Another image shot through his mind. Nail-bitten fingers, sneakily reaching down between layers of dark fabric. Warren’s stomach squeezed and bristled, and he went to his closet, gripped the sleeve of his woollen winter coat. Checked the lining. The sleeve was empty. The envelope of money he had been saving for Beth was gone.
[41]
“Oh.”
I had not expected someone else to respond to my knocking. A girl, skinny, wiry brown hair pulled into a ponytail, was smiling at me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw my neighbour’s ratty chair, covered in snow, and the bare oak tree standing in the front yard. For a moment I thought I had lost track of myself, had knocked at the wrong house.
“Sorry,” I said.
“For what? Why would you possibly feel sorry?”
She stood a little too close to me. I could smell peanut butter on her breath. “I don’t know.” Of course, I did not actually feel sorry. I had no idea why I said that. I had only wanted a hot drink, to spend some time with my elderly neighbour and have a little respectful banter. It had been six weeks since my aunt was wheeled out, and I found it exhausting to continually wear a weighted mask of grief. My neighbour forced no such condition upon me. During my first visit he asked if I was managing, I said I was, and we moved on from there. A finger’s snap, and no more fuss than that.
“Are you looking for my granddad? I’m the granddaughter, as you might have guessed. My mother is his daughter. She’s inside. We’re just visiting. Leaving soon. I think. Sometimes my mother is unpredictable.”
I blinked, pushed my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “I was just — just —”
“Lost? Confused? Tired? Bored? In a dreary state of ennui?” Rapid-fire assault.
“Um, No. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I am. The two of them have been in the kitchen talking for over an hour, talking about finances.” Quotation marks in the air with four fingers. “Totally boring. Snore! They think I have no idea what’s going on. I hear it all. Every single word. When I shut up long enough to listen, that is!” She giggled.
“Oh.”
“My mom might lose her job. If that happens, our finances,” more finger quotes, “will suck. And then life will suck. Majorly. No one is going to give me a job, I’m too young. She says we can’t live on dirt. We can’t eat dirt. That’s what people think we can do, she says. But I don’t think people think anything. Do you?”
I frowned, shook my head.
“He wants us to come live here, but she won’t. Won’t even talk about it. Why not? I don’t know. It’s a pretty cool spot, right?”
“Um. Not really.”
“And of course I have no say in the matter. I mean, like, zero. Why would someone my age possibly get a say?” Hand fluttering, eyes rolling. “Because what matters to me, doesn’t really matter. But it should matter, shouldn’t it? I should matter.” Hands in fists. “Why don’t I matter?”
Feeling dizzy, I took a step back. This rarely happened. This humming, buzzing, droning girl was overwhelming me. Sensory overload. It seemed as though I was hearing through gauze. Seeing through gauze. “You’re, um, letting in a lot of cold. I’ll go. Come back later.”
“No, don’t go. I’m bored out of my tree here. There’s no one to talk to. Let’s do something fun. Come on! Want to knock icicles?”
“What?”
“Icicles. Off the roof.” She leaned out of the door, pointed at the side of the house. “See? Those silvery spikey things are formed by the continuous freezing of dripping water. They’re called icicles.”
“I know what they are.”
“Well, I hope so! I was only joking! Did you know if they are made from salt water, they’re called brinicles?”
“I did.”
“Puh. Do stalagmites come from the ground or the ceiling?”
“Ceiling,” I replied, even though I knew the opposite was true.
“Gotcha! It’s the ground.” She wiggled then.
“Stupid me.”
“Don’t say that! Lots of people get confused. It doesn’t matter. Let’s crack off some icicles. It’ll be fun. As long as one doesn’t drop down, spear you through the top of your head. Spissshhhhh. Make a braincicle.”
Her fingers agitated the air, and I closed my eyes. An image of my aunt appeared on my inner eyelids, an icicle piercing her hair, the weapon melting, bloody wound sealing. But that was not how she died. Natural causes, the doctors had called it.
I took another step back.
“Well, hello there, friend.” My old neighbour was behind the girl now, put his hands on her shoulders, and then he smiled at me. “I thought I heard your voice. Just what is my granddaughter saying?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I had drawn a breath, she had already launched. “Nothing, Granddaddy! We’re just talking. Testing our knowledge. I think I’m smarter. Do you mind if we establish the strength of your gutters?”
“Establish away.”
She ducked, ran around him, and I heard her shuffling with boots, snow gear.
“I’m sorry,” he said to me. “She speaks without thought.”
“I don’t mind.” Though I had not yet decided whether I minded or not.
A blur of pink and brown rushed past me. I smelled damp wool.
“And there she goes,” my neighbour said. “Better run. If you want to, that is. Don’t feel obliged.”
I was grateful he had no expectations, but my curiosity made me follow her footsteps through the snow. When I found her around the corner of the house, she had a long broom in her hands, and was smacking silvery spikes. “Do you think I can’t reach you? That you’re impressive? Get down here! Boom! Gotcha!” Yes, she was actually talking to them. With each swing, a shower descended, and she would jump back and squeal.
“That’s dangerous, you know.”
