by Susan Perabo
“Did it work?”
“Well enough,” she said. “To get through the night. And then, before long, there was you to worry about.”
“You worry about me too much,” he said.
“I know,” she said, and he was surprised. Who would have thought she knew? His mother, the open book of furrows and frowns. A funny thought occurred to him: maybe she didn’t want to come stumbling down those bleachers any more than he wanted her to.
Hester halted suddenly, nosed at the wing of a dead bird that lay in the street. The bird wasn’t mangled or gnawed, just still, as if sleeping. It reminded him of his father, how still he’d been at the station that afternoon, lifeless but for the flutter of his eyes, dead but for his dreams.
“Poor bird,” Laura said, nudging Hester away from it.
“Dad’s always going to be a fireman,” Paul said. “It’s who he is.”
She clicked her tongue. “People keep telling me that,” she sighed. “Since the day I moved to this town, people have said those exact words: oh, it’s who he is, you know, it’s who he is. But you know what, Paul? It’s not really who he is. At least it doesn’t have to be. When I met him, he didn’t have a thing to do with the fire department. He was going to be a businessman. Sounds funny now, doesn’t it, thinking of your father in a suit and tie? But that’s what I thought. What we thought, both of us. And then your grandfather died, and it was like the part of your father that could be something else died too. It’s who he is, everyone says, but I know better. Maybe I’m the only one who does, because I know he was something without that too, Paul, something just as strong and just as bright and just as brave. He could be all those things without . . . without scaring the life out of his own son . . . and everybody else.”
“After a while,” Paul said, looking at her, “you get kinda used to being scared. Never all the way used to it. But kinda.”
“That may be,” she said. “But I’ve gotten kinda used to him in his little booth at Exit 15, warm and safe. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
“But —”
“We do what we have to,” she said. “Someday you’ll understand that, honey. You make trade-offs. You do what you need to do so you can sleep nights, so you can have a life, so you can be safe.”
Safe. His mother was safe. But his father would never be safe again. There were too many things on his tail now, nipping madly at his heels. His parents had pretended for so many years that to look at the truth of who they were must have seemed impossible. But his father had done it, had seen the truth in the basement, had come face to face with the fact that he wasn’t the man he wanted to be, wasn’t the man everyone thought he was. And it had made him nuts, a raving lunatic. So who could blame him — anyone, really? — for not wanting to see the facts of a life, of a marriage, of a career, of anything? What fool would want to see the truth? What good was there in that? Better to stick with the tollbooth, two shiny quarters and a dull dime.
“I’m sorry about last week,” he said. “About runnin’ off. Is that why you can’t sleep now?”
“Oh, there are so many reasons why I can’t sleep. I’m not going to let you take all the credit for it. Just promise me you’ll come to me next time. When something scary happens.”
“I wasn’t scared,” Paul said.
“What were you then?”
“Lonely,” he said, before he had a chance to check his words.
“For Ian?” she asked, bewildered. “You were lonely for Ian?”
“Ian’s all right,” he said. “Ian . . .”
She stopped, looked at him curiously. “Ian’s what?”
“He’s . . . he’s all right. That’s all.”
“Next time,” she said, “will you come to me? Whatever it is you are, scared or lonely or sad. Will you come to me? Will you promise? I need a few things in life, honey, that I can count on. Can you understand that?”
“Dad’s home,” he said. He hadn’t thought to say it, but there it was, swirling in the steam from his mouth, hovering in the night. He was tired of keeping secrets. He just didn’t have the stomach for it anymore. And he, too, needed a few things in life that he could count on. His father was out. So, apparently, was Ian. What did he have left but his mother and full disclosure?
“Honey?”
“I saw him at the station this afternoon. He was sleeping. Phil said he’s been there a couple days.”
She gripped the leash tighter, as if steadying herself for a blow. “Is it me?” she asked. “Does he not want to see me?”
“He doesn’t want to see anybody.”
“Why?” she asked helplessly. “Do you know?”
They had reached the end of the block, made the turn to head back down Willow Lane. “It’s kinda a long story,” he said.
She nodded. “That much I guessed.”
Early the next morning Laura called the station and left a message for Sonny to join them that night for dinner at the house. Paul wasn’t at all sure his father would come; he had learned he could no longer predict anything about anyone with any respectable degree of accuracy, and this realization made his hands and feet tingle almost constantly, a symptom he expected might indicate adulthood and thus one that would, unfortunately, continue for the remainder of his life. His mother — typically mute regarding doubt, her midnight confession about the turnpike tollbooth notwithstanding — set three places at the dinner table and cooked up a wokful of chicken fried rice that was ready to serve at six-thirty. Then they sat in the living room, watching television and waiting.
At seven o’clock Sonny still hadn’t shown. At seven-thirty Laura scooped the rice into a Corning Ware bowl and put it in the refrigerator. At eight o’clock the doorbell rang. Paul hopped up and opened the door.
“Hey, quarterback.”
His father was carrying a loaf of French bread. He had on khakis and a blue wool sweater. His hair was brushed. He didn’t smell of cigarettes or beer. Paul took all these things as positive signs.
