“Sure,” Wes said. “Maybe. Thanks for everything you did.”
“No worries. We had a pretty good summer. A few exceptions here and there. I was hoping to say good-bye to Henry.”
Wes dropped his cigarette in the dirt and ground it out with the toe of his boot. He exhaled smoke, turned, and cupped both hands around his mouth.
“Henry! Come say bye to the man!”
Then they waited. And waited. And waited.
Henry never came out.
“You shouldn’t be sad, August,” Seth said.
They stood in the dirt by the driver’s-side door of the rig. It was becoming increasingly obvious that it was time for August to get in and drive.
“You’re not sad?”
“Yeah. I am. But you shouldn’t be.”
“Now why is that?”
“Because I don’t want you to be sad.”
August heard a thin whimper and looked over his shoulder to see Woody in the driver’s seat, paws up on the glass.
“Speaking of sad . . . he’s going to miss you boys like crazy.”
“I don’t want to think about that, August.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
August gave Seth a fast hug and climbed into the driver’s seat, pushing Woody out of the way. “Take care of your brother.”
“I will. I always do.”
Then Seth turned and walked back toward the house, purposely kicking up dirt with the toes of his shoes. Woody jumped onto August’s lap and watched him go in silence. Then he jumped down into his bed between the seats, ready for the trip.
August started the engine and drove slowly over the rutted dirt toward the road. Before he even reached the end of the lot, he heard his name called, faintly in the distance.
“August!”
It wasn’t Seth’s voice. And it wasn’t Wes.
Woody ran to the back door, whining. August braked and looked in his side-view mirror. Henry was running after the rig. He stepped on the footbrake, threw the door wide. Jumped down into the dirt and the heat, the engine still running.
When Henry caught up, he leapt into August’s arms much the way Woody often did. Except August had to be more careful to keep from being bowled over backwards.
“I’m sorry Woody could’ve got eaten by coyotes, August,” Henry said in a great whispery rush into August’s ear.
“That’s in the past. Why didn’t you come out and say good-bye?”
“I thought if I said good-bye you’d go.”
“You knew I had to go, Henry. I have to get back to work.”
“It was dumb. I’m sorry.”
He jumped down, kicking up dirt when he landed. He walked over to the open door of the rig. Reaching up on his tiptoes, he hugged Woody and kissed him on the ear.
August said, “Maybe I’ll come back and see you on my way out of town next summer. If it’s okay with your dad.”
“It won’t be,” Henry said. “Bye, August.”
And he waved.
August stood frozen a moment, searching for choices. But he had only one. Wave back and drive away.
So that’s what he did.
August should have been able to make it home in six or seven hours. But he didn’t. Because he didn’t even try. Fatigue overcame him, and he couldn’t figure out if it was physical or emotional in origin. Or maybe he didn’t have enough energy to care.
He pulled into a Walmart parking lot in one of those California desert towns that look just like all the other California desert towns. It was only four thirty in the afternoon, and the parking lot was busy and noisy. So he parked at the very farthest, most remote corner. But it was still busy and noisy enough. He pulled the curtains and almost immediately fell asleep on the couch, with all his clothes on.
When he woke up, it was dark. And fairly quiet. He squinted at his watch face, which faintly glowed. It was a little after nine. And now he felt wide awake.
He took Woody out to pee, then checked his cell phone for messages. He had none. He hit number two on the speed dial of his phone, which was still his ex-wife, Maggie. After all this time. She picked up on the second ring.
“Maggie,” he said, thinking he should have thought this call out much more carefully before making it.
“August? My God. What are you doing calling?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Should, shouldn’t. I just know you never did before. You know. Not never, but . . .”
“Right. I wanted to ask you a question about Phillip.”
A long silence on the line. August wondered briefly if she had been drinking. At this hour of the evening, most likely yes. She sounded fine. But then she always did. She always had.
“What makes you think I knew something about him you didn’t?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m just looking for a different perspective. Or maybe just perspective, period. Any perspective at all.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice tight. “Try me.”
“I know he never acted like much of a thrill seeker. But did he have a sense of adventure that he just wasn’t acting out?”
“I have no idea how to make heads or tails out of that question.”
“Would he have wanted to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel? I mean, in some mythical world where he would be absolutely assured of survival.”
“August . . . to borrow an expression from our late son . . . that is one weird-ass question.”
“Is it? I think I’ve lost the ability to even judge.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No! No, I still haven’t had a drink for . . . well, coming up on two years pretty soon here.”
An awkward silence.
Then she said, “That’s good, August. Good for you. I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you. I guess it’s okay if you don’t have an answer. Maybe there isn’t one.”
August pulled up the shade slightly to investigate a roaring noise, like an airplane taxiing through the Walmart parking lot. Instead he saw an employee cleaning up trash with a leaf blower. He stuck a finger in his free ear.
