A Little Change Of Plans

For a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of thinking that the divine was summoning him for a heart-to-heart. But unless the divine was taking the form of his mother’s voice, that wasn’t to be.

“Uncle Adam!” The voices of Trevor and Billy, his nephews, echoed through the small apartment, followed by his sister’s bellowing. “Where the heck are you? Still sleeping?”

Last night’s monumental events had completely erased his memory of his family’s scheduled visit this morning. He couldn’t let them see he was packing. He wasn’t in the mood for questions right now, and he couldn’t logically sort things out for them before he sorted them out for himself.

He rushed out of his bedroom and slammed the door hard behind him, colliding head-on with Janine.

“Watch it, buddy,” his sister said. “You forgot we were coming, didn’t you?”

“Heck, no. You wound me.”

“Then you were so excited to see us, you forgot to put on a shirt?”

“That’s right.”

She hugged him and patted his bare shoulders. “Nice to see you.”

“You, too.” His sister’s brown hair was smushed into a girly ponytail thing, which looked cute but was not the kind of thing she would have done with her hair before having kids. He remembered her hours with the hair dryer and curling iron, leaving Adam to hop up and down outside the bathroom, waiting. His sister was still pretty, but in a softer, less deliberate way.

Trevor and Billy flew into Adam, their collisions purposeful. “Oof.”

“Uncle Adam,” Trevor said with all the urgency of an eight-year-old. “I got a goal in soccer. It went right over the goalie’s head.”

Not to be outdone, ten-year-old Billy cut in. “I got first seat trumpet in band this year. I beat all the sixth-graders. I can’t wait for school to start.”

“That’s a new one,” Janine mumbled, rumpling both her sons’ hair.

“You guys rock,” Adam said. “I have the coolest nephews ever.”

They both grinned, and although blond Trevor and dark-haired Billy didn’t look much alike at first glance, their smiles were nearly identical.

“I love it when all my kids are in one place,” he heard, and the kids stepped aside to let Adam’s mother hug him. “How are you?”

“Same, no change,” Adam said, inhaling his mother’s classic French perfume, the kind he got her for Mother’s Day every year, as she rested her head of brunette curls on his chest. He glanced guiltily at the closed bedroom door. “Let’s go see what I have to eat.”

“Probably nothing, as usual,” Pam said. “So we brought plenty.” She headed to the kitchen, two hungry kids scampering behind. Adam went to follow them, but turned to check the door one last time.

It was open, and Janine was stepping out into the hall.

“What are you doing?” Adam asked.

“Tossing my sweater on your bed, where I always put it.”

“Why are you wearing a sweater? It’s like eighty-five degrees outside.”

“Why are you packing? Are you going somewhere?”

Adam pushed his sister back into his room and kicked the door shut.

“Oh,” Janine squealed, balling her fists in excitement. “It’s a secret. What is it?”

“None of your business,” Adam said, pulling on a black T-shirt and trying to sound fierce enough for his sister to back off. He should have known it would only intrigue her further.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she insisted, her threatening tone matching his. She was only a year older than him, but somehow she always managed to make it seem as if it were much more.

“Or what?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Or I’m telling Mom.”

“What are you, five? Besides, you don’t even know what you’re telling her,” Adam countered, getting a bit nervous.

“I don’t have to. I’ll just tell her something’s up and she’ll drag it out of you.”

Adam knew she was right. “Janine, I’m serious.”

“So am I. You can’t just be taking off somewhere, all cloak-and-dagger, with like a month’s worth of clothes, and leave us here to worry about you.”

“I’m not going far.”

“Where’s not far?”

The two siblings glared at each other in a silent standoff, until Janine broke it by throwing open the door and yelling, “Mom!”

“You’re not even my real sister,” Adam said in juvenile desperation. “Mom and Dad just felt sorry for you when your spaceship left without you, and they took you in.”

Janine put her hands on her hips. “For your information, I didn’t even believe that when I was a kid.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t,” she said, “because I happen to know for a fact that a pack of mangy wolves left you on our doorstep when you were a baby.”

“Really?” asked Trevor, who had come into the room without the adults noticing. “You’re a wolf, Uncle Adam?”

“I’m not just any wolf,” Adam told his towheaded nephew. “I’m the Big Bad Wolf.” He howled menacingly and lunged, causing Trevor to shriek. Elmer bounded in and added his puppy howls to the fray. Laughing, Janine joined in. Billy ran in to see what the racket was about and began howling too without knowing why.

An earsplitting whistle pierced the air, and the noise abruptly ceased.

“It’s clear I raised a bunch of wild animals,” Pam said to the silence. A few giggles came from the two boys.

“Billy and Trevor,” Pam said, “go to the living room and take Elmer with you.” She turned to the two adults, and Adam detected a twinkle in her eye. “Watch TV for a few minutes. I need to talk to my children.”

The boys, snickering the way kids did when they saw their elders being treated like fellow kids, edged out of the room, Billy gently tugging a still-scrabbling Elmer by the collar.

Adam marveled, and certainly not for the first time, at how his mother, the epitome of homespun living, could put an effective smackdown on a roomful of misbehavior.

“Mom,” Janine said. “Adam has something to tell you.”

“Space-alien girl,” Adam muttered.