Authors: Patrick Ness
“What’s that got to do with the price of milk? Come inside.”
She vanished into the house, and he slowly trudged after her. It was Sunday, the day his father would be arriving from the airport. He would come here and pick up Conor, they’d go and see his mum, and then they’d spend some “father–son” time together. Conor was almost certain this was code for another round of We Need To Have A Talk.
His grandma wouldn’t be here when his father arrived. Which suited everyone.
“Pick up your rucksack from the front hall, please,” she said, stepping past him and grabbing her handbag. “No need for him to think I’m keeping you in a pigsty.”
“Not much chance of that,” Conor muttered as she went to the hall mirror to check her lipstick.
His grandma’s house was cleaner than his mum’s hospital room. Her cleaning lady, Marta, came on Wednesdays, but Conor didn’t see why she bothered. His grandma would get up first thing in the morning to hoover, did laundry four times a week, and once cleaned the bath at midnight before going to bed. She wouldn’t let dinner dishes touch the sink on their way to the dishwasher, once even taking a plate Conor was still eating from.
“A woman my age, living alone,” she said, at least once a day, “if I don’t keep on top of things, who will?”
She said it like a challenge, as if defying Conor to answer.
She drove him to school, and he got there early every single day, even though it was a forty-five minute drive. She was also waiting for him every day after school when he left, taking them both straight to the hospital to see his mum. They’d stay for an hour or so, less if his mum was too tired to talk – which had happened twice out of the previous five days – and then go home to his grandma’s house, where she’d make him do his homework while she ordered whatever take-away they hadn’t already eaten so far.
It was like the time Conor and his mum had stayed in a bed and breakfast one summer in Cornwall. Except cleaner. And bossier.
“Now, Conor,” she said, slipping on her suit jacket. It was a Sunday but she didn’t have any houses to show, so he wasn’t sure why she was dressing up so much just to go to the hospital. He suspected it probably had something to do with making his dad uncomfortable.
“Your father may not notice how tired your mum’s been getting, okay?” she said. “So we’re going to have to work together to make sure he doesn’t overstay his welcome.” She checked herself in the mirror again and lowered her voice. “Not that
that
’s been a problem.”
She turned, gave him a flash of starfish hand as a wave, and said, “Be good.”
The door clattered shut behind her. Conor was alone in her house.
He went up to the guest room where he slept. His grandma kept calling it
his
room, but he only ever called it the guest room, which always made his grandmother shake her head and mumble to herself.
But what did she expect? It didn’t
look
like his room. It didn’t look like
anybody’s
room, certainly not a boy’s. The walls were bare white except for three different prints of sailing ships, which was probably as far as his grandma’s thinking went towards what boys might like. The sheets and duvet covers were a bright, blinding white, too, and the only other piece of furniture was an oak cabinet big enough to have lunch in.
It could have been any room in any home on any planet anywhere. He didn’t even like
being
in it, not even to get away from his grandma. He’d only come up now to get a book since his grandma had forbidden hand-held computer games from her house. He fished one out of his bag and made to leave, glancing out of the window to the back garden as he went.
Still just stone paths and sheds and the office.
Nothing looking back at him at all.
The sitting room was one of those sitting rooms where no one ever actually sat. Conor wasn’t allowed in there at any time, lest he smudge the upholstery somehow, so of course this was where he went to read his book while he waited for his father.
He slumped down on her settee, which had curved wooden legs so thin it looked like it was wearing high heels. There was a glass-fronted cabinet opposite, filled with plates on display stands and teacups with so many curlicues it was a wonder you could drink from them without cutting your lips. Hanging over the mantelpiece was his grandma’s prize clock, which no one but her could ever touch. Handed down from her own mother, Conor’s grandma had threatened for years to take it on
Antiques Roadshow
to get it valued. It had a proper pendulum swinging underneath it, and it chimed, too, every fifteen minutes, loud enough to make you jump if you weren’t expecting it.
