The Perfect Son

by Barbara Claypole White

  Felix put the glasses upside down on the draining board and turned to stare into the darkness on the other side of the sliding doors. Despite the predominance of pines at the edge of their property, Duke Forest was filled with hardwood trees, all of them naked at this time of year. In three months, when everything returned to life with the bright-green touches of spring, would Ella be healed? Would she have a new heart? Could anyone tell him that in three months, this nightmare would be over?

  “No,” Felix said. “I wouldn’t.”

  NINETEEN

  Holy shit, spring had sprung. Harry whirred around. The birds were singing their adorable little hearts out, and look! Was that a butterfly? No—Harry snatched up the scrap of colored paper dancing across the yard. Hopefully, Dad hadn’t noticed; otherwise, he’d be in for another lecture on securing the recycling. As Saint John would say, a real bollocking! When Harry had lugged the recycling to the curb the other day, he’d forgotten to snap the bungee cord over the top of one of the bins, and paper had blown everywhere. Oops.

  Couldn’t they be done with the whole squirrel fortification? He and Dad were checking every piece of siding, every nook and cranny on the outside of the house, and it was sooo boring. He should go finish his AP Lit essay. Due Monday. But it was warm outside, and cool and dark inside. The house felt like a tomb. Except when Sammie was over. Mom could meet her next weekend!

  Ha! A wild turkey strutted across the yard. Didn’t see those too often. Gobble, gobble! Man, he was sooo bored. Watching ice melt would be more exciting than this.

  One week and counting till Mom came home. Seeing Mom in the hospital had been gut-wrenchingly awful. He cried; she cried; even the nurse cried. But they kept it short, and he’d chosen an awesome bunch of balloons and flowers in the gift shop, with a stuffed bear that looked like it needed its own transplant. Dad had complained it was too expensive, but Harry had offered to pay half. Never expected Dad to hold him to it. And now his piggy bank was empty. How could he afford to take Sammie to the movies?

  He’d seen Mom and felt strangely better. Like staring down the enemy, like saying, I’m scared shitless that my mom is dying, but I will see her and hug her and make her smile. And he had—he had made her smile! Mom had called him the Harry Tonic.

  Calling her room every night wasn’t the same as seeing her, especially since she didn’t always pick up the hospital phone. A bazillion times during school, he’d think, “I need to tell Mom this.” But then the end of the school day came, and it was just him and Dad. And by the time he talked to Mom, he’d forgotten half the school gossip. Mom used to love school gossip. Funny, she didn’t seem that interested these days.

  Harry reached down and grabbed the basketball from where he’d left it in the middle of a fern. He ran his right hand up the fronds. (Wasn’t that what Mom called them?) Did the same with his left. Gave him that calm, just-right feeling. Like when he’d been in kindergarten and he had that poking tic. Had to poke things until they felt right. When it was other people—that was problematic. But Mom had gone into the class and explained it to the teacher and all the kids. Then she’d told him—in private—that poking people wasn’t acceptable behavior, and they’d figured out a way to stop the tic. Funny thing, he couldn’t remember their strategy; he just remembered it had worked.

  He pounded the ball on the concrete. Bounce, bounce; bounce, bounce. Rise up on your toes, take aim, shoot. Swish. Perfect shot. Hell, yeah!

  A dog barked in the street. He’d wanted a dog. Used to pester Mom about it. Answer was always the same: “Dad says no.” Never a discussion.

  Bounce, bounce; bounce, bounce. Aim, shoot. Swish.

  Bounce, bounce; bounce, bounce. Aim, shoot. Swish.

  Balance. Life was about balance. The family had balance, they lost it, but Mom would come home and they would find it again. Although in the last week, he and Dad had fallen into a groove. In a totally dysfunctional, two-guys-home-alone kinda way. Maybe he and Dad had found their own balance. It wasn’t so bad—just the two of them. Dad didn’t hover, and he’d abandoned the open-door policy with Sammie. (Did Mom know about the condoms?)

  Most amazing discovery of all, last night—when he was fooling around with Sammie—he didn’t tic. Maybe for their one-month anniversary, they could christen the condoms.

