by Ursula Hegi
“And this mother says no.” She laid her fork aside. Reached for her water glass.
“But I want to go,” he whispered.
That familiar sad look came into her eyes, and he almost told her he’d stay home because that would have taken the look away. But he didn’t. He finished his dinner, though he was no longer hungry, helped her clear the table. Only when he was scraping the food from their plates into the trash did he realize that his cheeks were aching because he was biting them from inside. In bed, he tried to read one of Oliver’s comics, but he forgot to turn pages and kept reading the same bubble of words without understanding it.
Long after midnight he let himself out of the apartment. Legs stiff and cold, he took the stairs down to the lobby and walked out onto the dock. The lake was calm, glassy, without any of the white-caps that had given it texture in the afternoon. Though Stefan had his back toward the Wasserburg, he could still feel his mother’s sadness, could see her lying on her bed with her eyes open. It didn’t feel right, taking care of his mother. It was all twisted around. Not the way it was supposed to be. It had to do with his father living with his other family. Had to do with his mother’s sadness. Other reasons, too many of them, tangled like a mess of string. None of them separate like the constellations he could name and find in the night sky. She didn’t even say good night to me.
Still—he would go to his father’s house.
Walk up the steps of that porch.
And open the door.
He knew this. Knew it with the same certainty that he knew the angle at which Orion held his sword.
The sagging porch wrapped itself around three sides of the Victorian. Latticework concealed the dark gap beneath, but since a few of the wooden strips were broken, Stefan could see patches of the old foundation. With a sense of the forbidden—the dangerous even—he followed Oliver up the wooden steps and into the hallway where plastic milk crates were stacked into shelves that overflowed with books and odd baskets. Clothes, tennis rackets, and papers covered tables and chairs in the living room. No curtains. But lots of hanging plants in the windows. The house smelled different than Stefan’s apartment—not of furniture polish and detergent, but of his father’s tobacco and of damp shoes and other things Stefan couldn’t identify.
From a pile of blankets by the sofa rose a huge black dog, head square, body enormously fat.
“Just let him sniff you,” Oliver said. “He’s too lazy to bite anyone.”
Cautiously Stefan extended one arm. The dog came closer. When he jabbed his nose against the hand, Stefan wanted to dry it against his pants, but he didn’t because Oliver might think he didn’t like his dog. “What kind of dog is he?”
“A black dog.”
Stefan had to laugh. “That I can see.”
“Part Newfoundland, part pig. We inherited him. From my sister Kath. When she and her husband moved into a smaller apartment where they don’t allow pets.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ezra. Ever heard of Ezra Pound? The poet. Kath got him from the pound. The dog, not the poet. Get it? Pound and pound?” Oliver stopped his rapid flow of words to stroke the dog’s jaw. “Here, Ezra, want to eat? Come on, show Stefan what a pig you are.”
On stiff legs, the dog waddled behind Oliver into the kitchen where dirty dishes filled the sink. Two open cabinet doors exposed mismatched cups and plates. A jug with wildflowers sat on the table, and specks of pollen dotted the wooden surface. In the corner stood two small pails, and while Oliver filled one with water, the other with brown pellets, Ezra jumped up and down, all four paws bouncing off the floor in a grotesque dance. As soon as Oliver set the pails down, the dog nudged him aside with his wide head and—hunched over the water pail—began to slurp, beads of water flying from his jowls.
“He was even fatter when we got him.” Oliver opened the refrigerator and grabbed a can of Coke and a bunch of celery. Twisting the lid from a peanut butter jar that stood on the counter, he dipped an unwashed stalk of celery into it. “Want some?”
The dog raised his head, and his ears twitched against the flat, ugly skull.
“Not you, pig-out. I’m talking to a certified human.”
Stefan wished he could think of something equally funny to say.
“Here.” Oliver pushed the jar toward him and pointed to the celery.
“No, thanks. But if you have another Coke—”
“Take a can,” Oliver said, chewing with his mouth open.
Stefan tried to figure out what other boys in his class would do if Oliver invited them home … Like Ronny Burlito. The most popular kid. Always cool. Ronny just opens the refrigerator. No big deal. Ronny never thinks of the word illegitimate. Dumb-ass jock doesn’t even know what it means. Ronny just shrugs and takes a can of Coke. Like that. Stefan checked inside the refrigerator as though he’d done it millions of times. Yet, he felt he was snooping. At home his mother usually had a snack waiting for him after school. But he was Ronny now, and Ronny pulls the metal tab from his can and checks around for a glass.
Oliver was drinking right from his can.
It’s vulgar to drink from cans or bottles. Shutting off his mother’s voice, Stefan set the can against his lips and tilted his head back. Above him the ceiling was swollen in several places with rustcolored water rings. He’d helped his mother fix ceilings before they got that bad, steadying her ladder, stirring paint, cleaning up afterwards.
“Want to see my room?”
The dog followed them upstairs. Dirty socks and dishes lay amidst half-finished airplane models and pencils with chewed-off erasers. Fingerprints smudged the window. Outside was an overgrown backyard and a bench with flaking green paint.
They sat on the floor and were just finishing their Cokes when a car door slammed in the driveway.
