Chasing Windmills

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “Did he say my last name? Or did he just say Maria? Because, you know, there are other girls in New York named Maria. So why would you assume this guy was calling me, when it could have been any Maria? Why do you have such a suspicious mind?”

  He said something I didn't expect. Calmly, too. Which is not a good sign. He said, “How did you know it was a guy?”

  My stomach went dead cold again. In between I'd somehow been managing to live in this land where everything in my body was all quiet, like it really believed I wasn't in a world of shit. But now I definitely was. And every part of me knew it.

  “You said it was a guy.”

  Oh, thank God. I'm smarter than I thought I was. I was actually washed up on the beach by a wave of gratitude for myself. For being so smart so fast.

  “I did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I did not. I said someone.”

  “Not just now. When I first came in. You said some guy was calling my name.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn't think I did.”

  “Well, you did. Now if you don't mind, I'm tired from my shift. I'm going to bed.”

  He didn't say anything more about it that night.

  My body went back to pretending that meant we were all okay.

  • • •

  JUST AS I WAS LYING IN BED trying to go to sleep, it hit me. I couldn't go anywhere with Tony. Not now. Not in four months. Not ever.

  Because, even if he was okay with two kids—and, let's face it, that is just about one of the biggest ifs on the planet—there was no way I could take C.J. away from Carl. C.J. is really more Carl's son than he is mine. He made that choice based on who he is. And on who they are to each other.

  And even for Carl's sake, too. I remembered him at that steak house, telling me he couldn't live without me. In a lot of ways, that's really just bullshit. People say that all the time, but then they do. If I leave Carl, he'll learn to live without me. But C.J. Without me and C.J. That would be too much.

  No. I wasn't going anywhere.

  And I had made my home into a place where I couldn't afford to live any longer. I had made a bed that no one could lie in.

  Not even me.

  I thought about Stella. How she said I was pitching a tent on a river. I think, lying there in bed, still feeling the imprint of the cold where my wet jeans legs had been, I really got it for the first time. Really understood why I frustrate people so much with what I create.

  I had only two choices, that I could see. And they were both completely impossible.

  I never got to sleep that night. Just lay there and felt the current of the river. Sweeping my tent downstream.

  I slept. It was amazing. I slept like the dead. Like I hadn't slept in weeks. Which was more or less true.

  It was after one-thirty in the afternoon when I finally stumbled into the kitchen. My father wasn't there. I mean, not in the kitchen. But of course he joined me soon enough.

  “Well,” he said. “If it isn't Rip van Winkle.”

  I wasn't in the mood for a fight. I was happy. Blissfully happy. I just had to be careful not to show it. “I needed it, though.”

  “I guess it's partly my fault. I'm sorry I had music on so late.”

  “That's okay. I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

  He gave me a funny look. Wondering why I was being so nice, I think. So calm. I held my breath briefly, but the moment seemed to blow by. Close call. I'd almost let on that I was feeling good.

  Just before he left the kitchen he said, “We have a doctor's appointment for you. Today at four.”

  “Today? That's awfully fast.”

  “Well, I was on his list for a cancelation. Just be grateful I got one.”

  “Okay, well, I better run right after breakfast then.”

  In a funny sort of way I almost liked the idea. I'd be out running around all day. Sebastian's busy day, I said to myself, like a children's story. I should have more busy days.

  I made up my mind about something. Suddenly and completely. I was going to insist that my father stay out in the waiting room while I saw the doctor. And then I was going to tell the doctor the truth. And let the chips fall where they may.

  I WENT FOR A FULL, LONG RUN, even though I knew it would cut way into my time with Delilah. Because I'd missed too many runs lately. And I missed my running when I missed it. I really wanted it back.

  I ran past the video store and stopped in my tracks. I walked inside, puffing. There was a different clerk that day, a girl no older than me and the place smelled like smoke. She looked up at me. Like she'd been bored before I got there, and I hadn't really solved that problem.

  I said, “Do you know which movie has the scene with Fred Astaire dancing on the walls and the ceiling?”

  She just blinked at me. I thought, Why did I even ask?

  Then she called out, “Hey. Fred.” An older guy came out from behind a curtain. “This guy wants—”

  “I heard ‘im.”

  But he just walked up and down a couple of aisles, like he didn't care much about what he'd heard. So I turned to leave. Figured I'd poke around online and see if I could locate it.

  Then I heard Fred say, “Hey. Don't ya want this?”

  I turned around. He was holding a copy of Royal Wedding on DVD.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. Can I get a two- or three-day rental?” Because I had a doctor's appointment. But I didn't tell him that, because I was smart enough to know he didn't care.

  “All our rentals are five days.”

  So I rented Royal Wedding, and ran it home to Delilah. To tell her two pieces of good news. The little news, that I'd found the movie where Fred Astaire dances on the wall. And the big news. That Maria and I were going to run away together. I hoped she'd be happy for me.

  SHE WAS, for the most part.

  At first she seemed a little … like she had a doubt she wasn't sharing with me.

  “When?” she asked. “Right away?”

  “No, in four months. When I'm eighteen. That way I have time to make a plan.”

