Part 16 (2/2)

I glance at Damian. He is sitting completely still.

We sip our cocoa in silence, when suddenly Damian looks at me. ”Maybe you're right,” he says. ”Maybe you're right, so I'll do it.”

I put my cup down. ”Really?” I shout, and throw my arms around him.

Then I remember who, where, what, and everything, and am beyond embarra.s.sed.

”Sorry,” I mutter. ”But thank you. This is so great.”

He chuckles softly and turns back to look at the skaters. He rests his chin on his hand on his knee, and shakes his head so slightly. Again, the s.p.a.ce between us yawns wider. I wish I knew what filled it.

181.

Chapter Twelve.

now that I know what I'm supposed to do, I can't seem to get myself to stay still long enough to work. Finis.h.i.+ng this map is something I have to do, something I want to do. It's interesting how there's a sort of breakdown in communication between what I know I want and actually getting my hands to do the work. All these grand ideas, and then, poof, the brain gets lazy and easily distracted.

Tibet is shaped like a crocodile head. I move the cursor up and down on the screen, letting it crawl over the Tibetan Web page. The blinds are shading my windows, keeping out the late afternoon light.

Nate liked Death. Death was in the clothes that he wore and the music he listened to. He would wrap himself in a black sweater and ask Death to ride along with him in his Honda Civic.

And out on the county road, a half mile from the turn that is shaped like a bear's claw, where the bent oak tree stands, it 182.

seems Death leaped up from the backseat, grabbed the wheel, found the tree, and took my brother.

Tibetan children are kept busy fetching water, shepherding, and gathering yak dung.

Yak dung, huh? Well, my mom always used to say that busy hands are happy hands. Does that apply to hands picking up yak poof And if idleness supposedly breeds wickedness, then here is what I can't understand: Nate was busy. He had plenty of stuff to do. The evidence of that is under my bed, rolled into a poster tube, and tucked away in sketch pads. So, why was he so filled with bad thoughts, bad ideas -- like driving without headlights, like stealing and vandalizing and defacing:1 I will never know, will I? I'll just never understand why Nate did what he did, why he behaved the way he did. His death will stay meaningless and stupid and pointless and a waste. I'll never know.

Anyway, I have to get to work. The map really is nearly done. But the last piece still needs ... finding. I can't figure out what the last piece is, but there's a hole in the map that stares up at me like some walleyed fish searching for water. That hole needs filling. I flip through my sketches and try to figure out what part of the whole remains undefined, un evinced, un drawn I know why I can't concentrate. It's because of Damian. I like him. I do. And I mean like like him. I like the guy my parents think killed my brother. What would Freud have to say 183.

about that? I kick my legs up onto my desk and clasp my hands behind my head.

Damian has this tiny white scar on the fleshy triangle of his hand, between thumb and forefinger. The scar is shaped like a crescent; he got it burning himself with the soldering gun. And I can't stop picturing it in my head, thinking about taking his hand and touching that scar, caressing it. I can't figure out if Nate would hate this, hate me for liking his best friend. I'm fairly sure that none of this would be okay with him if he were alive. Then again, if Nate were still alive, Damian probably never would have noticed me anyway. But I wonder if, maybe, Nate left Damian behind as another piece of himself for me to find, so I could hold on to him. Even if Nate didn't think of me much when he was alive, I have to believe that wherever he is now, he does think of me, that he misses me. And that he knows how much I miss him. I miss him so much.

None of this stops me, however, from wondering what it would feel like if Damian liked me back. If he kissed me. His mouth is like a seash.e.l.l, a droplet of water, pink and round and perfect and smooth. A warm buzz fills my stomach when I imagine touching those lips.

Then, a crash from downstairs jolts me from my ruminations. Loud. I run to my door and out into the hallway, then crane my neck trying to peer over the banister and down the stairs. My father is crouched over a pile of-- stuff in the middle of the floor. The front room closet is open and a landslide 184.

of boxes continues to pour forth from it, spilling all around him. Seeing my father outside the depths of the freezer or his den is new. I'm just about to turn around and retreat to my room, when I notice his shoulders shudder and his pale, skinny neck hunch over his knees.

”Dad?” I whisper, tentative, nervous. There is no response. I creep down the stairs so softly, as if I were approaching a wild, frightened animal. In truth, I'm the one who's frightened. ”Dad?” I try again.

I come up beside him and kneel down. An old cardboard box, weathered and torn, lies on its side, and all sorts of objects have leaked from inside it: a pair of navy mittens connected by a length of yarn, a tatty softball, a Hawks baseball cap, a dirty, beaten pair of cleats, and a pom-pom of blue and gold -- the Hawks colors -- streamers. I turn to my father, who still crouches with his head bowed and tucked into his arms. Then I see that a baseball glove has fallen to the floor in front of his feet. Nate's old mitt.

