Father's Day (13 page)

“It's not silly,” Jason said, putting his arm around her.

When they were past the gift shop, Harvey pointed out the lines of people trudging back to the subway and said they should find a taxi, because she didn't feel like getting on a train and fighting for a seat.

Outside the gates, a line of cabs stood waiting. When the driver saw them, he started the engine.

“Hot,” he said as they got in. “Too hot.”

A few minutes into the journey, Jason looked around for the lunch bag and realized he'd left it on the grass back at the palace.

Harvey was annoyed. “Don't tell me the Peter Rabbit cup was in there! That was one of your presents . . .”

Jason said he was sorry, but after a while Harvey realized that it didn't matter, that someone would find it, and the story of their afternoon on the lake at Versailles would be as much a mystery to the new owner as the story of the
person who had made the cup in an English factory decades ago, on a morning or an afternoon, in summer or in winter, painting the rabbits with a small brush before stopping to eat something—perhaps even going outside where there were real rabbits, and a war had not long ago been fought and won.

W
HEN THEY WERE
halfway back to Paris, Harvey's cell phone vibrated. Her tutor, Leon, wanted to know if she could bring her father over for dinner. One of his students had canceled and the evening was open.

Leon's apartment was on a busy, narrow street near a well-known bakery, and when they got there, people were lining up for their evening baguettes.

Harvey rang the buzzer. After a click, she pushed on a wooden door that led into a courtyard of recycling bins, children's toys, and plants in pots. At the bottom of a staircase was a purple tricycle, which Jason had difficulty stepping over.

Leon's daughter, Isobel, met them at the door. She flung her arms around Harvey, then looked up at Jason. “Alloo,” she said, and ran away.

Leon was wearing an apron, and there was classical music on the radio. “It's so wonderful you could come,” he said. “It's a joy for me that you are both here.”

Harvey led her father into the sitting room while Leon made drinks. In the oven was a mound of paella crowned with giant crayfish. Leon said that the electricity kept going off and he was having a hard time getting anything prepared.

Isobel perched on a wooden chair opposite Jason with her knees pulled up. She was in her socks and had pumped floral room spray onto her shirt.

“Don't ask what's for dinner,” Isobel said, puffing her cheeks out as though she were about to get sick.

Jason chuckled. “That bad, huh?”

They could hear Leon hitting the side of a pot, then something drop into a pan of hot oil.

When they gathered at the table, Isobel watched her father serve the paella and made retching sounds whenever his tongs touched the crayfish. Leon said something to her in French, and she stared silently at the single slice of microwave pizza on her plate.

Over dinner, Jason told stories about Harvey growing up. Whenever he finished speaking, Isobel would make a rolling motion with her hand and say, “Keep going, please . . .”

Then everything went dark, and the classical music coming from the radio ceased. Leon apologized and said he would have to reset the fuse box in the cellar.

“But there are spiders down there,” Isobel said. “What if you don't come back?”

“We can't eat in the dark,” her father told her.

“Blind people do,” Isobel said gleefully. “Every day of their lives.”

T
HE MOMENT THE
lights went off, Harvey screamed and dropped her spoon. Jason said it was a power cut because everyone on Long Island was running their air conditioners.

Harvey wanted to know what a power cut was, and if they would have to live in the dark for the rest of their lives.

When Jason went to find a flashlight, Harvey panicked. “Help!” she cried. “Where are you? Help! Don't leave me alone!”

For a moment there was no sound or movement. Then she felt Jason's hand on the top of her head. “Wherever
I
go,” he said very quietly, “
we
go.”

“Okay, but why are you whispering?”

“I don't know. I guess because it's dark.”

They couldn't see anything. Even the streetlights were out. Harvey said it was as though the world had closed its eyes.

They got up and felt their way around the house. Harvey knew when they were in the garage by the smell of oil and the cool, stale air. In her mind she could see Jason's bike on the ground, assembled now into what he called a “rolling frame.”

Finally, Jason found the toolbox with the flashlight inside, but when he clicked the button, nothing happened. Harvey asked if she could try.

There were no candles in the house either, and the batteries in the TV remote control were not the right size for the flashlight.

