Trent meets his eyes then looks back at the bicycles. Irwin had forgotten the colour of his father’s eyes, he so rarely sees them. They are hazel like Harriet’s.
“Promise you’ll take us.”
His father often says he’ll do things he doesn’t. Lynne says as soon as the asshole says he’ll do something, you can be sure he won’t. “I didn’t get to it” is his perennial excuse. But a promise is a promise. “Promise,” Irwin repeats.
“Promise. If she’s well enough.”
“If she knows she’s going to the comic con, she’ll get better.”
Trent drops him off outside the Shangrila. “I’m going to make myself scarce. Your mom won’t want to see me.”
The seniors are passing around TUMS and discussing Mr. Shotlander’s son’s cancer, even though Mr. Shotlander is not in the lobby. “Stage four,” Mr. Hoogstra says. “That’s serious business.”
Irwin would prefer not to listen, but he has to wait for the elevator.
Mr. Chubak peels an orange. “They’re doing another biopsy and another CT scan, a PET scan and an eGFR test.”
Mr. Quigley, doing stretches in the corner, says, “Lord have mercy on him.”
Irwin quietly opens the door to the apartment and hurries to the computer to look up reactions to rabies shots. Severe reactions include rash, hives, difficulty breathing and swallowing, swelling of the mouth, face, lips, tongue, hoarseness, joint or muscle pain, numbness or tingling—paralysis.
“Peanut, I didn’t hear you come in. Are you all right?’
“I’m fine.” The word paralysis has jammed his brain.
“You don’t look good. Have you eaten? I made meatloaf with bacon on it the way you like it.”
She’d stopped putting bacon on it because it makes him fat. She guides him to his chair and places a plate of meatloaf, potatoes and green beans in front of him. “I cooked all your favourite things but it’s not that hot anymore, do you want me to heat it up?” In his head Heike says meat is murder. If she is paralyzed, he will hang himself from a tree. Lynne dollops butter onto his potatoes. “I even made chocolate pudding with marshmallows.”
Irwin tries to eat a green bean. It takes forever to chew.
Lynne sits at the table, staring at him. “Did you hear about what happened to Mindy?”
He shakes his head, managing to swallow the bean, and jabs his fork into a chunk of potato.
“She took Brianna to her mother’s for a couple of days, and Conner and Taylor had a party in the apartment. Their so-called friends got totally drunk and trashed the place. Then some older boys, who’d found out about the party on Facebook, crashed it and stole everybody’s cells.”
Irwin doesn’t know why she’s telling him this.
“The point is alcohol, sweet pea. Alcohol makes people do crazy things.”
“Then you shouldn’t drink.”
“I’m not going to anymore. I told Sydney no more wine in the apartment. Alcohol causes seizures, peanut. Alcohol can kill you.”
“So can falling off a balcony.”
She inhales quickly, as though spooked. “I can’t believe you’re blaming me for that.”
“Because it’s your fault.”
“It is not my fault. It’s not that simple.”
“What’s not simple about it?”
She pushes her chair back from the table and stands gripping her forehead. He chews on potato, waiting for her to explain but she doesn’t. She walks away from him. He hears the springs on the couch and knows she’s about to turn on the TV. “What’s not simple about it?” he almost shouts, which he never does. He hates shouting.
“There were a whole bunch of other factors, Irwin. Life isn’t black and white. When you grow up you’ll find that out, and maybe you’ll be a bit more forgiving.”
Relieved she is no longer forcing him to eat, he follows her. “What other factors?”
She stares glassily at Betty and Bob. “Your condition for starters.” She’s using him as an excuse again, just like Gennedy used him as an excuse for hitting Harry. She crosses her bony arms. “I’ve tried to move on. For us. So you could have a life.”
“Stop saying you’re doing things for me. You don’t drink vino for me, you don’t smoke cigarettes for me, you didn’t fuck Buck for me, you didn’t make Gennedy leave for me.”
“I could never forgive him for what he did to Harriet.”
“What about what you did to Harriet? Who forgives you for that?”
“Okay, where’s Trent in all this? He is your father after all. Where’s he been?”
Irwin can’t understand how finding someone else to blame makes it any easier. Although blaming his mother is easier than blaming himself. “He’s not my father. I never think of him as my father. Gennedy was my father.” When he woke up and found Gennedy gone, and an empty space where his desk had been, he couldn’t speak at first. Lynne was making French toast and acting like everything was normal. “Where’s Gennedy?” he asked finally.
“He moved out. We didn’t think all that fighting was good for you, peanut.”
Once again things were happening because of him. “I didn’t mind the fighting.”
“We were never really married anyway. It’s better this way. Just you and me, kid.”
