If Only (5 page)

Danny

As soon as Danny gets home from seeing Pop, he goes into his bedroom, slams the door and takes a worn package of photographs from his dresser drawer.

Up until Danny and Pam were ten years old, they lived in Sudbury, Ontario, in a small house on a cul-de-sac. If he thinks about it, he can remember his best friend, Tommy, and the woman who looked after them during the day, and the bedroom he shared with Pam. But he doesn't think about it very often.

When they had decided to move from Ontario to the farm, Nana sent Pam and Danny each a Brownie camera and a roll of film for the drive across the country. There were twelve pictures on the roll, and Dad said not to count on getting any more because film was expensive to develop.

It took them six days to get to British Columbia in their station wagon, pulling a trailer that swayed on the corners and was crammed with their stuff. Pam used up her entire roll of film the first day. Danny worried over each of his pictures, wondering if he should take it or wait until something better came along. By the time he decided, it was too late. Most of the time it was too dark to see any scenery anyway. Dad's car made a weird rattling sound if you went over fifty miles an hour, so he drove at night, when there weren't a lot of cars on the road pushing him to go faster.

The only time they drove in the daytime was when they went through the Rocky Mountains. The highway was twisty and narrow and you needed to be able to see well on the curves, and people were going slow anyway. Danny used up half his pictures on the mountains, while Pam begged Dad to buy her just one more roll. Danny had six pictures left by the time they got to the farm.

He took them all that first day. He took pictures of
things:
Pop and Nana's farmhouse and
the small brown house where Dad and he and Pam were going to live, the dairy barn where Pop used to milk his cows, an old tractor, the empty rabbit hutches where Dad had raised rabbits when he was a kid. Danny's last picture was of the wooden stand at the end of the driveway, with
Fresh Corn
painted across a board. Nana had told them in her letters that he and Pam could help sell corn to the tourists that drove by.

They had taken their film to a camera shop to be developed, and Danny's pictures are still in the envelope they came back in, worn from him opening it so many times. He takes the pictures out now. He puts the Rocky Mountain pictures in a pile and spreads out the farm pictures on the bed.

He should have taken a picture of Nana. She'd been standing on the porch waiting for them, a huge welcoming smile on her face. Pam had leaped out of the car and raced up and hugged her. Except for all the letters she'd sent, Nana was a stranger. Pam didn't care. Pam's face squinched up, that's how hard she hugged Nana, which made everyone laugh, even Dad. Danny'd always envied the way Pam could hug Nana. He used to let Nana hug him, and he'd stand really close to her and breathe in her smell of lemons and cinnamon, but that was all.

Danny gathers up the photographs and puts them back in their envelope. He should have taken a picture of Pop when he was the old Pop, strong as Dad and never mixed up over who Danny was. He should have hugged Nana back.

Dad cooks pork
chops and instant mashed potatoes for supper. He sets three places at the kitchen table. Danny isn't sure what it means. He is used to eating Mrs. Glassen's
food on their laps in front of the
TV
. Maybe Dad is trying to pretend they're some kind of family. Maybe he hasn't noticed that they haven't been a family since Nana died. Dad bangs on Pam's door and tells her that supper will be ready in five minutes. She yells something and then Dad hollers back, “You have to eat. Five minutes.”

Danny sits at the table, watching Dad stir boiling water into the instant potatoes. He fights back a memory of the table in Nana's kitchen where they always ate. Nana had made things like ham and scalloped potatoes, or roast chicken, and fudge brownies for dessert. Dad had always been tired from the long commute into the city to his job at the dockyard, and he never talked much at supper.
It hadn't mattered, because Nana filled the meal with chatter and Pop told stories about the farm in the old days.

Dad is flipping the pork chops out of a frying pan and onto plates when Pam appears in the doorway.
Danny stares at her and his stomach lurches. Her hair
sticks out around her face in chunks, the ends all different lengths. Her eyes meet Danny's. At first she looks as if she is daring him to say something, and then she just looks scared. Danny swallows and looks at Dad. He is staring at Pam too, and his face has turned gray.

