“Our dearest, darling Sebastian,
“Your mother, Celia, and I were so excited to get your letter, we hardly knew what to do with ourselves. I called her at work, even though I usually never would. I got a call from the folks at the motel. I retired from there years ago, but I still know all of them, and they called me up right away. And I called your mother as soon as I got home. She works as a hairdresser in Port Hueneme. That's near Ventura. Even though she can't really take calls at work, because she has a client waiting right there in a chair with their hair all wet and everything. But we talked and talked and she danced around and around right there in the salon and I danced around and around on my front porch. We were so happy, we hardly knew what to do.
“But your letter broke my heart, too. It just broke my heart when you said you forgive me for forgetting all about you. Honey, we never forgot you. Not for one day. The biggest regret of Celia's life is that she let that awful man bully her out of seeing you again. But she was afraid of him, and she thought things could get worse for you if she didn't do what he said. But over the past ten years, between the two of us, we probably wrote you a hundred letters. We sent them to the right address, too, we know that now. Same place you still live. And they never came back returned. So we didn't know if your father didn't let you see them or maybe you were mad about her leaving and didn't want to write back. Now we know. He never showed them to you. Honestly, I didn't think he would sink that low. Even with all I know about him.
“Ask me anything you want about your mom. Anything. You'll hear from her, too, in about a day. Now that we know how to write you. She missed the last mail pickup the day you wrote, having to finish work. But you'll be hearing from her.
“We love you, Sebastian. We always did. We never stopped. We always dreamed we'd see you again. Maybe when you were eighteen, and he had no say. Won't be long now.
“With all the love in the world, Your Grandma Annie.
“P.S.: I'm sending a photo of both of us, and of the wind farm the way it looks from my house. Do you remember how you used to love those windmills, Sebastian? You'd sit on the porch and watch them for hours. I never saw anything like it. It's like you were hypnotized. Oh, but you were so little. You probably don't remember.
“P.S.S.: Thank Delilah for us. She is a lifesaver.”
I put down the letter and looked up at Delilah.
She said, “Do you remember the windmills?”
“I was telling Maria about them last night. I told her I'd show her a picture of them tomorrow night.”
We both just pondered the wonder of that in absolute silence.
After a while I said, “They wrote me a hundred letters. And he never let me see them.”
“How does that make you feel?”
The minute she asked, it happened. It came up out of me like a bad meal that had been making me sick. Like a storm suddenly built up pressure inside my gut and then let go. I was so angry, I couldn't even talk. I couldn't even answer the question. I couldn't even make myself say the word.
I SLAMMED BACK into the apartment. I'm sure my eyes were still red and swollen from crying, but I didn't care. I slammed the door shut again at my back.
I could hear him in the kitchen. He called in, “Your vacation is over, Sebastian. You have lost your privileges because you abused them. You will no longer take off, and not tell me where you're going, and come back as you please. Is that understood?”
I just stood there. My back to the door. Hoping nobody was about to actually get hurt. And that if anybody did, it was me. Because the last thing I could accept right now was suddenly becoming my father. He stuck his head out from the kitchen. I saw the alarm on his face when he looked at me.
“You son of a bitch,” I said. The look of alarm turned to genuine fear. He was afraid of me. Good. “You lying bastard.”
He said nothing. It was a horrible yet satisfying moment. Terrible and beautiful all at the same time. There was nothing he dared say to me. He looked down at the carpet. And he didn't even know what I'd busted him for yet. But he looked down in shame.
“What did you do with them?” I was not shouting. My voice was measured. Carefully measured. As if I didn't dare shout. As if I couldn't afford to. “The letters from my mother. The ones that were my property. That belonged to me. What did you do with them? I want to know. Did you throw them down the garbage chute? Burn them? Flush them down the toilet?”
“Sebastian—”
“Answer me!” Now I was shouting.
“What difference does that make?” Quietly. As though he was talking to someone who held a loaded gun in his face.
“Answer my goddamn question. What did you do with them?”
Long pause. I could feel something in my temples throb, and my ears rang.
“I put them through the paper shredder.”
“You said that was for credit card statements. Oh. Never mind. That's right. You also said my mother was dead. I forgot. You just lie.”
“Sebastian, I—”
“How could you tell a seven-year-old boy that his mother is dead? What kind of monster could do a thing like that?”
“I'm not a monster, Sebastian.”
“Are you sure? Have you looked at yourself lately?”
“I did it for you, Sebastian. Someday you'll understand. Maybe even forgive me.”
I shook my head so hard I almost unbalanced myself. And at nearly the same time I flew across the room in his direction. He stumbled back about four steps. Hit his own chair and fell back and caught himself halfway into a sit. I managed to stop myself just a few inches short. I could have hurt him. It would have been easy. But I didn't. That's what my father would have done—the easiest thing. The easiest thing is not always the best. Usually not, in fact.
“No. Don't say that. I will never forgive that. Never. It was unforgivable. Don't ever say that again. In fact, you know what? Don't talk to me again. Just don't talk. Don't say a word to me anymore.”
