The Center of Winter

by Marya Hornbacher

  I looked. They didn’t. I shaded my eyes with one hand. They were coming at my eyes.

  “You want me to cut the orange?” she asked.

  I thought about it. “You’re not supposed to use the knives, are you?”

  “No,” she said sadly.

  “Could you get one out for me? And then you could shut the drawer and we could see if just the one is moving?”

  “A big one or a small one?”

  “Small.”

  She set a paring knife on the cutting board and shut the drawer with a bang. “There,” she said.

  In this context, the knife looked like a knife. Sharp, but manageable. “Okay,” I said.

  “I think I put too much cereal in,” she said, going back to her station in front of the bowls.

  “Put some back in the box.” I picked up the knife, testing its weight in my palm. It felt so feathery for such an important thing. So much could happen with such a tiny thing. I wondered how deep in your chest your heart was, then stopped. Knives are for oranges, Esau.

  I stabbed the orange. The knife didn’t even go halfway through. I sawed it in half, turning it in circles. It looked sort of ragged, but we wound up with two quarters each and a bowl of cereal. We went into the dining room and looked over at the couch.

  “Should we wake her up?” Kate whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back. “You’re the one who’s been here all the time. Since when doesn’t she sleep on her bed?”

  “Since when Dad died,” she said. “Duh.”

  I sat down at the table and looked at Dad’s place, piled with mail. I pulled out a Motley-Staples Gazette from February and paged through it. I had decided I wanted a boat.

  “She never sleeps in there?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Kate scooted in across from me, getting comfortable. “Maybe she does.”

  “Look at this,” I said, pointing. “There’s a pontoon for two twenty-five. With winter storage.”

  “Is that a lot of money?”

  “Tons.”

  Kate put an orange quarter in her mouth and sucked out its juice. “How much money do we have?”

  “I don’t know.” I turned the page.

  “How much money is a house?”

  “Why? Are you buying a house?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Kate, you can’t buy a house.”

  “Who says?”

  “I say. We have a house.”

  “What if we lose the house?”

  “You don’t lose a house. How can you lose a house?”

  “The people up the street lost their house. I heard Mom say to Donna.”

  “Who took it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just saying.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I’m saving my money.”

  “How much do you have?”

  “A lot. I’m not telling.”

  “Fine.”

  “Plus, Dad left us money.”

  I looked up at her. She looked back, gauging my reaction. “How do you know?” I said.

  “I know lots of things,” she retorted.

  “Yeah,” I snorted, chasing the last five Cheerios in my bowl one at a time, staring into my milk. Esau, if someone is disturbing your serenity, you have the choice not to engage.

  “How do you know that?” I demanded.

  “I listen,” she said, with her weird little calm. “I read things.”

  “No you don’t. You don’t know how to read.”

  She grabbed the paper away from me. “‘The Water Festival in Detroit Lakes was its usual success. The Water Olympics was chilly again this year, but that didn’t keep festival-goers away. There were turtle races—’”

  I grabbed it back. “Since when can you read?”

  She sneezed, and milk came out her nose. She looked at it, fascinated, and wiped it up with her sleeve. “Just because you went to Away doesn’t mean I died.” Suddenly her eyes filled up and she put her fists in them. I watched her chin crinkle up and felt helpless.

  “You know,” she added, indignant, still looking into her fists.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “Does Mom know you can read?”

  “‘Does Mom know you can read?’” she mimicked. “No.” She waved a fist at the couch. “Does she look like she knows anything anymore?”

  Kate peeked at me and slowly smiled.

  “I have so many secrets,” she whispered, with huge satisfaction, “you wouldn’t even believe how many secrets I have.”

  I pulled my feet onto my chair and wrapped my arms around my legs. She studied me, curious. “Does that make it better?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Are you glad I’m home?” I asked.

  “I guess.” She took a huge bite of cereal. “It’s about time,” she said through her Cheerios.

  “No kidding.”

  She watched the couch. I watched her temples move as she chewed.

  “You’re all skinny,” I said.

  “Shut up,” she replied. “I’m growing. Oma said.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Can you see the clock?”

  I glanced up. “It’s seven-thirty.”

  “Claire!” she shouted.

  “What?” Mom sounded completely awake.

  “It’s time to get up!”

  “No need to shout.” She sat upright and looked over at us and smiled. “I’m up,” she said.

  Kate smiled at her. “You have to go to work,” she said.

  “Right-o.” My mother stood up, stretched, and folded the afghan, laying it over the arm of the couch. She came over and put her hand behind Kate’s head, kissing her, and then came over to me. She put her nose in my hair. I squirmed in my chair, rubbing my hands together under the table. “How’d you sleep?” she asked. “Okay to be home in your own bed?”

  “I need new sheets!” I said, excited, “Mom, and my spaceships are too little for me. On my comforter. And Kate helped me get my shoes. And we had breakfast. I had to use the knife.”

  “What knife?”

  “In the kitchen to cut the orange,” Kate said. “It was just a little one. I helped.”

