A Face in Every Window (25 page)

I stooped down next to Bobbi.

"Mam's pregnant," I said.

Bobbi nudged me. "Real funny, O'Brien."

"Not funny, true," I said.

She looked at me. "Are you serious?"

I didn't say anything. I stuck my hand in the icy water and stared at its whiteness, waiting for it to turn red.

"Is she okay?"

"I guess. It's Dr. Mike's baby."

"Oh."

That's all she said, and she said it as if I had said,
Looks like it might rain.

"Yup, life's easy," I said.

"You wanna trade? My life for yours?" Bobbi asked.

"No!" I pushed her shoulder and she fell over sideways and laughed.

"Here, try this," I said, standing up and stepping into the water. I lifted my arms out to my side and closed my eyes.

"The Wright brothers already tried that. You need better wings, and a propeller."

"Ha, ha. Just try it."

Bobbi stood up and kicked off her slippers. She stepped into the water, groaning and picking her feet up out of the water a few times before she settled down.

"Okay, what's supposed to happen?"

"Just listen."

We stood together in the water a moment, and I realized she was blocking part of the sound.

She opened her eyes. "What am I supposed to hear?"

"Stay there." I backed up. "Now try it." She closed her eyes again, and I said, "Listen to the water. Listen to the sounds on either side of you."

"Okay," Bobbi said, waiting.

"Doesn't it feel as if the water is running right through you? Like you are the water? Listen."

"No, it doesn't feel—"

"Just stand there and be quiet a few minutes."

I moved away from her and tookup my own spot, behind her, and waited, watching her.

"Hey, yeah! Yeah, I do. Wow!" Bobbi said. "It's washing right through me. I feel so—so powerful, like all this water is rushing through me."

"Told you," I said, thrilled that she could feel it, that I could show her a moment of discovery, the way Mam used to with me.

"It's great. It's like that song we used to sing with Sister Patricia, remember? 'Roll on, Columbia'—about the Columbia River?" She opened her eyes and looked at me. It was the nicest look she'd ever given me. Her smile was for me, truly for me this time—a thank-you smile. I smiled back and we laughed, and then we heard Don's voice calling.

"Bobbi?"

"Shh," Bobbi said, alarm distorting her smile. She grabbed her slippers and headed up the embankment. "Don't follow me," she said. "Go away, hurry, down toward your house."

"Bobbi?"

I could hear the temper in Don's voice. I wanted to go with her, defend her if I needed to, but I knew my being there
would only make it worse for her. She knew more about protecting herself than I did. But I couldn't run away. I couldn't just abandon her. I couldn't move at all. I stood still and tried to listen above the sound of the water. I heard Bobbi calling to Don. She sounded out of breath.

"Look what I found. I wanted to try to find some real flowers to pick, but forsythia's pretty, don't you think?"

"Get on inside. You're in your slippers! Don't you have any sense?"

"I thought they'd look nice on the table," Bobbi said in a saccharine voice.

"Just go on, your burger's getting cold. And leave the flowers. You probably killed the bush picking those."

Bobbi said something, but I didn't catch it They had moved on toward the house.

I sloshed through the water and picked a spot close to where the water washed over a set of large rocks. Then I lifted my arms up and listened, but all I could hear was the sound of a train hurtling down the tracks.

I
DECIDED TO
go home. I thought about hitchhiking my way back, but I didn't want to have to talk to anyone, so I boarded yet another train, chose an empty seat, and sat down. I gazed out the window and watched the blur of grass and concrete as the train sped toward home. I didn't know what I would do when I got home, what I would say. I didn't know what I wanted from Mam anymore. I wanted to tell her I knew she had lied, I knew Dr. Mike was the father of her baby, but every time I rehearsed this in my mind my throat would close up as if I had stuffed a balled-up sock down in it.

I couldn't believe Mam had lied to me. That was the worst of it for me. She had never lied before. It proved how far apart we had grown in the past year. I remembered how Mam used to say, "Just me and you, JP," and I understood that she didn't mean to exclude the others, she just meant that we had something special between us. Maybe we did love one another once. Maybe we didn't save it all for Grandma Mary—but when she died, when she abandoned
us, we all lost our way somehow, and 1 wondered if we'd ever find our way back to each other. How could we if Mam lied to us?

