A Handful of Fire

by Alexis Alvarez

  “Oh. How do you mean?” She’s more present now. “He didn’t before?”

  “It’s something that happens with all clients, over time, regardless of age. They wear me in like new shoes and they’re okay scuffing me up a little. It’s a sign that I’m in.”

  “New shoes?” She laughs.

  “Well, yeah. When any child I work with is comfortable enough to be a little bit rude to me, for the first time, it’s a good day—means I’m getting into their circle of trust. It’s actually a phenomenon that people write about in journal articles.”

  “I always thought that kids being sassy meant they were testing boundaries.”

  “Yes! Yes, it does mean that. But they only do it when they trust you enough to know that they won’t lose you, if they push. I mean, generally good kids. There are some troubled children that have such significant behavioral issues that trust is nowhere in the picture. But generally decent kids? They only start poking and prodding once they like you enough to care.”

  “Interesting. That means my daughter loves me a hell of a huge lot.” She laughs. “Good to know.” Of course, I know she knows that her daughter worships her. Jokes like this are only funny when you’re sure of someone.

  A garbled voice attacks me from the order box. The speaker has a mouthful of marbles. They’re across the ocean, talking on a spindly telephone wire stretching across the undulating sea bed.

  “I can’t hear you.” I lean out my window.

  “Me?” Kelsie asks.

  “No, I’m in the drive-through. Can I call you later?”

  “Sure thing.”

  We laugh, she hangs up. I dump my phone into the passenger seat and respond to the cacophony. “Yes. Grande. Grande. No, it was caramel.”

  I have no confidence that what I get at the window will in any way match what I ordered. This makes me slightly nervous, even though it’s an insignificant thing in the grand scheme of life, and I feel a whir of awakening in the pit of my stomach, as I prepare myself for the mild battle involved in explaining that an order is incorrect.

  Such a First World problem is ridiculous, but my body is eager to respond as necessary. I’m ridiculously relieved when the cup hits my hand in perfect form, the sweet syrup and whipped cream flooding my bloodstream like a sweet shot of cocaine for my brain.

  The table is spread with Legos of all sizes, shapes and colors. The travertine tiles are littered with them, tiny oblong pieces of yellow and back, larger rectangles in red and blue, and flat square-edged tongue depressors in white. Chaos. It makes my head hurt.

  My words are automatic. “I expect that this will be cleaned up before bedtime.”

  Michael’s smile shutters and his eyes droop. “Duh.” His voice is strident. “Yes, Gabriel. I’m aware that someone could step on a Lego and have it go straight through their skin into the bones, requiring a delicate plastic-removal operation by a renowned expert. I’ve been told. Just about, oh, a million times.”

  He looks at me, then swipes a handful of pieces to the floor. They clatter, the sound pleasant and small, like the tinkle of a glassy fountain.

  There is silence. He regards me with narrowed eyes, shoulders taut, sitting on the edge of his seat.

  I can feel the pressure rising as my blood pumps, and for a second I hear the tinkle over and over, the Legos falling to the floor in a little colorful waterfall. Shai’s face comes, unbidden, to my mind, and I remember what we talked about.

  I clear my throat. “You know, never mind the mess. We can clean it up tomorrow.” My words are uncertain, and Michael’s expression—the surprise, the disbelief—makes me smile.

  “Tomorrow?” he echoes. “Who are you, and what did you do with my father, you space alien?”

  I think wildly. What would Shai do here? I’m on the edge. “I ate him,” I say. “He was good. A little salty. Could have used more ketchup.” I pick up the instruction sheet, which is no sheet, but a booklet as thick as my thumb. “On my planet, we have no such things. May I try it out with you?” I gesture to the pile of blocks.

  Michael looks at me, keeps looking. “I guess. Sit there.” He points across the table, so I sit. He’s wary, but I see a hint of a smile, the one he used to give me all the time.

  “What next, human child?” I say, making my voice monotone, and this time Michael gives me the full smile. It’s been so damn long since we laughed together. Usually I’m snapping at him, or he’s snapping at me, or I’m correcting him for something like blocks on the floor.

