Walking Backward (13 page)
He didn’t have a chance to wash his eye out for almost an hour because I caused another disaster and nearly destroyed Sammy.
Somehow I lost the girl Power Ranger. It was standing on top of the castle when I kicked it down. I must have kicked the Ranger with the sand, way out near the water. Oh my god, Sammy had a fit. I thought it would break my heart, the way he was crying. I buried the toy trying to find it, sweeping away the sand and throwing it on top of the Ranger without knowing it. I couldn’t see it anywhere, even with my flashlight. I looked a hundred feet in every direction, and it wasn’t there. We all got on our knees, digging and panicking—Dad was searching with just one eye open—until we combed the sand for what felt like forever, scooping right down to where it was dripping wet. But the Ranger was gone.
Sammy made such a creepy frightened wail, screaming, “Where is she? Where is she?” I was afraid that he’d go insane for good, that his mind would just burst from fear and he’d never be okay again. I hugged him and told him, “Everything will be okay,” just like all the stupid grown-ups say when it’s not actually true, they just want it so badly. I told him we’d never leave that beach until we found it.
Then all of a sudden Dad found it. He stood up and walked away from us to look at the moon and cry, and he stepped right on it. We cheered like he’d found the cure for cancer or stopped a nuclear war or traveled back in time and saved Mom.
It was crazy. We jumped up and down and laughed and hugged. It was the hysterical kind of laughter that can turn into crying at any second. I think sometimes that’s the only way I’ll ever laugh again. Every time I laugh, I can feel deep down at the bottom of the laugh there’s crying, and I could go there at any moment.
Sammy was so happy when Dad passed him the Ranger. He kept repeating, “Daddy found her, Daddy found her,” and wiping his eyes and smiling, with his face all wet and blotchy. Then he asked out of the blue, “Can I go to soccer tomorrow?” Dad started giggling. He said, “Okay. Yeah. We’ll leave early.”
We packed up the tent this morning, and now we’re on our way home.
It’s weird, but I slept well last night even though I was so sad and angry about Karen. At least I know what happened. It’s even stupider than all the things I thought might have happened, but at least I know. I don’t want to see Karen again. Not ever. I know she didn’t mean for Mom to die, but I just don’t like her anymore.
I can’t see us even talking again with that horrible thing between us. Even if I didn’t blame her—but I do, because it’s obviously her fault—my liking her has disappeared. It disappeared the second she told me she’d put the snake in Mom’s car. She was crying so hard, and I could see that she was really sorry, but I didn’t care. I just didn’t care about her anymore. A switch flipped inside my heart. On. Off.
That’s sad, because I really liked liking her. But I just don’t like her anymore.
T
here are two things I want to write about today. First of all, we won our soccer tournament this weekend. Usually we win all summer but lose the tournament because I’m away camping. Not to brag, but I’m the top scorer in my age group in the whole region. My coaches are always upset when I miss the tournament. Last year the coach said I couldn’t sign up in April unless I could guarantee I’d play on Labor Day weekend. So Mom said, “Oh yes, he’ll be here.” Then she winked at me. Really, how could they force me to go?
There was always something cool about being missed, but man, I’m so glad I went this time. The coach jumped up and down when he saw me on the field. He said, “I guess you didn’t go camping because your mom died,” with a big smile on his face. Then he realized what a moronic thing that was to say, and he apologized. I told him we came home early because two nights in a falling-down tent with no campfire was enough fun for this year. And for every year after, unless Dad finds Sammy a new mom who can build fires and pack properly.
About a hundred divorced women tried to pick Dad up at the tournament. That should be against the mourning rules of all religions. One woman sat so close to him that I wanted to bean her with the soccer ball. I guess widowers are exciting compared to all the pathetic divorced dads in the world. Dad was wearing shorts and sunglasses, and he didn’t look as zoned out as usual. He looked smart—which he is, despite his attempt to build a time machine.