Irwin didn’t think it was better that way. He wanted Gennedy to help him with his homework, and take him to superhero movies and buy him buttered popcorn. At first he still saw him on weekends but, as Gennedy grew poorer, movies became too expensive. They went to the park to watch community baseball games. Gennedy would sit in the bleachers shouting at players as if he were their coach until finally some man, usually bigger than Gennedy, would shout, “Shut the fuck up, asshole!” During the winter there was nowhere free to go except the library. They’d sit side by side looking at stuff online, but they didn’t say much. Gennedy talked to the computer, cursing politicians, successful criminal lawyers and John Grisham. Several times he swore so loudly the librarian had to ask him to keep it down. Irwin pretended he didn’t know Gennedy and immersed himself in online games. He started coming up with reasons why he couldn’t go out with Gennedy. Lynne didn’t want him spending time with him anyway, so it was easy to make excuses. Gennedy called less and less. Then Bell cut his service.
Lynne has slid down in the couch and closed her eyes. Irwin thinks she might be asleep but she says, “You know what my mother used to say to me?”
Irwin doesn’t bother to reply because he knows she’ll tell him.
“She used to say, ‘You’re special. Just like everybody else.’ I was nobody, could have been anybody. My mother treated me like I was just like everybody else. I didn’t want to do that to my kids. I wanted you guys to feel special. Not like everybody else.”
“I’ve never felt like everybody else.”
“You know what my mother said to me before she died? She said as far as she was concerned I murdered Harriet. She said, ‘Don’t bother coming to my funeral.’”
“We couldn’t afford a funeral.” He doesn’t remember much about his grandmother except that she wore bright red lipstick and high heels. At Christmas, Lynne would take him to her apartment with presents Gran never liked. “What’d you get me this for? Don’t waste your money. Take it back.”
Irwin tried to discourage Lynne from buying Gran presents she didn’t want. But Lynne was determined. “She’s my mother,” she would say.
“That doesn’t mean you have to buy her stuff.” When Gran tossed her carefully chosen gifts aside, Lynne’s shoulders drooped and her hands hung at her sides until finally she’d pack up the unwanted gifts.
“Peanut, when you blame me for everything, it’s like you’re my mother. It’s like it’s happening all over again.”
“What?”
Lynne still hasn’t opened her eyes. “Rejection.”
How did they get to talking about her again? “I don’t mean to reject you,” he says, although he doesn’t know what he means. “I just want to talk about Harriet.”
“What about Harriet?”
“Something you remember.”
Lynne flinches as though it hurts to remember anything about Harriet. “The video store. We used to go before you were born, and she’d pick out a video with animals on the cover. Sometimes they had free popcorn and she’d grab a handful to feed the squirrels. She was so sweet and small and loving. And smart. She was printing three-letter words by the time she was two and a half.”
Irwin pictures Harry sweet and small and loving, printing letters. “What words?”
“Cat, mat, sat. She loved Dr. Seuss, could recite all his books. And she was very picky about the colours she wore. She went through a pink phase, a turquoise phase, a purple phase, then lime green.”
“I just remember her in old T-shirts and jeans.”
“That’s because she stopped caring.” Lynne covers her eyes with her hand.
“Why did she stop caring?”
“I don’t know. I wish I knew.” She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. “It was like she switched off. She’d been really excited about having a baby brother but then you stayed at the hospital.”
It’s Irwin’s fault again. “I didn’t want to stay in the hospital.”
“Of course not, sweet pea, but there were so many complications, and then when you did come home, you couldn’t do much.”
“She was disappointed in me.”
“Not in you, it was just all really . . . difficult.”
Harriet was so disappointed in Irwin, she switched off. He tries to remember that far back. She seemed like a miracle to him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She could do all the things he couldn’t.
Lynne pulls absently at a thread in the worn upholstery. “I wish you’d eat something, peanut. It’d be better heated up. Do you want me to heat it up?”
It was just all really . . . difficult. That’s his mother’s excuse. He is so disappointed in her, he switches off.
Twenty-seven
“So what’s the deal, junior? Your mom says you’re still lying around all day.” Sydney pulls Irwin’s desk chair beside his bed and rests her bare feet on the frame. Her eyes are purple and her toenails green. He used to enjoy watching her remove nail polish and apply a different colour. He can’t remember why. It seems like so long ago. Heike has not charged her phone, and Uma is not picking up.
“That happened to a friend of mine. For real. He stopped getting out of bed and got double pneumonia. You’ve to get your head around the fact that your lungs need exercise, junior, otherwise they fill up with crud, and you get some superbug immune to antibiotics and you die.”
This is what he wants. He doesn’t have the energy to climb a tree and hang from a rope. And he can’t follow the bomb-making instructions. He tried but they were too complicated, more complicated than the school science project he failed.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
“Your mom had to go to work. She’s scared if she takes too many personal days she’ll get replaced by some ass-kissing new hire. It’s my day off, so she asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“Do you have any vino?”
“Very funny. Get off your ass and quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
He is feeling sorry but he’s not sure for what, exactly. Everything. Being born. He looked up zest. 1. Invigorating or keen excitement or enjoyment. 2. Added interest, flavour or charm. 3. Something added to give flavour or relish. Heike is all of these things.
“When I’m sick,” Sydney says, “I like to watch TV.”
“You watch TV anyway.”
“Touché.” She wiggles her toes. “But this is kind of dullsville, don’t you think? I mean, your mom’s not even here so it’s not like you need to hide from her.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“She loves you, junior. She really does. You’re lucky.”