Jason said the couch would be the safest place for them to stay until the power came back on, and that Harvey would have to sleep there too, which she was happy about. Harvey wanted to know what would happen if the power stayed off for a week. Jason said he could build a fire in the backyard and they could grill whatever was in the freezer.

“What if we get attacked?” Harvey said. “By robbers?”

“That ain't going to happen,” Jason said. “I wouldn't let that happen.”

“Do I still have to put my shoes away when I get home from school?”

“No, Harvey—while the power is off, you can leave them by the door. Which is what you do most of the time, anyway.”

They spent the next hour fetching things they would need to get them through the night. The first trip was to Harvey's bedroom, where she identified (by squeeze) Duncan, Lester, Jig, Mr. & Mrs., Simple Bear, Blue Bear, Tuesday, Foxy, and Megatronus.

After that, Jason felt in the cupboards for cookies, donuts, cans of soda, bars of chocolate, and chips. Then they sat together as if watching television, except that it was dark and couldn't even see each other.

Jason doled out some of the snacks and they slurped soda from the can. Then it started to feel late, even though Jason said it was only eight o'clock.

Harvey asked what would happen if she needed to pee. Jason said he'd carry her.

“Okay,” she said. “Because I need to go.”

Jason thought it was best if she got on his back so that his arms were free.

“It's so weird,” he said, “to be creeping through our own house like we've never been here before.”

Harvey wanted Jason to sit in the bathroom with her, but Jason said he'd come in only to help wipe when she was done. She had a habit of rushing, and he told her to sit for a while so they wouldn't have to come back in ten minutes. Then he got down with his back against the door. It reminded him of their first outing at the mall, when she needed to go and he didn't know what to do.

Even though Harvey was almost in third grade, Jason felt she was still too young to go in public restrooms alone. A few
times other men made comments, saying he couldn't bring a girl into the men's room—perhaps not realizing he was a single father. The first time it happened, Jason told the man to mind his own goddamn business, but Harvey told Jason off when they got outside, said he shouldn't be so rude even when the other person was wrong. The next time it happened, Jason just nodded at the guy, then did a hundred push-ups in the garage with his teeth clenched the moment they got home.

“Hey, Harvey,” he said, tapping on the door. “Remember our first trip to the mall? How I made you go in the restroom with that random woman?”

Harvey laughed.

Then Jason asked why she'd taken off at the Little League game.

“I don't know,” Harvey said. “Guess I wanted you to come and find me.”

“How would I have known where to look?”

Harvey said she didn't know, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

“What if you'd gotten hit by a car?”

“Then at least I would be with Mom and Dad.”

“You shouldn't say that.”

“But they're in heaven.”

“It doesn't work like that.”

“But aren't they in heaven with the angels?”

“Yeah, sure,
they
are in heaven, but
you
are on Long Island sitting on the can during a power cut.”

“But I'll go to heaven one day,” Harvey said. “Then I'll see them again.”

Jason's eyes moved around for something to see, but the darkness was impenetrable.

“Anyway,” Harvey went on. “You're older, so you'll probably be in heaven before me and can say hi.” Jason could hear her getting off the toilet. “You'll say hi to them from me, right?”

“I ain't going to heaven, Harvey. People like me don't get in.”

Jason wondered if his comment would make her cry. But then her voice came through the door. “I'm sure my dad has told God all about you. You know he had a jewelry business at the mall?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“He sold golden crosses, and some of them had Jesus on, so you're definitely going to heaven.”

When the door opened, she felt in the air for Jason's hand. “You're the sort of person they want up there,” she said.

When they got back to the couch, Harvey lay on top of her blanket, and went to sleep.

Jason was on the floor with his eyes open, listening to insects scratch in the trees. Then he reached out and fingered the hem of the couch, then moved his head toward the television, the patio door, the kitchen . . . familiar places he knew were there but had to be imagined.

In the darkness there was a door to the garage behind which his tools hung on nails above the workbench. Next to it was the rolling frame Harvey liked to sit on and pretend she was riding across America to the famous bike show Jason had told her about in South Dakota.

He continued lying there, very still, looking at things he
could no longer see—but which, he knew, somehow held their lives together.

