by Amy Faye
I could stop going to school, but that’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. If I’m not going to chase down the future, then I don’t need to plan much at all. I can survive. I can make sure that there’s food on the table. I can get by. I’ve had plenty of practice.
The reality is, though, that I’m not sure that I see where I can succeed without a plan. Without something big changing, there’s no plan at all. So right now, I have to wait for something to come along.
The problem is… well, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I have one option, and one option only. I need something to change, and every change looks like the one that’s going to be the big one for me. If it’s nowhere close, then it fades into the background.
Dave being here at all isn’t a big change. Dave expressing any sort of interest in me is. And it’s oh so tempting to hear something in it that isn’t there. But I know better than to believe in it. At least, I tell myself I know better. But the reality is, I probably don’t. I would probably walk right back into that trap again without a moment’s hesitation, and there would be nothing stopping me except good sense.
I’ve proved twice now that I don’t have any of that. Not when it comes to Dave Collins. Because he’s my way out, in a way. If he were interested, and I know better than to believe that he is, then it would answer a lot of questions. Whatever he’s out there doing, he could do it here. Having a place to stay without needing to spend half your paycheck keeping it is a big, big margin of breathing room.
I let out a long breath. But I don’t have room for a leap of faith. I know better than to believe that’s even remotely possible. Or at least, I hope that I do. But I could be mistaken.
I could jump right back into it and that would be the biggest mistake of all.
Thirteen
Dave
I rubbed my head and pushed myself out of bed again. It didn’t hurt as much any more. I didn’t know if that was because I was healing, or because the last round of painkillers kicked in, but I was happy with either one, as long as I could walk without seeing God. The first stop was the reason that I put myself to the test in the first place. The bathroom. It’s on the way out the door anyways, thankfully.
The other reasons that I left made me want to take as many excuses as I could find to delay, anyways. After all, I tend to believe people when they tell me that I don’t want to go someplace. When they say that I don’t want to know. I’m inclined to buy it, even if it’s not necessarily very good.
The problem is that I don’t get to pretend that’s how it works. I ran away for my whole life. This was the first time that I had an experience that made me stand and stay. If I was going to regret it then I was going to regret it, but I wasn’t about to let myself run into that kind of trouble if I could help it.
I didn’t have to put myself away, thanks to the wonders of hospital gowns. They’re delightfully uncomfortable, but the one thing that I have to give them credit for is that they don’t leave much work to do once you get finished in the bathroom. I just adjust the underwear that I’m being allowed, wash my hands, and away I go.
The feeling in my leg was worse than I had initially realized. I wanted to ignore it. But even I sometimes make mistakes. I could just go back, though. I wanted to find an excuse not to go out more than I wanted to ignore the pain, but in spite of myself it wasn’t a choice. Not really. I had to go, and I had to be strong.
There was a little voice in the back of my mind that was telling me that none of it was important. I didn’t have to think about anything. I didn’t have any responsibilities here. I had come back for the funeral, but that didn’t mean that I suddenly owed anyone anything.
I didn’t have to prove that I could stick around through tough situations, because I was just going to leave again in a few days, once I was out of the hospital.
Another voice, a vague feeling in my gut, said that I wanted to stay. It was wrong. At least, I told myself that it was wrong, and I believed it. There was no reason that I ought to stay, and there was no reason that anyone would want me to stay.
I’d only ever been trouble for my parents, only ever been trouble for my friends, and Laura was better off without me. People can get by without a man around. I’ve seen people in worse situations getting by without any trouble.
And in the army I saw plenty of people who just made the lives of everyone around them harder. Fight too much, and you bring everything down on your head. Could I really stop? Really settle down? No, I didn’t think so.
So there was no reason to think that I had to force myself to go see what it was that had Laura so freaked out about Mom. She would tell me when the time to worry had passed, if I was still around to see it. Until then, I had to focus on my own recovery.
But as much as I told myself that I wanted to leave, that I had no problem with it, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay, and I wanted to prove that I could be reliable. At least a little bit. At least kind of.
Sometimes, being reliable means that you have to let someone else carry your weight for you, even though you would rather be independent. Sometimes, it means the exact opposite. You have to prove that you can carry your weight and let other people have a rest.
My gut tells me that this is one of the times that I have to carry my weight if I want to be here any more without causing everyone a whole lot of heartache.
I take a step. God, I’m tired. I could just turn away. The other side of the hospital is only a few hundred yards, but I have to take another rest. God. It was the car accident that did it to me. It wasn’t that I was afraid, and it wasn’t that I was weak-willed. I could do whatever I set my mind to, whatever needed doing. I just had to prove it.
There was another long moment of hesitation. I could leave now. Last chance. The room was at the end of the hall. There was a door, but just like most of the doors in the hospital, it was sitting open. Like it was waiting for me. Inviting me in.
