Stormwalker

by Mike Revell

  “Are these beans?” I said, turning back to what used to be dinner.

  When Dad said he was cooking dinner, what he really meant was he was throwing a ready meal in the oven or pouring something out of a can. He used to be a great cook. Before the Longest Day, he’d done most of the cooking, shutting himself in the kitchen while he worked on hand-pressed burgers or homemade pizza. But ever since then, it was as if something had squashed all the interest out of him. You didn’t get meals like this if you loved cooking.

  “Er, yes,” he said.

  “I didn’t think it was possible to burn beans.”

  He chuckled. “Well, you learn something new every day.”

  He sloshed water into the sink and threw the pan in with a squeeze of dish soap. The smell of lemon balm filled the kitchen—it was Mum’s favorite smell, lemony and minty at the same time, and Dad kept buying it.

  “How about we get takeout, eh?” Dad said, rubbing his face. Before the Longest Day he used to shave all the time, but now his cheeks were always covered in gray stubble. “Your choice. Whatever you like.”

  We ordered pizza from the new restaurant in town and sat in front of the TV with the greasy boxes. Dad flicked through the channels, settling on a repeat of Top Gear. But even though pizza was the Food of Kings, and even though Danny once bet me I’d never be able to eat a whole large one to myself and I did and he paid me ten pounds, today my stomach clenched at the sight of it. I took a bite, but the more I chewed, the less hungry I got.

  “Get it down you,” Dad said. “You could do with putting on a few pounds.”

  I took another bite and felt Dad’s eyes on me as I gulped it down. I locked my gaze on the TV and tried to fight off the image of Mum at the football game, but I couldn’t.

  “I saw her,” I said. I didn’t really want to tell him, because he had enough on his plate and I didn’t want him worrying about me. But the lemon balm had brought it all back, and I couldn’t keep it in anymore.

  “Saw who?” Dad said, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he knew. “Oh . . .”

  His face clouded over, and he turned to look out of the window. In the first few weeks after the Longest Day, Dad looked out of the window a lot. I don’t just mean little glances. He’d look out for ten minutes at a time, just staring and staring into the distance.

  Sometimes he’d do it in the middle of conversations. He’d be saying something like, “Then I just . . .” And he’d sigh quietly, and stop, like he didn’t even know he was doing it. At first I thought it was because of his writing. Mum always said he walked around with half his mind on his stories. Dad used to laugh when she said that. Never been much of a talker, he’d say. Maybe that’s why I became a writer in the first place.

  But this was different. The pauses lasted longer, and whenever he blinked them away I could tell he wasn’t thinking about stories at all.

  He turned back to me now, his lips pulled tight. “I see her all the time,” he said gently. “I saw her earlier, when I was cooking dinner. She was right there in the kitchen with me. Next thing I knew, the fire alarm was going off.”

  I didn’t know what to say. My mouth hung open uselessly. He was giving me that look again, the same look he had when my hamster, Spotty, died and he didn’t know how to tell me. It felt good to talk about seeing Mum, but part of me burned with shame for bringing it up. That was the first time I’d ever seen her so clearly like that, and it was probably just because the anniversary was coming up. But Dad just said he saw her all the time. At least I had football to take my mind off it. Dad . . . since he stopped writing, he had nothing.

  “It’s completely normal,” Dad said finally.

  “Yeah,” I said, jarred from my thoughts.

  Dad shuffled closer. “Did you think you were going mad?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. A bit, maybe.”

  I never should have brought it up. It didn’t matter how I felt.

  “Well, you’re not.” Dad was quiet for a moment, maybe picking his words carefully. “Owen, you’ve been through something that no one should have to go through. We both have. It’s normal for us to think about her. That’s all it is. Just thoughts.”

  My eyes moved to the urn on the mantelpiece. The light from the TV flashed against it, turning it blue-gold.

