by Alex George
I stepped into the legs and then wriggled into the top half of the outfit. When I put on the fiberglass head I was assailed by the pungent tang of dried sweat and the burn of stale tobacco. It was as if Nathan were standing in there with me. There was a surprising amount of room inside the head. I could peer down the dragon’s snout and see what was going on. I turned toward the full-length mirror at the end of the locker room. The dragon looked back at me with its usual goofy grin. I stared at myself for some time, not moving. Finally I raised my right arm. The dragon shyly waved a wing.
By then I had started to cry, but the dragon continued to smile, as cheerful as ever. I shook my ass and watched the lumpy tail sway behind me. Tears were running down my cheeks. I turned and walked unsteadily toward the door.
Nathan had been dead for three days.
—
THE PARK WAS HEAVING with visitors. The sun was shining, and within minutes my skin was prickling with sweat. I wandered along the paths, peering down the dragon snout as I went, keeping an eye out for small children. I was surprised how heavy the suit was. My neck began to ache from the weight of the dragon’s head.
I trudged ahead, wondering how Nathan had climbed back into this suit day after day. Suddenly I was swamped by a fresh wave of loss. Inside the dragon’s skin Nathan had danced for the children, and he had danced for Faye. He brought the dragon to life, and along with it, huge barrelfuls of hope.
Just then I heard an excited squeal and felt something wrap itself around my right leg. I stopped moving and looked down. There was a small girl gazing up at me with unabashed adoration.
“Dragon!” she shouted. I put out a hand and cautiously patted the top of her head.
“Lindsay, honey, come away,” came a voice from out of my line of vision. The girl made a squawk of protest and squeezed my leg more tightly than ever. I carefully pivoted until Lindsay’s mother came into view down the snout. She beamed at me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dragon,” she said in a chirpy, singsong voice. “Miss Lindsay here has been so looking forward to seeing you!”
Lindsay confirmed this by kicking my shin and shouting, “I love you, dragon!” I stifled a yelp and gave the woman a hearty thumbs-up.
“Any chance we can get a photograph?” asked Lindsay’s mother. Two seconds later she was standing next to me, gripping my shoulder tightly in case I might try to escape. No chance of that: Lindsay was still fiercely clinging on to my leg. “Chet,” the woman barked at her husband, who was holding a camera in front of him as if it were a hand grenade. “Hurry up!”
As the man took our photograph, something peculiar happened. Flanked on either side by Lindsay and her mother, I smiled.
This was no small grin, either. This was a full-wattage, Hollywood-style display of teeth. I was on the red carpet, facing the massed ranks of paparazzi behind the velvet rope. Only once the family had bustled off did I realize that when the family’s vacation pictures came back, all Lindsay would see was the same snaggletoothed dragon grin that had stared back at me in the locker room mirror. My own smile was invisible.
But I didn’t care. After that children began to swarm all over me, tugging, stealing hugs, demanding attention. They yelled in delight as I goofed around and made them laugh. I even danced a little. And every time a parent produced a camera, I stood up a little taller and grinned like a lunatic.
Now I understood exactly how Nathan had pulled on the dragon suit every day.
—
AFTER AN HOUR OR SO, I made my way back to the locker room. I was exhausted and hot, but I was also happy. There was such joy in giving delight to all those children. They had flocked to me with complete trust, and in the maelstrom of all that unguarded affection a little bit of my sorrow had been rubbed away.
I lifted off the dragon’s head and then extracted my arms from the wings. My T-shirt was soaked through with sweat. I put each piece of the suit back into Nathan’s locker. When I picked up the bottom half, I heard something roll across the inside of one of the dragon’s outsize feet. I peered down into the leg. There was a faint glimmer of reflected light. I hadn’t noticed anything while I’d been walking through the park. Whatever it was must have been caught in the dragon’s toes until I’d dislodged it. I felt a rush of excitement. Perhaps Nathan had left something behind, some kind of clue that would help me make sense of what had happened, or at least something to remember him by. I reached down into the leg.
I pulled out an empty miniature bottle of bourbon.
I looked at it for a long time. Then I unscrewed the lid and took a sniff.
The smell was instantly familiar, the memory of a thousand evenings of my childhood: my father, pouring himself a finger or two of whiskey when he got home from a long day at the park.
Nathan had been telling the truth.
—
I CLIMBED ONTO my bicycle and headed home, pursued by my shame.
Nathan hadn’t lunged at Faye that night. It wasn’t him I’d watched crumple to the ground in the dragon suit.
It was my father.
This was knowledge I would never outrun. The perimeters of my existence were already shifting, reluctantly expanding to make room for this new information. My father, the drunk. My father, chaser of young girls. My father, desperate and hopeless and on his knees.
—
WHEN I ARRIVED HOME my mother was waiting for me.
“How was it?” she asked.
“I put on the dragon suit,” I told her. “I went out into the park. I waved at everyone and I danced with little kids. I got my picture taken. I did all the things Nathan used to do.” I paused. “The kids just see the dragon, Mom. Nobody cares who’s inside.”