No matter how hard he focuses and chants, he is stuck in the wrong universe. Harry’s taken off—like she always does—leaving him behind. He’s starting to hate her too.
“Who’s supposed to look after your fish, junior?”
“You.”
“Not this century. Fish creep me out with their goby mouths and staring eyes. Like, why don’t they blink?”
Irwin doesn’t have the energy to clean the tank. Betty and Bob will slowly choke to death on their own shit. He must be depressed because his mother has been shoving Q-tips soaked in Listerine in his mouth, and spooning liquid Prozac into him, sitting on the bed, waiting for him to swallow. She’s been feeding him his antiseizure meds on a spoon with honey. Nothing is black or white, just grey.
“Is that somebody at the door?” Sydney lifts her feet off the bed and heads for the hallway. Irwin rolls onto his side and stares at the beaky, clawed creature that has Gennedy’s eye.
Forbes wheels in with his laptop. “Well, hello, son. I had to deliver flyers all by my lonesome again today.”
“Sad face,” Sydney says.
“It’s way harder without my assistant. Spidey, I want to show you something.” He flips open his laptop and sets it on the chair beside the bed. “Check this out.” Onscreen are paintings of creatures bleeding from gaping wounds.
“Those are Harriet’s,” Irwin says. “How did you get those?”
“Are you sure they’re Harriet’s?”
“Who else’s would they be?”
“Maybe somebody who sees the world the way Harry did.”
Irwin sits up to look more closely at the pictures. The reds, oranges and yellows spring out at him. “Nobody can see the world like Harry.”
“Maybe so, son, but you’ve got to admit, they are a bit Harry-ish.”
“Who did them?”
“A boy named Oliver.”
“Who is he?”
“An artist. I discovered him online.”
Blues and greens blend into the aqua Harriet loved, making Irwin feel almost as though he is at the bottom of the pool, staring up at the sparkling water.
Forbes backs up his chair to look at the screen. “Seems to me there’s a difference between Harry’s and Ollie’s work, though, what do you think?”
Irwin looks at Harry’s paintings on the wall then back at the laptop. “Ollie’s aren’t as scary.”
“That’s what I thought. The creatures are wounded and suffering, but they’re not evil.”
Irwin scratches at his arms because Lynne isn’t around to stop him. “Why are they wounded?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I thought maybe we’d ask Oliver. He has a show on in his old high-school gym. He’s hoping we’ll get our arses over there before it closes.”
“You met him?”
“Online. I friended him.”
“Why does he want us to go?”
“He’s an artist. Artists always want people to go to their shows.”
“A friend of mine’s an artist,” Sydney says. “He can’t even get a show. I keep telling him he’s got to get his head around the fact that nobody gives a fart about art.”
“I do,” Irwin says.
Forbes closes his laptop. “Good, then come with me. I need back up with my wheels.” His foot slips off the footrest. He lifts it back on. “Oliver’s a pretty special guy. Just like you, he was born with a condition, only his was fatal. He was on a waiting list for a heart and lungs for years. When he finally got them, his body rejected them. He started to die all over again, could hardly move, had to stay near life support equipment and never leave the house. His mom home-schooled him till grade seven. This was long after she’d contacted the donor family and they’d all gotten together to celebrate what they thought was a success
ful transplant. When Ollie’s immune system rejected the organs it was like the donor family had to watch their son get sick all over again. They stopped calling, and when another donation became available, they opened Ollie up and trashed the first donor’s organs. Ollie’s mom was too scared to contact the second donor family in case the new organs were rejected. She told Oliver he shouldn’t either. But when he turned eighteen he could do what he wanted, so he used Facebook to find them, only they weren’t looking for him.”
“Maybe they didn’t want to find him.”
“Maybe they didn’t realize how easy it is on Facebook. In the old days it was way more complicated, you had to go through the hospital and write letters and such.”
“Is he still looking for them?”
“Nope, because he found me. We matched up stats, hospitals, dates and OR times, and guess what? Harriet was his donor, son. He’s got Harriet’s heart and lungs inside him.”
Irwin is flung into intergalactic darkness. Black cold engulfs him.
“Ollie says his body loves Harriet’s heart and lungs. He says he’s in love with her heart and talks to it, calls it H for heart. He’s off the antirejection meds. Harry’s heart is happy inside him, son. She’s doing great and making him create weird art. He does all kinds of crazy stuff, mixed media just like Harry. His parents are pretty freaked about it. He was supposed to be an engineer and now he’s messing around in art school. He’s doing what Harriet wanted to do. He’s living for her, son.”
Irwin crashes back to earth, robbed of his ability to see Harriet whole. He can’t think of her in a boy’s body, can’t think of her as a heart and lungs.
Forbes flips open his laptop again. “Check out Ollie’s Facebook page.”
In the photos, a tall, thin young man with wild dark hair stands in front of paintings that resemble Harriet’s. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt that says IT WASN’T ME.
“He could use a haircut,” Sydney says.
“You okay, son?”
“Does my mother know about this?”
“Not unless you tell her.”
Irwin scratches his arms some more. “He wants to meet me, really?”
On the Shores of Darkness, There is Light Page 38