  “We’ll do it,” Dad said, following my gaze. He meant chucking Mum’s ashes out to sea. That was what she wanted us to do. It was in her will. Dad took a deep breath, and it shuddered on the way out. “We’ll do it. Just not yet, eh? Not yet.”

  “Yeah,” I said. He’d been talking about scattering Mum’s ashes for months. Once I actually thought we were going to do it. We were sitting in the car, strapped in, ready to go, but as soon as the engine grumbled into life, Dad went back on the plan.

  I wanted to say something to help now, but was scared of getting it wrong.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets, and felt something inside them. The leaflet. Maybe if I could get Dad some help, he’d be there to cheer us on in the next round of the championships. Maybe he’d go back to cooking his usual meals instead of getting takeout every day. Maybe we really would throw Mum’s ashes out to sea.

  I took the leaflet out—

  “What have you got there?” Dad said. His eyes moved over the title, and suddenly he put his plate on the table and took the leaflet from my hands. “Owen . . . who gave you this? Is everything okay?” His eyes were lined with worry. “If there’s anything on your mind, you can talk to me. I know I haven’t exactly been brilliant recently, but I’ll . . . I’ll always be here. I want to help.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, forcing a smile to let him know I was all right. “I don’t even know why I’ve still got it. But I thought it might be good for . . . for you.”

  I looked away as soon as I said it, because the expression on Dad’s face changed from concern to shock, then something else. Something I hadn’t seen before.

  “You think I need counseling?” he said.

  “I just thought . . .”

  But how could I say it? I just thought it might bring my old dad back. I stared at my hands, wishing I’d never brought the stupid leaflet back from the nurse’s office in the first place.

  “Did your teacher give this to you? What’s she been saying? I know I’ve been a bit disconnected—God knows I do—but it’ll pass, Owen. I just need a bit of time.”

  “I’m just trying to help,” I said, turning to face him again.

  He’d already had time. We both had. After Mum died I had a week off school, and I felt like I never wanted to go again. But I had to. I could still remember the day I’d gone back in. Mrs. Willoughby pulled the Sad Face when she saw me. The whole class stopped talking. Their eyes followed me all the way to my desk. Everyone knew about Mum’s death. It was in the papers and everything. I guessed when a local artist died it was big news. I knew everyone was trying to make sure they didn’t upset me, but all I wanted to do was forget about it, and they just made it worse by acting so weird.

  The one thing I learned was that you could never get over it. Not really. You just had to keep living your life, and eventually better memories would rise up to balance out the bad ones. But Dad . . . he didn’t keep going. He stopped. It was like he was sinking in quicksand.

  “I’m not getting counseling, Owen,” he said. Then he reached out and shook my shoulder gently. “I’m all right. I promise.”

  “Fine,” I said, my cheeks burning.

  I didn’t feel like talking after that so left my pizza unfinished and went back upstairs to play some FIFA football. The game was just loading up when I heard the outside door bang shut. I walked over to the window and saw Dad’s dark silhouette moving in the garden.

  Normally Dad stood tall, his shoulders pulled back like a robot doing an impression of a human. But sometimes, if he didn’t know I could see him, like now, he slouched as if an invisible weight was hanging off his shoulders and it was too much for him to take.

  My st
omach twisted. What was he up to? He loved gardening, but it was too dark for that now. He moved out of sight and, hesitating for just a second, I rushed across the landing to the bathroom window. I squinted through the gloom, trying to spot him again. Then three yellow squares lit up at the end of the garden and Dad’s silhouette appeared, hunched over in the middle of the shed. Mum’s shed.

  I hadn’t been in there since the Longest Day. I didn’t think Dad had either, but I must’ve got that wrong, because he didn’t pause before he went inside, like I would have done. He walked straight in.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember what the paintings looked like. All the work Mum had started and not finished, or the stuff she didn’t want to sell. But I hadn’t seen them for so long that the memories were hazy. I couldn’t imagine them properly. It was like when you went on vacation and had an amazing time but a few years later you couldn’t remember what you did, just the feeling it gave you afterward.