“What are you? Some sort of dorky wimp? You just need to move, that’s all.” She tossed me the broom and picked up a plastic shovel. “If you get hit, you deserve to get hit. Because you’re slow and lazy. And a total idiot.”
“Hmm,” I said, and I lifted the broom, knocked a cluster of ice near a downspout. I failed to see the amusement, failed to understand the game. “This sort of ice build-up can be linked to heat loss, you know.”
“You’re kidding, right? Have you been in his house? It’s like the inside of an oven. Cooked a whole ham dinner for us right out on the countertop.”
“Really?” I did not really mean really.
“No, I’m just joking.”
That was not very funny.
“Don’t you ever laugh?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t those ones look kinda like teeth? All neat in a row?”
“Not like my teeth.”
“Not like mine, either.” She grinned, and I noticed a wide space between her two front teeth. Enough for three pennies.
“You have quite the diastema.”
“Yes! That’s me. Miss Diastema. Are you trying to impress me with the proper term?”
I shrugged again. Is she impressed?
“Did you know French people call them des dents du bonheur?”
“Happy teeth.”
“My mother says it means lucky teeth.”
“Oh.”
“I’m a walking four-leaf clover. Or a horseshoe. Or a number seven. Or a rabbit’s foot.”
“Oh.” I envisioned the rabbit, stiff in the snare, eyes without fear, a blade slicing through its joint.
“Scratch that. Who wants to be a rabbit’s foot? That’s kinda disgusting, isn’t it? I’d be covered in dirty fur and the top of my head would be all gunky where someone cut me off.” She swung the shovel at the teeth, and a spray of icicles flew down, stuck straight into the snow. “Hoo-hoooo! Good one.” She leaned on the shovel, looked at me. �
��I think my mother says they’re lucky cause we got no money to fix them.”
“Why would you want to fix them?”
“So girls don’t call me a gap-tooth hick. They can still call me a hick, but they will have to drop the gap-tooth. A step in the right direction, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone should care about someone else’s teeth. How someone else looks.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s all people care about. What type of clothes you wear or if your watch is real or if your car is falling apart, which ours just happens to be.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Stupid? Are you strange or something?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you might be strange. Just totally weirdo.”
“Um, okay.” I did not want to argue with her. Not that she would have allowed me a moment to formulate an argument.
“I like strange, though. It’s good.”
Um, okay.
She jumped, cracked off two low-hanging shards of ice, and handed me one.
“What do you want me to do with this?”
“Eat it.”
“Eat an icicle?”
“Sure. Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten an icicle?”
“No.”
Spearing the air. “You have not lived!”
“Do you know how many birds sit up on that roof?”
“Just what are you trying to say? So what? It’s full of gross stuff. Toxins and stuff, but are you a fattie?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, toxins stick in your fat. And if you got none, you’ll be fine. Eat it.”
“My brain has fat.”
“Oh yeah. Well, warning! Warning! Eating an icicle might damage your brain.” She crunched down on the ice stick, then grabbed her head, dropped into a mound of snow, cried, “My brain, my brain. My brain is shrivelling.” Then she abruptly sat up. “Does that mean if you’re on a diet, your brain loses weight? You can get a skinny brain? That’s terrible.”
I sat down beside her, tentatively licked the shard of ice. It tasted like the smell of car exhaust. Not too bad. “No.”
“How come?”
“Your brain has a certain type of cell called oligodendrocytes. They wrap around axons, which are part of the nerve cell. It’s like insulation. Those special cells are mostly made up of lipids, which is technically fat, of course, but it’s not like fat cells. The cells are structural, part of the nerve. They aren’t affected by weight loss.”
She gaped at me, silent for just a moment. “Well, now, aren’t you a smartie pants. Super-strange smartie pants.”
Was she mocking me? “Well, you asked.”
“I wasn’t making fun. I wasn’t. It’s good to know. It really is. Could you imagine if your brain shrunk? You’d have suction inside your skull. What would happen then, I wonder? Probably a terrible headache. Can you imagine if your ears got pulled in, sucked right inside your head, your whole ear? Just to alleviate the pressure. Sssslup!” She slapped the sides of her head. “Ears gone! We’d all know who was on a diet cause their ears would have disappeared. Just holes would be there. It’d be horrible. Fat women with ears would give themselves away. Their husbands would know they were sneaking cheezies. They’d be slicing off their ears to show they were trying. Making an effort. Trying to hide that they were diet cheaters. Oh God. It would be such a horrible reality. Really terrible.” Lying back in the snow. “I’m so glad the brain doesn’t lose weight. My mother’s ears would be totally gone. She’s always on a diet. Then if you gain weight, and your ears pop out again, they would probably stink, crammed up like that for months. It’s totally vile, and I can’t stop thinking about it! Argh! It won’t leave my fatty brain!”
Though my face remained still, something inside me smiled. She was overwhelming, yes, but in an emptying sort of way. When she rambled, so close to me, everything else vanished. I had not a single moment to think of anything else. Lying in the snow, staring up at the pinkish sky, tiny snowflakes drifting down, I was pleasantly vacant. In that moment, I remembered an experience I had shared with Button. When we were together, lying inside the abandoned tent, her pudgy body pressed against mine, surrounded by the insanity of the flies. This girl was like that. A million buzzing insects all tucked inside a single body.
