Unnatural

by Michael Griffo

  Watching his grandma scuttle around the kitchen, turning on the stove, pulling coffee cups and saucers from the cabinets, he realized his father agreed in order to give her something to do. It was an act of kindness and in this house that was rare. Perhaps this man, this absentee father, really could be his salvation.

  “What do you mean you’re taking me home?” Michael asked.

  It was Vaughan’s turn to clear his throat. “Well, I was just telling your grandparents that in light of the situation, it might be best for you to get away from here. It’s difficult for the elderly to raise a teenager.”

  “With all due respect to ya,” Grandpa interrupted, “I already told ya we ain’t elderly.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vaughan said, turning to face him directly. “My words are a bit different; they don’t have the same meaning. Forgive me.” Grandpa had no idea how to respond to a gentleman’s apology, so he furrowed his brow and shrugged his shoulders. “But, Michael,” Vaughan continued. “Well, you are my son.”

  And where were you for the past thirteen years? Michael wanted to ask. Why did you wait until my mother’s death to swoop in here like a vulture to peck at what she left behind? Why did you let me fester in this place where I never belonged?! But Michael just nodded.

  “And so I thought it best … oh, thank you,” Vaughan said, accepting the coffee from his ex-mother-in-law. “No cream; this is fine. Thank you.” Michael’s grandma smiled and sat back down at the kitchen table. “Your grandparents and I believe that it would be in your best interest if you came back with me to London.” The rain had stopped, the pathway was finally dry. “There’s an excellent school that has an opening. Archangel Academy. It has an outstanding curriculum….”

  “Yes,” Michael said without hesitation. He didn’t see his grandma’s eyes water or hear his grandpa mumble “figured that.” All he knew was that this man, this stranger who was his father, had thrown him a lifeline and he wasn’t going to hesitate, he wasn’t going to dwell on past actions or question his motives. He was simply going to hold on to it and allow it to pull him away from here. He knew that if he didn’t grab on to this opportunity, his life would be as miserable as his mother’s and possibly with the same outcome. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

  Vaughan smiled, honestly, happily. He searched for a spot to rest his coffee and bent over to place it on an end table and then he hugged his son again, this time without feeling awkward, without worrying if the gesture would be reciprocated. And it was. Michael hugged him back and held his father tightly. He pushed away the memories that had latched on to his mind. Vaughan forgetting to send him a birthday card or Michael overhearing his mother arguing with his father because he canceled—at the last minute—a trip he and Michael were supposed to take. Those were petty and they were in the past. His father held him now with the promise of a future. And then his father left, explaining that he needed to catch an early flight back to Europe and, in a quieter voice, that he didn’t feel Grace would want him at her funeral. No one disagreed with him. Even still, before escaping into the early morning darkness, he informed them that he would pay for all of the funeral expenses and would arrange for Michael to fly to London in a few days. No one should worry about a thing. Michael for one didn’t. He was saved.

  Watching the casket lowered into the ground, Michael hoped that his mother was now saved too. Saved from more decades of unhappiness and dread, saved from the knowledge that she was ridiculed by her neighbors, from any more pain that she could inflict upon herself. And saved even though she committed what the church considered a mortal sin.

  Michael had sat through endless sermons and homilies in his life; he had listened to priests speak passionately about heaven, berate their parishioners for not leading lives worthy of entering heaven, and yet he still wasn’t convinced such a place existed. Now watching his mother’s body encased in an expensive, elaborately designed coffin that Vaughan had picked out and paid for, he wondered what was to become of her. Was she to be swallowed up by the earth and remain in this place for all eternity? Or had her soul already left her to travel the world silently, invisibly, to all the places she had never journeyed to when she was alive? What a waste if that was true, he thought. How could she have wasted her life—and his—by staying locked in this stupid town and refusing to venture anywhere else? He wasn’t going to make the same mistake his mother did. He was determined to live.

