Eight Minutes

by Reisenbichler, Lori

  “Huh.” Eric turns away from me. “Want some more juice, Tobe?”

  Toby holds out his sippy cup. Twisting off the top, Eric lowers his voice. “Could we talk about this later?”

  This is code for “Shut up in front of Toby.” A flash of indignation tempts me, but I hold my tongue. We’ve always agreed that we won’t fight in front of him.

  After Toby goes to bed, I’m dying to get back to my computer, but I don’t want to set Eric off, so I watch a basketball game with him in near silence.

  After he goes to bed, I have to check. No answer from the Air Force. I send another e-mail to the guy with the list, and this time, I get an instant automated reply. His kids are keeping the website up in order to honor their dad’s work, but there will be no future updates. He passed away last month. I was just getting to know him.

  What am I supposed to do now? Sit around and wait? Maybe I can work the broader angle. I may have to find all the John Robbersons out there and weed out the ones who didn’t fly a plane. It’s the long way around, but at least I know where to start. I don’t have enough details to use the more popular genealogy sites, and I’m working toward a search that’s specific enough to give me any meaningful results. The best I can do still returns more than three hundred thousand possibilities. I get comfortable in my chair and start to narrow down my search, trying to reduce the entries for John Robertsons and Robersons and Robinsons. Click. Scroll. Scroll. Click. Click. Hours.

  At the end of a pretzel of click-throughs, I find myself on a poorly constructed genealogy blog with several Robbersons. My eyes burning from the strain, I somehow get to an entry from a city council meeting in Branson, Missouri, dated five years ago. John Robberson, the fire chief of Branson, announced he was sponsoring a potluck dinner at his home to raise money for volunteer firemen. It noted in the record that his wife, Kay, would be serving her famous icebox pie.

  A shiver starts in my jaw, and I duck my chin as it spreads up the back of my head and loops around my ears, into my shoulders, and down my arms. I rotate my shoulders in their sockets, lean forward, and search the obituaries for Branson, Missouri.

  There it is.

  John Robberson. Survived by his wife, Kay. Preceded in death by his son, John Jr. Air Force Vietnam vet, fighter pilot with a Purple Heart, and the beloved fire chief of Branson, Missouri. Died on March 16, 2010.

  Toby was born on March 16, 2010.

  CHAPTER TEN

  *

  NOW YOU KNOW

  I don’t wake Eric up to tell him. He leaves for work before I get out of the shower, so I don’t get a chance to tell him. I don’t even know if he realized what time I finally slinked into bed. I hope he didn’t smell the bourbon on my breath, because that’s the only way I could dull my senses enough to sleep. I hope he didn’t peek into the office before he left, because I’m sure all those notes I scribbled look like the mind map of a bipolar on an upswing. Good thing I didn’t have colored yarn and thumbtacks at my disposal.

  Who am I kidding? I wasn’t ready to tell him. To fight about it. I just wanted to tell someone who would understand.

  I practically run to the park today. It all comes out in a jumble, but Lakshmi gets it. She isn’t even surprised. She acts like it was just a matter of time before I had the proof in hand. “Now you know,” she keeps saying. Now you know. That alone makes me feel more grounded.

  “John Robberson is real.” I can’t stop saying it. Not because I can’t believe it. Because I’m so damn proud of myself for finding it. Because I was right. Because it wasn’t all in my head.

  “Now you know,” she repeats.

  “But there’s still so much I don’t know,” I say. “If he didn’t die in a plane crash, what’s the point of the airplane game?”

  “It’s fun.” Lakshmi says, matter-of-factly.

  “That’s what Eric would say,” I laugh.

  “No. I’m not being dismissive. Fun serves a purpose. To increase empathy,” Lakshmi says. “Maybe the airplane game is just a way to get Toby to let his guard down.”

  Suddenly, I have a metallic taste in my mouth. “And then what?”

  Lakshmi adds, quickly, “If Toby is John Robberson’s reincarnation, maybe all he wants is for you to acknowledge him. Maybe it’s nothing.”

