The Absolute Value of Mike (19 page)

She shook her head again, not even bothering to go and check. We both knew he wasn't there.

I swallowed hard. My heart was beating fast. I never thought I'd care if Poppy was gone, but I felt really cold and suddenly freaked, like when you're in one of those underground caverns and you've already got goose bumps from the cold and then they turn the lights out and you're not sure for a moment if they'll come back on again.

“Where is he, Mike?” Moo whispered. “Where would he go?”

Go? Where would Poppy go? Suddenly, I felt even colder. And my toes started wiggling in my Clarks. Did he go where I told him to go?
Why don't you go jump in a lake!
Like . . . Lake Revival? Oh, jeez!

“I'll be right back,” I said, running past her and opening the kitchen door to the backyard.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Poppy.”

“Mike?”

I turned to look at her.

“Thank you for being here. I don't know what we'd do without you.”

I ran all the way down the hill in the dark, stumbling and tripping so many times I lost count. I didn't care; it was all forward progress whether I was running or rolling. I felt sick thinking about what Moo had just said. Was she thanking me for drowning her . . . I didn't even want to think of it. I had to find him.

When I reached the lake, I saw them. Duck slippers. Their little heads were facing the water as if yearning to go in, to follow the big duck that had gone off alone.

Oh, no. “Poppy! Poppy!” I yelled across the lake, then up the shore and down. “Poppy!”

No answer. I threw the Clarks off my feet. One of them hit a duck slipper, which gave a sick, plaintive squeak before it keeled over on its side. I swallowed hard, tore my gaze away from the duck, and waded into the lake.

I was up to my thighs when I realized my jeans felt incredibly heavy. I figured I'd swim in my boxers, but when I started to pull my jeans off, they were so wet they got stuck. It was an effort just to yank them up again. I kept waddling forward and finally dove into deeper water.

There's something weird about swimming in a lake in the dark. When you're underwater you're not quite sure which way is up. It's dark above you and below you and if you're swimming freestyle so fast you're overturning, and practically corkscrewing, you get disoriented and feel like you're floating in space. Even the feel of the air and the water start mixing and being the same because you hit pockets of cold and warm in both of them. You don't know what's up or what's down. You're pushing through space in a different kind of universe. And you don't know which way to turn.

I stopped, gasping, and treaded water. “Poppy!” I pushed the wet hair out of my eyes and blinked. I turned around in place, trying to let my feet do all the work to keep me afloat so I didn't make noise splashing. “Poppy!”

I heard a swooshing rush of water and spun around to face the noise. “Poppy?”

There was just enough dim moonlight to see what looked like a bent-over figure, maybe two figures, on the shore. Maybe one of them was Poppy. Or maybe it was an animal. Disoriented as I was, I figured out it was the other side of the lake from where I'd entered. I couldn't see the shape anymore and figured it had collapsed. I tried to fix my eyes on a particularly tall tree near the point I'd seen the form and swam at it as fast as I could, hoping that it was Poppy, hoping that it was still breathing, hoping that it would stay alive until I got there. I ran through CPR instructions in my head.
Repeated chest compressions. Press chest down two inches each time. Stay calm.

When I got out on the other side, there was no lump on the shore. But I did see some dark marks in the moonlight, like huge wet footprints. I followed the marks, wobbling because my bare feet weren't used to walking over pebbles. I reached the line of trees and heard a particularly loud creaking sound above the random creaking of branches in the breeze. I looked up.

It would've been a funny sight, this old man sitting up in a tree with his legs dangling, a porch pal on the branch next to him, sitting as still as he was. Except it was scary. Because what was he doing up there? Getting ready to jump?

I didn't want to startle him if he was thinking of jumping. I spoke in a soft voice. “Hey, Poppy. What's up?” I cringed after I said it. I had to avoid words like
up
. . . and
down.

Poppy put his arm around the porch pal. “Name's Doug.”

Oh, man. He'd lost it. Now he thought he was Doug. Or did he think the porch pal was Doug? His dead son?

