“About the kidneys,” I said.
I texted Grooms to see if it was true and even though it was who knows what time, she texted back, immediately, that it was.
“What else don’t I know?” I said, and Theo grinned.
The sun had come up fully by now, and he squinted—smiled.
We walked to his car. There were sweet gum leaves stuck to it—the dew had affixed them like glue. The leaves were beautiful, the color of Fanta. He opened the door and on the way home we listened to the soft-rock station, which was already playing Christmas songs. Theo sang along to “Little Drummer Boy.”
At home you were reading the newspaper and eating a pancake with your hands, dipping it into the syrup.
This week a poster showed up on our street, describing a missing cat as “muscular.” There was a bike handcuffed to the bike rack outside the post office. We watched a man throw a ball to his dog, who obediently fetched it. But the ball seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. When we came up close, we saw that the ball wasn’t a ball at all, but a hard, round dinner roll.
Dr. Lung, today, didn’t look happy or sad. He just looked.
There were pigeons wandering the parking lot of the medical center. They appeared lost, though of course they weren’t. They’re famously never lost. They’re the type of birds that carry messages. The likelier explanation was that they were hungry. The birds, roving the lot, looked hungry.
“Let’s go,” I said.
I drove us back to the In-N-Out we’d passed on the way. I ordered two strawberry shakes and a box of fries, and handed one of the shakes to you. We sat on the curb and fed fries to pigeons. We saw Dr. Lung make his way to his parked car. It was a compact Japanese car that looked recently washed. At first, I almost didn’t recognize him, because without the white coat he looked like anybody: someone’s goofy cousin.
“This is a nice day,” you said. I had been wondering if feeding the birds was jogging a memory for you. I had been preoccupied with wondering. There was a breeze and the breeze was carrying the smell of eucalyptus, and the day was cool but not too cool.
You repeated about how nice the day was, either because you really wanted me to know it or because you’d forgotten you already mentioned it, but all of a sudden, it didn’t matter what you remembered or didn’t, and the remembering—it occurred to me—was irrelevant. All that mattered was that the day was nice—was what it was.
Today we went to the bowling alley, where it turns out Sam still works and looks exactly the same, with hair the same color and shape as a Q-tip. He could still look at our feet and give us shoes in the exact sizes. You kept picking up the heaviest ball.
That one’s too heavy, Dad, Linus and I kept saying.
It’ll be fine, Mom said.
You bowled three strikes in a row and Mom did a happy dance. You were given a turkey—Thanksgiving dinner.
We’ve been trying to figure out why the Honeybell tree out front never used to produce any fruit but, this year, won’t stop. Nobody has a satisfying explanation for why. Mom thinks rainfall and you keep insisting the tree’s triumphed, finally, over a silent and murderous disease. I think it has to do with bees and their unknowable bee whims.
I like to watch insect specials when nothing good is on TV, and nothing ever is, anymore. There’s a lot to admire about bees, I think. For one thing, they know exactly what to do in life—they have jobs and they do them. Also, they see life frame by frame, with those panels for eyes, like movie screens.
“They recognize faces,” I told Mom.
“You’re saying they missed you?” she joked.
I was in the kitchen when you approached. You cast a look of concern at the colander of cauliflower.
“No more crucified vegetables,” you said.
“But they died for you, Dad.”
“No more.”
“Lasagna?”
“Lasagna,” you agreed, and so I made a lasagna. The sauce we made with a sweet onion and sweet butter and pork that I braised. We ate it with big spoons, and no vegetables were sacrificed in the process.
While I was mopping the kitchen, a creature, winged, flew my way. After a few lame swats I propped the broom against the wall and decided to flee. I headed to Theo’s.
“Can cockroaches fly?” I asked, when he opened the door.
“Is that why you’re here?” He meant to sound exasperated, I knew, but he was grinning.
“It’s looking good, this place,” I said.
He patted his new couch, in the way somebody might gingerly pat a stranger’s dog, to indicate that I should have a seat. It was a nice couch, and I said so.
“But I’m no expert,” I said.
“You’re not?”
“Nope.”
“What are you an expert in?”
“Nothing,” I said. Then, after some consideration: “The fetal position.”
“You’re supposed to get into a fetal position during a bear attack, aren’t you?” Theo said. “Because it indicates to the bear that you’re not a threat?”
“The fetal position—exactly. And, get this, I know all kinds.”
Last night Theo dropped by for dinner and afterward the five of us walked to the park, and then you, Mom, and Linus peeled off, citing exhaustion, so Theo and I sat on a bench by the water, trying to catch the comet that we’d been told, by the weatherman, was going to pass.
“That duck over there is having a drink,” Theo said, pointing to the duck on the side of the pond, with his bill probing the mouth of a tallboy.
“What do you think that duck is going to do without inhibitions?”
“The real question is what inhibitions does that duck have in the first place?”
“No more flying south for the winter.”
“No more Mr. Nice Duck. No more politely accepting stale bread from strangers.”
“I’m more interested in the morning after. A duck’s self-loathing.”
“A duck’s regret.”
“Look,” I said, cutting to the chase.
I told him I felt “generally positive” about him. He said he felt “generally positive” about me, too. He gave me an awkward hug and later I found that he’d put a peppermint in my jacket pocket.
Today, like a lot of days lately, you forget some names.
“The one I’m carrying a torch for,” you said.
“Mom? Annie?” I said. “Are you talking about Annie?”
“That’s the one,” you said.
The mind tells you what or whom to love, and then you do it, but sometimes it doesn’t: sometimes the mind plays tricks, and sometimes the mind is the worst. But I’m trying—I really am—not to think about those things.
In the garage, I found my rock tumbler. You and Mom gave it to me for Christmas years ago. Inside I found a smooth and beautiful misshapen pearl—one of my baby teeth, I remembered.
Today I gave you my old seashell collection. You arranged all the shells at the bottom of your fish tank in a pretty way.
“Thank you for the exoskeletons,” you said to me.
“You’re welcome,” I said to you.