Where You Are

by J. H. Trumble

  “How’s Dad this morning?”

  She shakes her head. “He’s a fighter. He’s hanging on with everything he has, but . . .” She takes a deep breath and her eyes flood with tears. “He’s actively dying, Robert.”

  “But you just said he’s fighting it.”

  “What I mean is his systems are shutting down. It won’t be much longer. As bad as he looks, I have to believe that he’s completely oblivious, that death will be just a small hiccup between this world and Heaven.” She smiles weakly and sniffs. “You sure you don’t mind running to the store?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I’d go myself, but someone needs to stay with your dad.”

  I bristle. Someone. Right. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Don’t know. Apparently there are more pressing demands on her time than staying by her husband’s side.” She adds fish sticks to the list and hands it to me. “Stop by the Hallmark store next door first and see if they have any puzzles there. Someone finished the other one last night.”

  At Hallmark, I pick up the most difficult puzzle they have—a twelve-hundred-piece double-sided mosaic with no defined parts or reference points. I hope they rot trying to put it together.

  I hate everything about you.

  Wow. I didn’t think my dancing was THAT bad.

  Do you have Kiki already?

  I open one of the coolers in the freezer section at H-E-B and pull out three bags of fish sticks and toss them into the cart with the milk, bread, and other items I’ve already accumulated.

  I do.

  What are you guys doing today?

  Well, right now we’re buying ice cream.

  Baskin-Robbins or Cold Stone Creamery?

  H-E-B.

  I push my cart to the end of the frozen dinners aisle and make my way to ice cream.

  He’s holding his daughter in one arm and the cooler door open with his hip. With his free hand he’s restacking cartons of ice cream.

  It’s a little cool out for shorts, don’t you think? But, um, nice legs.

  Very nice, I think. A light covering of brown hair that matches the hair that peeks out from the collars of his shirts. I watch as he juggles Kiki, his phone, and the ice cream. He’s wearing khaki shorts and flip-flops with an OU hoodie. If I didn’t know better, I’d have pegged him for a college student.

  His face screws up a little as he reads my text. He one-handed thumbs in a response.

  ??? Are you some kind of clairvoyant?

  He smiles at Kiki as he drops two pints of ice cream into the basket at his feet, and I hear him say to her as I approach, “Hey, kiddo, somebody thinks I have nice legs. What do you think?”

  “I think she’d have to agree if that weren’t just a little creepy,” I say, positioning my cart next to his basket.

  His head snaps to me. His smile turns a little sheepish, and his ears redden just a shade. And suddenly I forget all about puzzles and being a guest in my own house.

  Kiki twists in his arms to get a look at me, and Andrew has to heft her to maintain his grip. The little girl that I know from the photos is holding a spotted stuffed dog in a summer dress. Little white sandals are strapped to its stubby paws.

  Andrew places his cheek next to hers and speaks in a low, conspiratorial voice. “This is Daddy’s friend Robert. He’s sneaky, but don’t hold that against him. He can Dougie like nobody’s business.”

  Kiki giggles and buries her face in her father’s neck.

  “I like your doggie,” I say. “What’s his name?”

  “You want to tell Robert your dog’s name?”

  Apparently she doesn’t. So I guess: “Let me see . . . Ralph?” No response. “George? Bruno?” Andrew winces and tugs at the little dress as if to remind me that the dog is a girl. “Daisy?”

  Kiki whips around and fixes me with gray eyes that remind me so much of Andrew’s. She looks a little perturbed, insulted perhaps, when she says, “Spot!”

  “Oooh, Spot. That’s a great name. The dress. Of course. Silly me. I should have known.” I give Andrew a look that says, Thanks, pal.

  He winks, then scans the contents of my cart.

  “So what are you doing here, my friend? I didn’t know you had such a developed palette. That’s a heck of a lot of fish sticks. I imagine if you took them all apart you might be able to reconstruct an entire guppy.”

