The Usual Rules

by Joyce Maynard

  Cold, huh? he said. You think because it’s California, it’s going to be warm, but it’s easier going in the ocean in Maine than it is at Stinson Beach most of the time. It’s beautiful here, but if you’re looking to swim, you can’t beat the East Coast.

  Nantucket. Collecting shells with Louie to string into a necklace for their mother. Josh rubbing suntan oil on her mother’s back. Tuna sandwiches from the cooler, and brownies they’d made the night before. Driving home late that night, Louie asleep in his car seat, his head leaning against Wendy as she and her mother and Josh sang old Beatles songs. And later, as they made their way down the West Side Highway, the last few miles to home, her mother looking into the backseat and turning to Josh. I don’t need anything else, she said. Beyond what’s in this car.

  Wendy and her father had come out at the road now, the stretch of Highway 1 that turned into the main street of Stinson Beach. They sat outside at a table in the sun and a waitress with very long gray hair brought them lemonade and hamburgers. Wendy was hungry after the long hike, but after a few bites, she realized Garrett hadn’t touched his burger.

  After all these years, you’d think it wouldn’t get me down anymore, he said.

  What?

  Seeing my mother, he said. Forty-eight years old, and I still get disappointed that she isn’t this other person I would have liked to have for my mother. Crazy, huh?

  Not really, she said. She wondered if Todd would be like that thirty years from now. Still wondering why his mother always liked his brother best. And Violet, and that girl on Maury Povich. She wondered which was worse, having a good mother and losing her, or a bad one who stayed around long enough to grow old.

  Maybe if I’d had one of the good type of mothers, I’d still have found something to be mad at her about, he said.

  I know I let you down, too, he said. My mother was right about one thing probably. I was a major fuckup as a father.

  It’s okay, she said, not exactly denying it.

  Not only that. I screwed up where your mother was concerned, too. She was one terrific girl. I just wasn’t ready to handle all the responsibility. Sometimes it’s not till the person’s gone that you notice what a big space they were filling up, he said.

  Like the bass line of a jazz ballad, she was thinking. The notes that only come to seem important when nobody’s playing them.

  Other things come along eventually, he said. It’s not like there’s this hole that stays empty forever. It’s just different. Carolyn, for instance. She’s a wonderful woman, too.

  I know.

  It’s not like you end up being lonely and sad the rest of your life, he said. You can be happy again. It won’t always hurt, losing someone. It’s just there.

  Twenty-Six

  Alan was unpacking a shipment of books when she got to the bookstore. Here’s one for you, he said. Seeing as how you’re on a run of juvenile narrators. It was called The Butcher Boy.

  Story of a young boy living in Ireland, he said. People do unspeakable things to him. He only has one friend, and then that person goes away, too. His mother dies. It’s a pretty dark story, but I’m thinking you can handle it. I’d like to think this is the kind of story that couldn’t ever happen, but the truth is, it probably could.

  It was hard to think of starting another book so soon after The Member of the Wedding. She almost felt as if she needed a certain grieving period for the boy, John Henry, but she took the book from him.

  About that other issue, he said. The child-abuse question. I’ve been doing a little research for you.

  You didn’t need to, she said. After she’d left that time, she’d gotten worried what he might do. Suppose he reported her to the authorities as a victim?

  I got the name of a person you could talk to, he said. For your friend.

  She’s doing a lot better, Wendy told him. She had forgotten for a minute there that it was supposed to be a research paper.

  I see.

  I know what you’re thinking, she said. You’re thinking it’s really me and that my parents hit me or do bad things to me or something. But actually, that isn’t even my real problem. That really was a friend. I have a whole different problem, actually.

  First of all, she said, my name isn’t really Kitty.

  Then she told him the rest.

  I was thinking you might like to take a trip with me, Alan said. Since evidently you aren’t on this intense home-schooling schedule after all.

  Dorothy’s coming in to take care of the shop this afternoon, he told her. I’m driving over to Modesto to see my son. Maybe you’d like to come.

  Tim’s nineteen, he said, but in most ways, he’s like a little boy. My wife has a hard time seeing him, even now.

  What does he like to do? she asked him.

  Go to the Laundromat.

  Alan had saved up all their laundry. When they got to the place where his son lived, he took a big bag of dirty clothes out of the trunk, that he carried in with him. Also a tin of cookies and a box of Legos.

  There were five or six little kids out on the porch, sitting around a table with mounds of clay. A bunch of teachers—more teachers than kids maybe—were helping them turn the clay into shapes, but mostly it seemed to be the teachers who were making the shapes. The kids were just watching, except for one boy with glasses, who was talking nonstop.

  The sinking of the Lusitania, May 1915, he said. One thousand one hundred and ninety-five people died. The sinking of the Titanic, April 1912. Death toll: fifteen hundred people.

  Every time I come here, he’s doing something like that, Alan said. The kid’s an encyclopedia.

  They walked down a hall with lots of artwork on the walls. They got to a room with a sign on the door that said TIM AND BRIAN. Alan knocked.

  It’s your dad, Tim, he said. He waited.

  He needs a minute or two to get used to the idea, Alan told her.

