All Things Different

  I dropped the ax and slumped down, trying to catch my breath. I was soaking wet and dirty from head to toe. My face was hot and my throat on fire. I looked at the downed tree and felt no better nor any more in control for having killed it. I was only tired and more sorry.

  37

  I found Sara sleeping just as I’d left her. I watched her for a moment before going upstairs for a shower and dry clothes. The old man was still in his room with the door closed. After the shower I sat down on the couch at her feet and read while she slept. I read the rest of The Last Good Country and started on Big Two-Hearted River. Thankfully the trick was working. I was well into the story, faintly enjoying it, when Sara started stirring beside me. I looked up from the book and watched her. She was breathing faster and her face was scrunching up. She needed to be taken away from whatever it was, although I hated the idea of taking her out of one nightmare directly into another.

  I woke her and she jumped sharply. Then she breathed deep and slowly. Her eyes blinked and she turned her head to find me. “Is it real?”

  I told her yes and there was a long silence. She pulled the blanket over her head. I told her we needed to talk, and began explaining everything as best as I could. She said nothing under the blanket and made only small sounds in reaction to certain points, like reactions to various jabs of differing velocity. I told her it would be all right, that the old man was getting a lawyer if she wanted to stay with us. I told her Dad would take care of it. Not to worry and not to think about it. Dad always took care of everything. I made it through without losing my cool, but the whole time I felt sick. Sara stayed under the blanket.

  I woke from a nap when I heard the kitchen door close. I was awkwardly on my side on the couch with my legs dangling over the edge. I looked over and saw my old man in the doorway. Sara moved too. I couldn’t see her face, but I could tell she was awake and looking at my old man.

  “Hey,” he said softly. He was holding grocery bags.

  “Hey,” Sara said weakly.

  “Everyone needs to eat.”

  I moved after Sara moved and sat up on the couch. We looked at each other but said nothing. It was like we’d agreed there was nothing left worth saying anymore. We got up and I followed her to the kitchen. I sat down at the table, and she continued over to Dad. He was taking groceries from the shopping bags when Sara reached up and out and laid her face in his shirt. He stopped what he was doing, turned a little, and closed his big arms around her carefully. Her feet came off the ground as he straightened and she held on tight around his neck in a bear hug. She was trying to speak with her face in his shirt. Watching them felt like intruding on someone else’s life.

  “Lawyer’s on it,” he told her. “We want you here with us for as long as you want to be here.”

  “I want to,” she said faintly, her voice muffled against him. “I wanna stay with you.”

  “Easy, now,” my old man said. “We’ll take care of it all. Don’t think about it. Why don’t you keep Jake company while I make us some soup.”

  “I can’t eat.”

  “Easy does it, sweetie.”

  “I can’t,” she choked. “I can’t.”

  “Easy,” he said again. “I know it hurts, but it’s time to be strong.”

  “I can’t, I can’t.”

  “You can.” He breathed. “You are.”

  “I’m so scared.”

  “No, you’re a toughie,” he told her. “Pound for pound you’re stronger than me any day.”

  “No.”

  “C’mon now. You’re tough and you’re brave and you can get through this. No giving up. That’s how we handle things around here. No giving up. Are you with me?”

  “I’m with you,” she said weakly.

  “That’s right.” He patted her back with his big hand. “No giving up.”

  “No giving up,” she copied.

  He set her down and turned her toward the table. “Why don’t you sit with Jake for a while.”

  “Let me help,” she said, stiffening her legs, as if she could actually stop him from moving her. “I wanna help.”

  My old man let her spin out of his grip and he stood back against the counter. She was shaky, red-faced, and unbalanced on her feet as she moved. Her hair was a mess and she sniffed and breathed with effort while she opened the three cans of chicken soup, working hard to keep her hands steady as she emptied the cans into the pot and then, one by one, added the water. I figured that was about the only thing in the world she could control at that point.

  “You’re quite the helper,” my old man told her. “That’s why you get along with Jake so well.”

  “I like to cook.”

