Language Arts (35 page)

They worked every day, holding space and silence between them, until around four o'clock, when some combination of the Young/Gurnees arrived, there was a discussion of what had been done, what still needed doing, and then Charles went home, exhausted, too tired even for Merchant Ivory.

“What are you doing in here?” Alison asked toward the end of the week, finding Charles in Cody's room opening up a recently purchased can of paint that was not part of the supply Alison had selected (although it
was
zero–VOC). After spending years in various room whose walls were inevitably some shade of dingy white, Cody could tolerate a little color, Charles felt, something soothing; he'd selected a deep powdery blue that he thought would go nicely with Pam's mustang picture.

“What does it look like I'm doing?” He didn't mean to sound snippy, but this unending assault, this tension between them—it was exhausting.

He expected some witty and/or cutting rejoinder; instead, she slunk off to another corner of the house. Charles was still painting Cody's room when he heard her leave.

Alison had brought a radio and kept it constantly tuned to a local NPR affiliate, one that was light on music and heavy on conversation. After she left, he switched to the Best Hits of the '60s, '70s, and '80s and, experiencing a surge of energy, worked through the night and well into the wee hours of Sunday morning.

•♦•

Biographers make informed, factual, well-researched connections between their subjects' lives and work:
The writing of So-and-So during this period took a dark turn, likely because of the cataclysmic occurrences within the family circle . . .
and so on.

My father cannot provide a subjective biography of his own life; he has
designed
his memories, built them into a structure that supports the whole.

Memory—uncorrected, uncorroborated, and (by its very nature) unreliable—is what allows us to retroactively create the blueprints of our lives, because it is often impossible to make sense of our lives when we're inside them, when the narratives are still unfolding:
This can't be happening.
Why
is this happening? Why is this happening
now?

Only by looking backward are we able answer those questions, only through the assist of memory. And who knows how memory will answer? Who will it blame? Who will it forgive?

Perhaps the most important character in everyone's life—and the one with whom we have the most ambiguous relationship—is memory itself.

In my father's mind, all the most significant elements of his fourth-grade year were irreversibly grafted together in a single night and the next morning.

A weeknight? A weekend?

Let's make it a Saturday.

•♦•

The Marlows were fighting. Charles took up his flashlight and tried to distract himself with images of more benevolent-looking monsters: the sweet-faced children in
Life
magazine with Janet Leigh and the eleven red fezzes.

THE FULL STORY OF
THE DRUG THALIDOMIDE

Outside his door, muttered, guttural incomprehensibilities alternated with articulate savageries:

. . . fucking selfish . . .

. . . turning him against me . . .

A thump, a slam, a gasp, a grunt . . .

THE 5,000 DEFORMED BABIES

He pulled his blanket closer, resettled his crucifix over his heart.

Although he'd survived countless other monstrosities—vampires, werewolves, giant mutant ants, radioactive blobs, pod people, creatures risen from black lagoons and Japanese seas—they'd been viewed from a safe distance.

A TRAIL OF HEARTBREAK

Charles didn't dare come out of his room; if the
sounds
were terrifying, what he might
see
was too horrifying to contemplate.

In Arizona, Mrs. Sherri Finkbine discovered suddenly that her unborn child would be cheated of its arms and legs.

If he needed to go to the bathroom, he was prepared: he'd appropriated a Tupperware container and placed it under his bed.

Thalidomide, deformity, phocomelia, seal limbs, stumps . . .

When his mother removed her shoes before she tiptoed down the hall and closed his door, she wasn't just quieting her footsteps; it was the beginning of a skin-shedding . . .

Some think the babies should be mercifully killed.

The sounds were a symphony played over and over; its structure never varied.

YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH SHUT

YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF

Charles turned the pages, studied the photos illuminated by the bilious, quavering glow of his plastic flashlight.

Things like fingers extrude from odd places . . .

It was easy to tell when the war was over—it ended not with atomic explosions or bloodcurdling screams but with the sounds of his father storming into the night and his mother weeping as she went to bed.

The final pages of the August 10, 1962, issue of
Life
featured an especially odd pairing.

On the left: a two-year-old German girl fitted with a vestlike contraption with two steel arms capped with mittenlike appendages. (Looking closely, Charles saw them: the
things like fingers,
just beneath her armpit.)

On the right: a smiling, aproned mother, arms and hands intact, bracing the sides of a box of Albers New Deluxe Flapjack Mix:
Like No Other!
And in small print beneath:
Visit the Carnation Exhibit at Century 21 Exposition, Seattle World's Fair/April 21 to October 21, 1962
.

•♦•

Sunday morning, Charles awoke to the smells of coffee and buttered toast. He padded down the hall and found his father standing at the kitchen stove, squinting through the smoke from his cigarette, cooking an army breakfast special: canned corned-beef hash topped with two fried eggs.

“Morning, Chuck. Hope you're hungry.”

Aside from being unshaven and looking tired, Garrett Marlow appeared the same as always. His feet were bare; he wore pajama bottoms and a sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his arm muscles and the tattoo he'd gotten in Korea. There was no trace of whatever he had transformed into the night before.

“There you go.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

His father poured a cup of coffee, lit another cigarette, sat down at the table, and opened up the Sunday paper.

“You want the funnies?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Charles listened for any indication that his mother was up and about. But aside from the dead-leaf sounds of his father turning newspaper pages, the house was eerily still.

“Your mother's not feeling well,” Garrett Marlow finally said. “Touch of the flu, so it'll be just you and me at Mass.”

