It's. Nice. Outside.

by Jim Kokoris

  Mary studied Karen, her face impassive, Buddha-like. “Don’t be too late. We have another long day tomorrow.”

  Karen snatched the keys from the table, and left.

  “Where? Karen. Be?”

  “She’ll be back,” Mary said.

  “That’s strange,” I said. “Who the hell is this Donna?”

  “She’s meeting the Jaw.” Mindy said this from behind her menu.

  “What?” Mary asked.

  “Roger. She’s meeting him.”

  “Roger?” I took a hold of Mindy’s menu and lowered it so I could see her face. “What are you talking about? Roger.”

  Mindy avoided my eyes. “I just heard her on her phone in the bathroom. She talks so loud. They’ve been talking the whole trip, I think. They’re going to meet somewhere.”

  “Roger? Really? Are you serious?”

  “That’s what I heard.” Before we could bombard her with more questions, Mindy stood abruptly and said, “I got to make a call,” and jetted off.

  “Where. Mindy. Be?”

  “Roger? Do you believe that? That’s crazy!” I said. “And why would she want to see him?”

  Mary looked a little stunned. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “You think maybe he’s following us? He must be! How else can they be meeting?”

  Mary gazed intently out the window, her mouth a straight line. “I said, I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to try to stop her.” I stood. “I can catch her.”

  “No, you’re not. Sit down.” Mary pulled her red purse onto the table and began searching through it. “She’s almost thirty years old.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “She’s a big girl. Sit down.”

  “Where. Karen. Be?”

  I sat back down and looked out the window, at the highway, and watched cars and trucks move by. My daughter was probably already on that highway, heading to meet up with a man I detested. I didn’t like this turn of events, I didn’t like it at all.

  * * *

  After Mindy returned to the table and Mary and I interrogated her on exactly what she heard; and after I ordered the chicken-fried chicken but didn’t eat any of it; and after I asked, “She said the name Roger, you’re sure of that, I mean, you heard her say the name Roger?”; and after Mindy said/yelled, “yes, yes, yes!”; and after I cut up my chicken-fried chicken into small pieces and gave them to Ethan because he was still hungry even after his chicken-fried steak; and after we were all quiet, lost in our own, presumably-worried-about-Karen, wonder-where-she is thoughts; and after Mindy said, “What the fuck is a cracker barrel anyway?” and I said, “You know, you should be thinking about Karen”; and after I started wondering what the fuck a cracker barrel was; and after Mindy asked the waitress what it was; and after the waitress said she wasn’t sure but that it might have been a barrel used in “olden times”; and after I ordered another chicken-fried chicken dinner because despite my worries over Karen, I realized I actually was hungry; and after Mindy snorted and said, “Olden times, what the fuck?” under her breath; and after I said, “Stop acting so New York”; and after Mindy said, “What does that mean”; and after I said, “You know what I mean”; and after Mindy said, “No I don’t”; and after I said, “Yes, you do, Miss Always Dresses in Black”; and after Mary slammed the table with her hand and yelled, “Will you two please stop it!”; and after Mindy and I stopped it; and after I finished my chicken-fried chicken and briefly considered ordering the fried ice cream for dessert but instead asked for the bill (which wasn’t fried), we checked into the Hampton Inn, where I gave Ethan his bath.

  “Oh, man, poor Karen,” I said, drying him off with a towel. “I hope she knows what she’s doing.”

  Ethan, who seemed to understand that Karen’s disappearance was cause for concern, looked at me with wider-than-usual eyes and held up his hands in question. “Where. Karen. Be?”

  “She’s with Roger, we think. Who apparently isn’t gay, by the way.”

  “Call.”

  “Call? You mean, Karen?”

  “Yes! Me. Call.”

  “Oh, sure.” I gave him his old cell phone, then sat on the bed while he punched numbers, pleased that he was doing something in context of the situation.

  “Karen?”

  “Tell her to come home,” I said. “Tell her Roger is a dirtbag. Tell her, once a cheater, always a cheater. Wait a minute—don’t tell her that. That’s not necessarily true.”