  “And quite a trooper.”

  “I always cooked with Mom.”

  Dad took a big spoon from a drawer and began stirring the soup. Sara relinquished the spot by the stove, came over and slumped down at my side with her head on my shoulder. I don’t think she had the energy to stand any longer, or even sit up straight. I watched my old man, feeling Sara’s small weight propped against me. He was struggling like hell for both of our sakes. None of us said anything more until the soup was steaming before us on the table.

  “Thank you,” Sara said quietly.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Dad nodded and stirred his soup. “I had help.”

  After a few bites Sara spoke again. “I have to know something.”

  My old man stopped eating, listening without lifting his eyes.

  “You’re sure it was an accident?”

  “Yes,” he said before she’d finished asking. “A terrible accident. She never meant to leave you. That bottle wasn’t empty. That’s a fact. She was only trying to feel better and made a mistake.”

  I watched my old man. I couldn’t see into his eyes. He was no BS artist, and I really wanted to think that it was all just an accident, but I didn’t know. I sure couldn’t ask.

  38

  It’s hard to say if we actually slept that night. Sometimes it felt like I was waking from being gone, other times more like a lack of movement and energy and only a dulling of consciousness. And there were so many thoughts spinning and so many fears. Whether it was sleep or a dream, all I knew for sure was that Sara was beside me, quietly awake through most of the night.

  My old man was home from work again come morning. He had his coffee at the table when I went downstairs. Looking at him, I doubted he’d slept much, if any. I’m sure I looked about the same.

  “Obviously no school,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did either of you sleep?”

  “Off and on.” I was pouring coffee. Then I sat at the table with him. We drank our coffee and said very little.

  It was a while before Sara came down. By then Dad was in his room making more calls and I’d been flipping around aimlessly through the channels. She would barely speak that morning. I tried to get her to eat and she refused. All she would do was sit by me on the couch and stare, cried-out and lingering in prolonged shock.

  An hour or so went by before Dad reappeared from his room. He came into the living room and stood with his hands in his pockets.

  “What?” I said.

  “There’s hope,” he began, though not enthusiastically. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for the next day, Thursday. The lawyer believed that where Sara was comfortable with us, she would be left with us, at least temporarily until full custody could be secured. That was, unless we were contested as somehow unfit. Inspectors would pay us a visit at some point, check the condition of the house, and ensure that we weren’t serial killers or anything. School records were involved now, and both sides of her family were entering into the mix as the news spread. “It may get ugly,” my old man warned us. He was looking more at Sara than at me.

  “I don’t wanna go,” Sara said. “Why can’t they leave me alone?”

  “You’ll have your say before this thing is over,” Dad assured her.

  We got through that d
ay and had another tough night, and we watched more TV on Thursday while Dad attended the initial hearing with the lawyer. When he returned home after noon, he seemed down. There were a lot of questions and a lot of angles for the judge to consider, Sara’s best interests and well-being being the focal point, although from an outside, unknowing distance. Monday’s confrontation hadn’t helped anyone’s side as far as the state was concerned.

  “For now,” my old man explained difficultly, “you’ll probably have to go with them for temporary foster care.”

  “Oh, God,” Sara breathed. She started to rock with her head down. Her hands went up on either side of her head and her hair came down over her face.

  “It’s all right,” I told her, with Dad looking on. “It’ll be all right.” I said it but I did not really believe it myself. I hated even the idea of those words.

  “Hopefully it won’t be long,” Dad said. “A bump in the road.”

  “What about my mom?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve had a hard time getting any more information. It’s a mess. I just don’t know.”

  “It’s okay,” I said stupidly. Nothing was okay.

  “You should probably get some clothes and things together,” Dad told her. “A social worker could show up any time. Or not at all. Let’s prepare and hope for not at all.”

  “I don’t want to,” Sara cried.

  Dad kneeled down beside her. “I know you don’t.”

  “Can’t you stop them?”

  “I wish I could. Believe me, we don’t want you to go. But we have to make this miserable process go as smoothly as we can.”

