Connect the Dots

by Keith Calabrese

  “It’s just the drugs, honey,” Ernest’s mom said soothingly as his dad tried to calm Grandpa Eddie down. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  Grandpa Eddie collapsed back onto his bed. He was whimpering now, and when he spoke next he sounded like a child. “I kept them,” his grandfather said, his voice sounding faint and far away. “I kept them all.” Grandpa Eddie, looking both scared and relieved, reached up to the ceiling.

  “Rollo,” the old man said. “I kept them.”

  And then he died.

  That was eight weeks ago.

  Ernest really wanted to leave, to go back down the steps, out the front door, and forget about the whole thing. That dark and dusty attic had been creepy enough even when his grandfather was alive. But he couldn’t back out now; he just couldn’t. He’d promised.

  He closed his eyes, took a breath, and opened the door.

  The attic was a mess. There was junk everywhere, and it took Ernest a good twenty minutes to clear a path down the center of the room.

  He moved a tower of boxes from the far wall, revealing one of the eyebrow dormer windows. Unblocking the window gave the attic a much-needed infusion of sunlight.

  In the corner of the room, Ernest saw an old rocking chair with a plastic-wrapped patchwork quilt draped over the back. On the seat of the rocking chair sat a carefully arranged pile of boxes.

  Stepping closer, he could see that the boxes contained toys—old toys, but new at the same time. They were old in that they’d been there for a long while, but new in that they were still in their original packaging and had never been opened.

  Ernest’s first thought was that he’d stumbled upon some early presents that Grandpa Eddie had bought for him before he died. But these boxes were old, antiques even. All of them perfectly preserved: mint, a collector would say. Ernest wasn’t sure what or who these toys were for, but they were way too old to have been meant for him.

  He was about to move on from the rocking chair to another corner of the room when it happened. A sliver of light from the window broke through and beamed unmistakably, like a spotlight, on the rocking chair full of toys, shining on one box in particular: an art set.

  He picked up the box. It was heavier than he’d expected. The case was wood—real, solid wood. Inside were a series of sketch pencils, tubes of paint, brushes, chalk, charcoals, and some drawing tablets. Though a set for beginners, it was serious business nonetheless. Unlike modern disposable art sets, which expect to be trashed and the pieces lost the minute they’re opened, this was a set to treasure.

  The light from the window made the set glow in a way that Ernest felt was strangely, irresistibly beckoning. Though it could have simply been a trick of the light, some odd angle of refraction against the dirty glass, Ernest couldn’t help but get that heavy-moment feeling again, like when his grandfather had first asked him to clean the attic.

  As he held the wooden box delicately in his hands, Ernest remembered the knowing look Grandpa Eddie had given him that day. “Just some things I should have parted with a long time ago,” he had said. Now, as Ernest looked down at the art set, it was like fate was giving him an elbow in the ribs and saying, “Go on, take it. You might be needing that.”

  He stared at the box a little longer, but fate apparently refused to be more specific on the matter.

  RYAN HARDY VERSUS THE MACHINE

  Piece-of-junk lawn mower.

  Ryan Hardy crouched down and stared at the overturned machine. Overturned by him after it had started coughing up freshly cut grass. Again.

  It was his own fault. He’d let Mrs. Haemmerle’s lawn go for too long, let the grass get too thick. He’d only done about a quarter of the yard so far, and the mower had already backed up on him three times. Because he’d tried to rush it, keeping the mower on the usual, lowest setting even though the grass had grown too heavy for it.

  Ryan glared down at the mower, lying belly-up in the grass like it was perfectly content to recline there all afternoon. If it were capable, Ryan was confident the machine would be making a rude gesture at him right about now.

  Good deeds may or may not go unpunished, but Ryan Hardy knew one thing for sure: They definitely snowball. Ever since Mr. Haemmerle had died, going on two years now, Ryan had been mowing the old widow’s lawn. And shoveling her walk and driveway when it snowed. Then there were the leaves in the fall, rain gutters in the spring, garbage bins out to the curb and back to the side of the house every week. Basically, Ryan did any odd job around that house that might lead to a broken hip or a heart attack if the old lady tried to do it herself. And he did it all for free.