Danny waits for Dad to yell at Pam, but he doesn't. He turns back to the stove, and his movements are stiff, as if he is suddenly as old as Pop.

The pork chops are tough and the potatoes are lumpy. Every mouthful sticks in Danny's throat, and he ends up leaving most of his food on his plate. They eat in silence. When they are finished, Danny says, “I'm going over to Hugh's. If that's okay.”

“Do the dishes first,” Dad says. “And I want you home by eight.”

Eight
. Danny opens his mouth to protest. It's a Saturday night—no school tomorrow. His usual curfew is ten. Then he sees the hard look in Dad's eyes and changes his mind.

Hugh's parents are
out.
Hugh barely waits until Danny is inside the house before he bursts out, “God, Danny, what happened? What
happened
?”

There is a pepperoni pizza on the kitchen counter. Hugh's mother has left a plate of cookies too, and plates, napkins and glasses are set out. Danny is suddenly ravenous. “Is this stuff for us to eat?” he says.

Hugh stares at him. “
Danny
! I'm your best friend. You should have told me at school yesterday.”

School. Danny doesn't want to think about that. All the kids talking in the hallway. The silence when he walked out of the library. His legs suddenly feel weak, and he slides onto a stool at the counter. “What did Julie Glassen tell everybody?”

Hugh is standing in front of the refrigerator. He averts his eyes from Danny's. His cheeks turn bright red. “She said that Pam was…well, you know.” Hugh sounds miserable.

Danny goes still inside. What does Hugh mean? “I
don't
know,” he says.

“Well…she said that Pam was”—Hugh's voice drops to a hoarse whisper—“raped.”

The word slams into Danny, landing deep in his gut. It isn't true,
it isn't true
, but now that's what everybody thinks. He takes a shaky breath, fighting back the rage that roars inside him. “Julie was lying. That's not what happened. Some guy grabbed Pam, but he didn't do anything. This lady came along with a dog and the guy ran away.”

“That's it?” Hugh says.

Danny stares at him coldly.

“I mean,” Hugh stammers, “that's awful, really
awful
, but…”

There is something Danny needs to know. “What else did Julie say?”

“That the guy had a knife and that”—Danny watches Hugh swallow—“her clothes were messed up.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really. We had an assembly, but Mr. Allen never said it was Pam. He just said it was a Bartley High student. He gave everyone a letter for our parents. No one's supposed to walk on the railroad trail until they catch the guy.”

Danny is silent. Julie would never have kept her mouth shut if she'd known about Danny hugging the
tree. So Mrs. Glassen didn't hear that part. If it ever does get around the school, he will be finished. He certainly has no intention of telling Hugh the real story, how he did nothing
while some creep dragged his sister into the bushes.

Hugh seems hungry for details. “Geez, Danny. You must
have freaked out. Did you see him clearly? I mean, can you tell the police who he is or anything?”

“I didn't see much. It happened too fast.”

And then the question Danny dreads. “What did you
do
? I mean, when the guy grabbed Pam.”

Danny's heart pounds in his ears. “I tried to stop him. I…I tried to get the knife off him. And then all of a sudden this dog was there, jumping on the guy. And he ran away.”

“Wow,” Hugh says.

Danny can feel Hugh's brain formulating more questions. He looks Hugh directly in the eyes. “I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

There is a pause and then Hugh says, disappointed, “Yeah, sure.”

They watch the
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
while they eat the pizza and cookies. Danny laughs loudly at the jokes, to prove to Hugh that he is okay. Then they go into Hugh's bedroom. Hugh flops on the bed, but Danny roams around the room, looking at stuff. It's messy, like Pam's room, with clothes and comic books strewn everywhere.

“What's this?” he says, standing in front of Hugh's desk. He picks up a narrow box. On the front is a picture of a fighter airplane against a golden sun-streaked sky. At the top of the box are the words
P-47D THUNDERBOLT
in bold letters.

“It's a model my grandma gave me for Christmas,” Hugh says gloomily. “Mom says I have to make it before she comes. I
hate
models.”

