A Face in Every Window (24 page)

I marched back to the house and went straight to the phone. Mam had written Doctor Mike's numbers on the pad we kept by the phone. I dialed his home number first. No answer. I called the hospital and they put me on hold for close
to twenty minutes. I stood rapping a pencil on the pad, keeping my rage going, keeping my courage up.

"James Patrick?" Dr. Mike said when he got to the phone.

"It's about time," I said. "I've been waiting at least twenty minutes."

Dr. Mike sounded irritated. "I do have patients, you know."

"Yeah, and I've got no patience," I said "I want to talk to you, face-to-face. Today."

"I'm busy today. I've got my patients this morning and I'm picking someone up at the train station this afternoon, and then—"

"I'll meet you there."

"Where? No, that's ridiculous. We can talk another time."

"What time you going to be at the station?" I said, with more force in my voice.

There was a long pause, and then he let out a heavy sigh. "All right, if you insist, why not I'll be there around three-fifteen."

I slammed the phone down.

***

T
HAT AFTERNOON I
cut my last class, borrowed Jerusha's bike, and left in plenty of time to meet Dr. Mike. It felt good to get out on the bike and feel the cold air on my face. It helped to clear my mind. I knew just what I wanted to say. No shuffling around—get right to the point, catch him off guard. I made a fist and took a jab at the air.

I had about ten minutes to kill when I reached the deserted station. No one was around in the middle of the day.
Long grass grew up from beneath the stones in the center and along the edges of the tracks, and they looked as if they could have been tracks from twenty years ago. They were timeless, silent. I leaned Jerusha's bicycle against a bench and began pacing and planning just how I would say what I wanted to say, and the whole time thoughts of Mam and Dr. Mike in Switzerland, sharing a hotel room, and sharing a bed, kept playing in my mind.

I remembered all the dates, to galleries, dinners, operas, plays. I wondered how many were really plays and operas and how many were evenings spent at Dr. Mike's place, or did they go to hotels? I could feel myself tensing, my hands in fists, my teeth biting into my lower lip, my eyes burning from staring without blinking as I paced. Memories of early days with Mam, days of discovery along the creek, days in winter when she taught me how to build a snowman and later, after a giant storm had dumped so much snow on top of an already record-breaking winter of snowfall, when she taught me how to make a real igloo. Would she be teaching the new kid about igloos? Mike's baby? Would she teach it about making vent holes in the roof of the igloo to keep carbon monoxide from building up? Would she show it how to smooth down the sleeping platform so that when it froze you wouldn't have lumps and bumps under your sleeping bag? Would she teach the child about chlorophyll, explain to it how the leaves weren't really green at all, that the chlorophyll absorbed most of the bands of light and only reflected back the green and yellow wavelengths? Would she share our private universe with some other child, the universe she'd tossed away when Grandma Mary died?

I could feel the tears building up again and a lump had formed in my throat that wouldn't go away. I brushed at the tears and told myself to get mad, get angry.
Forget about the past, forget all that. It's long gone.

I saw Dr. Mike's BMW rolling down the road. I stopped pacing and waited, glaring at him through his dark windshield.

Dr. Mike got out of the car and walked toward me, striding as if he thought he were a god. I spread my hands out, then clenched them in fists again.

"All right, James Patrick. I have about five minutes," he said when he'd gotten close enough. "What is it you wanted to discuss?"

I wondered if he spoke to his patients that way:
I have five minutes to tell you you're dying of cancer and explain the rest of your life. Now, any questions?

"My mother's pregnant." I said, swallowing hard, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat. He stood facing me, and I wanted to stare him down but I couldn't. I looked away.

"Yes, that's correct."

I turned back to him. He nodded at me and walked onto the train platform. He gazed down the tracks, acting as if he were dismissing me.

I stepped up onto the platform with him and asked, "Is it your baby?"

Dr. Mike turned his head and gave me half a smile, maybe a smirk. "Ah, that's why you wanted to talk to me. Well, now, don't you think you should ask your mother that question?"

He stood there so smug, the doctor-god.

"I did ask her."

I saw a train coming down the tracks, its big light glaring like the sun. Dr. Mike got closer to the edge of the platform and watched.

