Action Figures - Issue Four: Cruel Summer

by Michael C Bailey

  Sara smiles. “I know. That’s why I love you,” she says, hugging me. She sighs. “Sometimes I think you’re the only person who does worry about me.”

  We leave our baggage back on the sidewalk, so we can try to enjoy the rest of the day. Denial, you and I are getting to be such great friends!

  Sara and I arrive first. Missy answers the door and promptly whisks us into the kitchen, where she is trying her hand at something called a tamagoyaki, a fairly simple Japanese omelet her Uncle Seiji taught her how to make. It uses sugar, soy sauce, and dashi powder, “which is what they use in miso soup and oh boy what a pain in the butt it is to find around here,” Missy explains, “but if I didn’t have any I’d have to use bonito flakes and those aren’t any easier to find but I didn’t like the idea of using flaked fish because it reminds me too much of fish food and who wants to eat that? Yucko.”

  “It smells good,” Sara says as Missy carefully folds the tamagoyaki in half then tucks the edges in to form a multi-layered square of eggy goodness. “Ooh. Idea. One of those on a bagel.”

  “Ooooh, yeah, I like it,” I say, and that kicks off a full-blown production line. Missy cranks out several tamagoyaki (tamagoyakis?); Sara makes the sandwiches; and I cut them up so we can all sample the variety of flavor combinations: tamagoyaki on a plain bagel, tamagoyaki on an onion bagel, tamagoyaki on a poppy seed bagel, and so on.

  Matt and Stuart arrive as we finish up, and Stuart’s eyes bug out of his head as soon as the smell hits his nose. “I don’t know what that is, but I want it,” he says, and with that we formally move on to the breakfast part of the day.

  (For the record, tamagoyaki on an onion bagel with a light touch of cream cheese was the clear winner of our little multicultural breakfast sandwich experiment.)

  The next item of the day’s agenda, as mutually agreed upon by the birthday girls, is some casual gaming. Sara spares us the indignity of getting totally crushed by her in Magic: The Gathering and chooses Carcassonne for the first game. We commandeer the Hamills’ spacious dining room table, so we can spread the map out as it grows while leaving room for our snacks and drinks. As the game gets underway, Dr. Hamill passes through on the way to the kitchen — a scenario that feels unpleasantly familiar. I involuntarily tense up.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Dr. Hamill says. “Don’t mind me, I’ll be out of your way soon enough. Missy, your mother and I will be heading out for the day. Give us a call if you need anything.”

  “Okay,” Missy says. “Have fun.”

  “You too.”

  And that’s that. No awkwardness, no confrontations, no heated arguments, just familial harmony. I was starting to doubt its existence.

  “Is anyone finishing off the coffee, or may I dump the rest of this pot?” Dr. Hamill says from the kitchen.

  I glance at my empty mug. “I’m not nearly caffeinated enough. I’ll take it if no one else wants it,” I say, receiving a round of uninterested grunts in return. I head into the kitchen, where Dr. Hamill graciously empties the decanter into my cup. “Thanks.”

  “Certainly. And how are things with you?”

  “All right. Busy. I’ll be happy when school ends for the year. I need a little less on my plate.”

  Dr. Hamill nods and absent-mindedly scratches at a set of four thin, parallel lines ringing the side of his neck: scars, slightly puckered and paler than the surrounding skin. The sight sends a chill down my spine. Those scars are proof of what kind of bad stuff can happen when our super-hero lives overlap with the lives of those around us — and yet, Dr. Hamill is shockingly blasé about his daughter’s other life. Heck, he’s actually supportive of her. To wit:

  “Has Missy returned to the team yet?” he says.

  “No, sir. We’ve talked to her about it, but she’s enjoying her time with you,” I say, which draws a smile. “She says she’ll come back eventually.”

  “Keep on her. She should return sooner rather than later. I think the team is good for her,” Dr. Hamill says. I can’t say why, but something about his remark strikes me as false.