  “I’m sorry I did this to you. I’m trouble everywhere I go.”

  “Don’t you be sorry for anything. Ever.”

  “I am. I’ve ruined everything for Mom, and now you guys too.”

  “Hey, you listen to me.” He sounded near angry but kept his tone low. “We love you, Sara. Don’t you ever apologize for anything to me again. Do you hear me?”

  Sara said nothing, but threw herself forward and hugged him hard.

  “You keep reminding yourself that you’re coming back here,” Dad said. “Keep reminding yourself so you don’t lose sight. We’ll be thinking of you and praying for you and doing everything we can to get you back here.”

  “Thank you so much,” she managed to say.

  “Don’t thank us,” he told her. “This is how a family is supposed to be.”

  “I love you too,” Sara said. “Why couldn’t you’ve been my dad?”

  My old man took a few deep breaths. “I don’t know, kid. I just don’t know. But right now you need to get some things together now. We’ll make it go as smoothly as possible.”

  After a while Sara calmed and released him and stood, like she’d drawn some resolve from him. She looked at me, asking me with her eyes to come with her. I got to my feet and followed her up the stairs.

  In the bedroom she went through some clothes and set what she wanted on the bed. I found an extra backpack and filled it while she filled her own bag. We both moved sluggishly, speaking as little as possible. I sat down on the bed while she was gathering items from the bathroom.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said upon returning. She put her soft little hand on my shoulder.

  “I know,” I said for her sake.

  “Dad’s right. He knows what he’s doing. We have to listen to him.”

  “Here,” I said, handing her the stuffed bear from behind me on the bed. “Don’t forget him.”

  She took him and looked at him thoughtfully, her pretty face puffy and drained. I didn’t bother to ask who had given him to her.

  39

  It was late Friday afternoon when they came for her. If you’re waiting for the state to fix a road, don’t hold your breath. But hope they’ll stay out of your business, and there they are. We were all in the living room and heard the cars. Dad got up and let them in. I felt Sara holding on to me while I saw two people enter the house. A town police officer accompanied a middle-aged woman wearing a nice pants suit. Dad and Sara acknowledged them. The woman seemed kind. She knelt down in front of Sara and spoke gently to her. The officer stayed near the door, quietly observing the pleasantries.

  After the first minute or so I don’t know what was said. I couldn’t hear over the growing noise of my own pulse thumping in my ears. I looked at the floor, sitting rigidly between Sara and couch arm, trying to control my breathing. My insides were racing and the room seemed to be spinning out of focus around me while I sat motionless, holding tight like on a merry-go-round.

  When Sara just begin to shift away from my side, when I felt the faintest change in pressure, I stood up fast and told them no, they couldn’t do this.

  “Jake,” came Dad’s stern voice over my pulse, the tone Sara never got.

  “No!” I said over him and rushed out of the living room. I felt him reaching, almost getting ahold of me, his hands brushing over me as I slipped by. Sara’s packed bags and stuffed bear were on the kitchen table. All I could think of then was getting to them and getting them away, back upstairs maybe. All I could see was a chance to hinder them. These were strangers doing a job for a paycheck, albeit a job they probably didn’t enjoy much in such cases. But they didn’t know her. They didn’t love her like we did, and in the confines of my reasoning, they didn’t deserve to have her.

  A mad second later I was struggling with my old man, trying to keep a tight hold on the backpacks and trying to fend him off. It didn’t feel like it was me—it was like watching someone else locked up together, pushing and struggling like a couple of linemen. He backed me to the far end of the kitchen until I pushed too hard and lost my socked feet from under me. I hit the floor hard. The room went by fast when I fell, and I saw them all individually but quickly as they went spinning by. I saw Sara standing by the woman, the officer, hat off now, his face hard, his hands at his belt packed with the tools of his trade. I felt my old man’s power holding me down in a heap as I struggled and pushed with everything I had, unable to move him. I was then aware of a stream of obscenities pouring out of me without any conscious effort propelling the words. Close by I saw Sara’s packed bags where they’d hit the kitchen floor in the scuffle. Mr. Bear had fallen out on his side. He lay on the floor before me, and I stared at his fuzzy smiling face through the gloss in my eyes.

