by Justin Sayre
CHAPTER 18
The next morning there’s a knock at my door, and because it’s a knock, I know it’s Mom. Nanny would be in and yelling already.
“Hey, buddy, are you up?” Mom says from behind the door.
“Yeah.”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Mom opens the door really slow, like she’s nervous about what she’s going to see, but I’m just in bed. She’s not wearing her bandanna. Her hair is down, which is so unusual. But everything around me is changing all the time, so why not Mom? Mom sits down on the corner of my bed and takes a big breath in and starts to talk.
“Buddy, I need to be honest with you about something, okay? And I don’t want you to think that I haven’t been honest with you before, or that I’ve been trying to hide something from you, because that is not the case at all. I just wanted to wait, because I needed to see where things went, and if it was something real that needed to be talked about, I would. So I am.”
And she looks at me and says, “It is something real, and it’s something we need to talk about. Okay?”
“Okay,” I answer back.
Mom and Paolo have been dating for months. And she thinks she really likes him and she wants to be with him, which means I guess the rest of us have to be with him, or at least have him around. My dad has been gone a long time, and she’s lonely and Paolo makes her happy. He makes her laugh, and he wants to be a part of our family. Mom wants that too. So he’s coming over for dinner tonight, and she wants me to be nice and patient with him because it will mean a lot to her if I do.
I promise I will. I say it’s okay. But when she leaves, it isn’t. I hate it.
I feel bad about hating it. I feel bad about listening to Mom just asking to be happy and knowing that her happiness is what I don’t like, but I don’t know what else to do. And it’s not even that I hate Paolo, I don’t. Honest. He’s annoying and sings and sweats and makes Jules nervous, but he’s not evil. But why does he need to be here? It’s just all this stuff. I’m going to be pushed out again. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Nothing will ever be us or the same ever again. And I’ll be left alone.
So I’m not going.
I’m not going to dinner. And I’ll tell them that.
I decide that part around four, when Nanny has me peeling carrots. I’m going to get up from the table and say NO to all of them and go up to my room and stay there until they’re gone. It doesn’t sound like a great plan, but it’s all I have.
By six, Mom is lighting candles all over the house, and I’m told to get dressed. Something nice. “Buttons,” says Nanny. And I do. I get dressed. I don’t freak out about it because it doesn’t matter what I wear. I know I’m not staying for dinner. Right now I just play along. It’s going to come out of nowhere and probably hurt all of them, but I can’t think of that now. I just need to plan what to say and worry about the rest later.
Mom gets dressed up and looks nice. Nanny puts on a necklace, which is a huge deal, and when the doorbell rings, I know I have to start getting ready to say no.
Paolo comes in in a big burst of sound: “Hey! It’s good to see you, little man.” He goes to fake-punch me like always, but I don’t even flinch now. I’m barely paying attention. He brought flowers for Nanny, which she thinks is the nicest thing ever, and she goes off to find a vase. Paolo’s nervous, I can tell, and he should be.
Mom takes Paolo up to the living room so they can sit around and have a drink, and talk, but I’m not saying anything.
Not yet.
Paolo’s funny, at least Nanny thinks so. She laughs really loud at everything he says. At every single story. Even ones that aren’t funny. Mom smiles and laughs too, but she also keeps looking over at me, and checking in with me to see how I’m doing. She pays attention to every little breath or move I make. And I feel weird because I wanted this, I wanted people to pay attention to me like this, and now someone is, and I hate it. Because I know what I’m going to do. And I know how much it’s going to hurt her. And I almost hate that as much.
By eight, the dinner is ready. Nanny finished the cooking so Mom could look nice. And we all go down to sit. Except I don’t.
“What’s wrong?” Nanny yells at me.
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
And Mom looks at me, looks at me with these eyes that are asking to pleasestoprightnowyouareliterallykillingme, but I don’t. I see her eyes and I don’t. I just stand by the side of the refrigerator and fidget with the rope holding Jock’s TV.
“You okay, little man?” Paolo asks, holding Mom’s hand. “There a problem?”
“You,” I say. Out loud.
“What?” says Paolo.
“Ducks, I’ll not have you be rude in my house,” Nanny yells.
“Then I’ll go. That’s what you all want anyway, isn’t it?” I yell back. Loud. So loud, even Nanny stops. And leans into the table and says:
“You sit, boy-o. You sit and you be quiet. Or you go to bed.”
“No!” I yell. “I’m not. I’m not going to be quiet or be okay or whatever. I’m not. I don’t want to be here and pretend that this is okay, because it’s not.”
“What’s not?” Mom asks, making her big, searching, hurt eyes.
“This! Him!” And I point right at Paolo. “Everyone gets what they want and who they want and I get packed up and carried out in boxes with my name on them in a closet or I don’t get invited to a makeover party or I get told where to go and I hate it!”
“Stop it now!” Nanny yells, slamming the plate of chicken down. “I’ll not have this. Do you know how hard your mother slaves for you? Do you have any idea? And all alone in the world?”
“She’s not alone.”
“Davis, buddy,” tries Mom.