“It could have been Nathan,” she said.
“That’s what it looked like.”
“So you were bringing him back to life.”
“Maybe just a little.”
We were silent for a moment.
“Judith Tilly called me this morning about the funeral,” said my mother. “She’s going to bury Nathan in the plot next to her husband.”
“She can’t do that,” I said at once. There was nothing Nathan would have hated more than being buried, even if it was next to his father.
Just like that, I saw how I could make amends for my failure to believe him about Faye: I would convince Mrs. Tilly that Nathan’s body should be cremated and his ashes scattered to the winds.
“I have to go and see her,” I said.
“Maybe you should leave her be,” said my mother gently.
I shook my head. “Do you remember how angry Nathan was at his father’s funeral? That’s because Mrs. Tilly buried him.”
My mother looked at me for a moment, and then she nodded. “Let me drive you,” she said.
As we drove out to Sebbanquik Point, I tried not to think about my father, but I couldn’t push away the memory of the dragon lunging at Faye while the fireworks exploded overhead.
We parked in front of the Tillys’ house. The only other car in the driveway was the blue Impala. No friends or relatives had come to console Nathan’s mother.
“Oh, the poor woman,” said my mother. She peered toward the house and drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. There were unshed tears at corners of her eyes, and I knew she was losing Liam all over again. I wondered which was worse, an agonized, long good-bye, or the sharp brutality of unexpected loss. Perhaps there was no way to calibrate certain kinds of heartbreak.
“I won’t be long,” I said.
When Mrs. Tilly opened the door, she looked at me, then at my mother waiting in the car. Her face was pale and drawn. Grief had washed her out.
“Robert,” she said. “I suppose you’d better come in.”
I followed her into the hallway. There were cardboard boxes everywhere. In one corner a large rug had been rolled up and was standing on its end. Several
paintings were propped up against the wall, next to a small forest of unplugged lamps.
“Mrs. Tilly?” I said. “What’s going on?”
“I’m packing.”
“Packing?”
“That’s right.” She turned toward me. “I’m leaving.”
“So soon?” I blurted.
“I’ve lost my husband here, and now my son. Are you surprised I can’t wait to leave this awful place?”
I remembered our conversation over Christmas lunch. The Tillys had stayed in Maine because of me. My throat closed up. If it hadn’t been for me, Nathan would have returned to Texas months ago, far away from the paper mill and Lewis’s parachute.
Mrs. Tilly pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her cardigan pocket and lit one. “Why did you come, Robert?”
“Mom says you’ve bought the plot next to your husband’s grave for Nathan.”
“That’s right.”
“Nathan would hate to be buried, Mrs. Tilly,” I said.
She took a long drag on her cigarette. “Do you think it’s a coincidence, the way Nathan and his father both died?” she asked. “Because it’s not. My husband might as well have pushed Nathan off that chimney himself.” Her eyes darted restlessly about as she spoke, never meeting my gaze. “Leonard was a kind man, but he filled Nathan’s head with stupid ideas and impossible dreams, and Nathan believed every word.” She sighed. “My husband lived for pleasure, Robert. There was nothing he liked more than spending all day in his workshop, building those wretched kites, and then flying them from the roof of the house.” She paused. “And yes, I wanted him buried in the ground. I hated the thought of his ashes being scattered, never coming to rest. I didn’t want him disappearing into the sky. It would have only kept all those stupid myths alive in Nathan’s head.”
“He was so mad about it,” I said.
“It was for his own good. All I wanted—all I ever wanted—was to stop him from making the same mistakes his father made, and look what happened.” She took a long pull on her cigarette. “A roof, a chimney. The details don’t matter much in the end.”
We were silent for a moment.
“Please don’t bury Nathan, Mrs. Tilly,” I said. “Please don’t put him in the ground.”
“You need to leave now, Robert. You need to let me grieve for my son.”
I stood there, robbed of all words. Nathan’s mother opened the front door. I stepped outside. A few paces away was the spot where Mr. Tilly had landed from his fall. A hot bolt of anger shot through me. Mrs. Tilly was determined to blame her husband for everything that had happened, but that wasn’t right.
“Do you know why your husband was on the roof on the day he died?” I asked.
“He was flying a kite,” said Mrs. Tilly.
“No he wasn’t,” I said. “The kite was just an excuse.”
“An excuse for what?”
“Before he died he told us the real reason he was up there.” I swallowed. “He was watching you.”
Nathan’s mother had gone very still.
“He said he loved to watch you while you walked along the beach. That’s what he was really doing up there.” I paused. “So don’t blame him or the kite for his death, Mrs. Tilly. He was up there on that roof because of you.”
I turned and walked back to the car. Nathan’s mother rested one arm up against the frame of the front door, watching me go. Her cigarette still smoldered between her fingers, forgotten.
THIRTY-FIVE
Nathan’s funeral took place the following afternoon, at the same church where we had gathered for his father’s service nearly two years earlier. My parents and I arrived early. Mrs. Tilly was waiting for us in the parking lot.
