Record Breaker

by Robin Stevenson

  “Are you nervous?” Kate asked. “Because I am. I hope your mom doesn’t get mad.”

  Anything would be better than staying in bed all day, or wandering around all blank and silent, like a ghost. “She won’t get mad,” I said. I didn’t think she had the energy for anger.

  “I haven’t been to your house,” Kate said. “Isn’t that strange? You’ve been to my house lots of times.”

  “That’s it there,” Allan said, pointing. “With all the fence boards stacked up against the wall, see? His dad’s building a bomb shelter.” He glanced at me apologetically. “Oops, sorry. That’s a secret, isn’t it?”

  “Neat,” Kate said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “My house is much bigger,” Allan said. “I live on Hillcrest. Down near McNiven’s farm, you know?”

  Kate nodded. “I play in the woods there sometimes.” She winked at me as we walked up my front path, and I knew she was thinking of our tree house and that she knew, without either of us saying so, that it was our secret.

  “Shh,” I said, taking out my key and opening the door. We tiptoed into my house and took off our shoes and coats. I couldn’t hear any sounds from the kitchen, and my mom’s door was closed. I pointed down the hallway. “She’s in her bedroom,” I whispered. “Come on.”

  Allan and Kate followed me into the living room. My heart was racing, but when I turned to look at the two of them, I almost started to laugh. They both were wide-eyed, shuffling their feet nervously. Allan was clutching the accordion, still in its case, to his chest; Kate was chewing on her bottom lip. I didn’t think I’d ever seen either of them look nervous before.

  “What are you grinning about?” Allan whispered.

  “Nothing. Are you guys ready?”

  Kate nodded. “I think I should announce you after you sing,” she said. “So your mom hears your voice first. Otherwise it might scare her, you know? If she thinks other people are in her house?”

  “Okay.” She had a point. “Allan, are you ready?”

  He knelt, unbuckled the case and lifted the accordion out carefully. “Sure, I guess so.”

  I took a deep breath. “One…two…three…” My eyes met his. “Allan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  He smiled. “’Course,” he said. “We’re friends, right? Anyway, I like your mother, Jack. If my talent can help her…well, I’m happy to share it.”

  I grinned at him. “Then let’s do it.” I took a deep breath and listened as Allan put his fingers on the keys and played the introduction. Then I closed my eyes, pictured my mother standing in front of me and began to sing her favorite song. “Till the end of time, long as stars are in the blue…” I thought of her singing it, dancing with my father. I thought of how he used to bend her backward and kiss her, like they were movie stars. I thought of how she used to dance me and Allan around the living room. I thought of her sitting on the couch, rocking Annie in her arms, singing to her.

  Tears were sneaking out from beneath my closed eyelids, but I kept on singing and my voice stayed steady, right until it broke on the final words: “I’ll go on loving you.”

  When I opened my eyes, my mother was standing in the doorway, wearing her housecoat and slippers. “Jack?”

  “Mom.” My throat closed up and I couldn’t speak.

  She held out her arms and I ran to her, my chest aching.

  Mom folded me in her arms and I buried my face against her shoulder. “Look at you,” she whispered. “You’ve grown. You’re almost as tall as I am.”

  I hadn’t noticed it, but she was right. I wondered when that had happened.

  “That was Jack Laker, singing Perry Como’s ‘Till the End of Time,’” Kate said in her announcer voice. “He was accompanied by Allan Miller on the accordion. And that song goes out to Jack’s mother, Marion Laker, whom he loves very much indeed.” Her voice cracked. “We hope she enjoyed it.”

  Mom’s arms tightened around me. “I did,” she said softly. Then she let me go and looked at my friends. “Hello, Allan. I didn’t know you played accordion. I’m impressed.”

  He grinned. “Thank you, Mrs. Laker.”

  “And I haven’t met your friend,” Mom said, looking at Kate. “Hello. You must be Kate. I’m sorry, I’m not even…” She gestured at her housecoat.

  “That’s okay. I wear pajamas all the time when I’m at home.”

  “Your mother has been to visit me a couple of times,” Mom said, smiling at Kate. “So kind. You look so much like her.”

  I hadn’t known Mrs. Levine had actually come to see my mother. No one had told me, and I felt thrown off balance by the news. “Her mother taught me to sing,” I said.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Kate said politely.

  “Let me get dressed,” Mom said. “Jack, your father will be home soon. Would you three be up for an encore?”

  I grinned, feeling like my heart might burst. “Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

  Eighteen

  When my mother came out of her room fifteen minutes later, she was wearing the same old yellow dress and cardigan, and even though she’d taken so long in there, she hadn’t put on lipstick or even brushed her hair. I felt a flicker of disappointment. For a minute I’d let myself imagine her miraculously restored to her old self, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen because of one song. It had been stupid of me to think it might.

  “Well,” she said. “I suppose I had better make dinner.” She smiled at me, but she sounded tired, as if the thought of preparing a meal was completely overwhelming.

  Kate cleared her throat. “Let us do it,” she said. “I’m not a bad cook.”