It had been impossibly scary to come home and find her like that on the floor. She was alright, wasn’t she? She was going to be fine. Mom was a strong woman, and she could handle anything that life threw at her. She’d handled me when nobody else could. A little thing like a fall? At her age? It was fine. She was only fifty-two. That’s not the age where a fall starts meaning something really worrying.
I sucked in a breath and crossed the threshold into the room. It smelled the same as every other part of the hospital, thick with the stink of iodine and medicine. The bathroom door was shut, and I leaned on it for support. Then I forced my legs under me and stepped again, further in.
She was sitting up, the hospital blankets pulled up to her waist. Her eyes were closed, and I wasn’t sure at first whether that was because she was asleep or she was just resting her eyes. Or perhaps… no, it was better not to think about that. Besides, right next to her, the machines beeped a steady, severe rhythm. Beep, beep, beep, beep. The line on the machine ticked with every beep.
She didn’t move when I came in further. I settled into my seat, and spoke very softly. “Mom?”
She snored in response and I laid back in the chair by the bed. It was wide enough for a very heavy person to sit comfortably. I found it to be an uncomfortable lounge. But it was what I had.
I waited for her to wake up, my hands folded in my lap. There was a lot to think about. A lot to worry about. And there were a lot of things that I had to decide for myself. So in a sense, a long silence was exactly what the doctor ordered.
What had happened with Laura since I’d left? She was like a completely different person. Eight years was a long time. Long enough to change anyone. And out of high school, a lot can change in a hurry. But this was something else entirely.
It was like something had changed her whole view on life. I knew dimly what it was, or at least what I thought it was. Charlie was a good kid. Tough enough to get by on his own, but at the same time, he was dependent on adults to let him know that he was doing alright.<
br />
He wanted to act tough, act aloof, but deep down, he was a kid, like any other. Even some stranger that had stepped into his life for the space of only a few hours was someone he was trying to posture enough to impress. In spite of myself, he’d succeeded with me.
But then again, what did I know? He was just a kid, and a kid that I knew nothing about. A kid who had someone else’s time and someone else’s genes. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I shouldn’t have been thinking about any of this.
After all, the first thing that I needed to learn was that there was no future for Laura and I, because she wasn’t interested. She was drunk, and I took advantage. That doesn’t mean that she wants to date, and it certainly doesn’t mean that she wants me to move back into town and make a big mess of her life.
That would just be par for the course at that point, but I couldn’t put the thought out of my mind entirely.
I’d have to solve a bunch of problems, that was clear. But I had time. At least, I thought I had time. I hoped I had time. As long as I don’t get into any more car accidents, maybe.
A voice tore me out of my thoughts. Mom slurred when she spoke, like she was drunk. “Dave? Are you okay? You look hurt.”
Fourteen
Laura
Charlie’s face when he came out of the school was the first unexpected part of my day, assuming that I didn’t count the 1-in-the-morning phone call. The second was still to come, when I went inside.
Most days, I waited for him to come to me. After all, I had no business inside the school. My responsibilities were all at the house. But today I had to go inside, so I’d always planned to get out.
Thoughts of how to efficiently route going through the building and getting a few minutes of face-time with the teacher fled my mind as I walked over.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
I sucked in a deep breath and tried to tell myself that there was nothing to worry about. After all, there were a thousand things that could go wrong, but relatively few of them were really something to worry about. Right?
Charlie pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“Come on, Momma’s got to go back inside and talk to Mrs. Val, okay?”
I grabbed his hand and started walking towards the school. He pulled back against me. I turned and looked at him.
“Did something happen at school?”
“No,” he said. But something had happened somewhere. That much was clear, at least.
“Well I have to go talk to Mrs. Val, so…”
“Can I wait in the car?”
I’d hoped that I could get him to tell me what had him so upset, or to move past it, by just trying to keep going with what I needed to do. At the very least, I hoped that I might be able to get some clue, even if he wouldn’t say out loud what had happened. Maybe I could make a good guess.
I took a deep breath. “Of course, baby. You promise you’re alright?”
“You have to be careful, okay?”
I raised my eyebrow. “I’ll be careful. Why, are you worried about something?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, and made a face. The face said first and foremost that he wasn't’ going to talk about it; the rest was just a lot of things I guessed at. I didn’t know what to think. But if he wasn’t going to tell me, then I wasn’t going to push it.
“Okay, sweetie.” I clicked the button to unlock the door, and he climbed into the back. “Keep the door locked, okay?”
He nodded and I clicked the button to re-lock them, and shut the door. He was buckling himself into the rear passenger-side seat when I turned away to head inside.
A boy looked at me as I walked. He was nine, maybe. The same age as Charlie, or a little older. He had a look on his face that I would have expected from a kid that was a little older. Like he was looking at a woman, not just a mom. I brushed it off. After all, he was nine.
