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Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
Published by:
Pif, LLC
PMB 248
4820 Yelm Hwy SE
Suite B
Lacey, WA 98503-4903
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| PAST MACRO-FICTION | MORE FICTION |
"I wonder what they're talking about," I said.
Dad didn't answer, just kept going forward, his hands on the glasses against his chest. Then he said, "Sarah, I'm worried about Grayson."
Ahead of us, Grayson and Cara were swinging hands. I wiped my own sweaty hands against my shorts. "What do you mean, worried?" I said. "He seems fine to me."
"I don't think he's fine," Dad said. "You know how active he usually is. He jumps all over the place and wants to play catch and talks a mile a minute. Now he looks at comics in the tent at night, and he hasn't made the womp-meep sounds when we play hearts. He doesn't even pick on you anymore."
"He doesn't pick on me because he knows I won't take it," I said. "I'm stronger than he is."
"That's not it," Dad said. "No. It's like he doesn't want to, like he doesn't even have the urge. He's listless."
I shrugged. What did he want me to say? "As far as I know he had a good spring, scored some goals in Little League soccer and rode his bike off the big dunes every day after school. He probably misses that. He's not used to being away from all his friends."
"It could be your mother."
"Well, yeah," I said. "I think he misses her, too."
I knew that wasn't what he meant. We walked in silence. A striped lizard skittered across the road and disappeared into the brush. The sun beat down, and the road's heat came up through the leather of my sandals. I glanced sideways at Dad. He was gazing across the desert. I thought of all the things that could be going through his head: the fierce face Grayson makes running upfield, the soft thump of tires skidding on sand, light scattered on the sea and my mother staring out at it. My mother.
But he didn't mention any of these things. Instead he said, "Remember Eddy when he was a baby? How he used to race around whenever the wind blew?" He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and gestured to where Grayson and Cara were walking ahead. "I'm just worried about how he's going to react when I tell him Cara and I are getting married."
I didn't miss a beat. I pat myself on the back, not missing a beat when my father comes out with something like that. It didn't catch me off guard. I stayed on track, kept my pace, and the heat waves danced away in front of me. "He seems to like Cara," I said.
Dad reached out his hand. I watched its shadow on the road as it moved toward me, felt its weight as it came to rest on my shoulder. It sat there, not pressing, not stroking, not warm or cool, just quiet dead weight that had nothing to do with me. "Well, he holds her hand," Dad said. "He volunteered to go to the store with her this morning. But he's just little. He doesn't understand anything or really know what's happened."
I did remember the wind. Grayson was two or three then, only a couple of feet tall, and inside his fat face he always had a strained look, as if a very thin person were moving below the skin. He didn't talk much, but he couldn't be quiet, and when the wind came up one day outside the house-- first ruffling the new spring grass, then shaking the trees back and forth-- he abandoned his crash-up cars in the dirt and started screaming, running after the gutter leaves scattering across the street, then rushing back to hold down the blowing newspapers, back and forth grabbing his hair screaming and screaming until Mom grabbed him in her arms and carried him inside. She was the only one who could calm him. Later we figured out that he had thought the wind would blow his head off.