  “Won’t your family be expecting you home for dinner?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah,” Allan said. “Your mom’s making pork chops, remember?”

  Kate ignored him. “I make great spaghetti with tomato sauce. Do you have spaghetti?”

  “I think so.” Mom hesitated. “But I should do it.”

  Kate grabbed Allan’s arm. “We love cooking,” she said firmly. “You and Jack should sit down.”

  The two of them disappeared into the kitchen, Allan muttering something about not really knowing how to cook. I turned to look at my mother. “So. Um…did you want to sit down?”

  She followed me to the couch and took a seat. “Your friend doesn’t take no for an answer, does she?”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, sitting down beside her. “She probably can cook though. I think she can do most things.”

  “That was sweet of you. The song, I mean.” She put her hand on my knee and gave it a squeeze. “Your father and I danced to that at our wedding.”

  “I know.” I stared at my feet, digging my toes into the carpet.

  “Jack, I know I haven’t been much use lately.” She grimaced. “It’s been hard.”

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  She shook her head, and I could see tears starting in her eyes. “It’s not okay. I haven’t been much of a mother to you, have I? I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I said again. “I just wanted to do something nice for you. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” I looked at her. “Please don’t cry.”

  “I know I’ve been selfish.” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “I’m sure it’s been hard for you and your dad too.”

  “Mmm.” Sometimes I wondered if Dad and I were the selfish ones. We’d been able to go on with our lives without Annie. “I’m sorry about all the dumb stuff I did. Trying to break a record, I mean. I thought maybe it would help somehow. Cheer you up, or make you proud of me. But it didn’t work, and I kept making Dad angry.”

  She tilted her head and studied my face. “Oh, Jack. Your dad just worries. Anyway…” She smiled—a real smile, the kind that came with a li
ttle breathy sound that was an almost-laugh. “I think you did break a record.”

  I looked at her doubtfully. “What record? World’s worst Perry Como imitation?”

  She laughed for real at that. Then she put her arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “World’s best son,” she said.

  Kate and Allan emerged from the kitchen just as Dad pushed open the front door.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Kate announced.

  Allan looked at me. “Are we going to sing for your dad?”

  “I guess.” I stood up. My legs felt all trembly and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the conversation with my mother or the prospect of singing in front of my father.

  Allan didn’t give me time to chicken out. He picked up the accordion. “One…two…three…here goes, then.” He began playing the introduction as my dad walked in.

  “Marion?” Dad stopped dead. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, then shook his head and sank down beside my mother on the couch.

  Allen shot me a sideways look but kept playing. My heart was racing, and when I started to sing, my mouth was so dry I could feel my tongue clicking. The first few words were flat, and my voice sounded to me as if it was coming from somewhere far away. Then I caught my mother’s eyes and she smiled, and my voice was suddenly my own again, and I kept singing. “Long as there’s a spring, a bird to sing, I’ll go on loving you…”

  It wasn’t until the very end of the song that I looked at my father. I think part of me was afraid he would be scornful—that he would think singing was a bit of a sissy thing for a twelve-year-old boy to be doing—and another part was afraid he wouldn’t understand why I had done it, that he would think I was showing off. But when I sang the last line and finally looked at him, my father’s eyes were shining; he was clasping his face with one hand, hiding his mouth. I wasn’t quite sure, but I thought he was holding back tears. Allan played the final notes and quickly put the accordion back in its case. He looked at Kate. “Are you going to…”

  She shook her head. “Come on. We should get home.”

  “Thanks,” I said to them. “For playing, and for making dinner and everything.” I walked them to the front door. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Allan put his coat on. “She liked it, didn’t she? I could tell.”

  “You sounded great,” Kate said. “I didn’t want to do the announcing thing again—it didn’t seem right, somehow.”

  “No, that’s fine,” I said. “I know.”

  “You sounded pretty good,” Allan said. “I mean, you’re no Perry Como, but you remembered all the words and everything. She did like it, didn’t she? What about your dad? I couldn’t tell what he thought. He was kind of frowning, wasn’t he?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno what he thought.”

  “He liked it,” Kate said firmly. She took Allan’s arm. “Come on, Allan. Let’s go.”

  “Bye,” I said. They left with shrugs and smiles—all of us were feeling a little self-conscious and uncomfortable—and I waved goodbye. I stood there by the door for a long minute, watching them walk away. I’d never seen my dad cry and I didn’t want to now.

  When I returned to the living room, Dad was sitting on the couch alone and I could hear the clanking of cutlery and dishes in the kitchen.

  “Your mom’s serving up dinner,” he said.

  I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I should help set the table,” I said, backing away.

  “In a minute.” Dad beckoned to me. His eyes were dry, and I wondered if I had imagined the shine in them earlier. “That was quite a performance you gave.”

  I shrugged. “We thought Mom might like it.”

  “She did.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “So did I.”

  I exhaled a lungful of air—I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath—and met his eyes. “I wanted to do something to help her. To make her feel better.”