“My dad,” Oliver said.
Mine. Stefan’s can dented in his fist.
“Company?” Eyes soft brown with yellow specks. Familiar eyes that Stefan hadn’t seen in seventeen months and three days. Eyes that cautioned: You and I know. Oliver doesn’t. “Well… hello.”
Stefan tried to say, “Hello,” and brought out a croak. Cleared his throat and said it again. “Hello.”
“I’m very glad you’re here. Oliver told me you’d come.”
“Thank you—” Stefan hesitated. What do I call him now? Father? Doctor? Sir?
“Call me Justin. All right?”
Another name yet. Father Doctor Sir Justin. Stefan swallowed. Ezra rested his square head on his knees, and he busied himself stroking the fur between the dog’s ears.
Oliver leaned forward. “Dad—”
A name that’s not on my list. Dad. Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad.
“We’ve got to fix that tear in the tent after dinner,” Oliver said.
Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad groaned. “Tonight?”
“We’ve got to. If we want to camp this weekend.”
“I was looking forward to camping.”
“You want me to buy some bait tomorrow?”
A whole life away from me. Fishing. Camping.
“We’ll talk about it later, Oliver.” A careful glance toward Stefan.
“We’re also out of Sterno. And I need to get batteries for the flashlights.”
Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad drew a black wallet from his back pocket and handed Oliver a twenty. “Are you staying for dinner, Stefan?”
“I—” He couldn’t really say yes since it was more a question than an invitation.
“Some other time then,” Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad said as if he took it for granted that Stefan would be at his house again.
Although the Blau boy spooked Laura Miles, she tried to be easy around him. Tried hard because she believed having him in her house would keep her husband here too. But the boy had such a hungry look to him…. The hunger to be part of my family. He seemed to have resolved to not only claim his father, but her entire family, and it became obvious to Laura that the way he went about it
was through Oliver.
Initially he was a thorn to her.
A trade-off for having her husband home.
For a while even her revenge: My turn to keep what belongs to the Blau woman. Picturing the Blau woman alone. “Come early on Sunday, Stefan. Spend the day with us.”
But gradually she could see that the boys’ friendship was not a sham, that Oliver and Stefan genuinely liked each other, and to her amazement, she found that she, too, was fond of the Blau boy. That she appreciated his thoughtfulness. Enjoyed the sudden light of gratitude in his face when she said he could stay for the evening or spend the weekend, even though having him here was a constant reminder of the Blau woman who—so the townspeople said—was hard about money when it came to paying for repairs or talking to tenants who were late with their rent.
But that’s not what bothers you about her.
Still, for over a dozen years now it had been safer for Laura to detest the Blau woman based on the reasons of others. That way she didn’t need to ferret out reasons of her own. Didn’t need to push herself and her husband into a place they might not be able to return from. Especially now that Justin was home every night. Once in a while she was even glad the Blau boy had followed him here, and she missed him on days she didn’t see him.
He never called to ask his mother when he was invited to eat dinner at Oliver’s house, because she’d only tell him she had already cooked for him. But his mother wouldn’t phone him there. He knew she wouldn’t. Still, he didn’t like thinking of her eating alone, and he made sure to stay home some evenings. He’d coax her into climbing to the roof and watching the stars with him. Or he’d help her clean out storage spaces or get vacant apartments ready for new tenants.
For a while he worried that Oliver’s mother would ask him questions about his mother, but she simply did not seem interested. A short woman with a generous laugh and hips wider than his mother’s, she wrote part-time for the local paper, covering town meetings and school events. She played a lot of tennis—singles in the town’s women’s league, mixed doubles with her husband. Though she enjoyed cooking, she wasn’t interested in housework and usually waited with doing laundry until everyone was out of clothes. Walking from room to room, she’d scoop up clothes, hunt for stray socks beneath beds, and throw each armful down the steps into the basement, where for several hours the washer would chug, making the floor tremble as it spun out the water.
About once a month she’d attack her house with a mess of cleaning supplies, enlisting the help of Oliver and Patty, the youngest of her daughters, who was a senior in high school. While Oliver would slide dozens of jars and cans from one end of the counter to the other and Patty would give the floors a few distracted sweeps with the vacuum cleaner, Stefan would usually volunteer to wash dishes and scrub sinks.
“You don’t have to,” Oliver’s mother would tell him while strolling through the kitchen, arms full of newspapers that she’d stack in the garage.
“I don’t mind.” Suds to his elbows, Stefan would feel like a member of his father’s real family.
One Saturday morning when he arrived at the yellow Victorian, Stefan found his father at the kitchen table, folders spread around him. He glanced up from a page he’d covered with long letters that slanted to the left. “Stefan,” he said, his voice pleased. The open collar of his shirt framed a pale triangle of skin.
It was his first time alone with his father. In all their years of Wednesdays, they had never been alone in those brief hours between his father’s arrival and his own bedtime. Maybe now. Maybe now he’ll say something to me. Stefan didn’t know what—just that it would be about him and his father, and that it would be important.
“Oliver went to the library with his mother. You’re welcome to stay and wait for him.”
