Island Page 7

  Could the old man see the three of us were poor and falling apart? Did he see my mother’s exhaustion? And how did he turn the handkerchief into money?

  “We can’t,” said my mother, and she seemed now close to tears. Just one more humiliation. Or was it the man’s generosity? Or both?

  “Yes, you can.” The man smiled. “Have a good rest of the day.”

  I wish the man had vanished in smoke with a snap of his fingers. Instead, he went back to his newspaper, a newspaper I hadn’t noticed and couldn’t be sure he’d been holding a few minutes earlier.

  My mother didn’t move for a few seconds. We stood there. The man, though, acted as if we had left, never even existed. Show over.

  On our way out, I handed my mother the bill. She slid it into her pocket without a word. Maybe it was there when she died a few weeks later.

  All this talk about magic is really about something else. Until I was eight, my father had always left me with the feeling that he’d given me a fortune, left it in the palm of my hand without my noticing. I would clench my fists in anger, upset and wild, and he would pass his hand around me, mumbling something I couldn’t make out, and when I opened my fists, I had a fortune. I had a treasure of peace.

  But this, like everything else, stopped.

  * * *

  ı

  My father knew I loved geography and maps and islands. He also knew, maybe felt, I held back from running to him when he suddenly returned to Key and me for those days when he decided to fix up the house and play dad. He’d never been gone, not physically. He’d watched us get run down and stood by as the house fell apart. He would give us a weekly allowance of money out of some last dwindling account for food, enough to eat out of cans. Sardines, salmon, tuna, ham. A loaf of bread. Bananas.

  But to lure me back, my father gave me my own globe. He bought me with a model of the world.

  It wasn’t fancy. Plastic with a cheap metal base, ten inches in diameter and not very detailed, out of date. But I could see the Seychelles and the Canary Islands. I could make out the Faroes.

  “Thank you,” I said. I couldn’t even look at him.

  New Guinea, Baffin, Taiwan, the Falklands.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  The Channel Islands. Cape Breton. And Easter.

  “I know you love the world, Rad. And I have a surprise for you.”

  “What?” The Lesser Antilles and Bermuda. “Another surprise?”

  “It’s actually a surprise for the three of us, little man. But that globe will mean a great deal more very soon.”

  Ireland. The Isle of Man. Borneo.

  And I loved my father.

  I loved him for three days.

  * * *

  ı

  Two nights after my father gave me the globe, he made us dinner — hot dogs and baked beans — and we ate outside on the long front grass. We didn’t sit on our back porch, since my father had been using it and the garage as staging areas for his repairs. Key and my father and I sat on the grass, and we couldn’t help but look at our neighbors in the cul-de-sac. The Jayneses, two doors down, had a lush garden, a neat house, and they must have been horrified at what had become of our house in the three years since my mother died, and horrified with the state of our family.

  All my life, a stone that reminded me of a slouching giant sat in the front yard of their house. That stone had always frightened me. It could have resembled a gardener stooping in the garden, pulling weeds, watching a worm, stroking a flower. Who knows what? But I saw a troll sharpening an axe or strangling a rabbit, doing something terrible, whatever it was hidden by his broad back. I’d imagine that stone standing to its full height, maybe eight or nine feet, and turning toward me. I couldn’t quite make out a face, but it grimaced, that stone, that giant, with all its cruel ugliness.

  It had the expression of someone who enjoyed killing, who enjoyed watching an animal or a person suffer.

  I scare myself even now.

  It was my father who tamed that stone for me.

  My father, Key, and I were sitting in the grass, eating dinner together, when my father said, “So, what frightens you most?”

  Key and I looked at each other.

  “Key?”

  My dead mother was sitting with us, holding a hot dog with ketchup and relish and onions. My father had his hand on her knee, and he said, “Tell us, Diane. What are you most afraid of?”

  “I don’t know,” my mother said. “I shouldn’t. Saying it is as good as making it come true.”

  My father smiled. “Nothing will happen by saying it, I promise.”

  “I sometimes dream Key and Rad will die in front of me. Sometimes they’re bleeding, sometimes burning, sometimes going under waves, drowning.”

  “They’re just dreams, honey.” My father, in his soothing voice. “Just dreams.”

  “I know. Here they are, safe and sound. But I’m most afraid of losing my boys while I sit by, helpless.”

  My father put his rough hand on my dead mother’s smooth cheek and said something I couldn’t make out. His murmuring was deep and indecipherable. My mother nodded and kissed the palm of his hand.

  “It’s crazy,” she said. “But that’s what it means to be frightened. We let our imaginations run wild or —”

  Wet ourselves, I guess. My mother never finished the sentence.

  “You weren’t most afraid of dying and leaving us all alone?” I said this out loud.

  My father and brother looked over at me.

  “What was that, Rad?” My father.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  My father stared at me a moment, then went back to my brother. “Still thinking, Key? Can’t be that hard.”