  But at the same time, he was quite unexpectedly bothered by his grandparents’ willingness to let him leave Weeping Water. He didn’t really get along with either of them. His grandpa was caustic, his grandma voiceless, but they were, for better or worse, his world. And yet when Vaughan announced that he was taking Michael to London immediately since the school year had only just begun, neither grandparent had put up a fight. It was as if they were both relieved not to be duty bound to their daughter’s offspring.

  He knew it was complicated and he didn’t blame them entirely; he wanted to leave this place more so than anyone. It just would have made him feel better if they had protested the tiniest bit. But when Vaughan finished his pitch by saying, “And you know as well as I do that Michael doesn’t belong here,” they both nodded their heads in agreement. So his fate was sealed without hesitation or hindrance. Michael tried to rally the anger to condemn his grandparents, but he couldn’t. It just confirms what I’ve always believed, he told himself.

  A few days later Michael went to Two W for the last time, to clean out his locker and return all his school-books to the principal. His father had already made the necessary preparations for Michael to enroll in his new school; in fact, he would be flying to London later that night. He looked at the few mementos he had stuck to the back of the locker door and left them alone; there wasn’t anything he wanted to take with him. In a few hours this school and this town would be part of his past and he knew that if he ever returned, it would not be willingly.

  “So, gaytard! Heard you’re going to an all-boys school in England.” Mauro had come to bid him farewell. “You must be creaming in your pants.”

  Michael slammed his locker shut. He didn’t think about the choice, he just made it. “Shut up, Mauro.”

  “Ooh, the gaytard finally talks back!” Despite his surprise, Mauro laughed and so did the group of kids who had gathered to watch the final round between Michael and his nemesis. In a strange way, he took power from his mother’s last action. Was she a coward, was she brave? It wasn’t for Michael to decide, but she had made a decision and that gave Michael strength. He could not allow Mauro to have the last word, not this last time, so he decided to follow in her footsteps and do something.

  “I said shut the fuck up!”

  Eyes widened, Mauro was truly shocked, but in no way scared, and when he spoke again, he took a few steps closer to Michael. “And who, Miss Gaytard, is gonna make me?”

  Again Michael followed gut instinct and not thought. He dropped the pile of books he had been holding, turned to face Mauro, and shouted, “Me!” as he pushed him back against the lockers. Using the element of surprise, Michael pushed him again, this time harder so Mauro’s books tumbled to the floor and he lost his footing. It was then that he saw something he had never seen in Mauro’s face, a tinge of fear. “Me! The gaytard’s gonna shut you up!” Michael shouted.

  Before the words stopped echoing down the hallway Michael threw a punch at Mauro’s face with such force that he bounced into the lockers. It didn’t matter that the punch only clipped Mauro on the chin, it didn’t matter that the only reason Mauro didn’t pounce on top of Michael was because one of the janitors pulled his arms behind his back; all that mattered was that Michael fought back. He faced a demon, this bully, and he didn’t cower.

  Shaking a bit and red-faced, Michael saw that the crowd of students was looking at him differently. So this was what it was like not to be looked at like a fool, not to stand alone. It wasn’t the exit he had planned, but it met with his approval. He wasn’t the only one who felt tha
t way. “Better late than never,” Mr. Alfano said, stooping down to help Michael pick up his books, smiling with that same look of respect he had given him the day before. “Good luck to you, Michael.”

  “Thank you, sir.” But to the rest of the students, the ones who until that day had made his life miserable, who didn’t take a moment to reach out to him, he said good riddance. He had planned on being equally cavalier with his grandma, but when the moment arrived, he couldn’t be that disrespectful.

  His grandpa had already shaken his hand roughly, told him to stay out of trouble, and was now waiting in the airport bar having a beer and so Michael sat among the other travelers with only his grandma as companion. “I will miss you and Grandpa,” Michael said, trying to sound convincing. “It’s just that … well, Archangel Academy really is a much better school and, you know, he is my father.”