  Then she took a big deep breath and seemed happier with the news.

  “I should've known you'd use your head,” she said. “I shouldn't've doubted you. I think you're smart to get out of that house the split second you can do it without him being able to call you a runaway. And to think you're going off with that girl you love by your side. Oh, honey, I'm just so happy for you! And so proud of you for being so brave.”

  “Don't call me brave yet,” I said. “I haven't done it yet. I think I'll have to get braver between now and then.”

  “It was brave just to ask her.”

  I thought about that for a minute, and it was true. I was brave to ask.

  “I brought you something,” I said, and handed her the rented copy of the movie. “I found the one where Fred Astaire dances on the walls and the ceiling.”

  “You're amazing,” she said. “And I got something for you, too. A little present.” She hobbled off into her bedroom and came back out with a small paperback book. “Maybe your father doesn't think you ought to read about love, but I think you should. So there.”

  It was Romeo and Juliet.

  “What a nice present,” I said.

  “Oh, child, that ain't nothing. Want to put that movie on?”

  “I can't today. My father is taking me to the doctor today.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “You sick?”

  “No, I feel fine.”

  “Whew. For a minute there I thought you really might get sick missing a few days running. So … do I even want to ask?”

  “He's worried because I'm not sleeping. So he wants the doctor to prescribe sleeping pills for me.” I could see Delilah chew that over for a minute. “But don't worry. I'm going to tell the doctor the truth.”

  “You think he'll help you? Or you think he'll tell your father everything and get you in a world of hot water?”

  “I don't know,�
� I said. “I'm not even sure I care at this point. I'm just tired of making up lies to get to do what everybody else has been doing all their lives. I'm just going to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.”

  I heard a long rush of air come out of her. “ Vaya con Dios, mi hijo,” she said.

  “I didn't know you spoke Spanish.”

  “Yeah, and now you heard just about all the Spanish I speak.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means, Go with God, child.”

  “In other words, I need all the blessing I can get.”

  “El correcto,” she said.

  I WAS SO HAPPY, and so relaxed, and so set on dropping all the deception and living my life that I made a weird mistake. I walked into the apartment with the book in my hand. It never even occurred to me to hide it under my shirt.

  My father homed in on it immediately. “What is that?” he asked.

  I had been caught red-handed. We could both tell by the way I looked down at it. I was almost tempted to shuffle it away under my shirt. A weird response under the circumstances. Like he hadn't totally seen it already. “It's a book,” I said.

  “It's obviously not a book I want you to read. Or I would have assigned it. You will give it to me.”

  “No,” I said. “I won't.”

  Lately I had learned something new about my father. And yet it wasn't until now, this third time I openly defied him, that I consciously realized what I had learned. All my life I'd backed down to him, because he was so much bigger and stronger. Because he held all the cards, and because he could make my life hell. And I'd always assumed if I stood up to him, he'd flatten me. But now I was standing up to him, and he wasn't flattening me. I thought about the awful previous night, yelling at him to turn off the music. He did what I asked, and apologized. Twice. I read in a book once that all bullies are really cowards. I hoped it was true, and that I could depend on what I'd just discovered.

  “I'll show it to you,” I said. “So you can see what I'm reading. And that it isn't something I should have to hide. But it belongs to me. And I won't let you take it away.”

  I walked up to him, as tall and calm as I could be, and held out the book. But, truthfully, I felt a little shaky inside.

  “Romeo and Juliet,” he said. “I didn't figure you'd read Shakespeare on your own.”

  “Maybe you should have more faith in me.”

  And then I closed myself in my room with the book. I opened the front cover, and discovered that Delilah had written a little inscription to me. It said, “For Romeo. Don't be afraid to love. Or, if you have to, be afraid but do it anyway. Your friend, Delilah.”

  Only then did I realize the bullet I had dodged by not letting him confiscate my present. I felt like something had shifted between us. All these years I'd been afraid of my father. And I'm not going to say I suddenly wasn't. Of course I still was. How could I not be after all this time? But now my father was also a little bit afraid of me.

  I WALKED TO THE SUBWAY with my father, watching him every step of the way. Well, maybe with him is the wrong word. I was a couple of steps behind and maybe an arm's length away. I was thinking about how long it had been since I'd gone out on the street with him. A long time. Not since I'd started going out on my own at night. Not since a different time, when I was somebody else. And it seemed as though he'd been somebody else then, too. But maybe not. Maybe he wasn't changing at all. Maybe it was only the way I was seeing him that changed.

  “Sebastian,” he said. “Don't walk behind me.”

  I caught up about one step. “Why not?”

  “You're not a second-class citizen, you know.”

  “I never thought I was.”

  “Well, just stay close to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don't want anything to happen to you.”

  “It's not a war zone, Father.”

  “That's what you think,” he said.

  But suddenly it hit me that I knew this city, this world, better than he did. At least, I had more recent experience with it. I caught all the way up to him, and walked by his side. I glanced over at his face. He had his brow furrowed, and the frown lines made him look older. And scared. He looked scared. I wondered if he was really scared for me, or really more for himself. Or, worst of all, if he barely knew the difference anymore. If he had lost track of where he ended and I began. He walked fast, and I had to readjust my pace, because I was used to walking slowly for Delilah. He kept his gaze trained down, toward the sidewalk, at all times.

