The Infinite Onion

by Alice Archer

  The clouds and rain of the previous few days had given way to bright blue water and sky. As we bobbed closer, I picked out a few houses high above us, atop the island’s steep sides, amid the greens of springtime. Cool air blew through my hair and filled my lungs.

  I couldn’t decide what I felt. I was either brilliant or doomed for concocting a plan to squat at Mitch’s cabin. More trees clicked into view and excitement won out over anxiety.

  Twenty minutes after we’d left the dock in Seattle, a deckhand secured the water taxi to the Vashon dock. A small waiting room building crouched at the end of the dock. Past the building and a row of parking spaces, the main road from the dock curved up and away to the left. Straight ahead, a smaller road ran uphill to a large parking lot and beyond. The Vashon map I’d picked up on the water taxi showed that either road would take me to the town five miles south of the dock.

  When the deckhand gestured me forward, I disembarked onto Vashon Island and walked toward the wall of trees.

  Chapter 2

  Oliver

  I’d almost reached Violetta Road when my phone blared with Talia’s ringtone. I accepted the call with one hand and stopped pedaling to coast along.

  “Talia? I’m biking home from town with groceries for the freezer. Can I call you later?”

  “If that’s all you have to say, why did you answer?”

  “It’s you. I always answer when you call.”

  “Aw. How sweet. Freddie just boarded as a walk-on.”

  I fumbled the phone, almost dropped it. Freddie, globe-trotting journalist, my friend-with-benefits, only returned to Vashon to write and repair between long trips abroad. “How does he look?”

  “He looks like shit. With a double helping of stinky crap.” Talia’s nosy nature and her job as a deckhand on the car ferry between West Seattle and Vashon made her a stellar source of gossip. “Where’s he back from this time?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. “Did you talk to him?” I asked.

  “No. I looked for him on my break on the crossing, but didn’t find him.”

  “He probably fell asleep under a table.” I stopped at the turn onto Violetta. I’d need both hands on the handlebars on the gravel road. “I have to hang up now.”

  “Later,” Talia said.

  I tucked the phone in my pocket and made the turn. As I bumped along I couldn’t help lapsing into a preview. Freddie didn’t return to Vashon often, but our arrangement had begun right after high school, so I had a lot of good material to draw on.

  I followed Freddie’s progress in my mind.

  He shuffles up to his mother’s house on the hill above the north end dock and crashes hard for a few days before he shows up at my place. He arrives at my door well rested, well fed, and too tan for late June in the Pacific Northwest, his curly brown hair freshly cut by his mother, a bag of trinkets for me in his hand. I don’t care. Booty call trumps terrible gifts.

  Freddie’s gift bag drops to the bench by my front door. He sets his hands on my hips to push me back into the house, too busy with me too fast to bother closing the door. I lead him toward the bedroom, strip before we get through the bedroom door. Forget the bed. I lean into him as he hugs me close, kisses me for the first time in months, until I—

  Hit a fucking pothole. Ow.

  The bike seat crowded my swollen happy parts. As a safety precaution, I put my fantasy on hold and stood to pedal faster. As soon as I got home I’d hurl the bike under the carport and retreat to my bedroom to continue the fantasy.

  Freddie is back.

  Chapter 3

  Grant

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said to the young man in the old Chevy. He chatted on as I hauled my backpack and the plastic bags of groceries off the back seat.

  From the ferry dock, I’d hiked uphill past the big parking lot until I reached the main road, then stuck out my thumb to catch a ride. No one had obliged. I’d walked to town, stashed my pack at the customer service desk in the grocery store, and roamed the aisles to conduct a careful price study.

  Grocery bags thumping against my calves, I’d trudged half a mile down Southwest Bank Road before I got a ride from the young guy, who took me all the way to Mitch’s driveway.

  “Best of luck,” he said before he drove off.

  Finally. Silence.

  Well, not exactly silence. Birds twittered. A breeze sang through the hemlock and pine trees. My feet crunched on the gravel.

  It was a long driveway.

