Three Little Words (19 page)

“Yup,” Sid says. “But I'll give her back the pages, tell her you were trying to help. Or you could tell her yourself. Think you can do that?”

Wain nods. “I guess. I'll try anyway.”

“Good luck explaining the shaman thing.” Sid gets up and starts to walk back to the beach where the boats are. Wain follows him, shuffling across the stones. “Maybe we could have a little ceremony in the backyard or something—that might work,” Sid says. “Tell her it's an island thing—that we all write our nightmares down and then burn them. Watch the fear blow away.”

Wain turns to face Sid. “Would you do that?”

Sid thinks for a moment. “Yeah,” he says. “I could do that. If you tell her you took the pages.”

They make their way back to the wharf in silence, Sid in the rowboat, Wain in the kayak. Sid helps Wain haul the kayak up onto the wharf. Nobody seems to have noticed it was gone.

“You've got a golden horseshoe up your ass, don't you?” Sid says.

“What?”

“First the rowboat in Oak Bay. Now this kayak. You got away with stealing—twice.”

“You gonna tell?” Wain asks.

Sid shrugs. “Probably not. Least of our worries, right?”

“Yeah.” Wain shuffles down the wharf behind Sid. “You were the lucky one, you know.”

“Lucky?”

“Yeah—to be brought up here. By Megan and Caleb.”

“I know.”

“Do you miss her? Devi?”

“No. I hardly remember her.”

“I think she misses you.”

Sid stops walking and Wain bumps into his back. “Why would you think that?” Sid asks. “She hasn't seen me for fourteen years. She left me here.”

“She draws you.”

“What do you mean—she draws me? She doesn't know what I look like.”

“She has a whole sketchbook full of drawings of white kids: babies and toddlers and little boys. All with eyes like ours. All with ringlets. They're sure as hell not me.”

Sid doesn't know what to say. It freaks him out. All those years, Devi was thinking about him, wondering what he looked like. But as far as he knows, she never tried to take him back. She let Megan and Caleb become his parents. Does that make her a good mother or a bad one?

“She's not a bad mother,” Wain says, as if reading Sid's mind. “Not really. I mean, I know she loves me, but she's not—you know—reliable. One day she's putting little notes in my school lunch and going to work at the gallery, the next day she won't get out of bed or she goes to a bar and brings home some random guy. When she's manic, she can go for days without sleeping. When she's depressed I have to get Phil or Elizabeth to buy groceries and shit. It's hard.”

“I'm sorry,” Sid says. “Maybe it'll be better now—Elizabeth says they've got her on lithium. That helps, right?”

“Lithium.” Wain spits the word out like a ball of phlegm. “Like that'll last. The side effects are brutal. She never stays on it.”

“Oh.”

They walk side by side up to the house. Elizabeth's car is parked in the driveway. “Megan said I could stay,” Wain says as he trudges up the steps, “but Elizabeth won't let me.”

“I know,” Sid says. “Maybe you could come back though. Once your mom is feeling better.”

“Yeah.” Wain pauses on the top step. “Or maybe you could come with me.”

“Come with you?”

“To meet Mom. Maybe it would help her.”

Before Sid can reply, Elizabeth opens the door and throws her arms around Wain. “It's okay, Nana,” he says. “It's okay. Sid found me.”

“Thank you, Sid,” Elizabeth says. “We're sorry to be so much trouble, aren't we, Wain?”

“Yeah, sorry, Sid,” Wain mumbles.

“Run along and pack,” Elizabeth says. “The ferry leaves at three.”

Sid puts his hand out to stop Wain from going inside. “Um, Elizabeth,” he says. “I have an idea. I mean Wain and I had an idea. If you can wait until tomorrow morning to go, then I'll come with you.”

“You will?” Wain says.

“Yeah—on one condition.”

“What's that?” Elizabeth asks.

“That Chloe comes with me.” Sid pauses a moment and then adds, “And Wain promises not to run away again. Oh, and no one pressures us to stay longer than we want to.”

“That's three conditions,” Elizabeth points out, “but all reasonable, I suppose.” She looks slowly from Sid to Wain and back again. “I could call Phil, tell him we're coming tomorrow. He did say that Devi was still”—she searches for the right word—“disoriented.”

“She means so doped-up she won't recognize me, let alone you,” Wain says.

