Wish You Were Here (8 page)

Ken helped her take the bags up while Arlene stood at the bottom of the stairs, supervising. He looked good, still trim, his hair receding but not gone dry and flyaway like their father's. As a girl she'd envied Ken his natural wave, his eyelashes, yet he'd never been vain. He seemed, in his own stumbling, oblivious way, incredibly lucky. She supposed it would always be like that: there were people who things just worked out for, and there were people for who things didn't, no matter how hard they tried.

“I'm going to turn in,” Arlene said when they were finished. “I just wanted to make sure you got in okay.”

“Thanks.”

“All right, sweet dreams,” Arlene said, and she and Ken echoed her.

They went into the kitchen so they wouldn't wake anyone up. Ken turned off the outside spotlight, and the van disappeared. “You want a soda or something?” he asked, opening the fridge.

“No, I should be getting to bed. It's a long drive by yourself.”

“I'm sure. How are things?”

He asked it so casually, closing the door, that she was tempted to say okay, they're fine.

“Awful,” she said. “It doesn't matter. Did you tell Mom about the job?”

He answered by tipping his head to one side, a kind of shrug.

“You're such a chicken. You were waiting for me so it wouldn't look that bad.”

“No.” He was so transparent, so helpless. And she was the one they all felt sorry for, judged, held up as the troubled child.

A whole week with them. For a second the years she vacationed with Jeff's family up in the U.P. seemed a breeze, but that was untrue. Their squabbles were the same except she was outside of them, instead of at the eye. And eventually—it was her one real talent—she'd found her way to the center of them too, and then been cast out. Here they still accepted her, if with a condescending pity, binding advice. They were all she had now.

“What's the plan for tomorrow?” she asked.

“We're going to do the flea market and then go tubing after lunch.”

“What time is everyone getting up?”

“I'm getting up around six to catch the light.”

“Just be quiet.”

The kids would be up early, and it was late. Together they battened down the house, turning off the lights one by one until they couldn't see each other. She bumped a table and Rufus barked in their mother's room, making her laugh.

“I forgot about him,” she whispered. “How's he doing?”

“He gets tired if he plays too long. His back.”

They were quiet going up. Her feet remembered the stairs, her hands naturally found the banister around the top, closed over it like the rail of a ship. She expected to find Sarah reading by flashlight, but she was already sleeping. Justin was long gone, Tigger lying on the carpet, rejected. Beside them, Sam and Ella could have been their missing twins,
and she thought how much harder the next few years would be for Justin and Sarah, how they would want to trade places with their cousins, go off to Boston and leave their crazy mother behind to deal with her mess. She wouldn't blame them; she'd do the same if she could.

She told Ken to go ahead and use the bathroom, she had to find her toiletry bag, then sat there on the bed with it in her lap, waiting for him to finish. She'd gotten up early to dress for the meeting, which now seemed to have taken place weeks ago. But no, that was today, Jeff walking past her in the hall without a word, his lawyer blocking her like a bodyguard. And then her own lawyer lecturing her on watching her temper, as if she had no right to be angry after what happened, as if she were the one in the wrong. And then the bathroom, weeping into her hands, dabbing at her makeup with toilet paper. All today. The trip itself had been a reprieve, but now the hours, the hundreds of miles she'd driven disappeared, every lane change and rest stop forgotten, and her life settled upon her again.

She'd always survived her disasters, gone on—wiser, she hoped, certain she wouldn't make the same mistakes again. This was different, not completely her fault, and the consequences weren't hers alone, though in the end she would be held responsible for them.

She wasn't just being melodramatic. She thought it was amusing that she could pinpoint it, being so close. Taking everything into consideration, it was fair to say that today had been the worst day of her life. The only good thing, she thought, was that it was almost over.

Sam was the first one up, even before Justin, sleeping right beside him. The room was gray like when it rained and there was no clock, just the mirror on the dresser throwing back the dull squares of the windows, the leaves of a tree. Someone had turned off the fan. The air outside his sleeping bag was cold on his arms. Sarah was there, and he watched her breathing, her hair covering one cheek. He wanted to brush it away and touch her face.