“Okay.”

Charles was used to this deception; he understood that, behind the door of his parents' room, his mother had not yet changed back into human form.

•♦•

Around five in the morning, Charles finished painting Cody's room. Too tired to drive, he lay down on the living-room sofa and slept for a few hours. Then he headed home—but not before making a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up Cody's housewarming gift of noodles and magazines.

He stopped at the curb to collect yesterday's mail. There was the usual array of bills and non-Cody-approved catalogs, but among these items was a card, addressed by hand, originally sent to him at City Prana and presumably forwarded to him here at home by the school secretary. The return address bore the name S. McGucken.

Charles's knees began to tremble; he sat down on the curb. His hands were shaking as well. Eventually, using one of his keys as a letter opener, he carefully razored around the edge of the envelope flap.

Dear Charles,

I hope this letter finds you, and finds you well.

I was delighted to see your name and photograph in the recent
Seattle Times
article about the students of Nellie Goodhue School.

I'm not sure if you will remember my son, Dana, but he was a classmate of yours, and at the time, the two of you struck up a friendship.

I've thought of you often over the years and wanted to say how pleased I was to learn of your success as a teacher. I remember well how very patient you were with Dana; it is no surprise that you ended up finding your calling in the teaching profession.

I'm sure your life is very full, but if you would ever care to meet, I live at the Foss Home in North Seattle and would be delighted to offer you coffee or tea some afternoon at your convenience.

Again, Charles, I send my congratulations to you and wish you and yours all the very best.

Sincerely yours,

Sylvie McGucken

How could anyone
not
remember Dana? It seemed inconceivable.

Did Bradley and Mitch remember him? Provided they were still alive, which somehow seemed doubtful. Charles imagined that they'd graduated to criminal careers and then met with violent ends, but perhaps that wasn't their fate. Perhaps they'd become insurance salesmen, upstanding members of the Rotary Club, toiling away to end malaria; maybe they even belonged to the country club where Charles had bartended.

Charles's attention was redirected by the sound of a truck coming up the street: it was his next-door neighbor Gil Bjornson. He got up, stiffly, and waved.

Gil rolled down his window. “Hey, Charles! You mind being my set of eyes? I need to back this thing in.”

“Sure, no problem.” Charles stationed himself in front of the garage door and used hand signals to help Gil maneuver his newest restoration project into the driveway.

It was probably the most hopeless-looking vehicle yet, barely a shell. The only clue to its former glory was a small silver icon on the right front wheel well: a sleek, stylized horse in profile, running with such speed that all four of its legs were off the ground, as if it were flying.

Gil got out of the truck. “Thanks, neighbor,” he said, shaking Charles's hand. “Good to see you.”

“You too, Gil. So, what do we have here?”

“Mustang, 1970 Mach One.” Gil held up a preemptive hand, as if Charles were about to ask something. “You don't wanna know, but trust me, after we get this baby restored, it'll be worth every penny.”

“I believe you.” Charles strolled around the heap of metal that would be his regular view from the kitchen window for possibly the next decade. There were few traces of the poppy-red paint that must have once graced the car's exterior; it had no driver's side door; its transmission was sitting in the back seat, on upholstery that at one time had probably been a pristine white but was now riddled with grime and grease.

“Four-twenty-eight Cobra Jet . . . ,” Gil said as he unhitched the trailer.

This made no sense to Charles, but he could tell that Gil was elated. “Sounds like you found yourself a treasure,” he said.

“Had to drive all the way to Ellensburg to get it, but yeah, it's a treasure, all right. I haven't told Erik about it yet. It's a surprise.” Gil stood up and stretched. “Thanks again for your help.”

“You bet. No problem. Have fun.” Charles started heading to his front porch.

“Say,” Gil called out, “you planning on being around this summer?”

Charles found this question amusing, as he and Gil had been neighbors for twenty years.

“I'll be here.”

“Well, we'd love to have an extra set of hands on this thing.”

“Oh, that's nice of you, Gil, but I don't really know much about . . . what you do.”

“Hell, Charlie, most of what we do, in the beginning, anyway, is apply tons of elbow grease. You'd do fine at that. You could even bring Cody. I've been meaning to ask how he's doing.”

“We're moving him into a new house, actually. Not too far. Over in Pinehurst.”

“That's good. Must be hard, what you and Alison have had to go through . . .”

“We've had some challenges, it's true.”

“Well, you do your best. It's not like these kids come with an owner's manual.”

Charles laughed.

“You want some coffee? I texted Erik and he's on his way. I'm sure he'd love to see you.”

Charles considered. What exactly was waiting inside that he needed to rush to? Piles of boxes, a nearly empty crawlspace, another DVD from Netflix, student papers . . .

“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

“You take it regular?”

“Sounds good.”

Charles had forgotten that Gil was originally from New York City, so when he came back outside and delivered the mug of coffee
regular,
Charles discovered that it was generously laced with cream and heavily sugared. He drank it anyway.

It was late afternoon. They were putting the final touches on Cody's room.

“Can you find his comforter, Charles?” Alison asked as the bed sheet billowed and snapped. “I think it's in that box over there.”

It had been a frantic day, one that began early: Cody and Robbie and Myles were roused, readied, and loaded into the van for a daylong outing with their caregivers; once they were gone, their parents, along with Robbie's and Myles's siblings and friends, moved the boys' furniture and personal items out of the old group home and into Pinehurst Palace—an efficient team of benevolent burglars.