One of the Boys Page 8

  We were surprised to find the box filled with mementos—photos, keepsakes, letters—mostly of our mom. Near the top was a finger-worn postcard with the red sun symbol and yellow field of the New Mexican flag. My mother’s handwriting was on the other side. It was from the trip they’d taken out here years back. It was addressed to our house in Kansas, postmarked in Santa Fe. She must have mailed it to him secretly.

  We read to ourselves.

  Sweetness and Light, she called him. Whenever we fight like two nights ago in Oklahoma City, I always think about how precious our time is together. I wonder though where the tender moments are? Why aren’t there more? Its not just that I feel sad when we don’t get along, but that I feel like we are throwing away something special. I love you so much, but you scare me sometimes. When you left me at the motel, I waited up for you all night. The whole time I felt so ashamed. I hated myself because it wasn’t until the door slammed shut that I remembered to love you better. I want us to feel that way always. I want us to remember to be kind to each other. We always come back together stronger than ever, but lets make a promise for our new life in New Mexico. Lets promise to fight less and love more. She signed off with Always and her name.

  “We were all moving down here together at one point?” I asked my brother. “Why would he keep this stuff?” He ignored my questions. “Do you really think Mom will come through?”

  “Stop,” he yelled. “Just fucking stop talking.”

  He closed the box, put it away. I followed him into the living room. He punched the power button on the stereo. The music went off. He poured us another drink. We sipped our glasses. After a moment he said, “She’s on our side now.”

  We looked around the room for our next activity.

  My eyes stopped at The Spirit resting on the fireplace mantle. I’d sometimes come home from school to find my dad sitting on the couch, staring at the elegant alabaster sculpture. Now, shafts of light from the window brought her to life, made her dress glint, nose wrinkle, mouth move to whisper some secret I’d once believed my father had long understood.

  “Her.” I pointed.

  “What about her?”

  “Let’s bury the bitch,” I said.

  He laughed. “Where?”

  “The park?”

  “No shovel.”

  “A hammer, then.”

  In the park, though, we were too drunk for that. We dropped the sculpture on the grass, sat down next to her. Night was near. We scooted close to each other. My brother put his hand on my knee, and I finally felt the gravity of the moment: We were leaving. It was happening. My heart sank from the weight of the realization that I didn’t think I could ever see my father again. It would be too difficult to explain why we left, too easy for him to manipulate me. His logic was always so simple—I was giving up on him. But I also felt exhilarated to run, to never return. I pictured my brother and me fleeing on a bus—our eyes glued to the window as winter arrived and the skyline slowly straightened—and I knew we were making the right decision.

  “Come on,” my brother said. “It’s freezing. Let’s go back inside.”

  We left The Spirit out in the park, facing east.

  * * *

  The snow had dumped while we slept. The interstate was plowed, visibility good but for brief moments when overnight buildup swept from the tops of trailers, poured over the bus’s windshield. New Mexico’s eastern plain was blank, featureless. We could not measure our progress in mile markers or tanks of gas or changes in the land as we had done on the drive down. I traced power lines instead. The wind sometimes lashed the bus over the lane line. We stopped in Amarillo for lunch in the early afternoon.

  Inside the bus terminal my brother called our mom from the pay phone.

  I went to the bathroom, checked out the snacks in the vending machine. On my way back across the lounge I saw my brother’s shoulders hunched in anger. His hand covered his mouth as he whispered furiously into the phone. He saw me, waved me to hustle over.

  He shared the phone so I could listen.

  “Honey,” my mother said, “you need to trust me.”

  “No,” my brother said. “Fuck that.”

  “This is what’s best for us,” she said.

  I asked him what was going on.

  “Dad’s been with her since this morning,” he said.

  “Is that your brother?” she asked. “Let me talk to him.”

  He handed me the phone.

