“I know,” he said.
“Goddamn that ****in’ guy. I hope Buck hurt him bad.”
“He did,” my old man said. “Kicked his ass all over the place on more than one occasion. All of it over Kate and her trying to leave him. And a lot of good it did. Guess who he took it out on later.”
I gripped him harder. I was right on that clammy verge of vomiting.
“Easy, boy,” he patted my back. “Breathe.”
“I’m trying,” I snotted.
“You can’t help her this way.”
“I know.”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“I just want her to be happy, Dad.”
“All right then. You get rid of this crap and get back to helping her. That’s why she told you. I think it was her way of asking. You’ve done a great job so far. As good as anyone could expect.”
I listened to him over the sound of my breathing, trying to focus on his voice. For as long as I could remember, his voice had been the single strongest guiding force in my life.
“I might be running out of things to teach you, here in your old age,” he went on calmly, “but you trust me on this much. This is how you know the stuff you’re made of, in hard times like this. Listen to me, kid. Listen close. Your heart aches because it’s good. That’s a good sign. Nothing to be ashamed of. You’re a tough, goodhearted kid, Jake. I’m goddamned proud you’re my kid. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I snotted.
“You had to be tough because Mom wasn’t here. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for all that’s been wrong.”
“Don’t.” I coughed.
“Listen, you need to hear this. When you were little and it was just the two of us, I never made a big deal about every little bump and splinter. If you fell down and wanted to cry, I just picked you up and stood you on your feet. You’ve never stayed down a minute for anything since. Do you hear that? That’s you, not me. You’re a good boy, Jake. Always have been. That’s what Sara sees now. A tough, goodhearted kid, and she loves you for it. So does your old man. I couldn’t be any prouder of you. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I sniffed.
“Life’s a raw deal sometimes, I know. But you tough it out like I know you can.”
I wanted to tough it out. Really, I did. But I hated everything in the world right then except for my good old man. He was the best guy there ever was. I loved him so much.
“As for Sara,” he went on. “Everything’s in the open now. You can say to hell with it and look the other way if you want. You didn’t make this mess and it’s not your problem. I didn’t know it would be this hard. If having her here is too much, I’ll figure out—”
“No,” I said.
“It’s your choice. But listen to me.” He gave me a shake. “Understand that you can’t string this girl along. You’re older and bigger than her, got your act together and a good head on your shoulders, so she looks up to you. Probably ten feet tall in her eyes, and that’s fine. She’s a kid, let her have that much. But if you don’t want the difficult side of her, you need to make up your mind soon, before she gets any more attached.”
“I want her here,” I said.
“Take a little time.”
“I don’t need it.”
“You know Kate’s the only one who’s ever stuck by her indefinitely. I believe that’s what she wants more than anything. She doesn’t intend to be difficult.”
“I’ll stick by her,” I told him.
“I give no guarantees,” he said. “I’d like to say it will all blow over soon and she’ll be fine. But we can’t just wind her up and let her go and expect everything to be perfect.”
“I know. But we can’t send her away.”
“No. No, we can’t. She’s been thrown away quite enough. And I admit, in no way is this fair, for anyone. For all we know she could be here today and gone to—”
“I can handle it,” I said.
“I know you can.” He slapped my back. “That’s what I like to hear.”
“I’ll stick by her, Dad.”
“I know you will.”
20
I remember being on the couch, cold until my old man covered me with a sleeping bag, and I remember seeing him there stretched out in his recliner, resting his eyes, feeling my own eyes burning with fatigue, glad to have him there, good to feel his presence, hoping that Sara was all right upstairs, and then the room fading out after warming under the sleeping bag and the strange continued awareness of everything in a shallow sleep where all is numbed but never fully leaves.
“Wake up,” a small voice repeated. “Please, wake up.”
The voice came to me from far away, moving in closer, and I felt a pressure pushing on me, moving me. I came back to the feeling of cool hands on me and light breath on my ear.
“Jake.” She shook me.
“What?”
“I can’t sleep without you.”
“It’s okay,” I mumbled. My eyes were opening, and through the glossy blur I saw her shadowed shape standing over me.
“Please come with me.” She pulled at my hand.
I breathed and sat up, aided by her light pulling. The living room was dark. Dad’s recliner was empty.
“Come upstairs,” Sara said, pulling again.
I got to my feet, wobbly, bone tired and wrung weak. She led me, and all I could do was follow. She pulled me to the stairs, where I had to lift my feet with careful effort at each step, then through the short hallway and around through the doorway into my room. At my bed she held back the covers so I could sink down, and then she helped pull my bulky sweatshirt over my head. I slumped over and then she was in close beside me, pulling the covers all the way over so it went very dark and instantly warmer. I felt her inching closer, felt her breathing in the dark, the rise, the fall, and the warm tickle of her breath on my neck. My eyes closed.
“Are you okay?” her voice came hushed under the covers from no distance.
“Yeah,” I said with no energy.
“I’m really sorry. For everything.”
“Don’t be.” My eyes opened for just a moment. I saw hers open and fixed on me from inches away, the only hint of light in the blackness.
