Do You Think This Is Strange? (24 page)

Telling a lie carries too many risks. I've found it is better to not lie. So, when I told my father we were out of milk, I wasn't lying.

I knew that he would refuse to get the milk for me. He was content to sit and drink and be angry at me. I suspected he would tell me to get it myself. So, when he did, I interpreted his instructions as literally as possible.

He didn't specify which store to use, so I was free to choose the one I wanted to patronize.

I chose the 7-Eleven down the street from Saskia Stiles's home.

—

An hour later, I stood at the front door of the home of John and Linda Stiles.

There were four unanswered texts on my phone. The first had come in eighteen minutes ago. It was from my father.

What the hell is taking you so long

I ignored it and, five minutes later, he texted me again.

Where are you

Again, I ignored it. My phone must have rung in the meantime, but I had turned off my ringer. I don't like phone calls.

Pick up the damn phone

I arrived at Saskia Stiles's house, just as the fourth text message came in.

Freddy

I ignored it again. My mind raced with other thoughts, other questions, other threads.

I couldn't stop thinking about Jack Sweat and his trophy room. I couldn't stop thinking about the kiss he had given me. Not the kiss itself, but the feeling of the kiss.

The touch of lips on lips.

And I couldn't stop thinking about how it would feel if those were Saskia's lips, and I didn't know why I was wondering it.

I tumbled the thought over and over again.

At which point, Linda Stiles opened the door.

“Yes?” she said.

She stood in the middle of the doorway, looking at me, but I was not there anymore. My eyes had lost their focus. I was chasing a thread, following it from conjecture to conclusion, like a rabbit across a warren.

This was an inopportune time to be lost in a thought of kissing her daughter. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my awareness, I realized it, but was having trouble communicating this to the rest of my body.

“What do you want?” she asked. It was good that she did this, for little else could have disturbed me. But she asked a direct question, requiring a direct answer, and I was good at answering questions like that.

“I'm here against my will,” I said, at last.

She frowned. “Excuse me?”

I began remembering the words I had practised on the way over. The words I had assembled from years of conversation practice during therapy. “Good evening, Mrs. Stiles, I would—”

But she cut me off. “I'm sorry, I don't have time for sales pitches.”

She started to close the door. I said, “I'm Freddy Wyland.”

She froze. I didn't know if she was going to turn around or close the door. She stared at me, her eyes wide. Her hands let go of the door and clasped each other. She leaned forward as if to get a better look at me. I wondered if she wore contacts and, if she did, if she was wearing them now.

“Freddy?” Linda Stiles said. “Freddy
Wyland
? What are you doing here?”

I stared back at her.

“Answer me, Freddy,” she said.

“Mrs. Stiles,” I said slowly, making sure I enunciated. “I would like to have a discussion with you and Mr. Stiles.”

Her expression hardened. “There is no Mr. Stiles,” she said.

I blinked. “When will he be back?” I asked, thinking I may have misunderstood the phrase; perhaps “There is no Mr. Stiles” was a colloquialism that meant he was buying groceries.

“Freddy, he's not coming back. He's—” She hesitated. “He's been gone for a decade. Didn't your father tell you?”

Suddenly I was afraid.

“Is he buying groceries?” I asked, and the words came out high-pitched and strained.

The day after I saw my mother for the last time began a stretch of days that aren't in my memory. There is a patch in my head, a blip of the timeline, in which I remember nothing at all. A black span of ten days from the late morning of September 10 to the evening of September 20.

Now, as I stood in the doorway of John and Linda Stiles's home, I felt waves of panic wash over me. I remembered. I remembered a little.

Only a little.

Linda Stiles used to wear her hair down, but tonight she wore her hair in a tight ponytail. The last time I saw her, ten years ago, Linda Stiles also wore a tight ponytail. And a blue cardigan, like the one she wore tonight. When I remembered that, I became afraid.

Ten years ago, I walked into the kitchen after school. She sat at the table with my father, where they both smoked cigarettes. Neither talked. Neither smiled. My father's hands were trembling. Linda Stiles's eyes were red. When she saw me come in, she stood up and, without a word, walked by me. That was the last time I saw her.

My father looked at me as if he didn't recognize me, as if it took him a few moments to bring me into focus.

“Sit down, Freddy,” he said. “I need to tell you something.”

I didn't remember anything that happened after that. But now, standing before Linda Stiles, remembering only that my father told me to sit down, I began to shiver.

I opened my eyes.
Linda Stiles's living room was small, and the rug was faded. I sat in the middle of the couch and stared at a tank of fish on the other side of the room. A single clown fish ambled around, just above fake coral. Back and forth. Back and forth, like a book turning its own pages.

Linda stood in the kitchen with the phone to her ear, yelling at my father.

“He's your son, not mine,” she said. “This is
your
mess to clean up.”

I trembled. Threads burst into my head like panicked tenants.

Linda Stiles came out. She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. She sat on the couch beside me. “You need to go home, Freddy.”

“I would like to take Saskia to the park.”

“Not a chance,” she said, shaking her head. “Not a chance. I don't think Saskia wants to go to the park.”

“Yes, she does,” I said.

“Go home, Freddy.”

“But she told me to come over.”

“Who did?”

“Saskia,” I said. “Saskia told me to come over.”

“Saskia doesn't speak, Freddy.”

I nodded my head. “Yes,” I said, “she does.”

She massaged her temple. “Freddy,” she said, letting out a long exhale. “Saskia has been non-verbal ever since—” She paused. “Ever since the last time you saw her.”

“I want to take her to the park,” I said.

She jumped up. “No!” she shouted and pointed to the door. “Get out! Just get out of here, Freddy!”

