Remains

by J. Warren

  “Mornin’ Kate,” he said to the woman. I didn’t look up at her. I’d lied.

  “Mornin’,” she said.

  “Listen, Kate, do us a favor, eh? Mike here would like to find something useful to do around the place. We got anything like that?” he asked, putting his hand around my shoulders again. I counted the number of tiles that connected to the desk.

  “Sure. We’re desperate for a sweeper. I think that Palter kid is gonna’ leave soon, too,” she said, and I felt her lean down toward me, “do you know how to swim, sweetheart?” she asked.

  I nodded. I knew how to swim. My father had taught me when I was little by throwing me into the pool. The shallow end, of course. I’d felt pretty foolish after thrashing around and crying out when I was able to touch the bottom by tip toe. Since then I’d become pretty good.

  “Good. When can you start, honey?” she said.

  “You could start today, right champ?” he asked me.

  I nodded. In a way, it felt like a beginning of something. I knew what my dad would say if he ever found out I quit boxing. Worse, though, would be what he wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t get mad or chastise me, but in his head, I just knew he’d think about what a dud he’d gotten for a son. Even that young, I knew that much.

  Landing is always the best part of flying anywhere. It’s a relief to me. I feel like I can breathe again. The second the plane stops rolling, it’s like my heart goes back to beating at a steady rhythm, my eyes go back to normal size. The flight attendant talked to each person as they went by. All I wanted was off that plane. I tied not to think about how there was one more flight to get through, still. I tried to console myself with it being on a bigger plane. I tried to think about anything to keep myself from knowing that I still had another two hours of sheer panic to get through.

  The airport smelled funny. New and old at the same time. I wondered if maybe all buildings had a smell. I imagined that they did, and wondered what my apartment smelled like. I walked to the lady at the counter and asked her if my connecting flight was on time and she said that it was. I don’t know why, but I also asked her what local weather was like back home. She clicked a few times on her computer screen and then said, “Rainy. Looks like it might be a little rough getting in.” I felt my stomach drop. I said, “That figures,” and she gave me a sympathetic smile. I walked to the gate and sat down, my jacket taking up the whole other seat.

  Outside the windows, guys in blue jumpsuits were working on the plane. DC-10, I thought, more because it was one of the few names for a plane that I knew than anything else. The plane outside the window probably wasn’t a DC-10. I knew a few names, things my father had told me. He was a pilot back during the war. I had a sense that maybe he meant Korea or Vietnam, but I never asked. He had all sorts of funny names for planes. He was the one I got the term puddle jumper from. That’s what he’d done in the war: he and another man had flown soldiers back and forth to different islands in Hawaii. They had a puddle jumper they’d nicknamed Helga. He told me that the tattoo on his upper arm was the same picture they’d had put on the nose of the plane. When I asked him why Helga, he said that he’d tell me when I got older. He never did.

  A woman with two little boys sat down on the same bank of chairs I was on. The boys were twins. It wasn’t readily apparent, though. Sometimes brothers, even twins, don’t resemble each other all that closely. I thought about Sarah. The woman doted on one, who seemed to want to stay near her, while the other went flying around the place. I tried not to let them see that I was watching, but the mother was beautiful. If you asked me why I felt she was, I couldn’t have told you. She wasn’t a cover model, that’s for sure. Still, something about her drew my eyes. Something about the way those boys were her entire world, the way she let them hold her entranced. Though the one that was running around would have annoyed most parents, she seemed to be completely taken with him. As the more mobile one would hang himself upside down across a bank of chairs, the mother would put her hand on the back of the more sedate one to say “look at your brother,” and they’d both laugh. I envied them that; a mother who wanted them, maybe even enjoyed being with them.

  I wondered where their father was. At first, the slightly balding man who came over toward them seemed to be the father. Then he sat on a different row of chairs and pulled magazine from his bag. He seemed brutal, a tough. His knuckles were huge. The magazine was something with a man in boxing gear on the front.