  “Damn it, boy,” came Dad’s voice. The authority in it brought me back somewhat. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “They’re not taking her!” I shouted hoarsely.

  “Get it together,” he growled over me. “Right now.”

  I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t see anything clearly until Sara was kneeling right before me. I felt her hair tickling my face as it fell around me, then the warmth of her face against mine, the warmth of her breath, and the light touch of her hands.

  “You be good,” she said weakly, simply, sweetly. “You can’t do this, you know better. Don’t worry about me. Look, I’m all right. I can handle it.” She was crying and kissing over my cheek. “I have to go now. Don’t be upset. I’ll come back.”

  “No,” I choked. “Goddamn you all, no!”

  “I’ll come back,” she said again. “I love you so much. Please be good for me. I have to go now and you have to calm down. It’s only for a while. In no time I’ll be back.”

  Then her close warmth was gone and the tickle of her hair was gone. Through glazed eyes I saw movements, heard voices and footsteps and the door, and still I felt the weight of my old man holding me down, no matter how loud I screamed or how hard I fought.

  40

  The house seemed empty. It was amazing how one little person could fill a place. That night my bed felt oversized and I could not settle without her voice or even her light breathing close beside me. I could smell her on the sheets and the pillowcases, and I could picture her wherever she was now, lying alone in some strange bed, huddled under strange covers in a strange room, curled up tight the way she always d
id when she wanted to hide from everything.

  I slept in short bouts through the night, tossing, turning, trying not to think, and hoping not to dream, until finally I saw daylight beginning. I went down and had coffee with my old man. It settled bitterly in my twisting guts. We barely spoke. We barely looked at each other. To frost the cake, I had growing pains in my legs. I went to the couch, stretched out and buried my face where she’d last been. I could smell her there. There was a long strand of her hair caught in the fabric of the pillow where she’d laid her head to sleep. I looked at it from inches away.

  “I need to work,” my old man told me. “You’re welcome to come along.”

  “No thanks.”

  He stood a few moments where the kitchen met the living room. “Try not to dwell on it,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, with every intention of completely wallowing in it. My old man went out. I heard his truck start and he was gone for the day.

  At one point I went up to my room. I could no longer smell her on the couch, and I stood and breathed in the doorway. Faintly I detected her. In the closet I looked through her remaining clothes hanging on her side. I leaned forward with my face in her row of shirts, drew her scent into my head, and then stood back wondering how I’d ever let myself get so far out of control.

  She was a silly girl, anyway. She ate marshmallows at midnight, and half the time she didn’t even like the same things as me. Most days she was happy and childishly excitable about even the most trivial of things, like a living exclamation point, and some nights she was sad, some nights serious, most nights mellow, always kept me guessing, and sometimes kept me awake. She read unrealistic books and made me watch stupid movies, and she had the prettiest long hair I’d ever seen that was like cool silk to touch, and when pulled up, the exposed slender, white softness of her neck was too ticklish to be hardly breathed on. She always smelled sweet and I enjoyed just being in the same room as her, even when she made me feel like mush when she stared or smiled or acted like I was better than I actually was. I hated that she could sway me so simply, shift my priorities and draw my attention when all I wanted to do was spend time with my old man or watch a ball game or, heaven forbid, relax quietly. For God’s sake, I had to watch Dirty Dancing just because it was her mother’s favorite movie, and for a reward, she punched me for laughing. She got better grades than me and got her homework done quicker, bugged me to waste money on stupid clothes I didn’t want anyway, and after all the grief, I’d catch her wearing my Thornton T-shirts because they were loose, worn-soft, and comfy. I’d bought her that stupid pink Boston hat just because she loved the color pink like it was a person, yet she said I was the weird one because I didn’t have a favorite color. Favorite colored what? Anything. A truck? A snowmobile? A dirt bike? Anything!