“Hey,” he said.
His father didn’t move to come in, as if he were selling religion or vacuum cleaners and didn’t want to spoil the sale by making inappropriate presumptions too soon.
“Am I too late?”
“No,” Laura said from over Paul’s shoulder. “You’re just in time. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“I got held up,” he said, stepping over the threshold. “I . . . there were some things going on at the station I had to deal with. Then I went by the Eagle for some bread and they didn’t have the right kind so —”
“It’s fine,” Laura said. She squeezed past Paul and they hugged there in the doorway quickly and carefully, like strangers. Maybe they were strangers, Paul thought. His father had been gone for six weeks — for four months, really, if you counted the time between the rescue and the trip to California, when his father had been absent in all but body.
Laura took the loaf of bread and went into the kitchen. Paul and Sonny sat down at the dinner table. A moment later the silence was broken by the whir of the microwave.
“I know I’m really late,” Sonny whispered to Paul, not meeting his eyes. “I don’t know what I . . .” Now he looked up and forced a smile. “You must be pretty hungry.”
“Not really,” Paul said. “I had a big lunch.”
“Yeah? What’d you have?”
“Hot dogs. Two hot dogs. And potato chips. And milk.”
“Hmmmm,” Sonny said, nodding thoughtfully, as if this were fascinating information. He glanced around the house nervously. What was he looking for? Paul wondered. Some sign that he didn’t belong? Or some sign that he did? He wanted to tell his father something, but it was something he didn’t have the words for. He wished he were older and smarter, wished he knew how to say the thing that was stuck in his chest.
“They done shootin’ the movie?” he asked instead.
“No,” Sonny said. “I left before they . . . I was, you know . . .” He gave up, went in ano
ther direction. “How’s school goin’?”
Paul shrugged. “All right, I guess. We’re reading A Yankee Drummer for English.”
“Yankee Drummer. I don’t think I know that one.”
“It’s about this kid in the Civil War. He’s a drummer boy and practically everybody he knows gets killed.”
“Sounds cheery.”
Laura appeared in the doorway with three plates, one in each hand and one balanced on her forearm. The plate she set in front of Sonny had a pile of rice on it about a foot high, more than Laura and Paul had combined. Sonny raised his eyebrows.
“A lot of chickens died for this.”
“Happy to do so, I’m sure,” Laura said cheerfully, sitting down opposite him. Then she looked up expectantly. It seemed to Paul that someone should say a prayer or make a toast, but no one said anything. Finally his mother said, “Well, let’s eat.”
Sonny took a bite. “Fantastic.”
“It’s good, Mom.”
“It is good,” she said. “It’s not half bad, is it?”
“Not even a quarter bad,” Sonny said.
“Not even a dime,” Paul added.
Silence fell again. The only sound was the tines of forks pinging against the china, and Paul felt things — things past and future, good things, possibilities — slipping away with each hushed moment. He had to do something, say something. Outside, one of the Labs started barking.
“How’re the dogs?” Sonny asked, at the same moment Laura said: “When did you get back?”
They both excused themselves. You go, no, you go, no, you go, no . . .
“Wednesday,” he said. “Wednesday night, I guess. It was late. I took a cab from Harrisburg.”
“That must have been expensive.”
“Well,” he said. “Like I said, it was late.”
“How’s work?”
He wiped his mouth carefully. “Oh, I’m not really working. I mean, I’ve done some things around the station, but I’m not on the clock or anything, haven’t been out on any calls.” He paused. “It’s warm,” he said.
Laura moved to get up. “Too warm? I can open a window.”
“No, no, no.” He held up his hand. “Here in town, I mean. Outside. It’s fine in here. Feels . . . fine.” He turned to Paul. “Somebody told me you were in a fight at school. That true?”
“Not really,” Paul said. “It was just me and Carson and Joe. But I busted my lip on the bulletin board.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, and . . .” Paul stole a glance at his mother. “And Ian fixed it up for me.”
“Ian did?” Sonny smiled wistfully, as if remembering a funny story about someone who had died badly. “You’ve seen him? Is he all right?”
“I’m not sure,” Paul said. “I kinda don’t think so.”
Sonny looked down at his food. After a moment he closed his eyes. He sat that way for thirty seconds, perfectly still. Perhaps, Paul thought, he was wishing himself to sleep, back into his dreams.
“Honey?” Laura said.
He opened his eyes, looked at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he said. “When I got in.”
Laura shook her head, bit the inside of her lip. “You’re here now. That’s the important thing.”
Sonny set down his fork. He looked at Paul for a long time, then turned to Laura.
“He tell you what happened?”
Laura put her hands in her lap. “He told me you were very sad,” she said simply. “And I said, well, maybe if he comes home and remembers what it’s like to have us around, maybe he won’t be so sad anymore.”
“In that basement,” he said, swallowing hard, “I lost it. I totally flipped out. My dad, you know, and everything . . . it all came down on me.”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“I was down there thinking I was gonna die. I was thinking —”
“Stop, Sonny. You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to tell you,” he said, making fists on the table. “Sometimes, honey, I just want to tell you things. I want to tell you how scary it is, how —”
“Paul,” Laura said. “Why don’t you excuse yourself?”