“I am,” she said. “I feel terrible.”
“Don’t.”
“I hate to upset you.”
“It’s okay.” My eyes were closing again.
“I hate myself for it.”
“Don’t.”
“But I’ll be better now. I promise I will. I won’t upset you anymore, I swear it. Watch, you’ll see.”
“Good.”
“I just love you is all. It’s hard to be away from you now. Like I don’t feel right. Does that make any sense?”
“Sara.” I reopened my eyes.
“I’m selfish, I know.”
“Stop.”
“I’ll keep quiet now. You go to sleep.”
My eyes closed again. I felt myself fading.
“I just love how it feels when we’re together,” she started again. “I wish it could be that way all the time. You’d get tired of me, I know. But I wouldn’t ever get tired of you. Once I really love someone, I just love them, like, forever. You know?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll be quiet. I know you need sleep. Everything’s better now.”
I began fading out, and was nearly gone.
“Jake?”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, I was just checking. I know I’m a chatterbox. I’m in a good mood now so I feel like talking. Can I talk while you rest? Or am I driving you crazy?”
“It’s ‘kay.”
“It’s easier for me this way, when you can’t see me. I’m not afraid of how you’ll look at me like I’m crazy.”
“Not crazy,” I mumbled.
“I’m sorry, Jake. You need sleep. I’ll go to sleep soon. Now that you’re here I should sleep.”
“Yeah.”
“Hush, love. Sleep now
. Feel better. I know you work hard, and I know I’ve been a pain. But I’ll be better now. I’ll try my very best. You’ll see.”
I breathed in deeply, slowly, and I might have been gone. But then I heard her voice again from very far away.
“I just love you is all and I don’t wanna hide it. I hide too much. But I can’t with you. That’s your fault. No, not really. Only a little. You couldn’t help caring. That part’s your fault. You’re older than me, so you should know better. You wouldn’t have to worry if you were different. You’d just be happy. I’d be the same and you wouldn’t even know. You’d be better off that way. I’m sorry for that. But it is your fault, though.”
“ ‘Kay.”
“Did you know you gave me butterflies when I first saw you?”
“No.”
“You did, in the kitchen. Bet you never guessed that, huh? But you did. I was scared to death. I knew you were on the porch that day, but I couldn’t see you. I was so excited to meet you that I hounded Mom to help me make a cake so we could have an excuse to come over. Mom kept saying, ‘Don’t wear them out the first day.’ But I had to see you. Then I did. And you were just like your dad but my age. And I saw you looking at me. You thought I was weird. I could tell, and it scared me how much I liked you. You were so much like your dad, I just loved it. But when you looked at me, it scared me so much. I thought you’d guess everything about me. I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to like me just like I was normal, that’s all.”
“Hm.”
“Oh, if I looked like Mom, you’d like me. Men always notice her. She’s so beautiful. You must think so. Everyone does. Men act like they love her when really they don’t. They’re bad to her though, Jake. They’re just bad. All of them.”
“I take it back,” she said in the next breath. “I didn’t mean that. Your dad’s been so good to her. He’s the first I’ve ever seen. I adore him just for that. No one was ever that kind and respectful to her, except him. I knew right away, when I met him, he wasn’t after anything. Did I tell you about that day when I met him?”
“No.”
“Oh, he walked into that diner and he looked so big and tough standing there, I didn’t know what to think at first. It’s his jaw that makes him look that way. And when he smiles, it’s faint. But then you look up at his eyes and you can see how he really is. Happy but almost sad-looking. And then you hear his voice. I just listened to him and it was so strong. But he uses it so nicely. The way he spoke to me absolutely melted me. He introduced himself so politely, but without talking down to me. He even asked permission to sit at the table with us, when it was a planned meeting. I could tell that he had no other intentions but to be nice to us, and I just loved him instantly and knew everything would be all right. And then, when the time came, he helped us move everything. He helped us when he barely knew us and wanted nothing in return. He didn’t talk about himself. He talked about us, and you, and I could barely believe it was real. I’d never met a man like that before, Jake. And then there was you sitting there. So much like him. Perfect. That’s what you are. You’re perfect to me.”
“No,” I tried to say. I must only have made a breathing sound.
“God, you scared me,” she went on, unfazed. “When I saw you, I had butterflies just thinking about you after. I went in my room and put my face in my pillow and almost cried. But I wanted more. The way it made me feel, I had to see you more. I had to talk to you. And the way you talk. You don’t even know, do you?”
“Huh?”
“You’re so much like him. You use your voice so nicely when you speak to me, just like he does. I notice it all the time. Not baby talk, but not regular talk either. It’s like I’m someone special and get my very own personal language.”
I shook very lightly from very weak laughter.
“Don’t make fun. That’s what it’s like.”
“Cuz you make me nervous,” I mumbled.
“Shut up. You’re not scared of anything. You held my hand when I was so nervous that night, and you weren’t scared of anything. I could tell your hand was strong but you were using it nicely for me. It felt warm and so nice and it was just, oh my God, even better than I’d thought it would be. Nothing like middle-school boyfriends. I wasn’t scared of anything anymore. I’m crazy, I know, but I mean it, honestly. Right then I wasn’t scared of anything in the world.”
