We saw Karen and her mom with another woman and a boy I didn’t recognize. They were sitting around a campfire drinking Coke from cans. I stopped walking when I saw them. I felt really sad. I hadn’t noticed I was sad before, because it had been such a great day. But when I saw Karen, I knew that somewhere deep down I’d been sad all day, ever since I saw her mom on the beach and the girl in the water who wouldn’t wave back.
Karen didn’t run away this time. Maybe her mom told her to get a grip. Or maybe she didn’t want to spaz out in front of the boy—who turned out to be her cousin. She stood up and came for a walk with me and Sammy. That stupid drum song was still going on, drifting over the trees down the road all the way to the beach.
The beach was bright, even though the sun had just set and it was only a half moon. We turned off our flashlights and took off our shoes and walked in the wet sand. It was cold and slimy, and it creeped me out.
I did all the talking, because Karen didn’t have anything to say. Sammy talked to Mom off to the side with his toy. I told Karen about the Darwin Awards and how funny some of them are, and how I was waiting to find out if Mom was going to get one.
I told her about Dad building a time machine like he was smarter than Albert Einstein. Sammy said, “Daddy’s smarter than everyone.” He told Karen that Dad went to his soccer game and his team was going to win the tournament.
Karen didn’t say anything. She looked at Sammy like he was the saddest thing in the world, when really he was happy as can be at that moment, thumping down the beach with his Power Ranger. She whispered to me, “Is he okay?” I said, “I don’t know.”
I told her about the mourning practices of different faiths, and how I wish we were Jewish because it’s such an organized religion. I told her about the Hindu belief that too much mourning is bad for the dead person’s reincarnation. I told her that Japanese Buddhists say their forty-nine days are not over if they don’t understand how the person they loved died. I said we were doing okay, me and Sammy and Dad, but our forty-nine days are not over.
Karen started to cry, and she told me she’d put the snake in Mom’s car. I thought she must be joking. But she wasn’t. She said she was sorry, she never knew Mom was afraid of snakes. She cried so hard I could barely understand her. She said she’d been coming over to my house to show me a snake she’d caught— probably to throw it at me, but she didn’t say that— and she’d seen me leaving the house with Mom. Mom had her keys in her hand, so Karen thought she was about to drive me to soccer practice. She dumped the snake on the passenger seat of Mom’s car to scare me when I sat down. But I didn’t get in the car. I always skipped Saturday practice. I biked over to the Dungeon to play cards instead.
So the snake wasn’t hiding under Mom’s seat for days. It was only there for ten seconds before Mom got in the car, and then ten minutes until she hit the highway and saw it.
I didn’t have anything to say to Karen when she told me that. She was crying and saying she was sorry. She was really crying her guts out. But when she tried to hug me, I didn’t want to touch her. I wanted her to get away from me. Mostly I was confused, like I couldn’t understand what she was saying. For one thing, I didn’t remember leaving the house at the same time as Mom. I thought I was home with Sammy all day. But no, I biked to the Dungeon. On the way back I met Simpson on the bike path, and he came over to my place. When we rode in, Dad asked Simpson if he would please go home because he had something important to tell me. I’d forgotten all that. That whole morning had disappeared from my head.
That’s why I want to write about Karen’s “prank” before we get home and I forget what happened last night. I don’t want to remember it wrong, like I remembered the morning Mom died. I was sure I remembered sitting in the living room, watching Mom walk out the door—just the way Sammy described her—in her red sundress, her purse falling to her elbow, her hair bouncing off her shoulder, with only a smidgeon of her cheek showing as she walked away from us. But I didn’t see her like that. I left the house with her. I saw her face. She looked happy. I remember it clearly now, how she smiled at me and squeezed my hand before she walked to her car.
I even remember biking up the street and waving hello to Karen as I rode past her. She waved back and shouted, “Aren’t you getting a ride to practice?” I just blew her a kiss.
