When You Were Older (retail)

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  ‘So we walk in, and Ben looks up. I was walking a step or two behind my mom. And Ben looks at her, and then at me. And his face just lights up. Lights up to see her, lights up maybe even more to see me. And his speech was bad, a little slurred, but you could make out what he said. He said, “My mom and my buddy! Look, it’s my mom and my buddy!” I’m not lying to you, Anat, I swear to God I’m not exaggerating and I’m not kidding: I turned around to see who was standing behind me. Literally. And there was nobody there. The doctors had been warning us for days that lots of things could be missing. Anything, really. That his memory might be hugely impaired. He might not know who we were. He might not know who he was. And that it might come back, or it might partially come back, or it might not come back at all. So I’m just standing there, staring at him, and he’s so elated to see me. And I thought, Oh, my God. Ben forgot that he hates me. We think he started calling me “Buddy” because he couldn’t remember my name at first. He got better for about six months. Mostly physically. Mostly motor-skills stuff. Walking and talking. But then he hit a plateau. And nothing’s really changed since then.’

  I waited. But Anat continued to work in silence.

  ‘So here’s what I wanted to ask you,’ I said.

  Her eyes flicked up toward my face, but never quite made it. I waited. Then I went on. What else could I do?

  ‘I want somebody to explain to me how brain damage can make a person nicer.’

  ‘It can’t,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t think so.’

  ‘The nice had to be in there already.’

  ‘But that’s why I told you all that. So you’d know—’

  Her eyes came up, but not to me. She looked up at the door.

  ‘We have a customer.’ Her voice was quiet. Almost conspiratorial. As if to tip me that I should not be alone in the kitchen with her when we had a customer.

  But it was a little late by then.

  I wondered who comprised ‘we’. Did Anat and I have a customer, even though it wasn’t my bakery? Or did Anat and Nazir have a customer, even though Nazir was home sleeping?

  I picked up my uneaten donut on its little paper plate, and carried it out to the front seating area.

  The customer was a woman whose name I didn’t know, or at least didn’t remember, but she was the mother of a girl I’d gone to school with.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, about three notches too loud and cheerful. ‘I had to get my donut straight from the source today. She hasn’t had time to load them into the display cases yet.’

  I turned and indicated the cases, as if to prove my point.

  I was doing badly. I was way overdoing it. But I had no idea how to fix that.

  I poured myself a coffee and sat, eating my donut and watching Anat wait on this woman. Waiting for the woman to leave again, so I could have my conversation with Anat back.

  But by the time the woman had paid and left, before I could even open my mouth, ‘we’ had another customer, an old man.

  People were getting over their fear of the name Nazir. People get over things.

  I looked out the window and saw it was light. And people were driving to work. And I knew I really shouldn’t be seen hanging around the kitchen with her. People would talk. People talk in a small town.

  I waved goodbye to her just as she was making change for the old man. I think I purposely timed it so she couldn’t argue.

  I drove back feeling like I had wet concrete setting up in my stomach. And it definitely wasn’t the donut. The donut had been lighter than fog.

  Anat showed up at my door a few minutes after noon.

  I answered the door in sweat pants and a white tee-shirt, both freshly purchased and ridiculously stiff and weird. I’d been napping, and I’m sure my hair was a disaster.

  I just stood there blinking at her. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  I’d never seen her outside the bakery before. I’d never seen her in full light. And yet all I could focus on were her eyes. Her black eyes shone with something. I just couldn’t say what. There was affection in there somewhere. Also fear. It looked as though the fear was winning.

  ‘I woke you,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Really. Come in.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  We stood like that for an awkward length of time. I wanted to ask why she was even here if she couldn’t be here, but I couldn’t find the right way to phrase a question like that. Probably there is no right way to phrase a question like that.

  ‘You’re a single man,’ she said. ‘And I’m a woman unaccompanied by any male family member. Like my father. Well, who else but my father? But anyway, I can’t come into your house. It wouldn’t be proper.’

  I nodded twice, still a bit confused, and pointed to the two white wicker chairs on the front porch.

  We sat. The front door of the house was still hanging wide open. I don’t know why I left it that way. Maybe it seemed more proper.

  I looked up to see Mark from next door walking out to get the mail. He glanced over his shoulder at us seven times. Seven. I counted.

  ‘I didn’t get to tell you what I thought,’ she said. ‘You know. About your question.’

  ‘Right. But for such a good reason, though. It’s nice to see the customers starting to come back.’

  ‘Yes, and very suddenly. As though a little bird told them to do it.’

  ‘I didn’t. I might’ve mentioned it to McCaskill from Ben’s store. Like, a month ago. But nobody else. So what do you think? About my question?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That.’ As if it had been the furthest thing from her mind.

  It definitely wasn’t just me. This was a nervous conversation. Mark wasn’t helping. He was on his way back up his driveway now, staring at us so hard that he tripped once.

  ‘Have you ever met an evil baby?’ she asked.

  I wasn’t sure, initially, how to place the question in the context of … well … anything.

