The Birthday Room (6 page)

Kale and Elka made Ben chuckle with the goofy expressions on their faces and their silly pronouncements: “All peaches are men because they have fuzz, and fuzz is whiskers.” “We're the fraterminal kind of twins. We came from two eggs. A boy one and a girl one.” At one point, Elka peered gravely at Ben and whispered, “Icky Pee is gone.” It was pure nonsense to Ben, but he paid her his undivided attention, maybe because he had never had a brother or sister. “Oh, yes,” he replied in a very serious voice.

Blue veins could be seen beneath Kale's and Elka's pale skin like ballpoint pen tracings or blueprints showing through. They were so skinny and energetic, it was as though some mad, merry scientist had created them, cobbled them together—part sprite, part wood elf, part bird.

When Ben looked at Lynnie, he flexed his toes inside his shoes. There was a gap between her two front teeth; there was a patch of sunburn on her nose. She had changed clothes since he'd seen her earlier. Now she was wearing cutoff blue jeans over tights with pink and silver seashells on them. Her terry-cloth shirt was short; her belly button was visible. It was an outie. Ben had never seen one before.

While they waited for dessert, Lynnie studied the ends of her hair and braided some of the silky threads from the corn tassels. “What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.

“I dunno,” Ben answered. He sat forward, balancing on the very edge of the bench.

“I'll split my baby-sitting money with you if you help me watch the twins.”

“Maybe. That'd be fun.”

“Well, it never is fun exactly, but it would be better if you did it with me, that's for sure. After I've been with them for a while, I just click my brain off.” She nibbled at her lip. “If I didn't, I'd spaz out.”

“I'll think about it. I don't know if my mom or uncle have made any plans.”

“Okay.”

Dessert arrived in blue tin bowls and soon the bowls were empty, and the time had come for the Deeters to go home. It seemed to Ben that no one wanted the evening to end. Good-byes were dragged out. Stalling, Elka asked to feel the baby kick, and then everyone took a turn. Ben was last.

“Do you want to give it a try?” Nina asked. “You don't have to if you don't want to.”

“It's amazing,” said Lynnie.

“I'd forgotten that sensation entirely,” said Ben's mother.

Ben truly wanted to, although the thought of actually touching his new and only aunt's belly was enough to paralyze him. He stared at his right hand, the complete one. He willed his hand to move. Ever so slowly, it did. He watched his hand land on Nina's belly. His hand quivered. He could see the little movements ruffling Nina's dress, but to feel them sent a chill down his spine. Something about it made him uneasy. He remembered a scene from a movie in which an alien, inhabiting a human's body, burst forth through the person's stomach after a series of spasms and lurches. He withdrew his hand abruptly. “Wow,” he said.

“It feels like a girl,” said Elka.

Kale disagreed. “Boy.”

“Some days I swear I have my own private ocean inside me,” Nina said to the twins.

Elka pulled her knees together and lifted her heels off the ground—once, twice. She wove her fingers together and spoke to no one in particular. “My mama says that the baby can already see lights and hear things, so I almost told the baby what her big present from me and Kale is. But I didn't.”

“Thank goodness,” said Nina. “Keep it a surprise.”

Ian was to walk the Deeters home, and Ben, his mother, and Nina would stay behind.

“Maybe I'll see you tomorrow,” said Lynnie.

“Maybe,” said Ben.

“Wait,” Ben's mother called, approaching Ian. A paper napkin was stuck to the back of his shirt. She plucked it off. “I guess you still need me, little brother,” she said, dangling the napkin for him to see.

Ian smiled. “I guess.”

She waved good-bye, the napkin flapping from her fingertips.

Nina started collecting the dirty silverware in the empty salad bowl. She stifled a yawn, covering her mouth with a fist full of spoons.

“Nina,” said Ben's mother, “why don't you put your feet up or go to bed? You did most of the cooking. We'll clean up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you,” said Nina. “I won't argue with you.” It was almost comical to Ben the way she waddled off to the house with as many things from the table as she could carry in one trip. “Good night.”

“Night,” Ben and his mother said at the same time.