  I brought a friend today, Tim, he said through the door. Wendy.

  More waiting.

  So we’re coming in now. First me, then Wendy. She’s a girl. Like Picabo Street.

  Who’s that? she asked.

  This champion skier he likes, Alan said. He watches a lot of downhill skiing on television. She’s a lot older than you, but to him, it’s the same.

  Picabo Street is the only American skier to win a World Cup downhill championship title, he said. A voice from the other side of the door: Picabo Street eats Wheaties for breakfast.

  We’re coming in now, Tim, he said. I think you’re ready for us.

  He was standing up, facing the door, like a person waiting for a bus. He had a turtleneck sweater on, though it was hot in Modesto, and long pants belted high over his waist, the way Mr. Hutchinson did, back at her old school. His hair was cut very neatly. You could see he shaved, but apart from that, he seemed years younger than nineteen. He could almost be handsome, but he had a slumped-over way of holding himself, like he was afraid his head might bump the ceiling. She’d never seen bluer eyes.

  This is my friend Wendy, Alan said. She helps out at the store sometimes. He hugged the boy, even though Tim didn’t hug back. Wendy thought of her grandmother, the stiff and uncomfortable way she had greeted her son. Even though Tim just stood there, it seemed that Alan must have made a decision a long time ago just to hug him anyway.

  I thought you said you brought Picabo Street.

  I said she’s a girl. Like Picabo Street. Except I don’t think she skis. Right, Wendy?

  No, she said. I like to ride my bike, though. And I used to Rollerblade.

  Tim walked over to a little table in one corner of the room with a bunch of Legos on it. He was building something, but not like the kind of constructions Louie made with Corey, or used to anyway. It looked like a perfect replica of some famous building, although she wasn’t sure which.

  This is really good. What is it? Wendy asked him.

  Did you bring cookies? he asked his father.

  Don’t take it personally, Alan told
her. Most of the time, Tim doesn’t answer questions. Not mine, either. He handed Tim the cookies. Your mother made them, he said. Oatmeal raisin.

  Tim set the cookies on a shelf next to his bed, which was made perfectly. There was a picture of the Challenger on the wall next to the bed.

  It blew up seventy-three seconds after launching, January 28, 1986, Tim said.

  The other thing he had was an aquarium. Wendy walked over to study it. There was a plastic figure of a skin diver on the bottom, sitting on a bunch of multicolored pebbles, raising and lowering his arms over a plastic treasure chest. There was a mermaid with a tail that moved, and a plastic anchor, and a fake frog with bubbles coming out of his mouth when he opened it. No fish.

  He doesn’t like fish, Alan said.

  Fish make the water dirty, Tim said. When they die, you have to flush them down the toilet.

  It’s nice the way you have it, Wendy said. You’ve got a good-looking setup there.

  Tim was studying the pictures on the box of Legos his father had brought. Next time, I want the rocket ship, he said. Model number seven nine eight eight.

  I brought the laundry, Alan said. You think we can handle all this?

  Tim looked at the bag. Yes, he said. I can do it.

  Well then, Alan said. What do you say we get to work?

  They drove into town, Wendy in the backseat, Tim next to his father. You could see a certain resemblance in their faces except the expressions were so different it changed everything.

  Wendy moved here recently from New York City, Tim, Alan said. She’s like you. She likes to read a lot. She’s a really good artist, too.

  New York City is not the capital of New York State, he said. It’s Albany.

  What do you like to read? she asked.

  The Farmer’s Almanac. The dictionary. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask.

  That’s an actual book, Alan said. He found a copy in my store one time. He carries it around with him all the time.

  I like novels, she said. I also read a lot of Japanese animation comics. Have you ever seen those?

  The Farmer’s Almanac says we can expect areas of high pressure and temperatures in the low seventies this afternoon, he said. Picabo Street broke her ankle recently, but she was back in time for the Austrian National Slalom Competition.

  I wish I had a name like that, Wendy said.

  Maybe we should think up a nickname for you, Alan said. What do you think, Tim?

  They sell Tide at the Laundromat, but last time they were out of bleach.

  This is his favorite thing, Alan said when they got there. He likes sorting the clothes and having a few different loads going at one time. Sometimes we take a walk while we’re waiting, but he’s just as happy to sit here. Then we put the clothes in the dryers, and that part we always stick around for, because you can look through the glass windows on the front and see everything spinning around.

  We had a lot of stuff this time, Alan said. Your mother was gardening.

  Bleach wash, Tim said.

  Tim liked putting the quarters in the machine to buy the little individual packets of detergent. He had a pair of scissors in his pocket that he used to open them. He scattered the contents of one packet into each machine, one for dark clothes, one for whites, one for lighter colors, and one for delicate cycle only. In the white wash, he poured a packet of bleach in, too.

  You have to be careful with bleach, he said.

  One time, Tim put a shirt of mine in the bleach wash by mistake, Alan told her.

  It used to be green, huh, Tim?

  Used to be green, Tim said. For a second there, he got a very sad look on his face.

  That’s okay, Tim, Alan said and put an arm around him. Now when I wear my greenish white shirt, I always think of you.

