The Ever Breath (2 page)

“Let’s go,” Camille said. “It’s getting dark.”

Truman felt his stomach give one more lurch, as if it had just realized that they’d come to a stop. He grabbed the handle on the door, opened it quickly, and threw up on the pavement.

They made their way across the long sloping stretch of the fairway’s trimmed grass in a line—Camille under the weight of her backpack, Truman pulling a suitcase on wheels, and their mother trailing behind. A solitary golfer bobbled by in a golf cart, his golf clubs rattling. He gave the three of them a suspicious glance, but Truman barely noticed. He was staring at the house. It loomed larger and larger the closer they got. In fact, it seemed to rise to meet them.

There, in its dark shadow, was a squat figure with bow legs in thick black stockings sticking out from under a bulky parka. Each breath the person released formed a little cloud in the cold air. It was, of course, Truman and Camille’s grandmother. A woman they’d never met and knew only by the disappointing presents she sent for birthdays and holidays—bars of soap, ChapSticks, boxes of crackers. She was standing next to a metal mailbox, dented and dinged over the years by golf balls. Its red metal flag was missing. “Cragmeal” was printed on the side of it in peeling black letters.

She had on a pair of white sneakers that looked like
they’d gotten wet and then had dried in a stiff, odd shape with slightly upturned toes. She carried a gnarled wooden walking stick the way a native in the jungle would hold a spear, as in one of Camille’s books on survival. On her head was a wooly blue hat that was lumpy and looked as if it had been made by someone who barely knew how to knit. She tugged at the hat, keeping it snug over her forehead just above her thin white eyebrows. She had a sharp jaw and a noticeable underbite, and when her face sagged and then cinched up tightly, Truman was reminded of a bulldog. (Bulldogs were high on his list of favorite dogs.)

But the most striking thing about their grandmother was her glasses; one of the lenses was completely normal but the other was covered by a shiny black plastic cup. Truman wondered what was wrong with the hidden eye. And he felt his own gaze linger on the plastic cup—longer than he should have let it. His grandmother’s other eye caught him staring. It fixed on him with a steely blue concentration. He smiled weakly, fiddling with his inhaler in his coat pocket.

The eye squinted and then blinked and then moved on.

“It’s so good to see you,” Truman’s mother said wearily.

“We haven’t seen enough of each other over the years,” his grandmother said. “I’m glad I can be of help now … now that, well, you know.”

Camille sighed loudly. Truman translated the sigh in his head. It went something like:
Oh, so you’re going to tiptoe around the subject of our missing father, too, huh? How lovely
.

“This is Truman,” his mother said. “And this is Camille. Really growing up, aren’t they?”

Truman hated talk about growing. He was pretty sure he’d stopped growing. He was short and slightly pudgy, and he was afraid that the only way he was ever going to grow was horizontally, not vertically.

Their grandmother shook Camille’s hand, and then reached for Truman’s.

“Careful,” Camille said, “he’s a barfer.”

Their grandmother paused.

“I get carsick,” Truman explained.

“Note to self!” their grandmother said. “Barfer.” She shook his hand and smiled in a way that suggested she was trying to hide a sudden pang of
What have I signed on for?

“And here’s information on Truman’s other medical conditions,” his mother said. She handed their grandmother a thick folder.

“Oh my!” their grandmother said.

“Sorry,” Truman mumbled under his breath.

“It’s all right. I think you might actually do quite well in my house,” their grandmother said. And then she looked up at the sky. “Glad you made it before the snow. They’ve been predicting snow for a week straight, but none comes.” Truman looked at the sky through a break in the patchy fog. It looked heavy with gray clouds. “Do you want to come inside and warm up and eat some dinner?”

Truman looked at his mother, as if seeing her for the first time in a long time. She was wearing her navy peacoat with its three oversized buttons. The coat was too big for her. How could his mother look lost even in her own coat? She shook her head. “It’s hard enough to say goodbye—even though it
won’t be too long,” she said. “I can’t string it out.” She pulled a tissue out of her coat pocket and wiped her eyes.