  True to her nature, his grandma remained silent. Michael never could figure out if she was a woman of so few words because she had little to say or because she had learned as a young woman that no one listened to her when she spoke. Ah, well, another mystery that would stay unsolved. She did, however, place her hand in his and together they sat in silence until it was announced that his plane was ready to depart.

  Michael turned to her and he thought she would break tradition and offer some words of love and wisdom that she had failed to say all the time he had been living with her, but instead she hugged him tightly, and when she pulled back, she placed a folded envelope in his hand. “This is for you” was all she could say before the lump in her throat interfered with her speech. Michael stood there and watched the short, gray-haired woman, wearing clothes that she made herself, clutch her pocketbook and walk slowly away. He knew it would be the last time he would ever lay eyes on her.

  He couldn’t wait any longer. He had wanted to read his grandma’s letter when they were flying over the Atlantic Ocean, but that wouldn’t be for another hour. Thousands of miles above Kentucky or Pennsylvania or some landlocked state, his curiosity proved stronger than his discipline and he pulled the envelope out from his backpack, where he had stuffed it upon boarding the plane. Before he opened it, though, he knew it wasn’t from his grandma. He recognized the handwriting as his mother’s.

  He waited for his hands to stop trembling and then he used his index finger as a letter opener to break the seal. There was only one page, one page of his mother’s scribbled handwriting, dated the day she killed herself.

  Dear Michael,

  I don’t have much time left, but I have to say good-bye. I know I wasn’t a very good mother, not the kind I had hoped I would be. I had so many dreams for our family, but somehow—well, I can’t explain away my actions, why I did the things I did, and none of that really matters now anyway. All that matters is that you know that I love you and everything I did was to protect you. I know you hate it here and you feel like you don’t belong and in many ways I feel the same way. That’s why I know you’re going to leave. When I’m gone your father will want to take you back home with him and I know you won’t be able to resist his invitation. Just like I couldn’t. All I can do is beg you to be careful. Yes, England is an exciting country, like none you’ve ever seen, but remember not everything is what it seems. And neither are people. I can’t blame you for wanting the adventure of a new life, and nothing I write will make you want to stay in this town, but just remember that no matter where you go, you can’t run from who you truly are. Your mother

  Tears fell onto the paper without warning. Michael turned to face the window, shielding his face from the other passengers. Even in death his mother was a mystery to him. What did her letter mean? Protect me from what? Warn me about England? My father? Michael didn’t understand. I can’t run from myself? So she knew. She knew and she never said anything. Why would she waste her time writing something like that minutes before she put an end to her own miserable life when she never took a moment while she was alive to say, Yes, Michael, I’m as unhappy in this place as you are or I understand what you’re going through? Her letter, like her life, made no sense. So Michael chose to ignore it.

  Just as he crumbled up the letter into a tiny ball, the pilot announced that they were now flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, he was going to be separated from his past. He wasn’t running from anything, but moving toward something greater. Michael brushed away his tears; he didn’t need them any longer. He didn’t need to feel sorry for himself or conceal his truth and he definitely didn’t need his mother or her insane instructions. Because on the other side of the water, his life was about to begin.

  chapter 5

  The Beginning

  Outside, the earth was new.

  The moment Michael stepped off the plane, he knew his life had changed. He was not in Weeping Water, Nebraska, any longer and try as he might he couldn’t conceal the smile on his face. It stayed there even when he saw the text on his cell phone from his father’s assistant advising him that Vaughan was called away to Istanbul for an emergency meeting, so his father’s driver would be picking Michael up to take him directly to Archangel Academy. That was a change in plan. But his own driver? Istanbul? He had definitely entered a world in which the town of Weeping Water didn’t exist.

  His smile remained even when he had a flashback to when he was seven or eight and his father had promised he would visit so the two of them could spend the week together, just them, fishing, camping, doing the type of father-and-son stuff that Michael had seen fathers and sons do on television and in the movies. But as Michael lay in his bed, dressed in his fishing outfit so he wouldn’t have to waste time getting dressed in the morning, Vaughan called to cancel. Loose business ends needed to be tied up. For a moment, standing alone in the airport, time halted and Michael was that little boy again, disappointed but determined not to show his true feelings. “That’s all right, Dad, I understand,” Michael said back then alone in his bedroom before crying himself to sleep. And that’s what he said now.