I went down to the basement this morning and looked under the tarp. His machine is made from a do-it-yourself airplane kit you can buy for eight hundred dollars. How is that going to fly fast enough to travel through time? I asked Dad about it, and he said, “That’s not my only material, Josh.” Like he has a secret stash of antimatter just behind the curtain. I can tell he still thinks he could build it if he just kept tinkering. I hope he doesn’t try. There’s no such thing as time travel. You’re always here and now, and you just have to deal with it. Even if you got somewhere else, once you were there it would be here and now.
It would be amazing if Mom were with us here and now. I can’t explain how much I would like that to happen. But I know it can’t. If she could see us here and now, she’d want us to be happy. She wouldn’t want Dad to flirt with other women at my games though. She’d want a good solid year of mourning, with her tree decorated on her birthday and the scrapbooks to keep forever.
I’m not so sure about the memory jewelry. I took off her necklace for soccer because it’s pretty dangly and a bit girly after all. I might stick with just the watch. Maybe one day if I like another girl, I’ll give the tree necklace to her. But if she pulls a sicko prank, I’m taking it back.
Sammy’s macaroni necklace broke during his soccer game. The string came untied and all the macaronis slipped off. He’d forgotten that he was wearing it as a memory of Mom, so he just laughed. Then he and his teammates stomped all the noodles like it was great fun.
He carried the girl Power Ranger through his whole game. I don’t think we have any hope of transferring Mom’s memory to anything else. He’ll just carry that Ranger until one day he stops. That’s not so bad. People make allowances for kids who lose their mother. Probably for years they’ll make allowances for Sammy.
He’s here in my bed right now, fast asleep. I don’t think his forty-nine days are over yet. He never cared how the snake got in Mom’s car, so knowing how doesn’t explain anything for him. It does for me— I don’t know why, but it feels like a weight off my mind. I still ask, “Why didn’t she just pull over?” That’s something I’ll never know, because I’ll never understand phobias. You’d think evolution would have weeded them out. In my game,
Evolution
, I’m going to include a phobia or two that gets weeded out.
I can’t believe I just wrote that. That means I think Mom deserves a Darwin Award.
But she would want her phobia weeded out of the gene pool. She didn’t want me and Sammy to fear snakes. It bothered her that I’m afraid of them.
There was a snake on the path to the cow field during my soccer game. Sammy wandered off again and saw it. He got excited the way he used to, like he was thrilled to find it. Then he stopped suddenly as if a light went on in his head, reminding him that a snake killed Mom. He didn’t know what to do. Dad walked up beside him and said it would make Mom happy to see Sam excited about a snake, and that she’d be sad if he hurt it.
It made me realize that the snake that killed Mom must have died in the car crash. It must have been squashed, and that’s how they knew it was in the car. That would have made Mom sad. She never liked for animals to die, not even snakes.
Sammy and Dad watched the snake until it noticed them and slithered away. I wasn’t there— Dad told me about it later. He said it could be the story to end our scrapbook with. He said he was sorry for saying the books were as stupid as his time machine—only he didn’t put it in those words—but he’d wanted to warn us not to get lost in our memories. Says the guy who spent the past two months in the basement with home movies and a time machine. I didn’t backtalk this time, because I knew what Dad meant. For a while I liked the scrapbooks so much that I wanted to put everything in them, every conversation Mom ever had and every single thing she ever did. You could get totally lost doing that. It could take over my life without ever bringing hers back. So I know what Dad meant. And he’s right— Sammy watching the snake while I win the soccer tournament is a perfect story to end our book.
We were the soccer champions, and I was the lead scorer again this year. I got a medal of honor. Sammy’s team won their first game in the tournament, but they lost the second game. Sam didn’t know the difference. He sort of scored in the first game, and he was very happy and proud. It wasn’t actually during game time, but Sammy didn’t know that. The other team’s goalie didn’t know either, because he tried hard to stop the shot. Chloe gave Sam a high five afterward—so everyone thought it was a goal. Since the coach practically ripped the shirt off his daughter’s back to let Sam on the field, he wasn’t about to say, “That goal doesn’t count!” It was a good goal, and Sam will probably be a good soccer player when he’s older.
Simpson and his mom came out for dinner with us after the tournament. She showed off an earring she bought for the new hole in her ear—she took the bandage off a few days ago. Simpson was proud of his piercing. But I don’t know, it still looks unhealthy to me. It’s not bleeding or scabbed anymore, but it’s freakishly white, like the whole ear might fall off at any second.
