Chasing Windmills

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Then I had to try to translate my own pain into what Maria must be feeling. How would I feel if I had all this plus broken ribs?

  I was pretty sure I could see the answer on her face. The skin of her face looked almost gray to me. She spent a lot of time with her eyes pressed shut. Once I saw her take nine Advil, all in one handful. I wondered if even that helped much at all.

  I started feeling apologetic about it. I never should have asked her to leave when she was still injured, and in pain. What was I thinking? How selfish was that?

  “I'm really sorry I couldn't afford something better,” I said. “Like a plane.”

  She looked at me strangely. Like that was the last thing in the world she expected me to say. “I couldn't even have afforded the bus,” she said. “So don't feel bad.”

  But I think I mostly still did.

  Then, to cap it all off, Natalie entered a new phase. She would pull her thumb out of her mouth. Look at me for a moment. Then turn to her mother and say, quietly—almost under her breath— ”Where's C.J.?”

  I had no idea who that was, and part of me wanted to ask, but I didn't. Maybe they had left a dog or a cat behind. Or a best friend. Maybe that was what she called her father. Which made me wonder again what kind of bond she had with her father. If she missed him.

  I could tell it was hard for Maria to be forced to talk at all, but she usually said something vaguely comforting in return.

  “Don't worry about it, honey, we're going to a new home.”

  “We'll be fine with just us. We're going to a really nice new place.”

  “Don't be afraid, honey. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Except for one time. There was this one time. I had been looking out the window. Noticing how the landscape had turned to desert. We were either in Arizona or New Mexico, I'm not sure which one. I wanted to point it out to Maria, because to me it was a source of comfort. We were already in the desert. But I'd seen her look out the window once or twice and not register much reaction. I didn't want to be like Natalie, forcing her to respond through her pain. So I just watched it myself, and took comfort.

  After a while I closed my eyes. But I wasn't asleep. But I think maybe Maria thought I was. I heard Natalie's thumb pulling out of her mouth. That soft, wet sucking sound I'd heard so many times. And I braced for it.

  “Where's C.J.?”

  “I miss him too, honey,” Maria said.

  I sat still with my eyes closed for a long time. I didn't want her to know I'd been awake. I could feel this pain like a knife slicing into the vertical space between my ribs. Just under my heart. It was a radiating pain, almost a burning.

  She might have been talking about a dog or a cat. She might not have been talking about him.

  This tumbled around and around in my head for a long time. Finally I just had to put a stop to it. I just had to put it out of my mind. There was nothing else I could think to do. But the point of that knife never found its way out again. Every time I took a full, deep breath, I could feel that little knife point wedged underneath my ribs. Reminding me.

  BY THE TIME WE PULLED INTO BAKERSFIELD, I was just full-on scared. What if Grandma Annie wasn't there? I hadn't even talked to her myself since finding out when our bus was arriving. Did I even have her phone number with me? If not, would it be listed? Could I get a listing for Delilah and then call Delilah and get Grandma Annie's number?

  When I thought of Delilah, a strange feeling swayed through my stomach. If only I could be sitting on her couch right now. Where everything was familiar and safe.

  Grandma Annie will be there, I told myself.

  But that was scary, too. What if she was someone I could barely talk to? What if we didn't like each other much now that I was grown? What if she took one look at Natalie and said, “No way. That's just pushing a favor too far.”

  I tried to avoid Maria's eyes, because I didn't want her to see how scared I was. And I didn't want to see how scared she was. But I think we both knew that we both knew.

  As the bus turned into the station, I saw a blue pickup truck with reddish-brown primer spots sitting more or less by itself in the parking lot. I couldn't have told you, until that exact moment, that Grandma Annie used to drive a blue pickup truck with reddish-brown rust primer all over it. But I knew when I saw it. I didn't figure it was the same truck, though. She must've gotten a new car by now. It just reminded me.

  Maria carried Natalie into the station. I carried the two enormous bags.

  She was there. Waiting to see who got off the bus. Problem is, when you get to a station, it's like a break for everybody. A chance to get off the bus and eat or walk around or use the bathroom. So everybody got off the bus, whether they were going to Bakersfield or not.

  So I was looking at Grandma Annie, knowing it was her—with her sun-damaged skin and her long, straight gray-blond hair and her unusual gray eyes—but she kept looking right through me. Looking at everybody to try to see somebody who could be me.

  I dropped the heavy bags, raised one hand. Caught her eye. I watched her face change. I wish I could describe how it changed, but it's hard. It started out as worry, that's easy enough. But it turned into something deeper and harder to pinpoint. If I had to try, I'd say it turned into pleasure at seeing me, mixed with sadness over not seeing me for so long. After all, I'd grown a good three feet since then. I was like walking, breathing evidence of all that water under the bridge.

  She ran to me, and threw her arms around me, and I picked her up. It wasn't hard. She was little and light. I didn't know I was about to do that. But her head barely came up to about my shoulder, so I just grabbed her around the ribs and picked her up to hug her, and we both laughed.

  “Oh, my God, look at you,” she said. “You're a grown man.”

  I put her down and saw she was crying.

