The Notations of Cooper Cameron

by Jane O'Reilly

  Always.

  Mike’s hands are busy again. Busy, busy, busy. Cooper is drawn to the fake lures like a hungry fish. “Maybe I could do that,” Cooper says. He picks up a hook and a piece of wire and wraps the wire around the hook in concentric circles. Methodically. Tediously. Wonderfully. The rows are as even as the spindle of wire on Grandpa’s workbench.

  He pulls brown thread. Ties and wraps. Ties and clips. He reaches for a bit of fur. Mike nods. Cooper concentrates. Feels his tongue pointed against his upper lip. Just like Mike’s, his hands are busy. Busy, busy, busy.

  But his mind is not busy. His mind feels loose and free. And That Boy has nothing to do. That Boy is bored. Cooper imagines his heavy brain turned to liquid. Draining out through his opened mouth—That Boy sliding out with all the muck. Leaving room for ideas. Ideas as soft as the clouds. He imagines himself floating across the sky.

  The caddis fly is perfect.

  “Wow!” Mike says.

  “I’m a fast learner.”

  “Maybe, but you better pick up some speed if you want to make any money at it.”

  “Money?” Cooper says. “You mean, like a job?”

  “Yeah, like a job. I’ll pay you to tie flies. Maybe you can buy something you’ve always wanted.”

  Cooper knows what he would like to buy. But he has not always wanted it. He has never wanted it until this moment. He points up high at the window—at the giant vest that does not really have a hundred pockets. “I will want to buy that.”

  “And then I’ll take you fishing,” Mike says.

  No. Not fishing. Never fishing. Ever.

  Cooper picks up another piece of wire.

  Busy, busy, busy.

  Free, free, free.

  Sadness

  Cooper sits on the sofa in the golden cabin light, tying caddis flies. He dabs nail polish on the seventy-seventh fly and sets it on a cookie tray to dry.

  “Dad called,” his mother says as she walks from the kitchen to the dining room. “He plans to be here this weekend.” She goes back and forth, from the kitchen to the dining room, carrying knick-knacks and the toaster and the pitcher and the dead ivy from the grandfather’s funeral and all the things that get dusty and leave rings on the kitchen counter, and sets them on the dining room table. One by one. She empties drawers, sorts junk. She is giving the kitchen a good Irish scrub, just like her grandmother used to say.

  “Do you think he’ll really come this time?” Caddie asks.

  The question scares Cooper. He waits, afraid of the answer. He thinks of the big rock at home alone on his desk and wonders if the rocks in his room, here, up north at the cabin, miss that big rock. He is certain the big rock likes being alone.

  “I think so,” their mother says. “His biggest project of the year is finally behind him.”

  “I’ll bet you fifty dollars he can’t make it,” Caddie says.

  Cooper watches his mother’s face for a smile. “We’ll see,” she says. No smile.

  Cooper picks up a piece of wire. The last piece. He needs more supplies. He wraps, ties, and clips and puts the last caddis fly on the cookie tray. When they are dry, he will put them in the box for Mike. He opens The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Reads. Reads and listens to Caddie and his mother.

  Scissors clink. Caddie sighs. She measures, cuts, and peels shelf paper to line the drawers. “Have I been grounded or something?”

  “No, I just need the help,” Cooper hears his mother say.

  “Why can’t Cooper help?” Caddie says. “He’s good at this sort of thing.”

  Cooper knows the answer. Knows his mother will not let him help because he will measure the drawers perfectly—the way they should be measured. She doesn’t like perfect things. Perfect things take too much time. And because she knows Cooper might put the junk in his room for safekeeping. Cooper thinks about Mr. Bell’s garage. He thinks about Mr. Bell and the ice cream. He thinks about Jack’s big vest and how he would never need drawers with one hundred pockets.

  Cooper reads about a graveyard. About warts. He has been so busy tying flies he has missed this good and famous book full of adventures. Except for the part about the dead cat. Dead. Kaput. Nothing you can do about it. Tom Sawyer makes friends with Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn sounds like another fake fly to tie.

