by Lisa Levchuk
“How so?”
“Because I asked my father and I expected him to yell at me or something, to tell me to mind my own business, but he wasn’t like that.”
“What was he like?”
“He acted like he thought it was a perfectly normal thing to ask. He actually seemed kind of glad to tell me.”
“Do you have any ideas about why it was such a relief to find out how Tommy died?” he asks.
I glance around again, and I think about Mr. Howland getting hit in the face with a cupful of ice and I think about Mrs. Howland’s visit to the pharmacy and about the man walking to his car who had been sitting in the seat right before me. I am staring at a painting behind Dr. Chester’s head. It is a painting of a white house in a field of golden wheat. I try to get a clear picture of Sucan in my mind, but I can’t. Outside, it is still drizzling.
“Maybe,” I say.
He waits. I’m biting my thumbnail. I’m remembering how Barbie asked me so bluntly about Tommy. I tried to cover up how stunned I was. But I believed her. I really believed it was possible that someone murdered him.
“I thought someone killed him,” I say. “That could be why I never asked anyone about it.”
“Why would someone kill him?” he asks.
“I’m still not sure,” I say.
“Why aren’t you sure?”
“Because what I’m saying is that I honestly thought it was true.”
I keep looking at that painting, but I’m not seeing much.
“Do you feel relief because he wasn’t murdered, or are you relieved about something else?” Dr. Chester asks.
“What else would I be relieved about?”
“Well,” he says, “maybe you have always been glad that you didn’t have to deal with this brother who had so many problems.”
“Are you saying it happened because of me?”
“Is that what you think?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “It was my parents.”
“So you think it was your parents who did it?”
“They may have decided to do it after I was born,” I say. “So I could be normal.”
“How would that work?” he asks.
“How would I know?” I snap back.
I wait for a while because some strange ideas are coming to me; thoughts are rushing into my mind.
“Maybe they did it so I wouldn’t have to have an autistic brother.”
“You’re saying they would have done it to make your life more normal?”
I think about Tyrone Love and how the kids in school make fun of him because he gets angry for no reason and hits himself in the face. Think about this: if winning a stupid spelling bee can make people shun you, what would it mean to have a brother who couldn’t talk?
“I think so,” I say. “I think it would have been worse for me if he were here. I would have been a complete outcast. They needed to save me.”
“But it doesn’t seem like his death has made things easier for your parents,” he says. “Why would they do something that caused so much heartache?”
I think he may be referring to the fact that I’ve told him about how my parents both seem pretty sad a lot of the time.
“If I’d turned out better, it might have been worth it.”
“How?” he asks.
“I wish at least I could have been more normal for them.”
“You mean for your parents?”
“I wish I wasn’t always so scared of everything.”
“You had reasons to be afraid,” he says. “There were things you didn’t understand that scared you.”
“I’ve messed up everything,” I say. “I’ve made some pretty big messes.”
I think about what I said to my mother the night she found out she had cancer, how I yelled at her that by not letting me go to that stupid party she was trying to turn me into a freak like she did to my brother.
“I think he died because of me,” I say.
“You mean your brother?” Dr. Chester asks.
“Yes.”
“How could it have been?” he says. “Your father told you it was an accident.”
“But what if it was still somehow because of me?”
“Tell me, how could it have been because of you? Now you know what really happened,” he says. “You thought you had the answer figured out, but you were wrong. Maybe not everything happens because of you.”
“My mother got sick because of me, because we were fighting.”
“Now you want the power to cause cancer? What else can you do?”
We sit there without talking for a minute or two, me thinking about how you can find out there are things in your mind that you didn’t know were there. Dr. Chester looks tired. But he looks tired in the way a person who just won a race or a boxing match looks tired. He offers me a tissue, and it is funny because until that moment I didn’t even know I was crying. If you’d asked me, I would have told you that I was smiling.
“Maybe I did something wrong?” I suggest.
“Our time is up,” he says.
“Just like that?” I ask.
“We can talk more next week,” he says.
I walk out to my car through the same door as the man before me. The rain has stopped, but the sky is still very cloudy and threatening. I feel strangely similar to the way I did after my first trip to the secret spot with Mr. Howland. This time, however, I don’t feel any older or smarter. I feel sad. I have discovered yet another new place inside me. This place I’ve discovered is not a new continent. It is a black hole, and I don’t know how to fill it up.
Another Telephone Call
IT IS THURSDAY NIGHT and I am at home alone because my father is at the hospital in New York as usual. I feed Kippy and am trying to write an essay on Macbeth’s tragic flaw when the phone rings. I pick it up on the second ring and say hello. I am about ready to put down the receiver thinking that it is the anonymous hang-up person again when I hear a voice.
“Is your mother home?” a woman says.
“No,” I reply.
“Will she be back soon?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
We are both silent for a second.
“Would you like to leave a message?” I ask.
“No,” she says, “I’ll call back.”
“Why don’t you leave my mother out of this?” I say.