  My mother looked back and forth from one to the other of us. She shook her head. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” she sighed, and turned to go down the hall. “I’m getting ready,” she called. “Touch the knife and I’ll shoot you both.” The bathroom door shut.

  Kate looked at me. “She won’t really.”

  “I hate when I get scrambled.”

  “Why do you?”

  “I’m just trying to say what I’m trying to say.”

  “Oh.”

  I banged my thigh and rubbed my left temple eleven times. “I have to take my medicine.”

  “Okay. Where is it?”

  “Fuck fuck! In the bathroom. In a brown bag. With a label. With my name. Esau Elton Schiller. On it.”

  “I’ll go get it.” She hopped off her chair.

  “Hide the knife. Please hide the knife!”

  “Okay, hang on!” She ran off.

  The doorbell rang. I crawled under the table.

  Her feet squeaked at a gallop down the front hall. I heard her yell, “Stay here! Hang on!” I heard her bang on the bathroom door. “Mom!” The water ran.

  I closed my eyes and counted by elevenses up to a hundred and back again eleven times. When I opened them there was a small pair of cowboy boots in front of me.

  “Hi, Davey,” I said.

  “Hi. Kate says I’m supposed to tell you she’s almost back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you want anything?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I could get you a juice. For with your medicine when Kate gets back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Or do you want milk?”

  “Juice, please. And could you get me that blanket off the couch?”

  “Sure thing.”

  I watched his boots clop off across
the room. He bent down and passed the afghan to me, staring at me with his big eyes.

  “You want me to come under there with you?”

  “That’s okay. Just the blanket. Please.”

  “Ten-four.”

  I spread the afghan out under the table and lay down on one edge. I took hold of it and rolled myself up. Eighty-nine, seventy-eight (my favorite), sixty-seven, fifty-six.

  “Here I am!” Kate shouted, scrambling under the table and dumping a bag of pill bottles out on the floor next to my head.

  “I’ve got the juice!” Davey yelled, clopping and spilling all the way. He crouched on the floor in his little Levi’s.

  “Two blue, one pink, one white. I think. Wait.” My hands felt like pounding and my back arched. “Two pink. One blue. Shit!”

  “Wait! Calm down,” Kate said, reading a bottle. “Pet his head,” she ordered Davey.

  He put out his hand and sort of scratched my ears like a dog. I closed my eyes.

  “You were right! Two blue, one pink, one white,” Kate said. She and Davey wrestled the bottles open and counted the pills out, spilling them all over the place. I rolled back and forth a little to loosen the blanket and stuck my arm out. Kate handed me the pills and Davey passed me the juice.

  They watched me as I swallowed. I set down the glass of juice and pulled my other arm out. I set my chin in my hands. It was okay down here. We could stay here all day. My head stopped jerking and I heaved a sigh.

  “Cool boots,” I said to Davey.

  He looked. He nodded slowly at them. “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty cool.”

  “Cool as cats.”

  He nodded his thoughtful assent. “Are we going to school today?” he asked Kate.

  “No. We better stay here and have a sick day. Don’t you think?”

  “Okay with me.”

  From the other room came the sound of high heels. They stopped. We all looked out.

  “What are you doing under there?” Mom asked, bending over to peer at us.

  “Esau needed his medicine,” Kate replied.

  “He needed it under the dining-room table?”

  “I guess so,” Kate said shrugging. We stared at her blankly.

  “I guess so,” I repeated.

  “Well, okay. Are you coming out anytime soon?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But apparently not yet.”

  We didn’t move. Exasperated, she gathered her skirt around her knees and crouched. “Well, I need to go to work.”

  “So go,” Kate said.

  “Oma and Opa are on their way over. They won’t be but a few minutes. Are you going to be all right?”

  Kate rolled her eyes and sighed. “Mom,” she said.

  “We’re okay, Mrs. Schiller,” Davey said, patting her knee. “Esau can be in charge.”

  A worried look crossed her face.

  She straightened. “There’s bologna in the fridge for sandwiches when you get hungry, and tell Oma she doesn’t have to make dinner,” she called, grabbing her purse. “Call me at the store if you need anything. No more knives!” She clicked down the hall.

  I looked at Kate.

  “She cries at night,” she said abruptly.

  “She does?”

  Kate nodded. “I hear her.”

  “I heard her too,” Davey piped up. “And she talks.”

  “Talks to who?”

  They shrugged in unison. They were like a two-headed monster.

  “I have to take a shower. Right now.” I crawled out from under the blanket. “I am completely late!” I yelled, and ran to the bathroom.

  In the tub, I washed as fast as possible, in straight lines up and down and then crossways, both, and then I sat with my knees pulled up to my chin, letting the water pour over my face. I washed my feet super extra well, toe by toe.

  Esau, I said to myself, just like my mom had last night, your father is dead.

  He is just away for a while.

  He is dead.

  I put my left foot in my mouth and nibbled off my toenails until they were even.

  He isn’t dead.

  “Kate!” I yelled through my toes.