  “Hi. Karen!”

  “Tell her come home!”

  “Home!”

  “Tell her we love you!”

  “Yes!”

  “Tell her, she will get over this. Tell her to forget the Jaw.”

  “Forget. The. Jaw!”

  I stopped, surprised. Those were new words for him. Ethan’s vocabulary was very limited, and any new words, any addition other than possibly the f-bomb, was cause for celebration. “Right! Exactly! Forget the Jaw! That’s great! Do you know what a jaw is?”

  He reached out and touched my jaw.

  “Right! Yes!” I wished Karen were here to witness this breakthrough. I was teaching him, stretching him after all. He would be reading and writing soon, then going to college, maybe just a state school, but still. “Very good! Roger has a big jaw. And he’s a cheating slime bucket, but then again, who am I to talk, huh? I’m in an awkward position here, very awkward, don’t you think? I got Rita calling me now. Rita! What’s that all about, do you think? Rita’s going to ruin everything. Stupid Rita!”

  “Reeeeta!”

  I froze. Another new word. But not a good one. In fact, of all the words in the King’s speech, all of them, this was the one I never wanted my verbally challenged son to master and then yell eighty to ninety times a day.

  I paused, knowing my next move was crucial. If I emphasized the wrongness of this word, admonished him for saying it, overreacted, it would be forever ingrained in his lexicon. I had made that mistake years ago with shit, shut up, and idiot. I simply could not make the same mistake with Rita.

  “Hey, I got an idea,” I said. “Want to watch the Illini game?”

  He pointed a finger upward. “Yes!”

  “Good. Illini! Yes, let’s do that. Let’s cleanse our minds with that! Let’s forget everything else, wipe the slate clean. Perfect!” I put on his pajamas and grabbed my laptop.

  Years ago my beloved Fighting Illini had staged the most memorable comeback in NCAA tournament history, scoring fifteen points in a frantic, four-minute span to force overtime against the University of Arizona. They would go on to win and advance to their first Final Four in sixteen years. I had attended that game with Sal, we had great seats, and had since watched tapes and rebroadcasts of it dozens and dozens of times with Ethan, the excitement and mounting disbelief of the announcers’ voices, the insane cheering of the crowd, holding his attention like few things could.

  I found the last ten minutes of the game on YouTube. By now, Ethan and I both knew every steal, every basket, every deflection, every syllable of the announcers’ breathless narrative. Over the years this game had fused to our consciousness, and we never tired of seeing it one more time.

  “There’s Deron—watch him now,” I said. “He’s going to hit the three.”

  When Illinois’s star guard, Deron Williams, sidestepped a defender at the top of the key and drained his game-tying shot, a shot that had filled me with the purest form of joy, a shot that reaffirmed my optimistic outlook on life, a shot that helped me get to sleep more nights than I cared to admit, Ethan pounded the bed with his fist and screamed, “Three!”

  “Three!” I yelled.

  “Go. Illini!”

  “Yes, go, Illini!”

  We watched the game to its amazing conclusion and slapped each other five several times. The game, the shot, had once again served its purpose, washing me clean of all worry, albeit just for a while.

  I gave Ethan a glass of water and watched him drink. He looked re
laxed and happy, his eyes shimmering—Ethan at ease. Seeing him so content, I thought the time might be right to share something else with him.

  “Hey, I want to show you some pictures. Come on, sit down.”

  I returned to the laptop and found the Ocean View Web site. While I had mentioned the home to him in passing a handful of times, I had not made a concerted effort to discuss it, or his future, in any detail. Since I was never exactly sure what he was grasping, I didn’t want to unnecessarily raise his anxiety. I did know that it was best to tell him about upcoming plans with as little advance notice as possible. I thought this might be a good time to start preparing him; we were just days away.

  “Here’s where we’re going,” I said, pointing to a picture of Ocean View. It showed a stately, redbrick building with black shutters and a long porch dotted with white wicker rocking chairs. I touched a photo of one of the chairs with my finger. “You can rock back and forth on those chairs. And you can see the ocean from there too. Very pretty.”