When Danny was eight, Dad gave him a model of a car for his birthday. Pam got into it and broke some of the pieces, so he didn't finish it. For some reason Dad blamed him, and Danny never got another model. But Danny still remembers his excitement when he had figured out how all the pieces fit together.

He lifts the lid off the box and peers inside. It is full of olive-green plastic pieces. Some of the bigger pieces he recognizes right away, like the wings and the main body of the plane. But there are lots of tiny pieces too, still attached by little tabs to a plastic framework.

“Is it okay if I look at this?” Danny says.

Hugh shrugs. He picks up a comic book. “Go ahead.”

Danny takes out all the pieces and lays them on Hugh's desk. He finds a miniature pilot, not much bigger than his thumbnail, and the propeller and something that looks like an engine. There is a folded instruction sheet at the bottom of the box, and a paper with decals. Danny studies the decals for a moment. There are stripes and stars and a thing that looks like a checkerboard. Danny looks back at the picture of the plane on the box. The stars are on the wings, and the checkerboard is around the nose of the plane.

“The instructions are impossible,” Hugh mumbles from behind his comic book.

“Not really,” Danny says, scanning the sheet of paper. He can already see how some of the main pieces fit together. He picks up the two sides of the plane's body and pinches them together with his fingers. Then he fiddles with one of the wings, trying to see how it fits. That part is easy; it will be all those tiny pieces that are challenging.

“You're supposed to paint the pieces first,” Hugh says. “Grandma sent the paints too.” He climbs off his bed and produces a paper bag from the clutter on top of his dresser. “The paints are all in here, and a paintbrush and the cement.”

Danny takes out all the little bottles of paint and lines them up in a row on the desk. Brown, black, silver, yellow, gray, white. He imagines dipping the brush into each color and carefully painting the tiny pieces. He would do it slowly, being careful not to make mistakes. He knows he would do a way better job than Hugh.

“I could help you,” Danny says.

Hugh puts down his comic book. “Even better idea. You can do it for me.”

“You want me to?” Danny says. “I will, if you don't care.”

“I told you, I hate models,” Hugh says.

Danny glances at the window. It is already getting dark. He checks his watch; seven forty-five, and he still has to walk all the way home.

“I gotta go. Can I take it to my house to work on?” Danny doesn't think he can work here with Hugh chattering in his ear, making him lose his concentration. He is already picturing how he will read each step carefully, checking and double-checking, so he won't make any mistakes.

“Sure.” Hugh grins. “Just bring it back before Grandma gets here.”

“Deal,” Danny says.

There are long stretches of darkness between the streetlights as Danny walks home. Now that he isn't using the railroad trail, it takes a lot longer. He isn't sure he will ever use the trail again. He doesn't really mind; he likes walking.

His footsteps sound loud on the hard ground. Danny glances over his shoulder a few times and then takes a few deep breaths. It is
stupid
to feel afraid; nothing is going to happen here, and anyway, he can bang on someone's door if he has to. Lights—sometimes the flickering blue lights of a
TV
—peek out from behind curtains, and on one block Danny passes a couple walking a dog. It isn't like being on the trail, where sometimes you don't see anyone at all.

He concentrates on thinking about the model. He holds
the box in one hand and the bag of paints and cement in the other. He is bone-tired, and he decides he won't start painting tonight because he doesn't want to mess it up. But he's going to sort all the pieces and get everything ready. Hugh said the instructions were impossible, but the steps are numbered. Danny knows that if he follows them one by one, he will know exactly what to do.

Pam

“You should go,” Dad says.

This day has just become even weirder, because Dad never cares what I do.

“No,” I say.

“Carol just wants to take you for a drive.”

“No.”

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm lying on my bed, listening to the Beach Boys. Dad knocked once and then pushed the door open before I could tell him to go away.

I forget that I think Carol is nice and that she stuck up for me in front of Dad and that I love Carol's dog, Prince.

Dad is still standing in my doorway.

“I don't want to.”