“Don’t go all Jell O on us,” Camille said. She was fine with disasters but didn’t like plain old emotions. She hadn’t cried—not once—since their father left. Truman had cried right away, that first morning when their mother told them at breakfast. He was embarrassed about it, but still, once he started he’d had trouble stopping.

“I’m not! I promise!” their mother said. “I’ll call every day. It’s only three weeks. It won’t be forever. Be good! Okay?” She opened her arms for a hug.

Truman wrapped his arms around her. He’d never gotten the chance to say goodbye to his father. That was one of the hardest parts of it. He breathed in the wooly smell of her coat and tried to memorize it. His father smelled of aftershave, but Truman could barely remember the scent.

After he let go, their mother turned to Camille. “You don’t have to hug me if you don’t want to,” she said. Ever since Camille had given up on her old girly self, their mother gave her a lot of space. She was careful around her.

Camille shrugged as if she didn’t care either way. “It’s only three weeks. You said so yourself.”

“Okay, then,” their mother said. “I’ll just say, ‘See you soon!’” She waited, obviously wanting Camille to change her mind. But Camille only hooked her thumbs around the straps of her backpack and stared at her Converse sneakers. After a moment Truman’s mother turned to their grandmother and said, “Thank you again. I can’t tell you how much this helps. Once he’s home, you know, once he’s come back …”

“We’ll have a party,” their grandmother said.

“Exactly,” their mother said. “A party.” She smiled in a tired way, as if she was barely able to lift the corners of her mouth. Then she gave a small wave, turned, and headed back up the fairway with her pocketbook tucked under her arm.

Truman and Camille stood there, letting their eyes follow her. Truman felt like crying. In fact, he sniffled.

Camille looked at him sharply. “Don’t!”

“It’s just pollen allergies,” Truman said, even though there wasn’t really a pollen issue in winter.

Camille rolled her eyes.

“Well,” their grandmother said.

They turned around and there she stood before them—this strange-looking woman with her curl-toed sneakers and her ugly woolen hat, sizing them up with her one visible eye. The house looming at her back looked even worse up close—more pocked and dinged by golf balls, more slouched and weathered. “I’m not used to children,” she said.

“That’s okay,” Camille said. “We’re not used to old people.”

Truman winced. Camille had a way of saying the wrong thing. She was too blunt. But their grandmother gave an appreciative nod, as if she liked this answer. “Let me take you for a tour,” she said, digging her walking stick into the ground and heading across the yard.

Camille followed her. But Truman wanted to run back toward the fairway to catch up with his mother, tell her that this was a mistake, that they should stick together as a family now. But he knew that it wouldn’t do any good.

He started following Camille and their grandmother. He was still pulling his suitcase, which kept tipping over in the
grass. He followed them as quickly as he could, but then let himself glance over his shoulder one last time to see his mother before she left. But she was already gone—a ghostly figure that was lost in the thick fog.
Swallowed
, Truman thought.
Swallowed by the fog
. Maybe he’d been right after all. Maybe Swallow Road wasn’t named after the bird.

“I don’t like the term
grandmother
. It sounds old, like someone who belongs in a rocker and can only bake pies,” their grandmother said. “Plus, I haven’t been much of a grandmother to you. I haven’t seen you since you were babies, sharing a crib. I looked into your small wobbly eyes. You were so tiny.” She paused as if remembering it all in great detail. “But I’m a stranger to you now. Aren’t I? A stranger more or less. Why don’t you just use my real name? Swelda.” She looked at the two of them. “Try it out,” she said.

Truman and Camille glanced at each other and then they both said, “Swelda.”

She waited expectantly, as if they’d said her name to get her attention. “What is it?” she asked.

“You told us to say your name,” Camille said. “So we did.”

“Even so, we’ve established that I’m a stranger to you and you to me, and you don’t have a single question?”

The only question Truman could think of was:
What kind of a name is Swelda?

Camille looked at the embattled house and around the grounds. She said simply, “If you were stranded on a deserted island with only a piece of flint, what would you do?” This was a typical Camille question these days.