  Dad let him help out more, too—with the laundry and shit, although he refolded everything. Harry could tell because the creases were all different. Tonight, they were going to watch a movie if Harry got his homework done. Death at a Funeral. The English original. Dad wasn’t big on remakes. Had huge purple bruises under his eyes. Worked every night. Did he sleep at all? He was still working when Sammie’s mom picked her up at midnight. On a Friday! Dad had lost weight. Maybe that would change now that meal deliveries were coming from Eudora. Fantastic fried chicken the other night! And she’d made hummingbird cake. Delish!

  Would Eudora still bring them food when Mom came home? Would things really go back to the way they had been? Did he want them to? Harry dropped the ball, and it rolled off into the undergrowth.

  Dad walked over with a hammer.

  “Wanna shoot hoops?” Harry said.

  “No. We have to finish this.”

  Harry rocked on his feet, itching to move. “I’m bored.”

  “That’s because you have the attention span of a gnat.”

  “But this is super boring, Dad. Let’s do something fun.”

  “I need to get this off my to-do list before your mother comes home. And could you please stop doing that?”

  “Doing what?”

  Dad put out a hand. “Cracking your knuckles. It’s driving me bonkers.”

  “Driving! That’s it. How about a driving lesson?”

  “Seriously?” Dad fiddled with his glasses.

  “Seriously! I’ve got to get back on the horse. I don’t want to be one of those guys who lets fear rule. And my learner’s permit expires in three months.” Harry tried not to think about the humiliation of going through drivers ed twice. First and only time he’d ever failed a test. “I need to hit the open road. Practice!”

  “Does this have something to do with Sammie?”

  Yeah. “Maybe.”

  Dad grinned. He didn’t smile that much, but when he did, it changed everything: his face, his mood. Hell, the mood of everyone in a ten-block radius.

  “Has Sammie been giving you a hard time about not driving?”

  The blush rose up Harry’s neck. Threatened to swallow his head whole. “She doesn’t give me a hard time about anything. But now we’re—”

  “Facebook status changed to ‘in a relationship’?”

  “Okay, yeah, we’re a thing. Which means it would be nice to be more independent.”

  Dad’s smile disappeared. Serious Dad was back. “Have you taken a Ritalin pill this afternoon?”

  Harry paused a second too long.

  “Do you have any appreciation of how lucky you are to be able to take Ritalin?”

  “I know, I know. I hit the Tourette’s jackpot because Ritalin doesn’t stimulate my tics. Lucky me.”

  “Exactly. So why didn’t you take it?”

  “Life’s more fun on the cutting edge.” True dat.

  “Then no. We’re not going driving.”

  “Dad—”

  “You can’t drive wired, Harry. You need to be calm, focused, and in control.”

  “’Kay.” Harry ran toward the house. “I’ll take one.”

  “You’re not going to crash and kill both of us, are you?” Dad gripped the side of the car, and they hadn’t even pulled away from the curb.

  “Gee, Dad. Let me consider that one.”

  At least they were in Mom’s Honda CR-V. Bigger, safer; besides, she wouldn’t care about dings.

  “If you kill me, I will come back like Marley’s ghost and haunt you.”

  Harry sniggered. “You believe in ghosts?”

  “No. I believe you’re alive and then you’re not. I will, however, no
t go gently into the good night if you kill me.” Dad looked both ways up and down the street. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Hell, yeah.” Harry made exaggerated movements as he adjusted his seat, messed with his rearview mirror, checked his wing mirrors, tugged on his seat belt. Okay, so that last bit was unnecessary, but really? Did Dad think he’d drive off without checking that the road was clear?

  “What’s your evidence?”

  “Too much crap that can’t be explained. Besides, I had that incident after Uncle Tom—” Shit, shit, shit.

  Dad’s arm shot across him like the safety bar on a fairground ride. “What did you just say?”

  “Mom told me to never tell you.”

  Dad turned off the engine. “A bit late for that, wouldn’t you say?”

  The mail guy stopped in front of them. Pulled down their mailbox, shoved in the mail, slapped the box shut. Drove on to Eudora’s house.

  Harry opened his window, closed his window, opened it a crack. He clicked his teeth together in rhythms of four beats. Dad stared out of the windshield, waiting.

