Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire (164 page)

He felt Oliver watching him. Behind him someone hiccuped. Setting his pencil against the paper, Stefan forced himself to look at the numbers, but when the bell rang and Miss Heflin told them to pass
the tests to the front, his page was still half empty, and Oliver had to pull it from under his hand. He stood up. Ran off to the school library, where he searched for the dictionary. One thumb against the leather tab with the I and the J, he flipped the pages back, scanned the words … incessant… incendiary … incandescent— There it was: illegitimate. Born out of wedlock … unlawful… incorrect. He could hear his heart beating the rhythm of the word—il-le-gi-ti-mate—and it was as if he were trapped inside a drum while an invisible drummer brought his palms down upon the skin of the drum—il-le-gi-ti-mate-il-le-gi-ti-mate—down, again and again, louder, faster.

He slammed the dictionary shut, and as he wedged it behind a row of other books to keep it from ever opening again to that word, it came to him that his father had made a choice. It was as easy as math, choosing four children over one child who belonged to the second family.

Except it didn’t have to be that way.

Not if Stefan crossed over and undid the word.

He began to imagine himself inside his father’s house.

Into his father’s real family.

Once or twice a day he would walk past the yellow Victorian without looking at it directly, yet taking in every detail of the overgrown garden, the windows without curtains.

Still, the first time Oliver invited him over, Stefan was terrified. “But when?” he asked.

“How about tomorrow?”

When he told his mother at dinner, she said no as he’d known she would. He pushed his green beans to the side of his plate, lined them up like logs, chose the middle one, and pierced it with his fork. Slippery slippery slip—

“It’s not a good situation for you.”

“But Oliver already asked
his
mother.”

“It’s not a good situation, Stefan.”

“Oliver’s mother said yes.”

“And this mother says no.” She laid her fork aside. Reached for her water glass.

“But I want to go,” he whispered.

That familiar sad look came into her eyes, and he almost told her he’d stay home because that would have taken the look away. But he didn’t. He finished his dinner, though he was no longer hungry, helped her clear the table. Only when he was scraping the food from their plates into the trash did he realize that his cheeks were aching because he was biting them from inside. In bed, he tried to read one of Oliver’s comics, but he forgot to turn pages and kept reading the same bubble of words without understanding it.

Long after midnight he let himself out of the apartment. Legs stiff and cold, he took the stairs down to the lobby and walked out onto the dock. The lake was calm, glassy, without any of the white-caps that had given it texture in the afternoon. Though Stefan had his back toward the
Wasserburg,
he could still feel his mother’s sadness, could see her lying on her bed with her eyes open. It didn’t feel right, taking care of his mother. It was all twisted around. Not the way it was supposed to be. It had to do with his father living with his other family. Had to do with his mother’s sadness. Other reasons, too many of them, tangled like a mess of string. None of them separate like the constellations he could name and find in the night sky.
She didn’t even say good night to me.

Still—he would go to his father’s house.

Walk up the steps of that porch.

And open the door.

He knew this. Knew it with the same certainty that he knew the angle at which Orion held his sword.

The sagging porch wrapped itself around three sides of the Victorian. Latticework concealed the dark gap beneath, but since a few of the wooden strips were broken, Stefan could see patches of the old foundation. With a sense of the forbidden—the dangerous even—he followed Oliver up the wooden steps and into the hallway where plastic milk crates were stacked into shelves that overflowed with books and odd baskets. Clothes, tennis rackets, and papers covered tables and chairs in the living room. No curtains. But lots of hanging plants in the windows. The house smelled different than Stefan’s apartment—not of furniture polish and detergent,
but of his father’s tobacco and of damp shoes and other things Stefan couldn’t identify.

From a pile of blankets by the sofa rose a huge black dog, head square, body enormously fat.

“Just let him sniff you,” Oliver said. “He’s too lazy to bite anyone.”

Cautiously Stefan extended one arm. The dog came closer. When he jabbed his nose against the hand, Stefan wanted to dry it against his pants, but he didn’t because Oliver might think he didn’t like his dog. “What kind of dog is he?”

“A black dog.”

Stefan had to laugh. “That I can see.”

“Part Newfoundland, part pig. We inherited him. From my sister Kath. When she and her husband moved into a smaller apartment where they don’t allow pets.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ezra. Ever heard of Ezra Pound? The poet. Kath got him from the pound. The dog, not the poet. Get it? Pound and pound?” Oliver stopped his rapid flow of words to stroke the dog’s jaw. “Here, Ezra, want to eat? Come on, show Stefan what a pig you are.”

On stiff legs, the dog waddled behind Oliver into the kitchen where dirty dishes filled the sink. Two open cabinet doors exposed mismatched cups and plates. A jug with wildflowers sat on the table, and specks of pollen dotted the wooden surface. In the corner stood two small pails, and while Oliver filled one with water, the other with brown pellets, Ezra jumped up and down, all four paws bouncing off the floor in a grotesque dance. As soon as Oliver set the pails down, the dog nudged him aside with his wide head and—hunched over the water pail—began to slurp, beads of water flying from his jowls.

