by Alice Archer
The kids sped off on a spray of shouts, Abelino’s black ponytail tossing arcs of rain as he flew. Hair as black as Aza’s had been.
Aza had never bound his hair. Tangled but free. That was Aza.
I drew an infinity symbol in the muck with the heel of my boot and wondered how I could remain tangled with Aza—because I loved him—but also set us both free.
After a lunch of a can of sardines, poppy seed crackers from Clementine, and dill pickles dipped in ketchup, I retreated to Dad’s garage to prepare for a confrontation with Aza.
I should have turned off my phone. A cluster of text messages from Freddie ended with, I want to come over.
When I called him, Freddie answered with, “Well?”
“Not yet, okay? I’m—”
“What the heck is that sound?” Freddie raised his voice. “Where are you?”
“In the garage.” Rain pounded the roof, echoed in the empty space.
“Doing what? There’s nothing in there—unfortunately. Why couldn’t you have just covered the DeVille if you didn’t want to see it?”
I knew I needed to tell Freddie about the DeVille, and I did want to stop lying, but I detected land mines. He would ask difficult questions I wasn’t ready to answer. I decided I’d come clean about the DeVille on our trip to Whidbey.
“Call me when you’re back in the house,” Freddie said. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”
That was convenient, since I hadn’t said anything.
We hung up and I settled into the hammock I’d hung from two hooks in a corner of the garage. Bundled in a heavy sweater, boneless in the hammock’s hug, I tried to think about Aza. Every time I pulled in my thoughts to focus on him, my mind went blank.
I watched rain spatter the window and erase the remnants of the smiley face drawn in the grime. I wondered if Grant had left his campsite yet. I hadn’t gone to check. If he’d stayed, he’d be huddled in the tent, rotting from damp after days of rain. Might motivate him to stop goofing off.
The voice in my head sounded bitchy and bitter.
I checked the weather report. Sunshine and clear skies on the horizon—perfect weather for drying out and packing up camp.
Goodbye and good luck.
I shook Grant off and tried again to think about Aza.
The series of portraits I’d painted of Aza the year he stayed with Dad and me swam up in my memory. I tried to hold on to the images, but dozed off. Aza’s voice in my mind woke me.
Hey, Ollie. Come visit me.
I rubbed my eyes and sighed. At least let me wait until the rain stops.
If I was serious about putting Aza to rest, I knew where to find him.
Chapter 68
Grant
The absence of rain on the treehouse roof woke me Sunday morning. From the porch, I watched clouds give way to blue sky. Time to go.
Laden with my daypack full of dirty clothes, toiletries, phone, power cord, and bits of garbage, I biked to Clementine’s through beams of sunlight. Waves of hyperactive photosynthesis filled the air with fresh, pure oxygen.
“There you are,” Clementine said at her front door. “I was getting worried.”
“Sorry. My phone died.”
“Come on in.”
“Stand back,” I warned. “Until I’ve showered, I’m the beast you invited into your sweet little home.”
Clementine made a show of putting her hand over her nose and mouth and gestured for me to pass her. “The washer and dryer are in the bathroom. First door on the left.”
I hadn’t bathed in a week, not since my last shower at Oliver’s, and the hot water and soap felt so good. I felt ten pounds lighter afterward. I started a load in the washing machine and went to look for Clementine.
I found her in the kitchen. When I held up my phone charger, she pointed to an outlet by the coffee machine and said, “Talia told me Oliver sent you away. Did you move to a new campsite? How did you manage in the rain?”
“I’m… um. Well, to be honest, I’m squatting somewhere, but only for a few more days.”
“Do I even want to know where?”
“Nowhere I had to break into or anything. I mean, I didn’t break anything to get in.” My groin gave a twitch of protest.
Clementine lifted one of her eyebrows. “Do tell.”
