A Father for Philip (8 page)

She tried to picture him beside her,
tousled in the aftermath of loving and sleep and the only thing she could see
was David’s eyes, looking deeply into hers. With the memory of him flooding
over her again; the sound of his voice seemed to fill her ears and she sat up,
holding her hands to her head, moaning.

Why won’t he go away and stop haunting
me? Why can’t I be sensible and forget him? And the answer came to her
immediately. Because I still want him. I still need these memories. Until I no
longer have need for them they will remain, just as Philip will keep his
imaginary friends until he outgrows the need for them.

Oh, David, what has your disappearance
done to me, and what is my lack of acceptance, my failure to adjust to it, done
to our son?

Sportsday at school was a thunderous
success. Kids ran whooping in droves, powered, it seemed by so many small noisy
piston driven engines. The amount of energy expended could have fed the town’s
combined light-requirement for two weeks if only it could be harnessed. Eleanor
worked with other mothers behind long trestle tables, laying out platters of
different sandwiches, salads, pickles and other condiments, while the kids
hovered hungrily around several portable grills where hamburgers and hotdogs
sizzled. At another table more people cut pies and cakes into serving pieces.
The abundance of food would never be eaten, Eleanor decided, looking at the
plates of ham, cold turkey, and roast beef and salads in the section next to
her own, and at the amount of desserts on the far end of the row of tables.

The races were finished. Philip’s team
had won the tug-o war for his age-group, with chubby little Jamie Peters as
anchorman, and for once she was pleased to note, the poor child was not being
treated as a pariah by his schoolmates, her son among them.

Philip came panting up just then, his
one blue, two red and three white ribbons fluttering on his grubby T-shirt, a
wide grin splitting his equally grubby face. She hoped he’d soon grow into
those extra-large front teeth. He glanced around to see if anyone were near,
then whispered to his mother, “Did you see him, Mom?”

“Who, love?”

“Jeff! He was over by the backstop when
we won the tug-o-war and when I ran over to say hi he left.” Philip showed no
disappointment at this development, naturally, his mother concluded, admiring
the way Philip could go on making up reasons for ‘Jeff’ never having to show
himself when there were others present. Philip burbled on, “But that’s okay,
though, because he’s afraid to be around me when there’s other people here,
’cause he might forget and tell my secret. I told him about”—Philip came closer
still, his steamy breath tickling in Eleanor’s ear—“Lorna!”

Dear
diary
. A smile twitched at the corners of Eleanor’s
mouth. “I’m glad you have a friend you can talk to about things like that,” she
said, giving her son a hug. “You must like him a lot.”

“Oh, I don’t just like him, Mom,” said
Philip confidingly. “I love him like you only different. He’s sort of like a
dad. I wish I could have a dad just like him. Can I have a hot dog now Mr.
Exley?” This last was bellowed at the top of his lungs as he roared away to the
cooking facilities presided over by Ralph Exley, the neighbor who had provided
the puppy for his birthday.

At length the trestle tables held only
scraps and crumbs and dirty dishes. The miracle had happened and all the food
had vanished. The adults, exhausted, crumpled in heaps on blankets on the
grass. Not so the children who, stuffed as they were with hotdogs and hamburgers,
cakes and pies and cookies, to say nothing of quarts and quarts of ice cream,
seemed only to have been recharged.

Eleanor sank back on her blanket and
propped herself on both elbow to watch the crowning of the May Queen. The
“throne” was set in a beautiful little bower made of lilacs and maple leaves,
yellow broom and hyacinths interspersed with white stars of dogwood flowers.

The parade began with little boys, her
own among them, riding on decorated bicycles in the lead of the “princesses”,
small girls in long pastel dresses, carrying baskets of petals which were
tossed by handfuls along the path to be taken by the May Queen. A cheer went up
from the children and applause from the adults as she came around the corner of
the school, walking with extreme dignity in her long white gown with a blue
satin sash. The picture of decorum, she glided toward the bower where she was
to be crowned with a garland of spring flowers. Upon reaching the two shallow
steps which led to her throne, she raised a laugh by turning and calling out
loudly,. “See daddy? I didn’t trip on my own big feet!”—and immediately
tripping upon the hem of her gown.