  A drawer slams shut in the kitchen. “Now can I go?” Caddie pleads. Pleads a dying wish. No, not dying. Cooper wants to unthink that word, dying. He must read. Read to expunge that thought. Read to save Caddie from the flames. He should not have been tying flies. He should have been reading. Reading three times three to protect his mother and Caddie and Amicus and the world.

  Caddie moans so loudly a loon calls to her from the lake. Cooper puts his finger on the word Finn. Listens to the lonely loon. Listens to the clinks in the kitchen. He is glad to know Caddie is alive and well. Finn. Finn. Finn.

  A drawer slams shut. “There. Done. That’s the last one,” Caddie says.

  “Help me put everything back and then you’re free,” his mother says.

  From the corner of his eye, Cooper watches Caddie in the dining room. When she picks up the dead ivy, her movements jerk and stall. Cooper turns his head. Watches as Caddie moves and thinks in stop motion. Like a pixilated movie. Her eyes blink. Her fingers touch the green tape. Cooper knows he cannot stop what she is thinking. Cannot stop what will happen next.

  His stomach is in free fall.

  Spilling through the stratosphere.

  Caddie holds the fishing boat with the dead ivy in front of her curious eyes. She squints. Shakes her head with disbelief. “Mom,” she says, poking a purple fingernail at the little green stem. Her small laugh puffs the air. “This plant is dead.” She tugs at the stem. Unwinds a piece of green tape.

  The dead plant grows.

  Cooper watches as his mother reaches for the pot. “No, it’s not. See? It’s still green. It’ll come back.”

  “Mom, look. It’s just green wire wrapped with florist tape.”

  His mother looks again. She cannot believe her eyes. Or her ears. But Cooper knows she realizes everything Caddie says is getting more and more believable every day. She takes the pot in one hand, touches her lips with the other. She stands as still and lifeless as the green wire.

  Cooper pictures his grandfather under water. Sees himself dive to the bottom of the lake to save him. He wants to catch the ivy in a freefall. Wants to pick up his mother and carry her to Tezorene, where everyone lives full to the brim with happiness. Where sadness is not allowed.

  “It’s my fault,” Cooper says. “I forgot to water it.” He runs to the kitchen. Gets the antique pitcher, pumps the water, fills it to the brim. He hurries to his mother’s side. “It’s all my fault,” he says again.

  “No, it isn’t,” Caddie says. “It’s looked like that for months.”

  “It has?” their mother says. She sits down. The fishing boat shakes in her hand.

  Cooper can see his mother filling with holes. She is emptying out. Caving in. He must hurry to refill her.

  He tilts the pitcher and the little fishing boat fills with water, overflows into his mother’s lap. She shivers. And laughs. But Cooper knows she is not cold and her laugh is not happy. She sets the plant on the dining room table. Wipes the droplets, like tears, with her hand. “It’s just a plant,” she says and laughs again. “What was I thinking?”

  Hope, hope, hope. Cooper knows she was thinking about hope. And it’s all his fault her hope is gone. He has let her down. Cooper watches his mother closely for small cracks and signs of fire. For embers in her heart.

  His mother laughs tiny little disappearing laughs until she no longer makes a peep of sound. She puts the ivy back on the windowsill in the kitchen and presses a towel against her wet jeans. “I’ve been thinking about planting a vegetable garden,” she says. Her voice buckles beneath the weight of her heavy heart.

  “That sounds great, Mom,” Caddie says.

  “Just some tomatoes and green be
ans,” his mother says. “What do you think, Cooper?”

  Cooper pictures his calendar. Calculates the time. “We have thirty-two days left at the cabin. I believe—”

  “Cooper,” Caddie says, frowning.

  Cooper listens carefully to the hard C of his name. Caddie is warning him. He picks up his book and goes to his room. Flips his notebook to a clean page and writes.

  Sometimes it is hard to say the right words. To keep track of thoughts and facts and truth. And hope.

  Before he closes his notebook, he writes this down too:

  Sometimes your brain plays tricks on your eyes, making you believe in impossible things.

  And one more thing:

  Some people think sadness is the opposite of happiness, but that is not true.

  Sadness is the opposite of hope.

  And this:

  Sadness is a bully. It steals your happiness away when you aren’t looking.

  Sadness butts in line and makes hope go last. If hope ever gets a chance at all.