  “Now you really sound like Eric.”

  “When are you going to tell him?”

  “Not yet. I know what he’ll say, and I have no answer for any of his objections.” I lean in. “But I know what I need to do. I have a plan.”

  It came to me last night. Eric puts no stock in case studies involving people he doesn’t know. I have to use Dr. Stevenson’s approach and collect objective data on Toby. Firsthand. It’s the only way to know if Toby is just responding to my cues (humoring me, as Eric would put it), or if he’s responding to John Robberson’s spirit. If we can rule out reincarnation, that means we’ve got some kind of ghost or spirit on our hands. Totally different problems. Anyone can see that.

  So, starting today, I am doing the most counterintuitive thing I can imagine. I’m backing off. I will no longer bring up the subject of John Robberson. At all. I won’t mention Kay. I won’t ask any more questions of Toby so I can be sure I’m not contaminating the process. If he makes a comment, I will make a note of it. I’m now an observer. It’s the only way I can be sure. Lakshmi agrees.

  It feels good, like I’m reclaiming some distant part of myself. My old self. Even Eric would appreciate my new approach. I’ll tell him about it at some point. Not yet.

  Down in my gut, I know John Robberson is not good for Toby. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it yet. My gut is also telling me Kay is at the center of this, but the clouds are going to have to crack open with a message from beyond before I’m going to let my kid anywhere near her.

  Now I know.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  *

  TOXIC

  Lakshmi’s in-laws are in town, so I don’t take Toby to the park. He’s watching his favorite movie, Cars, for the third time this week while I’m at the computer. Again. I’m grinding through books and articles and journals and blogs like a wood chipper. If Toby’s a reincarnation, I can learn to accept it, as long as I can convince myself he’s not in danger. I decide I have to let it be true in my mind, if just for the afternoon.

  One surefire way to confirm that Toby is John Robberson’s reincarnation is to do a past-life regression. I don’t have to look long to find a multitude of hypnotherapists, all within a half-hour drive, who offer this service. Before I can even start to consider which one to use, the thought of subjecting Toby to deep hypnosis stops me cold. I conjure up the image of my sweet little curly-headed boy lying on some stranger’s couch, looking over at me with his puppy-dog eyes, the way he used to when he had to get his shots at the pediatrician’s office. That trusting gaze squeezes my heart like a sponge.

  I can’t do it. Not until I’m sure it’s absolutely necessary. Why would I risk triggering a bunch of traumatic memories that don’t even really belong to him? No, thank you.

  I have to be patient.

  As soon as Eric comes home, I turn off that part of myself and make small talk. Sometimes I wonder if he even notices that I’m talking about absolutely nothing. Or worse, if he’s relieved.

  Toby chatters away at the dinner table, oblivious. He’s talking about Mater, the goofy best friend in the Cars movie.

  Eric says, “That Mater, he’s a funny truck, isn’t he, bud? How come you’re so interested in him all of a sudden?”

  “I saw that movie today,” Toby says.

  “Didn’t you see that movie yesterday?”

  I say, “It was really crowded at the park. We decided to stay home.”

  “Did you watch the movie yesterday, too?”

  Toby nods and holds up three fingers. “Fwee times.”

  “You watched the movie three times yesterday?”

  “No,” I say, “he only saw it once.”

  “Fwee days,” says
Toby, using his fingers again.

  “I see,” says Eric.

  When dinner is over, Eric does the dishes and I slide away to the computer, idly reviewing the web pages I visited earlier that day. But I can’t focus on any of them. It feels like I’m sitting in the principal’s office, waiting for my punishment. When I hear footsteps coming toward the office, I turn in my seat, feeling like I’ve been caught in a lie.

  “What?” I say, unable to dull the sharp edge in my voice.

  “You know what.”

  We look at each other evenly, neither of us breaking eye contact. He speaks first. “You put our kid in front of the television three afternoons this week? You, the Queen of Structured Activity? Little Miss Outdoors? Don’t you have a rule: one movie a week?”