He wanted them all to wake up and play with him—croquet maybe, that wasn't too loud—but he knew Ella would be angry and then his mother would yell at him for getting up too early. The room was too dark for his Game Boy and he didn't feel like reading. He stepped over Justin and went into the bathroom and closed the door. He didn't hear anything as he peed, so he turned his hips to change his aim and the water drummed until he was done. He didn't flush because that would wake people up; he just put the seat down, and the lid, so no one would see it. The window by the sink was frosty with water; he swiped at it to see if it was on the inside, and his fingers came away dripping. The world blurred, turned runny. In the side yard, a blackbird was hunting, poking his bill into the grass. At least someone was up.

Aunt Margaret was in the other bed next to his parents, wearing a T-shirt, her arms over her head like she was giving up. She was pretty like Sarah, with the same red hair that looked fake, and he made sure not to go too close. On the cedar chest next to the bed she'd left some money by a glass of water—change on top of a lot of bills—and he thought they would probably have to go to the stupid flea market like every Sunday. All he wanted to do was ride the inner tube. His mother wouldn't let him go for a plane ride, and they never let him buy any decent Hot Wheels. It was just old screwdrivers and stuff, ugly plates and rusty frying pans. It would take all morning—and watch, it would be raining by the time they got back.

He went to get some pants and discovered another pile of change on top of the dresser. It was probably Sarah's, since her pocket watch was in the middle of it. It was almost six. He pretended not to look at the money while he zipped up and pulled on a shirt. There were a lot of quarters. He got his socks on and then searched the floor for his shoes. When he found them he brought them back to the dresser.

He liked the watch, how small it was. There wasn't room for all the numbers. It had a strap you snapped around your belt loop so you could pull it out of your pocket easier. He imagined whipping it out at recess and Travis Martin wanting to take a look at it. But he couldn't take it. Sarah would miss it.

She might miss one of the quarters. A nickel would be easy, but a dime was worth twice that, even if he didn't like dimes. He checked his parents and Aunt Margaret on one side, Ella and Sarah and Justin on the other, and then, with a finger, as if by accident, knocked a dime over the side.

He knelt down to put his shoes on and pinched the dime up out of the carpeting and secretly slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. Tying his shoes, he checked everyone again. No one had seen him, he was sure. He found his Game Boy and headed for the stairs, stopping at the top to look at them all one last time. He could've gotten a nickel too.

Downstairs, Grandma was up, making coffee at the stove. Rufus left her to come over and sniff him, and Sam had to push his head away.

“Look who it is,” she said. “Sam Sam the Dinosaur Man, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Are you ready for a Grandma breakfast?”

“Okay.”

“What kind of toast do you want with your eggs? We have a choice this morning.”

He waited at the kitchen table while she soft-boiled the eggs, the steam rising up over the stove. At home he'd watch TV now, hoping for the Red Sox score so he could tell his father when he came down, but the TV here didn't get ESPN, and Grandma didn't like them watching it anyway. He turned on his Game Boy and waited for Pokémon Red to load.

“You're not planning on playing that thing the whole time you're here,” she asked.

“No.” He'd wanted to take it out on the porch and play with the
sound down so it wouldn't count against his hour; now that was impossible. He turned it off.

“Thank you. I'm sure you can find plenty of other things to do. Your mother tells me you're a reader.” She looked to him as if she expected an answer.

“Yes.”

“What kinds of books do you like to read?”

“Matt Christopher.”

“And what does Matt Christopher write about?”

“Baseball.”

“Am I to take it there's a whole series of these books?”

“Yes.”

“Have you read them all?”

“I've only read the first three. The library has like fifteen.”

“Would you be interested in these books as a Christmas present?”

“Sure.”

“What else are you up to? What was the beach like? Your father said you took the ferry to Block Island.”

“Yeah,” he said, “we rode bikes out to this cool lighthouse,” wondering if his father had told her about him getting caught taking the Butterfinger from the snack bar. His mother slapped his hands and he cried, then his father hugged him and told him they still loved him and it was all right.