“Robert,” she said. “There’s something I want you to see.” She led me to her car and opened the trunk. Inside there was a gray, unmarked tin.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s Nathan’s ashes.”
“Oh!” I said.
“He was cremated this morning.”
“You changed your mind,” I said. I peered into the trunk again, surprised by how big the tin was.
“Come for a ride with me after the service,” said Mrs. Tilly.
—
IN CONTRAST to his father’s funeral, the church was full for Nathan. My parents and I sat next to Mrs. Tilly in the front pew. I watched as the seats behind us filled. Most of our classmates came, together with a handful of teachers. The two detectives who had conducted the investigation into the accident showed up. There were strangers, too, lots of them. I guessed they had read about Nathan’s death in the paper and were either curious or sorry, or both. Faye was there, looking very pretty in a black dress with her hair drawn back in a sober ponytail. She knelt and prayed and even wiped a tear or two away from those beautiful eyes. (Nathan would have been ecstatic.) Even Hollis appeared, tugging at his shirt collar as he sat stiffly in his pew.
I remember one thing from the service. During the minister’s eulogy, my mother turned toward my father and rested her head against his shoulder. A moment later, he put his arm around her.
I kept staring straight ahead.
Hope is a curious thing. It emerges in the most unexpected places.
—
AFTER THE SERVICE WAS OVER, my parents stood on either side of Mrs. Tilly, soberly shaking hands with the mourners as they filed out of the church. I hovered by the door, anxious to go.
“How are you, Robert?”
Liam’s old nurse, Moira, was standing in front of me.
“Not great,” I confessed.
“No, I would think not.” She spoke very softly. “Liam used to talk about Nathan a lot. I feel like I knew him. He was your best friend, wasn’t he?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“It’s a fine thing, to have a best friend, you know,” said Moira. “But goodness, what a hard year it’s been for you. First your brother, now Nathan.” She looked at me, her eyes full of sympathy. “My mother had a saying she was very fond of at times like this. It’s an old Irish rhyme. Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal.”
“I like that,” I said.
Moira took my hand in hers. “You might not think so right now, Robert, but you’re a lucky boy. People go their whole lives without knowing what real friendship looks like, how it feels. But you do. And even though Nathan’s gone, he’ll always be with you, if you let him.”
“Love leaves a memory no one can steal,” I said.
“That’s right.” She smiled at me. “Don’t forget him, Robert. Nathan’s friendship was a gift. Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean you have to throw it away. It’s yours to keep for as long as you choose.”
“I won’t forget him,” I promised her.
She let go of my hand then, and walked out of the church.
A few minutes later I stepped into the afternoon sunshine. I paced up and down the sidewalk, thinking about Moira’s little rhyme. It was all very well having a memory no one can steal, but there was also the heartache part to deal with. People were still coming out of the church. When Faye appeared at the door, I gave her a small wave. She walked toward me.
“Hey, Robert,” she said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I heard you were at the mill when Nathan jumped.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Faye looked troubled. “Did he say anything about me?”
“About you? Why do you ask?”
“Something strange happened the night before Nathan died,” she said. “It didn’t make any sense then, and now I don’t know what to think.” She paused. “Do you remember we talked about him that night?”
“Of course. You were going to speak to him.”
“Right, and he was waitin
g for me when my shift was over. Still in his dragon suit. So, just like we discussed, I told him right away that I wasn’t interested. I told him he was sweet and everything, but that he was just too young.” She frowned. “First of all, he wouldn’t say anything. Not a word. Instead he began acting strange. He was dancing and jumping around, but really close to me, you know? I didn’t like it. I told him he was scaring me. But he still wouldn’t speak. All I could hear was this awful, heavy breathing coming from inside the dragon suit.”
My drunk father, crazy with grief for his dead son and who knew what else.
“When I realized that he wasn’t going to stop, I started to walk away. But he followed me.” Faye paused. “It was creepy. He wouldn’t leave me alone. He followed me almost into the woods. In the end I had to push him away.” She had begun to cry. “So now I’m wondering if that had anything to do with what happened at the mill.”
“Nathan didn’t commit suicide,” I said.
“He jumped off the chimney, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but he was wearing a parachute. He thought he was going to live.”
She looked at me closely. “Did he tell you what happened that night? During the fireworks?”
Faye was a kind person. None of this was her fault. “It wasn’t Nathan in the dragon suit, Faye,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Someone took the suit out of his locker that night. Nathan told me about it the next day. Besides, when I saw him at the mill, he was acting like he always did. He was still crazy about you, Faye. He wasn’t a guy who had just been told no.”
She frowned. “So if it wasn’t Nathan in the dragon suit, then who was it?”
I paused. Faye deserved to know the truth, but perhaps not the whole truth. Then I remembered Nathan’s own theory about what had happened that night.
Hollis Calhoun could take one for the team.
“Well, now,” I told Faye. “Here’s the thing.”
—
A LITTLE WHILE LATER, Nathan’s mother stepped out of the church, followed by my parents. All the other guests had left. Mrs. Tilly took my arm. “Come on, Robert,” she said. “You and I have a job to do.”