I recounted the classrooms in my mind. I’d been here in the first couple of days, and it was still going to be a couple of weeks before the trimester ended and I had a meeting with the teacher to discuss performance.
At least, I hoped so. I couldn’t imagine that it seemed like he was doing well at home and then he was doing that poorly in class. And if he was doing exceptionally well, then I would imagine that could wait the three weeks for parent-teacher conferences.
Halfway down the hall, on the right, a room said ‘Mrs. E. Valentin’ on it. The door was open and I invited myself inside.
“Hello?” There was a woman, perhaps a foot shorter than me, as thin as I had been in high school. She could have fit into my pocket, it felt like. She smiled, her grin wide. She had ears that made her wide face seem even wider. I noted with some displeasure that she had a ring on her finger, one that I most certainly didn’t have.
“Oh, hi. Can I help you?”
I furrowed my eyebrows in an attempt to look as dumb as possible. In my experience, when you’re intruding into someone’s space, the first and most important thing to do is to make sure that you look like you made a mistake somehow.
“I think I got an email from you yesterday? I’m, uh, Charlie’s mom.”
The chairs were all arrayed out through the room around islands of tables pushed together into three large clusters. She settled into it, and though it was sized for someone who hadn’t yet found out what the real differences between boys and girls were yet, she didn’t seem to be dwarfing it the way I’d expect.
“Oh, hi. Yeah. Do you have a minute to talk?”
I’m here, aren’t I? I kept myself from saying that. She sounded as sincere as anyone I’ve ever heard, which seems to be a constant trait of elementary school teachers. “Charlie’s waiting in the car, but yeah. I can wait.”
“How’s he doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how does he act at home? Does he seem to be enjoying class?”
“I mean, it’s not like he’s coming home bragging about it, or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t know. He does he homework, and we talk about it if there’s anything that he’s not understanding. Does that answer your question?”
“I guess what I’m asking is, does he seem to like it here? Has he talked to you about any friends, or anything?”
I thought about it. I couldn’t think of a specific time that he had. Then again, I couldn’t think of a specific time that he hadn’t, either. Was I just not paying attention to the right things? I didn’t think of myself as a bad mother, but maybe I was stretched too thin.
“I can’t think of anything, I’m sorry. Is there a specific reason you’re asking, or…?”
“Well, I’m just having some… trouble, maybe. That might not be the right word. I’m just seeing a little bit of what I’m worried might be… negative behavior.”
“From Charlie?”
“Oh, no! Not at all. He’s a darling.” Elizabeth Valentin’s wide monkey ears made her smile seem that much wider. Like a cartoon character, almost.
“So, what, then?”
“Well, I don’t know. He seems to get very upset sometimes, playing with his friends. He assures me, and all of them assure me, that it’s all just friendly fun and games, but…”
“But you’re worried it’s not?”
“I don’t know what else to think. I’d think it’s bullying, but if he says it’s all just between friends, then…”
“And what about these other kids? What do they say?”
“Of course they’re going to deny it, aren’t they?” The teacher smiled sadly. “I just don’t know what to do, and I wanted to see if you’d noticed anything.”
I played back the past several weeks in my mind. I couldn’t think of a time that I’d heard him say anything good about something that had happened at school. I couldn’t think of anything bad, either, so on the balance it was even, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just missing something.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t noticed anything. Did you w
ant me to talk about it with him?”
“I don’t suppose it would be a bother?”
I took a deep breath. No, it wouldn’t be a bother. The bother was that I didn’t know about it sooner. “No problem,” I said.
I forced a smile for a moment before I started towards the door. I hoped that it looked convincing, and Mrs. Val didn’t show any sign that she was worried. But the truth was, I had a lot to think about. And a lot to talk to my son about.
Which presented me with the second really big surprise of the day when I went back to the car, because he wasn’t in his seat when I got there.
Fifteen
Dave
I never liked having a wireless phone. It was just a waste of money for me. Something I didn’t want and didn’t need. Something I didn’t use much, if ever. That didn’t mean that I didn’t have one, though. Because there was always the possibility that I got stranded somewhere, and then I needed to be able to call a taxi or something.
So I had one, in spite of myself. It was too damn expensive, but it didn’t rely on cell towers. It was some kind of satellite model, which could have been a lifesaver if I were ever in the wilderness. I barely kept it charged. I had a second, to spite myself even more, because no matter how much I hated having it, I had to be able to take calls inside.
The second one rang by my bed as I laid there, too tired for words and wanting to go back to sleep. The painkillers hadn’t kicked in, not really. Not until I’d gotten back to my room. Because that was when I finally started feeling as if someone had struck a blow about my head and I could barely keep my eyes open.
I forced myself to, though, as best as I could. There was no reason that I needed to sleep the whole day away, and even less reason for me to be up all night, and there was no way that I was going to be sleeping for the next eighteen hours so that I woke with the sun.