There was a semicircle of Adirondack chairs near the picnic table. Ben's mother eased back into one. “Let's sit for a minute before we get to work,” she said, flicking her sandals off.

“Today was a good day,” said Ben. He plopped down into a chair, leaving one chair between them, empty.

“Mmm.” Her eyes were closed, and her legs were stretched out. She tucked her hands under her elbows. “Are you having a good time?”

“Yeah,” he answered, meaning it. “Are you?”

She opened her eyes. “I'm beginning to,” she said, speaking slowly, as if she were choosing each word with extreme precision. “I think Ian really wanted—needed—to see me before they have the baby. He hasn't actually come right out and said that, but I strongly sense it, and that makes me happy.” Her mouth widened slightly. A smile.

Ben nodded.

The bottommost clouds were brushed with yellow and pink. A band of pure light, like a molten river, ran along the tree line, demanding notice. They sat, perfectly contented, without sharing another word, while twilight lengthened. Stars were appearing when Ian came into view with the bouncing beam of a flashlight preceding him.

“Starlight, moonlight,” sang Ian, “hope to see a ghost tonight . . .” He shone the flashlight on Ben's mother. “Remember that game we used to play with the neighborhood kids at dusk?”

“I'm not the ghost,” she replied, not unpleasantly, squinting her eyes. “You're the one who vanished.”

“Whatever,” Ian said, snapping off the light.

Ben could feel his personal gauge of the day take a dip toward the uncomfortable zone. “What are we going to do tomorrow?” he asked quickly.

“Good question,” said Ian. He eyed the empty chair between them, but remained standing. “I was thinking—since you're not here for very long, not even a full week—that I'd like to take you, Ben, to either the ocean or the mountains tomorrow. We could leave early, and be back here for dinner. Just the two of us. What do you think?”

“Great!” Ben couldn't hide his initial excitement. “Yes,” he added, making a thumbs-up sign, keeping it shielded in the crook of his arm. Mountains or ocean—it wouldn't be a difficult decision for him to make. If he picked the mountains, he knew they wouldn't be able to reach one of the peaks, but if he picked the ocean, he could and would swim in it, or at least dunk himself, no matter how cold the water was. And that would be a memorable event. He had never been in an ocean. The Pacific would be his first.

“What do you think?” Ian said, facing his sister.

Ben's mother hesitated. “I . . .”

There was a long pause. A dog barked far in the distance. Did it belong to the Deeters? Leaves rustled. Ian and Ben waited.

“Julie,” said Ian, “a simple yes or no will do.”

“I. . . . really don't . . .”

“Trust you alone with him,” said Ian.

“I didn't say that,” Ben's mother replied sharply.

“You didn't have to.”

Ben could feel his insides constrict to small, hard lumps.

Very quietly, Ben's mother said, “I kind of resent the fact that you didn't ask me first. I'm the parent. You sent the letter to Ben, not me. And now you ask this . . . out of the blue.”

“God, Mom,” said Ben, “I'm twelve years old.”

“Ben, please.” Ben didn't know her voice could sound so small, or strained.

Ian opened his mouth, as if to speak, and then his eyebrows snapped together and he turned his head to the side, saying nothing. He flipped the flashlight on and off repeatedly, the beam pointing straight down, illuminating a circle of dry grass.

Ben looked from his uncle to his mother several times; if only his eyes could knit them back together. But it seemed as though they had retreated to some separate, distant place, making Ben's task to turn the night around enormous, impossible.

All at once, Ben's mother and Ian walked away—Ben's mother toward the house, Ian in the direction of his studio.

The lights in the studio came on, and from across the yard, Ben could hear the kitchen faucet running. She's doing the dishes, he thought. He noticed his mother's sandals near her chair, right where she had tossed them off, and the napkin from Ian's shirt on the ground beside them, a crumpled ball.

Ben stayed outside trying to decide what to do next, and the stars just went on shining, unmindful, the trees aloof.

Part Three

ANYWHERE

 

7

I
COULD BE ANYWHERE
, Ben thought. It didn't matter anymore that he was on vacation. He wanted to be home. He was mad at his mother. Right now, he should have been on his way to the ocean. Instead he was plodding upward through the sloping apple orchard, searching for the Deeters.

