She sat in the family room with Foster and Dad while Mom did those final little things she always did before leaving the house. There seemed to be more and more of those little things lately, and it all seemed a bit haphazard, as if she was delaying leaving until the last possible moment. She checked things twice, sometimes three times over: the back door lock, the kettle, the stovetop. She opened the fridge several times. She said “Yes, yes, yes” to herself as she did these things, then stood in the center of the room and smiled with a puffy sigh. Foster grew more and more anxious as Mom completed her little things before leaving. Every safety check was another step closer to him and Dad being left alone with Miss Watson.
Miss Watson had often explained Dad’s demeanor after spending time with her as confusion and just missing Mom. “He’s just missed you today, that’s all,” she would say when Mom would return home to find Dad pale with distress. He would be harder to settle, harder to distract. And Foster would watch Mom stare questioningly at Miss Watson as she shoved payment for her time into her knobby fist, wanting something from her other than what looked like judgment of her battle between necessity and guilt.
Being watched by Miss Watson was far worse for Foster than it was for Dad. Dad would forget. Dad lived in his right-now moment every moment. Foster often imagined it would be lovely to step into the next moment without the shadow of the previous moment following. He knew that feeling when he played with his soldiers or got lost in one of Dad’s stories. But lately Foster found himself carrying his own distresses and the ones his dad had forgotten. So when Miss Watson eased herself onto the couch, book in hand, while Mom did her puffy-sigh last-minute reconnaissance of the house, Foster felt desperate. He grabbed Mom’s arm as she picked up her purse.
“Miss Watson isn’t nice,” he whispered.
“Fossie, not now, please. Just do as she asks,” Mom said, but Foster saw the creasing of her good eye where her mascara was smudged. Mom used to never go anywhere with smudged makeup. “We’ll talk about it when I get home. I’m late.” Mom leaned down and kissed Foster hard on the top of his head.
“Thank you, Miss Watson,” she said, leaning over Dad and touching his face. “Malcolm, I’m off to work for a few hours. I won’t be long.”
“Okay,” Dad said. “I’ll wait here, then. Have a good day.”
Then Mom was gone. Just for a few hours.
Miss Watson opened her book and began to read. It was the same book she had brought last time. It wasn’t a big book. Foster wondered if their family room was the only place she read. Dad was watching TV, his fingers stroking the fraying threads of the armrest as if he were reading Braille. Foster watched Dad’s fingers. There was grace in them. Foster was about to go to his room and get out the general when Miss Watson said, “Turn off the TV. Go play in your room.”
She didn’t look up from her book. She waited just long enough to be sure Foster had not moved before casting her eyes over her spectacles and saying, “Foster, I said turn off the TV and go and play in your room.”
“Dad likes the TV,” Foster said.
“And I’m trying to read,” Miss Watson replied, leaning forward and seizing the remote. She pressed a couple of buttons before landing on the right one in an irritated way. Then she tossed the remote onto the couch beside her. It took Dad a few seconds to register the loss of picture and sound. He turned to Miss Watson and asked, “Is it broken?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s broken.”
Foster stood, appalled and strangely frightened by this exchange. He wanted to go for the remote but instead stayed stock-still, powerless to do anything other than breathe a little faster and flick his eyes from Dad to Miss Watson and back to Dad.
“Now go to your room,” Miss Watson said again.
“I’ll play here,” Foster said, but he didn’t move and he had nothing to play with.
“You’ll do as you’re told or I’ll tell your mom you’ve been disobedient.”
“Can we get someone to fix the TV?” Dad said, staring at his reflection in the shiny black screen, his fingers rubbing the arm of the chair more firmly now.
“I’ll get the soldiers, Dad,” Foster said, resting his hand lightly on his dad’s restless fingers. He was about to go to his room for the soldiers and clothespin basket when Dad stood up and said, “And I’ll fix the TV.”