  Cooper lays out his rocks on his bed, touches them one by one. He thinks about Mr. Bell all alone in the hospital. He will make him ice cream when he comes home. He gives Amicus an extra food nugget because the frog has so little to look forward to.

  And then he reads. He reads to Caddie’s mean frown. To his mother’s glistening eyes. To The Father’s phone calls. To Amicus the Great’s solitary existence. (Maybe someday Cooper will find another tadpole, like Amicus, and Amicus will have a friend too.) He reads to the truth of the dead ivy. Reads to rid everyone of their sadness. To the secrets he must keep. To the loss of hope.

  He reads every word three times, every line three times, and every page three times because today disaster came so close. So very close. As close as a last breath. He reads The Adventures of Tom Sawyer until he bumps into a mean word. Caddie is right. He does not understand. And he is worried about his species.

  Being a human being can be very confusing.

  Now Cooper needs to read to rid the world of all its meannesses and its sadnesses. But he cannot read the mean words three times three. Cannot read those words at all.

  He closes his eyes and glides his finger on the page. He pictures himself as a period at the end of a sentence. A tiny dot in the universe. He can see as plain as day that Cooper Cameron is a minuscule problem in a very, very big world.

  Hope

  Cooper’s eyes are still closed when Caddie knocks on his door.

  “Put your bathing suit on, Cooper. It’s summer. We’re going down to the beach. Mom says.”

  Cooper puts on his bathing suit. Tucks his secret notebook into the secret pocket of his bathing suit. Says goodbye to Amicus.

  Caddie smears sunblock on him like soap, head to toe. The coconut oil she spreads on her arms and legs makes her glimmer like a wet seashell.

  “It’s so hot out,” she says, tiptoeing across the mossy yard, side-stepping sticks and acorns.

  Cooper follows, scanning the path for toads and beetles and other creatures he can rescue from the mean and scary world. Creatures that might like to inhabit Tezorene.

  “Ow, ow, ow,” Caddie says, hurrying across the hot sand to stand in the dark circle of shade beneath the birch tree.

  “I wish we had something to float on,” she says. “Even blow-up rafts. That would be kind of fun, wouldn’t it?”

  When Cooper shakes his head, he feels Caddie’s eyes follow his head as it turns from one side to the other and back again.

  Caddie lays her beach towel out on the sand. “You’re scared of the water, aren’t you, Coop?”

  Caddie is right. She is always right. But she doesn’t need to know this truth. He shakes his head again. Faster now, harder, so she won’t misunderstand.

  Caddie lies down on her stomach. Her hands under her chin. “Yes, you are. But I don’t get it.”

  “A person can drown in less than one inch of water,” he says. “I read it in a book on water safety.”

  “But you used to go swimming all the time, remember? Remember how Grandpa used to play Marco Polo with us? And tag? And then he’d have to drag you out of the water when it was time for bed. You’d get so cold your whole body was blue and shaking.”

  Yes, he remembers. Of course, he remembers. He can picture Grandpa in his baggy swimming trunks. Tying the strings across his big belly. Like yesterday, he can see Grandpa carrying his fishing gear to the boat. Dragging the old wooden fishing boat out of the boathouse. His prized possession. In Cooper’s mind, the rusty wheels of the boat trailer screech like a flock of frantic pigeons.

  “I am wiser now,” Cooper says. His eyes shift from the boathouse to the stretch of blue in front of him. He stares, watching every molecule of water glint in the sun.

  “Maybe you read too much.”

  What Caddie says is not a joke, but it is funny. Still, he cannot laugh.

  “Would you do it for me?” Caddie asks.

  “What?”

  “Go swimming.”

  As if he is already under water, Cooper gasps for air. He is working hard to not embarrass Caddie one more time. He wants to make her happy. Protect her at all costs. But he cannot go swimming. Ever. “If you were drowning, I would save you.”

  Cooper slips his notebook from his secret pocket.

  Sometimes you must do what scares you to help someone you love.

  “Oh, Cooper.” Caddie mounds sand under one end of her beach towel like a pillow. Lies down on her back. Closes her eyes. “I miss him too, you know.”

  “Dad?”

  “Sure,” she says. “But I meant Grandpa.”