I stood up, too. “But I want—”

“I don't care what you want!” she screamed. “The last thing I or she or anyone needs is you smashing up someone else's life! Now get your—”

“Hello, Freddy,” said a voice from the hall. Linda Stiles stopped and, mouth agape, turned to look at her daughter, who was standing with her headphones in her hand. Her arms were rigid. She was trembling with excitement.

“Hello, Saskia,” I said.

“Did you have a good day?” she asked me as she dropped her headphones on the floor.

Linda Stiles, eyes wide, sat back on the couch, like she had been dumped from the back of a truck.

“I had a good day,” I said. “How was your day?”

“I had a good day TOO!” she said and began to hop up and down. I felt a longing, a wishing for my past. A wave of emotion passed over me and I felt as if I might pass out, so I sat down.

A moment of silence passed between the three of us.

Silence. And then the only sounds filling the room were small squeaks as Saskia hopped up and down, and shuddered gasps from Linda Stiles as she stared at her daughter and cried.

For a few moments, we looked at each other. Mrs. Stiles stared at her daughter, her hand to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. I was content to not say anything.

Saskia, on the other hand, was like a cold engine on a winter morning, trying to start, trying to start.

“Did you—” she began. She looked down, in intense concentration, looked back up. Every muscle in her body tensing and relaxing. “I had a good—”

She looked around.

“I said, I said, I said—”

“It looks like rain,” I said to her.

“Yes!” she shouted and stepped into the room, stopping at the edge of the rug.

“I want,” she said, then stopped. Her muscles relaxed. “Say, can you show me a poem, Saskia?”

“Can you show me a poem, Saskia?”

Her hands came up. They started flapping. “YES!” she shouted and walked across the rug, stiff legged, barely able to contain her excitement.

“Squeaky,” Linda Stiles called to her softly.

Saskia gave me her poem. She pulled it in a crumpled ball from her pocket. She uncrumpled it and read it to herself. Then, satisfied, she thrust it at me.

“HERE!” she shouted, hopping up and down. She squeaked.

I reached for the paper; she pulled it back, holding it against her chest.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” she said. She balled the poem back up and presented it again. This time, I reached for it and she let me take it.

“Thank you,” I said.

She squeaked. Then she turned to her mother. Stopped and looked her straight in the eye. Still smiling. “Hi, Mom,” she said. And then Saskia was walking out into the hall, up the stairs, back to her bedroom.

I looked at the wadded-up ball. The paper was faded and dry, cracked in places. It looked like it had been crumpled in a ball for years. I opened it, flattening it on the table.

This is what the poem said.

ONCE UPON A VERY MERRY TIME, there was a girl named Saskia.

She was alone with nobody to play with.

So, a chrysanthemum came over to play.

But Saskia was still lonely.

So, her best friend Freddy, a dog and a cat came over to play.

There were so many friends and Saskia wasn't lonely anymore.

So they played and played and played and played and played.

And they all lived happily ever after.

by Saskia.

age 7

—

I didn't see Saskia again that night. She went to her room, and her mother wept on the couch in front of me.

Linda Stiles dabbed at her eyes with tissue. Collecting herself, she said, “How do you and Saskia—” She shook her head.

“Saskia is my chemistry partner,” I said. “We eat lunch together.”

After a moment, I added, “I wrote her a poem.”

She looked up, staring at the wall behind me. “Today is the first time she's said anything for a decade, Freddy.” She put her tissue down. “The first time.”

“Okay,” I said.

“How long has she been talking to you?”

“We send text messages.”

“Freddy,” she started, then stopped. She looked down at her hands balled up in her lap.

“Can I take Saskia to the park now?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “No,” she said. “You can't. In fact, you need to go home, Freddy.”

“I'll go home after the park,” I said.

“No,” she said, firmly. “You need to go home now, Freddy. You need to talk to your father.”

“I don't want to,” I said, and my throat was dry.

“He needs to tell you something,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. We stared at each other.

“Do you know what he needs to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“What does he need to tell you?”

I paused.

“I don't know,” I said.

She stood up, and I stood too. We regarded each other from across the coffee table.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please go home.”

The
TV
in the living room was blaring.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
And my father in a reclining chair. His head back, mouth open, snoring slightly. In his left hand, he still held a can of Bud Light.

The room was otherwise dark. I sat on the sofa and stared at the wall. I watched the time tick by for an hour until the Late Movie began: it was
Titanic
.

All at once I remembered a night, with my mother dancing in the living room, Celine Dion singing that her heart will go on, my father watching her with a can of Bud Light in his left hand.

My mind split itself between the past and the present. I was there. I was here. I sat and listened to the music, as my father snored in his chair, and I watched the wall. In the corner of my eye, the memory of my mother dancing; a glass of wine in her hand, she spun about the room. At that moment, remembering my mother, the fear that had been in me all evening evaporated and I felt something I hadn't known in my entire life.

It embraced me like a heavy quilt. It poured over me like early spring rain. A weight lay on my shoulders, and I sat back against the couch, aware of my breath.

Just at the edge of my vision, my father sat with his Bud Light, my mother danced, and I remembered it.

I think I felt, for the first time,

I felt

      I felt

            sadness.

—

At some point I fell asleep. I awoke with a start from a dream, my hands coming up instinctively, gasping in a gulp of air as if I had surfaced from beneath the water.

The room was empty. The television was off. I didn't know what time it was. I was sweating.

It was the same dream. I was alone in the house and looking at the door, which was now ajar. This time, there were voices down a darkened hall.

“It's time for you to be a man,” the voice said.

In my dream, I heard the tick-tick-ticking of a cooling engine, the hissing of metal as the rain boiled off.

A train whistle.

“It's time for you to be a man, now, Son,” my mother said. “Can you do that?”