by Anna Kerz
“Wow! You’ve got yourself some impressive lists,” he said. “I can maybe help you with some of this stuff, but for the rest”—he shrugged—“I’d probably need lessons too.”
“That’s okay,” Aaron said. “We can take lessons. We can learn all that stuff. We can do it together.”
The last word sounded so good to him that he repeated it in his head. Together. Together. His father didn’t say it even once. Aaron hoped he was saying it in his head too.
* * *
It wasn’t long before the rich smells of the onions, basil and tomatoes in the simmering spaghetti sauce filled the house.
“Dinner will be ready soon enough,” Gran said when they followed their noses into the kitchen. “Sooner if you both stay out of the way. Why don’t you go and sit for a while? Sophie’s giving me all the help I need.”
Aaron followed his father into the living room. He turned on the lamp that stood on the side table, the one with the picture of his mom and dad on the bicycle. Then he perched himself on the couch.
His father didn’t seem to notice the picture. He wandered around the room, pausing to look at the books on the shelves. He walked to the mantelpiece, picked up the conch shell, fingered it, put it back; walked to the window, stared out at the snow-covered yard; turned, and looked at Aaron as if he was surprised to find him in the room. Then he came and sat on the opposite side of the couch, the two of them stiff and silent, like strangers in an unfamiliar house.
Aaron looked around for something he could tell his dad. Then he saw it. Up where the wall folded to become the ceiling, he saw a small, cloudy white spot. “Spiders lay their eggs in a sac, like that one,” he said, pointing. “It’s full of eggs.”
“Oh yeah?” his father said.
“Yeah. But I’ve never seen the spiderlings hatch. Have you? I’ve always wanted to, but Gran keeps dusting the egg sacs away.” He glanced at his father, saw his eyebrows move together. Aaron wasn’t sure what that meant, so he stopped talking. The room fell silent again.
They could hear Sophie’s voice from the kitchen talking about baby names. “We’re still not sure what to call it if it’s a boy. We’ve talked about Matthew, Owen, Alexander, Graham, Brian and Scott. You can’t believe all the names we’ve discussed. Liam says if we can’t come up with anything else, we’ll have to call it Shoe Box, or Door Knocker.”
“That sounds like Liam,” Gran said.
There was a clatter of dishes and then more talking. Aaron looked at his father. “Door Knocker,” he said. “That’s funny. What if you call him Bread Box, or Jelly Bean?”
His dad chuckled, and Aaron felt better. “What if it’s a girl? What will you call it then?”
“Then we’ll call it Frances, Fran for short, after your grandmother.”
“Fran’s good,” Aaron agreed. He sat, thinking about a question he wanted answered. “Who…who picked my name?” he finally asked.
“Sarah picked it. Your mother. It was her grandfather’s name.” His dad folded his arms across his chest and leaned forward slightly before he went on. “She loved him. Said he told her all kinds of stories. He was a fisherman. Lived in a little town on the north shore of Nova Scotia. We went down to visit him once, and he took us out on his boat.”
“Did I go? Did I go on the boat?”
His father shook his head. “No. It was before you were born. Before Sarah…” His words trailed away.
“Tell me. Tell me a story,” Aaron said.
“Maybe later,” he said. “It was your mom who was the storyteller. She could spin tales by the hour.”
“Did she tell me stories?”
“All the time. The two of you would cuddle up here, on the couch, and she’d tell you all kinds of stories. It was the only time you sat still, when you were listening to her. Then, near the end, she was so tired that even talking was hard for her.”
Something clicked in Aaron’s memory, as if a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle was falling into place.
“You picked me up and took me away,” he said.
“You remember?”
“I cried.”
His dad leaned forward. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor. “You cried,” he said. He spoke so softly, he seemed to be talking to himself. “You cried from the moment you were born. You cried all day, every day, and through most of the nights.” He began massaging the fingers of his right hand, one by one. “The doctor didn’t know what was wrong. He told Sarah to get one of those snuggle bags to keep you close. He said the sound of her heartbeat would keep you calm.” He shook his head. “Didn’t work. You hated to be carried, hated to be touched, and you screamed even louder.”