Ian was still in his studio, and for all Ben knew, that's where he had spent the night. Ben had heard hammering and the sound of a saw, both as he lay on the cot on the porch in the darkness trying to fall asleep, and as he woke at sunrise.

Nina had driven to Eugene for her weekly midwife appointment. She had asked Ben if he wanted to join her. “There's a great used bookstore next door and a bakery next to that with the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had. It'll take me an hour at the most.” She was already in the car when she had asked him. The engine idled steadily. She tried to find a suitable radio station, settling on a classical one. Cellos swelled, louder, louder, until Nina turned the volume down. “I asked your mom—she said it was all right with her.”

“No, thank you.”

“Don't worry,” she said. Her eyes met his, and held. “They'll be fine. I think they're a lot alike.”

“What do you mean?” He touched the door handle.

“They're brooders. They think too much. Your uncle overanalyzes everything. And he's not very good at dealing with conflict,” she told him, tinkering with a button on her shirt. “If something's difficult to talk about, I think he'd rather have all his teeth drilled without the benefit of novocaine than discuss it.”

“Mom, too. Sometimes anyway. That's bad, huh?”

“Well, it makes them who they are. Everything gets complicated when you love someone.” She smiled easily. “When I get back, we'll whip them both into shape,” she said, reaching her hand out the window frame toward him. The gesture was somewhere between a wave and a pat. Then she took off slowly down the pocked dirt road, dust trailing behind the car like a little storm.

Ben's mother was baking chocolate-chip cookies, which was something she did with unrelenting drive, like a machine, whenever she was either extremely happy, extremely sad, or extremely angry. It was easy to eliminate happiness from the day's list of emotions.

“I'm going to walk over to the Deeters',” Ben had said. “Is that okay?”

“Sure.” Ben's mother dropped a spoonful of dough onto a cookie sheet, then stood the spoon straight up in the bowl of dough. “Listen, I'm sorry about last night. . . .”

Ben shrugged. He could tell by her tight voice and grim expression that she was still upset. But he was, too. He couldn't escape the grip of anger; it kept him from directly addressing the issue of the trip to the ocean. “I left my radio tracking collar at home in Wisconsin, but don't worry. I'm not going very far.”

Ben's mother didn't respond.

Cookies were stacked on the counter and heaped on cooling racks.

“Are you baking for the entire Northwest, or just the state?” Ben asked.

“I'll freeze most of them. I'm sure Ian and Nina can use them after the baby's born.” She blew at her bangs. “Want a couple for your walk?”

“No.” He did.

“How about a bag of them for the Deeters?”

“I'll skip it. I don't want to feel weighted down.”

“Suit yourself.”

He wanted to ask his mother why she would allow him to go to town with Nina, but not to the ocean with Ian. He could imagine her reply: “Driving to town and driving to the ocean are two entirely different things.” And her tone would convey the underlying message: Come on, Ben, you're smarter than that.

“Ben?”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.

She went back to her cookies, and after looking at her with a deliberately blank expression, he went out the door.

He had decided to look for the Deeters, just as a way to kill time, but then suddenly, fifteen minutes into his hike, he realized he truly wanted to see Lynnie. He walked with a purpose. The rows of identical trees revealed nothing, and after a while, the grassy corridors between the trees seemed mazelike. Row after row after row. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No Lynnie. Aware of his plunging disappointment, Ben grabbed a windfall apple from the ground and threw it with all his might. The apple arced high above the trees and disappeared into the vast expanse of green. He heard it drop through the branches and leaves and land with a thud.

“Hey! Who's there?”

“Someone's coming!”

Ben recognized Kale and Elka's voices and rushed toward them, ducking under low boughs and turning sideways to squeeze between branches. He could see them beyond the edge of the orchard, standing under a dead, gnarled tree that was taller than the others and set apart. Lynnie was lying on a beach towel in the spotty shade of the tree, reading. She picked up her head and acknowledged him with a smile and a wave. She pressed a long blade of grass into her book to mark her place.