Walking Backward

by Catherine Austen

  I tried to think of something happy to take my mind off Karen and Einstein. I told Aunt Laura how Madame Denis suggested Sam and I should choose something of Mom’s to remember her by. Aunt Laura said, “Oh, all right.” She sighed like it was a huge effort for her to walk up the stairs, even though we didn’t want her to come up with us.

  It started off okay. I found a plain gold chain with a glass pendant in the shape of a tree. Mom bought it in the market from a local artist. It’s not girly—it’s a tree, so it could be for anyone. Since we have Mom’s Tree to plant, it’s a perfect memory to wear. So that was my choice.

  The problem began when Sam chose Mom’s bathrobe as his memory. Aunt Laura started huffing like the Big Bad Wolf. She said no, the bathrobe was too big, and Sammy should pick something else. Those weren’t her exact words. Her exact words were, “Don’t be an idiot. It’s huge.” I got mad, because it wasn’t her idea to wear something of Mom’s, so she shouldn’t be the judge. Plus we’ve always had a rule of “no name-calling” in our house. You have to say, “I think that’s an idiotic idea,” instead of, “You’re an idiot.” The bathrobe wasn’t a good choice—it’s even bigger than the Power Ranger—but that’s no reason to be mean.

  Sammy explained that on Sunday mornings when he got up to watch tv, he would sit on Mom’s lap, and if it was cold she’d wrap her robe around both of them and tie the belt over Sam’s belly. That’s a nice memory to put in the scrapbook, but he had to make another choice. A kid who wears his dead mother’s robe is labeled for life. Plus he’d trip over it and fall down and smash his face in.

  I told Sam to choose from the jewelry box instead. Aunt Laura picked up a pearl ring and said, “Wow, this is pretty. Can I have it?” I should have been nicer, but it’s not her stuff and she can’t just take it, so I said no. She totally spazzed out. She started yelling that it’s been two months since Mom died and we should get rid of her stuff. She took Mom’s clothes out of the closet and threw them on the bed. Sammy and the Power Ranger started screaming. I stood in front of Mom’s clothes like I was protecting them, and I told Aunt Laura to leave us alone. She yelled, “You’re already alone so much you’ve gone crazy!” That may be true, but it’s not like she was helping the situation.

  That’s when Dad walked in. He had just gotten home from work. He grabbed Aunt Laura by the arms and shouted, “Don’t touch her things!” Then he said more quietly, “Thank you for watching Sam, but now you should leave.” She said, “You can’t keep her things forever!” I said, “Our forty-nine days are not over.” She looked at the three of us like we’re insane, and then she left.

  We went outside to plant Mom’s Tree. It took Dad an hour to dig a big enough hole. Sammy kept saying, “That’s good, Daddy,” and dragging the tree over and breaking off the green bits. Dad yelled at us to go to the park while he dug the hole. He yells way more than he used to. I’m starting to suspect he’s not a cyborg after all.

  Things got even worse at the park.

  Sammy was rocking on the metal pig. Darren, the four-year-old bully, was playing in the sand with some cars. Darren’s mom was sitting on the bench talking on her cell phone. I started running up the slide to work off my stress. Suddenly I heard a high-pitched shriek, and I saw Darren run across the grass with Sammy tearing after him. I could not believe how fast Sam ran. It was like he was propelled by a rocket. It reminded me of a nature show where the cheetah springs up out of nowhere and races through the savannah and tackles the baby antelope.

  Man, did Sammy tackle Darren when he caught up to him! He plowed him into the grass and pummeled him. He slammed his fists into the kid’s face and screamed in his crazy high-pitched shriek. I ran up to them and pulled Sammy off. It was like holding back a wild dog. By the way he’d been punched, I thought for sure Darren’s face would be bloody and unrecognizable, with broken teeth and black eyes and his lip hanging off and everything. But no. The kid looked totally normal except for a grass stain on his cheek.

  Sam started kicking Darren and yelling, “Give it back!” I saw that Darren had Sam’s Power Ranger. He got up and ran away with it.

