Snow Angels (24 page)

It's coming down too heavily to see town, only a muffled light in the clouds. Glenn turns off the heater, turns off the engine. Bomber's over by the picnic tables, sniffing. Maybe he's strange, Glenn thinks, but he doesn't want Bomber to see him the way he had to see Tara. He makes sure his door's unlocked so they won't have to break in, lays his keys on his Bible, open to the Seventh Psalm. If there is evil in these hands . . . He reaches under the seat for the gun, and the horn honks.

“You are such a fuck-up,” Glenn says.

A
T THE END OF OUR DATE
I kissed Lila Raybern goodnight. She kissed me back harder than I expected and took her glasses off so they wouldn't poke me in the eye. We stood on the landing in the cold. My mother had gone inside to give us some privacy, though I was
sure she was spying from the front window. Lila had been eating wintergreen Life Savers, and the clean heat of her mouth thrilled me. I said I would see her tomorrow and watched her walk across the snow to her building. She waved before going in. In bed I said her name to the darkness. I decided I would buy the chain.

From band practice I went straight to the Burger Hut. After eight, when it was slow, I called Lila from the kitchen. I helped Mr. Philbin close and he gave me a ride home. More often than not my mother was asleep. I let myself in, wolfed some Pop-Tarts and watched TV before turning in, thinking of how I'd see Lila in the morning. We sat together on the bus now, effortlessly betraying Warren and Lily.

At school everyone talked about Annie and how weird it was. The afternoon—the evening—of the killing, I didn't remember seeing Glenn pass through in his pickup. I had to read about it the next day in the
Eagle
, and when I did I realized that for a few minutes we had been—besides the janitor, who was credited with finding him—the only two people there. My mother was late picking me up. I stood in the light from the lobby, watching the snow, wondering where all the sirens were going, where the dog that wouldn't stop barking was.

I told no one this, not even Lila. When asked, I admitted only that Annie babysat me a few times. Our
families weren't that close, I said. At home, my mother would not discuss it, and when it was mentioned on the news, she changed the channel. The memorial service was private; we were not invited. My mother sent Mrs. Van Dorn a card, which she signed for both of us, and speculated out loud whether my father would remember to.

I still had not had dinner with my father and Marcia. We were supposed to the Saturday after our last home game. It was a secret. My mother had forbidden me to see or even speak to Marcia, but this did not stop my father. Every time he took me out to slide around the snowy parking lot in his Nova, there she was at his apartment, reading and listening serenely to Brahms, with hot chocolate ready for us. My father kissed her at the door, which did not shock me, but which did not seem like him either. I could not get used to her tooth, or the way they smiled at each other, as if waging a silent conversation. When he sat beside her on the couch, his hand found hers, his thumb stroking the back of her fingers. His attentions reminded me of Lila and how we touched, but unpleasantly. I wondered aloud how Tony Dorsett and Pitt were doing; he said he'd have to buy a set just so I could watch it—as if he had no interest in the game, which was untrue. At home all Saturday and Sunday afternoon, he wallowed on the couch downstairs,
soaking in a six of Iron City along with the entire college and pro lineups. And when did he begin listening to classical music? It was all for her, I thought, the way I decided to stop getting high so much after Lila said she didn't like it. I wished that, like Warren jagging me, I could give my father shit about his sudden changes, but I knew that, like me, he wouldn't appreciate it, no matter how true.

My mother let slip—over dinner or in the car, watching TV or getting ready for work—that my father was confused, sometimes implying that he was mentally ill and needed treatment. I did not tell her that he seemed happy to me. I was careful never to mention Marcia in the house, but every so often my mother would come out with: “She'll never marry him. I know women like that, and she will never marry him.”

Once when she came back wobbly from a night on the town, she said, “That woman of your father's is no good. There's a name for women like her.”

It was a Friday and Lila was with me, watching “Chiller Theatre.” Neither of us said anything. My mother's shoes dangled from one hand; her lipstick was smudged, her hair rumpled as if she'd been in a fight. She dropped onto the couch beside us and lit up.