  “The night Uncle Tom died,” Harry said, “I had some weird dream. Only it felt real, as if Uncle Tom were sitting on my bed, talking to me.”

  “What did he say—in this dream?”

  “‘I love you, Munchkin.’ Then he said . . .”

  “Said what, Harry?”

  “That life hadn’t been easy for you, and we should look after each other. That was it. Then it was morning. Mom was cooking blueberry pancakes and you were gone. She told me Uncle Tom had died, and I said that was wrong because I’d talked with him, and she swore me to secrecy. Mom said it would make you too sad. I’m sorry, Dad.”

  Dad was right. He should try to focus more. Words spilled out without passing through his brain first. And now, because he’d screwed up and was worse than a slug, Dad looked ready to cry, right here in the car. And it was his fault. Like he’d stuck Dad with a blade. Mom always said, “Don’t mention Uncle Tom in front of Dad. It’s too painful for him.” So he didn’t. And now he had. Slug. Total slug. Or some other slimy life-form.

  “Your mother was trying to protect me.” Dad shook his head slowly. “That’s what she does—she protects us—but sometimes I wish she wouldn’t.”

  Yeah. Totally.

  “That bit about life not being easy for you. He meant Grandfather, didn’t he?”

  “Your grandfather had no patience and a great deal of rage, and I had various habits he deemed annoying.” Dad flicked at some invisible spot on his black jeans. “He attempted to discipline them out of me.”

  “You mean habits like when you tap your palm.”

  Dad snapped his head around and glared. “I used to make a little clearing noise with my throat, too.”

  “You mean”—Harry hesitated—“a tic?”

  “No, Harry, not a tic. A nervous habit.”

  But how could Dad be sure? Hadn’t they always wondered about the genetic component? Hadn’t Mom and Dad said, in the early days, “But where did this come from?”

  Dad scratched his hands through his hair like he was shaking out nits. Or demons. Then he reached over and turned the key. The engine juddered to life.

  “You, however, will have to learn to control your tics while you’re driving. You must have absolute focus and two hands on the wheel. Can you manage that?”

  Harry cleared his throat, clicked his tongue again—a nervous habit—and nodded.

  “We’re going to do a loop around the neighborhood.” Dad adjusted his glasses. He did that a lot. Maybe it was a tic. From now on, Harry would watch everything Dad did. Every little gesture.

  “Not going on the highway?”

  “No. We’ll drive around the neighborhood until I’m confident you know what you’re doing. If you don’t scare me, next time we can go on University Road and do a circuit around campus. If I decide at any point that you need to stop and let me take over, you will. Agreed?”

  “Sure. Can we have music?”

  “No. No distractions. You need laser focus. Read the road, Harry. Be mindful of idiots who drive while texting or using their iPods. Once, I saw someone driving and brushing his teeth. Watch everything and everyone around you. Anticipate hazards.”

  Anticipate hazards. Harry rubbed his nose. His insides were wibbly-wobbly, like a thousand fleas were jabbing him with teeny-tiny spears. Jab, jab; jab, jab. And a thought stuck on repeat: You drive, you die; you drive, you die. A thousand things could go wrong. Drivers ed the first time had taught him that—when he’d pulled onto the Durham Freeway and nearly hit a school bus. The instructor had sworn; the kids in the back had sniggered. One of them had whispered, “Retard.” What if he ran over someone’s dog? What if he totaled the car? What if he hurt Dad? Sammie wouldn’t care if he didn’t drive, if he never learned to drive. Sammie wouldn’t care, but he would. He wiggled in his seat, imagined crushing those fleas one by one.

  Laser focus, laser focus.

  Harry glanced over his shoulder and pulled out onto the road. “Let’s do this thing, Dad.”

  Harry parked. Perfectly. “Who da man!” He punched the air, and Dad exhaled loudly.

  “That was good, Harry.”

  For real? Dad had used good and Harry in the same sentence without irony?

  “You didn’t tic at all while you were driving.”

  “Can we do this again tomorrow, Dad?”

  “If you take your medication.”

  The pressure started building. A tic that wouldn’t be contained. No, not now. Let Dad say good and Harry one more time. Please.