I turned and paced back to the middle of the room, then got stuck there. Totally lost. I didn't know where to go or what to do. I couldn't think or remember what might come next.
“For how long?” I heard him say.
“Forever. Never talk to me again.”
“Sebastian. We'll get through this. If you'll hear my side.”
“No. No. I won't. I'm not interested in anything you have to say.”
“But I want you to hear my side.”
I whirled back to face him, and he dropped into his chair. He had been hanging like that, half up, half sitting. And he just fell back. “I don't give a goddamn what you want! All my life you've had what you wanted! You know what I wanted? I wanted friends. I wanted a mother. I wanted to get a letter from my grandmother. I wanted to go outside and play. You didn't care. So don't expect me to care about what you want. I'm leaving.”
Just as my hand touched the knob I heard him say, “When are you coming back?”
“When I damn well please.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “You want to stop me? Go ahead.” I faced him and leaned my back on the door. Just to be clear I wasn't running away. I wasn't sneaking out. “You want to enforce your rules? Feel free. Come stop me.”
I could tell by his face that he knew what I meant. To stop me he'd have to physically overpower me. If he thought he could do it, if he wanted to take control again, this was his chance to try.
Thing is, I wasn't a little kid anymore. Any coward can bully a little kid. I was six feet tall and pumped full of adrenaline. I waited. But he never even looked me in the eye.
“Yeah, that's what I thought,” I said.
Then I went back downstairs to Delilah's for the rest of the day.
I think I was in the hospital for around two or three days. Stella told me how long, but I forgot. You would think I'd know for myself, since I was there. But I wasn't there. Not really. Not most of that time.
I was on a lot of morphine, and time became a whole new theory.
If it had only been the broken ribs, I don't think they'd have kept me. Even though there were four broken. But even so. You break four ribs, they tape you up and send you home. Especially when you don't have insurance. But they had to keep me, because of the punctured lung.
Stella says Carl came to the hospital the very first day, and was all bent out of shape about how we were supposed to pay for this. She also said she brought me a paper to sign because she got a restraining order against him. She says I signed it. She also says he was in jail for a couple of days after that, but unfortunately his mother made bail. You couldn't prove any of this by me. I don't remember any of the above.
I just remember that about four days later I started to get my head up a little, and I was at Stella's, in their spare bedroom. I wasn't on morphine anymore, but Stella brought me two pills with a glass of water every four hours. I don't know what they were, but they helped some.
Most of the time I couldn't move my legs at all, because of the cats and Natalie. When I first woke up at Stella's, I thought I was paralyzed. Seriously. Then when I could finally pick my head up and look I figured out that Ferdy and Alexa and Rahema and that new cat with only one eye whose name I forget and Natalie were sleeping all piled onto my legs. Well, Natalie was mostly just lying there sucking her thumb. But I'm always happy for company, so I never moved them. They seemed comfortable and I didn't want to put them out. Natalie had latched onto an old feather boa of Stella's, as a substitute for the fur collar of Carl's leather jacket. Sometimes she almost disappeared inside it.
Once I remember saying to Stella, when she brought my pills, “I have to go meet Tony tonight. I was supposed to meet him days ago.”
“Who?”
“Tony.”
“I thought the guy's name was Sebastian.”
“I call him Tony, though. I have to go meet him.”
And she laughed. “Honey, you couldn't get to the bathroom without my help.”
“But he'll give up. He'll think I'm never coming. He'll go away.”
“So? You'll call him.”
“I don't have his phone number.”
“Maybe he's listed.”
“I don't know his last name.”
I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to watch her shake her head or roll her eyes or whatever she was going to do. With my eyes squeezed shut I realized two things. One, she was right. I couldn't get down to the subway if I tried. Two, he probably gave up days ago. It was probably already way too late.
TWO DAYS AFTER I LANDED AT STELLA'S, Carl came to see me. I could hear him by the door in the living room, fighting with Stella. She was saying that he was violating his restraining order and she was going to call the cops on him. And he was saying that he was going to at least talk to me and if I said he should get out then he would.
He came into my room with this bouquet of flowers in colored plastic wrap, like the kind you get at the supermarket. He hadn't shaved for about three days. He didn't look like he had ever slept or eaten in his life.
Stella ran in after him with the cordless phone. “I'm calling the cops right now,” she said.
Carl took the phone out of her hand and smashed it through the closed bedroom window. Stella lives three floors up, so I never heard it hit the ground.
I'm not sure where Stella was after that. Probably calling the cops on the kitchen phone. I was hoping so, anyway.
Carl said, “You don't want me to leave, do you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
He handed me the flowers. “For you,” he said.
“You know I'm allergic to flowers.”
“Oh. I brought you your DVD of West Side Story. In case you want to watch it while you're here.” He set the flowers on my bedside table, like he hadn't heard a word I said. Then he took the DVD out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“That was very thoughtful,” I said. And I meant it sincerely. “Now please get out.”
“Let me take the kids,” he said. “You're in no position to take care of them.”