Later, driving home with the evening sun
in her eyes, Eleanor rubbed a hand across her forehead which was aching
slightly from too much sun, too much food, and most certainly from too much
noise. Philip leaned forward and spoke into her right ear. “Wasn’t she pretty,
Mom?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied, wishing he didn’t
have to be so loud. “Sit back down and do up your seatbelt again.” Eleanor knew
her son was referring to Lorna the Princess in pale gold that matched her hair.

They were greeted at home by an ecstatic
Casey who forgave them at once for leaving him, and showed his magnanimity by
producing a puddle on the floor. Eleanor bent over to mop up and rose feeling
sick and dizzy.

Neither she nor Philip felt like eating
after the excesses of the day, so Eleanor took a couple of aspirins and went to
the coolness of the rose arbor to rest for an hour before Philip’s bedtime. The
hour did her no good at all. She wished her head would quit aching, but it just
seemed to be getting worse. Not only that, but her sinuses were stuffed up.
Maybe we’ll have a storm, she thought, looking with apathetic eyes at the
unrelentingly blue dome of sky which remain cloudless and bright even at seven
o’clock in the evening. She rose and called Philip to get ready for bed though
it was early.

He put the pup into its basket and went
with great reluctance to have his bath. When he was finished, he appeared
before his mother, scrubbed and pink, shining with good health and overabundant
energy. It made Eleanor tired just to look at him.

“I’m not tired, Mom. Can’t I stay up
just a little longer?” he wheedled.

“No. Maybe you’re not tired, but I am.
It’s nearly eight now, so let’s get going, young man!” She led him off to his
bed, read him an extremely brief story and kissed him. “Good night, baby.”

“Mom!” he bellowed indignantly. “I’m not
a baby! Jeff knows I’m not a baby. He said so.”

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I know
you’re not a baby, too. Just… sometimes I slip up. Okay? I’ll try not to do it
again.”

“Okay. ’Night mom.” Philip who was not
tired, yawned. “How come I have to go to bed when you’re tired?”

“Just the way life is, Phil.”

“Aw, that’s no answer. I’ll ask Jeff
when I see him again. He always gives me good answers… ’cept once…” And Eleanor
decided her son was about to ask another question, so she quickly flicked off
the light and left her son still wondering about whatever it was he intended to
use as another stalling tactic

~ * ~

For the next four days Eleanor fought
the symptoms of her cold, taking pills and just managing to keep going. Philip
would come home from school, and play rambunctiously with Casey for a while,
then hare off into the woods, leaving the puppy sleeping peacefully in his
basket.

Eleanor felt too miserable to try to
keep her active, noisy little son around. She knew it was a cop-out, but it was
so much easier to let him go. At least she had some quiet for her poor aching
head. Philip, too, seem to have developed a new sense of responsibility since
the advent of the puppy. Instead of her having to call him every night, she was
delighted to find him home on time for dinner, ready and willing to feed his
pet. Even if that’s all the puppy has done for me, he’s well worth it, Eleanor
thought.

“I’m glad you’re coming home on time,
now, Phil,” she told him one night when she was tucking him into bed. “It’s
much easier for me this way.”

“That’s what Jeff said,” Philip informed
her seriously. “He says now that I have someone small and helpless relying on
me—he meant Casey—I have to watch the time.”

“I’m so glad, honey,” Eleanor said,
trying not to smile. Not for the world would Philip admit that he, himself, had
developed a more responsible attitude. Far easier to say that the ubiquitous
‘Jeff’ was responsible. That way, any backsliding could be blamed on ‘Jeff’,
too. Assuming, of course, a seven-year-old had that sophisticated a sense of
reasoning. Whatever the cause, she’d take it.

Oddly enough, though he was still
spending much of his time in the forest, after that one mention of Jeff, Philip
seem to forget about him. He would go out, return muddy or dusty, according to
the weather conditions, but with a silence on the subject of his playmate which
gave his mother an easier mind. Perhaps she decided, the woods are simply a
good place to play for their own sake, and no “friend” with a log cabin is
necessary.

That was not true.

~ * ~

The day after sportsday at school, Philip
had gone riding wildly into the woods, bumping and weaving on his bike, calling
loudly as he rushed into the clearing. “Jeff! Jeff! I saw you!” He fell off his
bike into a panting heap beside Jeff, who was making what appeared to be a
lean-to shed out of poles. “Did you see me win the tug-o-war?”

“Sure did, sport! Saw your team win
second prize in the relay race, too. Nice going. How was your birthday?”