  “Honey, you there?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He showed up on my doorstep early this morning. We’ve been talking since sunrise. He’s told me everything. Everything your brother told me and more. He’s been a monster. He knows it. But he also knows how brave you boys have been. He’s made terrible mistakes, unforgivable, but he wants to try and start over. He wants to make it right. He says he’ll move you all back here. It was his idea. He had no idea that you were already on your way.”

  “He knows where we are right now?” I said. “You told him?”

  “He’s not angry. He understands.”

  “I want my family back,” I heard him say in the background.

  “He wants his family back,” she said.

  “Tell him our deal,” he said.

  “Did you know your dad has been clean for over a month? But he needs extra help. You boys are going to stay with me until he’s well. He’ll put it in writing that I get full custody if he doesn’t stay sober for a year. He’s even going to lift the restraining order. Doesn’t that sound like he’s ready to change?” She explained that now we needed to grab a bus back to Albuquerque. We had to complete the last two weeks of class before Christmas. Over winter break we’d pack up and ship out, a phrase of my father’s she was obviously repeating. “How’s that sound? Better, right? This way we do it out in the open. Legal.”

  My brother, listening in, had heard enough. He threw his hands up and went outside. I watched him through the window pace in the snow. He was pissed at her. I was too. She didn’t understand how exposed we were. How exposed she had just made us. And now she wanted us to go back? But then again our parents were talking right now. They were in the same room. If my father kept his word, what was a few more weeks?

  “You believe him?” I asked her.

  “I see the man I married,” she said.

  Outside I spoke to my brother.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” I told him. “Tell me what you want to do. We can stay on this bus all the way to Kansas. We can go steal the Jeep and run. Just drive.”

  “We’d get caught,” he said.

  “We’d have a few days of freedom at least. What are our other options?”

  “We don’t have any.”

  “Are they going to get back together?”

  “It’s what they both deserve,” he said.

  He went inside, called our mom. We were on the next bus back.

  By the time we got to Albuquerque it was dark. We cleared the snow off the Jeep with our hands, drove home from the bus station. Back at the apartment the red message light on the answering machine was blinking. My brother hit the button. Our parents had left us a voice mail. They were yelling over the noise in the background. They were out celebrating. My father had won back the big account. “Good things happen when you make good choices,” my mother said. He called her “Sweetness and Light.” They’d decided he would stay in Kansas through the weekend.

  * * *

  We didn’t hear from them for a few days. The snow had stopped. Still, school was canceled. We stayed inside mostly. My brother kept to himself. From the window I thought I could see the head of The Spirit poking through the snow cover. I went out to look for it on Saturday. It was nowhere to be found.

  Sunday morning the phone rang. My brother muted the TV.

  My mother came over the answering machine. She asked for me.

  In Amarillo I had been relieved that our first conversation in so long had been about something pressing, immediate.
By now I’d grown eager to speak to her for real. I wanted the reconciliation over with. I was sure it was why she was calling.

  My brother asked me what I was waiting for.

  I answered the phone.

  “Honey,” she said. “Can you talk?”

  I jumped right in, told her about the day I lied to the social worker. I wanted her to understand the pressure I’d felt to perform for my father. She hushed me. She was crying already. So was I.

  “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

  “Yes it is,” I said. “Please don’t lie to me.”

  “Let’s just start over. We’ll wipe the slate clean. Past is past.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I don’t think it’s even possible.”

  “I don’t know how to do this. What should I say? I want my boys back.”

  “Dad too?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “Is he listening?”

  “He’s still asleep.”

  “We’re afraid of him.”