  A bit longer and a lady came over and started to unlock the doors leading down the ramp to the plane.

  About fifteen minutes later, she called for us all to begin boarding. She said the flight was only half full, so there would be plenty of room if we wanted to use extra chairs for carry on items. Walking down the ramp, listening to the hollow thump of each footstep was hard to get through. ‘Just one more, just one more,’ I kept thinking. The plane smelled like a bus. I found my row and seat with dread. As I’d feared, I was just behind the wing. “Most stable seat in the house,” my father had once told me. I’d always found it the worst. Since it was the one place where motion came from, I felt it all; every turn, every change in speed. I don’t do so well with sudden changes like that.

  One of the twins came by and sat on the opposite side of the isle from me. The mother followed. Before she was even in her seat, the twin already in his was chattering at her. He seemed fascinated. Just behind the mother came the other twin. He looked almost embarrassed. The mother whispered something to the boisterous one and he stood up immediately. She whispered something to the other one, and he stood up. They changed chairs. The quieter boy fell to examining the wings out the window, while the other twin got up and ran back to the restrooms, his feet thumping loudly all the way. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her smile and slightly shake her head. I leaned back into my seat.

  All around me, the millions of tiny conversations of people who know they have to spend a few hours together without really knowing each other. The attendant walked back and forth, getting people stowed away neatly. “Squared away,” my father usually said.

  After a while, the attendant closed the door and pressure in my ears made everything sound fuzzy. I kept stealing glances at the mother, who still had no idea anything was occurring outside the realm of her boys. Even as the attendant went through her speech, the plane backing out and then rolling onto the runway, the three of them were engaged in conversation. I wondered what they were talking about, and wished she was talking to me. I thought, they must’ve been on a lot of flights to not be scared. I wondered what it might feel like to be that cherished.

  My headphones were playing pretty loud. I’d switched discs a few times, trying not to look out the window. Takeoff had been smooth and there had been no major bumps so far. My father always called the bumps ‘chop’. For some reason, the word made me think of thick soup.

  One of the twins was asleep, and the mother was playing cards with the other. Out the window, clouds were passing by underneath us. The hum of the engines, the thrum pulse of them through the walls added extra notes to the music. It seemed to all fit, and I remembered all the car trips I’d ever been on with my family.

  The main one that I think about was just after Randy disappeared. My father saw my mother moping around and decided what we needed to do was get away for a little while. He picked a couple of places and had all the brochures mailed to him. I was barely coming out of my room at that point, but he made us all come down for dinner every night. It was the one time we all got to be a family, he said. I think he thought a lot more about that than we did. It made mom happy, though, and that kept her quiet for the most part. Sarah and I never gave him too much trouble about it.

  That night, when we came down, it was Sarah’s turn to set the table. I sat down and watched her put the forks on the wrong side of the plate. Mom always taught us to do things like set the table and brush our teeth out of this old book she had about manners and things. “You put the forks on the wrong side,” I sai
d to Sarah, waiting for her to be completely done first. She looked at me, then at the table and rolled her eyes. I heard her whisper “god dammit.” I giggled, and then thought about Randy, so I stopped giggling.

  My father came in right at that moment and said “Sarah, the silverware is all on the wrong sides,” without stopping. He walked over to the counter, and slapped down a large manila envelope. Sarah clanked the forks and knives around, practically slinging them. My father’s head came up and he gave her “the look.” She whispered “sorry.” Mom came from near the stove with the huge pot of mashed potatoes. She set them on the little plastic mat in the center of the table.

  “Mike, will you get the corn, please?” she asked.

  I was happy for the chance to do something rather than just sit there and wait. The corn was hot, and my fingers warmed quickly. I hadn’t realized they’d gotten cold. The smell was buttery and golden. I inhaled as I walked and almost tripped over my father’s foot. Sarah finished the settings just as I put the pot down on the table, and Mom took her apron off. We all sat down almost at the same time. My father was last.