“I was a bad baby.”
“Yeah.” The word came out like a sigh. Then his father looked up. “No. No-o-o. I don’t think you were bad. But something was bothering you, and we didn’t know what. We didn’t know how to make things better for you. And Sarah, she was so sick, and she only got worse. She blamed herself. She thought you were sick because of the treatments she got before we knew she was pregnant. I blamed myself. What kind of father…? I should have known. I should have been able…”
He fell silent and sat, as if he was thinking… remembering.
“And then Gran came,” Aaron said to help his father along.
“Yeah. We asked her to help, and she came to take care of you. I watched her. She’d sit you on a blanket on the floor and then sing and talk. There was something about her voice. When she talked, you didn’t cry nearly as much.”
“Is that why you left? ’Cause I was crying all the time?”
For a while Aaron thought his father wasn’t going to answer, but after a bit, he said, “When Sarah died, we were afraid to take you to the funeral because you were so restless. Gran stayed home with you. When I came back, I walked in and you were on the floor, right there.” He pointed to a spot by the window. “You were playing with some blocks, pretending they were racing cars. You were making car noises. When you looked up and saw me, you began to suck in air until your face went from red to purple. I thought for sure you were going to pass out. Then you started to scream. It was like you were terrified at the sight of me. I thought… I thought…What kind of father am I? One look, and my kid screams.”
“And you left.”
“I didn’t even stop to say goodbye.”
“You just took off.”
“I just took off.” He looked up. “Aaron. I’m sorry. I’ve been…I’m sorry.”
Aaron stared at his father’s face as he replayed the words in his mind. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Karen had said, “It never hurts to say I’m sorry,” but his father’s face was twisted with pain. Did the words hurt him? Did they make him sad? Aaron felt a stab of fear. What if his heart breaks all over again? With that thought, something closed in Aaron’s throat and he couldn’t swallow; he couldn’t breathe. He coughed, then coughed again. He began making ugly retching sounds. His father leaned forward and whacked Aaron firmly in the middle of his back until he managed to take a breath.
“You okay?” his dad asked.
Aaron nodded.
“You sounded like a cougar trying to cough up a hairball.”
Laughter erupted from Aaron. He couldn’t help himself. He laughed so hard his eyes grew wet. Then he saw his dad laughing too, and he laughed in relief. When he finally stopped, his father said, “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you. I had to whack you pretty hard.”
“That’s okay,” Aaron said.
“What’s okay?” Gran asked from the doorway. “What are you two up to?”
“Everything’s okay,” Aaron’s father said. He stood and walked to her side. “And everything will be all right,” he said more softly as he wrapped his arms around her.
TWENTY
That evening they ate dinner in the dining room. Aaron couldn’t remember ever having company or eating in the dining room before. All this time, it had been just him and Gran. She always
set the table in the kitchen, and they ate from the kitchen dishes. Today Gran and Sophie pulled out the fancy plates stored in the sideboard.
“They’re not mine,” Gran explained stiffly when he asked why they’d never used those dishes before. “I didn’t feel entitled to use your mother’s best china, not without a really good reason.”
“Now we have a good reason,” Aaron said, bopping his head from side to side. “My dad came back. That’s a really, really good reason.”
“Yes, it is,” Gran said. “And he brought Sophie,” she added, smiling at Sophie.
“Yeah. And Sophie…she’s the surprise that came with a surprise,” Aaron said, pointing at Sophie’s belly.
That made everybody laugh, and Aaron’s head kept bopping.
When dinner was ready, Gran lit candles and they sat down. Like a family. Just like a family, Aaron thought.
“You won’t believe how many questions I have,” Gran said once everybody was served. “Why don’t you start by telling us how you met?”
“I can answer that,” Aaron’s father jumped in. “The first time I saw Sophie, she was wearing a mask and threatening me with a spear.”
“I was not,” Sophie sputtered.