“What's Block Island like? I've never been myself.”

While he told her, she served him his eggs and toast and poured him a glass of orange juice even though he was supposed to have a glass of milk first. He crumbled the toast into the soupy yolk and started eating, and she came and sat down across from him, moving the flowers his mother bought out of the way so she could see. Rufus lay down facing him in case he dropped anything.

Grandma asked about Ella's braces and their school, what teachers they would have this year. She asked if his mother was working, and who watched them after school. She asked if his father liked his work. Sam said he didn't know a lot about his new job.

“Really,” she said, “your father has a new job?”

“Yeah. He develops pictures. At a lab, I don't know where.”

“I guess I'll just have to ask him then. How are your eggs?”

“Great.”

“Do you want some more juice?”

“Yes, please.”

She poured him another glass and came back. She asked him about Grammy and Grampa Sanner and how they were doing, and whether or not they might be coming for Thanksgiving. What about Christmas? She asked if Ella had any boyfriends yet or, slyly, if he had any girlfriends.

The whole time she was talking to him, Sam felt special, singled out, so when his father came downstairs with his camera bag and said good morning, it felt like a spell had been broken. Rufus got up to sniff him, and Sam covered his Game Boy with a magazine. He remembered the dime in his pocket, and the ferry, how his mother had asked if he knew what happened to thieves. They go to prison, she said. Do you want to go to prison?

His father said he didn't want any breakfast. “Not yet. I'm going to try to catch some of that light.”

“Sam and I were just discussing your new job.”

“Is that right?” his father said, and looked at Sam like he was surprised, and he wondered if he was in trouble.

“It's the first I've heard of it. You'll have to fill me in later.”

“I will. Right now I've got to go get that light.”

“I understand,” Grandma said, and let him go. Rufus stood at the door, wagging his tail as he watched him cross the yard.

She turned back to Sam and smiled, and Sam smiled too, happy to have her all to himself again.

“Now,” she said, “tell me what else is new with you.”

He expected getting out of the house would feel like a jailbreak, but walking down the road in the cool, heavy air, Ken thought it was the opposite; he knew that this escape was temporary, that he'd have to come back and tell his mother everything.

It wasn't Sam's fault, and he hoped he wouldn't hold it against him. Sam had enough troubles.

She would accuse him of shutting her out or, worse, of misleading her, letting her believe he was teaching at B.U. (when in fact he'd only filled in for Morgan the week he was out in Berkeley for the opening of his show). He'd have to admit he wasn't working part-time at Merck either, that that had just been an old project they needed him to reconstruct, and not because he was indispensable but because he'd mislabeled his negatives. Instead of the twin professional and academic successes he knew she wanted from him, he'd have to admit that he was making $8.50 an hour developing overexposed birthday party and graduation photos.

After that, the conversation would spread and accelerate, sweep like an avalanche across his life, dredging up the ridiculous choices he'd made and their consequences—for the children, she'd say, as if he'd let Ella and Sam down, doomed them to shame and starvation. He knew she thought he was a fool and feared the world would crush him, and yet her worry never felt protective, more like a lack of faith in him. He'd just have to sit there and listen to her tear him down, without his father to soften the blows, to reassure him that she was only concerned about him, that they all knew what a tough profession he was in.

Crows called, mocking. The canopy of trees blocked out the sky so only a low band of white light filtered in from the lake, sneaking between the houses. Squirrels were out. One froze, then skittered up the far side of a tree as if Ken were a hunter. In the driveways, the Volvo wagons
and Cadillacs sat with rocklike patience, windshields beaded with dew, and he remembered the ludicrous bulk of his father's 98, waiting, he supposed, in their dim garage in Pittsburgh, the concrete beneath it stained with the blood of its predecessors. He saw the backyard with its old basketball pole, and the steel garbage cans tucked under the porch stairs. That's what he should be shooting—their dented, mottled sides and knocking handles, the porch rail his father fashioned from pipe. He'd have to visit before his mother sold the house.