The whole room was like a museum of how people lived in olden times. There wasn’t even a television. That was in the kitchen and almost never switched on.
He read. What else was there to do?
He had hoped to talk to his father before he flew out, but what with the hospital visits and the time difference and the new wife’s convenient migraines, he was just going to have to see him when he showed up.
Whenever that would be. Conor looked at the pendulum clock. Twelve forty-two, it said. It would chime in three minutes.
Three empty, quiet minutes.
He realized he was actually nervous. It had been a long time since he’d seen his father in person and not just on Skype. Would he look different? Would
Conor
look different?
And then there were the other questions. Why was he coming
now
? His mum didn’t look great, looked even worse after five days in hospital, but she was still hopeful about the new medicine she was being given. Christmas was still months away and Conor’s birthday was already past. So why now?
He looked at the floor, the centre of which was covered in a very expensive, very old-looking oval rug. He reached down and lifted up an edge of it, looking at the polished boards beneath. There was a knot in one of them. He ran his fingers over it, but the board was so old and smooth, you couldn’t tell the difference between the knot and the rest of it.
“Are you in there?” Conor whispered.
He jumped as the doorbell went. He scrambled up and out of the sitting room, feeling more excited than he’d thought he would. He opened the front door.
There was his father, looking totally different but exactly the same.
“Hey, son,” his dad said, his voice bending in that weird way that America had started to shape it.
Conor smiled wider than he had for at least a year.
“How you hanging in there, champ?” his father asked him while they waited for the waitress to bring them their pizzas.
“
Champ
?” Conor asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow.
“Sorry,” his father said, smiling bashfully. “America is almost a whole different language.”
“Your voice sounds funnier every time I talk to you.”
“Yeah, well.” His father fidgeted with his wine glass. “It’s good to see you.”
Conor took a drink of his Coke. His mum had been really poorly when they’d got to the hospital. They’d had to wait for his grandma to help her out of the toilet, and then she was so tired all she was really able to say was “Hi, sweetheart,” to Conor and “Hello, Liam,” to his father before falling back to sleep. His grandma ushered them out moments later, a look on her face that even his dad wasn’t going to argue with.
“Your mother is, uh,” his father said now, squinting at nothing in particular. “She’s a fighter, isn’t she?”
Conor shrugged.
“So, how are
you
holding up, Con?”
“That’s like the eight hundredth time you’ve asked me since you got here,” Conor said.
“Sorry,” his father said.
“I’m
fine
,” Conor said. “Mum’s on this new medicine. It’ll make her better. She looks bad, but she’s looked bad before. Why is everyone acting like–?”
He stopped and took another drink of his Coke.
“You’re right, son,” his father said. “You’re absolutely right.” He turned his wine glass slowly around once on the table. “Still,” he said. “You’re going to need to be brave for her, Con. You’re going to need to be real, real brave for her.”
“You talk like American television.”
His father laughed, quietly. “Your sister’s doing well. Almost walking.”
“
Half
-sister,” Conor said.
“I can’t wait for you to meet her,” his father said. “We’ll have to arrange for a visit soon. Maybe even this Christmas. Would you like that?”
Conor met his father’s eyes. “What about Mum?”
“I’ve talked it over with your grandma. She seemed to think it wasn’t a bad idea, as long as we got you back in time for the new school term.”
Conor ran a hand along the edge of the table. “So it’d just be a visit then?”
“What do you mean?” his father said, sounding surprised. “A visit as opposed to…” He trailed off, and Conor knew he’d worked out what he meant. “Conor–”
But Conor suddenly didn’t want him to finish. “There’s a tree that’s been visiting me,” he said, talking quickly, starting to peel the label off the Coke bottle. “It comes to the house at night, tells me stories.”
His father blinked, baffled. “
What
?”
“I thought it was a dream at first,” Conor said, scratching at the label with his thumbnail, “but then I kept finding leaves when I woke up and little trees growing out of the floor. I’ve been hiding them all so no one will find out.”