“Ha! Were you, or were you not, wearing a mask?” Aaron’s dad asked.
“You know I was.” She laughed. “I was wearing a surgical mask,” she said, turning to Gran, “and the spear was a needle that I was going to use to stitch up the cut in his leg.”
“Needle! That needle was this long!” He held his hands an impossible distance apart. Everybody groaned and laughed.
“The needle was this long,” Sophie said, measuring out a much shorter length with her thumb and first finger. “And that cut wasn’t all that bad. He didn’t need more than a dozen stitches. I’ve seen much worse. Besides, I don’t think he even remembers how bad it was, because as soon as he saw the needle, he passed out!”
“I did not. I only stretched out on the gurney because I didn’t want you to think I was looking over your shoulder. I didn’t want to make you nervous.”
“Liam’s always been sensitive to needles,” Gran said. “When he was small, we had to hold him down every time he needed a shot. You never heard a boy make such a fuss.”
Aaron grinned. He loved hearing all this stuff about his dad and Sophie. He liked that they sounded happy, because if they were happy, they would stay and he would become a part of their happiness.
“How did you hurt your leg?” he asked.
“My leg? Oh, back then I was working on a placer mine just outside of Dawson for a fellow name Herb. I was the odd-job man, running the backhoe and the pumps and the generators.”
“Dawson? You mean in the Yukon? Was it a gold mine? Were you mining for gold?”
“That’s right. Dawson City. And we were mining for gold. Herb had a claim for a small operation. It was just him and me. Anyway, one day we were shut down for repairs. I was working on this long pipe when I heard a snuffling sound behind me. I turned, and there was this grizzly bear coming right at me. He was walking slow, like this—” and here his dad used his hands to demonstrate the bear’s pigeon-toed walk. “I’m pretty sure he was eyeing me for dinner. Either that, or he was blind as a bat and couldn’t see where he was going, because he walked headfirst into one of the sluice runs. That’s like a long metal pipe that’s usually filled with water and rocks.
“Anyway, the bear walked right into the pipe, and he hit his head right here,” he said, tapping his fist to the middle of his forehead. “It must have hurt, because the bear grunted and lowered his head. Then he whipped it back up, and didn’t he whack himself right on the nose! I swear I saw his eyes cross with the pain of it.”
“Did the bear attack you? Did it? Is that how you got the cut on your leg?”
“Nah. That bear whacked his head so hard, he scared himself and ran away.”
“Then how did you get hurt?”
“I was laughing, slapping my knees and staggering around in relief, and like a fool, I didn’t look where I was going either, and I stepped right into the cutting edge of a piece of scrap metal. It sliced through my pants and cut open my leg. So then Herb, he drove me to the nursing station in Dawson, and there was Sophie. Once she put the needle down and took off her mask, I thought she looked pretty good. Still do,” he added with a grin.
Aaron turned to Sophie. “Some of that story’s true, Aaron,” she said. “The rest of it? Well, that’s what we’d call a tall tale. There’s a lot of those told up north.”
“Tall tale! That’s no tall tale. I told the whole thing just like it happened, without a word of a lie!” his father insisted.
“Did you find any gold?” Aaron wanted to know.
“We found a fair bit. Most of the gold from a placer mine comes in tiny grains, smaller than a grain of rice. Sometimes they’re as fine as sugar crystals. You have to wash away a lot of sand and gravel to find them. That reminds me.” He reached into his pants pocket. “I brought you a souvenir.”
The souvenir was a key chain attached to a small, sparkly stone.
“Is that real gold?” Aaron asked.
“Not gold,” Sophie explained. “It’s iron pyrite, fool’s gold. A real nugget with that much gold would cost a fortune, and you probably wouldn’t use it for a key chain.”
“Fool’s gold,” Aaron echoed. “It could sure fool me.” He held the key chain by the ring and watched the nugget swing and flash in the candlelight.