  I turn my shopping list to him. “We’ve got kind of a crowd in our house right now.”

  His smile fades and he studies me for a moment. “Your dad . . .”

  “No. Not yet. Won’t be long though. They don’t want to leave him, so I’m the designated shopper today.”

  “Can I do anything?”

  You can take me home with you. Make me feel like I belong somewhere. “No, but thanks.” I take a look at his basket on the floor. “Who gets the Cake and Ice Cream flavor?”

  “Me!” Kiki cries out.

  “And the Moo-llennium Crunch is for Dad, right, kiddo?”

  She pokes him in the nose. I want to just look at them, to fix in my mind this sweet moment so I can take it out later and reflect on what it means to be adored. And then an idea occurs to me.

  “Hey, let me take your photo,” I say, holding up my phone that I realize is still clutched in my hand.

  “Aaah, we like our picture taken, don’t we, Kiki?”

  I snap the photo and capture them, father and daughter, cheek to cheek, smile to smile. I show it to him. Kiki pokes her finger at the screen. “Daddy.”

  “Hey, let me take one for you with your phone,” I suggest.

  “Yeah? All right.” He hands it over, and I snap a second photo, then return the phone to him. He looks at the photo, then shows it to Kiki. She takes the phone from him and shows it to Spot. While she does, he locks eyes with me, and I feel like we exchange some silent communication. To me, it goes something like this: There’s something going on here between us, and we both know it. I wonder what words come to him.

  “Well,” he says with a quiet smile, “I guess we need to get going, right, Kiki?” He nods to my list. “It looks like you still have some shopping to do, and our ice cream is melting.”

  He grabs the handles of the plastic basket and hoists it up. Besides the two pints of ice cream and some wafer cones, there’s a bottle of red wine. I’m acutely aware that even if I wanted to, even if he asked, I’m not legally old enough to have a glass with him. That reality takes a little of the buzz out of our meeting.

  I shuffle my feet a bit. I want to say, “Don’t go. Not yet.” What I say is, “Have a good weekend.”

  “You too.”

  I’m turning to go when he says, “Hey, Robert.”

  I look up and he snaps my picture. His phone is gripped in the hand that’s holding Kiki, so I doubt he even got a good shot of me.

  “If you wanted a photo of me, you could’ve just downloaded one from my fan page.”

  He laughs. “Actually, I think this might be my ticket into your fan club.”

  “Right.” I turn to go again, but he stops me once more.

  “Oh, hey. Do you like burritos?”

  “Burritos?”

  “Yeah. You know, tortillas with beans or beef—”

  “Um, yeah, I got that. Is this some kind of trick question?”

  “Nope. Just a question.”

  “No right or wrong answer? You’re not going to ding a quiz grade or anything?”

  “No dings.”

  “Then, no, not really.”

  He seems pleased with my answer. I walk off wondering what all that was about. I feel my phone riding against my thigh in my pocket, and I feel like I’m taking a little piece of him with me. At the pizza case, I grab four Red Barons, then circle back around to the ice cream and grab a half gallon of Moo-llennium Crunch.

  Chapter 15

  Andrew

  When I was a sophomore in high school, I had this English teacher—a man, Mr. Jacobson. There weren’t many male teachers in my school (are t
here ever?), and the ones we did have taught math or science or business classes, often half time if they also coached.

  But Mr. Jacobson taught English. It was a class where we talked about feelings, and I was sure feeling him. He was my first real crush.

  As I recall, he was in his mid-thirties, married. He had a small cleft in his chin and a dimple when he smiled and these dark eyebrows. What I remember most is the way he’d run his fingers through his hair as he strolled around the classroom. As much as I could, I’d watch him, much like Robert watches me sometimes, and imagine that he was trying to find his way close to me. When he called on me, my insides would flip a little at the sudden attention.

  I wanted him bad, and I’d spent endless hours sitting on Maya’s bed playing what if. What if he divorced his wife and suddenly realized he liked boys? What if I just told him what I felt about him one day, and he suddenly confessed that he’d always thought I was special?