I wish so badly that I’d gotten a ride to soccer practice. Or that Karen had run back to Mom’s car and taken out the snake. Or I wish she’d never put the snake in the car in the first place. How could she not have known about Mom’s phobia? We were friends since grade two! But even if she didn’t know, what kind of person puts a snake in someone’s car? I could see a fake snake—and maybe even a fake one would have scared Mom to death—but a real snake? That’s a terrible prank to pull. You’d have to be an idiot not to know that was dangerous.
What’s funny about putting a snake in someone’s car? It’s not very funny now. That’s what I said to Karen on the beach. She said, “I thought it would be funny.” I said, “It’s not very funny now.”
Then she ran away, probably back to her campfire.
I don’t know how long Sammy and I stayed on the beach after that. It was like another freakish time warp. I smashed all the garbage cans with a piece of driftwood. Then I threw the barbecue grates as far as I could into the lake. I picked up every stupid cigarette butt I could find in the sand and ripped them into tiny bits of fluff I wanted to cram down Karen’s throat. Sammy grabbed me and said, “Don’t cry, Josh, don’t cry,” until I didn’t know what to do. We started to build a sand castle, and eventually Dad came and found us.
Then I yelled at Dad, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. I was just so mad. I yelled that traveling backward in time is impossible and he was an idiot for not knowing that. “Why would you want to time travel anyway?” I yelled. “Wherever you are, you’ll always hide from me and Sammy. You’ve never joined in with us ever in your life! You just waited for Mom to raise us.” That was really mean and not actually true, because he’d just let us bury him in the sand and he’d cooked us burgers.
Dad said I was wrong. He said he’d do anything we wanted. Sammy said, “You won’t make the Mommy Book.” Then Dad said, “Making scrapbooks about your mother is just another way of trying to go back in time.” I called him an asshole if he couldn’t see the difference between hiding in your basement and sharing stories about someone you love. And I don’t usually swear, at least not at home.
I smashed the castle and accidentally kicked sand in Dad’s eye. He screamed and swore. I thought we might actually have to go to the hospital, but he had some eyewash in the car. Which is weird, since he forgot the flashlights. I guess he keeps a first-aid kit in his glove compartment.
He didn’t have a chance to wash his eye out for almost an hour because I caused another disaster and nearly destroyed Sammy.
Somehow I lost the girl Power Ranger. It was standing on top of the castle when I kicked it down. I must have kicked the Ranger with the sand, way out near the water. Oh my god, Sammy had a fit. I thought it would break my heart, the way he was crying. I buried the toy trying to find it, sweeping away the sand and throwing it on top of the Ranger without knowing it. I couldn’t see it anywhere, even with my flashlight. I looked a hundred feet in every direction, and it wasn’t there. We all got on our knees, digging and panicking—Dad was searching with just one eye open—until we combed the sand for what felt like forever, scooping right down to where it was dripping wet. But the Ranger was gone.
Sammy made such a creepy frightened wail, screaming, “Where is she? Where is she?” I was afraid that he’d go insane for good, that his mind would just burst from fear and he’d never be okay again. I hugged him and told him, “Everything will be okay,” just like all the stupid grown-ups say when it’s not actually true, they just want it so badly. I told him we’d never leave that beach until we found it.
Then all of a sudden Dad found it. He stood up and walked away from us to look
at the moon and cry, and he stepped right on it. We cheered like he’d found the cure for cancer or stopped a nuclear war or traveled back in time and saved Mom.
It was crazy. We jumped up and down and laughed and hugged. It was the hysterical kind of laughter that can turn into crying at any second. I think sometimes that’s the only way I’ll ever laugh again. Every time I laugh, I can feel deep down at the bottom of the laugh there’s crying, and I could go there at any moment.
Sammy was so happy when Dad passed him the Ranger. He kept repeating, “Daddy found her, Daddy found her,” and wiping his eyes and smiling, with his face all wet and blotchy. Then he asked out of the blue, “Can I go to soccer tomorrow?” Dad started giggling. He said, “Okay. Yeah. We’ll leave early.”
We packed up the tent this morning, and now we’re on our way home.