"I did ask her," I repeated, raising my voice. I could feel heat rising in my head, and a heaviness there, and then, staring at the back of Dr. Mike, I had this sense of sparking lights shooting off behind my eyes. I wanted him to pay attention, to stop dismissing me.

"Hey!" I shouted.

He jerked his head in my direction.

"She said it was Pap's."

He raised those bushy black brows of his, surprised. Then he broke into a smile and laughed. "Well, then, there's your answer, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"You have your answer," he said, turning back to the train, dismissing me again—smug man.

The train was coming too fast. It wasn't his train. It was going to go through, not stop. I heard it coming, saw it speeding along the tracks. Dr. Mike didn't know yet that it wasn't his train. He moved closer to the edge. Idiot-god.

Then I heard a voice inside my head tell me to push him.

Push him. Quick. Hurry. No one will know. Perfect crime, perfect murder. Hurry! Do it!

The train kept coming, getting louder, faster.

Do it! Go on. Push him. Do it! Do it! Do it now! Now! Now!

"DO IT!" I hollered and closed my eyes, but I saw my hands in front of me, fragmented by the sparking lights. I saw my arms, saw him standing there, still waiting, watching the
train, saw me push him off the platform, in slow motion, in strobe motion, saw the train go by, run right over him, it kept going, the train kept right on going. The lights sparked along the track behind it.

I felt someone shaking me. I opened my eyes. Dr. Mike stood scowling, shouting something at me. What was he saying?

I looked down the tracks. I saw the train in the distance, speeding away. I turned back to Dr. Mike. He had his hands on my shoulders. I could feel their weight, their heat, all the life still in them. I felt so relieved I broke down. I sank to the ground and cried, hugging myself and rocking and crying like a baby.

"What is it? Look here, are you okay? I thought for a second you were going to jump. I didn't mean to hurt you. Your arm okay?"

I looked up at him standing over me. I shook my head. "I was trying to kill
you,
not me, you bastard!"

"You'd have to get a lot closer to me, then. And it would help if you got behind me when you pushed me over."

"What?"

"You weren't going to push me."

"I was!" I cried. "I was—but I chickened out. 'Cause I'm a coward. I'm a damn coward!"

Dr. Mike knelt down in front of me. "No, son," he said. "A real coward would have pushed me."

I
DIDN'T KNOW
what had happened. One minute I was in my right mind, and then, in an instant, a flash, a spark, I had gone insane. I didn't know why I hadn't pushed him, what had saved me, saved him. Was it true what he said: A real coward would have pushed him? I wanted to think so.

Dr. Mike had left with some woman—sister, wife, patient? He asked if I would be okay. I shrugged away from him. I stood up and left. I crossed the tracks and boarded the next train. It took me into Philadelphia, into the Thirtieth Street station. I thought about what had happened. I couldn't close my eyes without seeing my hands pushing Dr. Mike onto the tracks. I heard his voice.
A real coward would have pushed me.
But I
was
a coward. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of living a life without Grandma Mary. I was afraid of the people who lived in my house. I was afraid of the person Mam had become, and I was afraid because I knew I had outgrown my past before I could see a path to my future.

I found myself standing in the middle of the Thirtieth Street station with a giant pretzel in my hand. I must have purchased it, but the sight of the pretzel, with the mustard running toward my hands, made me sick. It reminded me of squished worms and bug splat on windshields. I tossed the pretzel in the garbage. I returned to the platform and waited for the train to take me back home.

I got off at the stop near my old house. I hadn't meant to do this. I watched the train pull away and stood watching it disappear, and then when it did, I still watched. The sun reflecting off the tracks burned my staring eyes. I turned away and walked down the familiar streets, past Saint Ignatius and my old house with the new salmon paint and on to the Seeleys' house, where I stopped. Were they all in there? I didn't want to find out. I looked across to the Polanskis' house. Nothing had been done to the outside of the place in years. Paint peeled, steps sagged, and a washing machine older than I sat rusting out on the porch. I headed toward the house, then cut around back, remembering how just a few days earlier I had stood at the creek with Tim. I remembered the feeling I had had when I heard the creek water rushing past me, and how it felt as if it ran right through me, as if I were a part of the creek, too. I wanted to feel that again. I wanted it to bring me back to my senses.

