“Do you want me to keep an eye on your place while you’re at the hospital?”
“You can,” he said, then he edged forward, grunted in pain. “But if my hip is fractured, I won’t be coming back.”
“Never?”
“Don’t know. But I will tolerate my treatment. I promise you. I’m no horse. Won’t thrash in my stall.”
“Do you think it’s broken?”
“I do.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know for certain though, my friend. Don’t worry, okay?”
“Will you live with her?”
“My daughter? No, no. Never. I don’t want to interrupt her life.”
“Smart,” I said.
He tucked his head into his chest, sighed. “The tree first, and now me. Fallen.”
“Yeah.” I brought my hand to my mouth, chewed the curling skin beside my thumbnail.
“I was sorry to see that happen, you know. It hurt.”
“Yep.”
“It mostly belonged to you, didn’t it? If we’re honest here, and this is a good time for that. A bit of honesty. Even though it rented a space on my lawn. That tree. You’ve loved it ever since you were a tiny child. If trees could walk, I’d have evicted that thing, told it to uproot its barky duff and go over to your front yard. Settle in to watch you grow up.”
“Really?”
“Without a scrap of indecision.”
My throat tightened. A strange and unpleasant sensation. “Thank you, Mister.”
He reached his bluish fingers out, and I touched his hand. His warm skin did not feel disgusting.
“They’ll be here soon,” I told him.
With his eyes closed, he said, “I know.”
“I should open the front door.”
“Yes.”
I stood up. Then my neighbour said something that made me feel slightly disturbed.
“You’ve got a good heart, you know.”
I stopped moving. So many colourful images flickering inside my mind. Things I had done. Things I wanted to do. “No, Mister, no.”
“I may be a decrepit old fossil, but I’m wise,” he said. “Don’t argue with me.”
And the doorbell rang.
The paramedics were the same who had taken away my aunt, but they did not recognize me. Instead, they thanked me for my competency, hoisted my neighbour onto a padded gurney, packed blankets and pillows around his body to keep him stable. They wheeled him out the door. His eyes remained closed, skinny fingers wiggling in my direction. Goodbye, those birch twigs were saying, goodbye. And I knew I would never see him again.
Though I maintained his grass and shrubbery, his house remained locked up. Even with my vigilance, some bastard stole the wicker chair from his front step. Then one day, a sunny day, I noticed a car parked in the driveway. Without my tree trunk in the way, I had a clear view from my bedroom window. I saw the old man’s daughter emerge from the driver’s side, her daughter explode out of the passenger side. They rummaged in the trunk, hauled out overstuffed suitcases, lugged them up to the house, and unlocked the door. Those suitcases did not look like a visit. Those suitcases looked like a here-to-stay.
Within forty-five minutes, there was someone at the side door of my house, tapping on the metal. I went there, stared at her through the screen. She wore a pale yellow sundress with thick straps tied over her bony shoulders. There were tiny buds on her chest, hiding just underneath the fabric. I could see them, but I did not stare. Her face was tanned, nose and cheeks covered in precise black freckles. Threads of her hair, which was full of static, glinted in the air like spider-webbing.
“Do you remember me?” Her words were little bells.
I shrugged.
“My mom changed her mind. We’re going to live here now. My granddad is in a home. For old people. Really old people. He’s okay, though. He likes it there. Lots of books, he said. He says hi, okay? And then my mom, well, she lost her job. Ugh. Remember I told you about that? We knew it was going to happen, so it’s not unexpected. No surprises. But it’ll be okay. She says that a thousand times a day, which is kinda annoying. Kinda makes me wonder. If it’s okay or not.” She clicked the heels of her shoes together. “Do you — do you want to go and do something?”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. Anything. We could do anything. Besides icicles.” She grinned, and I saw the wide gap in her teeth. Her diastema.
I held up a finger, then turned and rushed upstairs to my mother’s room. She was getting ready for an afternoon doing — I did not know.
“There’s someone there,” I said. “At the door.”
“For me?” I detected anxiety in her tone.
“No. Me.”
“Oh?”
“A girl. Wants to do something.”
“A girl? For you? Well, well. Someone from school?”
“No. Someone else. I don’t know. What do I say?”
“Just go out,” she replied, as she daubed lipstick on her upper lip. “Pal around.”
“But I don’t know how.” To pal around.
“Try. It’s not that hard.” Glancing at me over the upper rim of her glasses. “I bet you can figure it out.”
And it was as simple as that. On a sunny afternoon in June, a very nice thing happened to me. I made a friend. That is not a word I have often used before or often used since. As can be inferred, I take my friendships very, very seriously.
[48]
Gordie was gone when he woke up from a deep sleep. As he sat up, every joint ached, and he felt as though his bones had been squeezed through a machine. Dry and deflated. At least his headache had subsided.
Warren went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. There were new containers of milk and orange juice on the middle shelf, a hunk of yellow cheese, a plastic bag filled with bread, and a can of meat. Four green apples and an enormous underripe tomato. His first thought was of Nora, but then he realized she was working all weekend. Doing inventory. Gordie must have slipped out and returned with groceries as he slept.
