Snow Angels (25 page)

“Do you want me to call him?” my mother said. “It's almost five-thirty.”

“I know,” I said.

“I can call him. I don't mind. He should at least be fulfilling his responsibilities to you.”

“Sure,” I said. “Call him.”

I turned back to the set and pretended not to listen to her dial. Pitt had the second string in.

My mother clacked the receiver down.

“No answer.”

I turned to look at her. She picked up and tried again.

“Nothing,” she shrugged. “This is just like him. I'm sorry, Arthur, I don't know what's wrong with your father anymore.”

“It's all right,” I said, which was dumb.

“It's not all right with me, and it shouldn't be all right with you.” She started to go on about it, following me down the hall to my room. She stopped in the door. I turned on my stereo, lay down on my bed and put my headphones on. The Who,
Quadrophenia
, Side 4. The needle traced the record's shiny edge, the hiss
growing into the boom and hush of the ocean. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, my mother had closed the door.

She tried him again after dinner. I don't even remember what we had. I heard her dialing and concentrated on the TV. Two firemen in a kitchen saying something—a joke about chili. My mother wasn't saying anything. Four-alarm chili. The laughtrack laughed.

“Not there,” she said, and I was angry with her for calling at all. I waited until she had gone to bed to stand outside on the landing and get stoned. I turned my light off and put my headphones on, Side 1 this time.

Sunday she reached him in the middle of the Steeler game. She announced that she was going to see if he'd returned from wherever he'd been. I pretended I wasn't interested. Unwinding, the dial clicked.

“Well,” my mother said loudly in the kitchen. “We were looking for you yesterday.”

His explanation was not long.

“Will you be able to make it next Saturday? Seeing that it
is
the last weekend before Christmas.”

“That's good, because your son would like to see you.” She took a deep, satisfying drag of her cigarette, and as she waited for his reply, I thought I saw her smile. She liked this.

“I don't want to hear about your problems, Don. I've got enough of my own. I could have told you that—I tried to tell you that. Don't tell me I didn't try. You've made your bed, mister, and whoever does or doesn't sleep in it is none of my concern. Don't you dare use her as an excuse for not seeing Arthur, don't you dare.”

She was sitting on a stool by the counter, but now she crushed out her butt in the sink and got up to pace.

“Bullshit,” she said, and laughed. “Do you know what I say? I say good for her. She's not such a little idiot after all.”

“No,” she said. “Don, no. No. That is bullshit and you know it. You are not going to turn this around onto me. There is no way.”

She halted suddenly and put up one hand as if to stop him from talking. “Ha!” she said.

I quietly moved to my room. I could hear her through the door. Not every word, but enough. I lay down on my bed and looked at my stereo, then at the ice flowers on the bottom of my window. They ran in zigzags like stitches, spiked like barbed wire. Outside, high in the sky, a single ball of a cloud drifted through the blue, dwindling sunward like a runaway balloon. I imagined how Foxwood looked from up there—the miniature buildings and cars and trees—and how the
drive up to the bus stop met the county road that cut through snowed-over fields and across smaller blacktops linking farms and trailer parks and auto graveyards until it hit the outskirts of Butler where I used to live. I wondered about our old house, and my old room. Who was in it, and did they feel me there sometimes? I didn't think so, but in my mind I walked the hallway to the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement, where my father would be watching the game I had just left, and so slowly, savoring every detail on my way, that I no longer heard my mother in the other room.

“That was your father,” she said when she came in. She was surprised to see me without my headphones. “He apologized for yesterday. He said he'd like to reschedule for next weekend, and I told him it was all right with me if it's all right with you. Is it?”

“Sure,” I said.

“You know that all of this has nothing to do with you. Don't be too angry with him. He's having some problems of his own right now.” She said this with concern, as if she was worried about him. I did not understand why—if she was glad that Marcia had left him, which she was—and decided she was lying about how she felt. She was doing it for my sake when there was no need. Right then, I did not want her to forgive him.

Monday she was out of the house before me. It was the last week of school, which meant tests followed by lame parties. Band was done, and I was torn between riding the bus home with Lila and punching in early at the Burger Hut. My mother laughed at me and said, yes, she could drive me over to work when she got home. Walking back from the bus stop, I realized I had been working so much that I rarely saw Foxwood by daylight. The roofs steamed. The ruined chapel sat lumpy under snow. When the three of us reached my stairs, Lily kept walking. In the mailbox, along with a few red-enveloped Christmas cards, was a hand-addressed letter that said only “Louise.” It did not have a stamp and was in my father's hand. It was thick. I buried it in the stack and left everything on the counter.

We were nearing the shortest day of the year, and as Lila and I necked on my bed, the bright square of light from my window climbed the wall.
Have you ever been
, Jimi Hendrix asked,
have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?
Lila's hair smelled of strawberry shampoo; we were trading a wad of watermelon bubblegum, making a game of hiding it from the other's tongue. I thought, If I could just stay here.

A little before five we turned the music off and straightened our clothes and smoothed the bedspread and went into the living room to listen for the Country
Squire. My mother came in and said hi to Lila and “Give me five minutes” to me. She riffled through the mail, pausing at my father's letter, then put the stack back on the counter and headed for the bathroom. I kissed Lila goodbye at the door and watched her away.

“You two,” my mother commented. “You'd think you were the only people to ever fall in love.”

Yes, I wanted to say, in a way we were.

“I'm ready,” I said.

On the stairs she asked, “Did your father come by with that letter?”

“I didn't see him.”

“You'd tell me if you did.”

“Yes,” I said defensively.

“Just want to make sure,” my mother said.