She hangs up. I could not say with 100 percent certainty, but the voice on the other end sounded like Mr. Howland’s wife. I feel myself getting angry about recent events, about Mrs. Howland and her mysterious visit to the pharmacy and Mr. Howland and his not teaching anymore. I’m angry at my mother for leaving me home alone. I wish my father were here. I wish I could hear the sound of Marv Albert’s voice or the sound of machine-gun fire or any other television show to drown out the silence after that phone call.
This Isn’t Philadelphia
ON SATURDAY MORNING the phone rings pretty early, and I’m contemplating not answering because of the recent string of mysterious phone calls, but I’m glad I do answer because it is Mr. Howland himself calling.
“Good morning,” he says.
This is only the second time we’ve spoken on the phone.
“Can you meet me in the back of the parking lot at school by the industrial arts building in about an hour?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say.
“Wear something nice,” he says. “Something not ripped.”
My father is not home, and I’m not clear where he is. He could be at work or he could be on his way to New York. Either way, I am free to do as I please.
I wear jeans that are neither ripped nor patched and a white sweater that my mother bought me for going out to dinner and such. I have to admit, this sweater does look nice on me, but as I usually prefer T-shirts or my father’s old shirts, I don’t feel entirely comfortable. When I’m uncomfortable, I sweat a lot, and I hope I don’t wreck this nice sweater.
I drive over to the high school
with the windows down because it is a beautiful sunny day. My heart lifts up when I see Mr. Howland’s car already sitting by itself in the empty parking lot. I pull up next to him, but as I’m getting out of the car he gets out instead.
“Can we take your car?” he asks. “I’m pretending to be working today.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I’ll drive,” he tells me.
It is funny because I’ve never been a passenger in my car before. I’m not even sure if my car would like to be driven by someone else. Mr. Howland brings a fake-leather box containing cassette tapes with him. He’s wearing black jeans and a white shirt.
Mr. Howland looks too big for the Triumph—it is a sports car with only two seats, and his head practically touches the ceiling.
“Can you tell me where we are going now?” I ask him.
“South Jersey,” he says.
“What for?”
“We’re going to have lunch with a friend of mine who lives near Philadelphia.”
My stomach seizes up, and the sweat starts dripping down my sides. At the same time, it is exciting to be meeting a friend of Mr. Howland’s. He knows my friends, but I’ve never met any of his. I think about Goose Pond. Mr. Howland must have his own Goose Ponds, places that are important to him that I’ve never been. This may even explain why he took me to his house that day. He’s trying to show me things about himself. So even though none of our other excursions have turned out particularly well, I decide to go to South Jersey with him.
As we drive, we listen to Led Zeppelin II, one of Mr. Howland’s all-time favorite albums. He particularly likes “Whole Lotta Love,” a song he told me that he plays when he and his wife have a fight. He blasts it and she hates it. Having seen the speakers of their stereo, I can imagine that it must get pretty loud. Mostly we joke around as we drive, probably to dispel the nervousness of going out into public again.
“I’m surprised you have friends,” I say.
“Very funny.”
“Who is this we’re meeting?”
“Tim and I went to graduate school together in New York,” Mr. Howland says.
Mr. Howland being in graduate school in New York is hard to imagine. Sometimes it is easy to forget that Mr. Howland has lived other places and done things other than cook hamburgers, make sculptures, and take me to the secret spot.
“Will we be near the Pine Barrens?” I ask.
“Somewhat,” he says.
“I’ve always wanted to see the Jersey Devil,” I say.
“You’re looking at him,” Mr. Howland says, and laughs.
After about an hour of driving, we finally get to our destination. Mr. Howland has a happy expression on his face. The houses in this town are nicely kept up, mostly white with lots of flowers. It looks like the kind of town you might go to on vacation but not actually live in. We pull into a parking lot behind a three-story office building.
“Tim wanted us to meet him at his loft,” Mr. Howland tells me.
“What’s a loft?” I ask. Once again, the sweat is soaking my armpits.
“It’s his studio,” Mr. Howland answers.
We leave my car in the parking lot and walk up two flights of stairs. We come out into a wide hallway, and Mr. Howland leads me through a door. We enter a room filled with canvases and easels and paints. Across the room I see a man who appears to be older than Mr. Howland. This man has gray hair.
“Tim,” Mr. Howland says as the gray-haired man walks toward us. “I want you to meet Edna.” Mr. Howland is smiling. He looks proud of me.
“Hi, Edna,” Tim says.
The expression on Tim’s face is hard to read. He seems uncomfortable. I hold my arms down by my sides to hide the wetness.
Mr. Howland is happier than I have seen him in a while. He walks around studying paintings.
“This place is great,” he says. “I wish I’d never started teaching.”
I am completely unable to speak, and I know trying would be a mistake. I just follow behind Mr. Howland, pretending to examine the art.
“So, Sawyer, how’s Melinda?” Tim asks, and he instantly realizes this is a weird question, given the situation.