I sat picking at the skin along the side of my fingernail, chewing at it now and then, and trying not to think about Mam and me.

At last the train pulled into the station. I stepped out onto the platform and went to the spot where I had left Jerusha's bicycle. The bike was gone. I heard a car horn and then Jerusha's voice.

"James Patrick O'Brien, are you deaf?"

I looked up and saw Jerusha sitting at the wheel of Larry's van. She waved.

How could 1 face her? I'd lost her bike. I turned away and walked along the platform and then hopped onto the tracks behind the retreating train.

"JP?" Jerusha had gotten out of the van and pursued me down the tracks. She caught up with me and said, "Hey, come on. Everybody's been looking for you."

I kept walking and she walked beside me, her long legs matching mine stride for stride. "You okay?" she asked.

I stopped and faced her. "I lost your bike!" I shouted, sounding angry at her, as if I hated her.

She blinked at me, drawing her head back as if my words had slapped her. "No, you didn't, I've got it in the van."

"What?"

"Sure. I came by here earlier and picked it up. Mike called and said you were down here. He said you were quite distressed, and I guess you are. You look a wreck."

"Thanks." I swept my hair back off my face.

"Come on." Jerusha took my hand and we turned around and headed toward the van.

"Have you been waiting for me all this time?" I asked, when we had reached the van and I saw the bicycle lying across the backseat.

"No. I've been combing the whole town for you, JP. Everybody has. I need to get you home and call off the hunt. It's getting late, in case you hadn't noticed."

I hadn't noticed, but I did then. I saw the pink sky and the dark shadows in the trees.

"Sorry," I said. I climbed into the van, and Jerusha backed out of the parking space.

"Mam's been a wreck, too," Jerusha said once we got on the road.

"She deserves it," I said. "I'm glad she's worried about me."

"Oh, she isn't, not about you at any rate." Jerusha bit her upper lip. "Sorry, if that's what you wanted," she added.

"Figures." I crossed my arms in front of me and slid down in my seat.

Jerusha shook her head and her hair slapped at her face. "No, it's not what you think She said you were too practical to run off or do anything stupid. She has confidence in you, JP, that's all."

"Yup, that's me. Dependable, responsible JP." I sat up and turned toward her, as much as my seat belt would allow. "You know, I almost pushed Dr. Mike in front of a train today. I came just a millimeter away from doing it I swear I did."

Jerusha laughed.

"You don't believe me?"

Jerusha shook her head again, and I watched her dark hair
fly. "Never in a million years would you have done it," she said, so sure of herself that I felt I hated her again. Then she added, "You know, JP, sometimes it's good to be the kind of person others can always count on. Actually, most of the time."

"Thanks," I said, feeling myself blush and turning to face forward in my seat. Man, I loved her.

We turned onto a street where workers were repairing potholes. Jerusha slowed down and said, as if it were just the tag end of our conversation, "Your mam's moved out of the house."

I turned to look at her and felt lightheaded. I told myself to be calm, act calm. "Yeah?" I said. "Where is she? Or do I need to ask? She's run off with the good doctor, right? Of course, I knew it. It's what I expected." My words were calm but my heart was pounding. I slammed my head back against the seat and it felt good to direct my energy somewhere. I wanted to punch something. Instead I slammed my head back against the seat again.

Jerusha touched my arm. I glanced down at her long fingers. She took her hand away. "No, she's still at the house, just outside. She says she's going to live outside from now on." Jerusha turned onto our street and accelerated up the hill.

"That makes good sense," I said. "About as much sense as Pap sitting out on the roof all day." I knew I sounded angry, and I meant to, but inside I felt relief. I looked up at the roof of the van and asked it, "Why can't we have a normal family?"

Jerusha laughed, and I smiled It felt good to make her laugh.

We turned into the drive. I saw in the last light of dusk the aluminum lounge chair with the plastic weave stretched
out on the lawn. Mam wasn't in it, but I saw signs that she had been there. The afghan from her bed, one Grandma Mary had made Mam and Pap when they were first married, hung off the side of the chair, an empty plate and a mug sat on a plastic table set up beside it, and Mam's binoculars stood in the grass.

