Two of the girl cousins mostly read books from the glassed-in bookshelf – Thackery, Dickens, H. Rider Haggard. The other little kids filled up the house in their own noisy ways.
But the big thing that particular week was the pair of blue suitcases sitting on the floor in, what our grandparents called, the front room. One suitcase was a little larger than the other one. They were blue and had name tags on them — still blank but ready and waiting for names. And they were brand-new. I’m not sure any of us had ever seen brand-new suitcases before.
They were also in the way of all the people and all the activity that flowed through the front room. It was awkward to get past them to get to the kitchen, where all the meals were eaten, but no one moved them or touched them for that matter. Or complained about them. Billy and I said to each other that they could have been moved over even a little to get out of the way of the bookcase and the kitchen door and the floor model radio where he and Dad and I tuned in to listen to evening baseball from Cleveland. Imagine. Cleveland!
But no. No moving them. Everyone was happy enough to do a little two-step sidestep around them and smile.
Another problem was where was everybody going to sleep? Beds were crowded to overfilling. A bunch of the little kids slept jam-packed together all in one bed. Couches were pounded and dusted and put into service. Blankets and quilts that had not seen sunlight for years were hauled out and shaken out and judged to be OK for a night or two.
Everyday meals were big productions. The kids set the tables and then were ordered to stay out of the way. Better yet, out of the room. Then their moms and aunts re-set everything the kids had done. At mealtime, there was little elbow room anywhere, but the conversation was lively with stories and points of view and laughter, all overlapping. Billy and I needed to sit at one of the two children’s tables. It was clear we were each in charge of our own table fiefdom unless things became too boisterous when one of the mothers would chime in. And if things got really out of hand, one of the dads would yell. And smile. But still yell. Then all the kids would go quiet and look at each other with their eyes sparkling and their lips squeezed tight together.
Soon, though, the whole tone of the house changed. Glances were exchanged. Adult shoulders slumped. Everything was called off.
“For now,” they said. “For this week.” “For a while.” “We’ll see.” “Maybe the minister got sick.” Maybe the church burned down.” “Maybe the airport was closed.” The answer depended on who we asked.
Things were quiet all around. All the adults whispered or stopped talking when they noticed any of the kids listening in. “What happened?” even some of the little kids asked. “Don’t ask so many questions,” we were all told. “C’mon,” Billy and I protested to each other. “We’ve only asked one question. How tough can that be?”
Still, we had to pick up our information by becoming invisible and still and extraordinarily well-behaved. The phone rang a lot – three longs and two shorts was our grandparents number back then. M was “crying all the time, all day long,” we heard. “Maybe just as well,” more than one person said. “Better now than after,” said another.
Nobody seemed to know what they were going to do with all that potato salad.
When we came down from bed in the morning, the blue suitcases had disappeared overnight. The space was empty.
“Well, they were suitcases,” one of the little kids said. “For travelling. That’s what suitcases are for, aren’t they? Maybe they just decided to go off travelling on their own.” Little heads nodded all around.
But Billy and I, worldly sophisticates that we were, knew that wasn’t true.