”Dad? Are you okay?” Now I'm getting worried. ”What happened?”

He looks up as though surprised to see me there beside him and quickly wipes at his eyes and rubs a hand through his gray, thinning hair.

”Nothing,” he replies in a deadened voice. ”I'm fine, I just thought I'd get rid of some of these old things. Give them to Goodwill.” He sinks back against the wall and slides 185.

fully to the floor, limp as a sack of corn. Then he looks at me, really sees me. It may be the first time since The Accident that he does so, and it feels like a knife is cutting deep into my ribs, through the tissue and bone and muscle that might protect my heart. My eyes fill with hot tears that I try to blink back.

”I found this,” he says, picking up the glove. ”And I just remembered him standing out there in his uniform, playing, and ... oh ...” His voice breaks and his eyes are glossy. He presses his forefingers to the corners of his eyes, as though trying to dam the tears. ”He was such a good boy.” A low sound, almost a growl -- but not -- a sob, snarls in his chest and rises up into his mouth and escapes, dropping into the s.p.a.ce between us and hanging there.

”I know,” I say; then I sit down beside him and reach for his hand, ”I know he was.”

My father lets me hold his hand. He doesn't squeeze mine back, but he lets me sit there with him and put my head on his shoulder, and he sees me. He sees me for the first time in such a long, long time. We sit there and cry together.

I know it's not a breakthrough or a new beginning or the end of the bad period -- the freeze-out -- but it's something. I curl my fingers around his, feeling the putty-like flesh, warm and soft, against my own. Like the warmest, safest blanket.

Dad's head snaps up as footsteps near. He presses my hand so gently he might not have done it at all, then rises and begins 186.

to scoop all of Nate's old things back into the box. My mother appears in the doorway.

”What are you doing?” Her voice comes out in a strangely strangled clanking.

Almost without thinking, I stand and begin to back up to the stairs. My father doesn't look at her, nor does he answer her as he continues sweeping the clutter back into its container.

”Daniel, what are you doing?” My mother's voice rises, taking on that tinny quality it gets when she is about to explode. I can almost smell the cordite. ”What are you doing?” Her face grows red and her fists are clenched at her waist. ”Put the box back in the closet, Daniel.”

My father has finished depositing everything back into the box and now has it tucked in the crook of his arm. Then quietly, he says, ”Marie, it's time. It's time to let him go.”

”Shut up, Daniel, and put the box down. Right now!” She's really yelling now and tears are streaming down all three of our faces, but it's as though I'm not even in the room. She runs over to him and tries to pry the box away from my dad, and suddenly they are in a tug-of-war match, each grasping a flap of battered cardboard, yanking and heaving and my mother's chest is heaving with sobs, and they glare at each other. Glare as though they hate each other, hate and hate and they pull and glare and pull until the box splits apart with a meek exhalation, ffrrip. All of Nate's things arc through the air like a waterfall and fall to the floor in a clatter.

187.

My father stands mutely, gaping; he stares around at all of the things, while my mother swoops down and grabs as much as she can hold in her arms, cradling the baseball mitt like a baby, and runs out the door. I hear the door to her sewing room bang shut. Then silence. My father raises his eyes to mine briefly then turns and shuffles past me up the stairs. His face, his skeleton -- it all seems to have collapsed in on itself, and he looks as fragile as a b.u.t.terfly. The den door squeaks open and closes with a click.

I shake my head, and follow in my father's wake up the steps and slide past the den into my own bedroom. Then, carefully, I put my shoulder to the door and nudge it shut. I lie down on my bed and cry until I think I'll throw up. This was the worst thing I have seen since the night he died.

When I'm cried out, I walk to the bathroom, my eyes and nose and whole body dried out, empty, wasted, like some bug exoskeleton wasting away on a windowsill. After I wash my face, I remain in front of the mirror above the sink. I stare at my reflection, I don't blink. Brown eyes, dull and brown, look back at me. Dark brown hair hanging in heavy waves. My face is pale and my eyes are bloodshot. I can't detect much of a difference between this fourteen-year-old self and the thirteen-year-old one. Same flat chest, skinny arms, collarbone that sticks out sharply, all the way to my shoulders. What a watery picture I make. Enough I have to be stern with myself. Enough with this. I grab my cell phone and start to dial Rachel's 188.

number. Quickly, I snap the phone shut. What am I thinking? I shake my head clear, then call Helena.

”Hey, are you busy?” I ask.

”Nope. How about you?” she replies.

”Want to go to the mall?” Maybe chain stores and the lure of s.h.i.+ny objects will erase the whole horrible scene I just witnessed.

”Why not?” Helena says good-naturedly. ”Meet me at the entrance in twenty?”

”Sounds like a plan,” I tell her, silently thanking whatever power made her free.

<script>