“It’s a treehouse—the most beautiful, perfect treehouse. It’s snug and dry, and there’s even a porch. You’d love it. It’s classy and well-crafted. Actually, it reminds me of you in some…” I looked up from plugging in my phone.
Clementine’s face had gone white.
“Hey, whoa now.” I reached out to steer her to a chair at the kitchen table. “What did I say?”
“Aza.” She swallowed. “It’s Aza’s treehouse.”
I remembered what Clementine had said in her car on our way to the bramble. “Oliver required Aza to do a project on the property.”
She nodded. “He wanted to boost Aza’s confidence around something besides painting.” Her croaky voice sounded like she was crying, but there were no tears.
I sat beside her and gathered her cold hands in mine, still warm from my shower. “Did it work?”
“Yes. No. Aza gained confidence, but he got ahead of himself.” Clementine took a big breath and raised her head to look into my eyes. “He would be thirty-one this year, if he’d lived. He killed himself when he was seventeen. Fourteen years ago. Not that I’m counting.”
“I’m so very sorry, Clem.”
She nodded and looked away. “In New York, he applied for shows at some of the bigger galleries, but wasn’t accepted. I guess he gave up, couldn’t adjust his timeline or his expectations, didn’t ask for help… something. I don’t know.”
“Oh, man.”
At the end of a long sigh, Clementine said, “There were only a few people on the beach that day. February, freezing and windy. A couple of people tried to stop him, but they couldn’t reach him in time. They said Aza…”
I scrubbed lightly at Clementine’s cold hands and waited.
“Walked,” she whispered. “He walked into the sea. They found him days later, miles from where he’d gone in.” Clementine huddled on the chair like an old lady, shrunken and frail.
The washing machine interrupted with a clunk from the other side of the kitchen wall.
I stood, bent to lift Clementine into my arms, and carried her to the living room couch, where I could more easily wrap her up. I set her sideways on my lap and held her close, to help her reinflate. She sagged against me but didn’t cry or fall apart.
I felt like I might.
“Clem?” I gave her a gentle squeeze.
“Hmm.”
“In the car that day, why did you tell me Oliver saved Aza’s life?”
“If Oliver hadn’t taken him in, I think Aza would have killed himself sooner. Robert and I pursued so many options—everything from therapy and alternative treatments to pharmaceuticals and institutionalization. Aza rebelled against most of it. Oliver had the magic touch. He told Aza he’d mentor him on painting, but only if Aza went to regular therapy sessions and took his meds. Aza agreed.”
“Oliver gave you more time with Aza,” I said.
Clementine pushed my arms away to slide off my lap and sit beside me. “I didn’t use the extra time well.” She pulled a tissue from the front pocket of her slacks and blew her nose. “I get stuck on what if I’d gone to Aza’s gallery opening. I’m pretty sure he went to New York because he didn’t feel like I cared enough.”
“This is a rude question to ask, but why didn’t you go to the opening?”
“Your question isn’t as rude as my answer.” Clementine closed her eyes. “The annual planning meeting for the nonprofit I worked for took place on Orcas Island that year, at a board member’s vacation home. I didn’t want to miss it.�
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“Clem.” I remembered how awed I’d been when I’d spied on Clementine’s session with Oliver. “I think you’re brave for looking at your pain and trying to sort it out.”
I also thought Oliver was brave to help her.
“I think Oliver saved my life too,” Clementine said. “I’d never commit suicide, but without his friendship and our sessions, I wouldn’t have lived as much. More every year.”
The tissue in Clementine’s hand fell apart. She balled the pieces in her fist and leaned her head on my shoulder.
We fell silent, sat together, and listened to the washing machine click and swish as it pulled dirt out of my clothes and sent it down the drain.
Chapter 69
Grant
While Clementine freshened up in the bathroom, I stayed on the couch and tried to process what she’d told me about Aza.
“Hey,” I said when she returned, “after your session with Oliver this week, would you mind texting me to let me know how he’s doing?”