“I am. I’m alone, and that’s how you want me to be. All of you. You just take me around because you have to or you think you do. I don’t know. There’s no place for me. Anywhere. And I want one. I want the same place with you and Nanny and Jock. I don’t want this. I don’t want him here.”
Nanny interrupts with, “You stop this. You stop this right now.”
“What does Paolo have to do with any of this?” Mom tries again.
“I can go.” Paolo gets up to leave, but Nanny holds him back.
“You just want something new and better and cooler, and you hate me,” I yell at them.
“Go To Bed!” Nanny yells.
“Well, I hate you. I hate you right back!” I yell.
The whole time I’m playing with the rope even though I’ve been told a thousand times not to, and maybe because I was just about as evil as I could be, the rope comes undone, and Jock’s TV flies off the top of the refrigerator and smashes on the floor.
It breaks into a thousand pieces. There’s no way of fixing it. Mom jumps back to avoid the glass, and Paolo catches her. But Nanny just looks at me. With so much hate, like the hate I just said but real and true and terrifying. And then she’s very quiet.
“Davis,” Mom says, and almost starts to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I didn’t want this. I didn’t.
Nanny won’t say anything. And when she finally does, it’s so quiet I can barely hear her. She’s still looking at the broken television. She looks and looks and says nothing.
Until: “Get out of my sight.” She doesn’t look at me after that. I go upstairs.
Paolo leaves after that. Mom says good night to him and goes up to her room. I see her come up the stairs and sit on her bed, looking down at her shoes. But when she looks up and sees me looking at her, she closes her door.
CHAPTER 19
The strange thing about the morning after a fight, a super fight, is that you expect everything to be broken. Plates shattered all over the floor or windows busted in, something to show that things aren’t right, that som
ething is terribly wrong.
And it’s all your fault.
But it doesn’t happen like that. And the things that are really broken are usually not stuff that lies around on the floor, or that you can cover with an old pizza box so the rain doesn’t come in. The stuff that really gets broken is stuff you don’t see. I get up slowly, and walk quietly, trying to see who is still around. On Sunday mornings it’s always a guess. Mom has an early morning, but on some Sundays, she lets Paolo take the morning prep and stays home till twelve. I don’t think she will stay home today. But I don’t want to find out just yet if she is.
Nanny is always up, banging around, and getting ready to go to church with the Mrs., who come over early for coffee and cake and at least by this time are laughing loudly in the kitchen. But there is not a sound in the whole house. Maybe I got left for real. Or maybe they are all being as quiet as me because none of us want to see one another. I tiptoe to the bathroom to brush my teeth and it isn’t until I turn on the water that I hear a single sound. In an old house like ours, you always know if someone else is there, the house lets you know. Creaks and bangs, even just a gush of wind, if you listen hard enough, can let you know who is home and what sort of mood they are in.
At first I think the sound is just the pipe getting water ready for me. But then the three that follow let me know that Nanny is in the living room and waiting for me. She’s pacing, ’cause the creak in the middle floorboard is going creak, creak, creak right along with her. I quickly turn off the water, thinking that even though I hear her, maybe she hasn’t heard me. But that would never happen. Never Not Ever. I stand very still and just look in the mirror, wondering what I am going to do. What am I going to say? What is she going to say? I’m almost expecting her to yell up to me and start the whole stupid thing all over again.
But nothing.
Just the creak-pace.
Creak-pace.
Creak-pace.
Why won’t she say anything at all? She usually yells up about whatever she wants. Whatever. Nice things, bad things, anything and in any mood, there is no thing she won’t yell. So why not now? Why just the pacing now? How bad is this going to be?
I turn the doorknob slowly, thinking maybe if I could just get back to my room, I could get back into bed and not deal with whatever this new silent mood of Nanny’s is and find a silent mood all my own, but two steps into that hallway and:
“Davis? Are you awake?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Good. Get dressed and come down. And bring your phone money. You and I are going to lunch.”
I want to say, Oh, I’m fine. I’m not hungry. It’s too early to eat. I can just stay home and make a peanut butter sandwich. She’s taking my phone money. I want to get angry and fight back, but I can’t. I can’t fight anymore.
When I get down to the living room, Nanny is in her chair with her pocketbook.
“You’re to take me and that money, and you are to buy me a new television,” she says, not looking at me.
“Yes, Nanny,” I say. I want to fight and cry and tell her no, and tell her she doesn’t know how much I need a phone, but I can’t. There’s none of that that makes any sense right now.
“C’mon, we’ve got to get the train,” Nanny says, about ten steps in front of me, still not looking at me.
We don’t say anything for a long time. But when we approach the subway, I finally ask, “Which way are we going?” I ask in a nice but scared sort of way that lets her know its hers to decide. I won’t put up a fight. She won’t get another no from me.
Nanny walks faster and faster, so fast that even when I do try to actually keep up with her, I can’t. At the train station, she’s already through the gate before I get in the door. She’s through and up the stairs before I even get out my MetroCard.
“Did you bring your MetroCard?” she yells from inside the gate.