“I have been stranded almost all my life,” Swelda answered. “This is my deserted island.” She banged her walking stick on the ground. “And you know what I’ve done?”

“No,” Camille said.

Swelda lowered her wizened face. “I’ve survived,” she said. “You will too, when the time comes.”

Truman didn’t know what she’d meant. They’d survive too, when the time came? Survive what? Truman wasn’t good at surviving even picnics. (He’d been carted away from the last one due to a pollen/asthma/collision-with-an-errant-Frisbee fiasco.)

The three of them walked across the lawn. And then Swelda stopped and waved her walking stick at the golf course. “In this idiotic game of balls and clubs and loudly colored pants, the golfers must get from the seventeenth tee box to the seventeenth hole. Here, they have to go around this house,” she explained loudly. “And they don’t aim well! So don’t be surprised if you wake up in the morning to the sound of golf balls popping off the roof. Louder than acorns, I tell you! I’ve boarded up the windows. Tired of replacing the glass! Golfers tee off at five a.m. I hope you two are early risers!”

“I’m an early riser,” Camille said. “There’s no use just lying in bed dreaming.”

“Mmm,” Swelda said, as if Camille had given the correct
answer on a test. “Good.” And then she peered at Truman intently through her single uncovered lens. “What about you?” she asked.

Truman loved the early-morning fogginess when he couldn’t quite tell whether he was dreaming or awake. The mornings were the best time of day to pretend that his father was still living at home, was maybe even in the kitchen frying bacon. “I like to sleep in,” he said.

Swelda eyed him suspiciously with her one eye, as if he were some strange new animal that looked familiar but she couldn’t quite name. She gave a grunt. “I’ll have to keep an extra eye on you.” Truman wondered whether she had extra eyes, fake ones maybe, that she kept in a jar somewhere.

Swelda strode to the clipped grassy edge of the course, just a few feet from the front door. She pointed out the sand trap on one side of the house. “Don’t play in there. It isn’t the beach, you know.” Truman hated beaches. His skin was so pale that he always had to be slathered with a thick coat of sunscreen that got in his eyes and made them water uncontrollably. And then he usually burned anyway. (Camille would lightly apply a single coat and then turn golden.)

On the other side, Swelda showed them a pond. “During certain times of year, that little body of water attracts mean, spiteful geese that litter the grass with goose poop. Steer clear of them.”

In front of the house was the green of the seventeenth hole itself, with its tall pole and white flag. “Stay off the green,” Swelda said. “Golfers do not like children.” Then she paused. “And maybe they’re right. It’s been so long since I’ve been with children that I barely remember.” She looked at
them again, with her head cocked to one side. “You interest me, though. I have to admit that. You seem sturdy enough. Are you curious children?”

“About what?” Camille asked.

“About everything! It’s a waste to go through the world without a good dose of awe and wonderment.”

“I’m curious,” Truman said.

“You’re cautious,” Camille corrected.

“And do you like questions?” Swelda asked Camille.

“I like answers,” she said.

“A straight shooter,” Swelda said. “I see.”

She stopped at the side of the house and pointed her walking stick at a rusty cellar door. “Browsenberry wine,” she said.

“Browsenberry wine?” Camille repeated.

“I brew browsenberry wine in the root cellar. That means there are jugs and glass tubing and the delicate working of fermentation. And there is a set of stairs that leads down to the dirt floor, but the third step—the bottom step, that is—well, it’s missing. You shouldn’t go into the root cellar, but you will. And when you do, remember there is no third step.” Swelda smiled. “I don’t recall much about children, but I do know that they end up where they’re not supposed to be. And sometimes you are
supposed
to be where you’re not supposed to be. That is how things happen. That is how the worlds march forward. Actions lead to other actions.” She sighed. “You won’t be here long,” she said, tugging on the ugly blue hat. “Everything is ticking along, one small mechanism clicking with the next. There is no going backward. Only forward.” She looked at the two of them. “Do you understand?”