  Dr. and Mrs. Hamill depart, leaving us to our small, subdued party. After gaming for a couple hours, we break for gift-giving. The first round is the traditional music exchange (Sara gets a CD of songs by my favorite women who rock, not unlike the CD I burned for Matt’s birthday, and Missy gets a collection of Bruce Springsteen’s best stuff), followed by proper presents. There are the usual books and Blu-rays, and then we present the big gifts.

  A couple of months ago, Sara and I kicked around some ideas for her new super-hero outfit. She was enamored with the idea of having a black hooded cloak, and wouldn’t you know, those are remarkably easy to find online (nearly every website that sells renaissance faire stuff has them). She lifts it out of the box, her eyes alight.

  “We had to trick it out a little to make sure the hood wouldn’t fall off your head,” I say. “Natalie told us to sew a comb into the hood so you can anchor it in your hair.”

  “We kept the rest of the outfit simple,” Matt says. “Military pants, boots, and a shirt like mine. Well, fitted for a girl, but it’s Kevlar and has the ballistic shock plates. Can’t be too safe, you know.”

  “Try it on!” Missy says.

  “Hold on,” Stuart says, “you have to finish opening your present.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Missy tears off the wrapping and digs into the box, pulling out a new shinobi shōzoku (rough translation: ninja pajamas) to replace her old one, which got shredded and slightly, um, bled upon during Missy’s first scrap with Buzzkill Joy. Matt did some research and discovered two interesting things about formal ninja-wear. One: the best color for nighttime stealth is not black, but a deep navy blue. Two: ninjas did not actually dress in the widely accepted black ensemble (Hollywood is to blame for that misconception); they generally dressed like normal people, because normal people stand out in a crowd less than a guy in black PJs and a hood. However, since a deep navy blue skirt and blouse are decidedly un-ninja-esque, we went with the shinobi shōzoku.

  They head to Missy’s room to change. Sara emerges minutes later looking quite super-heroic, in my esteemed opinion, if a little sinister. With her hood pulled low to obscure her eyes, she cuts an almost Grim Reaperly figure. The boys and I gather around her to inspect the ensemble.

  “Cooooool,” Matt says.

  “Really?” Sara says.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Man, I seriously need to get a new outfit,” Stuart says with a twinge of envy. “Hey, yo, Missy!” he shouts at the ceiling. “What’s keeping you?”

  “I’m right here,” Missy says. We all flinch at the sound of her voice. We whirl around to see Missy perched like a gargoyle on the back of the couch. She’s in her new outfit, to which she’s added her oni mask. She must have sneaked out of her bedroom and come in through the back door, but I never heard her enter the room — and judging by how everyone jumped, neither did anyone else.

  “Jeez, Muppet. Nice entrance,” Stuart says with a tiny shiver.

  “I know,” Missy says, her voice flat yet eerily childlike (and somehow familiar, though I can’t say what it reminds me of).

  “Yeah,” Matt says, “very ninja.”

  “I know.”

  “Um. So. Guess this means you’re ready to get back in action, huh?”

  With a lazy, easy kind of grace, Missy bends backwards, reaching for the floor. It’s like watching a Slinky moving in slow motion. She completes the back walkover, her feet touching down in perfect silence, straightens up, and removes the mask. In doing so, she seems to complete a transformation. Kunoichi disappears; Missy takes her place.

  “Look, I really appreciate the present and I think it’s a cool outfit and it totally goes with the new mask,” she says, “but you guys did fine without me the other day, which I know isn’t saying much because those construction worker guys were wicked lame, but you don’t need me and you know if you did I’d be there but, you know.”

  She ends with a shrug
.

  “But we do need you,” Matt says. “The team isn’t the same without you.”

  “Matt, come on,” I say, “we’ve been over this. Don’t push her.”

  “Maybe we should change so we can order lunch without freaking out the delivery guy,” Sara suggests. She and Missy head back upstairs to change, Matt frowning after them.

  “I’m not pushing her,” he says.

  “You are,” I say.

  “Have you ever considered that Missy might be getting cold feet and could use a push?”

  “It’s occurred to me, yes. It’s also occurred to me that she’s not getting cold feet, she’s digging in her heels because you’re acting like such a noodge. You need to back off — and while you’re at it, you might want to resign yourself to the possibility that Missy is never going to come back to the team.”