“Conor–”
“It hasn’t come to grandma’s house yet. I was thinking she might live too far away–”
“What are you–?”
“But why should it matter if it’s all a dream, though? Why wouldn’t a dream be able to walk across town? Not if it’s as old as the earth and as big as the world–”
“Conor,
stop
this–”
“
I don’t want to live with grandma
,” Conor said, his voice suddenly strong and filled with a thickness that felt like it was choking him. He kept his eyes firmly on the Coke bottle label, his thumbnail scraping the wet paper away. “Why can’t I come and live with you? Why can’t I come to America?”
His father licked his lips. “You mean when–”
“Grandma’s house is an old lady’s house,” Conor said.
His father gave another small laugh. “I’ll be sure to tell her you called her an old lady.”
“You can’t touch anything or sit anywhere,” Conor said. “You can’t leave a mess for even two seconds. And she’s only got internet out in her office and I’m not allowed in there.”
“I’m sure we can talk to her about those things. I’m sure there’s lots of room to make it easier, make you comfortable there.”
“I don’t
want
to be comfortable there!” Conor said, raising his voice. “I want my own room in my own house.”
“You wouldn’t have that in America,” his father said. “We barely have room for the three of us, Con. Your grandma has a lot more money and space than we do. Plus, you’re in school here, your friends are here, your whole
life
is here. It would be unfair to just take you out of all that.”
“Unfair to who?” Conor asked.
His father sighed. “This is what I meant,” he said. “This is what I meant when I said you were going to have to be brave.”
“That’s what everyone says,” Conor said. “As if it means anything.”
“I’m sorry,” his father said. “I know it seems really unfair, and I wish it was different–”
“Do you?”
“Of
course
I do.” His father leaned in over the table. “But this way is best. You’ll see.”
Conor swallowed, still not meeting his eye. Then he swallowed again. “Can we can talk about it more when Mum gets better?”
His father slowly sat back in his chair again. “Of course we can, buddy. That’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Conor looked at him again. “
Buddy
?”
His father smiled. “Sorry.” He lifted his wine glass and took a drink long enough to drain the whole glass. He set it down with a small gasp, then he gave Conor a quizzical look. “What was all that you were saying about a tree?”
But the waitress came and silence fell as she put their pizzas in front of them. “Americano,” Conor frowned, looking down at his. “If it could talk, I wonder if it would sound like you.”
“Doesn’t look like your grandma’s home yet,” Conor’s father said, pulling up the rental car in front of her house.
“She sometimes goes back to the hospital after I go to bed,” Conor said. “The nurses let her sleep in a chair.”
His dad nodded. “She may not like me,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean she’s a bad lady.”
Conor stared out of the window at her house. “How long are you here for?” he asked. He’d been afraid to ask before now.
His father let out a long breath, the kind of breath that said bad news was coming. “Just a few days, I’m afraid.”
Conor turned to him. “That’s
all
?”
“Americans don’t get much holiday.”
“You’re not American.”
“But I live there now.” He grinned. “You’re the one who made fun of my accent all night.”
“Why did you come then?” Conor asked. “Why bother coming at all?”
His father waited a moment before answering. “I came because your mum asked me to.” He looked like he was going to say more, but he didn’t.
Conor didn’t say anything either.
“I’ll come back, though,” his father said. “You know, when I need to.” His voice brightened. “And you’ll visit us at Christmas! That’ll be good fun.”
“In your cramped house where there’s no room for me,” Conor said.
“Conor–”
“And then I’ll come back here for school.”
“Con–”
“Why did you come?” Conor asked again, his voice low.
His father didn’t answer. A silence opened up in the car that felt like they were sitting on opposite sides of a canyon. Then his father reached out a hand for Conor’s shoulder, but Conor ducked it and pulled on the door handle to get out.
“Conor,
wait
.”
Conor waited but didn’t turn around.
“You want me to come in until she gets home?” his father asked. “Keep you company?”
“I’m fine on my own,” Conor said, and got out of the car.