“Shush, Wain,” Elizabeth says. “There's no need for that. Phil says she's getting more lucid by the hour.”

“So can we stay, Nana? Please?”

Elizabeth nods. “First ferry tomorrow though. No sleeping in.” Wain whoops, picks her up as if she is a child and hops around the porch with her in his arms. She keeps saying, “Put me down, put me down,” but she is smiling as she says it.

“I'll go talk to Megan,” Sid says. “Make sure it's okay with her. And, Wain, you need to talk to Fariza about that thing.”

Wain puts Elizabeth down. “I'm on it, bro,” he says.

“What thing?” Elizabeth runs a hand over her hair and smoothes down her shirt where Wain's bear hug has wrinkled it.

“Just something we need to do tonight. But first I need to talk to Chloe. See if she's up for a road trip.”

Now You Know

A
fter dinner everyone but Wain and Fariza gathers on the back porch to wait for the sun to go down. Sid has explained the plan to Elizabeth, Chloe and Megan. They have all agreed to write something down to burn in the fire pit Sid has made on the beach. Megan has picked some lavender from her garden to make the smoke smell sweet. One thermos has been filled with coffee, another with hot chocolate. At Chloe's request, Sid has gathered the ingredients for s'mores, although he thinks it might be weird to roast marshmallows over the ashes of their broken dreams. Or it might be exactly right. Time will tell.

Wain is sitting in the dining room with Fariza, who is picking up the balls of crumpled paper he throws on the floor and putting them in the waste basket. Writing down his fears is obviously harder than Wain had anticipated. Sid isn't sure what Wain said to Fariza, but she seems okay. A bit subdued but okay. Which is pretty much how he feels too. His contribution to the ceremony will be the last six pages of the final Billy saga. And he still has Fariza's pages in his pocket for later.

When Wain and Fariza finally join them, Wain is clutching a single sheet torn from a lined yellow pad. There is writing on both sides. As everyone watches, he folds the paper into an origami lotus and hands it to Fariza, who looks at him as if he has just pulled a live chicken out of his ear. Astonished but intrigued.

“Origami?” Sid says. “You do origami?”

Wain looks at his feet and mutters, “Yeah, I know. Devi taught me a long time ago. Pretty weird, right?”

“Really weird,” Sid says. “But very cool.” He wonders what other surprises Wain has in store for him. Crocheting? Playing the mandolin? It seems anything is possible.

“Do mine,” Chloe says, handing Wain a sheet of pink paper, which he transforms into a perfect lily. Soon the picnic table is littered with origami frogs, boats, birds, bugs, dogs and cats. Only Fariza's pages, which Sid has returned to her, are left unchanged. She clutches the papers in one hand and Fred in the other as they make their way to the beach.

Sid has laid the fire pit with twists of newspaper topped with bits of kindling and stalks of lavendar. He has pulled logs into a semicircle around the pit. There is no wind and the stars are so bright there is no need for flashlights.

He lights a match. “Ready?” he says. Everyone nods. “We're doing this in order of age,” he reminds them. “Oldest to youngest.” He touches the match to the paper and watches as the flames lick the kindling. When the fire is burning well, Elizabeth steps forward and puts her two little origami frogs into the flames. One for Devi, one for Wain, Sid imagines. Megan's paper dog is next, her pain invisible and unfathomable to Sid. Then it is Sid's turn. Wain has transformed Billy's last story into six different objects: a horse, a snake, a flower, a boat, a hat and a bird. One by one, Sid tosses them into the fire. One by one they burst into flame and then are gone. Sid reaches out to touch the smoke rising from the fire. “Goodbye, old friend,” he whispers. Chloe starts to cry when her lily ignites, and she clutches Sid's hand. He wants to ask her what she wrote, but that is another thing they all agreed on: no one has to share.

Wain stands up to throw his yellow lotus into the flames. He hesitates, and Sid thinks he is about to unfold the paper and read what's on it, but instead he just says, “This is for my mom,” before he consigns the flower to the fire.

Fariza watches the lotus curl up and turn to ash before she gets up and hands one piece of paper to each person around the fire. “You first,” she says to Wain.