I climbed out of the van and headed toward the chair, rehearsing what I had planned to say to Mam. I clenched my teeth and told myself to just blurt it out. Just accuse her as soon as I saw her. Tell her that I knew the truth, call her a liar.

Then I saw Mam coming out of the woods and I braced myself, folding my arms across my chest, my feet wide apart She saw me, but she didn't quicken her pace, didn't wave or even look happy to see I'd come home safely, and I felt all the energy and the tension that had expanded inside my body suddenly collapse, leaving me tired, more tired than I'd ever felt in my life. My arms fell by my side, too heavy to hold themselves up anymore.

I hadn't realized Jerusha had come up behind me until I heard her speaking in my ear.

"Mam thinks she's going to die," she said.

I turned my head and saw Jerusha nod. "She's sure this pregnancy will kill her."

I turned back to Mam. She had paused to gaze up at a bat that had just swooped past her head.

I took notice of the bat and then returned to Mam, to the stranger with a baby growing inside her and a self-proclaimed death sentence hanging over her. How dare she? Grandma Mary, Pap, and I had spent a lifetime fearing every time she got sick that this was it, this was the one, she was
going to die on us, and now she was planning on it. She was planning on dying having
Mike's
baby. The whole idea was too much for me. She wasn't going to die. She just had a guilty conscience.

I watched her standing out on the lawn, following the bat's flight, ignoring me, too guilty even to face me. My desire to speak with her and accuse her of lying to me had vanished. What was the use? She didn't care about how 1 felt. She didn't care about me. I realized there was nothing for me to do but turn and walk away.

T
HAT SPRING AND
summer, Mam and I stopped talking to each other. It wasn't something we had agreed on. It just happened. At first I felt too angry to speak, and too confused by her behavior. Why was she living outside? What was going on with her? And where was Dr. Mike? What did it mean that he wasn't coming around anymore? Then later I felt too depressed to speak. Depressed because I had figured Mam would notice my silence and seek me out, try to make things up to me, explain herself, but she didn't She answered my silence with a silence of her own.

No one else seemed to notice. I felt sure they thought everything was fine between us. Mam stayed outside and I stayed inside, both of us busy, both of us using the others like a wall and shield to keep from having to deal with each other, to even notice each other existed. I did this on purpose, suddenly making extra efforts to fit in, to be one of the crowd. Larry had taken a second job as a waiter in a high-class restaurant to help pay for his house-building course, so I
took over the job as head cook, and the others would often gather in the kitchen while I prepared the food. They'd sit at the table or lean against the counter and talk to one another and to me. They said they loved coming home and smelling something wonderful cooking, they couldn't resist coming into the kitchen, and so I made sure I always had something on the stove or in a Crock-Pot, a soup or stew, that could be simmering all day until I got home to take over my duties. Even if I got home late, I could find them in there, and often someone would be sampling the dish and then, seeing me, would lower the lid and give me an innocent look, backing away from the stove. I'd just smile and get to work, pleased that they were waiting for me and not outside with Mam.

I wanted her to know I was fitting in. I wanted to hurt hey with the knowledge that everybody wanted my comfort food. I wanted her to be there when Jerusha and I set up our chess game out on the porch table and when Leon and I shot baskets, when we played one-on-one. I wanted her to know that her silence didn't bother me at all, and anytime we did happen to be in the same place at the same time, I made sure she saw what a great time I was having. I talked louder, laughed harder, always keeping that wall of others between us, always so, so busy. I had to study for final exams. I had my jobs in the computer lab and the school office. I found it easy not speaking to Mam, and yet all my busy-ness did not block out my awareness of her. I watched her more than ever. I knew where she was, what she was doing, who she was with, more than I ever had, and I noticed she, too, had become extra-busy. She lived outside, just as she had said she would, sleeping out on the lawn each night and escaping to the porch
when it rained. She even had Jerusha buy her groceries that would keep outdoors and that she could use to make easy meals.