“I’ll give you an answer if you want, August, but it’s only my answer. It may be accurate or it may not. I think everybody would like to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel if they could be magically assured they wouldn’t die. The reason people don’t do things like that is because they don’t want to die. Not because it doesn’t sound like fun. I think Phillip had a pretty good sense of adventure, but he’d seen us run into a few brick walls, so he was cautious. Take away that caution, I think he would have climbed into that barrel in a heartbeat. He had his moments. Remember the toboggan incident?”
“I don’t.”
“You must. Before we moved west. His friend Frankie. And that hill that dumped right out onto the highway.”
“Oh God. That. Yeah. But there were no toboggans involved with that.”
“Well, so they were using cardboard for toboggans. What’s the difference? It was foolhardy. Although . . . I was never entirely convinced that he knew about the highway connection in advance.”
“If he hadn’t known, wouldn’t he have said he hadn’t known? In his own defense?”
“You know he always misplaced his tongue when anybody was mad at him. Now come on. Really, August. What’s this all about?”
“I was just thinking about it since we put a few of his ashes in the Yellowstone River just above the waterfalls.”
“We? You’re seeing someone? Good for you.”
“No. It’s not like that. I had somebody else’s kids with me this summer. It’s . . . kind of a long story.”
Silence for a time. It took August a minute to realize she was waiting for him to say something more.
“Is that really all you called to say?”
“No,” he said. And it was the first he had heard of it. Just as it came out of his mouth.
“Didn’t think so.”
“I owe you an amends.”
“For . . .”
“I drove plenty of times with him in the car. With . . . you know . . . not huge amounts of alcohol in my system, but some. Enough.”
“But you weren’t driving when something bad happened.”
“But I could have been.”
“But you weren’t.”
“But it’s not to my credit that I wasn’t. That’s what I’m trying to say. There’s no real difference between your situation and mine. Luck, is all.”
“You never said anything to make me feel otherwise.”
“No.”
“Are you saying you felt it, though?”
“I’m saying I was careful not to. It was an effort. I don’t know how to put it any better than that.”
“Listen. August,” she said, her voice hardening. “It’s very big of you to call and . . . no, you know what? I’m sorry. I’m being defensive out of force of habit. It really was nice of you to call and tell me it could just as easily have been you. I appreciate that. But it still wasn’t.”
“I know.”
“And you have no idea how I feel.”
“I never claimed to.”
“But anyway, thanks.”
“Sure,” he said. “Least I could do.”
Then they said good-bye.
August couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter how hard he tried. So he drove.
Chapter Seven:
IT WON’T BE
It was close to ten at night, and August sat in a coffee shop postmeeting with Harvey. It was a place that served breakfast twenty-four hours a day if you wanted it. August was having a Denver omelet. Harvey was drinking cup after cup of coffee. How he managed to do that so late at night August could never fathom. Did he sleep? And if so, how?
August had school in the morning. His first day of the new school year. That fact sat in his stomach, feeling a little queasy and sour. He probably should have skipped the talking and gone for the sleep. And yet he was talking.
“So the last thing he said to me . . .”
“Which one?”
“Henry. The little one. I’d just said, ‘Maybe I’ll come visit you guys on my way out of town next year. If it’s okay with your dad.’ And just really casually he said, ‘It won’t be.’ ”
“I’m sure he’s right,” Harvey said.
Harvey had jet-black hair slicked back with some product that made it look wet. He was older than August by a good fifteen or twenty years and had recently had several skin cancers removed from his forehead and jaw, slightly marring a face that was otherwise aging-movie-star handsome, but in a distinctly old-fashioned way. Like the face of a silent-movie star. Except he was rarely silent.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true. And even a seven-year-old can figure it out.”
“I would think he might respect the bonds we formed.”
“Right. Because he’s such a deeply respectful person. Open your eyes a little here. Look at the thing this way: he’s under no obligation to respect the relationship between you and his kids. And he doesn’t want to. So he won’t. You’ve seen him in a very bad light. And his kids have seen there’s a better way. He feels inferior to you. So my guess is he’ll try to wipe away the evidence that anybody named August ever existed in his life.”
“Seth will still keep in touch with me.”
“Hopefully.”
“You never tell me what I want to hear, Harvey.”
“Right. I don’t. It’s not my job to tell you what you want to hear. It’s my job to point out what is. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. But you might want to be open to the idea that the closeness you shared with those boys was more situational than anything else. Seems big now, but people get on with their lives. They don’t have much choice. This is a big deal to you, isn’t it? Why is this such a big deal to you? Did you forget these were someone else’s kids?”
“Not exactly.”
“Making you feel the loss of Phillip all over again?”
“Or for the first time.” Then August stopped cold and listened to the silent but tangible echo of those words. Once again he had surprised himself by saying something he didn’t know he knew. “That sounds weird, huh?”
“Not really.”
“Really?”