  “It’s a hard question,” Key started. “I’m afraid of things that would happen to Rad — and you. And I’m afraid of what might happen to people I know and don’t know. War, bombings, stabbings, shootings, whatever.”

  My father nodded. “Okay, but what do you never want to face alone, Key?”

  My brother closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “God. I don’t ever want to face God.”

  “You’re most afraid of God?”

  “God or a god. What’s scarier than a god? I’ve read myths in school. Greek, Norse. I’ve even read a little in the Bible. And some Hindu stuff. What about a being that can change you into a dog or a mouse or a flower, anything they want? What’s worse than something that can kill you or hurt you just by thinking it? And what does a god even look like? They’re too bright for us. We would go blind. Maybe our minds would light on fire, or our hearts. Maybe we would die happier than we can imagine, just by seeing them for a moment, but we would still die. I’m scared of gods.”

  “What about demons?” my father said. “Which is worse, gods or demons?”

  “Gods,” Key said without hesitation. “Demons are always bad. So what? But a god might make us suffer. Demons don’t punish us. The gods punish us. We can never be sure what the gods will do to us.”

  “God isn’t merciful?” my father said. “God isn’t love?”

  Key closed his eyes, concentrating. He shrugged. “Only a person can be love,” he said.

  We sat for a little while in silence. I was wondering if a god really was more frightening than a demon, when my brother finally said, “What about you, Dad?”

  “I’m most afraid of losing my mind. I’m most afraid of being unable to talk or walk because my mind will stop or dry up or die in a civil war waged inside me.”

  My brother and I stared at him.

  “That’s why,” our father said. “That’s why all of this. That’s why I quit.”

  Key and I waited for more.

  “That day when I got into a fight, when I came home. You remember. I had lost control. I had lost control, and I had grown up in a family known for losi
ng its control.” My father looked at me, and he looked heartbroken.

  Heartbreak. A word much too simple for the SAT, and much deeper than almost any word you can think of, other than, maybe, love, which you need to have to feel heartbroken.

  My father looked at me as if he saw something in me he wished he didn’t see. “I’m from a family that’s had its share of madness.”

  Madness? This was news, and I —

  “Do you think you’re going crazy?” My brother said it quietly, but he kept his eyes on our father.

  “I’m moody,” my father said. “I know it.”

  Moody? Moody means someone who runs hot and cold, or sometimes on and sometimes off. Moodiness didn’t explain anything my father had done.

  “I gave up the world to control my mind,” my father continued. “And after Mom died, that got harder. It took all my attention.” My father was upset, and then he changed direction. “My parents died young, both from cancer, and I have an uncle who was institutionalized. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to spend a long time with you, the two of you sitting right here.”

  “Why now?” I blurted it out. “Why are you coming back now?”

  My father stared into his hot dog, looking for inspiration, maybe, or for an honest answer. I didn’t know if I could trust whatever he said.

  “The rain coming through the ceiling,” he said. “A leaky ceiling is a metaphor for a mind, and —”

  “Dad,” Key said, “I think when you asked us what we’re scared of, you thought we were going to say ouija boards or killer clowns or cemeteries. Maybe fire, maybe vampires. Maybe witches or rollercoasters.”

  “I guess so,” my father said.

  “We’re talking about what we’re really frightened of.”

  My father turned to me. “What about you, Rad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to go,” Key said.

  “Yes, he does.” My father cleared his throat, a sign of impatience. “Rad?”

  My father might lose his mind, if he hadn’t lost it more or less already, and my brother might meet a vengeful, capricious god —

  “I’m scared of a rock.”

  Silence.

  “A rock?” my father said, and I nodded.

  “What rock?” Key said.

  “That rock in the Jayneses front yard.”

  “That?” Key said, pointing down the block.

  They both looked.

  “I get it,” my father said. “It looks like a man, some kind of giant.”

  “Are you two for real?”

  “Have you looked at that rock, Key?” My father, defending me. “Come here and take a gander.” He stood up and got my brother and me over to our driveway. “From this angle, that thing could be doing anything, and probably something terrible.”

  “I know,” I said. “He could be eating a baby right now.”

  “Oh, Rad.” My mother reappeared. “A baby?”

  “And what if he stood up and came this way?” My father, his hands on his hips, still taller than my brother and me by a head, and strong. “What could we do against an enormous man of stone?”

  “Nothing,” I whispered.

  “I’ve never thought about that rock,” Key said. “But I see what you mean. And I wish I didn’t.”

  “It’s really scary,” my mother agreed.

  “But look a little closer,” my father said. “I don’t think we’re seeing it right.”

  I strained to see the stone in some new way, but I couldn’t. It seemed only evil, and I wanted to go inside and finish my dinner in safety.

  “Rad,” my father said, “that stone man is injured. The way the light falls on his shoulder, right now, in the evening, we can see it. Some kind of deep gash in his back, under his shoulder blade. That man’s bleeding. Maybe stabbed down into his ribs. When I look at that rock, I see a man who needs to sleep where he’s sitting, to recover from something awful. He’s in pain. He needs to sleep or die.”

