A Symphony of Cicadas (18 page)

“You can on
ly
mess with the living so much,” J
ane
had told me on one of her occasional visits as we jumped from dragonf
ly
to dragonf
ly
.
“You may be able to see him, hear him, even smell him
.
But you’re still worlds apart
.”
It didn’t stop me from trying, though.

As John pulled in front of the house, I settled into the reflection of his blue iris and looked at the house through his eyes
.
His carpenter’s mind saw past the perfection in the wide porch with solid railings, the inviting red door, the friend
ly
double
-
paned windows that let in the sunlight but kept out the sounds of the outside world
.
Instead, he saw the way the
unfinished
wood on the porch
bowed in the middle
.
He saw the brown crabgrass that had
choked out a once
-
plush lawn
.
He saw the minuscule chips in the red paint on the door, the way the bottom of it
had
too much of a gap to keep the house warm, the smears on the windows from months of neglect.

John walked up to the house and put his key in the door, opening it
with slight hesitation
as if something were behind it
.
The hinges complained under the movement, the creak
echoing through the vacant house
.
John walked in, the sound of his footsteps on the wood floors ping-ponging off every surface in the house
.
He had turned off the electricity months ago, knowing it would be some time before he set foot in this house again. The sun was high in the sky
outside;
its rays spilling into each room through the large windows I’d insisted belonged on each modest wall
.
But despite the bright light it still felt dreary and dark in the empty house
.
John flipped the light switch in the living room once or twice, as if a little leftover charge could be pulled from
the wires
.

There was still a lot of work that needed to be done on the house, but when John peered
past
the
walls that still needed painting
and the naked electric sockets
,
he could also see how close
he was
to the end
.
He
didn’t know what
he was going to do with the house
.
He wasn’t sure he could live in it without me, but he was afraid to sell it and be done with it
.
Even renting it out seemed like a betrayal to me, allowing someone else to
have a
part
of
the dream we’d created together.

He
concluded that no decision was necessary
right
now
, but that leaving it to rot among the manicured lawns of the quiet neighborhood seemed a shame
.
Grabbing a broom, he put all his energy into cleaning up sawdust from the floors and swiping at the cobwebs that hung like drapes in the corners
.
He kept at it well into the evening,
not
noticing as the sun cast its rosy hue on the walls as it set in the late spring sky
.
It wasn’t until
the streetlights lit up outside the living room window
when the late hour caught his attention
.
He picked up his cell phone, noting a missed call from Wendy on it with no voicemail message attached
.
He also noticed it was after
nine o’clock at night,
and Sam was probab
ly
wondering where he was. He pushed the guilt out of his mind that Sam was on his own for dinner, excusing it with all the times Sam hadn’t shown up for dinner at all in the past couple of months.

John didn’t arrive home until almost
ten o’clock at night
.
The lights were off when he opened the door of the apartment and peered in
.
He figured Sam was in his room, seeing the note he’d written crumpled up on the counter next to a plate with the remnants of unknown leftovers
.
John picked the dish up and washed it along with the dirty pans abandoned on
the
clean stove
.
He was left with minor frustration at how they were
just
left behind in the sink despite the fact that the rest of the kitchen was sparkling clean.

He was even more irritated when he saw that half of Sara’s oatmeal bread was missing before he could even cut into it
.
John dried his hands and cut himself a slice
in a hurry,
as if waiting any longer would result in the bread disappearing right from underneath him
.
While no longer warm, it still held the fragrance of just being baked
.
He bit into it and smiled as if sharing a private joke with someone in the empty room
.
Through him I could taste the dryness
of the
bread
that was almost good. Sara had never been much of a baker, or anything that
mothers
were
assumed
to be good at
.
It was always a
source of
fami
ly
amusement when she became a mom, as she
had a difficult time boiling
water
without burning it
.
But she managed just fine with the girls and they were better for it, even if her bread
-
baking skills left something to be desired.