  Ryan knew Mrs. Haemmerle was on what adults call a “fixed income,” which was a polite way of saying someone didn’t have any money. He was no stranger to the little signs of people trying to cut costs. Her house was clean and well kept, but there was never that much food in the kitchen, and all the appliances were really old. She didn’t have a computer or a cell phone, and Ryan knew plenty of people who had those things even when they didn’t have much else.

  It wasn’t a hard lawn to take care of, and most days cutting it for free made Ryan feel pretty good.

  But today it didn’t. Today it made him feel like a chump who was wasting his Sunday.

  Ryan looked up from the overturned lawn mower and noticed an expensive, foreign sedan easing down the street. A North Side car.

  Ernest Wilmette. He should have guessed. The Wilmettes were rich. They lived in the most expensive house in town. It was one of those modern designs, all glass and hard lines and sharp edges. The kind of house that belonged perched on top of a mountain. But there aren’t any mountains in Ohio, so the Wilmettes had to settle for the biggest hill on the North Side.

  Mrs. Wilmette was driving and Ernest was sitting in the back seat. He spotted Ryan and waved; obliged, Ryan waved back. He was obliged because his dad was the foreman at the factory that Ernest’s dad owned. Obliged because he didn’t like Ernest, and didn’t want to wave at him.

  Ryan had spent all of yesterday afternoon cutting the other Wilmette lawn, the one across the street. He’d been doing that yard since the spring, when Eddie Wilmette, Ernest’s grandfather, got sick and then died. Ryan didn’t really know Eddie Wilmette very well, but he liked the old man because he let you call him Eddie even if you were a kid. Though rolling in dough, Eddie never moved out of the South Side and had mowed his own lawn until he got too sick to do it anymore. That was when Ernest’s dad had hired Ryan to keep up the yard while the family figured out what to do with the now empty house.

  Deep down, Ryan knew Ernest wasn’t that bad. For a rich kid, he didn’t act stuck-up or better than anyone. But the kid was just so clueless and carefree. He was always smiling, always friendly, always in a good mood. One of those “look on the bright side” types, because that’s all he’d ever known, the bright side. Nothing ever seemed to bother Ernest.

  And that was what bothered Ryan.

  BACK SEAT BOY

  Ernest’s mom was sitting on the porch when he came downstairs.

  “Get what you need?” she asked as they headed back to the car.

  “I think so,” Ernest said.

  As they drove down Grandpa Eddie’s street, Ernest spied a boy mowing a lawn. It was Ryan Hardy, from Ernest’s class.

  Ernest didn’t want Ryan to see him in the back seat, which meant that Ryan inevitably would. Ernest tried to look away, but it was too late. Ryan spotted him and Ernest knew he had to wave, however lamely, as he sat in the back seat like a baby. Ryan probably never sat in the back seat in his life, not even when he really was a baby. And he’d been mowing lawns since he was seven. Seven! Ernest’s mom wouldn’t let Ernest mow their lawn because he still had to reach up for the bar.

  His mom didn’t talk much as they drove across town. If she even noticed the art set on the seat next to him, she didn’t say. Ernest knew she had a lot on her mind. His dad had been working all the time lately, even when he was home. His parents
were both worried. He wasn’t sure about what, exactly, but he could tell.

  They never said as much, of course. Like with Grandpa Eddie’s illness, they didn’t talk about serious things around Ernest, and it bothered him. It was like riding in the back seat in the car, but worse.

  It was like he was riding in the back seat of his own family.

  MRS. HAEMMERLE

  The car passed, and Ryan returned his attention to the mower. He got down on his knees, pulled back the discharge guard, and started to clean the clogged-up trimmings from the mower deck.

  “Ryan, dear. Be careful!” The screen door slammed as Mrs. Haemmerle scurried outside, a glass of lemonade in her shaky little hand.

  “I’m okay, Mrs. Haemmerle. The engine’s off.”

  “Oh, still,” she said anxiously. “I don’t know.”

  Ryan removed his hand from the mower deck and stepped back from the machine.

  Mrs. Haemmerle visibly relaxed. “Would you like some lemonade?”

  She was a tiny woman. She weighed maybe ninety pounds, wet. After a five-course steak dinner. As she held the glass of lemonade out to Ryan, she looked like she might tip forward from the shift in balance.