  They walked around downtown Modesto a little during the spin cycle. You could tell Tim was uneasy, though. He kept checking his watch.

  We should go back now, he said.

  We’ve got thirteen more minutes, Tim, Alan told him. I was thinking I’d buy you guys an ice-cream cone.

  It’s good to be on time, Tim said.

  When they got back to the Laundromat, Tim put the wet laundry in the dryers. They had used four washing machines but only two dryers. Tim put the quarters in. Then he plunked himself down in front of the machines. He sat very straight, his blue eyes fixed on the glass windows as the clothes started to spin.

  This is his favorite part, Alan said. Isn’t it, son?

  Tim wasn’t talking. He was staring in the windows.

  I try to imagine what goes on in his brain, Alan said. He’s in some other place we don’t know about. I don’t suppose we can imagine. I just hope it’s nice there.

  When my little brother was a baby, my mother set him down on top of the dryer sometimes and turn it on just for the sound and the vibrations, Wendy said. She’d hold him so he wouldn’t fall off. It used to calm him down.

  A bomb could go off right now, and Tim would still be sitting here watching for the one red sock in the window, Alan said.

  They left a little after three o’clock, two hours after they got there. Tim helped carry the laundry out to the car. When Alan brought it, everything was jumbled into one big laundry bag, but now it was folded in baskets.

  After Alan set the laundry in the backseat, they stood by the car a minute.

  I’ll be here again next week, he said.

  Okay.

  Anything special you’d like me to bring?

  Lego model seven nine eight eight. The rocket ship.

  I’ll see what I can do, Alan said.

  It’s going to be cloudy next Tuesday. Temperatures between seventy and seventy-five. Chance of showers.

  I’d better bring my rain jacket.

  It was nice meeting you, Tim, Wendy said. Maybe I’ll come back sometime.

  I could call you Picabo. If you wanted a nickname.

  Alan put his arms around the boy. Tim did not resist, but he didn’t hug back, either.

  I don’t like it when the fish die, Tim said. It’s better just to have the decorations.

  I know how that is, she told him.

  On the drive back they were quiet for a while. Around the time they got onto Route 5, he spoke.

  That was a lot for Tim to say—what he told you about the nickname and the fish.

  I like him, she said. He reminds me of my little brother in certain ways.

  He probably likes Legos, too, huh? said Alan. Only for him, it would be age-appropriate.

  As he said that, she imagined what it would be like if Louie never stopped playing with Legos and sucking his thumb. If he turned into someone like Tim, who Josh would have to spend the rest of his life visiting, and taking someplace like the Laundromat.

  It’s understandable that your brother would be having a rough time, Alan said. And you, too. Who’s to say what normal behavior is in a situation like that? The usual rules just don’t apply.

  I wish I could see him, she said. It doesn’t work, talking over the phone. I feel I have to be there in the room with him.

  And then you’ve got someone like Tim, he said. You can be right there in the room, and you still can’t get through. You should have seen him as a little boy, Alan said. Not just the usual kind of energy and alertness. More even. He used to come to the bookstore with me on slow days. We had a high stool for him so he could sit up at the front and color. He loved talking to customers.

  This one woman, Mrs. Meehan. She’d cut jokes out of the newspaper for him. Not that he could read, but she’d tell him the joke and then he’d remember it. All day long when people came in, he’d want to tell them the new joke. Sometimes he’d get it a little wrong, but if it was one of those jokes where there’s a talking frog or something, he could make great voices. All my customers loved him.

  I’ll always remember this one joke he loved telling. What did Humpty-Dumpty say when he fell off the wall?

  What?

/>   Ha-ha. The yolk’s on you.

  The changes started happening a little before his fourth birthday, Alan told her. He began to be afraid of certain things. He wouldn’t wear clothes with buttons. If a person came in the store carrying a backpack, he thought they had a bomb. He started rocking back and forth a lot, and he had to carry a tape measure at all times to measure things. None of it made any sense. When his mother would take him grocery shopping, if she walked behind a display of cereal, he’d be afraid he’d lost her forever, and even after she came back, he didn’t calm down.

  The doctors couldn’t do anything. Nothing anyone could do. It was as if our little boy had been stranded on an iceberg that broke off from the mainland, and all we could do was stand there and watch him float away.

  It was hardest on Linda. She couldn’t get past the idea that it was her fault. The books and doctors tell you it’s some kind of chemical imbalance. Nobody knows why. Plenty of really good, loving parents have autistic children. But to my wife, it was a sign she’d failed at the most important thing.

  She spent years trying to get through to Tim, working with him, reading books, taking him to specialists. Five years ago, I finally convinced her that we should take him to Homewood. I thought it might be better for her, but I’m not even sure which has been harder on her—having a son around she had to watch every minute, or not having him there and just thinking about it.

  Does she work in the store sometimes? Wendy asked him.

  Hardly ever. I think being there reminds her of the old days. She gardens mostly. Plays the recorder. She tutors French a couple of times a week at the college. Maybe some people know how to get beyond a thing like this, but Linda never could.

  When I realized my mom wasn’t coming home I didn’t know how I was supposed to keep on doing the normal things, Wendy said. It felt like nothing mattered anymore.