“Really not really. You just said yourself I never tell you what you want to hear. It’s been not quite two years. People think two years is long enough, but not for a big loss like that one. It tends to go through in phases. This is not just you, it’s everybody. It’s just human. The truth is not exactly that you’re feeling it for the first time, even though I can understand how it might feel that way. The truth is that giving those kids back is making you feel the loss at a new level. In a new way. Here’s my advice: don’t cling to your bond with those boys. You’ll only be hurting yourself. Make up your mind that it was a one-time thing. That they’ll promise to keep in touch, but they won’t. Make your peace with that. Then, if you get to keep talking to them or seeing them, it’ll be a happy surprise.”
August was working on his class notes at the dining-room table the first time his laptop rang. It sounded just like a phone, but not like his phone. He could tell it was coming from the computer, but it had never rung before, and he had no idea what to do about it.
It wasn’t until the fourth ring that he noticed the Skype icon jumping up and down. He clicked on it and immediately saw Seth’s face in a pop-up window, dimly lighted and slightly distorted from Seth’s leaning in so close to the screen.
He’d had Skype for over a week, and he’d wanted to call the boys, but Seth said it was better to wait and let him call. He didn’t say why, but August had a pretty good idea.
“I can see you!” August said, a bit surprised by the level of joy in his own voice.
Seth frowned. “I can’t see you. Turn your camera on, August. You do have a camera, don’t you?”
“I’ve never used it before, but I know I do. How do I get it to come on?”
“See that little icon that looks like an eye? Does it have a circle around it and a line through it?”
“It does, yeah.”
“Click on it.”
August clicked, and the icon changed.
“I see you now,” Seth said. “Hey, Henry. I got August. Come say hi.”
Henry’s tentative face appeared over his brother’s shoulder, and he waved silently.
August felt Woody’s front paws on his thigh, and he looked down. The dog was curious about the familiar voices. Or just voices in the otherwise empty room. August wasn’t sure if a dog could recognize a voice through electronics. He reached down and lifted Woody into his lap.
“Woody!” both boys said almost in unison.
Woody cocked his head to one side, and the boys both laughed.
Then Seth said, “Nothing. I’m doing my homework.”
The pop-up window froze, then disappeared. The call had ended.
August tried to go back to his class notes, but his mind was too active, too distracted. He got up and made himself a sandwich, brought it back to the table, and checked e-mail. It was all junk except for an e-mail from Maggie that he couldn’t bring himself to open just yet.
The computer rang again and he jumped to answer the call. Seth’s face appeared on the screen again.
“Sorry, August. My dad came in the room.”
“So, he literally can’t know I’m in touch with you at all?” August asked, thinking he sounded a bit too much like a resentful child.
Henry’s face appeared over Seth’s shoulder again. Again, a silent wave.
“Maybe just for a while,” Seth said. “He’s in the worst mood. Isn’t that right, Henry?”
Henry answered by pinching his nose closed with his thumb and forefinger.
“Very stinky mood,” Seth said.
“But you’re okay with him . . . right?”
“Well, he’s not violent, if that’s what you mean. He just yells a lot and he always seems aggravated. He
tells us we’re aggravating him about twenty times a day. Yesterday it was so bad I swear I almost thought about taking his ID and going and buying him some liquor. I didn’t of course. But it was tempting. Just today Henry said to me how much better it would have been if we could’ve just gone to stay with you in San Diego until December.”
Henry nodded silently. Solemnly.
“Turns out he’s much nicer when he’s drinking than when he’s not. But I shouldn’t talk about him, because I sure wouldn’t want him to hear me. The pictures are so great, August. I took ’em to school, and my teacher let me show ’em like a slide show to the whole class, and I stood up and told what everything was and what we did there. I’m like a rock star now. Everybody is so jealous. Even the kids that get to go places. Like Randy Simmons. He got to go to the Grand Canyon last summer. Lots of the kids get to go one place on vacation. But nobody I know ever got to go all those places in the same summer. It’s like a vacation to everywhere. Everyone is so jealous. But not really in a bad way. Well, not with most of ’em.”
A brief silence fell. And before it ended, August heard a knock on his front door. Which struck him as odd. Because he wasn’t expecting anyone. And no one ever showed up at his house unannounced, because everyone knew he was not the sort to tolerate it.
“Someone’s at my door,” he said.
“Oh, that’s okay, August, we’ll talk later.”
“I hate to cut this short. I’ve been wanting to talk to you boys.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just call back soon.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely. I promise. Go get the door.”
Then the image of Seth froze and disappeared. And August felt as though a little piece of himself, a chunk of aliveness in his gut, disappeared with it. Like a small flame snuffed out.
He crossed the house to the door, already angry at whoever might be on the other side of it. He threw the door open wide to find his ex-wife standing on the doorstep. She’d cut her hair. It had always been shoulder length, now it was decidedly short. She’d also stopped coloring it, leaving it shot through with gray. Which looked fine to August and left him wondering why it hadn’t always been. Her sudden presence made it feel hard to swallow.
Take Me With You Page 19