  “Yes, thank you,” Ryan said, taking the glass. Her lemonade was freshly made, no powder, and he knew it must be hard work for her to squeeze all those lemons. The ends of her fingers were visibly bent with arthritis. It probably really hurt, not that she’d complain. Mrs. Haemmerle was the sweetest person Ryan had ever met.

  After she went back inside, Ryan readjusted the setting on the mower to do the yard twice, the right way. But he also promised himself that in four years, when he got his driver’s license, he’d drive that piece-of-junk lawn mower out to the county reservoir. And throw it in.

  A WEIRD ENCOUNTER

  After raising the blade height on the mower, Ryan finished Mrs. Haemmerle’s yard without further frustration. In fact, the second pass—at the regular height—seemed to breeze by.

  Mrs. Haemmerle came out the back door, a couple of neatly folded bills in her hand.

  “It’s covered, Mrs. Haemmerle,” he said, waving away the money.

  She looked at him, confused as usual. “It is?”

  “Yep. We’re square. You paid me at the beginning of the month. Remember?”

  Mrs. Haemmerle shook her head doubtfully. “Well, if you say so, Ryan.”

  She put the money in the pocket of her apron as if sensing it didn’t really belong there.

  “I just have to take the trash out. Unless you need anything else today?”

  “No, sweetie,” Mrs. Haemmerle said. “Go on. Go play while there’s still some daylight left.”

  Ordinarily, Ryan would not like someone suggesting he “go play,” but he knew Mrs. Haemmerle well enough to take her meaning, which was more like “go live, have fun, be young.”

  “Okay,” Ryan said. “I’ll come around on Thursday.” Thursday was grocery day.

  Mrs. Haemmerle thanked Ryan one more time and then, patting the money in her apron pocket as if trying to recall unfinished business, made her way back inside.

  Ryan was wheeling the yard bins out to the curb when Lizzy MacComber came out of her house. She was in Ryan’s class; he’d known her for about as long as he could remember. They used to play together frequently when they were little, so much so that half the time they would go into each other’s houses without knocking.

  Not so much anymore.

  “Hey, Ryan,” she said. She had a stack of magazines in her arms.

  “Oh,” Ryan said. “Hey.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Lizzy smiled, but in a funny way. She had a look in her eye that Ryan couldn’t place. Kind of like when someone’s setting you up for a joke.

  “What?”

  Lizzy held up one of the magazines. It was about fashion, the kind his mom would sometimes get. The model on the cover had long blond hair and wore a tight dress with a low neckline.

  “Do you think she’s pretty?”

  It was what they call a loaded question. Of course Ryan thought the model was pretty. That’s why they put her on the magazine.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged.

  “What about her?” Lizzy quickly flipped to a dog-eared page from another magazine. This model had short, dark hair and a high skirt that showed a lot of her leg. Ryan really didn’t get what Lizzy was playing at, but it was making him uncomfortable.

  “I said, I don’t know. Why are you asking me?”

  “C’mon, Ryan,” Lizzy said in that how-can-you-not-be-getting-this way that girls often use with boys. “It’s not a hard question. Is she pretty?”

  “Sure. Yeah. She’s pretty,” he blurted, hoping it would end there. “Okay?”

  “Prettier than me?”

  Ryan scowled. “Stop being weird,” he snapped, louder than he’d intended, and walked past her down the sidewalk.

  Lizzy stood there, holding the magazines to her chest with a hurt look on her face.

  “I was just asking!” Lizzy called after him, but he kept walking.

  THE DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES

  Lizzy threw the magazines down on the couch. Then she threw herself down on the couch and buried her face in the cushion. She’d never felt so stupid in her entire life. Ryan had looked at her like she was gross and absurd. Like she was nuts.

  The minute she’d asked him about the first model, she knew it was a mistake. Making big, dopey eyes at Ryan and cocking her head to the side when she talked wasn’t going to work on him. And the way she’d talked—all breathy and singsongy—like it wasn’t even her voice!

  That’s because it wasn’t her voice, just like those weren’t really her magazines. They both belonged to Lizzy’s cousin Chelsea.

  Chelsea was older than Lizzy and liked to treat her younger cousin like something between a pet and an old doll. Not the kind of doll a girl pampers or cherishes, but rather the kind of doll that’s expendable, the off-brand doll she can experiment on and not care if she messes it up.