Dad said it looked great, and maybe he should get his ear pierced too. I laughed my head off to think of Dad with an earring. He said he used to wear rings in both his ears when he was young. I find that impossible to believe.
Sammy told the only ring joke he knows, which is also a space joke. I told it to him after we met his kindergarten teacher and learned that he’d be studying space. Right there in the restaurant, right on cue after Dad bragged about his earrings, Sammy turned to Dad with a smile and said, “I know there’s a ring around Saturn, but is there a ring around Uranus?” Then he cracked up. So did I, because it was pretty funny coming from a four-year-old. And so did Simpson’s mom, because I guess she never heard that joke before.
It turned out to be an okay weekend after all, except it felt like a month instead of just three days. Today Sammy and I walked to the park, but Karen was there, and so were Darren and his mom, so we just kept walking down to the bike path. I half expected Sam to run back and take another shot at Darren, but he didn’t. I had to stop myself from running back to take a shot at Karen too. I had a vision of myself chasing her down, the way Sam had chased Darren, and pummeling her face to a pulp. But I snapped out of it and just kept walking. Karen waved at me when we passed. I didn’t wave back. I knew I should wave to be polite, but my arm wouldn’t lift up.
I don’t feel anything about Karen now. I’m not very mad or sad about her today. I’m sad that I stopped liking her, but relieved too. Maybe there’ll be some new girls I like in junior high. Girls who don’t pull pranks and kill people.
There’s an online grieving group that says people with no faith need to make up their own mourning rituals, like we’ve been doing. They suggest writing a letter to the dead person and then burning it to send the words up to the person’s spirit. I thought that might be nice to do, especially since Mom wanted to be burned. But since she’s buried, maybe we should write a letter and bury it. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll just finish the scrapbooks and decorate the tree.
School starts tomorrow, and I’m way behind on the chores and I need to simplify. That’s what Mom used to say when people called to ask for help and she didn’t have time. She’d say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t take on any more projects right now. I need to simplify.” Then she’d hang up the phone and do a little dance and go rent a movie.
It’s hard to believe it’s only been sixty-five days since she died. I guess that’s too long to count by days, so I should just say two months. One day I’ll count it by years. Then eventually I won’t even count it. I’ll just say, “My mother died when I was twelve.” And it will be such a distant memory it’ll be like a fact in history. That’s so sad to imagine.
I called Professor Johnston today. Mitchell. He wasn’t there because it’s a holiday, but I left a message on his machine—which he remembered to change, thank god, because it’s Mom’s old number. As I was dialing, I thought, What if the machine answers and it’s still Mom’s voice? Then I’d spend the whole day on the phone, and Sammy and Dad would ask what I was doing, and we’d all end up listening to Mom’s message a million times until Mitchell took out a restraining order on us. But anyway, he’d changed the recording, so that didn’t happen.
In my message, I thanked him for telling me about the Einstein exhibit. I said I’d been to see it and that Dad had stopped building his time machine. Cheetah probably told Mitchell about seeing me there, and how sad I was afterward, but I didn’t want Mitchell to feel bad for telling me to go. He’ll be glad to hear that I’m okay now, and that Dad is parenting us better. I also told him we planted Mom’s tree, and I thanked him for the idea. I made it a good-bye message, because I don’t want him to think of me and Sammy hanging here like desperate orphans. I asked him to say hello to Cheetah for me—that didn’t fit with the good-bye theme, but I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.
I just read over this entry. I started it with two things to say, and the first thing was soccer, but now I forget what the second thing was. My head is still losing stuff. I better go to sleep now, because we have to get up early for school. I have my lunch packed and my new clothes all ready. Dad found them in his closet tonight and laid them out on my bed. When Sammy came in, he shouted, “Mom got you new clothes too!” He was all happy for me.
T
he Darwin Society finally sent me an e-mail. They’re not considering Mom for an award. They said Mom would only qualify if she’d known the snake was in the car, like if she’d taken a job transporting snakes even though she was phobic. So that’s good news. She wasn’t astoundingly stupid at all.