Up High in the Trees (10 page)

I'm fine, Dad, I say.

Dad shakes his head.

Now I go into the bathroom and lock the door. The bathroom is cloudy with smoke. Cass puts out her cigarettes in the toilet water and they float around in there like dead fish. I flush them away. Then I sit and think. If Dad takes me to the summerhouse, I won't have to go to school.

Someone knocks on the door.

Sebby, come out, Dad says. If you don't want to go we don't have to.

I come out.

I'll go, I say.

We haven't been to the summerhouse since Uncle Alexander died there.

That's almost three years ago now, Dad tells me. Dad talks a lot in the car. He says I have to keep him company so he doesn't get sleepy.

Do you think Cass is mean? I ask Dad.

Dad says no. He says that he's done lots of mean things.

I'll tell you, he says, the meanest thing I ever did was walk a cow up the stairs in my grandmother's farmhouse. They couldn't get it back down. I knew they wouldn't be able to, because I'd read that a cow will walk upstairs, but not down. They had to lower the cow off the upstairs deck with a crane and the whole time that cow was crying like a baby. It was horrible.

You're nice to me, I say.

That's easy, Dad says. You know, he tells me, we're going to be okay. A break will be good for us.

I remember the summerhouse is small and white and has a dock that goes out to the ocean. It's where Mother and Uncle Alexander grew up.

Dad says we'll probably have to clean up a little bit because nobody's been living there and it hasn't been rented out since last summer.

I look in the bag of snacks that Cass packed for me. I pick out a red box of raisins.

Dad, I say, you know what?

I keep looking at the lady on the raisin box.

What? Dad asks.

Mother kind of looked like this lady, I say, and I show him the box. She looks bright, like she's standing with the sun shining on her.

You think so, he says.

I nod.

Dad points out ahead. His eyes are blinking fast and he has to clear his throat before he talks.

Look, he says, the ocean.

In the kitchen, there's a picture of Mother ice-skating with Cass and Leo. Leo's a baby in a blue hat. His head looks too big. Mother and Cass are pushing him around the ice in his stroller. I pick up the picture and look at it so close that it just blurs into colors. Then I put it back down where it was.

I open all the cabinets. There are white plates and white bowls and tall, clear glasses. The drawers are mostly empty. In the top drawer I find Scotch tape and two batteries, a red colored pencil and a stone shaped like a fish, painted orange with a black dot for an eye. I pick up the orange fish. It's cold. I touch it to my face and then I put it back where it was.

At home, sometimes I thought Mother was hiding here in this house.

I pick up the phone that's hanging on the wall and listen to the fast beeping sound.

Hello, I say and then hang up.

I look for Dad. He's outside by the car with his hands full of all our stuff.

Sebby, come help, he says. Dad gives me the light bags to carry.

We make a big pile in front of the stairs.

I'm starving, Dad says, we have to get some groceries.

It's dark when we come back to the house. I go around and turn on all the lights I can find. Some of the lightbulbs are burned out, but Dad says we'll worry about that tomorrow.

Sebby, Dad calls to me from the kitchen. We should eat, he says.

Dad bought us hot dogs for dinner. He puts four of them in the microwave. It hums a fuzzy sound like a radio between stations. I remember Mother told me I used to like listening to the sound of white noise on the radio. It put me to sleep when I was a baby.

I stand close to watch the hot dogs cook.

Get away from there, Dad says, it'll give you cancer.

When Dad takes the hot dogs out, I wonder if they have cancer in them now. We eat the hot dogs plain, because Dad didn't buy buns or ketchup.

Tastes good, I say.

Dad laughs at me. He eats his hot dogs fast.

I'm tired, he says and stretches his arms up.

I don't know how he's tired when everything here is new and we haven't looked at all of it yet.

I'll go make a fire, says Dad. He goes to the other room with the fresh wood we bought.

I stop eating my cancer hot dog and look at the picture of Mother ice-skating with Cass and Leo. Mother's laughing and you can see her pretty teeth. They're so white.

Sebby, Dad calls for me again.

The fire's burning and he's lying in his sleeping bag. Mine's rolled out next to his.

We'll clean up in the morning, says Dad.

I lie down and take off my glasses. In my room, I set my glasses on the table next to my bed. Here, I don't know where's a safe place, so I put them back on.

Dad, I say quietly. He doesn't answer.

I can't fall asleep with the fire so bright and lights still on all over the house.

Mother was going to have a baby girl. We were going to name her Sara Rose. Two names like one.

I think of the baby's name like this: Share a rose. Sir, a rose. Is air a rose.

I never got to meet her. She's with Mother. She was there on the night that Mother died and now they're still together.

Dad's not in his sleeping bag anymore when I wake up.

Dad, I say as loud as I can.

In here, he says.

He's up on a ladder in the kitchen, pulling spiderwebs off the ceiling. The ceiling's dark wood and the spiderwebs are like thin clouds.

I need to write a letter, I tell Dad.

Just a minute, Sebby, he says.

I stare up and watch him work. In my head, I count to sixty. Dad, I say, it's been a minute.

He comes down the ladder and looks at me.

A letter? he asks.

I nod.

Dad starts looking through all the drawers in the kitchen. He brings me the red colored pencil and two dirty pieces of white paper that both have a bunch of numbers added up on one side and nothing on the other side.

This is all we've got for now, he says.

I lie down on my stomach and start coloring over all the numbers until I make that whole side red. Then I turn the paper over. I think first about what I want to write because the red pencil doesn't have an eraser.

I write, Dear Katya. It takes me a long time to think of what else to put. Then I write, I'm sorry that I bit you and
made you cry. I draw her a picture of a boat floating in the middle of an ocean to fill up the rest of the page. Above the boat, I draw a big red sun in the sky. Since there's another piece of paper, I write another letter.

Dear Ms. Lambert,

I want to write you a letter.

Mother grew up in this white house. I like the white house, but there are closets and drawers that I still need to look in. I have to see where everything is so when I close my eyes, I can see it all in my head. I don't know what room was Mother's room.

Here is a picture of the house. Do you like it?

Bye, Sebby

The shed in the backyard is the same white box shape as the house, only smaller. I slide open the door and inside is dark with a smell of cold leaves and gasoline. I like the gasoline smell. It's a metal taste all the way in the back of my throat.