  “She’s right, dude,” Stuart says. “Look, man, I want her back on the team too, but after all the crap she’s gone through lately —”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know — trials, trauma, tribulation, I get it. I’m going to order lunch,” Matt says, retreating to a corner of the living room to call in our pizza order.

  “He doesn’t get it,” I say.

  “Course he doesn’t. He’s the king of not getting it,” Stuart says, adding in a conspiratorial whisper, “not that I’d say this to his face, but sometimes I think Missy should quit the team.”

  “You do?”

  “It’d be safer for her. Yeah, I know, I’m getting all overprotective big brothery, but it’d kill me if anything happened to her — and maybe you haven’t noticed, but things haven’t exactly been getting easier for us.”

  “Oh, I’ve noticed, believe me. Oop. Hold on, my pocket’s vibrating,” I say, pulling out my phone. It’s Mom. I consider letting it go to voicemail but, as crazy as this sounds, the ringtone feels, I don’t know. Urgent. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

  Human instinct is a bizarre and wondrous thing. People more metaphysically minded than me believe people are attuned to the world around us on a level we can’t explain or comprehend, and we respond constantly to “signals” sent to us by God or our spirit animal or the universe or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. To them, instinct is a higher power guiding us in its own subtle, mysterious way.

  Me, I think instinct is something natural — amazing, but explainable. Our brains constantly pick up tiny details that escape our conscious mind’s notice, process that information at the speed of light, and make decisions that we later describe with terms like whim or impulse or knee-jerk reaction.

  Sometimes, instinct manifests not as a physical action but as a powerful impulse or emotional reaction — a gut feeling. For example: there’s a moment of silence, no more than a half-second delay between the time I say hello and when Mom starts to speak, that causes my stomach to clench up. There’s nothing special about this briefest of brief hesitations, yet I know with absolute, terrible certainty that I’m about to take a wrecking ball to the face.

  “Carrie, I need you to come home,” Mom says, her voice thick and ragged. She sniffs wetly, clears her throat, takes a breath. My pulse spikes, my head goes light.

  The wrecking ball drops.

  “It’s Dad,” she says.

  SIX

  My grandfather is dead.

  My. Grandfather. Is. Dead. I know these words. I know what they mean individually, but not when they’re put together in that specific order. It’s a nonsense sentence that defies translation, a strange, alien concept that refuses to make its meaning clear to me.

  A police officer, his hat in his hands, which are folded respectfully at his belt buckle, asks my mother when she last spoke to Granddad. Yesterday morning, she says, before she left for work. The officer asks me the same question. I tell him yesterday morning, when I left for school.

  I think I’m the one who says that. Maybe someone else answered for me. I don’t know.

  Mom says she realized a little while ago she hadn’t seen Granddad all morning, so she poked her head into his bedroom and found him like that (whatever like that means). Yes, she says, he seemed fine. No, he hadn’t been having any health issues. Yes, his emotional state had been fine. What’s that got to do with anything? The officer apologizes. He has to ask these questions as a matter of routine, he explains.

  I’m not even sure why a cop is here. Mom called an ambulance. I guess the EMTs called the police, which is protocol whenever they’re called to an unattended death.

  Unattended death. Another phrase that makes no sense. Why are these people spewing crazy talk at us?

  Mom’s fingernails dig into my arm. All I feel is the pressure. There’s no pain. She makes a funny noise, a cross between a cough and a hiccup, the kind of sound you’d make if you swallowed wrong. The EMTs excuse themselves as they come down the stairs carrying — I don’t know what it is. It’s a stretcher, that much I can tell, and there’s something on it, hidden by a sheet and strapped down to keep it from sliding off. That would be bad. They could break something.

  Mom’s grip tightens. Still no pain.

  One of the EMTs returns a minute later. He speaks to my mother in that freaky pseudo-English everyone is using. Possible heart attack. Probably happened in his sleep. No signs that he suffered.

  (Stretcher? Maybe it was a gurney. I don’t know what the difference is.)

  The officer asks Mom a few more questions, hands her a business card, says he’s very sorry for our loss (our what?), and he leaves, at which point Mom shrinks into my arms and cries.