“Melinda was in grad school with us,” Mr. Howland tells me. “Tim dated her first. But he was smart enough not to marry her.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t stolen her away, I would have,” Tim says.
“Let’s go to lunch,” Mr. Howland says, ignoring Tim’s comment.
Because my car is so small, we take Tim’s car. Mr. Howland had talked about the Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich that he was going to have for the entire ride to South Jersey.
“You can’t get a real cheesesteak sandwich anywhere but Philly,” he says now.
“This isn’t Philadelphia,” I point out. It is the first thing I have said since we arrived and the sound of my voice is alarming even to me.
“No,” Tim says, “but we’re close enough to get a good one.”
I look at Tim and think about Mr. Howland’s life. If this is Mr. Howland’s Goose Pond, then I have fallen through the ice—even worse, the hole I’ve fallen through has solidified over my head. If my mother were here, she would tell me that I am making a terrible impression. I have lost the power to speak.
At lunch, Mr. Howland and Tim tell stories about their time in New York. They talk about bars they liked. Some of the stories include references to Melinda, but because I have become a statue, it doesn’t matter what they are talking about. Tim can’t ask me questions because I am in high school and that is something we aren’t mentioning. He does look at my bracelet, though. He looks at it long enough to know that Mr. Howland has one exactly like it.
Finally, we go back to the studio, and I get into the passenger seat of my own car. Tim and Mr. Howland are standing about ten feet away, but I can hear them talking.
“It’s the real deal,” Mr. Howland is saying. “This is the first good thing to happen in a long time.”
I can’t fully make out Tim’s response. But the look on his face and his gestures make me think he’s telling Mr. Howland to stop seeing me. I start to hate Tim, but I realize it is not his fault that our trip was a failure. My face starts burning when I reflect on the fact that the only words I said the entire time we were together were “This isn’t Philadelphia.”
Mr. Howland gets in beside me and kisses me very softly on the cheek. He squeezes my knee.
“Let’s go to Philadelphia and walk through that giant heart,” I suggest.
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
“It’s in the Franklin Institute, I think. I went through it a long time ago, back in middle school,” I tell him. “You see the blood pumping through the veins and arteries and you can hear the thumping. Mrs. Snell had to drag me out of there.”
“We have to get back,” he says.
“Are you mad because I didn’t talk?” I ask.
“No, because I love you no matter what you do,” he says. “I really do, Edna, and I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks about it.”
We are finally out on the turnpike when my car starts making a strange banging sound.
“Yikes,” Mr. Howland says.
“We’ll make it,” I say.
We turn up the radio and ignore the intermittent clangs coming from the engine. We don’t talk because I believe we are both praying that the car makes it safely back. I close my eyes and picture the blood flowing through my veins and arteries, my heart the last stop. Neither one of us says it, but it is obvious to both of us that the lunch didn’t go very well. Mr. Howland looks both exhausted and relieved as he drives up next to his car.
“We made it,” he says.
“Here we are,” I say.
We kiss goodbye, and I climb into my car’s driver’s seat. Mr. Howland pulls out, but I wait a few minutes longer, waiting for my heart to stop thumping. Looking toward the school building, I think I see my Latin teacher, Ms. Clewell, popping her head out the window of her classroom on the
second floor. I slide down in the seat and wait until I can remind myself that she would have no reason to be at school on a Saturday afternoon. I inch my head above the door and glance toward the window where I thought I saw her, but there is no one there.
As I leave the school parking lot, there is looseness in the steering column, but fortunately the clanging sound has stopped. The play in the wheel gives me the feeling that I have less control than I did before. I turn the opposite direction from Mr. Howland’s house as I head for home.
A Day Without Mr. Howland
MR. HOWLAND IS ABSENT ON MONDAY, which makes being at school feel entirely pointless to me. In Latin, I wait to see if Ms. Clewell looks at me any differently, but we go over the translations the same as any other day. At the end of class, she hands back our most recent test, and I feel gratified as I see “92%” circled in red pen at the top of my paper. But then, looking more closely, I notice a small “see me” written in black ink right next to my name. I linger as everyone packs their stuff and walk up to Ms. Clewell’s desk when we are alone. She shuts the door.
“Hey,” she says.
“Did you want me to see you?” I ask, pointing to the message she left.
“Oh yes,” she answers.
She seems as nervous as I am, if not more so.
“How are you?” she asks. “How is everything with your mother?”
“She’s all right,” I reply, not getting into anything personal. But I imagine Ms. Clewell is someone who might not judge me too harshly for being afraid to see my mother.
“How about you?” she presses, and now I begin to suspect that it was indeed her staring at me through the window.
“Good.” I point to the red “92%” as evidence.
“I saw you here on Saturday,” she says. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Me? I was here on Saturday?” I make a face like I’m racking my brains.
“Yes,” she says. “I saw you.”
We pause.
“Daphne, I think you need to talk to someone about this.”
“Okay, I will do that.”
“I’m concerned about you.”
I don’t know whether to stand there looking stupid or to blurt out the whole story, from start to finish.