  “What’s in the envelope?” I asked

  My mother made a swatting motion in the air near me. I looked over. “Grace,” she said.

  I bowed my head, barely catching my sister’s already bowed head and clasped hands. “Father, we thank you for blessing us with what we are about to receive. Please watch over our children, and my husband, and all children everywhere, amen,” my mother said. My father mouthed ‘amen’. I wondered if someone had prayed like that about Randy. I wondered why no one had watched out for him. I felt a pressure in my chest, and my eyes stung.

  “What’s in the envelope?” my father asked me, “Nothing much, really. Just our vacation, is all,” he said, his face pulling back into a sly grin. I smiled a bit, too. Sometimes the clouds parted and my real father came out. Those times were like finally being able to breathe after a long time underwater.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “Where, papa?” Sarah asked.

  “Oh, dear, Albert. Can we afford it?” my mother asked.

  “Now, calm down, all of you. Calm down,” he said, raising his hand above the table, “I’ve decided that it’s high time the kids see a beach.”

  I was ecstatic. My sister’s eyes got huge. My mother fell into a pit of worry silently. “I’ve decided that we’re going to take a drive down to see the Gulf of Mexico,” my father said. It sounded so exotic. “We’re going to drive down and stay in a town called Mobile in Alabama,” he said. Suddenly, it didn’t sound so exotic. I had though of Florida, that delicate crescent on the map in every textbook I’d ever read. I’d never looked more than once at Alabama in my life.

  The next week, we were on the road. It was awful. Sarah was continuously over on my side of the backseat. She smacked when she ate. She smacked when she chewed gum. The seat made sick noises whenever she moved her leg because it was stuck to her. She whined to mom about how long it was taking. In the hotel rooms, she and I had to sleep in the same bed.

  Worse, though, were my parents. They fought the entire time. She would “Albert, don’t you think it’s too hot for the children” and “Albert, do you think we could stop soon, my legs are tired” and then he would “Will you stop folding the map the wrong way” and “Can’t you please control them? They’re making it hard to think”. They bickered and my sister’s lips smacked the entire way to Alabama. When we got Mobile, it smelled like someone had passed gas the entire time we were there. “Paper mill,” my father had said when my sister pointed this out.

  Mr. Rickels, a man he used to work with lived down there. He promised to take us all to some place called ‘Gulf Shores’. He had a daughter, Ainsley, who was fourteen. She was beautiful, and every time I tried to talk to her, I felt stupid and ugly. She and my sister became very close friends.

  I guess that was the first time I got a hint of what was going to happen with Sarah, though. Sarah stayed in Ainsley’s room that night. When I got up from the couch to go to the restroom, I heard them whispering to each other as I walked past the doorway. Then I heard the distinct sound of a kiss, and the kind of moan that happens when someone’s mouth is closed. I’ve since talked to Dr. Bledsoe about what happened to me at that moment, and he said “You were thirteen and obviously hearing your first example of sexual excitement. I don’t think it matters that it was your sister.” I don’t know that I believe him.

  I guess most people sort of freak out the first time they see the ocean. I got out of the car that day and there were these huge sand dunes. I could hear the ocean, but far away and faded. I thought it’d be just like on television. I’d seen beaches on television, but they never looked more than just interesting. When we got to the top of the dune, though, my legs were throbbing from the effort of climbing up the sand. My mind was very far away from them, though; the beach was almost too much to handle. I’d seen pictures of one, of course, but being on a real beach is something altogether different. The water wasn’t just a river, it was the ocean. I just kept hearing those two words in my head over and over; the ocean, the ocean. Every time the waves rolled in, that’s what they said. The girls went in the water and had a lot of fun. I sat at the tide line and just stared at the horizon.

  “Having a good time, sport?” Mr. Rickels asked me. He’d come up behind me and kneeled down. He was fat, and his flowery bathing suit looked silly with all the hair on his body.

  “Yeah,” I said, not trying to be rude, but wanting to go back to just staring.