  My heart twists in my chest. What the hell is wrong with me? Who cares about blocks, about dirty laundry, when there is a beautiful boy here with a beautiful soul, just wanting a dad? I blink hard and twirl the manual. “I cannot read these words. They are but garbled nonsense to a Lizard King.”

  “Good thing I’m fluent in many languages,” he says smugly, taking the booklet from me. “We start with the base layer and add on, see?” He points. “How about you build the tower part, which is separate, and I’ll do the more complicated part, which is the base, because I’m better at this. No offense.”

  “None taken. We on the Planet Lizardo are unoffended at all times.” Am I overdoing it? Shit, I don’t know. I don’t know anything.

  He makes his voice fake-cajoling. “Want some dried flies, Lizard Father?”

  I’d eat them for real, just to keep this moment going, so I say yes. I’m grateful when he brings back raisins—with his imagination, it could have been worse. I hate raisins, but right now I love them, so I eat a handful and make appreciative lizard sounds. Then we start building.

  I’d forgotten the pure pleasure of pushing together the Legos and having them mate perfectly, the edges in total alignment, the seal absolute. They are strong and hard in my fingers and I follow the pattern, building the intricate structure one block at a time. It seems impossible that all of these fragments will come together in the incredible thing pictured on the front of the box.

  Michael, without prodding, picks up all the Lego pieces he scattered and brings them back to the middle of the table so we can find all the right connections.

  “You know,” I say, “I love spending time with you like this. Even when you go back to fourth grade? We should make time to do projects.”

  He breathes out a long breath. “You’d never make me go to, like, a different school. Right?” His eyes search mine.

  “Never, kiddo.” I clear my throat. “Having you around is important to me. Did you… um… hear something that made you think otherwise?”

  He shrugs. “Not really. Just making sure. So, like, you’d never consider… boarding school for kids?” His voice speeds up through the sentence and he twists a block in his fingers.

  “Never.” My voice is fierce, and he looks up, startled, then pleased. “Never in a million years. Even if you wanted to do that, I wouldn’t let you.”

  “Okay.” He smiles to himself and I don’t think I imagine the way his whole body seems looser, lighter, easier in his chair.

  There is silence for a few minutes, as we create separate things across from each other. He’s faster than I am, his small fingers nimble and quick. I turn the thing in my hand to get the lay of it, matching it up with the layered pictures in the manual. Architecture for dummies. Drawings with no words, so anyone can get it. Still, it takes me time, even though I’m the one with the PhD in economics.

  Michael makes a sound of frustration. “This base is making me mad.” He scowls and holds the thing in his hand. “I want to crush it. I made a mistake. I’m tired of this.”

  “I’ll help.” I reach out instinctively, thinking too late that this will make him mad. But he hands it over. “Can you fix it, Gabriel?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Of course. You want to finish the tower for me? All the small pieces are making me insane.”

  He laughs. “That’s because you have fat sausage hands.”

  I snort. “Well, that’s what happens when you eat humans. You swell up. Very unhealthy. Next time I’ll s
tick to soy humans.”

  “Like the Rainicorns!” He jumps up from his chair. “I’m going to get my tablet so we can watch that episode together, okay?”

  “I’d love to watch it with you.”

  As he races up the stairs to his room, making little whooping noises, I bend over the table, the base in my hand. I find the mistake—he left out a critical piece. I pull off pieces with my fingernail, add the necessary blocks, and there it is. It’s finally starting to look like the thing it will become.

  “I did it.” I hold out the shape to him as he returns, offering it in both hands, ridiculously proud of my accomplishment. But he’s already past me, running to the couch, Android tablet in his hands. “Dad, come here. We can watch this together, okay? And maybe after that we can watch another one?”

  Dad. His voice holds a tendril of hope, and there is no way I’m going to squash it. It’s past nine p.m., and I don’t give a single shit. We are going to watch as many Adventure Times as he wants. I’m ecstatic.

