the somethingth of july

photos and video generously supplied by the baby sister. 

 it would be easiest to blame the parents because they are the ones who handed us our first explosives and the small crumbling bits of burning wand for lighting them. i do not recall when i was not allowed to set fire to wads of gunpowder wrapped in bright paper although i am sure there must have been such a time. maybe, because i am the oldest, when i was two or so. maybe three. but the middle child was born breathing brimstone and her own child is steeped in it, too. it is his birthright to throw fire into the sky.

so it is only fair that when we figure out we can make it out to the homeland for a few days, we call the child to tell him first. the sweetie asks the child about his fourth of july plans and the child goes over them halfheartedly, insisting it can't really be much without us there. now, what he means is without the sweetie. because the sweetie will strap a rocket to a styrofoam plane. he will light a whole box of ladyfingers at once. he will run out into that delicious smoke to light fuse after fuse after fuse. i hear the sweetie ask if the child thinks he could put off the fourth for a few days so we could join him. there is a scream from the other end of the phone. the sweetie has to hold the phone away from his ear and i can hear the screaming from across the room. the child will postpone the fourth of july.

i miss a call from the child while we are in maine. the message says he is hoping to do facetime on the phones so we can go with him to choose fireworks. instead, he sends a picture of himself with some sort of monstrous paper-wrapped cardboard tube. so we will know he's getting the right stuff.  his mother says he has started a countdown, how many days until we will be where he is. how many days until the sky goes sparkly.

when the smaller child hears we're coming, he puts his own spin on things. this is the child who speaks to the dog endlessly on the phone. dog language. child language. but his take on the visit is that the dog will be arriving on his own. by subway. to visit him. when he talks to me on the phone, a rarity since i am not the dog and therefore not who he really wants to talk to, he tells me he is waiting. he tells me about all the toys in his basement he is ready to share with the dog. he tells me, with great pride, about his yard, about all the grass there for the dog to pee on. he tells the dog. he tells me. he tells me to tell the dog.

my own mother starts her phone conversation asking me what her son in law will be wanting to eat. this is important. she will make anything he puts on the list. and because he lives a quasi-gluten-free lifestyle, he starts with bread pudding. because my own dear mother makes better bread pudding than anyone around. he says pineapple upside down cake. he says carrot cake. this is not just because he does not have these things at home. my mother's versions of them have ruined people for eating lesser attempts. not just my lesser attempts. the attempts of real cooks. he asks for meatloaf. my mother does not even pretend to feign interest in what i might like to eat. they will all be happy enough to see me but this is because i bring what they really want. the sweetie. the dog. the general wildness.

and so on a very hot evening some time well after the fourth, we eat a good meal where there is meat loaf on a platter and creamed peas with new potatoes in a bowl and where there is a gluten-free (and unsurprisingly delicious) pineapple upside down cake. and then we stand on the middle sister's deck, wrapped in bug spray and oppressive air, waiting. the sweetie straps the rocket to the styrofoam plane. he leans his tall self out over the corner of the deck. the middle sister lights the fuse. the smaller nephew says the single word fly. and it does. the plane slips smoothly out of the sweetie's hand trailing sparks and glides out over the yard. it hesitates just a second.  it shoots up, arcs over and turns into a shower of stars.