  That went on for the better part of the school year, and then one day after spring break, the varnish started to crack, just a little at first.

  I noticed things I’d never noticed before. The way his shoes were always scuffed and the heels worn down on the outsides, like he didn’t much care about his appearance. The way the cleft in his chin formed a dark crease that looked like a pine seed might take root there like they did in our gutters when you didn’t clean them for a while. The way he always smelled of garlic. The way his eye teeth dropped down a little too far and the way one of his incisors was smaller than the other. And worst of all, the way his hair stood up when he ran his fingers through it, like it was dirty and thick with oil.

  After a while, I began to wonder what I ever saw in him. I not only quit following him around the room with my eyes, I quit raising my hand. I even found it hard to look at him when he called on me.

  I will never admit it to another living soul, but I’ve fallen for Robert. Hard. Maybe it’s because I’m finally facing my true feelings for him that I’m thinking about my old English teacher. Am I Robert’s Mr. Jacobson? Is that the way it will be with him? Crushing on me today, too aware of my flaws tomorrow?

  I have considered that after his graduation, I might approach him, ask him out, like a real date. I’d wait a month or two just so there’s no question about our teacher/student relationship. I know that kind of stuff happens. After all, six years isn’t an unbridgeable chasm.

  Would he say yes? Or would I have become by then just another what-did-I-ever-see-in-him crush?

  He’d move on to college. Meet lots of great guys his own age.

  I flop back against the throw pillows on the futon and study his photo. He was right; there are lots of photos on his fan page I could download, but this one is different. This one I captured myself.

  Kiki curls up next to me. She’s warm and cuddly, and I’m pretty sure this is going to be a nap for two today. I kiss the top of her head and look at Robert’s photo again.

  “What do you think, Kiki? You think your daddy’s silly for falling for one of his students?”

  She reaches up and pats my face with sticky fingers. “Silly Daddy,” she says sleepily.

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “That’s what I think, too, baby girl.”

  Robert

  Moo-llennium Crunch turns out to be this interesting blend of vanilla ice cream, chocolate and caramel chunks, and three kinds of nuts. My younger cousins don’t much like nuts, but they don’t read labels. All they see is ice cream.

  Aunt Whitney fills their waiting cones with heaping scoops, then disappears into Dad’s room. In one minute flat, the ice cream is melting in the sink, the cones discarded the instant the offending chunks were discovered.

  Mom’s putting away the rest of the groceries.

  “Where’d you go this morning?” I ask, trying to decide if what I’m chewing is walnut or pistachio.

  “Target. I had to get a new vacuum cleaner.”

  “What happened to the old one?”

  She huffs. “I moved it into your room this morning so I could vacuum up all the popcorn on the floor, and then Mark smashed his fingers in your closet door, and while I was running cold water over them in the kitchen sink, Brian found some matches. Apparently he struck a few and blew them out, then dropped them on your floor. Then afraid he’d get in trouble, he vacuumed them up and the entire bag caught fire. I guess at least one of the matches was still smoldering.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Mom laughs, a humorless sound. “I wish I were, Robert. I really wish I were.”

  “Did you tell Aunt Whitney?” Brian is her kid, eight years old, and a little stinker.

  “I did. She wanted to know what I was thinking leaving matches around where little kids could get to them.”

  I scoff. “It’s my room. Did he burn my carpet?”

  She looks at the fish sticks and rolls her eyes. “I don’t think so. It’s flame retardant. But the vacuum is trashed. I had to drag it out to the back porch to douse the flames.”

  I hold the freezer door open so she can cram in the bags and boxes of pizzas. The shelves are already packed with corndogs, chicken tenders, and Kid Cuisines.

  “Are they ever going to leave?”

  She shuts the freezer door and leans back against it and folds her arms. She looks so tired. I think she’d cry if she had the energy. “Hang in there, okay?”