  ‘Um. Hmm. No. I don’t think so. Then again, I haven’t met many babies. But it doesn’t sound like anything too common. Except in a few old horror movies.’

  ‘I think you know that killing brain cells can’t put something into the brain that wasn’t there to begin with. I think you’re convinced that somehow Ben was born bad and mean. But I don’t think anybody is ever born that way. You didn’t know Ben when he was little. He was six when you met him, and even then you were too young to understand. By the time you knew him, he’d already been twisted by thinking he wasn’t loved the way he needed to be. But that’s not his true nature. I think if you hit somebody on the head or starve their brain of oxygen, you don’t get a false nature. You get a true one. I think maybe it’s just hard for you to accept how much Ben loves you.’

  I did nothing but blink for what could have been nearly a full minute.

  ‘Ben loves me?’ I muttered, nicely proving her point.

  ‘Of course he does. You’re all he can talk about. Everybody who knows Ben knows how much he adores you. Except maybe you.’

  I looked into the open garage next door and saw Mark setting up to use his weight bench. Right where he could keep an eye on us.

  ‘I guess maybe he could’ve learned to see me differently during those years after his accident. Before I left home.’

  ‘Russell,’ she said, the way you speak to a child when you’re feeling impatient but still want to be kind. ‘When you walked into his hospital room, his eyes lit up. And he said you were his buddy.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He loved you all along.’

  ‘He sure didn’t act like it.’

  ‘You have another explanation?’

  I just sat there, thinking, for a long time. Watching how the sun hit my bare feet, which were stretched out in front of me, without hitting any other parts of us. The porch roof shielded the rest. I didn’t dare look at Anat.

  When I glanced at her peripherally, I saw she was staring into M
ark’s garage, watching him bench-press what looked like the approximate heft of a car, but in the form of a weight bar. His head was half-up, watching her watch.

  Then, quite suddenly, Mark hoisted the bar back up on to its rack, swung into an upright position, marched to the door of the garage and punched – literally punched – the automatic door button.

  Anat and I openly watched as his garage door rumbled down, obliterating him.

  ‘What’s with him?’ she asked.

  ‘Butthole-dom, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We’ve known each other all our lives.’

  ‘He has a problem with me?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. I think he has a problem with me.’

  ‘I should go.’

  ‘Don’t go just because of Mark.’

  ‘No, I need to. I should. For more reasons than that. If my father knew I was here, it would be big trouble. He’s very traditional, my father. Especially when it comes to me. It’s a cultural thing. It’s different in my culture.’

  ‘I know. He told me all about it. Quite some time ago.’

  A long silence. It took me several seconds to find the guts to look at her face. She looked stunned. Horrified.

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘Oh, just that American girls are different. You know. They hook up with guys. Egyptian girls don’t hook up. That sort of thing.’

  I watched her drop her face into her hands.

  ‘Oh, good God,’ she said. ‘That’s so incredibly embarrassing.’

  ‘I don’t see why. He’s just taking good care of you.’

  Anat shook her head. And shook it, and shook it, and shook it. And shook it.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said.

  She sprang out of her chair and made it down the porch steps before I could argue. And even then I couldn’t think what to say to make her stay.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ I called to her.

  But she never answered or turned around.

  I tried to go back to bed, but that was a joke. Of course I couldn’t sleep.

  I just lay there, on my mother’s bed, shaken through and through.

  I stared at my cell phone, sitting on the bedside table. For five or ten minutes, I just stared at it. Then I grabbed it up and flipped it open. And hit number three on my speed dial.

  Number three was Kerry.

  I guess I figured now was the time to do this. I guess I figured I couldn’t possibly feel any more shaken up than I already did.

  My heart pounded as it rang four times. Then I heard the shift as the call went to voicemail. I breathed as though I’d never breathed before, not once in my life. I can’t remember when I’d felt so profoundly relieved.

  ‘Kerry,’ I said. ‘It’s me. Russell. I owe you a call. I know I owe you a call. I owe you the goddamn truth, I guess. Don’t I? So … here goes. I know what happened isn’t your fault. But I can’t get over it. I can’t get around it. I’m sorry. I can’t. It’s like all my post-traumatic stress is wrapped up with your voice and your name now. My God, Kerry, if you knew how many times I’ve thought of calling you. Just to tell you this,’ I added. So she wouldn’t think I meant something more. ‘But every time I even think about calling, my heart starts hammering, and I get dizzy – almost to the point where it feels like I’m going to pass out. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it turned out like this, but it did. I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner. I’m just … sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’ I paused. For way too long. Listening to the silence on the line. Then I said, ‘I hope you’re OK. I hope you find some support out there. I’m sorry it isn’t me. I know it should be me, but I can’t do it, and I can’t change that. I’m sorry.’

  Then I flipped the phone closed.

  I curled up in a little ball and just lay there, doing nothing, thinking nothing, for an indeterminate length of time. If you’d asked me how long I lay there, I’d have guessed it was an hour.

  The phone jangled me back into the world. At first I thought Kerry was calling me back, which made me dizzy. But it was my mom’s home phone. The land line. It wasn’t my cell. It wasn’t even my phone.