As a teenager, Jason had no safe place—only safe things, like his flick-knife, the toys he stole for Steve, and the wax that allowed him to style his hair like James Dean. He used to cut his arms deliberately in the bathroom at school. It was an emblem—a visible sign of the suffering that pulled him apart every day. Cutting was a pain he could control, a release from mental anguish, and what a thrill at the sudden line of blood a moment after the knife crossed.

Only two people knew about that. The first was Rita Vega, the woman he had once been in love with. He thought of her now in the darkness as he listened to the rise and fall of Harvey's breathing. He even said her name several times without moving his lips—and heard her voice say
Jason
.

She would be in darkness now too, he thought.

He imagined that Rita was down there on the floor with him. The smell of shampoo in her hair. The cushions moving as she tried to get comfortable. Every day some part of her rose to the surface of his life.

Another person he'd told things to, and who knew about the cutting, was someone he met during his incarceration. A young prison minister who sat Jason down and asked if he could name five good things about the world. Jason had been able to think of only one: that his little brother had managed to avoid getting beaten, and was probably going to graduate high school and have an awesome life.

Encouraged, the minister asked him to go on, to tell him more. It was simple, Jason said. The good of his brother's life outweighed the terror, so Steve wasn't afraid of everything.

The minister leaned forward and put his hands close to Jason. “And are you afraid?” he said. “Do you live in fear?”

“Of course,” Jason told him, grabbing more of the candy the minister had used to entice him into the meeting. “Why else do you think I messed that guy up in the bar? Aren't we all afraid, Father?”

The minister couldn't believe it. “Yes,” he said. “It's remarkable that you can verbalize it. But tell me, if you know this, Jason—why do you still act out? Why did you hit your cellmate in the face with your lunch tray last week?”

“Why do you believe in God?” Jason said, reaching for another handful of jelly beans. “There's no proof of it.”

“Because I
feel
it . . .” the minister said.

“Well, I feel rage,” Jason said. “So that's what I believe. That's my religion.”

Jason could tell the minister liked him. That he was intrigued with what he was saying.

“If only you would let God in,” the minister said, “you might start to feel otherwise.”

“That's
your
savior,” Jason said. “The only god I know is the one who left his son to die on the cross with his mother watching.”

S
TEVE
'
S IMAGINED FUTURE
happiness was the reason Jason never wanted to see him again. To get involved in his life once out on parole would almost certainly have led to his younger brother's ruin.

The one time he came close to failing was when Steve graduated from high school. A week before, Jason bought a dress shirt and some slacks from a discount store. Each day he
came up with a new excuse as to why he should show up at the ceremony. But deep down he knew they were all lies, and the deceit reminded him of his father.

Then graduation day came, and after half a bottle of bourbon, Jason dressed himself in the fancy clothes and set out by bus for his old high school. But then he got close and saw families parking their cars and moving in groups toward the football field. He stood and watched the procession of rented suits and silk dresses, uncomfortable shoes and gelled hair.

Everyone would know he'd been in prison. Everyone would remember how he'd broken a janitor's nose freshman year, and that their mother had killed herself in the bathroom without her clothes on.

Worse yet, he knew that a single comment could set him off.

Jason could see the police with their fat bellies and shaved heads. Could already feel them dragging his cuffed body across the lawn. Steve would be there, begging them, pulling on their arms, on the verge of anger himself.

In some ways he just couldn't understand what was happening. Their father had been dead for several years, yet the danger of violence seemed greater than ever.

He turned and ran back the way he had come, crossing block after block, following streets the bus had taken only moments before, dodging cars at intersections, jumping up and down curbs in his thrift-store dress shoes.

When he could go no farther, he dragged his body through an open gate and collapsed in the wood chips of an empty playground, his fancy shirt saturated with sweat, and a tear in the seat of his pants.

When his breath returned and the sweat on his body had
dried, Jason got up and brushed off his clothes. Then he sat on a swing and imagined the ceremony taking place across town. Steve getting helped into his gown by the teacher he was living with. He might even have a girlfriend. What if she were graduating too? Her parents would make a big deal of it for both of them—give a dinner in their honor, include Steve as one of their own.