  I had to think about this. My father wasn’t stupid. He was talking to a twelve-year-old boy, almost thirteen, not a little kid. He was appealing to my compassion, my imagination. And he was talking to all of us. To my mother, too.

  My father made that stone into something we could all think over. He made it into whatever frightened each of us.

  Couldn’t that stone have an untreatable wound, a mortal wound, making my mother feel helpless? Couldn’t that stone be the image of a god, or a man injured by a god, which spooks Key? Couldn’t that stone be going crazy with pain, making my father wonder over his own mind? Couldn’t that enraged stone still rise up, lash out?

  I never looked at that stone the same way again after that. I could only see it as an injured giant, a giant that could fall, but, being a stone, would never fall. And maybe all he could do, that giant, is stare down at the ground in front of him, wanting forever just to lie down.

  But today, my father died. And after Key and I figure what to do about that, I’ll walk over to look at the stone in the Jayneses yard. I’ll see it in a new way. That stone will look nothing at all like a man or a giant. Not anymore. It will look like a simple stone, rough and hard, without the ability to speak or feel or move or break or suffer.

  * * *

  ı

  My father and his surprises.

  The day after our hot-dog dinner in the grass, exactly three days after he gave me the globe and eight days after his miraculous recovery, he took Key and me aside.

  “I’ve got something cooking. Something big.”

  “A stunt?” Key said. “Like when we were little?”

  “Something like that. Have you been studying your globe, Rad? Do you ever think about the best way to get around the world?”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  “Well,” my father said, bumping my chin with his fist, “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m telling you I’ve got a very, very long trip planned out.”

  “A record-setting trip?” Key said.

  “I don’t know.” My father turned to Key. Something in his eyes. My mother? A memory? “It’s not a trip for world records, though we could make it one.”

  This marked a betrayal.

  Before my mother died, my parents had always planned together, made things happen together. Sometimes they surprised Key and me, and sometimes they let us know the plans they were developing. Nothing ever happened like this, a secret from my mother, even if she was dead.

  “Why doesn’t Mom know?” I said.

  My father looked like I’d hit him in the mouth. “I don’t understand, little man.”

  I didn’t trust any of this. “You do these things together. Mom always knows. Why keep it from her?”

  “Rad?” Key touched my hand. “Let Dad tell us his idea.”

  “That’s right, Rad. Let me talk, okay? Let me tell you.”

  “But why doesn’t Mom know?”

  My father lost his patience.

  “Konrad.” He snarled my name. “Mom isn’t here.”

  Key squeezed my hand. “So tell us,” he said. “I want to know.”

  “I’ve planned a trip around the world by sailboat. I’m going to sell the house, buy a boat. I’ll buy sailing lessons for all of us to start in August. Lessons in Mexico, the Sea of Cortes. And then we’ll sail for a year or two years or for the rest of our lives. You won’t go to school at all but you’ll study, study, study like always, and you’ll live, see the world, all the world’s islands, and —”

  “Sell the house?” I didn’t believe a word of this. “Who’ll buy it —? Oh, that’s why you’re fixing it up. You’re going to go from doing nothing, ever, to doing everything, selling everything, and take us on a boat. Why don’t you talk about this with Mom? Why don’t you ask her? You just have to open your mou
th and —”

  My father had been sitting on a couch, but he stood up to his full height. “Stop talking.” He clenched his fists.

  “You —”

  My father leaned down, his face a couple inches from mine. “Are you going to throw a tantrum, Rad? Are you going to lose your little mind?”

  My father had my attention.

  Key had disappeared. My father and I were the only two people on earth. And we were islands.

  “You’re weak,” he went on. “You’re out of control, just like my uncle, and you’re untrustworthy.”

  “I’m untrustworthy?”

  I might have shouted it.

  My father raised his fists level to my chest, and I said nothing. Here is an example of a time when two instincts fought each other inside of me, the instinct to fight and the instinct to run.

  “Get ahold of yourself.” My father spoke through his teeth. “I will sell everything when I’m ready. And then we will sail around the world.”

  Anger, fear, shame, frustration, helplessness, sadness, suspicion, hatred: all these emotions running crazy through my head and heart.

  I started to shake. Uncontrollably. My whole body.

  “Well, at least you’re not pissing down your legs.” My father straightened up again. “Keep silent, little man. And get ahold of yourself.”

  Then he left.

  And what did I do? I punched a wall and kicked the couch.

  “Rad?” Key had reappeared behind me, and I spun on him.

  “Don’t —!” He raised his hands, hid his face, protecting himself.

  I had, I admit, pulled back my fist as if —

  “I would never hit you.” I threw myself into the couch. “I would never. I just didn’t know you were here anymore.”

  “I don’t care.” He crossed his arms and stared down at me.

  I suddenly felt tired, and I waited.

  Key just stood there, silent.

  “Go ahead,” I said finally. “Say what you want.”

  “We’re going sailing around the world.” It came out as a whisper.

  “No,” I said. “We’re not.”