Eight Minutes

by Reisenbichler, Lori

  Emily joins her, saying, “I barely have time to check my e-mail, much less track down something like that!” She looks at her watch. “Speaking of time, I’ve got to run, girls!”

  They escape and Wendy lingers a moment longer. “Are you okay?”

  “They think I’m nuts.” I shake my drink and take another sip. It’s awful once it gets warm.

  Wendy says, “You know, I just read a memoir by a California woman whose daughter had a mean imaginary friend. The little girl kept hitting the mom and then crying, saying her imaginary friend made her do it. The mom ended up taking the girl to some South American country where everyone assumed she had a demon that needed to be driven out. She went to a shaman or something who told her to do this ceremony … or was it a ritual?”

  She smiles at my puzzled expression.

  “My point is this: I bet all her friends thought she was crazy, too.”

  Crazy or not, when I get home, I go straight to my list and add this:

  Toby knows Kay is John Robberson’s wife.

  Toby’s temper tantrums are more frequent and intense, which means his resistance to seeing Kay is getting stronger.

  I ponder that last entry awhile, my stomach churning the whole time, before I add one more:

  John Robberson is pressuring Toby.

  The worst part about this list is that I can’t even show it to Eric. I’m embarrassed about my bout of verbal diarrhea this afternoon. Pauline shouldn’t know more than my own husband. I need to sit him down and tell him everything.

  At dinner that night, I try. I start by describing the temper tantrum at the store, but he doesn’t want to hear about the explanation. He just looks over at Toby and tells him not to do that again. He actually tells our three-year-old that temper tantrums are a sign of weakness.

  Weakness? Are you kidding me?

  I’m sorry to say I swallow that metallic taste in my mouth and take the bait. We argue about that one, late into the night. And one more day goes by, and he doesn’t know the truth.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  *

  JUST A GAME

  The very next night, I’m determined to tell Eric everything. But when he gets home from work, he goes directly to the liquor cabinet and makes himself a Jack and Coke. He sits down on the living-room floor with Toby, the two of them entirely focused on the airplane bucket.

  “How was your day?” I call from the kitchen.

  No answer.

  I step toward the living room and watch as Toby pulls out the metal F-105. He shows it to Eric, holding his palm out flat like it’s the floor of a hangar.

  Eric says, “You know, when I was a fighter pilot, there was this one time …” and he takes the plane away from Toby. Before Toby objects, Eric says, in an animated tone, “I was flying low, following the river.” He uses the plane to take a low swoop over the carpet, in a serpentine motion. Toby claps his hands.

  I can’t believe it. A week after the fact and he’s resurrecting his party spiel—with Toby this time.

  He keeps going, telling the same story about the Dragon’s Jaw, dodging enemy fire, the bomb getting stuck—only at the end, he says, “Is that how you did it?”

  Toby, smiling, takes the plane from him, evidently understanding the game without Eric having to explain it. “Fly wight over the bwidge, and … awww. Stuck.”

  “That’s right! The bomb didn’t release.” Eric takes the toy plane back. “I didn’t realize it until I tried to pull out. How about you? What do you have to do then?”

  I stand stock-still in the kitchen. I don’t know which bothers me more—the fact that he’s doing this or what he’s saying. That fight I didn’t pick after the party? It’s coming to him.

  “You have to woll out, with the bomb,” Toby says. “You have to be bwave. Like John Wahbuhson.”

  “That’s right. I was brave, and I rolled out, but you have to do it on the side that has the weight. But you knew that, right?”

  “Awound and awound.”

  I can hear Toby get up, and when I step into the living room, I see him spin with the toy plane in his hand; Thud the airplane flying around Thud the dog.

  “And then what?”

  Toby looks closely at Eric, then answers, “The smoke whooshed,” and he sticks his arms in front of him and swings them toward his chest, in a sweeping motion and continues, “and I jumped out.”

  “That’s called ejecting. You eject so you can get out before the crash.”

  Toby jumps into Eric’s chest, knocking him backward. “Ka-boom!”