“No,” Sonny said firmly. “I want him here. I want to tell him too.” He turned to Paul. “I’m sorry about how it was — how I was — out there. You deserve a lot better than that. I’m sorry I failed you.”
“You didn’t fail me,” Paul said quickly. A lie, of course, but a necessary one: he couldn’t stand to see his father so broken. His father had been through enough; he didn’t need any more weight added to his burden.
“See?” Laura said. “You didn’t fail him. He’s fine.”
Sonny ignored her, reached over and laid his hand firmly on top of Paul’s. “Look at me,” he said.
Paul stared at his plate of rice. He could not raise his eyes to meet his father’s. It was almost physical, this desire to avert his eyes, as if someone had dared him to stare into the sun.
“Okay, then listen to me. Are you listening?”
“Yeah,” Paul said, a lump in his throat.
“I failed you. It’s okay, I know I did. And I know that you know. So you don’t have to pretend just to make me feel better. Pretending doesn’t make me feel better anymore. Because I know.”
Paul looked at his father’s hand covering his own. “I know you were scared,” he whispered.
“I was,” Sonny said. “And I know you were too. And I’m sorry.”
“Then everybody’s all right,” Laura said, picking up her fork. “We’re all all right now.”
Paul glanced at her warily. She was smiling brightly, hopefully, and he felt pity for her, sitting there innocently at the end of the table, hanging on with her fingertips to the vestiges of some old, fruitless life.
“Mom,” he said. “Everybody’s not all right. That’s kinda the point.”
Her face turned suddenly stony. “Fine,” she said, her voice clipped. “You two want to wallow in all this a little while longer? You two want to be scared together? That’s fine. I’ll be waiting for you when the little drama has run its course.”
She stood and picked up her plate.
“Would you listen to yourself?” Sonny said loudly. “Do you hear what’s coming out of your mouth? I know what you want, Laura. You want the three of us to just sit here pretending everything’s fine, pretending we can go back to the way it was. Well I don’t want to go back to the way it was. Everything’s changed, everything’s —”
“Why?” she demanded. The plate tilted in her hand and clumps of rice tumbled to the table. “Because you screwed up? Fine, Sonny, you screwed up. And guess what? The world has not come to an end. The world really does not care that you screwed up.”
“I care,” he said. “And I think Paul cares. And because of that I think you should care too.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. Do you want me to think less of you?” She held her plate at the edge of the table and began scooping the fallen rice onto it with the side of her hand. “Do you want me to call you a coward and a liar? Would that make you feel better?”
“I don’t want to feel better,” Sonny said wearily. “I just want to stop pretending.”
“All right,” she said. “I give you permission to stop pretending. Right now, just stop. We all know what happened, Sonny, so now it’s over.”
“It’s not over. You can’t just say it’s over and have it be over.”
“Why not?” she asked, carefully picking up the remaining grains of rice with her fingernails and flicking them onto the plate. “That’s what people do all the time. Every minute of every day, all over the world, people say it’s over and that’s the only reason why things are ever over — because people say they are.”
“Don’t you understand?” he asked. “I don’t want to go back to the way things were because the way things were was part of the pretending. I feel like I’ve been pretending my whole life, pretending to be something I�
�m not.”
She walked out of the room. Her dish clattered in the sink; a rush of water followed, then the grind of the garbage disposal. Paul bit his lip, stared at his plate. Starting over meant too many things, too much work. It wasn’t just the reality of what you were that had to be refigured, but the pretending too. To really start over, you have to give up both worlds: the world you have, and the world you wish for. Both were equally useless in the wake of a new life.
A moment later Laura appeared in the doorway, a towel twisted in her hands. “And so what are you, Sonny?” she asked quietly. “What are you now, exactly, that’s so different than what you were before?”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “But I don’t guess I’m much of a hero.”
“Well,” Laura said, “who is?”
The night was cold. February, it appeared, was recovering its senses. His father, carless, had walked the mile back to the station house after dinner and Paul had joined him. They’d walked in heavy silence, chancing only occasional small talk. Now, returning home, Paul passed the abandoned lot beside the Hess Station and saw a circle of boys sitting on discarded cartons at the edge of the woods. They had a small fire going — a few sticks, some crackling paper bags — but the faces around the flames were too obscured by darkness to identify. He thought he could make out the frame of Leo, the towering guy from the mall, hunched over a cigarette. Then a figure rose from one of the cartons and limped away from the circle, bent to the ground to gather some twigs. Paul stopped on the sidewalk under a dull streetlight, watched Ian across the wide, gaping field. The other boys were laughing about something; a beer can cracked open; a car horn honked from a few blocks away. Ian looked up and Paul caught his eye and smiled, though he suspected his smile would be lost in the distance and dark. He knew too that it would be foolish to wave, childish, but he wanted to do something, make some gesture of acknowledgment, of kinship. Before he could think of one, Ian turned away and limped back to the fire, tossed his twigs into the dying flames.