  Ethan stared at the picture.

  I swallowed. “You’re going to stay there. Live there. Maybe.”

  Next I showed him the spacious gym with hardwood floors and six different baskets. The gym was a key factor in my decision, a selling point.

  “You can shoot hoops there,” I said. “They just built it.”

  “How. Many. Me. Make?”

  “Fifty.”

  “How. Many. Dad. Make?”

  “Twelve. You win.” I paused. “But you’ll be playing with other people too.”

  “Go. Illini!”

  “Right.” I clicked on the link for the swimming pool. “You can go swimming every day there. It’s warm. Heated. You can do that after you play hoops. Hold on to the sides, though. Be careful.”

  “Yes. Ma’am.”

  Since he still seemed interested, I moved on to a photo of a bedroom. It was nondescript, with a twin bed, dresser, classroom-style desk, and a small TV. A vase of flowers was perched on the dresser, a burst of yellow-and-purple colors that made the rest of the room seem stark by comparison.

  “This isn’t a very good picture. The rooms are nicer,” I said. “They’re very comfortable and sunny, and you have two windows that overlook the back where there’re hoops and places to play catch every day and run and take walks. And they have cable, of course, so you can watch SportsCenter and some Illini basketball games.”

  “Go. Illini!”

  “Right. And there’s a computer room where we can Skype you every day. Every day we can talk and see you on a computer. I’m going to call you every day, see you every day. Every day that you’re gone. Every day.”

  I quickly shut the computer, cleared my throat, and stared straight ahead at the blank TV. We would be there soon. In a few days we would be there. I let this sink in. Then I reached over and grabbed Ethan and hugged him as hard as I could.

  “Why. Mad?” he asked. “Why. Mad?”

  * * *

  The next morning we found Mary sitting alone in the lobby, her head hunched over her phone.

  I pulled out a chair for Ethan. “Good morning.”

  “She didn’t come home last night.”

  “Who? Karen?”

  “She didn’t come home. I was up all night. Finally I went looking for her.”

  “You drove around last night?”

  “Yes. It’s not a very big town. I thought I’d see the van, but I didn’t.”

  “Eat. Starving. Eat. Now!”

  “Wait a minute. Just wait.” I walked over to the windows, scanned the mostly empty parking lot. “Is the van here now? Is she back?”

  “I said she didn’t come back.”

  “Where is she? Do you think she’s all right? Did you call her?”

  “Eat!”

  “Please, Ethan, wait! Did you call her?”

  “I left her a message. Get him something. I’ll sit with him.”

  “Juice!”

  “Get him some juice,” she said.

  I walked in a fog over to the small buffet in the center of the lobby and grabbed a banana, yogurt, and juice, my mind on Karen. Why would she do this? Why would she rush off to see him? Why didn’t she come back? Why wouldn’t she call? When I returned to the table, Mindy was sitting there, nursing a small Styrofoam cup of coffee. Despite the weather, she was wearing her black Princeton sweat shirt, the hood up. Her eyes were puffy, her face pale.

  “This coffee sucks,” she mumbled.

  I placed Ethan’s food in front of him.

  “Tell him,” Mary said.

  I remained standing. “Tell me what?”

  Mindy took a deep gulp of her coffee, grimaced. “What time is it?”

  “Eight thirty. Tell me what?”

  Mindy took another swig of coffee. “Karen is meeting us in Washington, DC. She’s already there.”

  “She’s in Washington?”

  “She just texted me. She said she’s at the Marriott by the airport. Can you sit down?”

  “She contacted you?” I asked.

  “Yes. She knew I wouldn’t ask any follow-up questions, and she was right—I didn’t.”

  “Well, I am.” I took my phone out.

  “You really think she’s going to answer?” Mindy asked.

  I put the phone down on the table, and Ethan immediately snatched it up. “Is she with Rodger?”

  “Probably, I don’t know.” Mindy swirled her coffee. “So, when are we leaving?”

  “Soon,” I said.

  “I have to shower,” Mindy said.