  They wrestle around on the floor, laughing until Toby says, “Oh! I bwoke my weg.”

  “Which leg?” Eric asks.

  Toby slaps his left leg as he jumps up and throws his body into Eric’s. “Cwash!”

  I stand over the two of them, not saying a word. As Eric falls backward with Toby, he makes eye contact with me.

  “What the hell was that?” I mouth the words, unable to keep from flinging my arms in his direction. If I could shove him over, I would.

  “What’s up with you?”

  “Me? What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Cwash!” Toby says again.

  “I’m playing a game.” Eric picks him up and carries him into the kitchen. “And you are overreacting. Again.”

  I hate Eric’s version of the game. Just as I’m trying to observe objectively, Eric goes out of his way to initiate the game with Toby. Carla’s right. He’s making fun of me; that’s all it is. How on earth did I come to be married to a man who mocks me? Where is the logical Eric, the one who can put his emotions aside and have a sane discussion?

  Instead of Eric dismissing me out of hand, I’d like him to help me figure out how to protect Toby from otherworldly messages.

  For an entire week, Eric comes home and plays the same airplane game with Toby. And every night, I make notes and hold my metallic-tasting tongue.

  Finally, while we’re brushing our teeth one morning, I broach the topic. Because I’m brave. Like John Fucking Robberson. But I begin with a soft, roundabout approach.

  “You were sleepwalking again last night.”

  “Huh.”

  “It’s the fourth time this week.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” I spit into the sink and give him the rundown, including the previous night’s weird encounter. On both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I hadn’t realized he’d been sleepwalking until he got back into bed. But the previous night, Thursday night, I woke up and the bed was empty. When I got up to look for him, he was leaving Toby’s room. I followed him down the hallway and he stopped dead still, like he knew I was there. I stopped, too. He turned and looked right through me. No expression on his face. No recognition, but also no anger. He just started walking toward me, back to our bedroom, so I turned and walked in front of him. We got into bed without a word or a touch.

  “Weird,” he says, walking out of the bathroom. “But you know I never remember any of it.”

  “I know. But four times in one week, Eric. Are you stressed? Tense?”

  He says, “I’m tense because you’re tense. About a stupid game. If you would let it go,” he says, “then neither of us would be tense.”

  But that night, when he returns, he starts right back in again. Before I’ve even finished eating, he pulls Toby out of his booster seat and takes him to the living room. I put down my fork and shake my head. Unbelievable.

  I can hear them wrestling on the floor. “Where’s that Thud of mine?” he growls. “I feel like bombing somebody!”

  I can’t take it.

  I storm out of the house without a word. I have my phone with me for the music, not the calls. I don’t even look at his texts. Headphones in, I find a good playlist and speed-walk laps around Oasis Verde until it’s dark and I’m sure Toby is in bed.

  When I return, Eric switches the TV off and says, “Okay. You made your point. I’m sorry.”

  “All I want is to talk to you about
this. Can we do that?”

  He nods. “Come sit down. I’m listening. Can you explain to me what it is about this game that bothers you so much? I can’t believe you care how I play with Toby.”

  I join him on the sofa and take a deep breath. “It’s not the game I’m objecting to. You know Toby plays it every day with Sanjay. It’s not the game itself. I think the game has a meaning. So that’s why the part you add, where you act like you remember actually flying the plane—that’s what bothers me. It seems ironic that you won’t let it go.”

  “Ironic?”

  “You’re the one accusing me of keeping John Robberson alive,” I say.

  “Who said anything about John Robberson?”

  “Toby does! That’s the whole point. Whenever you play this game, Toby adds what he heard from you to the game, to what he thinks John Robberson said, or knows, or wants.”

  Eric closes his eyes and squeezes the bridge of his nose. He takes a long time to answer, and when he does, his voice has lost that defiant edge. “I still don’t see why this is such a big deal.”

  “Because there’s more!” I grab a pillow and pull it into my lap before I cross my legs and face him. “What about Kay? How can he know about Kay?”