  My shoulders hurt from all the hauling. I prayed the cabin had a bathtub. A soak and a meal would go a long way toward rebooting my brain. I’d spend what remained of the afternoon in contemplation of my situation. If my crap cell phone could pick up a signal, and if I had enough credit left on my pay-as-you-go phone plan, I’d start a job search. I didn’t expect it to take long to find a new job. All I required was The Zone and enough money to keep my ass out of a homeless shelter. On the other hand, I was a thirty-eight-year-old underachiever who’d been suspended from a menial job and then quit, so maybe the ship of employability had sailed without me.

  The driveway ended at a small parking area in front of… I groaned and closed my eyes.

  When Mitch had referred to the structure on their property as a cabin, I’d pictured a house, cute and complete. It was only a lean-to with nothing to lean against—a pathetic, shabby, off-kilter shack. No way it included a bathtub. Or plumbing.

  My concern about how to get inside without breaking anything had been unnecessary. The flimsy plywood door opened with a nudge of my foot to reveal a grungy pallet of blankets, a child-size table with two milk crates for chairs, and a plastic ice chest. My mold meter pinged at call an ambulance, and the shack smelled like rat.

  With a sigh and a sneeze, I dropped my pack on the stoop and rummaged through the grocery bags. All the food not in a jar or a can went into the ice chest. Instead of taking a long bath, I would fill my afternoon with a trip to town for bags of ice—a fool’s errand, since I’d return with bags of water if I didn’t get a ride back.

  It was naive of me to look for a job in Seattle from Vashon. My phone had limited everything, including limited coverage on the island. No signal and no electricity at the shack meant daily trips to town for ice and to use a computer at the public library.

  I arrived on Vashon on a Thursday. By Saturday, I’d contacted a dozen copy shops in Seattle to see if they were hiring, filled out eight online applications, and made zero progress. A few places had openings, but my lack of references and my refusal to say why I’d left my previous job made me a hard sell. I couldn’t persuade my phone voice to project enthusiasm.

  I also couldn’t persuade myself to leave Vashon. Since I got an instant sinus headache whenever I stepped into the shack, I spent most of my time outside walking around. I discovered a view of the Olympic Mountains to the west, out beyond a bright green field. I remembered the names of birds and trees. The rhythm of my footfalls along trails and country roads made me feel like I was going somewhere, like at any moment I might have a thought I’d never had before—and it would be good.

  Early Sunday afternoon, I moseyed toward the shack after my daily walk-and-hitch for ice and internet, anticipating a lunch of a can of garbanzo beans and a carrot. I came around the last bend of the driveway, lifted my head, and froze.

  Mitch leaned against his BMW with his arms folded. I tried to think of a reason for being there that didn’t make me seem as pathetic as I was.

  “Uncle Grant!”

  “Kai. Hey.” I dropped the grocery bags to squat and open my arms to Mitch’s son. God, he smelled good—like innocent child and sweet sweat. I kept the hug short. I’d only managed to bathe with a washrag dipped in water that had once been ice.

  “Sorry.” I pulled back. “I smell.”

  “I don’t care,” Kai said.
<
br />   I hadn’t seen Mitch’s youngest son in a few years. The dark circles under his eyes surprised me. I kept my hands on his thin shoulders to study his face.

  “Are you trying to figure out how old I am?” Kai held steady under my grip, but his shoulders felt sharp, like he hadn’t been eating enough. “I’m already eleven.”

  “Really?”

  The grin Kai graced me with relieved the stress on his pinched face for a moment. The fact that he remembered me and seemed to like me made me feel bad for not keeping in touch with him. “Um. Listen, buddy. I’m sorry I didn’t write to you, or call.”

  “It’s okay.” Kai shrugged and hugged me again, which made me laugh. When he let go, I stood and looked at Mitch, who pointed up at the trees behind me.

  “Security camera,” he said. “To keep an eye on the supplies when we start to build.”

