Megan glares at Sid. “Phil, please sit down. Sid, there’s no need to be rude. I know this is hard, but I think you should listen to Phil. Fariza and I are going to clear up the dishes. You men can sit on the porch and talk—or not.”
“Sorry,” Sid mumbles, more to Megan than to Phil. He hates disappointing her. But what more does he need to know about his mother? She’s crazy, allergic to cats and she abandons her children when she feels like it. Even if Phil finds her, she’s not someone Sid wants to know. But his brother—what was his name? Gawain. Maybe that’s different.
Caleb and Phil are sitting on the porch in the faded red Adirondack chairs, having an after-dinner beer. Caleb holds one up to Sid, who shakes his head and perches on the porch railing. Beer makes him talkative and then sleepy. He wants to listen and stay alert, not babble and crash.
Caleb speaks first. “I’m curious about something.” Phil’s head comes up like the neighbor’s pointer, Fritz, when he hears the mail truck. “What’s with all the wacky names? Siddhartha, Gawain, Devi, Devorah?”
Phil laughs. “When I first met Devorah, when we first started dating, she was still calling herself Devi.” He pauses and takes a swig of beer. Buying himself time, Sid thinks.
“People with bipolar disorder,” Phil continues, “they get pretty passionate about things when they’re in the middle of a manic episode. With Devi it was usually something spiritual. Devi is the name of a Hindu goddess. Siddhartha is the name of the Buddha. Just after I met her, she got really involved in Judaism and became Devorah. Around the time Gawain was born, she was into Arthurian legends and after that it was Celtic mysticism.”
“So she’s searching,” Caleb says.
“I guess,” Phil replies. “But she never stays with anything very long. She even went back to the church she was raised in—an Anglican cathedral—for a while last year. Called herself Debby too. It didn’t suit her.”
“How does she support herself?” Caleb asks. “It can’t be easy—not with those kinds of issues.”
“Holding down a job is hard for her,” Phil agrees. “She has a friend who owns a bookstore and another with a small art gallery—she picks up work with them when she’s able. After she was diagnosed, she was able to get some disability money, but it’s not much. She inherited some money when her dad died; I helped her find a little house. And she sells some of her art at her friend’s gallery. Teaches a class or two when she can.”
“Her art?” Sid asks. It comes out sort of high-pitched and croaky, as if his voice is still changing.
Phil looks over at Sid. “She’s a mosaic artist. Has been for years. Once she got off the boat, she started messing around with broken crockery. Now she works mostly with stuff she picks up off the beach: stones and glass and shells. She can’t afford to buy tiles very often. Her work is beautiful. Magical.”
Megan comes out on the porch and sits on Caleb’s lap. “Fariza’s in bed,” she says. “It’s been a long day.” She rests her head on Caleb’s shoulder and he raises a hand to stroke her hair. “This is a lot to take in.”
“Is there anyone else?” Sid asks.
Phil looks puzzled. “Anyone else?”
“Sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins—any more relatives I should know about.”
“Only your grandmother,” Phil replies. “Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth,” Sid repeats. “Where is she?”
“In Victoria,” Phil says, “searching for Wain.”
I Don’t Care
“Are you Gawain’s dad?” Sid asks Phil at breakfast the next day.
Phil looks up, startled, from his waffles. Sid notices for the first time that Phil eyes are the same saturated blue as one of Sid’s favorite Faber-Castell pens—B120.
“No, I’m not Wain’s dad, although I feel like it sometimes. After we broke up, Devi and I stayed friends. My workshop is in her garage. I turned part of the garage into a tiny apartment, so I live there too.”
“So where is his dad?”
“I don’t know,” Phil replies. “When Devi’s manic, she’s a bit…indiscriminate…about her men. He stuck around for a while though. Until Wain was about a year old.”
“Indiscriminate,” Sid repeats. “You mean she’s a slut. A crazy slut.”
“Sid.” Megan’s voice has more than a note of warning in it.
“It’s okay,” Phil says. “I get it.”
“No, you don’t,” Sid says. “You come up here and tell me my birth mom’s unstable and she likes to sleep around. You tell me I’ve got a brother and a grandmother. How can you possibly get it?”