“Great! Hey, Jeff, guess what my mom
gave me!”

“What?” Jeff smiled down into the
glowing little face.

“Guess!” Philip hugged himself in
ecstasy, bouncing from one foot to the other. “You’ll never guess.”

Jeff pondered, then said, “A new pair of
pants?… A skate board?… A tool-box?” And at each wrong answer the little boy
shook his head, his shaggy hair flying around his face, his eyes dancing with
delight. At last he could stand the guessing game no longer.

“A puppy!” he blurted. “A little bitty
puppy who’s going to grow up to be this big!” he indicated height, as his
mother had done, only adding a foot or two of exaggeration. “He’s a Labrador
retriever. His name’s Casey.”

Jeff opened his eyes wide, showing
astonishment. “No!” he said. “Not a real live puppy of your very own?”

“Yup!” Philip nodded earnestly. “Honest,
Jeff. But he can be yours, too, if you like. He can belong to both of us and to
Mom, too, of course. Mom says he’s too little to go running through the woods.
I can’t put him in my bike basket ’cause he might fall out and get hurt, and I
have to stay home and look after him until he’s growed up some, but she let me
come today. She doesn’t feel good and my racket hurts her head. I try to
remember to use my indoor voice, but sometimes I forget.”

“Well, we’ll have to make sure you’re
home on time to feed your pup, Phil. If your mom has a headache she won’t want
to have to go outside to call you.”

“What’s that you’re building now, Jeff?”

“A lean-to.”

“What’s it for?”

“Siwash.”

“What’s that?”

“My horse.”

Philip backed up the pace or two. He raised
big, hurt eyes to Jeff. “A horse?” He looked betrayed, his lower lip trembled
slightly.

Jeff nodded, leaning another pole
against the crossbeam and nailing it in place. “I told you I was getting one.”

Philip looked around apprehensively. “Is
it here?”

Again Jeff nodded, not stopping his
work. “In a horse trailer over behind the truck. Let me have a nail please,
Phil, I have to get this finished so I can bed him down for the night.”

Philip handed over a nail from the box
at Jeff’s feet. “Horses don’t have beds,” he said derisively.

“No,” Jeff agreeably replied and evenly,
“they have stables. Every creature likes to have a warm dry place to sleep, out
of the wind, out of the rain. Siwash will like this shed we’re building for
him, where he can eat his oats and hay and sleep warm. You wouldn’t enjoy
sleeping standing up in a trailer all night, would you?”

“No, I guess not,” said the child
doubtfully. “Will you still like me when he comes to sleep here in his stable?”

“Of course, son. You have Casey, and you
still like me, don’t you?”

“Yes. You don’t want me to get up on
him, do you?”

“No. Not unless you want to. May I have
some more nails, please?”

~ * ~

The following afternoon when Philip
arrived the lean-to had been completed. It was roofed with shakes over the
framework of poles, and the front, too, had been covered with shakes, leaving
an opening in one end in which Jeff had hung a Dutch door made of poles and
big, brass hinges. The top of the door swung open, and from it protruded the
head and neck of an enormous looking brown horse with a white nose and a calm
and sleepy demeanor.

Philip stood well back, watching the
horse with distrustful eyes. Jeff came quietly up behind him and when he
touched Philip’s shoulder the boy squealed and jumped. “Easy, son. Easy. It’s
only me,” said Jeff in his relaxed, resonant voice. “See? That’s Siwash, and
he’s all locked up in there, poor old thing, because I knew you were coming.”

The horse whickered softly, tossing his
head and Jeff went on in the same even tones, his hand still comfortingly warm
on Philip’s shoulder. “He’s asking for an apple. Get me one from the basket
over there, will you?”

Philip tiptoed to the basket of apples,
selected one by feel alone, not taking his eyes off the horse and sneaked in a
wide arc around, back to Jeff. The man took the apple and went alone to the
horse.

He held it out while Philip watched from
a safe distance, and the large, yellowish teeth snaffled it daintily from his
outstretched palm. Siwash chomped noisily, tossed his head and made a sound.
“No, Si. Sorry boy. That’s enough for now. When my friend goes home for his
dinner, I’ll let you out. I know you hate being penned up in there, but you
see, he’s been my friend longer than you have, and he’s a little worried that
you and he might not get along together.” The horse snorted gently again,
blowing his breath over the side of Jeff’s head, ruffling his hair and beard.