“I . . . Uh. Never mind,” he says.
At the field, Donal gives me a quick wave bye and jogs off to join the guys’ team. When she sees me, Coach Bailey hugs me, and so do the others, and it’s just like when I arrived at school, all these emotional demands that I don’t want to deal with. We should be stretching, cutting up, talking shit, like we always do before practice. I was thinking it would be nice to be back out there, but now I realize things will be weird here, too. That it’s going to be weird everywhere, maybe.
Coach says, “How’s that ankle?”
“Doctor says I need more rest,” I tell her, shaking it for effect.
“Okay,” she says, patting me on the back, and I flinch and she gives me a funny face, like I’ve hurt her feelings. “Well, okay, we won’t rush things.”
Chita looks over and holds out her hands, like she’s asking, What gives?
I look away and take my seat in the bleachers and take out my phone. I already see a text from Grace: “Glad UR Back. XXOO.”
===
When I get home from school, Mom’s making cookies. She hasn’t done this in ages. “How was school?” she asks, smiling like she’s Mom of the Year. I’m not used to her being home till well after five, but she’s taken a leave of absence at work—to be there for Sam “during the transition.”
“Fine,” I say.
Let me state the obvious: Home is different now that Sam is back. Sure, I guess it’s a happier place. Or Mom is happier, and so is Earl. But that initial euphoria has worn off. Now it’s like Sam is an awkward guest that we’re all being overly polite to. So far he’s quiet, and doesn’t say much unless prompted. He has that slight, cautious smile on his face a lot, and sometimes a spaced-out look, like maybe he’s lost in his own unknowable memories. Something must be wrong with me, because I feel uneasy around him. A normal person would want to spend every second with him, to make up for lost time. Wouldn’t they?
“I bet it was good to see all your friends,” Mom says.
“Yeah,” I say. I’m too tired to tell her about all the attention I got, or about Grace, or about all the presents that are hidden in my backpack, weighing me down.
Mom says, “I took Sam to see his counselor today. The man that Dr. Rao recommended. Dr. Saylor.” Sam’s seeing this doctor so someone can assess his psychological condition and monitor his progress. I don’t know how much this doctor tells Mom and Earl—or how much Sam tells the doctor. As a family, the policy is that we’re still not asking him about those three years. It’s up to Sam to tell us when or if he’s ready, Mom says. And, according to Mom, he’s not ready yet. And that’s fine by me.
He’s also getting a tutor, to see how far behind he is in school.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“He’s on the back patio, drawing. He draws now, did you know that?”
I shake my head. Yet another fact that makes him seem like a stranger.
“You should see his stuff. He’s very good. Go out and say hello.”
“I’ve got a lot of homework to catch up on,” I say.
“Beth,” Mom says. She stops spooning the dough onto the pan and looks at me. She’s not frowning or anything, but I know it’s an admonishment. “Can you go say hello? I know he’d like that. And it would mean a lot to me.”
“Okay,” I say.
Outside on the back patio, Sam’s sitting at the rickety iron table, his sketch pad resting in front of him. He’s holding a pencil in his hand, nibbling on the eraser. He looks up at me when I walk over.
“What are you drawing?” I sit down on one of the cold iron chairs.
“I’m just thinking.”
I look out toward the corner of the yard. We had a swing set there once, but Earl ripped it up a few years ago and planted a few shrubs. I used to push Sam in it, when he was a little kid. “Higher,” he’d say, “higher.”
“Mom says you’re on the soccer team,” he says.
“Yeah. I’m on the team. Midfielder.”
“That’s so cool,” he says. He stares off, twirls his pencil. I look over at his sketch pad, and it’s blank. He sees me taking a look. “Yeah, I haven’t figured out what to draw yet. But I can show you some of my other drawings. If you want?”
“Sure,” I say.
“I’ll be right back.”
I watch him head into the house, then look at the blank sketch pad resting on the table. Sam used to hate sitting still. He never even really liked crayons as a kid, except to write stuff on his bedroom wall. He didn’t seem to have an artistic bone in his body.
Now he’s back, carrying this older-looking sketch pad with a worn red cover. I can see that loose-leaf pages are stuffed into it when he sets it down. He starts flipping through the pages, but I can’t see anything.
“I left a lot of my drawings there.”
There.
“But here’s one I did, sort of scenic.”
He hands it over. It’s this pencil drawing of some mountains seen from a distance. It’s really good—detailed and precise. He hands over some others. Still lifes, I guess you call them, of random stuff, like a cup of coffee, a tape dispenser, a bowl of fruit. There’s a great one of a cat hunched up on what looks like a picnic table, another of a courtyard with a bicycle on the ground. I’m kind of shocked at how good it all is. I mean, I’m no art critic, but I know I couldn’t do anything like this.
“These are great, Sam. Really.”
He shakes his head. “They’re so-so.”
“No, they’re good.” I want to ask how he learned to do this, but I don’t.
He pulls out another. He studies it, hesitates.
“Can I see?”
“It’s terrible.”
“I doubt it. Let me?”
He turns the picture around and right away I see that it’s a self-portrait, in what looks like colored pencil, of when he was a little younger. It’s not bad, just a little weird. Like the eyes and nose and ears are slightly bigger than they should be, the coloring a little too bright. But it’s unmistakably Sam.
“I love it,” I say, even though I don’t. It’s kind of creepy.
“You can have it.”
I take it.
“I tried to draw pictures of what I thought you’d look like. I did, like, hundreds of bad, stupid drawings, but I left—I mean I threw most of them away. They sucked. They didn’t look a thing like you.”
Something in my chest starts to ache, thinking of him trying to draw me, in that place. And then my mind goes where I don’t want it to: Abuse. Torture. All the things he went through that I can’t—won’t—imagine. I swallow and say, “It’s okay. You can draw me anytime.”
He picks up his fresh sketch pad and perches it on his knee, propped so I can’t see. He starts moving the pencil around, darting his eyes up to me, back to the pad, back and forth. He goes on for a few minutes. On the outside, he looks so normal. No scars that I can see, his hands smooth and strong, his face clear of blemishes. No trace that anything happened to him. I feel my throat tightening.
“I really need to get to my homework,” I finally say, hoping I don’t sound funny.