  “Grandma, this is Maria.”

  She wiped at her eyes, like she was ashamed of her own tears. Extended a hand for Maria to shake. At this point she must have made some kind of mental note, even in her current over-emotional state, of the fact that Maria was holding a kid. But nothing got said out loud. Nothing registered to the degree that I could see it.

  “And Natalie,” I said.

  “Hello, Maria. Hello, Natalie. Pleased to meet you.”

  She shook Maria's hand, then offered to do the same for Natalie, who buried her face in her mother's neck.

  “She's just shy,” Maria said. “Please don't take it personally.”

  I watched Grandma Annie take a big, deep breath. Settle herself into the moment.

  “Well,” she said, “let's go.” I grabbed the big bags again, and we walked. “We'll be a little crowded in the front of that truck,” she said. “But I guess we'll manage.”

  We said nothing in response. I wasn't sure what to say. I wasn't sure if I had just been told there was a problem or not. But one way or another, it was a problem I couldn't solve.

  We walked out of the bus station together and out into the desert morning heat. I guess it was about eighty. Not so bad as it would be later that afternoon. But it felt like the desert. It wasn't New York City. You could know that with your eyes closed.

  “Remember this old truck?” I heard her ask. And, sure enough, she walked us right up to the blue pickup truck with the rust-primer spots.

  “This truck is kind of hard to forget,” I said.

  “Still runs great. And that's what counts, right?”

  The truck didn't have air-conditioning. Which is tough in the desert. But I guess that's not what counts.

  “It has two-sixty air-conditioning,” she said.

  “I never heard of that,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Roll down two windows and drive sixty miles per hour.”

  So that's what we did.

  WHEN WE GOT TO THE PLACE where I could first see the windmills on the pass up ahead, I pointed them out to Natalie. First, I mean. I mean, it was a general announcement. An overall announcement. I wanted Maria t
o see them, too, of course.

  But what I said was, “Look, Natalie. Look at the windmills.”

  I'm not sure why. Tradition, I guess. Kids need to see windmills.

  Maria was sitting in the middle, between me and Grandma Annie, and she ducked her head down to see. “Wow,” she said. “Wow. Somehow that's not what I was picturing. I mean … I don't know what I was picturing. But, I mean … wow.”

  Natalie just stared at first. Blinked. Then she decided she wanted to see them out the window, so she launched off Maria's lap, pushed off with both hands and landed on my lap, and it hurt Maria's ribs. We could all hear it. She let out a sound like a cross between a grunt and a roar. I could feel the rabbit-fur muff land lightly on my feet.

  Natalie hung her whole head out the window, her thin hair blowing back in the hot wind, and I instinctively held her around the waist, as if she might fly away like a bit of paper.

  “You okay?” I asked Maria.

  She nodded gravely. “My ribs are taped up,” she said to Grandma Annie.

  “Oh,” Grandma Annie said. A note of something in her voice. One of those things you can hear even when the person isn't saying it. “Had an accident?”

  I looked at her quickly and cut my eyes away and Maria never met her eyes.

  “Yeah,” Maria said. “An accident.”

  But after that things were weirdly uncomfortable. And I wasn't sure why. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I hung my head out the window and looked at the windmills with Natalie. It made me happy, like something you thought was only a dream, and now here it is. I think Natalie could tell I was happy. I'm not even sure what makes me say that. But I'm still pretty sure it was true.

  I noticed that she didn't have her thumb in her mouth for maybe the first time since I'd met her.

  I said, “Natalie, do you like the windmills?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Word number four from Natalie to me.

  I never really stopped to think about the desert. I mean, even after I knew I was going to go live there. I thought about being with Tony. And that there would be a lot more stars at night. I maybe even wanted to see what he meant about windmills.

  But the desert itself—I not only didn't give it any thought, I guess I figured there was nothing really to think about. I mean, it's a desert. Right? It's like outer space. Just a big void. And it's dry. So, what's to think about?

  I was so wrong.

  I was so blown away when we drove away from Bakersfield in Tony's grandmother's old truck. First of all, there were hills and mountains, but not like the kind you see in pictures. Some looked like huge rocks, all eroded in sections, and others looked like regular smooth hills but with thousands of little rocks scattered all over them. And the trees were more like cactus trees, reaching up with two arms, and then with these little balls of cactus-type leaves at the ends, like the cactus were holding what they grew in their hands. Everything was sort of one color, which was tan, but in shades, so you started thinking tan was the only color you even needed.

  And the wind. It was different. It had some kind of energy that I never felt at home. Maybe because it was a hot wind. Where I come from, when it's windy it's usually cold. But there was something else different about it, and I couldn't quite put my finger on what. Maybe wind changes when it bumps into too many buildings. I don't know. I just know I had this feeling like if there was still some stuff in me I didn't want, some old crap I'd carried along for the ride, I could just throw it out and the wind would make it gone.

  Probably that was just imagination. But I liked it, so I stuck with that thought.

  It was so beautiful it almost made me cry. Well, that's not quite right. It's not so much because it was beautiful that I got a lump in my throat. It's because I never thought I'd get to see anyplace like this. Never in a million years.