  I opened my eyes. Dad hadn’t moved. I watched for another minute, wondering what he was doing, then decided to give him some privacy. Maybe he was seeing Mum again, like I’d seen her at the game. I went back to my room and played FIFA until my eyelids got heavy.

  I only realized I’d fallen asleep when I heard the scream.

  3

  I blinked and shook my head, trying to wake up. My cheek ached from where it had been pressed up against the PlayStation controller.

  How long had I been asleep for?

  I thought back to Dad, outside in the shed yesterday evening, and that was when it hit me. My heart beat faster, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the shock of the scream or the realization. Today was the anniversary. A year since the Longest Day.

  I scrambled off the bed and crept across the landing, trying not to make a sound. It was a bit strange he hadn’t checked in on me last night. Even after Mum died, he usually opened the door to say goodnight and make sure that I was okay. It didn’t bother me that he hadn’t . . . I mean, I was twelve years old, not a baby. What bothered me was that since the Longest Day, Dad had been so off—and now it looked like he was getting worse. I wished he would see someone about it, do something about it, just to see if it could help.

  “Dad?” I whispered. The scream had come from his room, I was sure of it now.

  I pushed the door open a crack. He was mumbling to himself. Whispering in his sleep.

  I crept into the room. I didn’t know why, but I was holding my breath. The place was a mess. Dirty clothes all over the floor, magazines and dusty books piled up in the corner. All the photos on the bedside table had been flipped over, so you couldn’t see them.

  All apart from one—the one in Dad’s hands. He must have fallen asleep looking at it.

  “Dad.”

  He blinked slowly, and opened his eyes.

  “Owen?” he said. “What are you doing?”

  “You screamed.”

  “I . . . I did?”

  He sighed heavily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He frowned at the photo, as if it had walked onto the bed while he was asleep. Then he sat up and put the frame facedown on the bedside table.

  In the low morning light, I could almost imagine the shape of Mum’s body outlined in the wrinkles of the sheet beside Dad. He patted the duvet. “It’s okay,” he said.

  I took a deep breath, and lay down next to him. He drew me in next to his warm chest. The silence stretched. All I could hear was the low rattle and hum of the heating as the pipes came to life. I didn’t know what to say. We hadn’t spoken since he took the leaflet, and part of me was still angry at him, so I sat there in silence waiting for Dad to talk.

  “Maybe you were right,” he said finally.

  “W-what?” I croaked, clearing my throat and licking my dry lips.

  He looked at me, chewing the words round in his mouth. “Maybe you were right. Look at me. I’m a mess!” And suddenly he burst out laughing, although it wasn’t a proper laugh, the kind where you couldn’t help but join in because it was so infectious. It was a different kind of laugh. A scary laugh.

  “My own son,” Dad spluttered. “Better father than I am.”

  My fingers knotted together automatically. I didn’t know what to do.

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be! You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You were only trying to help. I’m lucky to have you looking out for me. My very own guardian angel.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just kept quiet, listening to the house and the sounds of the birds waking up outside.

  “‘Artistic Healing,’” he scoffed. “Well, it can’t hurt to go along. You never know, they might get me writing again. Got to get it out somehow, eh?”

  “I guess,” I said, shuffling up beside him and grinning.

  Counseling! He was actually going to go. After all that.

  Hearing him say it out loud made all the worries building up inside me melt away. I’d been dreading going to school today. I couldn’t stop worrying that it would be exactly the same as the week after Mum died. The long silences. The Sad Face. The awkwardness. But if Dad could go to counseling, then I could go to school. I knew that much.

  Dad squeezed me tight, and I smiled up at him, happy just to lie in silence for the last few minutes before I had to get ready.

  You could hear the noise all the way down the corridor—laughing, shouting. When I opened the door, I only just dodged a rubber band pinging across the room. Some of the tables were upturned. People ducked behind them, in the middle of a war.

