Seeing Things (25 page)
Authors: Patti Hill
“I'm not a kid anymore. I thinkâ”
“That's why I'll talk to you as a friend, not a son.” I took his silence as permission to continue. “You love your son. That's very clear.”
“But not enough to make good decisions about his future, according to you.”
“If this is going to work, you have to listen like a friendâno looking for hidden insults and no interruptions. Does that work for you?”
He sat back down.
“You want the best for Fletcher. That's love, Andy. You've provided a beautiful home, fabulous opportunities to see the world, a computer he dearly lovesâhe wants for nothing.”
“Except the good sense to say no to his grandmother.”
“That will come with time.”
“What is this leading to?”
“Children don't always interpret our best intentions as adults do.”
“Ma . . .”
“Call me Birdie if it helps.”
He stood again. “This is craziness. I have a son facing surgery, reports to study, résumés to review. I've hardly slept for a week.”
“I'm almost done.” I patted the sofa and he plopped down. “From your point of view, sending Fletcher to boarding school will toughen him up. He'll learn self-discipline and apply himself to his studies. I can't argue with those goals, but Andy, darling, that's not how Fletcher sees a boarding school. To him, he's being sent to Elba. This is exile, plain and simple.”
Andy started to rise, and I touched his knee.
“His mother left him,” I continued, not sure where I was headed. “Some would argue her departure worked out for the best. Jeannine had her issues, but Fletcher knew her only as Mommy. As irrational and unwarranted as that title applies to Jeannine, that's who she is to Fletcher. And she left. Mommies don't leave. It's counterintuitive. It's written on every child's heart that mommies are ever present, especially when you don't want them anywhere near.”
Andy ran his hands over his face.
I kept talking. “Despite your best attempts to be everything to himâand you did a wonderful jobâhe felt like a puppy kicked out the door on a cold winter's night. It's not fair that he felt that way, given how hard you worked to make things right. It's just the way things work.”
“He never said a word.”
“Maybe he was too ashamed.”
“That's crazy. He had nothing to do with Jeannine leaving. She . . . she was just Jeannine.”
“Like I said, children don't see things like adults do. Andy, I fear sending Fletcher away will make him feel like that rejected puppy again.”
Andy's voice was flint. “There must be consequences for his actions.”
“Fletcher's a smart kid. He knows he messed up, but sending him two thousand miles away will be received as a completely different message. Be sure it's the message you want to send.”
“Suzanne says he wants to leave. That this is no big deal to him.”
“Yes, I suppose he did say that. But do you always say what you mean?”
“Yes. I'm quite deliberate that way. My success is built on the integrity of my word.”
“Then all I have left to say is this: Extend the same mercy you received.”
A clock ticked. A bubble glugged in the water cooler. Someone opened and closed the door.
“Mercy? Like when Dad found me in Tuolumne Meadows, when he took his belt offâ?”
“He never!”
Andy stood in front of me, pulling his shirttail out of his pants.
“What is this about?” I said.
He grabbed my hand. “Feel that.”
Under my fingers, a jagged rise of skin interrupted the smoothness of his back. “How did this happen?”
“Belt buckle, I imagine. It all happened pretty fast.”
Chapter 26
I lay in the suffocating darkness, pulling memories out of dusty files. I'd already tried drowning the memories with the last chapters of
Huckleberry Finn,
but with Fletcher contemplating an uncertain future, for me, facing the past head-on seemed the most honest thing to do.
Huckleberry Finn,
but with Fletcher contemplating an uncertain future, for me, facing the past head-on seemed the most honest thing to do.
Andy, my firstborn, the tender one, had been the apple of my eye. Nine months out of the year, I waited for his bus to turn the bend along the river and stop at the shelter. We lived in a remote station in Yellowstone during his grade school years. With a new baby and plenty to keep me busy at the station, I relished my time taking Andy to and from school. When he saw me, his furrowed brow loosened and he smiled with teeth as big as movie screens. On the February afternoon I remembered most clearly, he held a paper bag decorated with construction-paper hearts and paper doilies against his chest, a formidable treasure for an eight-year-old boy. He'd already traveled ten miles on the stubby bus to the north entrance to Yellowstone. I'd left the snowmobile fifteen miles farther up the road where the road crews stopped maintaining the road once the snow piled chest high. We took the last five-mile leg to the station by snowmobile. Diane slept in a bundle of snowsuit and blankets on the seat between us.
One by one Andy pulled the Valentines out of the bag. He read the riddles and rhymes and shared his candy. He asked about my day, if the raccoons had gotten in the trash again. I said, “Not since you came up with the new lock.” We listened to the radio and sang along with the cowboy's lament.
I drove clutching the steering wheel, shifting gears as smoothly as possible, and as tempting as the brake pedal proved to be on the tight turns, I resisted the urge to press down, all to avoid plowing into a snowbank. We didn't go anywhere without a walkie-talkie, not in the isolated country we lived in, but I'd used it only once, to call in a fire crew. Sliding into a snowbank would feed the chatter of the airwaves for months, from Chuck and all the other rangers.
“Ma?”
“Yes, Andy,” I said, downshifting to climb a hill.
“I made something for you.”
“You did?” I'd baked a heart-shaped cake for him and Chuck back at the station. In all the years I'd baked with a wood-burning stove, this cake finally approached perfection. I'd spent most of the morning feeding the hopper with kindling and tempering the heat with cool water poured into the reservoir.
Out of his paper bag came a construction-paper card with macaroni flowers. “I wrote a poem for you.”
“I can't wait. Read it to me, Son.”
He read:
Some boys got a ma who's lacey and refined.
Mine is so much better, so smart and so kind.