Phil puts down his fork and levels a look at Sid that shuts him up.
“I was named after Phileas Fogg, the hero of Around the World in Eighty Days. My mother read it in grade-eight English, the year she got pregnant with me and her parents kicked her out. She never told anyone who my father was. I left home at sixteen, after one of my mother’s boyfriends hit me one time too many. I never went back. I call my mother three times a year—on Christmas, on her birthday and on Mother’s Day. She’s sober now and living in the same crappy apartment I grew up in. So I get how angry and confused you are. What I want to know is this: what are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it?” Sid can hear the challenge in Phil’s voice. The waffle he has just eaten rises in this throat. He swallows hard, determined not to let on how shaken he is by Phil’s question. Even so, his voice is a bit unsteady when he says, “I don’t know.”
“Give him a bit of time, Phil,” Caleb says. “This is a bit of a shock—to all of us. Devi never contacted Sid after she left. Never. As far as we’re concerned, he’s our son. Always will be.” Sid hears the challenge in Caleb’s voice.
Phil must have heard it too, because he nods and says, “Sorry, man. I’m just so worried about them. Devi will turn up sooner or later—this isn’t the first time she’s taken off—but Wain? He’s only thirteen.”
“And Sid’s only sixteen,” Caleb says firmly. “We’ll talk about it—as a family. You’re welcome to stay and answer Sid’s questions, if he has any, but don’t pressure him.”
Caleb stands up, towering over Phil. “I’d be happy to take you out on the Caprice, show you a bit more of the island.”
Phil takes the hint and stands as well. The top of his head only comes to Caleb’s shoulder. He may be short, Sid thinks, but he’s still powerful. His strength is more compact than Caleb’s, possibly more explosive. Something to be aware of, even avoid.
“I’m going to the orchard,” Sid announces. “If Chloe calls, can you tell her I’ll come by later?”
Megan nods, and Fariza, who has been eating her waffles square by tiny square, jumps down from her chair and follows Sid to the door, Fred in tow. Today she is wearing navy-blue cut-off sweatpants and a long yellow T-shirt with a big number twelve on the back.
Going to the orchard is family code for I need to be alone. In Sid’s case, though, he really is going to the orchard. The last thing he wants is Fariza’s company. He glowers at Megan, who smiles and says, “Up to you, Sid.” She knows he won’t refuse, even if he wants to. He’s never forgotten how lonely he felt when the older kids in the house ignored him, and the look on Fariza’s face is so full of hope.
“Can you stay out of my way?” Sid asks Fariza. He already knows she can be quiet.
Fariza nods vigorously, hair beads dancing.
Sid asks, “Do you like baseball?”
Fariza’s eyes widen and she nods again.
Sid runs up to his room and comes down with two baseball bats—one full size, one much smaller. “You can use this one,” he says, handing Fariza the smaller bat, “but Fred has to stay home.”
Fariza installs Fred on the couch with a book, slips on her Crocs and follows Sid out the door.
The orchard is a five-minute walk from the house. It isn’t on Megan and Caleb’s property—it belongs to a couple who live in Palm Springs. Every year Sid and Chloe help Megan and Irena pic
k the apples and make pie, applesauce, jelly, apple butter, fruit leather, cider. Last fall, during the apple harvest, Chloe threatened to shoot her grandmother with a tranquilizer dart and burn her collection of ancient cookbooks.
Sid comes to the orchard to think and to smack a few windfalls. He loves seeing rotten apples explode in mid-air like fermented fruit bombs. He’s never wanted to play on a team, although he secretly believes he’d be the star batter if he ever tried out. His swing is powerful and his aim steady.
Today he marks out a small diamond for Fariza with some old feed sacks he finds in the run-down shed next to the orchard. He positions her at home plate, shows her how to hold the bat, and lobs a small apple at her. She swings hard, misses and falls down.
“Steee-rike one,” Sid yells as Fariza dusts herself off and takes her stance again. She misses the next apple and the next, but stops falling down after the fifth strike.
“Wanna take a break?” Sid asks after her tenth strike.
