Chasing Windmills

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  I crumpled the note into a ball in my fist.

  “I owe you nothing,” I said. Out loud. To no one.

  I gathered up my things, and wrapped the book and the toothbrush into a little bundle with my pajamas and my change of clothes. I took a sheet of writing paper out of my desk.

  Here's what I wrote on it: “So, you admit it. You did it for yourself, not for me.”

  I carried it out of my room with me, trying to decide where best to leave it.

  On my way back out through the living room, the light was still on, and my eye fell on his shelf of opera records. I'd say there were probably about thirty. Somewhere between two dozen and thirty. All carefully stored upright in their own oak cabinet with the phonograph.

  I set my bundle down by the door.

  I walked over to the phonograph, and grabbed the needle arm in both hands, and bent in until it snapped. Unfortunately, it snapped right where my left hand was holding it, and the sharp edge of the plastic sliced my palm. But I kept going.

  I took each record out of the cabinet, one by one, broke it consciously and carefully against my knee, then left it on top of the growing pile of broken records in the middle of the living room floor. I left them in their cardboard jackets as I did this, so the jackets wouldn't survive the assault, either. It was deeply satisfying to feel the snap of each of his vinyl treasures inside its cardboard sleeve. The fact that I was bleeding onto the cardboard seemed like a fitting punctuation. But I guess that's a tricky one to explain.

  The rest, I hope, goes without saying. There was very little I could take away from my father, because there's really nothing he loves. But he loves his records. And we're still on the fence about whether he loves me.

  I knew it would be quite a loss for him. Then again, records are just things. They can potentially be replaced. They're not on the level of a really important loss. Like, say, your mother.

  When I had broken the last one, I wrapped my handkerchief around my left hand to stop the bleeding. Or slow it down, anyway.

  I left my reply to his note on top of the pile I'd created.

  Then I went back to Delilah's.

  AFTER I'D READ GRANDMA ANNIE'S LETTER for the fifth time, I looked up at Delilah, sitting in her big recliner, fanning herself with her geisha fan in spite of the best efforts of the noisy air conditioner.

  “They love me,” I said. It was the dearest darling Sebastians that gave her away, and the image of her dancing on the porch, on the phone with my mother, who was dancing at work. “Of course they do. You're their flesh and blood.” “I'm my father's flesh and blood. But he never called me dearest, darling anything.”

  Neither one of us said anything for a time.

  I felt completely drained inside. Like someone had hollowed me out. And then gone in and sandpapered the empty walls of the shell they'd left behind. Even the inside of my head felt sanded. I'm not sure I could've gotten up and walked across the room. I felt like my bones had turned to rubber. Or been stolen entirely.

  “Do you think my father loves me?” It seemed like a reasonable question. He did terrible things to me. He never touched me. He never said anything about love.

  She didn't answer off the top of her head. She just sat there and fanned for a minute. Nodding her head as if to stimulate more thoughts.

  “Give you two answers,” she said. “One, yes. He loves you more than anybody or anything. You're the only one he loves. The only one he's got. So you're everything to him. Two, no. He doesn't love you because he doesn't know how. Because he doesn't love himself. Because he wouldn't know love if it stood up in his soup.”

  I laughed. It was just a funny way to say a thing, so I laughed. I would have bet you cash money nobody could make me laugh at a moment like that. Not even Delilah. But Delilah made me laugh.

  “Which is the true one?”

  “They both are,” she said.

  “How can two things be true at the same time?”

  “Oh, child. Lots of things can be true at the same time. You'll see.”

  We were quiet for a while, and then I said, “I can't stay with him. Not even for four months. I can't. I have to get out of there.”

  Delilah just nodded. Like she'd been thinking the same thing at the same moment. Like she wasn't even surprised to hear it again, outside her own head.

  SOMETIME AROUND SIX she showed me the scene in Royal Wedding where Fred Astaire dances on the walls. She got up to put the DVD in the player, but then she sat in her recliner and fanned and held on to the remote control.

  “Now let me set this up for you,” she said. “So's you don't need to see the whole thing. He's in love with this woman. Only she thinks she's in love with somebody else. But we can see that's going nowhere. But right now she can't see. You know how people are. Or … no, maybe you don't. Anyway, she'll see later. So, she's a dancer, and she told him once that she was so in love with this boy when she was young, she thought she could dance right up onto the walls and the ceiling.”

  Then she hit Play.

  Fred Astaire had a picture of this woman he loved. He was in his hotel room in some foreign country. England, I think. Looking at it while he danced. He had it propped up so he could see it while he danced. And sure enough, he danced sideways on the wall. First a testing step. Then for a long time.

  I started to ask Delilah to tell me how it was done, but then I realized I didn't want to know. I wanted to believe it was love. I know that sounds stupid. I don't mean I did believe it. I'm not saying I did. I'm saying I wanted to.

  When the scene was over she clicked the movie off by remote control.

  “So it was love,” I said. “That's what makes you dance on the walls. Love.”

  She shot me a serious look. Leaned in closer toward me, like she was about to share a gravely important secret. “Kids, don't try this at home,” she said.

  I burst out laughing.