She bakes me oatmeal cookies and reads me
Treasure Island.
Treasure Island.
Long past stupid bedtime until I slip off to dreamland.
Happy Valentine's Day, Ma.
I hope your day is great
and that you will still love me
when I finally shout checkmate.
I pressed the brake pedal too hard, and we spun back toward the way we came.
“Do it again!” he yelled.
“Okay, but don't tell your father.”
“Don't worry.” His honeyed eyes met mine. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I'm okay. Very, very okay.” I touched his cheek with my gloved hand. “Thanks for the poem, bud.”
A wide grin fattened his cheeks.
By the time Andy graduated from college, Chuck had mellowed and Andy had earned a business degree,
summa cum laude.
He worked for a small manufacturing firm outside of Seattle, just a short drive and a ferry trip across the sound from where Chuck rangered at Olympic National Park. He visited often, sometimes bringing a friend who happened to be female. The undertow of tension had dissipated. Chuck and Andy hunted in Northern Idaho, fished for anything with gills, and when not occupied by such manly pursuits, they harassed me. Their needling confirmed their love as surely as endearments, maybe more so.
summa cum laude.
He worked for a small manufacturing firm outside of Seattle, just a short drive and a ferry trip across the sound from where Chuck rangered at Olympic National Park. He visited often, sometimes bringing a friend who happened to be female. The undertow of tension had dissipated. Chuck and Andy hunted in Northern Idaho, fished for anything with gills, and when not occupied by such manly pursuits, they harassed me. Their needling confirmed their love as surely as endearments, maybe more so.
How does the saying go?
A daughter is a daughter all of her life. A son is a son till he takes a wife?
Andy married Jeannine, a wild-haired girl he'd met at a pub near his apartment. She wasâ
is
âa flighty thing, never settling on a branch long enough to make a nest. Determined to draw her into the family, Chuck and I answered the young couple's every beck and call, which meant packing and moving the two of them a hundred times, more or less. At least Jeannine liked the outdoors. We traveled together, exploring natural treasures within a day's drive of the peninsula.
A daughter is a daughter all of her life. A son is a son till he takes a wife?
Andy married Jeannine, a wild-haired girl he'd met at a pub near his apartment. She wasâ
is
âa flighty thing, never settling on a branch long enough to make a nest. Determined to draw her into the family, Chuck and I answered the young couple's every beck and call, which meant packing and moving the two of them a hundred times, more or less. At least Jeannine liked the outdoors. We traveled together, exploring natural treasures within a day's drive of the peninsula.
From many years of living in national parks, I'd seen plenty of rivers swollen from snowmelt, foaming and churning over boulders, carrying felled trees like toothpicks. When Fletcher was born, a new kind of love carried me on a raucous ride just like a felled tree on a Class V river. With this precious bundle of humanity in tow, we continued our family excursions. Anticipation threatened to burst my heart as each trip neared. We widened our circle of travel, seeing the world through fresh eyes, thanks to Fletcher. But then Andy begged off from a trip to the Adirondacks, said Fletcher was too young to travel that far, and Jeannine didn't like New York. They accepted and canceled at the last minute a trip to Canyonlands in Utah (too hot), a tour of Civil War battlefields (too violent), and an all-expense-paid trip to Cumberland Island (too humid).
The young family moved to Denver. Calls from Andy grew sporadic. He blamed the demands of his new job. When I packed a bag and hopped a plane to visit Fletcher unannounced, I found Jeannine had moved out to live with her fitness trainer, leaving Andy alone to juggle his job and parenting. I kept my mouth shut and dug in to help. A somber Fletcher and I bonded by taking trips to the park and baking pies together. Andy pinched a fold of flesh at his waist each night, complaining about the weight he was gaining, but he always took a second piece, especially if I'd managed to round up strawberries and rhubarb. Chuck and I came within a breath of taking early retirement to move to Denver to be near Andy and Fletcher.
Then along came Suzanne and everything changedâagain. Tears welled in my eyes as I remembered Fletcher's graduation from kindergarten. By that time, Chuck and I had retired to Ouray, close enough to see Fletcher as frequently as we liked, but a fair distance to minimize the disparity of our lifestyles and values. After the ceremony, back at Andy and Suzanne's house, we'd relaxed on the sofa, waiting for Suzanne's parents to arrive from the school. Suzanne insisted that Fletcher change his clothes as we were going out to lunch. This seemed like unnecessary folderol for a kindergartner's graduation. How about some grilled wieners and potato salad?
Andy sat in a wing-backed chair across from me and Chuck. He spoke in a low, apologetic voice. “There's been a misunderstanding. Suzanne's folks reserved the dining room at the club months ago. They forgot you were coming. They've sunk a lot of money into this.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, the nearest to tears I'd been in public since I slammed face first into the monkey bars in grade school.
He continued, sounding too much like a snake oil salesman. “The refrigerator is full. On our way home, we'll stop for ice cream to go with that elderberry pie you baked.” He rubbed his hands together, the dirty deed done. “Suzanne's folks have tickets for the theater tonight, so it'll just be the five of us for pie. That means bigger pieces all around.”
Fletcher looked over his shoulder and waved as he walked out the door with Suzanne's family. In all the years I'd been married to Chuck, I'd never seen his face reduced to rubble. I looked from Chuck to the closed door. From some primal instinct, I stood to follow my grandchild. Chuck pulled me back to the cushions. “Let them go.”
I held my camera in front of his nose. “I didn't get any pictures.”
“We're leaving.”
“Leaving? What do you mean? They'll be back in a couple hours, expecting elderberry pie and ice cream.”
“Leave the pie. Andy's made his choice. He prefers his uptown in-laws with their high-society connections. Let's go.”
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