Fariza answers by tapping home plate with her bat and narrowing her eyes at Sid. She raises the bat over her shoulder and Sid lobs another apple; this time she connects, although the apple remains intact. She stands stock still for a moment, bat in hand, eyes wide, and then she runs toward first base, arms pumping, hair beads clacking. Sid picks up the apple and starts to chase her—in slow motion—as she rounds second, touches third and then makes it home. She is doing a little jig on the sack, but when he swoops her up in his arms for a victory dance, she stiffens. It’s like waltzing with a log.
He puts her down, and she backs away from him.
“Sorry,” he says, feeling unreasonably hurt, even though Megan has explained that it’s nothing personal—Fariza still freezes up when somebody male touches her. Sid doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t much like being lumped in with whoever hurt her.
He gathers a bunch of windfalls and picks up his own bat. “Stand back,” he tells Fariza, although she is already cowering by the shed. For the next half an hour Sid tosses and pummels rotten apple after rotten apple. Most of them explode right away, but some less rotten ones really travel. Home runs, all of them, although he doesn’t run the bases. After about fifteen minutes, he’s not feeling hurt and angry anymore, but he’s still confused. The question Am I my brother’s keeper? flits through his mind. He shudders, and misses the next apple. Phil obviously thinks he is—or should be—his brother’s, and maybe even his mother’s, keeper. Why else has he come to the island? He hasn’t said anything about taking Sid back to Victoria with him, but maybe that’s what he wants. Sid will have to ask.
And if Phil does ask him to go, what should he say? He isn’t sure. What help would he be when he got there? He wouldn’t have a clue where to look. He doesn’t know Gawain—who he hangs out with, where he might go. And where would he stay? With Phil? With Elizabeth, his grandmother? In Devi’s vacant house? He shudders as he picks up Fariza’s bat.
“Let’s go,” he says. She follows him, a few steps behind, all the way back to the house. When she gets inside, she runs over to Fred and burrows her face into his scrawny neck.
“You okay?” Megan calls from the War Room.
Sid leans in the doorway. “Not sure,” he replies. “What do you think of Phil?”
Megan looks up from her laptop’s screen. “Pretty intense. Decent guy though, I think. Cares about Devi and Gawain.” She laughs. “Gawain. Can you imagine? Although I guess he’s lucky it isn’t Galahad.”
“Or Merlin,” Sid says.
“Or Mordred.” Megan gets up, walks over to Sid and puts her arms around him. “You and Caleb, you’re my knights in shining armor. Even if one of you is named after the Buddha.” He can smell her shampoo—Dr. Bronner’s—and feel her familiar warmth. He allows his body to relax. Megan inhales deeply. “You smell like cider,” she says. “Was the orchard good to you?”
“Fariza hit a home run,” Sid says.
“And you?” Megan asks.
Sid shrugs. “Not sure. Do you think I should go?”
“To Victoria?” Megan steps back, her hands on Sid’s forearms. “Are you ready for that?”
“I don’t know,” Sid says. “I don’t know anything.”
“Then don’t make a decision. We’ll talk to Phil some more. Get a bit more information.”
Sid nods. “Information. Right.”
“Chloe called,” Megan says. “Why don’t you invite her for lunch? She’s dying to meet Phil.”
“No doubt,” Sid says. He can imagine how curious Chloe is about Phil. He also knows how fearless and persistent she can be when it comes to ferreting out secrets. She’s like a guided missile in flowery flip-flops. Caleb says she’s already a WMD—Woman of Mass Determination—just like her mother and grandmother. “Can we have pizza?”
Megan nods. “Pull one out of the freezer. And change your shirt. You really reek.”
“Why now?” Chloe asks Phil over her first piece of pizza. As Sid could have predicted, she cuts to the chase. “I mean, why didn’t you come sooner? It’s been thirteen years since—what’s his face—Gawain was born. Thirteen years that Sid could have known about his brother. Should have known.” She glares at Phil across the table. Sid almost feels sorry for him.
“Devi didn’t want me to come,” Phil says. “I had to respect that. Elizabeth and I—we begged her to at least write, but she always said no. She had her reasons, I guess.”
Chloe snorts. “Like what?”