  Cooper doesn’t want to talk about Grandpa. He is dead. And there is nothing you can do about it now.

  Except be sad.

  And protect his mother.

  And Caddie.

  And Amicus.

  And everything else that matters.

  Because everything matters.

  All the time.

  Cooper crawls across the sand. Gathers acorns. He builds a parapet on a turret of Tezorene. Strengthens the fortification to protect the Tezornauts.

  “Oh, my God,” Caddie says. She sits up. “What’s the date today?”

  Cooper thinks. Pictures his calendar again. “It is July 25th.”

  “You know what that means?” Her voice worries Cooper. He watches her closely. “Today is the anniversary of Grandpa’s death. No wonder Mom is so sad.”

  Cooper can’t believe he didn’t know. Can’t believe he wasn’t counting the days.

  “Whatever you do, don’t say anything to Mom,” Caddie says.

  Don’t say anything to Mom. Don’t say anything to Mom. Don’t say anything to Mom.

  Caddie lies back down on her sand pillow. “Remember when he’d tell us stories about helping his dad on the farm? Remember how the cow stepped on his foot? And how he put ice in a bucket and wore it to school like a shoe? He told that same story over and over again. I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

  Cooper crouches on the grounds of Tezorene, acorns in his hands.

  Of course he remembers. All of it. Grandpa did everything the same over and over again. Covered his fried eggs with ketchup. Lit his pipe with a single puff. Shaved without a mirror, his chin pointed into the air. Roasted the marshmallows until they caught on fire. Told the same stories. Over and over again. The same way. Until they bored Caddie silly.

  See ya later, alligator, Grandpa said.

  In a while, crocodile, Cooper hollered back.

  Every time. Every time they pulled out of the driveway and headed home.

  Cooper sits. Thinks. Writes. Makes the letters as perfect as possible.

  Sometimes the things that bore you silly are the same things that make you feel safe.

  “It’s not the same up here anymore. He always made everything better,” Caddie says. “Especially . . .” Caddie stops talking.

  A horse fly lands on Cooper’s kneecap. He blows it into the air. “Especially what?” he says.


  Caddie doesn’t answer. Her face is scrunched, her lips and eyelids pressed together so hard their tiny muscles are shaking. A wet stripe runs from her eye. Tears collect in her ear.

  Caddie is sad. As sad as his mother. Cooper’s breaths go deeper and deeper and deeper, making room for more sadness. Caddie’s and his mother’s. Filling himself with their sadnesses is the only way he can help. He does not know how to make everything better the way Grandpa did. He wants to tell Caddie to think happy thoughts, but he knows happy thoughts don’t work. If Grandpa were here, he’d say, “There, there, Caddie-girl.” He’d wrap his big arms around her and say the same thing over and over again. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.

  But Cooper isn’t sure it will. And he cannot tell Caddie a lie.

  So he doesn’t say anything at all.

  Caddie reaches for her T-shirt. Dabs at her face with its sleeve.

  The sun is hot. Tezorene has melted. It must be rebuilt if the Tezornauts are to survive. They will need a new shelter where no one is allowed to be mean. Or sad. Cooper fills the red bucket with lake water at the shore. Pours the water on the ancient ruins of Tezorene.

  “Do I make you sad too?” he asks. The words are hard to say. They catch in his throat like a horsefly in a spider web, but he knows the backs of his flailing words do not glisten in the sunlight.

  Caddie sits up and tries to smile. “No, Coop. You just drive me crazy.” She pulls her T-shirt over her head. “Not always. Just sometimes.”

  “What about Mom?”

  Caddie shifts to her stomach, leans on her elbows. Stares Cooper in the eyes. “I think it’s more complicated than that,” she says.

  “Do you think he will ever come back?”

  “Who?”

  “Dad. I believe I scared him away.”

  “Just say think, Cooper. You think things happen. No one says, ‘I believe.’ ” She sits up on her towel. Pounds her fake pillow. Sand sticks to her shiny legs. Her face is red, but not from the sun. “Besides, it’s not your fault.”

  This time Cooper cannot believe her words. They can’t be true. Perhaps Caddie has run out of all the things she knows to be true. Cooper knows he is at fault. Everything is his fault. “Why do you say that?”