  For a heartbeat, nobody moved.

  I stood in the doorway as the sudden quiet washed over me.

  This is it, I told myself, trying to pretend it wasn’t quiet, trying to reimagine the noise from a few moments earlier. They’re going to act all weird again, just like they did after Mum died.

  But then, in a flurry of movement, the war continued. Rubber bands pinged. Fresh shouts took up, ringing around the class. They must have worried that it was Mrs. Willoughby at the door, because as soon as they saw it was me, they went back to normal. They didn’t know it was the anniversary at all. None of them did. Not even Danny.

  I walked into the room, alone in my own personal quiet. I could still hear the sound of the play-fight around me, but it was distant—like when you’re zoning out before you fall asleep, and the sound of the TV becomes white noise.

  Of course they wouldn’t remember. It was just a normal day to them, wasn’t it? They didn’t have it hanging over them, plodding closer and closer. I bet their dads didn’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

  I hardly noticed the door open again, but it must have been Mrs. Willoughby coming in because all of a sudden clattering and banging filled the room as the class shoved the desks back into place. I turned to the window, watching a potato chip bag dancing in the wind. The clouds were darkening. Rain speckled the glass. I tried not to think of Mum, but it was really hard not to think of something when you were trying to avoid it.

  “Earth to Owen,” Danny said, waving his hands in front of me.

  “S-sorry,” I mumbled. He’d sat down beside me and was staring at my face as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “How can you not be more excited? They’ve put the schedule up!”

  I blinked at him, trying to figure out what he meant. His phone was open on the football league page, which showed a table of all the upcoming games. The game . . . it had tumbled right out of my mind. Something must have clicked when Danny saw my face, because next thing I knew his smile faded. His eyebrows shot up and his forehead wrinkled. He froze, no longer bursting with excitement.

  “Oh crap,” he said. “It’s—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said quickly. “I’m trying not to think about it.”

  I took the phone from his hand and zoomed in on our match.

  “Westfield,” I read. “Where are they from?”

  “Er—somewhere near Leicester,” Danny mumbled. He
cleared his throat. “They’ve got a goal difference of plus thirteen too.”

  “They haven’t played us yet, though, have they?” I said, trying to sound upbeat.

  Danny smiled hesitantly, and smacked me playfully on the arm. “If we beat them, the scouts will have to come. It’s up to us, mate. Ronaldo and Messi,” he said, lips twitching as if he was holding back a bigger grin.

  “Thor and Iron Man,” I said.

  “Arthur and Lancelot,” Danny shot back.

  “Batman and—”

  “You better not be calling me Robin,” he said.

  I couldn’t help laughing. It was such a stupid game, but it always made me smile. And the best thing about it was that, for a while at least, it took my mind right off the Longest Day.

  The anniversary started so well, with Dad finally going to counseling and Danny making me laugh, that I should have known it would never last. When I got home after school, I couldn’t find Dad anywhere. The weather was worse now. Rain lashed the windows, and the wind whistled as it whipped through the trees. I looked for Dad all through the house—even in the study, in case he’d been in there, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Dad?” I called, each breath coming faster now.

  Then I remembered last night, and ran outside into the rain. Covering my face with the collar of my school jacket, I dashed round to the back garden. Dad always said Mum’s artist studio should stay how she left it forever. But now the lights were on, illuminating the end of the garden. He was in there again. The second night in a row.

  What’s he doing?

  I crept closer, holding my breath. The grass squelched underfoot. The wind howled. When I got closer, I could see Dad through the nearest window. He had his back to me and his arms wrapped round his tummy, like he was doing that trick where you turned your back to someone and hugged yourself, and if you wriggled your arms the right way it looked like you were kissing someone.

  But he wasn’t kissing someone. I knew that much. I approached the doorway and stood there quietly. His shoulders shook, up and down, up and down.