Then Warren saw a note. Fish and the Steve-man are fed. Look after yourself. Warren shook his head. Gently. Did not understand the source of this kindness. He lifted the bottle of orange juice, drank straight from the bottle. Then he boiled his electric kettle and poured water over two scoops of instant coffee.
Seated at the kitchen table, he slurped the acrid liquid, and opened a folder containing notes for his science lessons. While preparing for his substitute role, he had created such careful lessons. He should have passed the folder along to Ms. Fairley. Or the next teacher. Warren was aware it was unlikely he would ever return to the school.
After reading the same line several times, the words blurring together, he decided he needed to move. To do something. He stared into his backyard. Garbage still blowing about, though the jacket and mitten he had seen earlier had disappeared. He could hear a piece of wood banging against the side of the house. He would need a black garbage bag for the trash. A screwdriver and some screws for the fence. He would not be able to repair it, but he could make sure it did not get worse.
As he stood, a jackhammer sounded inside his home. Warren grabbed both sides of his head, startled. His glasses fell to the floor. It took him a moment to realize it was only the phone. Someone was trying to reach him. Hesitantly, he picked it up, brought the receiver close to his ear, but not touching.
“It’s me,” her voice said. “I — I thought I would try again.”
“Sarie.”
“I was harsh when we spoke last time. When I shared the news about your mother. It was not the right way to do it.”
Warren’s throat closed.
“None of this is easy, War.”
He bent, picked his glasses up, held them hard against his face.
“I just wanted to try ag
ain,” she continued. “Hoping to see if you’d come.”
“I don’t know.” He had been so full of anger, of bitterness, but as he lowered his head, he recognized those feelings were no longer pressing out from the inside. Stretching his skin. “I don’t know anymore.”
“Did you talk to Beth?”
“She’s gone.”
“Should I bother asking where?”
“No point.”
Warren heard Sarie sigh. Then he heard the squeak of springs, as though she had just sat down.
“You know,” she said, “when I was young, before I had my own kids, I used to think it was all about how you raised them. What sort of experiences they had, how much they were loved, whether they got enough fresh air and exercise. But as I got older, I think that’s all garbage. Right at the moment those little things are made, the instructions are written down. You can do what you want, and some people will just glide through life, happy as a pig rolling in its own crap. Others, though. They seek out the misery. Only feel at home, only feel comfortable when surrounded by hardship. Struggling against something. And if they can’t find it on the outside, they’ll turn against themselves. Fight with their own hearts.” Her voice cracked. “It kills me,” she said. “Kills me that people can’t really see each other. Because all that pain, it’s stamped on their set of instructions.”
Warren pressed his forehead against the wall.
“She’s a wonderful friend, she truly is, but I know she wasn’t the best mother. I understand that, Warren, and I’m not trying to suggest anything otherwise. She just didn’t know how to reach out. How to be soft. How to offer comfort. She just couldn’t do it. Lots of kids grow up with that, and are just fine, but others, like you. Like Beth. You need that. Crave that. It’s what you are.”
“Sarie. I —”
“You know, I don’t know why your father chose your mother. I never understood it. He should have married someone dim and silly and always ready with a joke. Instead he sought out a woman with a metal soul. Though I love her as my best friend, she can be hard and cold and heavy. Neither one had the strength to lift the other up, balance the other out. Too busy torturing themselves, if you ask me.” She paused, then sniffed. “They could have had a nice life. But they had terrible instructions. Look, War. I’m sorry to be calling and saying all these things. But you know me. I don’t let stuff fester. That’s not my way.”
“What should I do, Sarie? I don’t know what to do anymore.” He had spent so many years being angry, he could identify no clear path to anything else.
“I’m sure you’ve made a good life for yourself. Teaching and all that. I’m sure you’re okay, whatever you’re doing. Wherever you are. But can you just think about your mother? I’m sure she rarely crosses your mind, but I’m just asking you to think. Think about setting aside the blame. Releasing it. Forgive her. Forgive yourself, too.”
Warren paced back and forth, the cord keeping him connected to the wall. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said, though his words came out broken, stilted.
“Exactly my point. A person who’s done nothing wrong shouldn’t hurt all the time. That doesn’t make sense.”
He stretched the cord until he reached the countertop beside the sink. Opening a yellow box, he tugged out a folded garbage bag. “I have to go. There’s a lot going on here.”
“So you said.”
Bag in hand, he hung up the phone, and left his kitchen. The crisp air would help. Wandering around his backyard, he plucked up every piece of candle and cardboard, every candy wrapper and beer bottle, every fabric flower and broken balloon. Mushy bits of papers with Amanda Fuller’s image, some dates, and verses from a hymn. He did not look at any of it, just moved robotically, picking and shoving, and when it dropped inside the trash bag, out of sight, it no longer existed.
He knotted the bag, brought it to the deck, sat down. The icy air felt pure in his lungs, and clean on his face, his neck. Skin chilled, he could no longer feel his bruises. When he moved his mouth, grimaced, the pain was bearable. His shoulders and back still felt sore, but it was a better sore. Working its way out, rather than settling in.