“Your father doesn't even see it. He doesn't want
to see it.” She leaned across me and spoke to Lila as if giving her advice. “He left me for her, did you know that? That was the biggest mistake he'll ever make, mark my words. What is this movie?”

In minutes she was asleep beside me, her shoes nestled in her lap. Lila said she'd better go, and though the movie wasn't half over, I didn't argue. I walked her to the door. My mother was snoring, sprawled now across the empty couch.

“Is she all right?” Lila asked on the landing after I kissed her goodnight.

“She will be,” I said.

But she was not, and as Christmas neared she began to talk more often about her unhappiness, which I did not need to hear. She said she prayed to God I would not turn out like my father. She said everybody knew what kind of woman she was and what kind of woman Marcia Dolan was. She said if she did not have to take care of me she would leave this town and never show her face here again, didn't I know that? When she didn't talk to me, I could be happy. I had Lila and I didn't need anything or anyone else. I listened to my mother with the same skepticism I had earlier reserved for my father, and when she had left the room, gave the finger to her long-departed back.

“What are you doing?” Astrid said over the
phone. My mother had begun calling her every few days, regardless of the hour. “Haven't you listened to anything I've said?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stop thinking about yourself, for one thing.”

I said nothing. She was right, but wrong in making it sound like my fault.

“Do you want me to come home?” she asked. “Is that what you want?”

In the transatlantic silence I thought of my mother, my father and Marcia, Annie and her little girl. Every session Dr. Brady made me talk about her. I still hadn't dreamed of her, but several times a day I saw her floating in her muddied snowsuit and had to shake my head to get rid of her. Sometimes I pictured her while I waited to be picked up, scarfing down my two chili dogs. The drainpipe and the ice. The mitten slowly nosing the surface. The snow. I'd finish and feel the onions searing my throat and sometimes the heat made my eyes water. I went outside, where it was dusk and people were doing last-minute shopping. In the car I didn't tell my mother how I felt. I hadn't told Astrid, though I hoped she knew.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well I can't,” Astrid said. “You're just going to have to deal with it yourself. There's nothing I can do right now anyway.”

Then what, I wanted to ask, was
I
supposed to do?

I could make breakfast. The next day I got up early and put the coffee on and made fried eggs and toast for myself and ate them, all the time waiting for my mother to smell everything and come see what I had done. When I had finished, her door was still closed. I poured her coffee and splashed in just enough milk, set it at her place and called for her. It was seven-twenty; she should have been showered and dressed by now. I knocked on her door and then pushed it open.

The shades were down, the red numbers of her clock sharp in the darkness. She was in bed but not asleep, propped up on her pillows. Her arms lay limp on the spread, a Kleenex clutched in one hand. On the floor by her night table sat a scattering of used tissues. She sniffed and looked at me helplessly, and I tried not to be angry.

“I'm not going in today,” she said. “I don't feel well.”

“I made coffee.”

“That was sweet.”

“Do you want me to bring it in?”

“That would be nice.”

I went into the kitchen and brought her coffee back and put it on her night table. She smiled but didn't touch it.

“You don't mind if I stay home today,” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Arthur,” she said, but said nothing more for a while. I stood there in the dim room. The coffee steamed. The minute turned on the clock.

“I'm just very tired,” she explained. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I'll be all right, I'm just worn out right now.”

I didn't know what to say to this.

“I've got to get my bus,” I said.

“I know. You go ahead. Don't worry about me.”

“You don't have to pick me up. I've got practice and then work.”

“So you'll be home late.” It seemed more than a disappointment to her. An accusation.

“The regular time,” I said.

She turned away, uninterested. “Go. You'll be late.”

Outside, it was still dark. Lily was sick again. Lila asked why I was pissed off so early in the morning.

“Why do you think?” I asked, and then apologized.

“It's all right,” she said, and I thought, as we walked up toward the bus stop, that this was another part of my life that my parents were creeping into and ruining. I felt wrong for abandoning my mother, leaving
her with the lights out and the shades down, but it was not my fault. Didn't Dr. Brady tell me to always remember that?