  I knew he was dead before she told me.

  I picked up my right foot and started working on my big toe. She didn’t have to tell me. I knew he was dead.

  “Kate!”

  “What?” she yelled as she came down the hall.

  “I’m stuck!”

  “In what?”

  “Is Dad dead?”

  There was a long silence. Then a loud whispering.

  “Are you drownding yourself?” she finally called through the door. The handle was jiggled from the outside. “Can’t you come out of the tub until Oma and Opa get here?”

  “I mean,” I said, lying down completely in the tub and chewing furiously on my left thumb, “he is, right?”

  “Can Davey come in?”

  “I guess so.”

  Davey poked his head in. He turned to shut the door behind him and hopped up onto the john. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  He watched me for a while. “Say, are you sure you’re supposed to chew your fingers like that?” he asked.

  “No.” I put them behind my back so I could stop. It was easier when they were out of sight.

  “Kate did that too,” he said, swinging his legs.

  “She did?”

  He nodded. “Yep. Chewed ’em clear off. Band-Aids on her fingers all the time.”

  “When?”

  “Right after your dad died.” He looked at the door. “Kate,” he called. “He’s not drownding hisself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Course I’m sure. I’m looking right at him, aren’t I?”

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “I can hear you perfectly good. You don’t have to shout.”

  “Fine. What’s he doing, then?”

  Davey looked at me. “He’s just lying here thinking.”

  “What do you mean, lying there?”

  “He’s lying here.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “No!” we both yelled.

  We looked at each other.

  “Man, you are a weird little kid,” I said.

  He nodded. “Ten-four.”

  He hopped off the toilet and turned off the water. “’Bout done with your shower, then?” he asked.

  I sat up. “Sure.”

  We sat in a row on my bed with Kate in the middle. Oma and Opa were out in the living room, doing the crossword.

  “Well, don’t look at it,” she said. “That’s only going to make it worse.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should open it.”

  “What for?”

  “To see.”

  “To see what?”

  “What’s in there.”

  “There’s nothing in there!” She sighed. “It’s just a closet.”

  “Then why can’t I look?”

  “Because you’ll go in and shut the door. Closets are for clothes. Not people.”

  “Dad used to say that.”

  I stared at it. The door was staying shut. That was good. I still didn’t trust it. Before I went away, it used to suck me in.

  “Well, he was right,” she said.

  I turned around and faced the wall. “When did he die?” I scratched at a chipped spot of light-blue wallpaper. It worried me. There was another, darker blue underneath. I chipped a little more.

  “Christmas,” Davey finally said. “He died at Christmas.”

  “On Christmas,” Kate corrected him.

  “On Christmas.”

  “I fell in the snow by the hole.”

  I looked at her.

  “She got all dirty,” Davey added. He lay down on his stomach, carefully, and waved his cowboy boots in the air.

  “What hole?”

  “Where they put him,” Kate said. “But he’s only partly there.” She picked a scab on her knee. She looked up at me. “Do you think
he got cold?”

  I wanted very much to go in a hole. “I think I would feel better if we could open my closet now.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she said loudly, and went over to it. Her hand on the doorknob, she turned to me. “If you go in there, I’m getting Opa. I mean it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Cross your heart.”

  I did.

  She flung open the door. “See?” she demanded. “Nothing there.”

  My treasures. On the floor. A flashlight, a blanket, a little beanbag, the size of my hand, that sounded like stars.

  “Okay,” I said. “Shut it. Quick.”

  She climbed back on the bed. “Better?”

  “Yeah.”

  The three of us sat there, worrying. I wiggled my thumbnail into the hole in the wallpaper and got a grip and ripped off a big chunk.

  “Well,” Kate said, looking at it. “Now you’re going to have to do the whole room, I guess.”

  I nodded glumly. It was going to take forever.

  No matter how long I stared at the wall, my dad was still dead.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. That was okay. I didn’t mind night nearly as much as day. If I had my way, I’d have it be night all the time, sometimes. But I had a maximum. I was only supposed to have three nights awake and no more or I got pretty wonky.

  So I was sitting on my windowsill looking out at the yard when I heard the music.

  At first I worried I was inventing things. Which was okay, because imagination is all right, as long as you can tell when you’re imagining and when you’re inventing. Imagining is like drawing in your brain. Inventing is really thinking the thing.

  I listened intently.

  The music was real, and it was coming from outside my room. I got off the windowsill and opened the door slowly.

  My mother was dancing barefoot, with a cigarette.

  She turned and for a second I thought she saw me. But instead she made a face and sat down suddenly on the couch, as if she was exhausted. From where I stood, it looked like she was staring at my dad’s old chair. “Well, what are you waiting for?” she said. “Come on. Join us.” She swept her arm at the empty room, put her face in her hands, and started crying.

  Her cigarette ash got long and eventually fell on the floor.

  I tiptoed through the room and knocked on the couch. She looked up, her eyes all red and wet. She smiled.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi.” She patted the couch. I sat down next to her.