  And cries.

  And cries.

  Mom leaves a huge wet spot on my shoulder when she finally pulls away. Her face is red and splotchy; her eyes are solid pink because the little veins are so inflamed; and her nose drips like she has a nasty cold. Man, I hope she isn’t getting sick.

  “I should call your father,” Mom mumbles. “He’d want to know.”

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  Mom shakes her head. “No, honey, no, I don’t want --”

  “I’ll do it,” I repeat. “You sit. I’m going to put the kettle on, make you some tea, and I’ll call Dad.”

  She nods and makes her way toward the couch, shuffling stiffly, like an extra in a zombie movie.

  Zombies. Dead people.

  My grandfather is dead.

  No. Still doesn’t make any sense.

  The next day brings with it a horrible clarity. Everything suddenly makes sense. Well, a sort of sense. Maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve grasped the reality of the situation, as much as I don’t want to.

  Sara stops by the house on the way to school. The first thing she does is hug me. She asks how I’m doing. I shrug. I don’t know how I’m doing.

  I’m not going to school today, I tell her. Mom needs me. She says she understands, hugs me again. I apologize for ruining her birthday. She tells me no, don’t, I didn’t ruin anything, and she hugs me harder.

  “Call me if you need me, okay?” Sara says.

  “I will.”

  “Promise me.”

  I try to smile. I try. “I promise.”

  From that point the day takes on a strangely dreamlike quality. I experience moments and events that I know on some level are connected by a common thread, but everything that happens in-between those moments refuses to stick in my memory. One minute I’m answering the phone and passing it to Mom, so whoever’s calling can offer his or her condolences. The next I’m accepting a flower delivery. The next I’m playing hostess to a visitor, one of Granddad’s friends who only knew my mother and me by reputation. The minister from Granddad’s church, Reverend Daley, comes by to talk to Mom about the service. She says she wants to get it over with quickly — memorial service Tuesday night, funeral Wednesday, done and done. Granddad would have wanted it that way, she says. I have to choke back the urge to say no, I’m reasonably certain he would have wanted to still be alive.

  I spend a lot of the day beating down surges of anger. It rises in my throat like h
ot acid every time I hear one of Granddad’s friends laugh at a fond memory; every time I read a card, attached to a vase full of festive blossoms, that tells us to take comfort in knowing Granddad is in a better place; every time a caller asks for my mother without saying one damn word to me. Sure, don’t tell me how sorry you are. He was only my grandfather. I sure don’t want your damned sympathy.

  I swallow my emotions. I have to. Mom is a basket case. The last thing she needs is me adding to her giant mountain of crap, so each time my temper starts to bubble up, I clench my fists, take a breath, and put on my best neutral face and bravely soldier on. After a while, boxing up my feelngs becomes remarkably easy. Practice makes perfect.

  Sara swings by again on her way home. Just wanted to check in, she says. How am I doing? she asks. Fine. Do I need anything? No, thank you. Am I sure? Yes, I’m sure. Will I call her if I do? Yes, I will, I promise.

  My fists stay clenched throughout her visit. After she leaves, I open my hands to reveal purple crescent-shaped indentations stitched across my palms.

  My hands, I now realize, have been trembling all day.

  They continue to shake as I try to respond to a text from Malcolm (So sorry about your granddad, call me if you need anything). It takes me five full minutes to type I’m okay, will call later, and several times I come dangerously close to throwing my phone against a wall.

  It’s a little after five-thirty when Ben arrives. Mom called him last night to break the news but declined his offer to come over to help, comfort her, whatever — as well as his offer to skip work today. This was a family matter, Mom said, a remark that I took a small measure of cruel delight in hearing.

  Ben, for the first time since he and Mom started dating, hugs me. It’s weird and it’s awkward — but not anywhere near as awkward as when Dad shows up on our doorstep.

  “Hi, sweetie,” he says, stepping inside to take me in his arms. I feel every muscle in my body release. I practically melt in his embrace. He doesn’t ask me how I’m doing. He doesn’t say anything. He just holds me.