  There is no place in our house that isn’t littered with little people or their little-people discards, except perhaps my dad’s room. But the litter in that room is like a whole different level of hell. I take my ice cream outside and lie across the trunk of my car.

  The sun is bright, and I have to shield the screen of my phone with my hand to see his picture. His smile makes me smile. I think about texting, but something holds me back. The bottle of wine maybe.

  The phone rings suddenly. Nic.

  Don’t break up.

  That’s what Andrew told me. I wondered then and I wonder now if that was some code for me-teacher, you-student, don’t get any ideas.

  I close my eyes and let the sun warm my face for a moment as the phone rings for the second time, then the third. I won’t break up with Nic. I’ll give him that. But I won’t answer either. I wait until the call rolls to voice mail, then text Andrew.

  Ask you a question?

  ZZZzzzZZZzzz

  Sorry.

  Ha, ha. I’m up. Is it a trick question?

  Why am I still dating Nic again?

  Aaaah. My bad. We’ll talk on Monday. I’m bringing subs for 2. Bring your appetite . . . and your homework!

  It’s a date.

  I consider the text before I push Send, almost scratch that last line, then think, What the L-M-N-O-P, and send it anyway.

  Chapter 16

  Robert

  Monday morning. No clanging bells, no rattling pots in the kitchen, no rug rats clamoring for food. Their dads picked them up yesterday. A welcome hush has settled on the house. I find Aunt Whitney sitting cross-legged on the bed next to my dad, his useless left hand gripped in hers. Her eyes shimmer with tears. She sniffs as Dad’s chest heaves with the exertion of drawing in even a small amount of air.

  I let my gaze settle on his face, the open but vacant eyes, the grotesquely stretched skin, the foam that is just beginning to form around his nostrils and his lips.

  Aunt Olivia has pulled the armchair from the living room up next to the bed. She checks the bag clipped to the side rail. “He’s just not producing anything anymore.” She looks over her shoulder at me and wipes her eyes. “You’re not going to school today, are you?”

  “I’ve got sectionals this morning and an English test this afternoon.”

  “Make it up later,” Aunt Whitney says sharply.

  Aunt Olivia’s voice is softer: “Robert, your dad may not be here when you get home. You see this?” She holds up the bag she was looking at a moment ago. “His kidneys have shut down.”

  “Is that why he’s foaming?”

>   She glances at his face. “His lungs are filling with fluid.” Then she turns back to me. “This is your last chance to be here for your dad.”

  The way he was here for me?

  I stay under the radar over the next half hour, showering and dressing quickly and quietly. In the kitchen, I grab a couple of blueberry waffles and drop them in the toaster.

  “You want something more than that?” Mom asks, coming into the kitchen. “I can make you some bacon and eggs.”

  “No, thanks.” The truth is I feel a little sick this morning. Two dry waffles and some water is about all I can handle. I can’t watch this. I won’t watch this. And then there’s Andrew. “I’m going to school,” I say, looking up from the toaster to check her reaction.

  “Good. You don’t need to be here for this.”

  “What happens when he dies? I mean, what do you do with him?”

  “Honestly, Robert, I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. I’m sure your aunts know what to do.”

  The waffles pop up. I take them out with my fingertips and drop them on a napkin to cool. “Why do you do that?” I ask. “Let them run the show?”

  She bites her lip and looks at me like I just slapped her face.

  Andrew

  From the cubbyhole that constitutes my school mailbox, I extract a stack of papers—attendance verification forms I need to sign (No black ink, please.), grades for two new students (both algebra), an invitation to meet with financial planners in the upstairs lounge this afternoon (as if I had any money to invest), the current issue of Pi in the Sky (a note from the librarian paper clipped to the cover—Mr. McNelis, Great article on math games. Thought you might like some new material.), a certificate for ten dollars off a meal at some new restaurant, and an envelope with my name on the front in Jen’s distinctive loopy writing.