  “Then go. Hurry.”

  “Okay, okay.” Mindy slowly got up from the table and disappeared down the hall.

  “Where? Mindy? Be?”

  “She’ll be back, honey. She’s taking a shower.”

  Ethan returned to his yogurt and my phone, pressing numbers with sticky fingers.

  “You don’t think they’re getting back together again, do you? After what he did to her?” I asked.

  Mary took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She looked exhausted. “I can’t believe she would.”

  “This just pisses me off. It’s very selfish of her to leave us like this, make us worry like this. Like we don’t have enough on our minds? We should be focused on Ethan right now. This is a very hard and very important thing we’re trying to do, and she’s doing crazy things like this, distracting us.”

  Mary gave me a sad mother’s smile. “Distracting us?”

  “Yes. You’re out there all night looking for her. I was up half the night worrying about her. Maybe I can understand their wanting to talk, but to disappear and not call? To take off like this?”

  “She’s going through a lot right now. We have to give her some space.”

  I paused. “Okay, yes, all right. But she could have told us. A quick call, at least. A text.”

  Mary hoisted her bag over her shoulder. “You have to remember that it’s not just about Ethan,” she said. “It’s about all of us, John, all of us.” She stood and headed toward the door. “I’m going to wait in the van.”

  “Did you even eat anything?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  * * *

  As soon as we got on the road, Mary put her iPod on and slumped down in her seat. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her head lean, then gently fall against the window. I knew she was worried and beyond tired, and I wanted to take her hand, reassure her, but that was a privilege I was no longer allowed. I switched lanes.

  A few miles down the road, I checked on Ethan, who was happily sharing his photo album with Mindy in the middle seat.

  “Pretty amazing, Dad,” Mindy said.

  “What? You mean the book?”

  “Incredible.”

  I smiled. I had spent quite a bit of time putting a photo album together for Ethan, carefully selecting each picture, writing captions I knew other people would read. It was essentially a composite of his life, including photos of everyone and everything that was important to him: the local Do
minick’s supermarket, his favorite place on earth, where people were particularly patient and friendly. The Wilton Panera, where he and I had breakfast every Saturday; Rafferty’s Bar, where we had dinner on Fridays; Auerilo’s pizza, where we ate on Saturdays; Denetha the deli woman, Chuck the bartender, Sally the waitress, all the people who made his life, our lives, a little easier. They were all in there, as well as photos of the Sals, Mary, me, the Bears, and, of course, Mindy and Karen. I had planned to give it to him at Ocean View, but decided to dig it out of a box that morning.

  “How long did it take you to do this? There has to be, like, a hundred pages. It’s huge.”

  “One hundred and four pages. I’ve been doing it for a while,” I said proudly. It took a lot to impress Mindy.

  “Who are all these people?”

  “Ethan’s friends. Different people. People who work at the supermarket, the restaurants, neighbors, people like that.”

  “Who’s this, Ethan?”

  “Denetha!”

  “The grocery store,” I said. “We went there every day. She worked in the deli and gave him a piece of cheese. It was the highlight of his day.”

  “And who’s this, Ethan?”

  “C.C!”

  “She was his aide at school. She watched him for years. She also came over to the house.”

  “He’s going to miss them,” Mindy said.

  I swallowed. “He can come home whenever we want and see them. And he’ll make new friends.”

  Her comment stirred the Doubt and Guilt, so I stopped talking and switched my attention back to the road, passed another Honda van, then a beer truck. Signs for towns with Blue Highway names—Stafford, Garrisonville—flew by.

  “Oh my God. Why do you have this picture?”

  “What? Which one?”

  “The one of Karen and me. Going to that dance. God, look at my hair.”

  “It’s historic. Your big double date. She was a senior, you were a sophomore. See, you went on dates.”

  “I couldn’t believe she let me go with her. She must have been doing community service or something.”

  “She wanted to go with you.”

  “We had fun I think. Something happened though.”

  “You got drunk and threw up on your date.”

  “Right. Tom Murphy. I knew it was something highbrow.”