  “Jeez. The way you talk about it. He doesn’t know about Kay; he made Kay up.”

  “Eric. You have to listen to me. Toby is telling the truth.”

  “What truth is that?”

  I finally tell him about the obituary of the real John Robberson. The Thud pilot. A former fire chief. With a wife named Kay. The date of his death, which happens to be the very same day as Toby’s birth.

  I’ve held it back for so long, this actual evidence, hoping against hope that he’d be persuaded. But no.

  He shifts his position, crossing his legs and facing me. “It’s nothing. A coincidence. You can find anything on the Internet. I’m not convinced that just because there was a guy named John Robberson, who was married to a woman named Kay, that it means that Toby’s John Robberson is the same guy. Think about it. Use me as an example: there are probably a thousand different Eric Buckners in the world, maybe a hundred thousand, and odds are that one of them, besides me, is married to someone named Shelly. I really think John Robberson is nothing more than a superman version of me.” He shakes his head, almost in disgust.

  I can tell I have to use a new tactic. I want to just come right out and say it, but the distance between an imaginary John Robberson/superman and a real John Robberson who died on the same day our son was born—it’s a chasm that can’t be leaped in a single bound. The room is starting to get dark, and I pause to turn on the lamp. Baby steps.

  With Jell-O for vocal chords, I say, “Just for the sake of discussion, let’s assume Toby’s John Robberson is the same one that I tracked down.”

  “Okaaaay.”

  “Either Toby is a reincarnation of John Robberson, or John Robberson is some kind of spirit that talks to Toby.”

  “Like a ghost? Are you the ghost whisperer?” He smiles. “Like that chick on TV? What was her name?”

  “Please, try to listen to me. Pretend for a minute that you don’t find this assumption both ridiculous and offensive. Can you do that?”

  “Barely. Because, ghost whisperer extraordinaire,” Eric says, “there’s no way to find out which of your ridiculous assumptions is correct.”

  “Maybe there is. Remember that researcher? I’m using the same methodology. I’m paying attention to anything he says about John Robberson. I write it down. Does he say he remembers? Or does he say John Robberson told him? What about these temper tantrums about Kay? Because no matter how many times I tell him he doesn’t have to go, he still freaks out almost every day.”

  “Not every day,” Eric objects.

  “And I write whether he says anything new about John Robberson. Like the thing with him smelling smoke and jumping out. I look at how often he adds details like that.”

  “Seriously? You have this written down somewhere? Like a journal? Dates, categorization? Direct quotes?”

  I feel my neck and cheeks go red. “Yes.”

  With an affectionate lilt in his voice, he says, “Well, I admire your scientific approach. Impressive. Very thorough. What are your preliminary findings?”

  “I think early on, I made a mistake. I may have pushed him too much for details.”

  He unfolds his legs and changes position, so I can’t see the smirk on his face as he says, “Ya think?”

  I glare at him. “So now I don’t want you to do the same thing. My findings, as you call them, are unclear. At first because of me. But now because of you. You’re contaminating the data pool. When you initiate that game with him, when you pretend to remember when you were a fighter pilot, he imitates it and adds to the game all the things he knows from when he was a fighter pilot … Do you see what I mean? I can’t tell if he is remembering something, or if he sees something, or if he’s playing along with you.”

  “So, which way are you leaning?” He leans back, hands behind his head. “Reincarnation or ghost?”

  “Ghost.”

  “Okay. Let’s say you’re right. It’s a ghost.” He takes my hands in his. “What difference does it really make?”

  “The tantrums. I think John Robberson is pressuring Toby to meet Kay face to face. And we have no idea what would happen—jeez. I don’t even want to think about that. It scares me to death.”

  He starts laughing. He reaches over and motions to Thud, who rolls on his back so Eric will scratch his belly. Eric obliges the dog, and when he’s done, Thud thinks he’s going to get to go outside. He’s at Eric’s feet with his front paws set apart, his hindquarters in the air, his tail wagging from side to side.