“I would, but he’s taking a hiatus to focus on a painting project. We texted yesterday. He seemed excited about a trip with Freddie.”
“Well… hell.” The discrepancy between the Oliver I saw and the Oliver his friends saw weighted my shoulders with sorrow for him. In the wake of Oliver’s denials to Freddie, disclosing his private business to Clementine didn’t feel like the right move.
“Will you be okay without your sessions?” I asked her.
“I’ll be fine. Oliver said if he goes to D.C. with Freddie we can do Skype sessions starting in September.”
The sadness took on more weight in my chest. I rubbed my hands over my face and stood to look at the framed photos on the shelf over the fireplace. They all featured a thin boy with an expressive face. In most of the photos, some part of his body blurred. “Looks like a video camera might have been in order.”
Clementine chuckled. “Aza never could keep still.”
“He looks like a character.”
“He was. He would have fit right in with your troop of children.”
Drawn by the blaze of auburn hair, I leaned in to study teenage Oliver with his arm around Aza’s shoulders.
“I think you could have helped him,” Clementine said, “at least for a while.”
“I don’t know about that.” I pretended to look at more photos, to keep my back to Clementine as I told her about Jill and my confrontation with her dad. “I agree with Vince. I need to learn to work with kids more responsibly.”
“Play.”
“What?” I turned to look at her.
“Play with kids more responsibly. Don’t focus so much on being responsible that you don’t play. From what I’ve seen, playing is one of your gifts.”
The words swiped a slash of white paint over my old rules. “Clem. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
She gave me a quick hug and walked away to pick up her purse from the table by the front door. “I’m going to town to run some errands and clear my head. Do you want to ride along?”
She drove up the west side of the island. I filled my lungs with fresh air from the open window, soothed by the twitter and green mayhem. In a scrawl that wobbled from the motion of the car, I captured Clementine’s words about me in my journal, to remember them.
She cadged a grocery list from me in the library parking lot. I forced two fives on her. “Have fun,” she said, and drove off to get groceries for both of us.
Isis wasn’t there, but another librarian parked me at a computer with a resume template. The result was a minimalist spin on the concept. The librarian corrected a few things, and I attached the resume to my online application for the Seattle parks volunteer program.
“You know, I work downtown,” Clementine said on our drive back to her cottage. “I’d be glad to treat you to lunch sometime. We could make it a regular thing. You have Kai’s family, but maybe you could use another Seattle friend.”
“Yes, please.” To keep myself from getting weepy over her kind gesture, I asked about her work as an administrator for a coalition of charitable trusts.
Later that afternoon, I folded the last dryer load of clean clothes and zipped open my pack to refill it for the ride back to the treehouse. The groceries Clementine had picked up for me didn’t even cover the bottom of the pack. I closed the bathroom door and spread all my money out to count it.
Twenty-three dollars and twelve cents.
I tapped my phone to find Mitch’s contact info.
“Grant,” he answered.
“Hey. Er… I have a favor to ask.” I talked fast to keep Mitch from hanging up. “I’ve identified six potential places to work, all within easy bus rides from your house in Seattle. I updated my resume and applied to that volunteer program. I’ve made actual progress. Can I stay in your guest room for a short time, until I find a room to rent? I don’t want to stay in a motel. I could help you guys with cooking or…” Surprised Mitch hadn’t interrupted, I let my presentation peter into silence. I held my breath. I’d never asked anyone for that much all at once.
“Okay,” Mitch said. “Kai and I will be out and about on Thursday. We’ll meet you at the dock in West Seattle.”
I was stunned. “You’re not… mad at me for asking? Really?”
“No, Grant. I’m not mad. I admire you for taking action. It shows commitment.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“You have a lot of goodwill in the bank with me and Sonya. We’d be glad to have you with us for a while. Kai will be over the moon.”
Jesus. I had actual tears in my eyes. I unrolled a few squares of toilet paper and swiped at my nose.