Not wanting to disturb Sam, John ascended the stairs with quiet footsteps
.
He paused at the top, looking over at Joey’s room that held all of his belongings, my belongings, me
.
H
e diverted his attention to Sam’s room, the light shining through the gap underneath the doorway
.
John
tapped
on his door and listened for movement to signal whether Sam was awake or not
.
No sound could be heard
.
He knocked a little louder and still no one answered or even stirred behind the closed door
.
H
e turned the doorknob and pushed against it, but something was blocking him from opening it more than an inch
.
John
groaned
when he saw that Sam had pushed a chair against the door to keep him from opening it
.
Ages ago, John had removed the lock from Sam’s door, tired of being locked out while Sam ignored him from the inside
.
He had taken the lock off the door to give him a chance of reaching his son
.
This was Sam’s habitual way of keeping the barrier in place.

“Sam, come
on
.
Would you open the door?” H
e wasn’t surprised when Sam still didn’t answer him
,
so
he struggled with the door to get it open.
Little by little, the chair moved with the door until John could reach his hand through the space he’d created
to
push the chair over.
Sam sat at his desk and
regarded
his dad with eyebrows raised, as if John
was just
an overreacting child.

I’d seen him give me the same look countless times when I’d try to reason with him
.
Rather than speak, he’d just let
that look land on me for a few moments too long as if to size me up or see if I’d waver
.
On the outside I’d remain firm
.
But inside my blood would boil, just as John’s was doing now under Sam’s calm and amused gaze
.
And then Sam would do whatever it was I was asking him to do, whether it was to clean his own bathroom or stop acting as if all of us were in the wrong
.
But he’d do it with an air of conceit, letting us know through his silent demeanor that he was on
ly
doing this to promote peace, and we should be thank
ful he was humoring us
.
It infuriated me then. But now I
was beginning to understand why he acted this way, why he found
pleasure in the
figurative
steam coming from his father’s ears
even
as he climbed to the top of the power struggle by using his father’s force against him.

“I am sick and tired of you wedging your chair against this door, Sam!” John yelled, his face red in his growing fury
.
“It wrecks the door and can break the chair
.”
John breathed hard while looking at him
,
waiting for Sam to say something against it so they could have at it
.
Sam, knowing his dad was
anticipating
a challenge, ke
pt quiet for a few moments,
his
stone cold
demeanor
standing firm
before he gave his dad
the reaction
he wanted.

“It wouldn’t wreck the door if you didn’t try to push it aside all the time
.
Maybe if you just gave me my lock back, your precious door wouldn’t get
ruined
.”
He said it
in a calm voice
, looking John in the eye as he spoke
.
John, in the meantime, was feeling crazy on the inside, flailing against
the air of
Sam’s cool
disposition
.

“Damn it
,
Sam!  You don’t have a lock because then I’d never see you!  Why can’t you just do what I tell you to do?” he shouted.

I could see the sparks in the air as Sam broke, something snapping inside of him after months of walls upon walls being built up between them.

“Because you’re never here!  Even when you are here, you’re not!  You don’t want to see me, you don’t even talk to me
.
And tell me what to do?  It’s not like you’ve even been a parent to me at all since Rachel died
.
It’s like you’ve locked yourself up in that room with all her stuff and have nothing left for me
.
But Dad, I’m not dead, I’m here!” Sam stormed, clenching and unclenching his fists as he yelled at his dad. It was the same argument from a few
weeks
earlier, the unresolved emotions f
ly
ing up between them after having been pushed down and ignored for too long
.
“I’m sick and tired of this house, this city, YOU!  I can’t stand it here any longer!”

John held his breath at the words, realizing what was coming next
.
As much as he’d thought this eminent plan of action would bring him relief, he was sudden
ly
faced with fear at the thought of his son moving out
.
At the forefront,
he knew he’d miss his son
.
But underneath
this fear
was
the knowledge
that once his son was gone, John would be faced with my presence in every wall, on every surface, and in
the air he breathed despite the fact that I
and all my things were
locked behind Joey’s door.

“What are you saying, Sam?” John asked, his body rigid as he waited for what they both knew was coming.

“I’m moving in with Mom
.”

John
let out a slow breath
, sitting on the bed across the room as
a
wave
of
unexpected
peace
washed over both of them
.
The fight
ended
with those words
.
John wasn’t going to
forbid it
, a
fact proved obvious in the way
he looked at the ground
.
And while Sam hoped
his father
would protest a little, he didn’t expect him to
.
Besides, it wouldn’t have made a difference even if he did.

“Does your mom know?” John asked.

“Yeah, I called her when I got home and saw your note
.
But I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he admitted.