  I turned and saw the camera, high on a wooden pole that blended with the surrounding trees. A flush of embarrassment made me wait a few heartbeats before I faced him again. “I swear I didn’t hurt anything. I only came for a quick break, before I head back to the city to… uh.”

  Mitch cocked his head to the side. “You lost your job? Again?”

  “I’m on it, okay? Give me some credit. I’m not trying to mooch off you and Sonya. I just needed a change of scenery to come up with a new game plan, get some breathing room.”

  “Getting fired is how you take a break?”

  Kai put his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze, which I appreciated, even though it made me feel like one of Mitch’s sons who’d been a bad boy.

  I knew Mitch to be a good man and a good father, although he tended toward seriousness. Whatever was going on with Kai, I couldn’t believe it was because of Mitch or Sonya being inappropriate with him. I took the opportunity of my staring match with Mitch to take a closer look at him too. His handsome face seemed to have settled on the worried side of serious.

  “Kai.” I bent and took Kai’s chin in my hand to examine his face again. He let me, watched me with his sad eyes and open face. “Why don’t you go ahead down the driveway. I’ll join you in a few minutes and we’ll take a walk together.” I looked up at Mitch. His brow furrowed, but he nodded approval.

  Kai whooped and took off.

  “Is he sick?” I asked Mitch. “What’s going on with him?”

  With a shrug Mitch said, “We don’t know. The doctor says he’s fine physically. Sonya and I decided to move our Vashon plans forward. Maybe a summer on the island and spending more time outside will help him. Sonya can run most of her business from here while she oversees the build. I’ll come over as often as I can.”

  Laura had told me before we divorced that Mitch and Sonya’s plans for their summer house on Vashon had stalled because they couldn’t agree on a design. Sonya, a white-blond Valkyrie, CEO of her own construction company, had many strong opinions she wasn’t shy about sharing. She and Mitch argued constantly—two alphas vying for dominance—but I’d seen the way they regarded each other, the unmistakable banked heat. “They reach, as individuals and as a couple,” Laura had told me. Well, life is easier when you’re a god, I’d thought at the time, jealous of their success.

  Maybe Kai was waking up to the fact that he was the oddball introvert in a type-A family, which included Kai’s sports prodigy older brother, Joel. During my visits with Laura to see Mitch, I’d noticed Kai’s reserve while his noisy parents and brother took up all the space.

  “Might do Kai good to take a walk with you.” Mitch uncrossed his arms. “He talks about you sometimes.”

  I nodded, pleased. “When do you break ground?”

  “In a couple of days. That’s why I came over. The crew’s coming early tomorrow to prep the site for the trailer.”

  Another nod was all I could manage.

  “They’ll raze the shed,” Mitch said. “Do you have somewhere else to go?”

  When Mitch referred to my current home as a shed, a wave of shame flooded me. The shame made me lie. “Yeah. Sure. Of course. I’ll get out of your hair this afternoon.”

  “Once we’re set up in the trailer, maybe you could come over from Seattle for the day.”

  It wasn’t an enthusiastic invitation. It wasn’t an offer of a patch of land to camp on or a job as Sonya’s gopher. It wasn’t even an offer to let me stay overnight in the trailer with them when I visited. And I wasn’t Mitch’s relative anymore.

  “Right, then,” I said. “I’ll pack my stuff when Kai and I get back.” I glanced at the security camera. “Thanks for not kicking me out sooner. You must have known I was here.”

  Mitch nodded and opened his car door. “Be back in half an hour. We can give you a ride to Seattle.” He had his laptop out before I’d turned away.

  Chapter 4

  Oliver

  The storm rolling in threatened to take away the pleasure of sunlight through trees. I inched along Bast Road, steadied by the bike trailer I’d left on after the morning’s yard work. Sun and shadow played over my eyelids like flickers in a bygone cinema. I kept my eyes closed, captivated by the movie’s plot. Dark. Light. Dark. Light.

  I was ten minutes from home when the wind picked up, rushing in from the west over the peninsula. I opened my eyes and pushed harder on the pedals to get home before the rain began.