  When he sits beside me, he gives me the tablet. “You hold it,” he orders, then smiles up at me, his sweet, sly smile. The one that reminds me of Irene.

  “Okay.” I take it. Then I say, hoping this isn’t a dreadful mistake, “You know. When you smile like that? You remind me exactly of your mom. She had a great smile.”

  He gets quiet. “She did?”

  I nod. “Yeah. I think she would have loved Adventure Time. She had a great sense of humor. It’s one of the things I… loved. About her.” Memories flood back, and I let them. Irene’s face, pink from the cold, smiling at me as we stamp off our boots in a steamy coffee shop, tugging off gloves, inhaling the heady scent of brew and sugar. Irene lying in my arms naked and soft, drowsing, then turning to me with that brilliant smile. Irene—

  “I miss her.” His voice is quiet. He traces the edge of the tablet with his finger. “But I’m a bad person, because I don’t remember much about her.” His words wobble. “I’m a terrible kid and a bad son because sometimes I can’t even remember her face or her voice or anything she said or did! And then you hate me because I forgot her.”

  “No. No! I love you. Son, I always love you, no matter what.”

  “You hate me. That’s why you spend so much time working, and why Natalie is like my main caretaker, and why you don’t even come out for breakfast to eat with me, ever. You’re always on a meeting. All you care about is work! Not me.”

  “Michael. No!” My heart is cracking. “I—that’s not it at all. I work so much because it helps me focus and stay in control of myself. I need to be doing something all the time, or else I start to, I start to get…” I swallow hard. “Michael, I love you more than anything. I just don’t know how to help you feel better, and sometimes it seems like I made things worse, instead of better. I’m trying to figure things out. Working is my way of coping, I guess. With my own worries. I’ll try to do better.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to be with me.” He picks at his shirt.

  “Michael, I always want to be with you,” I say.

  “Because I’m a bad son,” he says, and tears fill his eyes. “I know I’m difficult and hard to get along with. I know that. And I’m forgetting all about her. Doesn’t that make me bad?” His voice is a plea now. “You only even have the old pictures up in your office of all of us when she was alive. It’s like you care about that more than what’s happening now, to me.”

  The pain and fear in his eyes slay me. “Michael. No, Son, no! I love you. The pictures—I’m not much for decorating right now. I’ll put up new ones of you and maybe,” I think fast, trying to find the right words to assuage his panic, “maybe some screenshots of your Minecraft structures. Special things you made.”

  “So you don’t think I’m too much trouble?” His voice is low and tentative. He picks at one thumbnail with the other thumb.

  I grab at him and pull him to me. “You’re amazing. You’re not bad. Michael. You’re strong and brave and smart and awesome. It’s not your fault you can’t remember. That’s just how brains work. How life works. It’s okay. I remember her for both of us, all right?”

  “If I forgot about Mom, maybe she forgot about me, too. Maybe you’ll forget me if I die. Everyone will forget everyone and life is just black and ugly and I hate everything.” His voice cracks. “And pictures on the wall won’t even matter.”

  “I will never forget you. And your mother never did. The last thing she ever said was to take care of you. She said you’d be in her heart forever. Leaving you was the hardest thing she ever had to do.” My own voice cracks. “She loved you with all of her soul. And so do I.”

  “That’s kind of gross. Don’t say that again.” He pulls away, but I can see that he’s soaking up the words, a dry sponge growing in front of my eyes.

  “Well, parents are supposed to be that way,” I say. “I’m not good at mushy stuff either. It’s not my thing. But Shai reminded me that…” I pause.

  “She what?” He peers up at me.

  I shrug. “She told me that sometimes we need to say the mushy stuff, even if it’s weird, because people need to know that other people love them.”

  He thinks about this. “That makes sense. She’s smart. I like her a lot, Dad.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” Now I see Shai’s face instead of Irene’s. I don’t miss Irene the same way I used to. In the beginning, it was a cruel, aching pain that I knew would never fade. Now it’s faded, to my relief and despair. I remember moments with her fondly, with happiness. Regret. Wistfulness. But not that glaring pain and sadness. When I think of Irene now, it’s like I think of special memories from the past. She’s leaving me, like a slow tide pulling out, so softly that you don’t even notice until it’s miles gone. And then, the fact that this is happening makes me sad all over again, even though it’s a different torment from the initial loss.

