge of the puzzle.

After a while, a woman I don’t recognize comes and sits across from me at the table. “Sorry about that. Where were we?”

She tries to smile at me, but I can tell she’s not really okay. Her eyebrows are high in an effort to look happy, but her cheeks are just a little too pink, her lips a little too pursed. She’s looking at me like she knows me, which makes me a little uncomfortable– she must have me mistaken for someone else. Mother says sometimes that I just have one of those faces.

“Pardon me,” I say, “but I think you have me mistaken for someone else.”

The woman takes a deep breath and her smile remains plastered on. “You’re Kathleen, right? I’m Elizabeth, I’m Sandy’s… friend.”

“Kathy,” I say, and I reach out my hand to shake hers. “I really don’t know why Sandy thinks I still need a babysitter.”

“Well, sometimes it’s nice to have a little company.” Elizabeth looks down at the puzzle that’s on the table and furrows her brow. Most of the hard part has been done, but she looks so distracted I wouldn’t be surprised if it still takes her a while. Someone has already finished all the bears.

“Do you know when my mother will be home?”