“He was even fatter when we got him.” Oliver opened the refrigerator and grabbed a can of Coke and a bunch of celery. Twisting the lid from a peanut butter jar that stood on the counter, he dipped an unwashed stalk of celery into it. “Want some?”

The dog raised his head, and his ears twitched against the flat, ugly skull.

“Not you, pig-out. I’m talking to a certified human.”

Stefan wished he could think of something equally funny to say.

“Here.” Oliver pushed the jar toward him and pointed to the celery.

“No, thanks. But if you have another Coke—”

“Take a can,” Oliver said, chewing with his mouth open.

Stefan tried to figure out what other boys in his class would do if Oliver invited them home … Like Ronny Burlito. The most popular kid.
Always cool. Ronny just opens the refrigerator. No big deal. Ronny never thinks of the word illegitimate.
Dumb-ass jock doesn’t even know what it means.
Ronny just shrugs and takes a can of Coke. Like that.
Stefan checked inside the refrigerator as though he’d done it millions of times. Yet, he felt he was snooping. At home his mother usually had a snack waiting for him after school. But he was Ronny now,
and Ronny pulls the metal tab from his can and checks around for a glass.

Oliver was drinking right from his can.

It’s vulgar to drink from cans or bottles.
Shutting off his mother’s voice, Stefan set the can against his lips and tilted his head back. Above him the ceiling was swollen in several places with rustcolored water rings. He’d helped his mother fix ceilings before they got that bad, steadying her ladder, stirring paint, cleaning up afterwards.

“Want to see my room?”

The dog followed them upstairs. Dirty socks and dishes lay amidst half-finished airplane models and pencils with chewed-off erasers. Fingerprints smudged the window. Outside was an overgrown backyard and a bench with flaking green paint.

They sat on the floor and were just finishing their Cokes when a car door slammed in the driveway.

“My dad,” Oliver said.

Mine.
Stefan’s can dented in his fist.

“Company?” Eyes soft brown with yellow specks. Familiar eyes that Stefan hadn’t seen in seventeen months and three days. Eyes that cautioned:
You and I know. Oliver doesn’t.
“Well… hello.”

Stefan tried to say, “Hello,” and brought out a croak. Cleared his throat and said it again. “Hello.”

“I’m very glad you’re here. Oliver told me you’d come.”

“Thank you—” Stefan hesitated.
What do I call him now? Father? Doctor? Sir?

“Call me Justin. All right?”

Another name yet. Father Doctor Sir Justin.
Stefan swallowed. Ezra rested his square head on his knees, and he busied himself stroking the fur between the dog’s ears.

Oliver leaned forward. “Dad—”

A name that’s not on my list. Dad. Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad.

“We’ve got to fix that tear in the tent after dinner,” Oliver said.

Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad
groaned. “Tonight?”

“We’ve got to. If we want to camp this weekend.”

“I was looking forward to camping.”

“You want me to buy some bait tomorrow?”

A whole life away from me. Fishing. Camping.

“We’ll talk about it later, Oliver.” A careful glance toward Stefan.

“We’re also out of Sterno. And I need to get batteries for the flashlights.”

Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad
drew a black wallet from his back pocket and handed Oliver a twenty. “Are you staying for dinner, Stefan?”

“I—” He couldn’t really say
yes
since it was more a question than an invitation.

“Some other time then,”
Father Doctor Sir Justin Dad
said as if he took it for granted that Stefan would be at his house again.

Although the Blau boy spooked Laura Miles, she tried to be easy around him. Tried hard because she believed having him in her house would keep her husband here too. But the boy had such a hungry look to him….
The hunger to be part of my family.
He seemed to have resolved to not only claim his father, but her entire family, and it became obvious to Laura that the way he went about it was through Oliver.

Initially he was a thorn to her.

A trade-off for having her husband home.

For a while even her revenge:
My turn to keep what belongs to
the Blau woman.
Picturing the Blau woman alone. “Come early on Sunday, Stefan. Spend the day with us.”

But gradually she could see that the boys’ friendship was not a sham, that Oliver and Stefan genuinely liked each other, and to her amazement, she found that she, too, was fond of the Blau boy. That she appreciated his thoughtfulness. Enjoyed the sudden light of gratitude in his face when she said he could stay for the evening or spend the weekend, even though having him here was a constant reminder of the Blau woman who—so the townspeople said—was hard about money when it came to paying for repairs or talking to tenants who were late with their rent.

But that’s not what bothers you about her.

Still, for over a dozen years now it had been safer for Laura to detest the Blau woman based on the reasons of others. That way she didn’t need to ferret out reasons of her own. Didn’t need to push herself and her husband into a place they might not be able to return from. Especially now that Justin was home every night. Once in a while she was even glad the Blau boy had followed him here, and she missed him on days she didn’t see him.