  “Okay, buddy,” Eric says to the dog. As he stands up, he looks over his shoulder at me. “Chill out. It’s just a game.”

  I sigh and lean back against the sofa. “No, it’s not.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  *

  YOUR MOMMA WAS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN

  Today, Lakshmi and I try out a new yoga class, held in the space behind the Oasis Verde coffee shop. They have child care, which means Toby and Sanjay can play near the urban farm’s community garden. After class, we linger over green tea.

  “Something has to give,” I say. “I need a direct line to John Robberson.”

  “Well,” Lakshmi says, “I don’t know what else you could do.”

  I take a sip of my tea and look around the coffee shop. It’s comfortably rustic and familiar … except for the guy at the counter. He’s in his mid-thirties and wearing a suit, which isn’t that unusual. It’s his hair. It’s unusually thick and slicked back, about a half inch from qualifying as a pompadour. I’m having a déjà-vu moment. Then it clicks.

  Eyes still on that hair, I say to Lakshmi, “Have you ever heard of Vaughn Redford?”

  “Who?”

  “The man who talks to people on the other side. The medium.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  In the midst of a sleepless night several months ago, I was flipping channels and came across an old television show where this thirty-something guy from the Bronx—looking like someone you wouldn’t notice on a subway, except he’s got the same near-pompadour hairdo as the man at the counter—comes into the audience and brings messages from people who have died back to their loved ones. The show is a live taping of the process. I watched the entire episode, fascinated. Back then, I would’ve put him in the same category as a street magician. But now …

  I tell Lakshmi about a woman in the audience whose son had died in a car accident. When he “came through,” he told his mother that the wreck was his fault and that she should stop blaming the kid in the car who hit his.

  She sees the value in it as a benevolent service to the grieving mother, allowing her to forgive the survivor of the accident and accept her son’s death.

  I pull out my phone and do a quick search for Vaughn Redford. Not only is he still doing perfo
rmances, I find his schedule and gasp.

  “You’re not going to believe this. He’s coming to Phoenix. Right before Memorial Day. This could be the ticket.” I squeeze Lakshmi’s hand. “Will you come with me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  That déjà-vu moment does me more good than forty-five minutes of warrior poses. On my way home, I congratulate myself. That’s the ticket, all right. It’s my chance to talk to John Robberson without risking Toby in the process. If he’s got something to say to my kid, or even through my kid, he can say it to me. Through Vaughn Redford.

  Later, in my garden, I start to ruminate on the possibilities of having a real link between this world and the spirit world … and, well, I can’t help thinking of my mom.

  What I’d give to connect with her, to see if she’s watching Toby grow up from beyond. I wonder if she’d appear to me. If I go to see Vaughn Redford, it stands to reason that the most likely person to show up for me would be my mom. I can feel my heart swell with longing. I can’t believe how much I would like to have seen the look on her face when she met Toby. She would be so proud of him.

  I have to bring Toby, of course. Otherwise, John Robberson might not show up.

  I stand up and brush the soil from my knees. I stuff the weeds into the garbage bag and spin the bag until the top twists shut. I have no idea how I’m going to break this one to Eric.

  We’re due for our monthly visit to Pa this weekend. On the way there, I mention Vaughn Redford, but Eric just snorts and we don’t talk for the rest of the drive. He doesn’t want to hear about it.

  On this visit, Toby is learning to play checkers with Pa. Every time we come, Pa has a goal for Toby. Once, it was showing him how to use a screwdriver. He’d sat outside with Toby for hours, with an assortment of screwdrivers (“This here’s a Phillips”) and a couple of two-by-fours. By the end of the weekend and prior to his third birthday, Toby knew how to use a screwdriver. Pa has no appreciation that Toby might be more likely to poke his eye out than use it correctly. I actually love this about Pa.

  But this weekend it’s checkers, and Toby’s developmental limitations are showing up. Eric rescues Pa from his grandson’s short attention span and propensity to make free jumping kings out of his checkers without regard to the rules.