  For the last few months, Lizzy had been spending most of her Saturdays at Chelsea’s house while Lizzy’s mom was working at the hospital. And recently, Chelsea had decided to make Lizzy her project. Chelsea and her mom, Lizzy’s aunt Patty, had lengthy conversations, right in front of Lizzy, about how to fix her wardrobe and her hair and her skin and essentially make a new, improved young woman out of her.

  Lizzy certainly didn’t want to be anyone’s project, and she realized that the whole idea was really just a thinly veiled way for her aunt and her cousin to openly pick her apart in the guise of constructive criticism. Lizzy knew what they thought about her and her mom. She saw the way Chelsea and Aunt Patty looked down on her mom when she dropped Lizzy off, wearing her hospital scrubs and no makeup. Lizzy knew what Aunt Patty was thinking at the end of the day, when her mom, worn out from her shift, came to pick up Lizzy and bring her home.

  It’s so sad, but that’s what happens when you can’t keep your man.

  So yesterday, when Chelsea dropped those fashion magazines in Lizzy’s arms, she knew what her cousin was really saying.

  Here you go. Better do your homework, unless you want to end up like your mom.

  The worst part of it, though, was that sometimes Lizzy feared that her aunt and her cousin might be right. Lizzy loved her mom, but she saw how sad she got when her dad didn’t come by like he’d said he would. She’d heard her mom crying in her room afterward. Lizzy didn’t want to end up like that. She was scared of ending up like that.

  Everything had been so much simpler a year ago. A year ago she’d have gone outside to say hey to Ryan, just like she used to. She and Ryan had been friends since they were little, like diapers-little.

  But they weren’t little anymore, and a year made a big difference. A year ago Lizzy’s dad was still around. A year ago she didn’t have to go to Aunt Patty’s house every Saturday while her mom pulled a weekend shift at the hospital. A year ago she never would have done anyth
ing so stupid as try to flirt with Ryan Hardy using fashion magazines.

  Try as she might, Lizzy couldn’t stop replaying the horrible encounter over in her mind, the attention to detail that served her so well in school now providing achingly perfect recall of every agonizing moment. It was as if once she started, she couldn’t stop herself. After she’d shown him the first picture, she just had to show him the second, and would have shown him more, picture after picture, making a bigger and bigger fool of herself …

  If Ryan hadn’t gotten so annoyed that he’d just turned and walked away from her.

  She wanted to be mad at him, but in truth he’d done her a favor. Like the mercy rule in Little League baseball, he’d put her out of her misery.

  Lizzy heard her mom stirring in her bedroom and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Hey, Mom,” Lizzy said quickly as the door opened.

  “Hey there, sweetie.” Lizzy’s mom rubbed her eyes. They were puffy, and one side of her face was pink from where it had been smushed into the pillow. “My word, I was really out,” she said with a little laugh as she ran her fingers through her bedhead.

  Wow, does she look like a wreck. No wonder …

  Lizzy shut her eyes to block the rest of it out. She hated letting that stuff in her head, hated seeing her mom through her aunt’s and cousin’s eyes.

  Lizzy’s mom went into the kitchen and checked the fridge. Unsatisfied, she came back out and looked at Lizzy, closely. Lizzy was afraid her mom would see the red crying splotches on her face.

  “You know,” her mom said, as if coming to a big decision. “I could just murder a cheeseburger tonight. Whatd’ya say?”

  Lizzy didn’t really want a burger, but her mom was trying to do something special. Bonding time or whatever.

  “Sure,” she said. “That sounds great.”

  WELCOME TO CLIFFS DONNELLY

  Ryan came in through the kitchen. He could hear the TV in the den. It was one of his dad’s shows. He could tell right away by the sound of men arguing.

  His dad had been watching shows like this a lot lately. Men in suits, sitting around a table and yelling at each other. Always, they were yelling. Even when they agreed, they still yelled. They were always angry, these men in their suits—angry at all the people who were ruining everything for the rest of us. Ryan wasn’t exactly sure who was doing the ruining and less sure about how they were, in fact, doing it; mostly the men in suits seemed to blame people in other countries or people who lived here but looked like people who came from other countries.