  “Ainsley and your sister have gotten to be buddies pretty quick, huh?” he said, smiling. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, so I nodded. He stared out at them for a moment, then back at me. He smiled, then stood up, grunting. “You be sure and get in some swim time, champ. The water is great,” he said, then walked away. He kept looking back at the girls and I felt uncomfortable. I got up and walked down the beach.

  On the beach, my father and mother were at it again. The sun and the heat made them half crazy, continuously bickering back and forth about who got the longer towel, who should go get the drinks from the little soda stand, etc. I had to get away. The beach was huge and the sand felt so warm shifting under my feet, and it helped to hear the hum of other people’s conversations as I’d walk by. It calmed me to see other families and how they were around each other. Every time a saw a little boy, he looked like Randy, though, so I tried not to focus on people. They became indistinct blurs as I walked. The sound remained, though. The millions of things that people talk about when they don’t think you’re listening.

  I came back to the plane and noticed just how similar the background hum of people was to the way it sounded that day. The only thing missing was the soft but high pitched squeal of children hitting the cold water. Across from me, both boys were asleep, and the mother was reading a book. She looked whole.

  Through the window I could see we were slowly descending. Every few minutes, a cloud that seemed miles below was closer. I felt the slight forward pitch of the cabin in my stomach and toes. ‘Not long now,’ I kept thinking. The music had long ago started to repeat and was halfway done once more. I wondered what my mom would look like. I wondered if my father would be happy. I wondered if Sarah would make it home.

  That night, all those years ago, after we got back to Mr. Rickels house, I was exhausted. I’d run and swam miles that day. My skin was hot and my head miles thick. I lay down on the couch and was asleep almost immediately. I remember that the dream had something to do with being pulled gently to the bottom of the ocean. Something had long, silky tentacles wrapped around my legs. They were soft, caressing and stroking my legs but at the same time, definitely pulling me down to the inky-black bottom.

  I woke, hearing someone else breathing near me. I held still and started to shake a bit. Someone had their hand down my pajama bottoms, cupping parts of me no one else had ever touched. I felt very thick headed suddenly, and my legs were numb. I couldn�
��t breathe and my heart pounded in my chest. Some small part of my mind was amazed, though, at the adeptness of the fingers. That section of my brain marveled that without me even being present, that part of me could grow, jump and react on its own.

  The button on the front of my pj’s was undone, and I slipped out. The hand pulled out as well, but wrapped around me again outside of my clothes. With each slight movement of the fingers, my legs twitched. Something dark and heavy was growing just behind my hips.

  Then a door opened down the hall. The hand disappeared instantly, and I felt a breeze as whoever it was rushed from where they had been kneeling. I heard first one door creak closed, then another, shutting less quietly or slowly. Then I heard the sound of water running, and a toilet flushed. That same creaking and shuffling steps back down the hall. The first door opened, and closed once more. I waited for a while, wondering what I would do if the hand came back. I watched the hands on the wall clock move for two hours before I fell asleep again. The hand never returned.

  The next day, Mr. Rickels and my dad barbecued. Ainsley and my sister played off in the woods. When I said I didn’t want to go, my sister whispered something to Ainsley, and I knew what it was. She was telling her that everyone thought I was adopted because I didn’t act like any of my family. I was different. They left giggling, and I stayed. My mom kept asking me to help her with things. She seemed really happy I didn’t go, so I stayed next to her. She and my father barely spoke. Mrs. Rickels said she had to take care of something over at the church and didn’t return until well after nightfall. Mr. Rickels kept calling me sport, and touching my shoulder. When it was time to eat, Ainsley sat near me, and my sister sat across from her. Mr. Rickels sat next to my sister. The only reason I remember that so clearly is that all through eating, someone kept rubbing their foot against my ankle. I couldn’t concentrate, and it made me so nervous I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t look, either, to see who it was. I could hardly breathe, worrying someone would see somehow and get mad at me. My father kept asking me why I was so quiet. I just shrugged every time.