  You know what the best part was? Not a tall building in site. Most of where we drove, not a building in site. Not any kind of one. But now and then there'd be a house or a gas station or a little store, but only one floor. Not an upstairs anything as far as the eye could see.

  The sky was bluer than I've ever seen a sky be, so I started thinking that maybe the idea was not to block the sky. That the people who built houses and stores out here knew they had a better sky than anybody else's. So they made sure not to get in the way.

  People must be a lot smarter out here in the desert. In the city, anybody'll get in the way of anything. They don't really care.

  Then after we had been driving awhile we came to this pass over the mountains, and there were the windmills that Tony had been trying to tell me about for so long. They made me suck in a big breath that I almost forgot to let out again. I'm not sure what I was picturing, but whatever it was, it was not as good as what I saw.

  I had this funny feeling in my stomach, and it took me a minute to realize it was good. A good feeling.

  Everything was really perfect until Natalie hurt my ribs and I had to say out loud that my ribs were taped up.

  That bothered Tony's grandmother. A lot. And I have no idea why. I mean, you're either hurt or you're not. It's not like it hurts her any. But she got real quiet after that. And even though she'd been pretty quiet before, this quiet was different.

  I can read people. When they get tense, I always know it. I don't even have to be looking at their face. And even if they say they're not upset, I still know. I can't even tell you what it is I know by, but I always turn out to be right. I'm like a weather vane for what's happening with the insides of other people. I can always feel the wind change.

  I decided there was only one possible reason I could think of. Somehow the fact that I was beat up was like a red flag to let her know that I was from the land of trouble. That I was nothing but trouble, like my father always said.

  I guess normal people don't get beat up as much as people like me.

  So then I started thinking again that maybe she wouldn't let us stay. Maybe we'd even have to go back to the city. Which I hated to think. Because I already loved it here in the desert. I know it sounds like I wasn't even there long enough to love it yet. But it was like love at first sight. Really, like falling in love, only with a place.

  Even if we had to go back, I decided it was worth it to ride that bus all the way out here. It was worth it just for Natalie to see the windmills. Even if she never saw anything like this again. Maybe at least she could hang on to the idea that there's something better out there, somewhere.

  Maybe she would remember.

  You can't want something for yourself if you don't even know it exists.

  I tried to just relax and enjoy the view. And enjoy the fact that Tony was being so sweet with Natalie, and that they were getting along. I had a lot to feel good about.

  But I can always tell when someone's upset. It's hard for me to relax unless everybody else will, too.

  When I opened the door to the little guesthouse, I thought I was prepared for anything. I told myself I wouldn't be shocked. No matter how worn down, run-down, torn down it was, I would be ready.

  But I was in no way prepared for what we saw.

  It was perfect.

  The carpeting was brand-new. The walls looked like they had been painted in about the last ten minutes. It even smelled a little like fresh paint. The windows sparkled.

  It was really just one room with a bathroom and a tiny nook of a kitchen. Miniature appliances that looked like they belonged in a trailer or an RV. But they must have been brand-new. If they weren't, they sure knew how to do a good imitation.

  The main room had a couch and two stuffed chairs. I wondered if the couch folded out. I figured it must. They might not have been brand-new but they were in great condition.

  Over the little mantel hung a banner. A long paper banner. It said, “Welcome home, Sebastian.” There were little bits of other things written on in pen, but I couldn't read them from the door.

  It was warm inside, but not sweltering, and I could hear t
he sound of a blowing motor.

  I looked at Grandma Annie. “This is our little surprise,” she said. I still got the feeling that there was something she wasn't saying. I got the sense that something was wrong.

  “Who's we?”

  “Word got around that I'd heard from you, and you were coming, and everybody put together a team to fix this place up. Paint and carpet and new appliances and furniture. And they even fixed the swamp cooler. It'll never be as good as real air-conditioning but it's something. I couldn't believe anybody could get it done in time but they were determined. One day there were fifteen people here at once. Mostly people from the motel. But a few townspeople, too. A lot of them met you when you were little. The others just know you from hearing so much about you.”

  A silence fell. Well, maybe fell is the wrong word. Because it seemed to ricochet off the walls and hit my ears again and again.

  There was so much happening to me at once, I couldn't break it all down to something that could be said. I couldn't isolate anything.

  “The couch folds out,” she said. “If you children want to take a nap. You must be beat.”

  It seemed odd to me that in Grandma Annie's eyes we were all three children.

  She bustled off and left us alone.

  I pulled the cushions off the couch and pulled out the bed. It had clean white sheets on it. I wondered if there were blankets anywhere. Pillows. In a closet or a drawer. But we didn't need them right now and I was too tired and overwhelmed to stay with that thought.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and Maria came and sat down close beside me. I could feel her hip bump up against mine, and it felt good. A purposely familiar gesture. She laid Natalie down beside her and Natalie just lay there, eyes wide open, her thumb in her mouth, a death grip on the fur.

  I brushed the hair back off Maria's forehead.

  “You okay?” I said. Quietly. Feeling like we were no longer strangers in any way.

  “Yeah. Tired.”

  “You want to take a nap?”