  I got up and walked over to where she was sitting. Which felt like quite a production, because I was still feeling shaky and drained. Scraped out inside. I leaned over and gave her a big hug, right there in her chair, and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Well now,” she said. “What was that all about?”

  “Because I love you. Because you're my best friend.”

  “Well, aren't you just the sweetest. I will accept that as the compliment you intended it to be. Even though I happen to know I don't have much in the way of what you'd call competition.”

  • • •

  I WOKE UP ON DELILAH'S COUCH, and she was gone.

  It was still light outside, but going a little dusky.

  I sat up slowly, and looked around. Stood up, testing my legs. I felt a little better. A little more rested. I poked my head into the bedroom, but she wasn't there. The bathroom door was open. I called her name. No Delilah.

  I had no idea where she would keep something like writing paper. Stationery. If she even did. I think most people just e-mail anymore. Or call.

  But she had a little desk in the corner of the living room, and it had a computer and printer on it. And the printer was loaded with paper. So I pulled out one sheet. And I folded it crosswise and made a very sharp crease and then tore it neatly into two little sheets of writing paper. I couldn't find a pen but I borrowed the pencil Delilah had sitting next to her book of crossword puzzles.

  I read Grandma Annie's letter one more time, even though I could almost have closed my eyes and recited it by heart.

  Then I wrote back.

  Dear Grandma Annie,

  Thank you for never forgetting me, all these years. And thank you for sending me a picture of my mother, and for loving me.

  I can't stay here. I can't stay with my father anymore. I was going to stay four more months, until I was eighteen. And then leave. But I can't wait that long, and I'll tell you why not.

  He told me my mother was dead.

  I wasn't even going to tell you that. Because it's so awful I didn't even want you to know. I didn't want you
to feel the way I knew you would feel when you heard that. But now I feel I have to tell you so you'll understand when I say I can't wait. I have to get out of here, and it has to be now.

  I want to come back to Mojave. I remember Mojave really well, even though I was little. I loved it there. I loved the windmills, and the stars at night. I loved the mountains on the horizon. I even loved the heat. The way it felt dry like an oven. I remember the way the heat would shimmer in the air between my eyes and the mountain on a hot day. I'm sure Port Hueneme is nice, but I really loved Mojave. If I can think of a way to get out there, can I come? I won't sponge off you. I'll get a job. I'll get my own place as soon as I can. I just need a way to get started.

  I know it's a big favor, and now I'm about to make it bigger. I wouldn't be coming alone. I have a friend. A girl. Well, a woman. She's older than me. Please don't judge about that, okay? Her name is Maria, and she's quiet and sweet.

  I know you don't know her, but you'll love her. I know you will. And she'll love you. Please say yes. I don't know what I'll do if you say no.

  Your Grandson,

  Sebastian

  PS: Thank you for the picture of the windmills. I promised Maria I would show her a picture. You've already helped me more than you know.

  DELILAH CAME BACK about twenty minutes after I'd finished my letter. It was nearly dark out, and I hadn't turned on any lights. Just let the whole world get dimmer and dimmer. Inside and out.

  She clucked her tongue and turned on the overhead light and I blinked like I'd only just been born.

  “Sittin' here in the dark,” she said. “What were you thinking?” But it was a rhetorical question. Unlike my father, she didn't really insist on knowing my innermost thoughts. “Here,” she said. And handed me a little bag.

  I turned it upside down and slid a small object out into my hand. A key.

  “In case you need to be here when I'm not home. Or if it's late.” I wanted to tell her I could have a hundred friends and she'd still be the best one. But I couldn't bring myself to say all that. Instead I just held it up and held it tightly. And said thanks.

  I WENT BACK TO THE SUBWAY and waited for hours, but Maria never showed.

  When Stella's husband, Victor, came home from work that night, he taped cardboard over the broken window. I figured that would make it kind of weirdly dark when the morning came. But then again, it made my room a better movie theater.

  I asked Victor to bring in the DVD player, and he did.

  The first time I watched West Side Story, it didn't even hit me. Maybe because I'd seen it all so many times before.

  IN THE MORNING, Stella came into my bedroom and threw open the cardboard broken window. She cupped her hands to her mouth and screeched down to the street.

  “I'm calling the goddamn cops on you! You're violating your restraining order just by pacing so close to the door! You have to keep … oh, I forget, but a bunch of feet away at all times!”

  I couldn't hear what he said in return.

  Natalie stuck her head under the covers, like an ostrich.

  “And where's C.J.? Huh? Who's taking care of him?”

  A pause while I couldn't hear him. Probably just as well.

  “And when he gets out of school? You're going to be there to get him? You have to be at work by then.”

  “He said he was gonna take a few days off,” I said.

  Stella stormed away from the window and out of the room. The window was still open, and it was too light to watch my movie properly, and I could hear the city noise from the street too well.

  I wanted to tell Natalie to go get Stella and bring her back in here so she could close the window. But Natalie still had her head under the covers and I couldn't bring myself to bother her. I could hear water running in the tub. I thought Stella was taking a bath or something.