Dad started toward the hallway first, then stopped and changed direction, heading for the kitchen instead. Miss Watson watched him disappear around the corner, then went back to her book. Foster contemplated following Dad but felt it would be safer to keep an eye on Miss Watson instead. He couldn’t explain the feeling. It was like making a choice between jumping off the starter’s block at the swimming pool or lowering yourself slowly down the stairs. The depth of the water was the same, and if you didn’t want to get wet, both choices were terrifying. Foster hated swimming.
The noise startled them both. Some banging and then something breaking. Foster got to the kitchen first and found Dad standing among thick shards of shattered china, opening and closing all the kitchen cupboards. He rattled plates around, got something out, and then closed the cupboard again, looking all gritty and sad, every movement staccato with imprecision. Hand extended, pulled back, knees bent, then straightened, like a strange hokey-pokey. Then he opened another cupboard and put whatever he had taken out back in. Always in the wrong place. Foster shadowed his dad, listening hard to the conversation Dad was having with himself. He seemed to be looking for something. He had just put some cans of dog food in the oven when Miss Watson appeared in the doorway looking formidable.
“What’s all the noise?” she said, looking directly at Foster.
“Dad’s looking for something.”
“Mr. Sumner!” She said it so loudly that Dad startled and let the oven door go. It sprang shut with enough force to rattle the shelves inside. “Sit down!” Dad did sit then, his eyes scanning the cupboards as if the answer to the question that would change everything was still inside one of them. Miss Watson sat at the table opposite him, splaying her book facedown in front of her before leaning forward and saying, “Get up again and I’ll tie you to that chair.”
“He wants to fix the TV!” Foster didn’t know he was going to shout it until he had shouted it. Miss Watson went slightly cross-eyed with shock at the shriek. As she refocused, Dad said, “Is the TV broken?” and attempted to rise. Miss Watson rose too, leaned across the table, and smacked the back of his hand—a blow that landed Dad straight back in the seat of the chair. His face registered the sharp, stinging slap as if Miss Watson had taken a shard of that broken dish on the floor and ground it into his palm. Foster was stunned. It was the first time he had ever seen anyone slap a grown-up.
“Stop all this at once!” she said breathlessly, and for the first time looking out of control. Foster noticed her short breaths. She was a little bit afraid she had gone a little bit too far. Foster felt it and it gave him a little bit of courage.
“You stop it!” Foster shouted. “You told him the TV was broken and then he wanted to fix it and then he started to look for things to fix it but he forgot what he was looking for when nothing needed to be fixed at all because you’re just a horrible lady!” Foster’s throat hurt. The kitchen seemed a different color. They didn’t shout in their house. Everything looked swimmy. Dad was rocking slightly, humming something.
“How dare you speak to me in such a way!” Miss Watson said.
“I’m calling my mom!” Foster wanted to stride to the phone with what little dignity he could still muster, but he found himself running instead. Miss Watson was scary, but she wasn’t fast. She made a grab for him as he swung past her, but Foster outmaneuvered her by flailing one arm beyond her reach and changing direction unexpectedly. As he did so, a sharp triangle of sturdy china gripped the bottom of his shoe and sent his legs skidding out from under him. Foster landed hard on his bottom. Shocked, he sat there on the floor, trying to pull a mouthful of air.
“F
ossie! You hurt?” Dad said, suddenly and inexplicably back from wherever it was he went lately. Miss Watson’s fat-knuckled hand pinched Foster under one arm and pulled at him angrily.
“Your fault,” she told Dad. “Bits of china all over the floor.” But there was something beaten about the way she said it, as if Foster’s hard landing had winded them both.
“Let’s go watch some TV,” Dad said, his hand resting on the top of Foster’s head, then sliding down to cup his cheek. Miss Watson stayed in the kitchen. As Foster turned the TV back on, he could hear her sweeping up the broken dish.
When Mom got home, Miss Watson apologized for the broken platter, explaining that her attention had been stressfully divided between Dad and Foster after Foster became belligerent. Foster didn’t know what belligerent meant, so he waited for a visual cue via Mom’s facial expression. Mom looked at Foster in a frustrated, disappointed way, although she looked at most people that way lately. Even Miss Watson.