The front door creaked, and a woman was on the front porch, bags in her hand. “Hey, you!” she called. “Butt. In. Gear. Time to hit the road.”
“Coming,” she screeched, and she gnawed down her icicle like a dog with some kind of bone. Then she shot a hunk of ice straight out of her mouth, and the wet chunk hit me in the face, just below my left eye. “Just so you remember me,” she said, grinning again.
I sat up and just stared at her. For once in my life, I did not know how to respond.
She popped over to her mother, and then ran toward the car, arms straight as though she expected the wind to lift her. Even seated in the front seat, she continued to bounce. As they were backing out of the driveway, she furiously rolled down her window, screamed out into the bitter air, “See you later, alligator!”
I tossed my icicle, walked over to my neighbour, who was standing on his front step in burgundy slippers. As I approached, he said, “You’re supposed to say, in a while crocodile.”
“What?”
“That’s what you say after.”
“Why would someone say that?”
“It’s a silly thing kids do.”
I raised my eyebrows, looked at him. “Mister. I acknowledge I’ve not reached my full stature, but I’ve never been a kid.”
He laughed. “Yes, yes. I forgot myself for a moment. Hot chocolate?”
“That would be appreciated.”
Inside his kitchen, we sat opposite each other, and sipped in comfortable silence. Then he said, “Thank you for being nice to my granddaughter.”
“You don’t need to thank me.” I found her unusual, yet could not decide whether I would rather have her roaming in a cage or trapped in glass. “I wasn’t being nice. I wasn’t being anything.”
“Well, you weren’t being mean.”
“No, Mister. I was not.”
“She’s had her share of challenges. Her mother tells me. Between you and I, of course,” I nodded here, “other kids don’t seem to take to her. She’s had problems.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her.”
“Some people are taken aback by her, well, verbal exuberance. I don’t think she can stop moving. Or talking. She even mumbles in her sleep. When she manages to sleep.”
“Maybe she’s surrounded by too much smallness.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Too many walls around her.”
“Perhaps.”
“Or maybe she’s just happy?”
“You could be right. It’s ironic, isn’t it? The sight of happiness makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Angry, even.”
A kettlebell dropped into my guts, and I pushed my nose into the mug. Inhaled the sweet scent of chocolate, miniature vanilla marshmallows. Button. I saw her playing hopscotch, blowing dandelion seeds into the air, running in tight circles as though she were chasing her invisible tail. She was happy. Through and through and through. Her happiness made her special, but it also made her vulnerable.
“Yes. It does. But then again, a lot of people are assholes.”
I decided then that I liked her. I liked my neighbour’s granddaughter a lot.
[42]
Ten-year-old Warren had been cutting through the neighbour’s wheat field, his backpack slung over his scrawny shoulders, when he saw his father off in the distance. It was the middle of the afternoon. A Wednesday in September. Hump Day, the teacher called it, and then one of the boys transformed the noun into a verb. Humping Day. They snick
ered, though Warren did not understand the humour. When he offered up Humpback Whale Day, everyone just stared at him. Humpty Dumpty Day? They shook their heads.
His father was rushing toward him, moving quickly, the distance between them closing. Warren felt his heart flutter with excitement. He had news to share with his father. Wonderful news. Only moments earlier, he had gotten his math test back, and he had earned not 90 percent, not 100 percent, but a whole 106 percent. Not only did he get every question correct, the bonus question had hiked his grade past perfection. A band of pride encircled his chest, and when he saw his father ripping his way through the wheat, Warren started to run, screaming, “Hey, Dad! Guess what? Guess what?”
As he came closer, he saw that his father was not rushing, but stumbling. His tall frame like a quivering stalk, plaid shirt open, face whitish grey. He wore no shoes, only a pair of knitted socks on his feet. The Feed ’n Seed ball cap that normally covered his head was missing, and the hair on his head was thin, scalp glistening in the sunlight.
“Dad?”
Knees buckled, and his father fell to the ground. “War? Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me.” The band of pride burst, and his lungs filled with salty fear.
Reaching upwards, his father whispered, “Take my fingers. Can you feel my hand? Can you? Can you?”
Warren gripped the bones. “Yes, dad. Yes. I’ve got it. It’s in mine. I got your hand.”
“But can you feel it? Son? Can you feel me?”
“I’m squeezing it now, Dad. Squeezing it hard. Super-duper hard.”
His father arched his neck backward, face contorted like an animal in a snare, and all at once his expression looked rife with fury, sadness, desperation. Warren could not tell, but the sight of his father made him feel like his body was being pulled, sucked toward something dangerous, as though he were too close to the tracks, train barrelling past.
Warren suddenly wanted to sit on a toilet.
“What’s wrong? Dad. What’s wrong?” Relaxed his grip. “Did I hurt you? Is it your fingers? Dad? Did I break your fingers?”
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