When I came in that night, my mother was asleep. She'd left the light in the kitchen on. The house was cold. Her coffee mug was in the sink, along with one other dish and a soup spoon. Ice cream, maybe, or cereal. I wondered if she'd left the house all day. I wondered how long this would go on.

The next morning she was up before me, but in her robe. Eating my eggs, I watched the clock over the sink. She sat across from me, smoking and nursing her coffee. Please get dressed, I thought, please. She caught me looking at her and then the clock and sighed.

I took a bite of toast and buried my eyes in my plate.

“I need time, Arthur. Will you give me some time?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Thank you.”

She took her mug to the sink. I kept eating. I was surprised how easily I had given up on her. Now that it was done, I was glad not to discuss it I had endured the moment; I had won. Yet that night, faced with my reflection in the Fry-o-lator, as I tried not to picture
the pipe sucking the mitten in, I saw my mother running water over the tip of her cigarette and then tossing the wet butt in the garbage.

Thursday she saw Dr. Brady while I priced gold chains at Milo Williams and browsed through the True Value for a tool my father might need. The lightpoles were festooned with huge tinsel bells and candles. We didn't even have a tree, and the colored lights running marquee-like around Woolworth's windows annoyed me. I got back to the Hot Dog Shoppe on time, afraid of making her wait, but she hadn't come down yet. The air was heavy with grease. I wasn't hungry and ordered a cherry Slurpee, and then a lemon-lime when she hadn't showed. I was almost done with it when she pushed through the door. She had her driving gloves on. In one hand she clutched a tissue. It would never stop, I thought.

“I think that's what I needed,” she said in the car, but didn't explain. Inexplicably, I felt jealous of Dr. Brady. But the next day she went to work, and silently I thanked him.

Saturday was our last home game and our final try at the tornado. Driving over, my mother wondered if I wanted her to stay and watch. She had never come to any of our games before and she was dressed to go shopping.

“No,” I said, “that's all right.”

“I will if you want me to,” she said.

“No,” I said.

She should have stayed, because we actually did the tornado right. We stood sweating on our assigned spots as the crowd rose, then hustled off double-time. Mr. Chervenick pounded us on our backs as we filed into the runway. He leaped between the rows, waving his score. “Tremendous!” he crowed. “You are the ones!” We marched—still with precision, though the show was over—through the parking lot and inside to the gym to change. Our shouts reached down the long, empty halls. When we had come out of our respective locker rooms and gathered wet-haired on the basketball court, Mr. Chervenick addressed us from the bleachers.

“I am very proud of you. You have all come a very long way since this summer, and I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with you. This is a year I will always remember. I hope you will too.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Warren said beside me.

“Don't be a jerk,” I said.

“What's with you?” he asked after we had given ourselves three cheers. And what could I say—that I liked Mr. Chervenick, that I wished everyone were more like him, even if he was full of shit?

“Nothing,” I said, and being friends, we let it drop.

My mother pulled up with a Sears bag in the backseat. I told her about the tornado. She was impressed for a second, then asked what my father and I had planned for the rest of the afternoon.

“I don't know,” lied.

“What time is he coming to pick you up?”

“Around four?” I said, though we had agreed on it. I even knew what we were going to eat—homemade pizza.

At home I waited in the living room with the Pitt game on softly. My father was late, which once would have been unusual. He no longer came to the door but just honked. I listened for the chug of his Nova over the play-by-play. By the end of the first quarter it wasn't close anymore. Tony Dorsett sliced through the Navy secondary, running up his numbers. At halftime my mother closed the door to her room to wrap whatever she'd bought, and I went to the front window. The sun was orange in the trees, shadows stretching across the snow toward our building. The sky was bright high up but fading gray down low. It was the time of day my father would break out the potato chips and dip and the card he bought for a dollar at work and see how his picks were doing. Now, as he had when
we were living in our old house, ABC's Jim Lampley went through the top twenty. I looked in the fridge, going shelf to shelf before getting myself a Pepsi and sitting back down.