  “I know. So am I.” There was a long silence before she spoke again. “When you were in preschool, you and your brother were playing around one morning, jumping on the bed. I was downstairs in the kitchen, and I heard a thud and ran upstairs as fast as I could and found you huddled up on the floor, holding your shoulder. I wanted to take you to the doctor right away, but your dad said no. He thought you were being dramatic. Well, stupid as I was, I listened to him. I took you to school and walked you to your classroom and sat you down in your chair, and when I came back at the end of the day to pick you up, you hadn’t moved an inch. You were still sitting in the same seat where I left you, and in the same position too. My poor baby! Your collarbone was broken. I nearly screamed at your teacher. I wanted to kill your dad. You were so stiff when I helped you up out of that chair, but you barely made a noise. A part of me, a secret part, was proud of your tolerance for pain. That’s my child, I thought. He has my strength. But when we were leaving the hospital, I asked you why you didn’t say anything to your teacher. I wanted to know why you decided to put yourself through something so awful. ‘That’s how you stay one of the boys,’ you told me. My heart broke in that moment. That’s the way I’ve remembered you over the past two years, the memory I’ve kept closest to me.” She was done crying, speaking clearly. “I won’t put you in a position again where your dad’ll hurt you. You don’t have to trust him right now. But you can trust me. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said.

  “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too.”

  She asked to talk to my brother.

  They spoke for a short while. He mostly listened. He’d softened some over the past few days. He appeared to be softening even more now. When he was off the phone, he sat down on the couch, turned the volume up, stared at the TV. I could tell he was trying hard to keep a blank expression. A moment later a beautiful smile broke over his face. “Mom’s flying out with Dad tomorrow,” he said.

  * * *

  My brother picked me up from school the next afternoon. We went straight to the airport, hours early. We walked around, popped into shops, tried to do our homework, looked for distractions. We talked about our old friends back home and our old neighborhood, our old lives, excitedly at first, until the unease that maybe we wouldn’t fit in anymore, that maybe we were too different from the versions of ourselves we’d left behind, settled over us. We changed the subject. When their flight was about to land, we took a seat near the baggage claim, kept an eye on the stairs. Last night we’d cleaned the apartment, bought ingredients for dinner, set the table. We hung streamers, made signs. My brother had shaved and had taught me to shave. Our mom was coming down to help us pack. Two weeks here wasn’t so long. If all went well, we’d be back in Kansas in no time.

  A crowd of passengers started down the stairs. We stood, each of us holding an edge of the poster with her name on it. I could hardly contain my fear, uncertainty, hope. My anticipation warped faces to look like my mother’s. I found myself rocking, from one foot to the other, my fists balled. It was a dance, I realized, that she had once shown us. My brother and I, we are watching a baseball game in the living room of her apartment. This is after our parents’ separation. It’s nighttime, spring. The screens are open. Through the windows we hear the breeze rustle the leaves, and the song of the cicadas, early this year, rising from the field across the street. Our mom walks out of her bedroom in high-waisted pants with well-creased pleats running down to her high heels. She steps as if on stilts until she stands in front of the television. Her silk blouse is tucked in, seems to be melting off her body. She’s missed a button. The gap shows her bra, a mole on her breast. That’s when we know she’s drunk. She’s probably taken pills too. Her hair is slicked back, lipstick painted a half inch past her lips. She has on thick blue eyeliner and clumpy mascara. She’s begging for our attention.

  She balls her fists, pumps them, rocks back and forth, one foot to the other.

  “Salt and pepper shaker,” she says. “Salt and pepper shaker.”

  My brother and I are not amused. We don’t have much patience for her. She’s been sleeping in her room all day. We smile and tell her to get out of the way. She doesn’t listen, just goes on repeating that phrase, those movements. She won’t stop. We try to resist, but my brother and I eventually lose ourselves to the absurdity. I punch my stomach, the laughter is so deep. He kicks his legs in the air. She feeds off us, keeps dancing. She has no other moves, just pumps her fists faster, quickens her steps, incants, “Salt and pepper shaker. Salt and pepper shaker.” Then she loses her footing, falls to a knee. My brother and I jump, run to her, make sure she’s OK. She’s not hurt. In fact she is laughing so hard she can barely breathe. So are we. After long silent seconds we all gasp for air.