This time I climbed down the bank and stood, beat-up basketball shoes and all, in the water. I held my arms up and listened.

"JP?"

I dropped my arms and twisted around. Bobbi stood above me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, stepping out of the water, feeling foolish.

Bobbi laughed and edged down sideways to join me. "What are you? I saw you going around the house. I thought you were coming to see me."

"I didn't even know you were in there."

"Yeah, we came yesterday. Daddy's got bleeding ulcers."

"Sorry—I guess. So is Don here?"

Bobbi, with her arms crossed in front of her, looking cold, twisted around as if she expected Don to be standing above her. Then she returned to me. "Yeah, he's at McDonald's right now." She hunched her shoulders. Her voice had gotten quieter.

"Couldn't he trust you to get here by yourself?"

Bobbi shook her head and stared down at her feet She had on a flimsy pair of toeless slippers, and I saw she'd painted her toenails black. "No, he barely lets me out of his sight"

"Sorry," I said again, and meant it more this time.

She looked up at me with a pleading in her eyes I couldn't bear to see. I faced the creek.

"He's everywhere now," she said, almost whispering. "He's on me for the least little thing. He used to be so sweet, remember? Remember all the little gifts he'd bring me?"

I didn't say anything. I never thought he was sweet.

"He never showed any sign that he was like Daddy. He never lost his temper, not at me at least. Not at first" She paused and then asked, "How do you know the way somebody's really going to treat you?"

I shrugged. "You just do."

"I don't."

"I noticed."

We stopped talking. We stared into the water. Then I caught sight of both of our reflections and I stirred them up with my foot.

"I think he's crazy," Bobbi said, almost whispering.

"You still love him?" I asked, and I couldn't keep the bitterness I felt out of my voice.

Bobbi didn't answer at first, she just stood with her head lowered. Then I saw her tears dropping into the water.

I stepped back so that I stood closer to her, but I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets.

"I understand him," she said at last, and then added, "I'm not excusing him, I just—I just understand him. And my father. People don't get it at all. They say he's a drunk. They think he gets drunk and then beats us."

"Well, doesn't he?"

"No!" Bobbi said, as if she were shouting at an imbecile. "He gets drunk
because
he beats us. The drinking comes after. He's so ashamed of himself. He's so helpless."

"Helpless, that's a new one," I said.

Bobbi stooped down and ran her hand through the water. "It's all so easy for you, O'Brien."

I stood above Bobbi, thinking how much I hated that she always thought everything was so easy for me. The scene at the train station flashed through my mind. Then a crazy thought came to me. I could push her. I could push her in the water. Why didn't I? The only answer I had was that I didn't want to. I didn't need to. With Dr. Mike I had wanted to push him. With every part of my being I wanted to push him, but
maybe I didn't need to. I didn't know why I didn't, but maybe it had to do with the difference between the kind of life I had led and Don's life. I knew Don would have pushed him. Maybe there was a difference between being a coward and just being afraid. N^aybe, but if so, I knew that a very fine line existed between the two, and that I had come closer than I wanted to stepping over that line.

It scared me to realize this. To realize how easy it was to become the very person you never wanted to be. Bobbi had become like her mother, and I guessed Don and Mr. Polanski were a lot like their fathers.

Who had I become? Who was I like? I had thought it was Aunt Colleen, but I realized it wasn't, not totally. I had become the male version of Grandma Mary. Order had reigned in her house. Pap always did as she said. Mam lived the way Grandma Mary wanted her to. She became the dutiful daughter, the playmate for Pap. Grandma Mary always had the answers, always knew the way. Were these bad qualities? We all loved her. She was also loving and generous and warm. She was comfort and stability and safety. She demanded a lot from all of us and she got it, but her spirit was all love. She made our house a home, something I hadn't felt in the new house. No, she had so many good qualities, many which I knew were missing in me, but I saw, too, how much we had depended on her to solve all our problems, to be everything to us, and for us. All our love had been directed at her because she gave us everything we needed, she told us what we needed. But she forgot to show us how to love each other. When she died we felt alone, abandoned, because we'd never learned to love one another, just her. Her strengths made us weak. I was weak be
cause I loved too little, and Bobbi was weak because she loved too much, the wrong person, the wrong way.