The House at 758

by Kathryn Berla

  It was during this time that Mom would bundle me up in a blanket and strap me into the backseat of the car as if I was a baby. She’d drive through the hills with the moonlight streaming through the windows and soft classical music playing on the car’s stereo. I’d look out at the twisted tree branches silhouetted against the moon and I’d imagine I was on an African safari with elephants and lions lurking just beyond the shadows. By the time my mother pulled up in the driveway of our house, I would be sound asleep. My father would lift me from the car and carry me to my bed.

  One day I realized I no longer had trouble sleeping and the night rides came to an end. But I missed those times when it was just me and Mom, so some nights I’d pretend to be all wound up—and I think she pretended to believe me because she might have missed them too.

  __________

  Although I left my house with no destination in mind, I know there’s no such thing as a directionless drive. Everyone always knows where they’re going, even if they don’t admit it to themselves. So I find myself driving down a cozy street in a neighborhood some miles away from mine. The houses are small but tidy. The front yards look manicured and well taken care of. In my neighborhood, Mercedes and Lexus fill the driveways. Here there are pick-up trucks and mini-vans. My neighborhood is dark at night with only the natural light of the moon and stars. In this neighborhood street lights shine down on sidewalks. Jake had looked up my address in the school directory, and after our disastrous date, I had done the same. I need to understand who Jake is, even though I’ll only see his house. Maybe this is a way I can start to forget about him . . . or at least that’s what I tell myself.

  From the reflective numbers on the mailbox, I find his house. Every room is lit with a golden glow. A boy’s bicycle is propped up against a hedge in front of the house. Three cars are wedged into the driveway, including Jake’s Jeep. Parked alongside the sidewalk is a large white truck with storage containers built into its bed. Robbins Electric: Family Owned since 1959 is stenciled on its side.

  I feel like I’m even with Jake now. I’ve peeked into his life just like he peeked into mine. I wonder what he saw in me that made him ask me out. Could he ever see it again? I doubt it. Now he knows the end of the story and before he only knew the beginning. And what about me? What would I do differently if I had the chance? I just wish I had the chance. I feel sad for what I think I’ve lost before I even had it. And I feel confused about what exactly it was.

  I turn off the lights of my car several houses before I reach mine. I shut my car door as quietly as I can. I don’t want anyone to know I’m home; I just want to go up to my tent and be alone. My father’s probably back in bed by now and Marie will definitely be consoling him. So I’m the bad guy—a role I’m unfortunately getting used to. There are a lot of people who would agree with that—Jake being one of them, I’m sure. When I slammed Dad’s bedroom door behind me it felt good, but now I feel guilty because I know how sick he must be to spend a day in bed. And I know Marie’s probably mad at me for making him feel even worse.

  Dr. Bronstein. I knew that name was going to come up again. How is talking to a stranger supposed to make everything better? How can it erase what’s happened and my part in it? Especially when it’s me doing all the talking and him doing none of the telling. Except for the part about the five stages of grief that a person has to go through . . . denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But even when he explained that to me I couldn’t see how I fit into those neat little categories . . . although I admit I get angry a lot and I’m usually pretty depressed. The rest of it didn’t make sense to me though and it sure hasn’t helped.

  But no sooner have I climbed the ladder to my rooftop home when the familiar marimba tune lights up my iPhone. Chad’s name shows up on the screen.

  “Hi Chad.”

  “Krista . . . I saw the Hornet in the driveway. You’re back?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “Can I come up?”

  “You know you’re not allowed.” I almost relent but I think that would set a bad precedent. “Something wrong?”

  “My mom and your dad went back to bed.”

  “Oh. That’s good.”

  “I’m just watching TV.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Krista. Don’t be mad at Emma. She didn’t mean to tell them. She’s just not very good at . . . at . . .”

  “At lying.” I finish the sentence for him so he doesn’t have to feel like he’s insulting me. “I’m not mad at her—you can tell her that.”

  “She feels bad that she got you in trouble with Dr. Matzke.”

  “So weird that you call him that, Chad. Anyway . . . she didn’t get me in trouble with my dad. There’s just a whole lot of stuff she doesn’t understand that happened before. But I don’t feel like explaining it right now if that’s okay with you.”

  “No, you don’t have to explain it,” he says quickly. “It’s okay with me.” A long pause. “Krista?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “You know how I told you that Jake guy was flirting with the girl in the store today?”

  “Yes, Chad. I don’t really want to talk about that either.”

  “Well . . . I was lying. He wasn’t flirting and there wasn’t any pretty girl. I don’t know why I said that.”

  A big ache starts inside my heart and spreads through my whole chest.

  “Krista?’

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “No, Chad. I’m not mad at you. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  The night feels as warm, soft, and fuzzy as baby Henry’s little bobblehead. The moon is so bright it’s like someone took a dimmer switch to the sun and just dialed it down a bit. I lean back in my reclining chair and push my legs out in front of me. I stare up at the billions of stars and whatever it is that’s beyond them. My dad says he’s moving on. The policeman told me to move along. I imagine myself caught up in the ever-expanding universe. Moving away from the center—further and further. Always moving. Moving along. Moving on.