That evening they sat at the dinner table talking for a long time. When Gran said it was past Aaron’s bedtime, he didn’t want to go. He opened his mouth to object, but Gran shook her head in warning and he stopped. He didn’t want to make a fuss. Not now. Not on the first day his dad was back. But it was hard to leave the room.
Lying in bed was hard too. His room was right above the dining room, so he couldn’t help hearing the drone of voices as the adults talked. He wondered what they were talking about. He wondered if maybe, now that he wasn’t there to hear, his father was explaining why he’d waited eight years to come home.
* * *
Aaron wasn’t sure what woke him. He was going to roll over and go back to sleep when he heard a stifled squeak outside his door, then Gran’s voice calling, “Sophie? Is that you? What’s wrong?”
The squeak was followed by a heavy THUD from the room beside his own, where Sophie and his father were sleeping. “For crying out loud!” his father said.
“What’s going on?” Gran called again. Aaron heard her climb out of bed.
“It’s all right, Mom,” his father called back. “I just tripped over my suitcase.” Then: “Sophie? Where are you, Sophie?”
“I’m in the hallway,” Sophie called. A light flashed on. “Would you look at that!” she said.
“What on earth!” his father said.
Then Gran called, “AARON!”
“Uh-oh,” Aaron said. He sat up. He didn’t know what was wrong, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good and it was his fault.
He shoved his glasses on his nose and slid out of bed. When his bare feet hit the floor, they mushed into something squishy and wet. It wasn’t watery wet. It was cold and squirmy and slimy wet. “Ewww!” he squealed and leaped back into bed just as his door opened. His light was switched on, and when he stopped blinking, everybody was in his doorway, looking in.
“Look at that,” his dad said.
“If I wasn’t seeing it, I wouldn’t believe it,” Sophie said.
“Believe it,” Gran said. “This is a typical Aaron mess.”
Aaron didn’t know what to say.
“It’s the Great Escape,” his father said with a laugh.
“Exodus,” said Sophie, and she laughed too.
“It’s not funny,” Gran grumbled.
Aaron leaned to look down at his floor. “My room is full of worms,” he said.
“It certainly is,” Gran said.
He looked at the worm jar beside the vivarium. It was open.
The lid lay on the dresser where he had left it when he was showing his father the toad. Crawling from the top came a waterfall of worms. Even as he watched, worms slid over the rim and dropped to lie pooled on the dresser. One worm was squirming out from under the wriggling mass, slithering its way to the dresser’s edge. Others had dropped to the floor and were stretched full length, moving along as if they were in a cross-country race. Some had already crossed the room and slipped into the dark hallway, where Sophie’s bare feet had mashed them on her way to the bathroom.
“Poor worms,” she said. “They’re trying to go to ground and can’t find any.”
“You have a list, Aaron,” Gran scolded. “You were supposed to follow it so we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“I did. I did everything on the list,” he said. “It doesn’t say anything about worms.”
Gran huffed, but his father came in and handed him the worm jar, and when Aaron climbed out of bed, they began scooping up the escaping worms.
“This is my fault too,” his father said. “I was here. I saw how hard it was for him to open the jar with one hand. I should have helped.”
When he heard his father’s words, Aaron felt such a surge of happiness that his legs felt wobbly. I knew it, he thought. I knew it. My dad likes toads. And, for the first time, he was sure his father didn’t think he was too weird and that everything was going to work out.
When the worms were back in the jar and the lid was fastened, Sophie went to the bathroom, and when she was done, Aaron and his dad went in to wash their hands and feet. Then they all went back to their beds, and for the rest of the night, Aaron slept well.
TWENTY - ONE
It was Sophie’s voice Aaron heard as he came downstairs the next morning.
“This family keeps far too many secrets,” she was saying. “You have to tell him. He’s old enough to know.”
“Can’t we just—,” Gran started. She stopped when Aaron walked into the kitchen.
“What’s the secret?” he asked. There was a smile on his face. He waited for Gran to say, “You’re grinning from ear to ear,” as she always did when he looked happy, but she didn’t. And when he looked around, his smile faded.