I check my pocket, and no. Of course not. Now she can genuinely kill me, because I never remember it, even though she nags me and nags me and now this final time, I have pushed her over the edge. But when I look up, she is standing at the turnstile and swiping me in.
“I’m sorry, I forgot,” I try to say.
But she doesn’t answer. She just turns around and walks back up the steps.
Nanny goes up the stairs to the train, and I start to think of all the things I forgot to do on my last day in Brooklyn. Because I know I am going to die on this trip. Easily. She may actually just throw me on the tracks now. She hates me that much. I should have said good-bye to my street and my records. Should have called Ellen. Signed good-bye to Hannah. I should have sent Sophie something, today’s her actual birthday. I don’t know what, but some sort of good-bye, something trying to be nice, but at the same time maybe telling her there’s still time to save me from the horrible smiling Irish woman who is walking me toward my death on the F train. But also something to remind her of us being friends.
I should have hugged Mom and told her to be happy. With Paolo, if she had to be.
But there was no time.
And now it’s all over.
By the time I get to the top of the stairs, Nanny is sitting on the bench and waiting for the train. She pats the seat next to her, the seat of my death.
We sit silently waiting for the train. Neither of us says anything, which for me is not strange but for her, for Nanny, it’s a sign of the apocalypse. Something is seriously wrong. I’m definitely going to die.
I want to talk to her. Or I want her to just yell at me, or be mad or something, anything, because this silence with the patting and the perky waiting is not okay. Not okay at all, I want the old Nanny back, even if the old Nanny is going to eat my brains or throw me under the F train. She’s so quiet now, she doesn’t give me a chance. Until finally she does.
“You were cruel last night, Ducks,” Nanny says.
“I know,” I say.
“No you don’t. I’m telling you. You were cruel and nasty and I was ashamed of you. I am ashamed of you,” Nanny says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Now I can’t look at her.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to be happy in this world? And to find that happiness with another person? Do you?” Nanny says. “And your mother, God bless her, deserves that. She more than most. And you were selfish and rotten to your core. And I raised you better than that. She and I both did.”
“I know.”
“And for you to say hate! Hate’s never a thing been used on you. Never! And to that poor woman. Why would you do such a thing? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and I start to cry.
“So you’re wicked? So you break something up, just to see that you can?”
“I didn’t want to.”
“You did. And you knew you would. Don’t cry to me now about it,” Nanny yells back to me. “You owe her everything. You owed it to her to sit there and eat your food and be happy that someone loves her.”
“But I love her,” I say.
“You’ve a nice way of showing it,” Nanny says. “Jock had to stop you before you went any further. You know that, don’t you? He was looking down, hearing you, and even he was disappointed in you. He had to shut you up. So he did.”
“I’m sorry, Nanny, about the TV,” I cry back.
“Ducks, there’s more to the world than you see. And there’s more to the world than you know. The worst thing God ever did was give us all eyes of our very own. We see what we see and we think that’s all there is. We’re blind and we don’t even know it. I know you not to be a cruel boy. I know you not to be spiteful and wicked. But the more you keep in that head of yours and not out here with the rest of us, the worse off you’ll be.”
And then, right at the edge of the platform, a seagull lands.
And Nanny despite herself laughs, her little would you look at that laugh. And she hit
s my arm lightly and says, “Lookit.” The bird is so white and perky, he’s looking around to see how he got this lost. I know how he feels, because I don’t know which way is the right way either.
“That’s just the sum of it, isn’t it?” says Nanny.
“What?” I ask. Totally confused.
“Here we are, in Brooklyn, in the Brooklyn we know, or we think we know, and right over there, right over there, just beyond where we can see, is the ocean. It’s a whole different world. You should remember that.” And Nanny gets up and walks down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I say, running after.
“The ocean,” says Nanny.
We go to the other side of the platform and we ride the F train all the way to the last stop in Brooklyn. We ride out most of the way again without talking much, but for some reason, I don’t notice it as much as I did before. I watch the houses go by from parts of Brooklyn that I’ve never really seen before. House-y parts with people with carports, all different kinds of families getting on and off the train, as the ocean slowly creeps along the side of us.
And then we’re there. Coney Island.
It’s strange being at an amusement park and feeling awful. Luckily Coney Island isn’t just that. It has rides, and the oldest roller coaster I think in the world, and Nathan’s hot dogs, which are famous for being really good. So there’s lots to distract you. There are tons of people headed to the beach looking happy and summery. And then there’s Nanny and me. Barely talking.
We walk slowly on the wooden boardwalk, each step creaking like at home, but different against the sound of the ocean. The huge brownish water that goes on and on until Europe and Africa and all the people there. It’s hard to think about it or even understand, but when you do, there it is and it’s amazing. Nanny sits down on a bench alone. She doesn’t pat me over. I would go and sit right next to her, but I want to look at the ocean. I’m trying to understand it more. I want to try to see past what I know is impossible, but still I want to try. And I need my own quiet now with the ocean. And I think Nanny does too. We are apart for a good, long time. And it’s okay. Because the ocean is there and so are we, if not together close, at least together here.