  Now, however, there weren’t any tears and his disappointment didn’t sting as sharply. His father was a busy man, his calendar ever-changing, and Michael understood that. He knew that very soon they’d have their own moments together and they would be worth the wait. For now he would be content to know that his father wanted him back in his life, as hectic and unpredictable as that life might be. In the meantime, he needed to find his chauffeur.

  Among the crowd of people in the airport, there was a very tall man holding a sign with the name Howard printed on it. Michael would have recognized him as his father’s driver even if he weren’t holding his last name in his hands. Dressed cap to boots in black, most of it leather, the man possessed the austere quality needed to be an employee of Howard Industries.

  “You must be my driver,” Michael said.

  “Follow me,” the driver responded. “Your bags are already in the car.”

  Even though the man’s black-framed sunglasses prohibited Michael from seeing his eyes, he was sure they weren’t smiling. This man was all business. But Michael didn’t care; he was thousands of miles away from a life he never felt accustomed to and about to start what even his mother called the adventure of a new life. Despite the knowledge that he was on his own for the first time in his life, he could feel little bolts of energy pulse through his veins. He looked around at the faces passing by him—tourists, businessmen, employees. Could they tell? Could they tell that Michael was happier and more excited than he had ever been in his entire life? He knew he shouldn’t feel this way; only a few short days ago he had buried his mother, only a few short hours ago he had said good-bye to his grandparents for what could be a very long time, but the difference in his spirit couldn’t be denied. He felt as if he were back where he belonged. And on his way to where he was destined to be, in grand style.

  The interior of the car, all black like the driver’s outfit, was plush and luxurious. Michael sank into the seat; the leather was soft and slightly heated and he felt the warmth penetrate and ca
lm his anxious body. The sound of violins, Mozart maybe, drifted into the space from some hidden speakers, unhurried and soft. There was a smell vaguely like cinnamon, but definitely crisp, autumnal. He closed his eyes, and the memory of his grandfather’s Ranger faded easily.

  The car wasn’t quite a limousine, but a sedan with a smoky gray glass partition that separated the backseat from the front so Michael could see the driver but couldn’t converse with him without pressing the red intercom button on the door panel. Not that Michael was in the mood to chat; he was too busy looking out the window, watching the city transform into the countryside. Skyscrapers became oak trees, concrete pavement a rolling green landscape. His life was changing right before his very eyes.

  Several hours later, they sped past a sign that welcomed them to Eden, a small town of Cumbria County in the northwestern part of England. Michael pressed a button, and the dark-tinted mirror descended, giving him a better view of the surroundings. Outside, the land looked untouched and the few buildings worn and weather-beaten, as if they were built centuries ago, which Michael figured they most likely were. After a few miles during which time no buildings interrupted the grasslands, they made a right turn onto an even narrower road. “Almost there,” the driver announced. Almost there. Those two words were both comforting and uncomfortable and made Michael’s heart leap and his stomach lurch. In a few minutes he would reach his destination here in what could easily be labeled the middle of nowhere. He closed his eyes and asked God, “Please let it be worthy.” When he opened them, he saw that God had not denied his request.

  Stepping onto the cobblestone path, Michael could feel the past detach from him and float away on the breeze. As he stood on the uneven walkway, he felt, for the first time in his short life, grounded and as if he had returned home. It was a wonderful, welcoming feeling. And, Michael had to admit, odd. He had never been here before, he had never even heard of Eden or Archangel Academy until his father told him about the school a few days ago, and yet, yet somehow, he knew this was the place he had been dreaming about. This was where he had longed to come when he had longed for something new, something better. He took a deep breath and savored the moment because he had learned, in his short life, that such extraordinary feelings were not ordinary.