Stella screeched in from the kitchen. “I'm taking care of the kids.”
“Besides,” I said, “how can you watch them? You have to work.”
“I'm taking a few days off,” he said. “And my mother said she'd help with them.”
Stella. From the kitchen. “You touch those kids I'll have you arrested so fast it'll make your head spin.”
“You can take C.J.,” I said. “Natalie stays with me. You can pick C.J. up from school today and take him home.”
The whole apartment got very quiet.
“Okay,” Carl said.
I saw Stella stick her head back into the room. At first she just stood there with her mouth open. She looked at me, but I just looked down at the blankets.
Then she said to Carl, “I called the police. So, if I were you, I'd be going now.”
He did.
After he left, she came and sat on the bed with me.
“Please take those flowers away,” I said. “I'm allergic to flowers.”
“Why did you let him take C.J.?”
“C.J. will be fine with Carl. Carl loves C.J. He would never hurt him.”
“But don't you see what he's doing? He's taking a kid like a hostage. So you have to see him again. So you have to come home.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you let him take C.J.?”
“It's kind of hard to explain.”
I could tell Stella was very upset. I think she thought it meant I was planning to go back to Carl. And I hated for her to think that, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't tell her the real reason. It was the sort of thing you just didn't tell anybody. At least, until it was way too late for them to talk you out of it. The kind of thing you can't even say to your own sister.
She stomped out of the room. And forgot to take the flowers.
I was a little scared to see her again right then, so I just lay there, feeling the edges of my eyelids start to burn. Feeling the breeze through the broken window. Dreading the moment when I would learn what it felt like to sneeze with four broken ribs.
I stood at the bottom of those stairs in the Union Square station. For close to two hours. After the first hour, I took to pacing.
I had the photo of the windmills in a file folder in my hand. Because it was too big for my pocket. And I didn't want to get fingerprints on it, or to get it all dog-eared.
The worst part was, I didn't know whether to be worried or scared or pissed.
Part of me pictured her sitting at home laughing at me. Like, Imagine that little idiot, thinking I was going to go away with him. He's just a kid. But my heart and my gut said she'd never do that to me. But then again, my father was always telling me that people will hurt you and let you down in ways you never could have imagined. As long as I can remember he had taught me to expect the worst from everybody.
And now it seemed like the worst had arrived.
Then I started thinking something had happened to her. What if she was hurt? What if he was holding her prisoner and she couldn't come? Or he'd put her in the hospital? Or … I couldn't go down that road any further.
I walked up the stairs and onto the street. Walked to the corner, and turned it. Was this her block? Must be. This or the next. I looked up into every lighted window. Saw nothing, of course. Except the flickering of people's TV sets. Dim light behind curtains.
I wanted to call out Carl's name. Challenge him to come down here. Because she might be hurt, and she might need me.
Or she might be fine. And she might get hurt because I called Carl out.
I paced up and down the block I was pretty sure was hers. About another hour, I guess. It was after three.
The anticipation of seeing her had been so huge, so overwhelming, that I couldn't make the adjustment to giving up and going home. Couldn't accept that it wasn't going to happen. It felt like the whole world was crumbling away under my feet. Like the place I'd been standing in the world had sudden
ly turned to shifting sand. Then it struck me that if it didn't happen tonight, she wouldn't be able to tell me, “Tomorrow.” Or “Day after tomorrow.” And I'd walk away without knowing when it would happen again.
I opened the file folder and looked at the photo again. Stood under the streetlight and looked at it. And thought, What if I never see her again? Until I see her again, I can't run away to Mojave. I have to stay here until I know.
Then I thought, Get ahold of yourself, Sebastian. Then I corrected it to Tony. She just couldn't make it tonight. You'll see her tomorrow. Or the next day.
I checked the subway station again, in case we'd missed each other.
Then I paced around on that corner some more, the one I'd watched her turn that night in the pouring rain. It was nearly four o'clock.
I finally gave up and walked home.
I MADE A STOP at my own apartment first. I mean, my father's apartment. It had never been mine. And it wasn't my home anymore. But I needed my toothbrush, and a pair of pajamas. And I needed clean clothes for the next day, and my Romeo and Juliet book, and a couple of other little things. And I was pretty sure he'd be asleep, anyway. But I was also braced for what would happen if he wasn't. I could feel it coiled up in my muscles. Like the way you walk through a room if you think there's a ghost or a robber afoot.
I opened the door quietly. Heard only silence. The living room was dark.
I turned on the overhead light. No father.
I took a deep breath and walked into my room.
On my pillow was a note. My heart fell down into my stomach. Even though I had no idea what to expect. I turned on the light and picked it up.
“Sebastian,” it said. “Someday you will have to let me explain. Your mother leaving was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It's as if my life ended that day. And she took you with, so I had nothing. I got you back, but I couldn't take a chance on her having you. And I couldn't be forced to see her again. It would have killed me. I had to cut it off clean. Please hear my side, Sebastian. I'm your father. I think you owe me that much.”
Chasing Windmills Page 12