  I looked up at all the people going by. Into the faces of the businessmen on their cell phones, the young, fashionably dressed women. I smelled the sewer as we walked over the grates, and the puffs of cigarette smoke that drifted back to us on the wind.

  “Filthy habit,” my father said. “Stop looking at people.”

  “Why?”

  “They'll think you're looking for trouble.”

  “So how come I'm not getting any?”

  He never answered. But the whole rest of the way to the doctor's, he didn't tell me again that I was moving through the world incorrectly. So I guess that's progress.

  • • •

  I DIDN'T TELL HIM not to come in with me, because I was hoping the nurse would. And she did. She came out with my chart and called my name, and he got up, too.

  She said, “You can just wait here in the waiting room, Mr. Mundt.”

  “No. I'm going in with Sebastian. I have to tell the doctor what the problem is.”

  She put her hands on her hips. She was pretty young. Under thirty, I think. And she couldn't have weighed much more than ninety pounds. But she didn't look like she was about to take any crap from my father. “I thought it was Sebastian who had the sleeping problem.”

  “It is, but—Sebastian, don't you want me to go in with you?”

  “No. Please just go sit down, Father. You're embarrassing me.” It even embarrassed me to have to call him “Father” in front of people. It sounded like I was in some old British play from the nineteenth century.

  He looked truly perturbed. Betrayed, even. But he did not come in.

  The nurse led me down the hall and had me step on the scale.

  “I'm sorry about my father,” I said.

  “Don't worry,” she said. “I can handle him. I've had worse.”

  She led me into an examination room, and took my temperature and my blood pressure. She didn't seem to like the blood pressure reading. Not surprising. I could feel my own heart pound. She said, “Do you have a history of high blood pressure?”

  “No. Low-normal, actually. Maybe you could take it again after I tell you what I'm about to tell you. Then maybe I won't be so scared.” She didn't react quite the way I thought she would. She just leaned back and waited for me to go on. “My father doesn't want me going out of the apartment. The only time I ever get to go out is when I'm running. Which I only get to do because some other nice doctor stood up for me and told him I needed fresh air.”

  “What about school?”

  “He homeschools me. Anyway, I've been going out at night after he's asleep. Not getting into any trouble or anything. Just going out. Walking, or riding the subway. So I've been sleeping later, so he thinks I have a sleeping problem. I'm sorry to waste your time like this, but if I'd told him the truth, he would have put a stop to it. So I just couldn't bring myself to do that. So, I don't know what the doctor wants to do. If he wants to give me sleeping pills, I could just not take them. But I made up my mind that when I came here, I wouldn't lie.”

  “How long has it been since you had activities outside the house?”

  “Since I was seven,” I said. She looked shocked. I think she'd thought I meant I'd been grounded for a month.

  I watched her sit with that for a long time. Then she said, “You know, if he really isolates you to the degree you say, it might be considered a form of abuse. Do you need help? I don't want to make your situation worse. I want to do what's best for y
ou.”

  “I'm almost eighteen,” I said. “Four more months. Then I'm leaving. So, thanks. But I think the best plan is just to ride it out from here.”

  Then I realized, sitting there watching her think, why I'd chosen to do this. I wanted some kind of perspective. I wanted to get a third opinion on my own weird reality. My father said it was right. Delilah said it was not. I wanted to know what someone else would think. And now I knew. I also realized something else I hadn't known before: That doctor who got me out running—who told my father I needed fresh air—saw exactly what was going on and wanted to help me. And he did help me. And now I wanted someone to help me again.

  I said, “You know, before that doctor got my father to let me go running, I used to get sick all the time. And my friend Delilah— who my father doesn't even know about, by the way, so don't rat me out—said maybe I was just getting sick to get out of the house. And when she said it, it sounded strange to me. Like something I'd never thought of before. But today, on the way over here, I had this funny feeling. Like part of me had known that all along.”

  She sat thinking another minute, then leaned forward and patted my arm.

  “Okay. I'm going to go talk to the doctor. He'll probably want to ask you some questions, too. And I'm guessing he'll want to talk to your father. But I'll tell him what you told me. And we'll see what he wants to do.”

  I SAT IN THE WAITING ROOM while my father went in. He looked defensive. And he looked small. He looked so small and so afraid that I wondered why I'd ever been scared of him.

  Just before the nurse disappeared with him, she smiled at me, which made me feel good. Actually, it made me feel like I was about to cry. I had this feeling in my chest and at the back of my throat like I could cry at any minute. But I don't even know why.

  After about twenty nervous minutes, my father came back out. He looked and sounded bristly. “Come on, Sebastian,” he said. “We're going home.”

  HALFWAY HOME ON THE SUBWAY I got up the nerve to ask him what the doctor said.

  At first he didn't answer. For so long that I thought he never would. Then he said, “He thinks you need more activity. That you can't sleep because you spend too much time cooped up in the house. I told him you run every day. He said he has nothing against homeschooling, but he wants you to have social opportunities with people your own age.”