  He’s got me on this one. I don’t know if I’m mad at him or mad at myself.

  “I’ve been busy this week, and okay, I let him watch his favorite movie three times. It was hot outside. Sanjay wasn’t there. It won’t kill him.” My voice sounds hollow, even to me.

  “I don’t care how many movies he watches. That’s not the point. It’s your rule! If I did that, you’d kill me. I would never hear the end of it! And what are you so busy doing? Because it’s evidently not the housework,” he says, kicking a pile of toys and dirty clothes that I shoved into a corner two days ago.

  What the hell? I’m so mad, I have a metallic taste in my mouth. Thanks to many hours of therapy with Anna, I’ve learned to recognize this as my cue to not open my mouth and let loose. The real Eric, the one I married, barely notices whether the laundry is done. This kind of complaint, in contrast, is one of those brain farts I used to sneak away and report to his doctors. I will not take the bait. I call for a break, go to the kitchen, and drink a tall glass of iced tea in one gulp.

  When I come back, hoping he’s had time to cool off enough to have a normal disagreement, I say, “What’s this really about?”

  “Your little secret. Whatever you’re keeping from me. I can only imagine what you’re saying to Toby all day. You can’t drag him through all this New Age mumbo jumbo. You’re interested in it, fine, whatever. But don’t try to turn him into some Dalai Lama doppelgänger just because you’re bored.”

  There. He said it.

  My theory is that every couple has one toxic word, and every time it’s spoken, it pollutes the marriage. It turns into a code word that means every little thing you do wrong is proof of a chronic character flaw. Eric just said that word: “bored.”

  I don’t let him get away with that one.

  “Bored?” I hiss.

  “Call it whatever you want.”

  “I call it pursuing my interests … with determination and purpose! I call it the very trait we have in common!” I fight off the urge to cram the dirty clothes in the hamper and start straightening the clutter on a dresser instead.

  He rolls his eyes. “Really. You’re calling it work ethic?”

  “I call it having the right to do what I want after I pay the bills and buy groceries and cook dinner every night. And when I cook, I don’t make a stupid casserole with cream of mushroom soup; I’m talking about a fresh, nutritionally balanced meal seven freaking days a week, week after week, because I care about our family and I care about what I do, and you have no idea what I have to get done in a day or how much energy it takes to raise another human being and make sure we have the kind of life we both want!”

  I throw a handful of loose change into a jar and turn on him, fists clenched at my sides. “So don’t you dare look sideways at a pile of your own dirty clothes and tell me I’m bored if I decide to spend my time on an activity more intellectually challenging than picking up your sweaty running shorts.”

  He walks over to the pile of laundry and pulls my bra out. “Does this look like a pair of my sweaty running shorts?” He reaches down, grabs the entire pile, and throws it in the air. The smell is as sour and stale as his voice. “Don’t make this about me. Have I ever asked you to do half the stuff you choose to do? If you want to cook everything from scratch, why does that make me your oppressor? If you don’t want to stay home, don’t! If you want to go back to work, go back to work! But if you stay home, and you want to keep making up a shitload of rules about how Toby can’t watch TV, then you can’t get pissed if I notice that you’re not even living by your own rules. Jeez! That’s all I’m saying!”

  “That’s not all you’re saying.” I bend to pick up the dirty T-shirt nearest me. “At least have the balls to go ahead and say it.”

  “Fine,” he hisses, as he picks up a pair of jeans and throws them back in the corner. He takes a deep breath, and his voice is almost back to normal. “Look. I know this John Robberson thing freaks you out. I don’t get it, but it doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel compelled to fill in the blanks. But you do. And you can’t explain why.”

  With my back to him, I mutter under my breath, “Because I care about our son.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Thank you for that.” He stops moving. “I am so fucking clear on that point, you don’t need to keep throwing it in my face. Got it. You care about our son.” His voice is low and even. “And you don’t give a rat’s ass what I think about anything having to do with him. Got it.”