  This time I chased him down. I pinned his arm to his side and pried the Ranger loose while he slapped at me with his free hand. I wanted to punch him, but he’s only four and that would be wrong. I just took the toy back. When I held it out to Sammy, Darren tried to snatch it again. So I held it up high. The kid jumped for it like a dog, which freaked me out a bit. Sammy slammed him to the ground and started hitting him again. He pushed him down so hard you’d think it would have broken the kid’s back. But no. Darren was fine. He was almost smiling.

  I had to drag Sammy home by the wrist, because he kept trying to run back and beat the crap out of Darren some more. Darren stood in the park watching us go. All this time his mom was talking on her phone, just gabbing away. It was the weirdest thing.

  When we got home, Dad was finished digging the hole, but he had to drive back to the garden center for soil. Sammy and I held the tree straight while Dad poured in the dirt and tamped it down until finally the tree stood up instead of tipping over. It was sunset by the time we went inside, so we ordered pizza. While we waited for it to be delivered, we went through Mom’s jewelry for memories.

  Dad said his wedding ring is his memory. I realized that Mom’s watch could be my memory, since I wear it all the time. But I chose the tree pendant anyway. The watch is more of a practical thing. Sammy picked a macaroni necklace he made for Mom in preschool. Half the macaronis are chipped, and red paint comes off in your hand if you hold it too long. Whatever. It’s his choice. Then Dad called Aunt Laura and left a message saying he was sorry for yelling at her.

  Dad seems different now, and I mean better. It’s like he’s on our side—mine and Sammy’s—instead of alone. Even though it was a rotten day from morning till night, I don’t feel so bad. Maybe we’re not totally hopeless.

  Saturday, September 1st

  It’s Labor Day weekend and we’re camping. When we used to camp with Mom, we’d hike and do scavenger hunts and collect shells and tell ghost stories. Now, without Mom, we’re sitting at the campsite, writing in our psychiatrist journals. We’re not even sitting around a campfire, because we have no campfire. Mom was the one good at fires. The wood they sell here is all giant logs with no kindling and we have no ax. Mom would have found a way to make a fire with just a match and a tree, but none of us can. We have seven logs lying in the firepit. I guess we’ll just go in the tent when it gets dark, like we did last night.

  We arrived at three minutes to sundown yesterday because Dad forgot that Mom isn’t around to pack for us. He thought we could just grab some ice bags and be on our way. But there’s no point in ice without food and a cooler. We shopped for burgers and corn on the cob. Then we packed our clothes and found the tent—which was in the very back of the shed and smells like the cats have peed on it. By the time we got here it was almost dark.

  It’s a good thing Mom booked the site last year, because there was a long lineup of campers waiting for cancellations. There were cars packed to the roof with sleeping bags and beach umbrellas, with grumpy tired people leaning against them scowling. They’d gone to all the trouble of packing when they didn’t even have a campsite. They gave us dirty looks as we drove in. If we’d been one hour later, the park authorities would have given away our site.

  I helped Dad set up the tent, but that was a Mom thing too. Dad was swearing by the time we put on the fly. Dad never used to swear. Mom sometimes swore when she drove, even if there were no snakes in the car. That was a joke, but probably not a very funny one.

  Last night we went to sleep as soon as the tent was up because we’d forgotten the flashlights, so we couldn’t read or play cards. This morning we bought lights for each of us, and charcoal for the barbecue, so today we’re doing really well.

  Dad made burgers for supper tonight, and they were delicious. They were the most expensive kind of burger in the grocery store, called Thick and Juicy S
irloin Patties. Mom used to buy Extra Lean Beef Burgers, which are okay but nowhere near as good as the ones Dad bought. Once Mom bought Cheesy Tuna Fish Burgers. How gross is that?

  We had a perfect day on the beach today, swimming and building sandcastles and burying Dad in the sand. Sammy brought his boats and his kites, and all his sand toys. The kid is totally organized for someone insane. Dad and I are like dogs. We hear, “Let’s go camping!” and we run to the car. Sammy’s like Mom. He packs intelligent things that are actually useful on a beach.