“Um. Thanks. I’ll come over Thursday and try to nail down a job, but I’ll need to return to Vashon Friday for a couple of days, to…” I stared down at the toilet paper in my hand, curious about how I’d finish the sentence. I couldn’t say, to make sure my landlord, who doesn’t even know he’s my landlord, doesn’t freak out about leaving Vashon on Saturday when there’s no one there to notice he’s freaking out. “To finish packing up an art project I did.”
I looked into the eyes of the mirror version of myself. He furrowed his brow and mouthed, Seriously? You have an art project? Out loud I said, “You’d really be willing to take time off on a weekday to help me?”
“Things slow at the firm in August. It’s no problem. I’d offer you the trailer on Vashon, but it’s been turned into the site office.”
“You’re all back in Seattle?” I hadn’t seen or talked to Kai since the day he, Mitch, and Vince visited me at Oliver’s. Calling Kai meant going through Mitch, and I’d wimped out. “Also, you told me you wanted to talk to me, but then Vince showed up that day.”
“I wanted to get an update on your status, which I got. And, yes, we’re back in Seattle. The construction noise bothered Kai, and the crew needed shelter from the rain, so we came back early. Our guest room is yours until you find your own place.”
“Well. Gosh. Okay, then. Sure. Please.” Goddamn it. I had to get off the phone. I’d turned into a guy with decent prospects but only half a brain. “My phone’s not always on, to save the charge, but I check it now and then.”
“Are you still camping in that courtyard Kai showed me?”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to tell Mitch Oliver had kicked me out. He wouldn’t consider it progress. “I’ll… um… update you when I see you?”
“Everything okay?”
“Yep.”
“Thursday,” Mitch said and hung up.
I blew my nose and went to give Clementine the good news.
Chapter 70
Oliver
On Sunday morning, six days before my scheduled trip to Whidbey, I received a photo from Grant, a self-portrait taken in a bathroom mirror. White towel around his waist. Bare chest and shoulders. Steam. G
rant offered the camera a small smile. Practicing my interview face, he texted.
I wished he hadn’t sent it. It distracted me, and Aza deserved my full attention.
Armed with the treehouse key and a bottle of water, I navigated the forest to the almost undetectable trail across a rocky hillside.
The treehouse was hell to get to.
Aza had scoured the forest and finally found a tree way out in the hinterlands he proclaimed to be perfect. I’d given in to his enthusiasm. It had been a pain to haul building materials over the rough terrain. Aza and I joked that the distance between my driveway and his tree was a solid twenty minutes of cursing. He’d hidden his treehouse well. Loose rocks, tree roots, and dense undergrowth made access a challenge.
I wished I’d brought the small machete. In the years since Aza left for New York, the forest would have swallowed the…
A flattened tent hung over a tree branch.
I blinked at it for a minute before I understood what it meant.
“Hey,” I shouted up at the treehouse. Because I knew where to look, I pinpointed a window high above, through the mass of leaves. It was open.
The fucker had broken in.
I leapt up the stairs, shouted as I pulled myself up three steps at a time. “Get. The Fuck. Off. My. Property.” I wasn’t going to knock when I got to the top.
The door I flung open bounced off Grant’s half-empty backpack. He wasn’t there.
Yet… he was.
Grant was so there.
I closed the door and leaned against it to take in what he’d done with the place.
The scent of Aza’s patchouli hair oil had been replaced by Grant’s unbathed reek. I didn’t want to admit I liked it. I breathed in another deep lungful as I gaped at Grant’s creation on the wall. His mixed-media installation grew outward from the central point of a messy infinity symbol drawn on a torn page. Everything spun around that fixed point. Like a river eddy, or the swirl of a galaxy.
I loved it.
I pushed off the door to take a closer look at a baggie under the central infinity symbol, swiped it off the nail to open it. Hunched over the bed, I extracted the roll of paper and pressed it open on the mattress with my fingers.