  Dad’s eyes were shiny again, and this time it definitely wasn’t my imagination. “I want to help her too, but it isn’t going to be that easy. She loved your song, and it was very thoughtful of you. But…”

  “But it’s not going to make a difference.”

  He sighed. “She’s grieving. It’s understandable.”

  “So are you,” I muttered. “And you still go to work and everything. You didn’t give up.”

  “Shh. That’s enough.” Dad looked toward the kitchen. “You’d better go set the table, Jack.”

  Nineteen

  It turned out that Kate couldn’t actually cook. Or maybe she’d been trying to give me more time alone with my mom. The spaghetti was so overcooked it was gluey, and the sauce was a heated-up can of chili. Dad wrinkled his nose but ate it anyway. Mom was playing with her food more than eating it, but she always did that these days.

  “Your friend Kate seems very nice,” she said.

  “She is.”

  “And it’s nice to see you and Allan getting along so well.” She tilted her head to one side. “I know you haven’t always found him easy.”

  I was surprised that she’d noticed. “He’s okay,” I said. “That’s just the way he is.”

  Dad grunted. “Pampered.” He stood up and refilled his water glass. “Sounded good on that accordion though. Kid’s got talent.”

  “Kate plays recorder, but she doesn’t like it,” I told him. “She sounds pretty awful, to tell you the truth. I think she was only sticking with it because her mom wanted her to. Well, Kate thought her mom wanted her to, but…”

  “Sometimes you have to put in the time to get good at something before you start enjoying it,” Dad said. “You get out what you put in.”

  “I guess so. But I’m not sure Kate would ever like the recorder. Sort of like me and baseball.” I held my breath.

  He just laughed. “You weren’t that bad.”

  “I was.” I made a face. “I still am, when we play at school.”

  Dad took a mouthful of soggy spaghetti, chewed slowly and swallowed. “Well, there are more important things in life than baseball.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  And of course I knew it. Still, it was good to hear that my father knew it too.

  The next day, Mom didn’t get up until late, but when she did finally emerge from her room, she looked different. She was still in her housecoat, hair uncombed and tied back, so it took me a minute to figure out what had changed.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re wearing your necklace. The one I gave you.”

  Her fingers flew to it. “It’s lovely, Jack.” She smiled at me. “Thank you.”

  I was sitting at the kitchen table, doing my homework and eating breakfast cereal. “It looks good on you,” I said. “Sparkly.”

  She opened the fridge and took out a carton of orange juice. “Where’s your father?”

  I nodded at the window. “Out in the yard. Putting the fence back up.”

  “Good. Are you going to help him?”

  “After I finish this math.” I studied her face. It wasn’t just the necklace that was different. “You look…you look like you’re feeling a little better.”

  “I decided to stop taking the medicine the doctor’s been giving me. Actually, your friend’s mother suggested it. Her husband’s a doctor.”

  “An X-ray doctor,” I said.

  “Well, I thought she might be right. Every time I saw my doctor, he increased my medication, and I was feeling worse and worse. So I started cutting down on it a couple of weeks ago. I’m still taking a low dose, but I’m planning to get off it completely.” She poured herself a glass of juice. “I don’t think it was helping. It made me feel so tired and sort of numb. I think…” She looked at me. “I want to feel like myself again.”

  “Even if…we
ll, even if you’re sad?”

  “Even if I’m sad.” She smiled at me. “I’m not all better, Jack, but I’m trying. Okay?”

  There was a lump in my throat. “Okay.”

  Outside, Dad was mixing water into the bags of rapid-set cement he’d dumped into the wheelbarrow. “Can I help?” I asked him.

  He nodded at me. “I could use an extra set of hands. You can hold the posts straight in the holes while I pour the cement in.”

  “Okay.” The holes were all ready, and a five-foot-high post lay beside each one. I hefted a post to vertical and lowered it into its hole. “Does that look straight?”

  He fished a small level from his tool belt. “Check it. Both ways—back to front, and left to right.”

  I measured, straightened the pole and measured again. “You want to look?”

  “Doesn’t have to be perfect,” Dad said. “If you say it’s straight, that’s good enough for me.”

  I nodded. “It’s straight.” Dad poured the cement while I held the post steady. “Can I let go?”

  “Yup. Let’s do the next one.”

  We worked in silence for a while, moving from post to post down the line, starting by the corner of the house and moving away from it. “About time we got this done,” Dad said gruffly, as he poured cement into the last hole. “This place has been a mess for too long.”

  I wondered if he meant just the backyard or more than that. I wondered if he was thinking about Annie. “I can help,” I offered.

  Dad surveyed the backyard. “Be nice if you could do some weeding.”

  “I can do that,” I said. “No problem.” Maybe I could persuade Kate and Allan to do it with me. I’d ask Kate first, because she’d probably say yes, and if Kate and I were doing yardwork together, Allan might help because he wouldn’t want to be left out.

  Dad pushed the wheelbarrow off to one side, then turned back to me. “Jack. This business with your mother. With her not being well—”