  My brother raised our welcome poster higher. A new wave of people now descended the steps to the baggage claim. I decided to break into her dance, use her line, when I saw her. It would make her feel at home. From nowhere it seemed, my father was halfway down the stairs, hugging the rail, hurrying. I pointed him out. He saw us in the crowd too. He walked right up to us. He was by himself, wearing sunglasses.

  “Where is she?” my brother asked.

  “Where’s the car?” he asked.

  “Where’s your bag?” I asked.

  He raised his arm to show us his roller. His hand was empty. He had sweat rings around his neckline and armpits. He was coming down, ready for more.

  “Fuck it,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “Where’s Mom?” my brother repeated.

  “I’ll tell you at home,” he said. “Just get me out of here.”

  “No,” my brother said.

  “Get your fucking ass in the car.”

  Outside, the sky grown dark, my father kept his sunglasses on. He unbuttoned his shirt in the Jeep, rolled up his sleeves. He cracked a window, let in the cold. I sat behind him, searched the back of his head for an explanation. For a soft spot in his skull. What excuse would he have this time? What would he accuse her of now? And where was she? How could she not be here? We’d trusted her.

  Once inside the apartment he tore through the decorations, marched directly to the phone, ripped the cord from the wall. He threw the answering machine across the room. He drew the blinds, called for a lockdown, radio silence. He collected our keys. He sat us down on the couch, told us that anyone caught contacting our mom would be sent to the brig, guillotined, the biggest fucking code red either of us had ever seen.

  My brother asked him what happened.

  “She thought she was the hero is what happened. She thought she was rescuing you boys from me. This was all my idea. Mine. Mine. It was me. I approached her. I decided to move us back to Kansas. I won back the big account. I invited her out here to help. I’m the savior of this family. I’m the hero in this story.”

  “Is she OK?” I asked.

  “Of course she’s fucking OK.
I didn’t do anything to her. Why are you so fucking concerned about her? Is this a goddamn interrogation? Is that what this is? She’s fine. But she won’t be bothering us anymore. That’s for sure. Who cares anyway? We don’t fucking need her. We’ve never needed her. We can do this without her. We can find a new home. We can start over. In fact this time you boys can pick it. Anywhere in the world. How’s that for an idea?” He slapped his knee, laughed aloud. “It’s your turn to choose. What do you say? Anywhere in the whole wide world, except back there. You can’t go backwards in life. You choose where, anywhere, we can go anywhere, but we’re not moving backwards. It’s against the laws of nature. Who needs back there anyway? We have each other. We came out here to start over together, didn’t we? Family. We’re family, remember? Remember?”

  My father’s eyes suddenly stopped at the fireplace. He saw The Spirit missing. The wind rushed out of him. His eyes darted, thinking maybe it had been moved. Something strange happened to me then: I felt myself withdrawing from him. It was as if I had been pulled out of the action of a play. I became the viewer, observing a scene. The soliloquy of a sad and desperate man. I noticed the strain in his face, the hurt, the need for an explanation. My father staggered, pulled himself up straight. He knew the sculpture was gone. And, worse, why. “What do you know about life?” he yelled. “Really, what do you know? You know nothing. You know shit. Tell me one true thing about life. This instant. You can’t, can you? Either of you. Tell me one true thing.”

  We’d gone back into silent mode.

  What was there left to say? We’d escaped once already. We’d do it again. We’d call our mom as soon as we could, make sure she was OK, hatch a new plan. Still, I couldn’t have been angrier with her. All she had to do was tell us to stay on that bus. We were free. We were out. The fact that she’d put us back inside this apartment was unforgivable. She was gullible and weak, and she couldn’t protect us. But we had no other options. Our dad was an act with a single end. His trajectory: down, down, down. He was going to kill himself out here. And it wasn’t that I didn’t care anymore. He was my father. It was just that we had spent far too long as his audience, right here on this couch. We’d felt happy, hurt, sad here. We’d been reprimanded, confided in. We’d been dazed, embattled, betrayed. We’d slept here, dreamed here, youthful dreams that would never return.