I don't know why Dad's pushing me to go out with Carol. Dad isn't big on getting to know neighbors. When we moved here, some ladies in the block brought over pies and casseroles. Dad didn't ask them in, and they never came back. I've seen him drive right by old Mr. Thompson, who lives two houses down, and not wave back when he waves his cane at Dad. Danny says that Dad is just too busy worrying about keeping his job, and about not having enough money, and about Pop getting better.

Danny always comes up with theories. He probably has a theory about why Dad's drinking so much beer now, but I've never asked him. It's another thing we don't talk about, but I know that Danny's noticed. He gets a dark look in his eyes when Dad opens another can.

“You can't hide in here forever,” Dad says.

I close my eyes and turn onto my stomach.
Go away
.

“I want to see you dressed for dinner. You look awful.”

“Right,” I mumble into my pillow.

Dad doesn't look so hot either; his gray shirt has a stain and he needs to shave, but I'm not stupid enough to tell him.

“Look at me when I'm talking to you.”

I roll over slowly and sit up.

My record ends, and I can hear my clock ticking on my dresser.

Dad frowns. “What were you thinking, doing that to your hair?”

I shrug. “I like it this way.”

Dad gives me a hard look. “You'll feel better when you get back to school tomorrow,” he says finally, turning to leave the room.

A fist closes inside my chest, and my lungs are being squeezed. I think I'm not going to be able to speak. But I force the words out. “I'm not going to school tomorrow.”

Dad wheels around. “Oh yes you are.”

I wait until he has left and then I whisper, “No, I'm not.”

Danny will know what to do.

He's been in his room most of the day. He comes out to go to the bathroom and get food and then he disappears again. I stand in the hallway in front of his closed bedroom door. Danny's had a thing about knocking ever since we moved here and don't have to share a room like on the farm. I wanted my own room really badly, but sometimes I miss our old bunk beds and talking until really late.

So I knock, and at first I think he's not going to answer, but then he says, “Come in.”

The room smells like paint. Danny's at his desk, hunched over. He's holding a paintbrush in one hand and a tiny piece of plastic in the other.

“What's that?” I say.

“This? A model,” Danny mutters.

I take a step closer to his desk, where a lot more pieces of plastic are spread out. Tiny jars of paint are lined up, and there's a box with a picture of an airplane on the front. The piece of plastic in his hand is a propeller, and he's painting the tips yellow.

“Where did you get it?”

“It's Hugh's.” Danny sets the paintbrush down. He never
likes it when I look over his shoulder at what he's doing.

“I can go,” I say.

“No,” Danny says. It's not his voice—it's some polite stranger. “It's okay. I was going to take a break anyway.”

This is the first time we've been alone together since it happened, except for passing each other in the kitchen or hallway. Danny doesn't look at me. He's straightening up the jars of paint, fiddling with the pieces of the model. I stare at his back. His shoulder blades stick out through his T-shirt. How come I've never noticed that before? His hair is getting long on his neck.

I move away and sit on the edge of the bed. Slowly Danny turns his chair around, but his eyes are fixed on the floor. His knee jiggles up and down.

“I can go,” I say again.

“No, really,” Danny says.

I press my hands against my knees. “What happened at school on Friday?”

“What?” The freckles on Danny's cheeks darken.

My heart is beating fast, but I have to find out. “What happened? Does everyone know?”

“Yeah. I mean, some of the kids were talking about it. Not everyone.” Danny's knee is jiggling faster now.

“Julie Glassen told?”

“Yeah.”

Danny's hiding something. “What exactly is everyone saying?”

“I don't know. I left at recess.”

“What about Stacey? Did Stacey say anything?”

“Stacey? Uh…she said she'd call you.”

I always know when Danny's lying. “Dad says I have to go to school tomorrow, but I can't. Not yet.”

Danny doesn't say anything.

“You gotta talk to Dad for me.”

“I can try.” Danny's voice is hoarse, not much more than a grunt.

There's so much more to say. I don't even know what Danny did when I was attacked. Did he run? Did he hide? I remember Prince jumping up on Danny's back, but I don't remember exactly when that happened.

I can't ask Danny now. He doesn't want me here. I get up to go. “Please. Talk to Dad.”

But Danny is already back at his model. I don't think he hears me.