Phil thinks for a moment before he speaks. “I don’t like speaking for her—”
Chloe interrupts him. “But you’re acting for her right now, aren’t you? Is there a difference? I don’t think so.”
“You don’t take any prisoners, do you?” Phil says. He picks up a fork and taps it rhythmically on the placemat. “But yes, I am acting for her, even though she doesn’t know it. Mostly, I think, I’m acting for Wain. And for Sid.”
“How so?” Chloe asks, planting her elbows on each side of her plate and resting her chin in her clasped hands. “You don’t even know Sid. Devi doesn’t know Sid, and he’s her kid. Biologically anyway. So—back to her reasons for keeping Sid in the dark all these years. I’m listening.”
Sid suppresses a laugh. Chloe’s posture and language come straight from their school’s guidance counselor: impatience (and an agenda) masked with concern.
“Devi knows she was a poor parent to Sid—”
“Poor?” Chloe’s voice rises. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“You gonna interrupt me every time I open my mouth?” Phil asks.
Chloe shakes her head and mimes zipping her lips together.
Phil continues. “She also knew that she did the right thing—giving Sid up. Leaving the island. At that point, she hadn’t been diagnosed. Her life was chaos. She couldn’t provide a stable home for Sid—she knew that. They were living on a leaky old boat, for chrissakes! She never told anyone but me about Sid. Not her mother, not Wain. But she got drunk once, years ago, and showed me a lock of his hair and a photograph of him as a baby. When she sobered up, and I asked her about it, she swore me to secrecy.”
Chloe opens her mouth to speak, and Phil holds up his hand like a Stop sign.
“By the time she got pregnant with Gawain, she’d been diagnosed and placed on a bunch of different medications, trying to find a combination that worked. Against her doctors’ advice, she went off her meds. It was rough, but she hadn’t had a major episode for a while and the pregnancy went okay. But she couldn’t risk bringing Sid into the mix. It would have been too much. She went back on her meds for a while after Wain’s first birthday, when his father left her. But she hated the side effects. She tried to control her moods with alternative stuff: herbal remedies, meditation, yoga. Up until about a year ago, she’s been pretty good, but Wain’s a handful. She had to go back on her meds.”
Chloe raises her hand, as if she’s in school. Phil nods.
“How is Wain a handful?” she asks.
“He’s sta
rted hanging out with an older crowd. Cutting school, staying out all night, getting into fights. The cops brought him home one night after he was caught stealing cheese, of all things. He said he had a sudden craving for extra-old cheddar.”
Megan, who has been silent so far, says, “I can imagine his mother would be freaking out.”
“She was,” Phil replies, “and she blamed herself, of course. The meds have a lot of side effects. She thought maybe Wain would do better if she was more alert, more involved in his life. She worried that she hadn’t been paying enough attention to him. It didn’t make any sense to me—she’s a good mother. Better than most. Until she went cold turkey a few weeks ago.”
“Cold turkey?” Megan sounds shocked. “That’s terrible.”
“I know,” Phil says. “It was. She had a full-blown manic episode, trashed her house and disappeared. Wain came home from school one day and she was gone. Two weeks later, he was gone too. So I decided to break the silence. I hope I’ve done the right thing.”
“But I still don’t get why you’re here,” Chloe says. “What does any of this have to do with Sid?”
Phil waits a long time before speaking. “Elizabeth asked me to come. Over the years, she and I have gotten pretty close. She wants to meet Sid. For some reason, she thinks he’ll be able to find Wain. It’s not logical, but there you have it. She’s not a woman you argue with. And she is his grandmother.”
“Even so,” Megan says, “it’s a lot to ask. Of Sid. Of us. After all this time. We don’t know you—or Elizabeth. Sid’s not going anywhere unless we feel it’s safe.” Caleb reaches out and puts his large hand over Megan’s small one.
“It’s gonna be okay, hon,” he says. “We’re just talking. Nothing’s been set in stone. And Sid doesn’t have to go if he doesn’t want to. Right, Phil?”
Phil nods and takes a drink of water.
Chloe stands up and leans across the table toward Phil, her eyes narrowing. Sid can tell she’s about to explode; he stands beside her and puts his arm around her shoulders, pulling her back from the table.
Three Little Words Page 4