It’s weird, but I slept well last night even though I was so sad and angry about Karen. At least I know what happened. It’s even stupider than all the things I thought might have happened, but at least I know. I don’t want to see Karen again. Not ever. I know she didn’t mean for Mom to die, but I just don’t like her anymore.
I can’t see us even talking again with that horrible thing between us. Even if I didn’t blame her—but I do, because it’s obviously her fault—my liking her has disappeared. It disappeared the second she told me she’d put the snake in Mom’s car. She was crying so hard, and I could see that she was really sorry, but I didn’t care. I just didn’t care about her anymore. A switch flipped inside my heart. On. Off.
That’s sad, because I really liked liking her. But I just don’t like her anymore.
Monday, September 3rd
There are two things I want to write about today. First of all, we won our soccer tournament this weekend. Usually we win all summer but lose the tournament because I’m away camping. Not to brag, but I’m the top scorer in my age group in the whole region. My coaches are always upset when I miss the tournament. Last year the coach said I couldn’t sign up in April unless I could guarantee I’d play on Labor Day weekend. So Mom said, “Oh yes, he’ll be here.” Then she winked at me. Really, how could they force me to go?
There was always something cool about being missed, but man, I’m so glad I went this time. The coach jumped up and down when he saw me on the field. He said, “I guess you didn’t go camping because your mom died,” with a big smile on his face. Then he realized what a moronic thing that was to say, and he apologized. I told him we came home early because two nights in a falling-down tent with no campfire was enough fun for this year. And for every year after, unless Dad finds Sammy a new mom who can build fires and pack properly.
About a hundred divorced women tried to pick Dad up at the tournament. That should be against the mourning rules of all religions. One woman sat so close to him that I wanted to bean her with the soccer ball. I guess widowers are exciting compared to all the pathetic divorced dads in the world. Dad was wearing shorts and sunglasses, and he didn’t look as zoned out as usual. He looked smart—which he is, despite his attempt to build a time machine.
I went down to the basement this morning and looked under the tarp. His machine is made from a do-it-yourself airplane kit you can buy for eight hundred dollars. How is that going to fly fast enough to travel through time? I asked Dad about it, and he said, “That’s not my only material, Josh.” Like he has a secret stash of antimatter just behind the curtain. I can tell he still thinks he could build it if he just kept tinkering. I hope he doesn’t try. There’s no such thing as time travel. You’re always here and now, and you just have to deal with it. Even if you got somewhere else, once you were there it would be here and now.
It would be amazing if Mom were with us here and now. I can’t explain how much I would like that to happen. But I know it can’t. If she could see us here and now, she’d want us to be happy. She wouldn’t want Dad to flirt with other women at my games though. She’d want a good solid year of mourning, with her tree decorated on her birthday and the scrapbooks to keep forever.
I’m not so sure about the memory jewelry. I took off her necklace for soccer because it’s pretty dangly and a bit girly after all. I might stick with just the watch. Maybe one day if I like another girl, I’ll give the tree necklace to her. But if she pulls a sicko prank, I’m taking it back.
Sammy’s macaroni necklace broke during his soccer game. The string came untied and all the macaronis slipped off. He’d forgotten that he was wearing it as a memory of Mom, so he just laughed. Then he and his teammates stomped all the noodles like it was great fun.
He carried the girl Power Ranger through his whole game. I don’t think we have any hope of transferring Mom’s memory to anything else. He’ll just carry that Ranger until one day he stops. That’s not so bad. People make allowances for kids who lose their mother. Probably for years they’ll make allowances for Sammy.
He’s here in my bed right now, fast asleep. I don’t think his forty-nine days are over yet. He never cared how the snake got in Mom’s car, so knowing how doesn’t explain anything for him. It does for me— I don’t know why, but it feels like a weight off my mind. I still ask, “Why didn’t she just pull over?” That’s something I’ll never know, because I’ll never understand phobias. You’d think evolution would have weeded them out. In my game, Evolution, I’m going to include a phobia or two that gets weeded out.
I can’t believe I just wrote that. That means I think Mom deserves a Darwin Award.
But she would want her phobia weeded out of the gene pool. She didn’t want me and Sammy to fear snakes. It bothered her that I’m afraid of them.