  We took his boats into the water and sailed them back to shore about five hundred times. Sammy wore his life jacket in the lake, and he didn’t seem too scared. He’s not a bad swimmer, but he’s afraid to get his face wet, so he’d panic and drown if he didn’t have a jacket on. He looks like one of those old ladies you see in swimming pools craning their necks out of the water because they don’t want to get their hair wet. They all have the same hairdo, those old ladies— it’s always short gray hair in curls. You never see old ladies with straight hair. Never.

  The boats sailed away from us once, and we followed them down the beach and saw Karen’s mom. She was sitting on a lawn chair reading a magazine. When she saw me she stuck her cigarette in the sand to put it out. There were cigarette butts all around her chair, like a hundred of them poking through the sand. It was totally gross.

  I asked her if Karen was here. She said she didn’t know where Karen was. I said, “Do you mean you don’t know where Karen is on the beach or you don’t know where Karen is in the world?” She said, “Where on the beach?” like it was a question. Far off in the water, a girl with brown braids played with a beach ball. It might have been Karen, but she never waved back, so who knows?

  I’m going to walk around the campsites tonight to see if I can find her. It’s not like I’m stalking her. I just want to know if she’s here and if she knows who her homeroom teacher is. School starts on Tuesday.

  Simpson’s cross-boundary transfer came through, so he’ll be at my school this year, even though his mom’s house is in a different school district. I went to their new house yesterday before soccer. It’s really nice. It’s in a new development with no trees and small yards, where you get lost going for a walk because everything looks the same, like a robot made it, and you can’t find any landmarks. But once you’re locked up tight in the house, it’s great. The basement is a giant playroom, with a wide-screen tv and an Xbox. It’s too bad it’s so far from our house.

  Simpson’s mom was happy to have me over. She showed me the insides of her kitchen cupboards. Mom used to do that kind of thing, like show me pillows she’d bought for the couch. I’d say, “Mom, I don’t care about stuff like that.” She’d say, “Josh, I don’t care about the attack and defense powers of every World of Warcraft hero you ever made, but I still listen politely because it’s important to you.” That’s true— except they’re not actually heroes, they’re just characters, but the principle’s the same. I told Simpson’s mom her cupboards were awesome.

  Dad’s trying to peek at my journal right now. He’s faking a stretch, but his eyes are glued to my book. He must have seen the capital M, so he knows I’m writing something about Mom. I smiled like it was all good, but he’s still trying to peek. I haven’t looked at his journal since that one time. I probably should, to find out if he’s still so sad. I hope not. At least he knows it wasn’t me who put the snake in Mom’s car. And it probably wasn’t Sammy either.

  Sam had a great day today. I haven’t seen him so happy in ages. Finally he had some kids to play with. Some of them wanted to steal his toys, but I kept watch. I also stopped Sam from giving all his boats away. That’s the kind of thing he does, thinking everybody’s his friend when really they’re total strangers.

  After the boats, we tried flying Sam’s kites, but there wasn’t enough wind, and Sammy kept tripping over people when he ran down the beach for takeoff power. We switched to sand castles. Again I was amazed at Sammy’s awesome packing skills. Not only did he bring his buckets and shovels, but he brought all his little Pokémon figures too. We made a huge sand coliseum, with Pokémon battles in the center and a Pokémon audience around the sides. Two little five-year-olds helped us build it. They must have been neglected children or something, because their parents went to the canteen for an hour while the kids played with us. Sammy was a totally normal boy with them.

  Now we’re at our campsite sitting at the picnic table with our journals, using our arms to shield the pages from each other. It’s not like we were all having strong emotions. Dad writes in his journal after supper every day, so we’re sticking with his schedule. “Taking advantage of the light,” Dad called it.

  I peeked in Sam’s journal, and it looks like he’s drawing space stuff. Madame Denis said Space is the September theme for her class. I thought that was amazing, because every other kindergarten teacher I know does Apples in September. Not that I actually know any kindergarten teachers, but every year in September I’d see pictures of apples on display outside the kindergarten classes. Madame Denis sounds like a real trailblazer.