“Hm,” I breathed.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Jake. You should’ve known better.”
“Why?”
“You’ll never get rid of me now.”
“All right.”
“Okay, hush. I’ll be quiet now.”
I laughed again.
“I really mean it this time.” She yawned. “I think I’ve talked myself sleepy.”
21
In the morning I was alone in my bed. I sat up looking around, rubbing my eyes. The house was silent. Once my eyes adjusted, the room seemed too bright. I checked the alarm. It read after nine. In a rush I got on a shirt and some shorts and hurried down the stairs. Through the kitchen window I saw the empty driveway. My old man had gone without me.
Then Sara crossed my mind. Everything from the night before closed in around me. I sat down at the kitchen table. With my routine broken, I was left nothing but thoughts. One after another they swam through my head, and I sat there half dazed, trying to look beyond them. It was bad to have things happening while I slept, to wake up and feel left out. A good row and some breakfast would normally fix me up, but at the moment my stomach was unsettled, and although I’d finally slept some, my body felt weighted and unrested. I could barely sit up straight. It wasn’t like my old man to go without me. I wondered when Sara had gone. I wondered what she was doing now.
I got up and went outside and walked over by the shop. From its corner I looked around the lilacs. Kate’s car was gone. I started over, walking on the soft pine needles to my grandfather’s camp like a thousand times before, but this time I stopped at the door, feeling strange. I knocked on the door, feeling stranger, standing there waiting. I heard movement inside. The curtain over the small window moved. Then I heard the door lock unbolting just before the door flew open.
“Jake!” Sara exploded from the doorway like an animal freed from a cage. She nearly knocked me over.
“Hey,” I said, balancing myself as she stood back a step into the doorway.
“What a surprise! I thought you went to work with Dad.”
“No,” I said, pausing over the “Dad” comment. “I just woke up. He left without me. Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah, I woke up when I heard him this morning. You were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to bother you; it was adorable.” She smiled big, fidgeting all over.
“And?”
“Oh, and I went downstairs and said good morning and he said good morning and he let me give him a quick hug and then he said I’d better get home before my mom got worried. I assumed he’d wake you up in time for work. Then I heard his truck when he left a while later. By then Mom was up. She left a while after and, yeah, here you are now.” She raised and dropped her arms.
“Oh,” I got in during a brief pause.
“Wait, wait. Ah! Does this mean we can spend the day together?”
I opened my mouth.
“Can we, please?”
“I guess,” I got out. I had no plan, no bearings.
“Yay!” She hopped and clapped her hands. “What a nice surprise.”
I stood there looking at her, wondering how this could this be the same girl. But in a matter of a few blinks I felt some of the heaviness lifting off. I laughed very lightly and took a deep breath, and my head started to clear.
“Did you eat yet?” she asked. “I can make you breakfast. I’m a good cook. Do you want breakfast?”
“I’m not sure.” I rubbed my stomach.
“You don’t feel well?”
“Not so hot, no.”
“Aw, poor thing. Come in. Do you nee
d a drink? We have soda.”
“I’m okay for now,” I said, passing in while she closed the door behind me. She left the lock unbolted.
The little camp looked strangely overtaken by their belongings. There was a small two-seater couch just left of the doorway, flower-patterned, and a matching chair across from a TV on a stand. To the right, in the small kitchen we’d redone from the old appliances, I saw a table against the wall with two chairs pushed in. Standing in the small living area, straight ahead behind the TV, was the partition to the bathroom and little bedrooms. There were decorations, I noticed, and colors and all sorts of odds and ends scattered around that made the old camp look brighter. Although it was odd for me to see, I commented that it looked good.
“Thanks. We love to decorate.”
“Who did this?” I asked, walking up to a drawing hung in a frame.
“The wonderful artist Sara made that. Do you like it?”
“Yes,” I said, studying it further. It was patterns, blocks, and colors. The longer I stared at it the more details I saw. The name “Kate” was hidden within the patterns.
“I love to draw. Have I told you that yet?”
“Not till now.”
“Well, I do,” she glowed. “I draw, I paint and all sorts of things.”
“You’re good at it by the looks.”
“Really?”
“A heck of a lot better than me.”
“Thanks. I can show you more if you wanna see.”
She hopped off around the corner, and I followed her into the cramped bedroom. What caught my attention first was a row of at least a dozen stuffed animals lined up on the bed with their backs resting against the wall—all their funny-looking, happy-looking faces staring back at me. At first it made me wonder whether or not she used the old stuffed-animals-under-the-covers trick on nights when she left. For a second I wondered if this was the same bed, but I was able to check the thought, aided by her bright mood and excited chatter in her brightly crowded little room. Again, like the living area, everything was colorful—the bed, the curtains, the pictures, the bikini draped over the doorknob, the bras and underwear spilling out of the hamper in the corner. I took it all in, responding positively to her comments, while in the back of my mind wondering what my poor old grandfather would say about his fishing camp being transformed into Barbie’s lakeside retreat.
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