  A few minutes later Stella was back, with a big soup pot. It looked almost too heavy for her to carry. She set it down on the edge of the windowsill and just waited for a few seconds. Looking out, but not leaning out. Not attracting attention.

  Then she turned it upside down and dumped it.

  This time I could hear Carl.

  “Shit!” he yelled.

  “Ooooh,” Stella said. “I'm a good shot.”

  Then Stella went and called the cops on the kitchen phone, but by the time they showed up, Carl was dripping dry on the bus bench on the other side of the street, and there was nothing they could—or at least cared enough to—do about it.

  WHEN IT WAS AFTER THREE, and Carl had to go pick up C.J. from school, I got out of bed by myself for the first time in a long time.

  Natalie said, “Mommy?” But it was the way she said it.

  “It's okay, honey. Mommy's just going to go look out the window.”

  But I couldn't get the window open. There was no way. I was in too much pain to grab the thing and pull up on it.

  Now, Stella and I had talked about a bell, for when I needed something. But she didn't have one and neither of us was really sure where you go to buy a bell. So this was the bell system we figured out.

  “Natalie. Go get your auntie.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  • • •

  STELLA OPENED THE WINDOW FOR ME, and we looked out. There was Carl. Sitting on the bus bench across the street. Looking right back at us. With a binoculars.

  Stella gave him the finger.

  “I'm going to go find out where C.J. is,” she said.

  I sat and watched while she went over there and talked to him. I was trying to think how fast I could get to the kitchen phone if things took a bad turn. Which they sometimes do with Carl.

  But after a minute she just turned away from him and came back upstairs.

  When she got back in my room, she closed the window again.

  “His mother's taking care of C.J.”

  “So he can watch my window night and day.”

  “Looks like.”

  “So he can see if I go out to meet anybody. Or if anybody comes to see me.”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “I wonder how long he can keep that up.”

  “It's Carl,” she said. “You tell me.”

  IT WAS THE NEXT TIME I watched the movie. Later that night. That's when it hit me. Right at the part where Movie Maria sends her brother's girlfriend, Anita, with a message for Tony.

  I hit Pause.

  “Natalie,” I said. “Get me that pad of paper off the dresser, okay?”

  She did, and I wrote a note to Tony. My Tony.

  I told him I was at my sister's but I couldn't tell him where that was, because if he came here, Carl would kill him. And that I had no idea when I could get away. But sometime I would. If he would just keep coming to our place. Only earlier, like before eleven. Because sooner or later Carl would get tired of this and go back to work. Only I had no idea when.

  “Please don't give up on me.” That's the last thing I said.

  “Natalie. Go get your auntie.”

  “Okay.”

  A couple of minutes later she came back in, dragging Stella by the hand. Stella was in her pajamas and had on an avocado-colored face mask. With anybody else that would mean she was ready for bed. With Stella it was hard to say.

  “What?” she said.

  “You need to take him a note. Just like in the movie.”

  “No freaking way.”

  “Stella, please. You have to do this for me.”

  “I don't even know what he looks like.”

  “He's over six feet tall and has tons of curly hair. And he's young. That weeds out nine guys out of ten right there.”

  “And there are how many guys that cross that platform every night? And I'm supposed to ask one in ten of them what their names are? In the subway? After midnight?”

  “But you're so good at knowing things. Maybe you'll just know by instinct that it's him. Oh, please, Stella. Please? You just gotta do it. It'll be just like in the movie.”

  �
��First of all,” she said, “stop saying that.”

  “Saying what?”

  “How it'll be just like it was in the movie. Because, as you may recall, in the movie Anita gets herself into quite a bit of trouble doing that little favor. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. And I'm the one who has to ask a bunch of very tall young men to identify themselves in the subway late at night. So stop comparing it to the damn movie.”

  “Does that mean you'll do it?”

  She sighed very dramatically. And I knew I had won.

  After that night, life took on a circular motion. Sometimes it reminded me of a dog chasing its own tail. Other times it was more like water—and other things I'm too polite to mention—circling the toilet bowl when you flush. Either way it was hardly a pretty picture.

  When I woke up, Delilah made me pancakes with berry syrup, and then I took the subway to Maria's neighborhood, where I mailed my second letter to Grandma Annie and waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  I knew it probably wasn't near the time Carl would have to go to work, but whenever a man walked down the street past me, I looked into his face and wondered. Silently. Carl?

  I saw older men who looked civilized and younger men who looked tough. I saw scared-looking guys and nondescript-looking guys, and I realized I really had no idea of what kind of guy could do the things Carl did. I guess I had this image in my head of some big, macho bruiser. But then I'd see a guy go by with neatly combed hair and a suit, and I'd look into his eyes to see if he could do that. Be that. And it seemed like the potential was there.

  Maybe all of us could. Maybe it's not that most of us couldn't. Maybe it's more that most of us don't.

  The spiraling was something that happened in my head.

  I would think, She's in trouble. She's hurt, she's scared. She can't get to me. She's thinking of me and worrying I'll give up, and then she'll never see me again. And then I'd vow to never give up. To be there whenever she came out to find me again. And for a few minutes I would be this brave Romeo who could swim the widest, deepest ocean to be there for her in her time of need.