Spindly shadows crept across the backyard, and a directionless wind scattered soggy leaves, made the cold plastic of the bag crinkle and snap. In the gusts, he could smell a faint mix of vanilla and pig farm. Nose running, eyes watering, Warren wiped his face on the sleeve of his coat. He balanced his elbows on his knees, then cupped his cheeks in his hands.
Though he shivered with the cold, he remained there, his eyes closed. He was aware the sun was dropping, the light shifting and hiding. He could not estimate how long he stayed there. His mind was not thinking, not counting. Ears cupped inside the swirling wind, he heard nothing, felt nothing.
Until something kicked at his shoe.
Warren opened his eyes. Adrian Byrd was standing right in front of him. Hands shoved deep into his pockets. Rims of his eyes pink and swollen.
“I got to talk to you,” he said. “Mr. Botts, I got to talk about something important, and you got to listen. It’s my fault,” he said. “What happened to Amanda. It’s all my fault.”
“Adrian. I really think you should —”
The boy started pacing in a tight line, hands curled into fists. “I’m ’bout to explode, Mr. Botts. I really think I’m ’bout to explode.”
Warren touched his glasses, leaned away from the boy. He tried to maintain an even tone in his words. “I think, you know. I think, you shouldn’t be here.”
“I got nowhere else to go.”
“I don’t want to fight with you, Adrian.” In the cold, Warren could see a jagged line where Adrian’s face had been injured. The stitches were gone. A purple scar snaked across his forehead.
“If I don’t talk to someone, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Maybe I’m not the right person? Maybe your mom?”
“You got to be kidding me. She’s so strung out all the time. Last night she kept talking about my friend. ‘What’s his name,’ she kept saying. ‘Why don’t he say nothing.’ She was gawking at the spot next to me. Smirking and shit. And then I realized she was seeing two of me. So high she thought I had a fucking twin.”
“I’m sorry, Adrian. That sounds really terrible.”
“But it was better, you know. When I had her to talk to. She’d come by, and then it was better.”
Amanda Fuller. Warren nodded, glanced at the tree.
“She didn’t care about anything. Didn’t care that I live in a shithole or that my mother’s cross-eyed. She didn’t care.” He threw his hands in the air. “She started hanging around me just to piss her mother off. You know. I was the asshole. The problem. But then she started to think I was okay. I was cool. I could tell. She laughed a lot. I would’ve done whatever she said.”
“Adrian, I hardly —”
“It’s true, Mr. Botts. She told me everything.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know her well.”
“She used to talk to you, she said. She used to come here and talk to you.”
“Only a couple times. Three, maybe.” Warren’s hands had turned blue, and he rubbed them together. “And then I told her she couldn’t come back.”
He stopped his jerky movements, and turned to face Warren. “Why did you tell her that?”
Swallowing. “Because I’m her teacher. I’m not her friend. I don’t know.” Because Ms. Fairley insisted? Because those were the rules? Because I couldn’t be bothered?
He wondered why he had forced her to leave. To stop talking to him. She really was doing no harm, and perhaps all she wanted was someone to listen to her. To hear her. And Warren understood those were two separate actions.
Adrian knelt on the lawn, yanked up handfuls of dead grass. “She talked about it, you know.”
“Talked about what?”
“About what she wanted to do. How she would make her father regret leaving. Make him miserable for the rest of his life.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rocking back and forth, he said, “You know, do something big. Something no one would ever forget. I knew what she meant, but I never thought she’d do nothing. I said, that’d be crazy. I actually said that, Mr. Botts. And that he’d hate himself. Her father deserved to hate himself. For running away. I told her not to give a shit, but she said I didn’t understand. It’s way worse when your father runs away after he knows you, not when you’re just a stupid baby.”
Warren edged forward. He could still sense the ache inside his skull. Not the throbbing pain, but the absence of it. As though the drumming had tapped out a hollow. An echoing dome.
“I never thought she’d do nothing. I never thought. We were having fun. She left late. Said she was fine to cut through the woods. I thought she wanted her mother to get mad. And I never walked her. I was going to. I was. But I never walked her home.”
“It’s not your fault, Adrian.”
“It is. It is. I done lots of shitty stuff, Mr. Botts. Lots. But this is the worst. I told her offing herself would be cool. I actually said that. I was just acting big. I never thought about it. Never thought about what I was saying. And now I just got to keep it all inside. Stuffed inside. Forever.”
The boy stood up, then flounced down on the step, and Warren held his breath, faced forward. Small flecks of ice shot out of the sky, pinging off the deck, the grass, the barbecue, their heads. The slishing sound of the ice was loud, but it did not drown out the boy’s crying. Out of the corner of his eye, Warren could see him, a thin sweater, head lowered, a clump of uncombed hair covering his eyes.
“I’m sorry I punched you in the face,” he mumbled. “I should’ve punched myself.”
Waiting, Warren stared at the tree. He considered the mark someone had cut into the trunk, and then it struck him. A diamond, with a line close to each point. It was not a mathematical symbol, as he had assumed, but two capital As. Joined at the stems. Adrian. And Amanda. The boy had done that.
The Substitute Page 26