  I doze off. In my dream, I’m pounding on a huge oak door with both fists, but nobody will open it.

  “Leave me alone!” I cry out. “I know who you are!”

  A huge owl observes me with copper-colored eyes.

  “Be careful of what you don’t say.” The owl speaks to me. “Be careful of what you hide.”

  “I’m sorry!” I sob. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

  When I wake up I’m still in the lounge chair and I’m shivering. My cheeks are wet with real tears. A great-horned owl is perched on the corner of my roof, surveying the landscape below. When it hears me rustle in my chair it glides off into the night on silent wings.

  I can’t stop shivering although it’s cool, but not cold. Even my teeth are chattering. I recognize this feeling. For the first time since I moved to my rooftop tent, I’m afraid. I get up from my chair and crawl into the tent, zipping the entrance behind me.

  Chapter | 12

  When I go into the house the next morning, everyone’s up and sitting around the breakfast table. A visitor would mistake this for one big happy family.

  “Krista!” Marie is serving pancakes and bacon. “Sit down. Are you hungry?”

  I am, and I do. My father smiles stiffly at me and then turns his attention back to the stack of pancakes in front of him.

  “Sleep well?” he asks with a forced matter-of-factness in his voice.

  “Yeah, I slept fine.” I wonder if my father regrets what he said to me last night. Or maybe he’s just giving me time for everything to sink in. This makes more sense to me. If I stay out of his way, I’ll probably be able to avoid a follow-up conversation for a while. Or maybe not . . . maybe he’s just getting ready to bring up Dr. Brons
tein again.

  Chad pours maple syrup over everything on his plate, including the bacon. He has the soccer ball on his lap as if he’s afraid someone will take it from him. It seems that all of us are conspiring to put on a show of family unity. Everyone except Emma, that is. She’s pushing food around her plate with her fork but eating very little of it. She leans over and with her darting pink tongue, she creates an island of white plate in an ocean of brown syrup.

  “Emma!” Marie scolds her. “Do not lick your plate. It’s bad manners.”

  Emma looks up, mortified to be publicly called out like this. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye and I smile at her. She half-smiles nervously, probably not yet sure where she stands after her betrayal.

  “Krista,” she says hesitatingly, but in a way that lets me know she’s ready to let me back in her life if I’m ready to do the same. “Look what I found.” She scoots her chair from the table and skips into the next room returning seconds later with a lifelike porcelain-skinned doll in a long red flannel dress. A shiny auburn braid falls over one shoulder. Round blue eyes are open in perpetual wonder.

  “Where did you get that?” I get up from my chair and carefully take the doll from Emma’s arms.

  “I . . .” She looks at her mother who looks at my father. My father says nothing, only stares straight ahead. Marie opens her mouth as if to say something but thinks better of it and then she too looks away from Emma.

  “It’s just that . . . It’s just that you shouldn’t go in people’s rooms when the door is closed, that’s all,” I say. And then to soften it a little I add, “I’m not mad at you, Emma, but it’s not a play doll for you, okay? It’s not a room for you to go in.”

  “Okay,” she says and seems to accept.

  “Do you have plans for today, Krista?” Marie is anxious to change the subject and so am I. “I’m feeling better so I thought I’d take the kids clothes shopping. Care to join us? We can stop for lunch somewhere.”

  “I don’t want to go clothes shopping,” Chad protests. “Especially not with my mom and little sister.”

  “Wanna go somewhere and kick the ball around, Chad?” A sudden inspiration comes to me. I don’t want to stay around the house with Dad, but as usual, I have no other plans. I used to enjoy kicking the ball back in the days when I was on a soccer team.

  Chad’s eyes light up. “Heck yeah!”

  My dad looks happy. Marie looks happy . . . and relieved. Even I feel a little happy, although my dream still feels very real to me.

  __________

  I’ve dug up my old soccer shorts and shoes and I even find a pair of bright pink soccer socks in one of my drawers. Luckily my feet haven’t grown for a while. Chad didn’t come prepared for soccer so he’s wearing cargo shorts and sneakers. Seeing the boy skillfully juggle the ball yesterday has clearly fired up his competitive juices.

  “So where should we go?” The bad thing about living on top of a hill is the impossibility of playing any kind of ball sport. “The park?”

  Chad is sitting next to me in the Hornet. He ponders this question for a moment before answering. “Let’s go to Del Oro,” he says, referring to my high school. “They already have the goals set up and I can practice taking shots.”

  I’m not anxious to think about school during the summer, especially after that night at the pool with Jake. But it does make sense so we head off in that direction.

  I’m surprised at how sharp my skills are after three years, and I’m also surprised at how good it feels to do something like this. My scalp prickles from the heat and my muscles feel warm and loose. A ribbon of moisture clings to my hairline. In another fifteen minutes, it will break loose and the sweat will drip down my forehead and temples.