“The dish doesn’t matter,” Mom said. Miss Watson was still talking, but Mom’s attention had been drawn to Dad, who appeared particularly fidgety and confused. He got up and walked into the kitchen, then walked back and sat down again, all the while turning his head this way and that as if to work out the direction of some unfamiliar sound only he could hear.
“Just trying to fix them both something nice to eat,” Miss Watson continued. “It’s just impossible to take your eyes off either of them!”
“I said it doesn’t matter, Miss Watson.”
“It matters to me. This is very stressful for me!”
“I’m sorry, Miss Watson. I won’t ask you again.”
“No, no,” Miss Watson said quickly, the same hand that had slapped Dad gently resting on Mom’s forearm. “I am happy to help any time you need me. This must be very difficult for you, Mrs. Sumner.”
Miss Watson was heading toward the door as she said this, and it suddenly occurred to Foster that she liked coming over to watch him and Dad. Foster had thought that all her meanness and short-breathed snappy talk meant she didn’t want to be here, but that wasn’t true at all. She liked being here because she liked being mean. She was just a big bully. Foster felt satisfied at having worked this out and horrified that she’d be back, in equal measure. He didn’t care about himself because he would always be able to outrun her, but he knew in that instant he had to protect the general.
He said it fast, sure that if he thought about it for even a second his courage would fail him altogether. “She hit Dad and I fell over!”
The effect of this statement, delivered in a hurried outside voice, was immediate and a bit funny to Foster. At exactly the same time, Mom and Miss Watson said, “What?”
They looked at him with the same expression too. Disbelief and shock. It was on now. Dad used to say that when battle lines were drawn between rivals of equal strength. Someone had to make a move. Foster knew it all rested on who looked at whom first. Mom slowly lifted her gaze to look at Miss Watson. Miss Watson’s eyes flickered in Mom’s direction, but she continued staring at Foster just long enough for him to know he had won.
“Miss Watson?”
“You can’t possibly believe the boy,” Miss Watson said. “He doesn’t like you being away, so he’s making things up. You need to get control of this one. Not an ounce of discipline in him.”
“Miss Watson, did you strike my husband?”
“I had to get a little firm with him, that’s all.” Miss Watson made a slicing motion through the air with her hand, a gesture of finality and moving on, then attempted to land that hand on Mom’s forearm again. Mom jerked herself away with a disgust more shocking to Foster than the slap in question.
“Get out of my house,” she said.
Miss Watson opened her mouth to speak, but it took a while for something to come out. Foster found himself looking up at her with the same dropped-jaw uncertainty she was looking up at Mom with. Foster hadn’t noticed the bristly hairs on her chin before. “I simply will not stand for this sort of talk,” Miss Watson eventually said, gathering her face into a pinched scowl. Foster wanted to see her falter, weaken. He looked for it in the way she reached out for the door handle, the way she walked down the front path. But there was nothing. There was no give in her at all.
After Miss Watson left, Foster assumed Mom would want to put the kettle on and ask Foster exactly what had happened. He waited for it. But Mom sat on the couch opposite Dad and just looked at him. Her hands were shaking. She was squeezing them together so bits of them went white and then pink and then white again.
“Are you mad at me?” Foster asked.
“No. No.”
Foster walked over and sat next to her. He wanted to kick-start this somehow, but Mom looked frightened. He wanted to tell her that the slap was only little, that Dad had probably already forgotten about it, that falling over wasn’t all that bad. He wanted her to tell him that it was right to tell, that the telling of it hadn’t just made everything worse. When her phone started ringing, Foster hoped she wouldn’t answer it, but she began rummaging around in her handbag to find it. He heard the ringing get louder and sharper as Mom shoved things out of the way to clear a path to its squawking, and then it was in her hand, pealing over the TV that wasn’t broken and Foster’s next words.
“Are you going to put the kettle on?”