  As I turned onto an overgrown driveway for a house never built, another gust flew down my throat. I coughed it back out, sealed my lips, and made the next turn, a hard left onto a trail to Violetta Road through the shelter of deep woods.

  At the edge of the woods, a sunbeam picked out a fern—the cinema’s final flicker. I slammed on the brakes and became only thirsty eyes, drunk on the light show starring a sword fern and a boulder.

  I snapped a few photos, but they weren’t going to be enough. I dug through the pockets of my cargo pants. Pencil. No. Black Sharpie marker. Yes. I took off my sweater and tied it around my waist so I could push up the left sleeve of my T-shirt. The sunbeam flickered and strengthened. I drew fast. Ran out of left arm, started on the thighs of my pants.

  The sunbeam shut off.

  My heart thudded with the thrill of the gift. I blinked and let the moment go, clipped the Sharpie into my pocket, then fought the wind to redo my hair and get it out of my face.

  Two days after Freddie’s arrival on Vashon was too soon to expect him, but maybe he’d show up early. I leaned over the handlebars and shot down the Violetta Road hill toward home, spurred on by the mass of dark clouds on the western horizon. The bike trailer chased me with a clatter.

  I almost missed it.

  With one eye on the clouds, the other on the gravel road, and sweat in both eyes, I almost didn’t see the pile of rags in the ditch. It took me a while to stop on the gravel. I rolled back to take a closer look.

  In spite of the urgency of the storm, I stood there for a minute to try to make sense of what I saw. And then I spaced out to memorize the vision.

  A man slept on his back in the shallow ditch. A boy slept on the man’s chest.

  Tall grasses curved and bobbed over their heads in the wind. The man’s greasy hair was too short to spread over the flattened grass around his head, but the contrast of his black hair and the greens struck me as worth remembering. Black eyelashes touched cheeks pale enough to make me wonder if he was healthy. Dark scruff spread over his jaw. Dark circles curved under his eyes. His pale lips turned down in a frown.

  But the way he held the boy made me think comfort.

  The boy was maybe eight or nine. He flopped face down, arms and legs splayed, like he trusted the man completely. A fall of blond hair hid most of the boy’s face. His round baby chin rested on the cobalt blue of the man’s T-shirt. The circles under the boy’s eyes matched the man’s and made the hairs on my arms stand up. They looked abandoned. Castaways holding tight to each other in a tempest.

  My breath
slowed until it matched theirs, long and even.

  I took pictures with my phone, then stared at the castaways again. The photos didn’t capture enough. I stared and opened my mind’s eye wider to mentally record the scene in more detail. I’d begin with dark pastels on gray paper, draw quick and loose, then switch to charcoal sketches to figure out the composition before I painted. I could explore an alternate vision of Ophelia, the tragic girl from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, do a riff on John Everett Millais’s painting of Ophelia on her back in the water, singing before she drowns, surrounded by nature rendered in lush detail.

  As the first drops of rain fell, I took the measure of the black sky and made a decision.

  Chapter 5

  Grant

  “Ophelia. Hey, now. Rise and shine.”

  I heard the words in my sleep, tried to turn onto my side to make the dream shift, but couldn’t breathe. I often couldn’t breathe, but in the dream it was different, like a horse had parked on my chest. I opened my mouth to suck in a better breath. When my chest didn’t move, I opened my eyes.

  That’s when the dream got really weird.

  “Oh, good,” the voice from my dream said. “You stopped playing coy and pretending I’m not here.”

  “Uh.” A shallow cough caught me by surprise and woke me more. I lay on the ground with Kai’s head on my chest, the sky a menace above us. I suddenly remembered my life and closed my eyes again, hoping to escape back into the dream.

  We’d walked too far. It had been obvious Kai wanted to tell me something, but he wasn’t finding the words and I hadn’t wanted to let him go.

  I was going to deliver Kai late and rain-soaked. Mitch would be angry. I groaned at my ineptitude.

  “Nope,” said the voice above me. “Wrong answer.”