“Right,” I said, positioning myself under the tree where I could see Poppy and the porch pal through the branches, the moon lighting them up like they were under a spotlight. Maybe if he saw a person below him, Poppy wouldn't jump. Or maybe I could break his fall. I moved closer in to the tree. “Hi . . . Doug.”

Poppy lifted the porch pal's arm and waved it at me. The porch pal dripped on my head.

I ducked momentarily, then looked up again, in time to get a drip in my eye. I stepped away from the tree to get a better view and avoid the dripping porch pal. “Why don't you climb down?”

Poppy's face was pale and ghostly in the moonlight. He lifted the porch pal and sat it on his lap. When he spoke, his voice sounded different, kind of pouty and . . . like a kid. “My tree. I can do whatever I want.”

I tried to make my voice sound casual. “Can I come up and join you?”

“Nope. My place. Nobody can bother me here. Not even my dad, dang pain.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I know what you mean.”

I heard the branch creak as Poppy looked down at me. He'd lost his devil horns. I guess the water had plastered his hair down flat. But I imagined his face was still grim.

“My dad is a pain, too,” I said quickly. “Probably worse than yours.”

“Nope. He's mean.”

“Oh. Mine's . . . clueless.”

He didn't say anything for a while, and I thought I'd better keep him talking. “And mine's always in my face, wanting me to be an engineer.”

“You're lucky.”

“How's that?”

“My dad was too busy for me. On the road all the time. Barely talked to me.”

What could I say to that? It sounded like Poppy, all right.

“Yeah, well, it's no fun disappointing your dad all the time. It's better if he doesn't realize you're not what he wants.” I swallowed hard and looked up at him. “Not that you're not what he wants, of course.”

“Never even went to Kmart together.”

I squirmed. I didn't know if it was Doug who felt bad that he didn't get to go or the dad, Poppy, who felt bad for not asking him. “Well, most kids don't really like shopping.”

Poppy sighed. His voice cracked. “I miss him. I really miss him.”

He gave Doug a squeeze and it was as if a small rain had started, splattering me with water from Lake Revival. Poppy's voice was barely a whisper as he said again, “I miss him.”

I still wasn't exactly sure who Poppy was talking for—himself or Doug. Whoever it was wanted me to say something. I thought about what it would be like without Dad. I wondered if he'd noticed that I hadn't been IM'ing him. If so, he could've called. I'd given him the cell phone number. I kind of knew how Doug and Poppy felt, so I said what either one of them would want to hear. “Yeah, well, I bet he misses you, too.”

“You think so?” He answered right away, like he'd been waiting for me to say something.

“I know so.” At least, I hoped so.

Then it was quiet. For a long time. I kept an eye on them to make sure there was no movement, but all I heard around me were the other sounds of life: crickets, frogs, owls, the breeze picking up, leaves rustling, branches creaking. That last sound made me think that Poppy should get down from that tree soon.

I saw lightning in the distance and heard the low rumble of thunder. It actually smelled like rain. Heavy and wet. I could even smell the pine of the trees around me, along with the slight scent of vinegar from my wet U2 “Vertigo” T-shirt.

I looked at Poppy's tree more closely and saw remnants of pieces of wood, like ladder rungs, nailed to the trunk. So that was how an old guy could get up there. “Hey, Poppy? I mean, Doug? Is this the tree house you guys built?”

“Was.”

“This is so cool! I saw a picture of it.” I thought of the photo of Poppy and Doug in happier times. “That's something you guys did together.”

“About the only thing.”

“That's a pretty big thing. If you did that, I can't believe you never did anything else.”

He grunted. “Sometimes we played ball.”

“See? You guys had some fun together.”

“We never had fun. Never horsed around.”

Jeez, there wasn't anything I could say to make him feel better. How long was this going to go on? The breeze picked up and I started shivering. I figured Poppy must be, too, and that it probably wasn't good for an old guy to be up there all wet. When the creaking of branches grew louder, I knew I had to make a move. I called up to him over the stiff breeze, “How about climbing down now?”