There was a snake on the path to the cow field during my soccer game. Sammy wandered off again and saw it. He got excited the way he used to, like he was thrilled to find it. Then he stopped suddenly as if a light went on in his head, reminding him that a snake killed Mom. He didn’t know what to do. Dad walked up beside him and said it would make Mom happy to see Sam excited about a snake, and that she’d be sad if he hurt it.
It made me realize that the snake that killed Mom must have died in the car crash. It must have been squashed, and that’s how they knew it was in the car. That would have made Mom sad. She never liked for animals to die, not even snakes.
Sammy and Dad watched the snake until it noticed them and slithered away. I wasn’t there— Dad told me about it later. He said it could be the story to end our scrapbook with. He said he was sorry for saying the books were as stupid as his time machine—only he didn’t put it in those words—but he’d wanted to warn us not to get lost in our memories. Says the guy who spent the past two months in the basement with home movies and a time machine. I didn’t backtalk this time, because I knew what Dad meant. For a while I liked the scrapbooks so much that I wanted to put everything in them, every conversation Mom ever had and every single thing she ever did. You could get totally lost doing that. It could take over my life without ever bringing hers back. So I know what Dad meant. And he’s right— Sammy watching the snake while I win the soccer tournament is a perfect story to end our book.
We were the soccer champions, and I was the lead scorer again this year. I got a medal of honor. Sammy’s team won their first game in the tournament, but they lost the second game. Sam didn’t know the difference. He sort of scored in the first game, and he was very happy and proud. It wasn’t actually during game time, but Sammy didn’t know that. The other team’s goalie didn’t know either, because he tried hard to stop the shot. Chloe gave Sam a high five afterward—so everyone thought it was a goal. Since the coach practically ripped the shirt off his daughter’s back to let Sam on the field, he wasn’t about to say, “That goal doesn’t count!” It was a good goal, and Sam will probably be a good soccer player when he’s older.
Simpson and his mom came out for dinner with us after the tournament. She showed off an earring she bought for the new hole in her ear—she took the bandage off a few days ago. Simpson was proud of his piercing. But I don’t know, it
still looks unhealthy to me. It’s not bleeding or scabbed anymore, but it’s freakishly white, like the whole ear might fall off at any second.
Dad said it looked great, and maybe he should get his ear pierced too. I laughed my head off to think of Dad with an earring. He said he used to wear rings in both his ears when he was young. I find that impossible to believe.
Sammy told the only ring joke he knows, which is also a space joke. I told it to him after we met his kindergarten teacher and learned that he’d be studying space. Right there in the restaurant, right on cue after Dad bragged about his earrings, Sammy turned to Dad with a smile and said, “I know there’s a ring around Saturn, but is there a ring around Uranus?” Then he cracked up. So did I, because it was pretty funny coming from a four-year-old. And so did Simpson’s mom, because I guess she never heard that joke before.
It turned out to be an okay weekend after all, except it felt like a month instead of just three days. Today Sammy and I walked to the park, but Karen was there, and so were Darren and his mom, so we just kept walking down to the bike path. I half expected Sam to run back and take another shot at Darren, but he didn’t. I had to stop myself from running back to take a shot at Karen too. I had a vision of myself chasing her down, the way Sam had chased Darren, and pummeling her face to a pulp. But I snapped out of it and just kept walking. Karen waved at me when we passed. I didn’t wave back. I knew I should wave to be polite, but my arm wouldn’t lift up.
I don’t feel anything about Karen now. I’m not very mad or sad about her today. I’m sad that I stopped liking her, but relieved too. Maybe there’ll be some new girls I like in junior high. Girls who don’t pull pranks and kill people.
There’s an online grieving group that says people with no faith need to make up their own mourning rituals, like we’ve been doing. They suggest writing a letter to the dead person and then burning it to send the words up to the person’s spirit. I thought that might be nice to do, especially since Mom wanted to be burned. But since she’s buried, maybe we should write a letter and bury it. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll just finish the scrapbooks and decorate the tree.
Walking Backward Page 10