  He should have known. Compress all that energy, pack it together as if it were a bound and tied Slinky, and sooner or later it would spring free. Tics 101. Harry started jiggling from side to side. His foot stomped on the brake, stomped on the brake. Repeated.

  Dad opened the passenger door and let out a sigh. It was a small one, but it was a sigh. And that wow! moment vanished. Replaced by the feeling you got when you were in the back of a car and it hit a speed bump too fast, and your stomach went bleh and you prayed you didn’t hurl. Worst feeling in the world, topped only by the realization that if he wanted to win Dad’s approval, all he had to do was not tic—not release any nervous habits—for the rest of his life.

  TWENTY

  Nudging the door open with his foot, Felix stood on the threshold of Hades. The doorknob would, of course, be sticky. Stickiness oozed from his son’s pores.

  Piles of books or papers didn’t bother him, but the mayhem of Harry’s room had no rhythm. Even the posters weren’t hung straight. Coheed and Cambria definitely tilted toward the left, and the Tar Heels basketball team was decidedly wonky. It was clutter run amok; it was bedlam. And it stank of unwashed socks and leftovers.

  The trail of disaster snaked from the unmade bed to the desk to the floor. An open family-size bag of salt and vinegar chips gaped next to Harry’s laptop, and not one but two plates of toast crumbs sat on the floor. A third plate was upside down, as if kicked over in a mad dash to exit the room. An action that made perfect sense to Felix.

  His son was living in a hell of his own creation.

  Reaching around the doorjamb, Felix grappled for the light switches. He had returned from the hospital to discover the house in darkness except for the light blazing under Harry’s door. Which meant the lights had been on since the boys had left for their Sunday matinee.

  Felix hesitated. Was the dump of unopened mail under Harry’s desk composed of college mailings? Trying to ignore the sensation that he was speeding down a helter-skelter ride, Felix stepped into Harry’s lair.

  A color brochure from Princeton peeked up at him, and—Felix squinted—there was an envelope from Harvard. He stepped closer, picked it up, and flipped it over. An unopened envelope from Harvard admissions.

  Now he understood the old adage about blood boiling, because really, cut him open and he would bleed bubbling lava. Of all the irresponsible, immature . . . Felix made a sw
eeping gesture with his hands. Brushed away the red-hot anger; slowed everything down. He would be calm; he would be rational. He would get this sorted.

  Felix walked into the kitchen and grabbed a black bin liner. Then he returned to Harry’s room, scooped up the sliding pile of college information, and dragged his haul into the living room. He moved the coffee table to one side, dumped the contents of the bag on the floor, and, sinking to his knees, began making sense of chaos.

  Out on the street, car doors slammed and a cloud of chatter raced up the walkway. Max and Harry were home. Felix stayed on his knees and continued his work.

  One brochure, one breath; one brochure, one breath.

  “Festering turd!” Max laughed as the front door crashed open. Dark and cold spilled inside. The weather had turned again: winter was back.

  “King of the festering turds!” Harry yelled, then guffawed.

  That was it. Felix jumped up. “Boys!”

  “Sorry,” Max mouthed. He glanced at Harry. “I should go.”

  “’Kay, dude. Later.”

  Harry collapsed on the hall floor like a toy that had been unplugged. He tugged off one Converse without unlacing it.

  “Movie was great.” He jumped up. Pulled a fistful of change from his pocket, dumped it on the shoe cabinet, and then levered off his left shoe with his right foot. “Whatcha doing, Dad?”

  Felix folded his arms. “Creating order out of your college mailings.”

  Harry glanced up, looking wary. “You took those from my room?”

  “Harry, most of these are unopened.”

  “What were you doing in my room?”

  “Turning off all the lights that you had left on again.”

  “’Kay. But please don’t mess with my stuff.” Harry went through his pockets and then slapped the wall. “Goddammit.”

  “Harry! Language! If your grandmother heard you—”

  “Lost my phone.” Harry grabbed the portable phone, dialed. “Maxi-Pad! You shouldn’t be answering the phone while you’re driving. Ha!” Harry snorted. “Let me know if you find my phone in your car. Yeah, lost it again. Imagine that.” Another snort of laughter. “Later, faggot.”