  I stumbled into the kitchen, the home of my mother’s only phone, so far as I knew. I grabbed it up on the fifth ring.

  ‘Oh, good, you’re there,’ a voice said. It was the voice of a female stranger. Before I could answer, or ask any questions, she said, ‘Ben’s really upset because you’re late to pick him up.’

  I looked at the clock over the kitchen stove. It was twenty-five minutes to four.

  ‘Oh, shoot,’ I said, quickly morphing the word ‘shit’ into something more socially acceptable. ‘I fell asleep. Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I accidentally fell asleep. Tell him I’ll be right there.’

  I hung up the phone and literally ran to the car. While I was running, I remember thinking I was amassing an awful lot of sorry for one afternoon.

  I found Ben box-pacing in front of Gerson’s Market. I could tell he’d been crying.

  When I honked the horn, it shocked him out of his pattern, and he stumbled, as if nothing was holding him up off the ground any more.

  He shuffled over and climbed into the passenger’s seat.

  ‘You’re late,’ he said.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be late.’

  ‘I fell asleep. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘I don’t like it when you’re late.’

  ‘I know. I feel terrible about it. But I’m here now. Can we move on?’

  Obviously, I’d forgotten who I was talking to.

  * * *

  ‘I’m never late,’ Ben said as I parked the car in the driveway.

  ‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘You never are.’

  I was looking forward to getting into the house, but I’m not sure why, because going indoors was unlikely to stop him.

  Mark was watering the lawn next door, and by the time I’d made it halfway up the driveway he’d dropped the hose and was standing on our front grass, not three steps away from me.

  Mark Jespers was the last thing I needed on a day like this.

  ‘Hey. Rusty. What’s with you and the Arab girl?’

  ‘Not now, Mark.’

  ‘Is this, like, a new small-town romance?’

  ‘That’s the only thing you notice about her? That she’s Egyptian? You look at her and that’s all you see – how is that even relevant?’

  ‘Well, she’s a Muslim. Right? She worships the Allah?’

  I sighed. I thought of just plunging through to my front door. But his energy felt tight and aggressive, and I was guessing this was not a problem I could walk away from.

  ‘I don’t know what religion she is. I never asked.’

  ‘She is kinda good to look at, though. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing. You tapping that?’

  I hit him.

  I hit him before I even mentally registered that I was about to hit him. It’s just something that did itself. I swung my fist hard and connected with his jaw, and he staggered backward but didn’t fall.

  It may sound like a scene from an action film, in which this would be a smooth and obvious reaction, and I would handle it as such. But I’d never punched anybody in my life. I had no idea that it hurts the puncher as much as the punchee. It was all I could do to stifle a howl as I grabbed my right hand.

  Then he laid me out with a hard right that landed on the bone outside my left eye. He crouched on top of me, and pulled back for another good wallop, but the impact I braced for never came to pass.

  Instead I just heard Ben yelling, ‘You don’t do that!’

  I sat up.

  Mark was lying on his back on our front grass, with Ben kneeling on his chest, his finger in Mark’s face. As if he were chastising a four-year-old.

  ‘You don’t hit Rusty! You never hit Rusty!’

  Despite Ben’s vertical size, Mark was a lot b
igger and stronger. All he had to do was dig his elbows into the grass and push hard, and he succeeded in tossing Ben on to the lawn. But he didn’t go after Ben. Or me. He just looked at me once over his shoulder, with exaggerated contempt. Then he marched back to his own yard and picked up the hose. I heard the hiss of the water when he squeezed the nozzle.

  Ben stood over me, peering down into my face.

  ‘Why did he hit you?’

  ‘Let’s just get inside. Give me a hand.’

  He reached his huge hand down, and I pulled myself to my feet.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s just go in.’

  ‘But why did he hit you?’

  ‘I hit him first.’

  ‘Why did you hit him first?’

  I struggled to get my key into the lock, but my hands were shaking. I got it on about the seventh try, and we stepped into the safety of the living room.

  ‘Why did you hit him first?’

  ‘Because he said something about Anat.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It’s a long story, Ben.’

  ‘Was it mean, what he said?’

  ‘I thought it was mean, yes.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be mean.’

  ‘But he is.’

  ‘But even if he is. You shouldn’t hit.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘Ben!’ I barked. More harshly than I had intended.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m a little upset. Can we just have it quiet for a minute?’

  ‘OK. What’s for dinner?’

  I sighed. ‘You want macaroni and cheese?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Will you go watch TV till it’s ready?’

  ‘OK.’

  I had twenty heavenly, silent moments in the kitchen. Nearly enough to pull myself together. Or, anyway, as together as I’d been in the first place. The beautiful silence was punctuated only by occasional throaty laughter from the TV room.

  I held a paper towel full of ice to my eye as I worked. Now and then I shifted it to the knuckles of my right hand. I stopped once to swallow four aspirin.

  Eventually I put two bowls of highly refined flour and reconstituted cheese-related powder on the table with two glasses of milk.

  Then I called Ben to come and get it.