  It’s good for Sam to put his mind on something besides snakes and dying. Space is an excellent subject. Mom liked space—Sam told Madame Denis that about five thousand times after she said it was their theme.

  Once when Mom took us to the Museum of Science and Technology, we went on the Mission to Mars simulator ride three times in a row. We liked it so much the first time that we bought tickets for the next show. It was just as much fun the second time, so we bought more tickets. It wasn’t as much fun the third time. The museum was almost empty that day, so we had to save Mars by ourselves, just me and Sammy and Mom. We held hands and screamed and giggled—except by the third time we were forcing the screams because, really, twice was enough.

  Mom used to stargaze through a telescope on the back deck until she left it out one night last fall and somebody stole it. Two summers ago she bought me a Star Tracker to teach me the constellations. It came with a book, a cd and a set of binoculars. You’re supposed to read the book first, then go out at night with the binoculars and a Walkman to find the constellations. You wear headphones while you search the sky. It seemed kind of dangerous to me, since you can’t see or hear anyone on Earth who might be sneaking up on you.

  I only tried the Star Tracker for ten minutes. The constellations were too hard to find. They should have connected the stars into simple geometric shapes instead of imagining fancy drawings of guys carrying water buckets that are impossible to see. I only remember the two bears. They don’t look like bears, but they’re easy to find because they contain the dippers, which actually look like dippers. Karen was impressed when I showed her those constellations back in the spring.

  Mom’s favorite thing in the night sky was the moon. She always said, “Look at that moon,” every time it was full. She said if you loved someone far away, you could look up at the moon and think about them looking at it too, and feel closer to them. I have no idea what she was talking about when she said that, because as far as I know all the people she loved were right in our house.

  She said the moon reminded her of how special the Earth is. It has waterfalls and salt flats and oceans and forests, and plants and animals, and colors and noise, instead of just being a cold rock falling through space without making a sound.

  In grade five, I did my science project on the moon. I learned about the different forces pulling it toward the Earth and away from the Earth at the same time, just as the Earth is pulled toward the sun and away from the sun at the same time, so everything keeps going around and around. It’s pretty amazing. When I made my display, Simpson asked me, “Why doesn’t everything just fall through space?” I told him, “Everything is falling through space, man. It’s just that some things are falling together.”

  It feels like our lives are like that too. Like we’re all falling through space and being pulled in different directions. In our family, Mom was the sun, and the three of us w
ere planets, and we were safe because even though we were pulled away, Mom swung us back with her gravity. She kept us together and happy, not terrified or even noticing that we were falling through endless space. When she died, we were left hurtling through emptiness. There was a real danger that we might shoot off in our own directions—Dad falling one way and Sammy falling another, and me left alone and spinning. For a while it felt like we were lost.

  But now I think the three of us are circling each other. Even if we are hurtling through the universe, and even if there is no sun to swing us back, I don’t think we’re going to fly apart from each other. Maybe we’ll be pulled closer together. We felt closer today, when Sam and I buried Dad in the sand. Even now, hiding our journals from each other, it feels like we’re closer.

  Today was a beautiful day. Sammy took imaginary pictures just about every second. Snap, snap, snap.

  Sunday, September 2nd

  It’s Sunday, and we’re going home early and I’m writing this in the car. I don’t even want to write it down, but I’m afraid I’ll remember it wrong later if I don’t. I know I’ll remember it forever. I just might remember it wrong.

  Sammy came with me to check out the campsites last night. We took our new flashlights because it was nearly dark. People were playing their radios so loud, the noise traveled over the whole campground. We swung our lights in time to the music. A song came on with a lonely drumbeat. Someone screamed like it was her favorite song in the world, and she turned the radio up even louder. That sad drum followed me and Sammy past dozens of campsites where couples drank beer, and friends talked around fires, and mothers sat at tables wiping their kids’ faces. We walked by all of them to that lonely beat, swinging our lights.