  I understand what Michael means about being forgotten. I grab him again, hard, and run my hand over his head. “So I won’t get too awful, but kiddo, I love you. Even if I’m a jerk sometimes and yell at you about messes and behavior and school, okay? Inside, I love you. I just don’t—always show it. I’ll try to be better.”

  “As long as you don’t write me love poems and buy me roses,” he jokes, pushing my hands away. But his small fingers linger even as he’s forcing me back, so I give him one more squeeze.

  “So tell me more about the Rainicorns,” I suggest. “Are those unicorns?”

  “Dad! No.” He launches into a complicated explanation, complete with animated gestures and expressive features, and I soak it all up. I’m a sponge, too. And as I grasp the curious anatomy of the Rainicorn and learn about the land of OO, what I’m learning—I think—is how to be his father again.

  I start to redo the playhouse, little by little, even though it’s winter. Not huge changes yet; I’ll hire a carpenter when spring comes to redo the insides, and I’ll let Michael work up the plans first. But I box up some of the old toys and take down the old pictures, smoothing them out, and save them in a bottom drawer of my desk.

  I haven’t told Michael about this yet, but I spend time with him every day now, talking and even joking around. The first few times were rough; the next few still splintered, but now we’re in a better groove. I’m not always Dad, but I’m not always Gabriel either. He laughs with me more often.

  I took down some of the pictures of Irene. I felt disloyal at first, doing it; a traitor to my own life, to my own love. I touched the frames gently, with care, as if holding my wife’s hand. I thought of her while I wrapped the frames in paper and put them in a low drawer, and felt nauseated that I was changing things. But when I put up some new pictures of Michael, ones he chose—his school picture before his relapse, and some of his Minecraft printouts—I feel invigorated and positive. And the look on Michael’s face when he saw them? It was well worth it. I still have up my favorite family picture of all three of us; I imagine that one will stay up no matter how old I get, no matter if I ever ma
rry again. It’s part of my soul.

  Sometimes when I need a break from my charts and monitors, I research local carpenters and brainstorm ways to make something even better in the yard. Maybe Michael and I can build some kind of elaborate fort treehouse around the old elm. I get so excited about this that I can literally see it, playing out in the future, when the grass is long and green: the two of us, chattering and working together. Hammer, sweat, boards, maybe a guy to help with the big stuff.

  Okay, a few guys. But we’d be doing a lot of the project ourselves. And then Shai would come out with lemonade, or maybe she’d be there with us. I can imagine her in short shorts, her smooth toned legs and her curvy ass in some tight denim shorts. She’s got on a tool belt and it’s sexy, and then Michael goes inside, and Shai and I are alone. We fall down into the grass and I slide my fingers up under the back of those short shorts, reaching the tender skin there, and my other hand goes under her shirt, and—

  There’s her voice. I look up, guilty, hoping I’m not flushed. “Shai? I thought you left.” I stand up, pleased and confused to see her again this evening.

  Her cheeks are red and her coat is on and a puff of cold air accompanies her. “I’m so sorry, Gabriel. My car won’t start. I think the battery is dead. Can you give me a jump?”

  A jump. My mind races. I swallow. “Sure. Let me grab my coat and car keys.”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s no problem.” I tug on my coat. “I’ll get the Lexus. I have cables in the back. Can you go pop your hood?”

  Her eyes meet mine and then flitter away. “Okay. I’ll go pop it right now.” She grins a little and I wonder if the double meaning has her flustered, too.

  When I meet her out front, she’s bent over organizing some stack of papers on the front passenger seat of her car. I touch the small of her back and she jumps up, and some of the papers find the breeze and ruffle out, doves in the wind. “Oh, no!” She grabs at an errant sheet and I help, snatching the other ones before they disappear down the street.