  “Because you won’t even entertain the idea that something is going on with John Robberson that you don’t understand.”

  “I don’t feel the need to understand it because I don’t feel threatened by it.”

  “Well, I do. Need to understand it,” I add.

  “Look at you, Shel. You’re already not acting like yourself. You’re freaking Toby out and you don’t even notice. You’re freaking me out and you don’t even care. Get a grip on this.”

  John Robberson is real, I want to scream at him. I’ve got a good reason to freak out. But I don’t say anything. This is not the time. I could produce John Robberson in the flesh right now, and Eric would still deny his existence. I have to play the long game. I stomp into the bathroom and brush my teeth until my gums bleed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  *

  DO CAVEMEN GET REINCARNATED?

  On Saturday night, Eric and I go to a party with some of our friends from the old days, most of whom are still single and a few of whom are married but don’t have kids yet. Toby is thrilled for a night with the babysitter. I wear a vintage dress with a big skirt. After our argument, things have been tense between us. It’s important that we go out and remember who we are.

  We head to downtown Phoenix, where our friend Ian lives. It looks dirty and unfriendly. I realize I probably haven’t left Oasis Verde for months. We pull up to Ian’s new loft and park in a lot that requires a security code.

  “What do you think the crime rate is here?”

  “He says his next-door neighbor is a policeman.”

  “Well, I guess that helps. Where would Toby play? He has no grass at all.”

  “Ian doesn’t have kids, remember?” I appreciate his tone of voice. I can tell he’s trying. He squeezes me close in a hug as we walk to the door. I press my cheek to his chest, glad to be out with him again, acting like an adult. He’s wearing a cool retro-style plaid shirt and khakis and smells good, like sandalwood soap. He even trimmed his mustache, and it’s not so bad. For a mustache.

  He grew that damn mustache after his accident. At first, he didn’t shave at all, and when I finally refused to let his scraggly face near mine for a kiss, he started to shave experimentally. He tried a goatee at first, but I couldn’t help snickering at it. I convinced him it was the mullet of the new millennium, one of those trends all those shaved-head guys were going to look back on and regret. So he turned it into a soul patch but said he felt like he was trying too hard. Hipster central. He wanted to be different. Nobody has a mustache anymore, he said, as he shaved off the little tuft under his lip. At that point, I was thankful he’d already shaved off his sideburns, because nobody has pork chops anymore, either.

  He talks to it. It’s funny; he looks in t
he bathroom mirror and says things like, “There you go, sport,” like it’s his long-lost friend. I have to admit, it’s a great coppery shade of blonde. The mustache is like Thud—not my idea, but I’m getting used to it.

  We knock on Ian’s industrial steel door, which has three small, square windows aligned down one side. His doorknob is square and placed lower than a normal doorknob, to line up with the windows. Eric motions to the doorknob and says, “That’s Ian for you.”

  As soon as we follow Ian inside, I realize the door is not the only detail that he’s meticulously designed.

  “Your loft is great.”

  It smells like clean, fresh linen. Exposed brick walls, a stainless-steel kitchen with an industrial worktable built into one side, and twenty-four-foot ceilings with exposed air conditioning ducts—black, so it’s there, but not in your face. Ian is an architect. He even designed the coffee table and bar stools himself. There’s one dividing wall, painted a brilliant shade of cerulean—not too blue, not too green, but perfect as an accent. Tucked away on the other side of the cerulean wall is Ian’s sparse, minimalist bedroom. On one side of the brick wall in the bedroom space, I see enormous photographs, some thirty-six inches wide, mounted on foam core, comprising an entire galley of saturated close-ups of plants and body parts and metal toys and vintage detective-book covers.

  “Taking up photography?” Eric asks.

  “No, that’s Mamie’s work.”

  Mamie is Ian’s girlfriend. He won’t let her move in with him. He tells everyone that she thinks he’s too much of a slob, but I don’t buy it. Sure looks like everything is in its place. Including Mamie. On display, but could be removed without having to repaint the wall.