Ezra jumped up and down, jabbing his wide nose at Stefan, urging him to rub the creases of furry skin between his ears.
“That dog really likes you,” his father said.
Stefan wished his father had said how much he liked him. So far, the welcome he got from the dog was more enthusiastic than anything his father had said to him. Whenever he entered the house, Ezra would rise from his blankets and wag his entire body, greeting him with the same eagerness he showed at feedings.
His father reached out to pat the dog. “And you have a new pal, Ezra, don’t you?”
“He doesn’t look nearly as ugly as the first day I saw him.”
His father laughed.
“I didn’t mean to insult him.”
“Ezra has that effect on people…. It’s always good to have you here, Stefan.”
“Really?” Warm with pleasure, Stefan waited for more. If only you could be my father every day.
His father motioned to the chair across from him. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you.” Stefan sat down.
His father refilled his coffee and emptied two packets of sugar into his cup. “So—how’s everything going?”
“Good.”
“No problems?”
Stefan shook his head. Strange, how he missed his father when he was at home with his mother; yet, now that he finally was alone with him, he didn’t know what to say.
“And school?”
“All right.”
“You like your teachers?”
Though he felt his father waiting, willing to listen, all he could say was, “Yes.” He remembered the last day his father had come to the Wasserburg. Remembered that it had been snowing. Remembered waking crying to the sound of the plow the following morning and going outside with his mother to see how deep the snow was—to his knees. They’d built a snowman with a carrot nose, but he’d kept crying and his mother had suggested he take a carrot to school so the other kids would let him help if they made a snowman. All at once, Stefan wondered if it had been hard for his father to stay away. “Why didn’t you come back?” he blurted.
His father blinked. Glanced toward the door. “How is your mother?”
“The same.” Reaching for an empty sugar packet, Stefan tore it into small pieces. A few leftover grains of sugar stuck to his fingertips—Why didn’t you come back to us? Why not?—and he rubbed them against the fleshy pads at the base of his thumbs.
“You’re getting tall, Stefan.”
“I guess so.”
“What do you like to do after school?”
“I read a lot.”
“Good. Good. What else?”
“Stars … I watch stars. And I make charts.”
“Like your mother.” His father sounded disappointed.
Stefan lined the shreds of paper along the edge of the table in front of him. “I guess so.”
His father pushed another empty sugar packet across the table. “In case you need something else to pluck apart.”
Neck hot, Stefan scooped up the scraps of paper.
“I’m sorry. That was unnecessary. I’m always hoping. …”
“Hoping?”
“Well, yes … that you’ll be happier than this to see me.”
“Hey.” Oliver came running in, his mother behind him with a canvas bag full of books.
“But I am,” Stefan wanted to shout. “I am happy to see you.” Yet when he looked at his father, he could already feel the moment between them lock, feel his father’s concern shift to Oliver, protecting Oliver from what Stefan knew. All at once he felt old—twice as old as Oliver—with the awareness that his father made him carry the knowledge that protected Oliver.
And who is there to protect me?
What used to feel like such a big thing—he and Oliver born the same day—now made him jealous, made him wonder if Oliver would ever figure it out.
“When did you get here?” Oliver wanted to know.
Stefan couldn’t speak. Felt Oliver’s mother step behind him and lay one hand against the back of his neck. Felt her breath light against his hair.
“I’m glad Oliver and you have become friends,” she said.
“Oliver is my best friend.” Thinking: and my brother. Knowing Laura Miles was thinking the same. I want to live with them. Instantly, he felt disloyal toward his mother. Maybe I could visit her. But live with my father and Oliver.
“Stefan got here just a few minutes ago,” his father said to Oliver, and Stefan felt left behind, wishing he were the son who could evoke protectiveness in his father.
1987–1990
Third day of summer vacation, his father took him and Oliver fishing at Weirs Beach. Though they only caught small fish that they released into the lake, it didn’t matter to Stefan because, for a while there, standing on the pier between his father and Oliver, he was able to convince himself that he lived with them. And that was good … until he started feeling disloyal to his mother. She never mentioned his father. Or Oliver. Or anyone else in his father’s family. Just as his father’s family didn’t mention his mother. Sometimes Stefan felt he was the only one who remembered that there even were two families, and that—by shuttling between them—he linked them, though they continued to ignore all knowledge of each other. But whenever he thought about that too much, he’d start feeling odd—invisible and powerful at once.
His mother continued cooking for him, kept his dinners warm in the oven, though he wasn’t home to eat them. “What can I do to bring you back?” she pictured herself asking Stefan. But she couldn’t ask. After a while, she began to buy smaller portions and cook only for herself: chicken legs instead of whole chickens; one small pork chop instead of three; individual-size cans of vegetables and soups.
The Monday Stefan turned thirteen, she suggested pizza and a movie to celebrate. He hesitated, then admitted that Oliver’s mother had baked two cakes. “For our birthdays together. Oliver’s and mine.”
“You can pick another evening for pizza and a movie,” Emma said, smiling hard to keep him from seeing how close she was to crying.
“It’s more important to him … really.”
“We’ll do it another time. Any evening.”
“If you want, I’ll come to the movies with you tonight.”