Mom stood up to answer the phone. She didn’t just get up—she walked in circles in the kitchen and then sat and stood, and then walked down the hall and into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. She was crying. The last thing Foster heard her say into her phone was “Sometimes I want to hit him myself.”
Foster stayed on the couch opposite his dad and waited. He wasn’t sure what for. He wasn’t sure he wanted his mom to come out of the bedroom at all. At least not until she had stopped crying. He knew he was responsible. He could feel the hard edges of blame settling down inside him, like it would never, ever leave. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of a story to tell. Nothing came. He thought about asking his dad to tell him a story, but Dad’s stories didn’t go so well lately. That wouldn’t be quite so bad, but when the storytelling stopped, nothing else moved in to take over. Not even thinking. Dad had always had a thinking face, eyes that crinkled in a happy way as thoughts moved about inside his head. Sometimes it would still appear, but the stories that started soon dissolved into half-formed words and frozen hand gestures, leaving him as confused as everybody else about the strange wind that blew through, taking every word with it. Mostly his dad just looked empty.
Foster hadn’t known that sometimes Mom wanted to hit Dad herself. He was sure he wasn’t supposed to hear that. He didn’t know how he knew this. It happened sometimes. He would hear things said by grown-ups—things said in quiet, shushed ways—and something about their bitten tone would make Foster feel guilty for having overheard. As if his ears had deliberately wandered the empty spaces between grown-ups, picking up stuff he wasn’t supposed to hear. What was worse was that Foster was pretty sure these private things said into heavy silences were actually true things, truer than the careful sentences handed out to him. It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Sometimes I want to hit him myself. Foster had a feeling he was being lied to all the time. Being told it was nothing to worry about didn’t make the worry go away.
Foster knew other true things he kept to himself. He knew Mom was not a princess scarred by magic; she was an ordinary woman wearing her brain injury like a party mask, courtesy of a drunk driver. He’d heard Mom say that on the phone to someone once. She’d been crying then too. That was when Foster realized that truth often comes with crying, so when grown-ups are crying, you should pay close attention to the stuff they don’t want you to hear. Especially if you’re the one who made them cry.
Mom came out of the bedroom and went to the bathroom. Dad started humming something Foster recognized. When Mom eventually appeared in the doorway, the humming had really taken of
f. Foster had joined in.
“What is that?” she said. “I know that song.”
“I don’t remember the words,” Dad said. “But I like it. What song is it?”
Mom wandered to the kitchen, humming herself.
“Now I’ve got an earworm!” she said, smiling.
“Earworm!” Dad said.
“Earworm! Earworm!” Foster said. He was smiling too. He could make things right now. He could distract Mom, just like she distracted Dad when he got confused or upset. Mom was putting the kettle on. Finally. They were all humming, Mom throwing in a few la-las as well. Foster took Dad’s hand and led him to the kitchen table, then stood in front of the kettle. He liked to watch the kettle water roll about. He could see it through the window on the side. That was when he noticed Mom pouring herself a glass of wine in a long-stemmed glass shaped like a closed flower. He was glad. That always distracted Mom too. And made her happier.
Foster was annoyed when the doorbell rang. They were all having a nice time at the table like they used to. He could imagine a story being not very far away. He imagined Dad beginning just the way he used to, with a “Nowwwww” that was long and full of secrets, followed by an “I don’t know if you know this,” which always meant a new thing about to be told. With the three of them sitting around mugs of tea and hot chocolate, just like they used to, just imagining a soon-to-be-told story was enough to satisfy Foster. Then the doorbell. Stupid old-fashioned thing that looked like a bigger version of a bike bell. You had to turn the paddle and a mallet ran around the inside of the bell dome striking pins, sending a shrill metallic rattle to bounce off every person in the house. Mom jumped before saying “Why doesn’t she just knock?” in an irritated way, and Foster knew Mom knew who it was. She set another cup on the kitchen bench before going to open the door.
Sticky Notes Page 7