  “Time out!” I call to Chad. “Let’s get some water.”

  We walk to the side of the field where a row of redwoods beckons with shade. I pull the last two water bottles from the soccer bag and toss one to Chad. We both sit down on the shaded grass and empty the contents of the bottles down our parched throats.

  “Thanks for doing this, Krista. It would’ve sucked to go shopping.”

  “No problem. I’m having fun. When do you have to go home?”

  “My dad’s picking us up at three.” Chad’s world is complicated and it’s his job as the older child to make it seem simple to his parents.

  “So, you’ll be back in two weeks? Maybe we can do this again. Bring your stuff with you next time.”

  “Yeah . . . and maybe you can come watch one of my games this year.” I can hear the enthusiasm in his voice. In his mind, summer is over and soccer season has already begun. He looks longingly at the grassy field. “Can we go out again for a little while longer?”

  I glance at my watch. It’s not even noon and, although I’m getting tired, I don’t want to stop either. Off in the distance I see a group of guys in maroon and yellow practice jerseys walking in our general direction. It’s the football team on their way to summer practice. They’ll have to pass through this field on the way to their own. They jostle each other as they walk, and laughs pass as easily between them as the footballs that are being tossed back and forth. I wonder what it would be like to be part of a group that is so united in purpose and so dependent on the goodwill its members feel toward each other.

  “It’s the football players!” Chad has a starry look in his eyes. “I want to play football in high school but Mom won’t let me even though Dad says it’s okay.”

  “Why won’t she let you?” I nervously scan the crowd of players looking for Jake. When I spot him, I scoot further back into the shade of the redwood and press myself up against its trunk to blend in.”

  “She says it’s too dangerous.” Then, in a voice that’s just a bit too loud for my comfort he blurts out, “Hey, it’s Jake!”

  At the sound of his name, Jake turns his head and squints into the shadow of the redwood. When his eyes adjust enough to realize who he’s looking at, he lifts his hand and then lets it fall to his side. My heart pounds so furiously, I feel sure Chad must be able to hear its beat. I half-raise my hand in return.

  “Maybe we should head home,” I say. “I’m getting kind of hungry and you probably need to take a shower and pack up your stuff before your dad comes to get you.”

  Chad needs no explanation to understand that the attention he just drew to us means the end of our time here, so he doesn’t complain. He also understands that it will take me a few minutes to gather up our things—the few minutes it takes for the team to continue on to their practice field.

  __________

  Chad has been waiting out in front of our house for his father to arrive. This is the routine he’s established when visiting his mother to avoid the awkwardness of bringing his parents together in the presence of their kids. I don’t believe Marie ever told Chad to do this and I doubt if his father did either. He just figured it out on his own after only two visits.

  When I think about Chad’s routine it makes me think of the goldfish I won at my school fair when I was about Emma’s age. When I brought the fish home and released it into the bowl my mother had prepared, the fish swam about, wildly testing its boundaries, familiarizing itself with the rules imposed by the shape of the glass. An hour later it was swimming calmly, having calculated exactly how far it could go in one direction before having to turn around to go in the other. It was as though the fish had never known any other home before that bowl. Chad and I have had to adapt to our new living circumstances. Emma too. I think we’ve all done amazingly well in such a short period of time, at least to an outside observer.

  Chad comes inside to get Emma and carry their bags to the car. He gives Marie a peck on the cheek and I see a brightness in her eyes that people get when they’re holding back tears. Shiny eyes, Mom used to call it, when I was just about to lose it over a sad book or movie. Marie leans forward and hugs Chad tight
ly. Then she hugs Emma and buries her face in Emma’s platinum hair. Chad grabs his sister by the hand and pulls her toward the door.

  “Bye, Krista,” he says. “See you in a few weeks.”

  I haven’t ever received parting words like this from Chad. As tame as the words sound, they shout out to me.

  “Don’t forget your soccer stuff next time,” I remind him. And then before he can leave, “I’ll walk you guys out to the car.”

  I’ve never done this before and I know it means something to Chad. It validates the whole other part of his life I’ve chosen to ignore up until now. The man waiting for them behind the wheel of the SUV wears sunglasses and is tanned and blond. He is broader and more muscular than my father who is slender, elegant, and dark. I’m not sure what I expected their dad to look like. To be honest, I’ve never given him a moment’s thought. Now I see his broad grin and I realize he’s missed his children. Their sadness about leaving their mother is forgotten as they pile into the car, pulling their bags in behind them. In two weeks’ time, this same scene will replay itself.

  The car pulls away and Chad rolls down his window to wave. Their father nods at me and smiles.

  Chad and I have come a long way during this visit, and I’m not exactly sure why, considering what I put him through. We’ve been feeling our way around each other ever since Marie moved in with my dad. In the beginning, I blamed him for his mother and he blamed me for my father. But I think what clicked with both of us this time is that we have more that unites us than separates us. Because we’re not adults we have to live by rules that we didn’t make and we’re both trying to figure out how to do that. We have to adapt before we crash into the glass bowl.