“Not ready.”

I saw more lightning. “Sometimes you don't feel ready, but you have to move anyway.”

“Don't have to. My tree. My life.”

A flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder sent a charge right through me and I suddenly felt my heart racing and my teeth gritting and my hands balling into fists. I didn't feel worried about Poppy anymore. Or sorry for him. I was angry. I wanted to shake him. I wanted him to get down from that tree so I could shake him into action. Enough with the self-pity already! He had to stop. Because what he did, or wouldn't do, wasn't just about himself. It affected other people.

“What about Moo, huh? What about Misha?” I yelled up at him.

Even my yelling didn't get his attention. He just shrugged.

That made me even madder.

“This isn't just about you, you know!” Then it hit me. “You're doing it all over again!”

This time he actually looked down at me, along with Doug. I didn't even mind Doug dripping on me.

“You're mad at yourself—or your dad—because of not living life and sitting around ignoring things, even when there were plenty of opportunities to do something. Well, guess what. That's exactly what's happening now!”

I gave him a little time for that to sink in as I paced in front of the tree and listened to the sound of thunder moving closer.

When I heard another sigh and more drips from Doug, I stopped, put my hands on my hips, and stared up at the two of them on the branch. My patience was gone. I could tell because my voice was sharp now. “It's time to move, Doug.”

I heard Poppy let out a long breath. “Doug's gone, Mike.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I know. But Moo's still here. And Misha could be here if you'd do anything about it. It's time to move. Now!”

I heard all the air go out of him and the branches creak again before he turned around and slowly, stiffly stepped down the slats of wood one by one, with Doug over his shoulder. He didn't look at me once he reached the ground and we didn't talk, but somehow we both knew we didn't want to swim back the way we came. We walked all the way around Lake Revival, stopping to put on my Clarks and his duck slippers. As I tied up my shoes, I watched the breeze make ripples on the water that the moon turned into flickers of light. I remembered how dark the lake was when I'd sat there with Gladys. It looked bright now. I hoped it was a sign. I finished tying my shoes and felt my pocket for the LEGO brick, thankful that I'd taken Misha's photo out of my pocket and put it on Tyrone's dash. I shoved my hand in my pocket. It felt weird. I pushed my hand in deeper. Nothing. It wasn't there.

I started looking around the shore, crawling on the pebbles, looking for a hint of blue.

“Lose something?” Poppy asked.

“Yeah, it's a . . .” I stopped, realizing it would sound really stupid for a fourteen-year-old to be searching for his LEGO brick. I looked around quickly. The moonlight was bright enough to see a blue LEGO brick. Maybe. Then I remembered trying to take my jeans off in the water, then pulling them on again. Oh, no . . . the LEGO must've come out of my pocket. No, it wasn't possible. I stared out at Lake Revival, a big patch of darkness. My LEGO brick was gone.

“What'd you lose?” Poppy said, louder this time.

I stood up and shook my head. “Nothing.” I stared at the lake. “Let's go.”

I told myself it was just a LEGO brick and I could get another one from the box under my bed, one that had also been used to build that bridge, but it still felt weird. Like I'd lost something significant. I kept looking back at the lake, but pretty soon it was completely obscured by trees and I just had to move on.

We could see Moo silhouetted in the kitchen doorway for a while before she could see us. She kept running to the door, then running to the stove, then peering out the door again. She looked so frantic that I was about to call out to her when Poppy's hand gripped my shoulder.

“Mike, let's not say anything to Moo about the tree, okay?”

“Hey, it's your secret, right?”

“Our secret.”

“Poppy!” It was Moo's shrill voice. “Is that you? And Mike? And . . . ?”

“Yeah,” I called. “It's all three of us!”

She flung the door all the way open and came running toward us. “Thank goodness you're all right!” She hugged us, squeezing more water out of Doug. “What happened? You're all wet. Did you fall in the lake?”