“You sure?” he says. She nods, and he leans over the fire, letting one corner catch before he allows the whole sheet to drop onto the flames. Page by page, they burn Fariza's story. Sid can see the words being consumed. He inhales the smoke and enjoys the stinging sensation in his eyes and the relief that tears bring. When Fariza leans in to burn the last sheet of paper, Chloe starts to sing, slightly off-key. “
When you're down and troubled,
when you need a helping hand
…” The others take up the tune. Even Wain and Fariza joins in the chorus. “
You've
got a friend, don't you know you've got a friend.
”

Fariza crawls into Sid's lap as they watch the embers die. No one suggests making s'mores. Before they douse and bury the fire, Sid transfers Fariza to Megan's lap and scoops up some ashes in a shovel. When they are cool, he goes from one person to the next, dotting their foreheads with ash. When he is done, Chloe puts her finger in the ashes and touches it gently to his forehead. Even after she wipes her hand on her jeans, he can feel her touch on his forehead: cool, after the heat of the fire.

The next morning, as he eats his cereal, Sid notices that they all still have smudges of ash on their foreheads, himself included. It looks pretty funny, but he knows why he hasn't washed his off. In fact, he wishes he had thought to put some of the ashes in a jar to take with him to Victoria. A touch-up for himself, for Wain, for Chloe, maybe even for Devi. He has never fully understood the meaning of the word
blessing
until now.

He feels bad about leaving Fariza again, but he has tried to help her understand how brief this trip will be. The passage of time is so hard to explain. Two sleeps. Two breakfasts. Two bedtime stories. Two baths. He chooses books for Megan to read to her when he's away. He gives her his cell phone number and tells her to call anytime. She seems all right this morning. Not talkative, but then she never really is when there are a lot of people around. He wonders if she was always like this, like him. Happier one-on-one. Anxious in a crowd.

“Don't worry about the dishes,” Megan says. “Fariza and I will clean up. You got everything you need?” she asks Sid.

“I think so,” he says. “Change of clothes, clean underwear, toothbrush, iPod.”

“And you'll call when you get there?”

“Sure, Mom,” Sid says. Megan's eyes widen. He never calls her Mom, always Megan. “We'll be back before you know it.”

“And please tell Irena how sorry I am to have missed her roast beef dinner,” Elizabeth says. “I meant to get over to see her before I left, but—”

“My dumb-ass grandson messed up again,” Wain chimes in. “Make that my dumb-ass
black
grandson, just so she knows it wasn't her dumb-ass
white
grandson.” He grins at Sid. “Tell her I'm sorry too, okay?”

“Okay,” Megan says. “Now shoo! You don't want to miss the ferry.”

Chloe is sitting at the end of her driveway on an enormous red suitcase. “Two days, Chloe. We're going for two days.” Sid groans as he gets out of the car to wrestle the monster into the trunk. He is surprised by how light the suitcase is.

Chloe slams the trunk and hops into the backseat beside him. “Shopping, my friend. Two days of shopping. The suitcase is for the stuff I'll be buying. Deal with it.” She leans her head back and sighs. “It's gonna be awesome. And don't look so horrified. You don't have to come.”

She puts her head on his shoulder as the car rolls onto the ferry. Before they leave the dock, Sid goes to stand at the rail and look up at his house. He imagines Megan and Fariza filling the dishwasher, wiping down the counters, shaking the crumbs off the placemats. Maybe they'll go for a walk; maybe they'll do some weeding. Megan will read to Fariza. Fariza will have a nap. A flash of red appears on the front porch. Fariza and Megan are waving what appears to be a tablecloth. Sid laughs and waves back, although he doubts they can see him. Chloe appears at his side and yells, “Toro, toro, toro,” into the breeze. The ferry pulls away from the dock and they go upstairs to the lounge, where Wain and Elizabeth are playing I Spy.

Wain looks at Sid and says, “I spy with my little eye something that begins with F.”

Sid says, “Give it up, Wain. Not in the mood.”

“What? I was gonna say
friend
. I spy a
friend
.”

Wain looks so aggrieved that Sid decides to play along. He looks around the lounge. A couple of latter-day hippies, a boy and a girl, are dozing in the corner, their dog curled up at their feet. “I spy with my little eye something that begins with D,” he says.

“Dope?” Chloe asks. “A dog? Doritos?”

Elizabeth joins the game. “Denim? Dreadlocks? The Doobie Brothers?”