I worked, totting up my hours like every night at closing. I imagined Lila opening the box and not being able to talk. She would say my name. When Mr. Philbin dropped me off, I looked for the light in her window, but she was asleep. The thought of her warm and peaceful with her glasses off pleased me, made me want to go directly to bed so I could think of her.

My mother was up, watching TV with a drink. She had my father's letter spread across the coffee table. Eight or nine pages of his tiny print. My mother waved a page to show it was both sides.

“Would you look at this?” she said. “Your father has completely flipped his wig.”

What does it say? I wanted to ask, but didn't. I figured she would tell me.

“Oh, he's lost it this time. He says he's sorry. Isn't that rich? Sorry!” She shook her head and puffed long on her cigarette. I looked into the kitchen to see if she'd started a new bottle.

She picked up a page and held it close. “Listen to this: ‘I see that what I've done to you was unfair.' This is
him
telling
me!
I know this already; what is he telling me for?” She threw the page at the table. “He loves me now. He misses us.” She folded her arms and bit her thumbnail. “The fucker!”

She took a drink.

“I'm going to go to bed,” I said.

“I'm sorry, Arthur, I don't mean to drag you into this. Go to bed. I'm just angry right now, I'll be fine tomorrow.”

“Then I'll see you tomorrow,” I said, and she smiled at the joke.

“Okay.”

And the next morning she was fine. She went to work, I went to school. Coming home, Lila and I held hands, and Lily sulked. In our mailbox was another letter from my father.

My mother did not show me this one, or quote from it. She had both of them neatly sealed on the coffee table when I came home. She was calm, almost pleasant, and when the news was over, she suggested we both go to bed.

Wednesday she received another, and again Thursday. She did not even open the last one because we were late for her appointment with Dr. Brady. She shoved all four into her purse and we hopped in the car.

“Are you going to be all right with him Saturday?” she asked as we drove along.

“Sure.”

“You tell me if you're uncomfortable about it. You can always call me and I'll come pick you up.”

“I'll be fine,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I know.” We went along in silence for a while, past fancy ranches and old mobile homes, until she asked, “Why is he doing this to me?”

I left her at the door of the Hot Dog Shoppe, my wallet heavy with twenties. It was the shortest day of the year; lights dyed the piled snow pink and green. The clerk in Milo Williams knew me by sight. He slid the back of the case open and pulled out the blue velvet box.

“That's the one,” I said, and while he giftwrapped
it I looked at the trays and trays of ugly engagement rings and wedding bands.

My mother was waiting for me in the Hot Dog Shoppe, polishing off a foot-long with brown mustard. Her gloves were off, and I noticed her rings, the tiny diamond and the simple silver band.

“Not much to do today,” she explained. “How much did you drop on Delilah?”

When I told her she winced and shook her head. “It's your money.”

Friday there was another letter, this one thinner. Bringing it inside, I tried to make out the writing, but couldn't. Lila suggested we steam it open, which I didn't find funny. My mother went to her room to open it, and when she came out later, said nothing.

“She sounds better,” Astrid said over the phone. “What's happening?”

Saturday my father was supposed to pick me up at five. At a quarter to, we heard his old Nova rumble up, and then a honk.

“Be nice to him,” my mother instructed. “He's having a hard time. Whatever you do, do not mention her. You know who I'm talking about.”

“Yes,” I said.

She did not come to the door.

In the car my father apologized and then was quiet.
He did not offer to let me drive. I had thought I would be able to see the effects of what he had been through in the last week, to read it in his face, but he had not changed at all. He seemed more like my father now than he did when he was with Marcia, and I thought that was good.

“So how have you been?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said.

“Talk to your sister lately?”

“Yesterday. She's okay.”

“That's good,” he said. “What do you say to pizza?”

“Pizza's good.”

“Then pizza it is,” he said.

We went to the same place he'd taken me our first Saturday. The front window was sprayed with fake frost and dripping with condensation. Monday was Christmas, and we were the only ones there besides the woman behind the counter. My father ordered and we took off our coats. We got our drinks—him a Duke, me a Fanta grape—and picked a table near the window.

We talked at length about the Steelers, and briefly about Annie. He wasn't sure what had happened between her and Glenn Marchand. It was a mystery and a shame. My father said he'd learn more when he went in to work. He'd been out the last couple of days.

I didn't say that I had guessed that.

“So,” he said, “I suppose you've heard.”

“What?”

“About Marcia.”

“Yeah,” I said, though it was not really true. No one had told me anything.

“I don't know. I can't explain it to your mother.” He picked up the hot-pepper shaker and inspected it. “I fell in love.” He put it back down and looked at me again. “It sounds simple, doesn't it?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Nobody believes it. I don't even believe it anymore.” He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling tiles as if stargazing. “That's the funny thing, how it all kind of drains away.”

“Large pepperoni!” the woman called, and when he had turned his back to go up and get it, I released a sigh.

“I know it's kind of late to be asking this,” he said as we worked on the pie, “but what do you want for Christmas?”

“Tapes are good,” I said.

“What else?”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said, and came up with four or five things.

We did not talk about him again until he pulled up in front of the coachlight. Instead of letting me
out, he turned the car off and followed me up the stairs.

“I need to talk with your mother a second,” he explained, the keys still in his hand.

I knocked rather than let myself in, then stood there with him.

My mother opened the door.

“What are you doing here?” she asked my father. She held on to the door, and closed it some after I'd gotten past. My father stood on the landing.

“Did you read my letters?” he asked.

My mother turned her head to see where I was. “Arthur, go to your room. This is private.”

I took my time, and then did not close my door all the way. I could see only a sliver of my mother, and beyond her, my father's shoulder. They were talking too softly for me to hear, and then my mother went outside with him and closed the door behind her.