SONS OF THE BLACK FOREST

A Thesis

Presented to

The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Fine Arts

Jacob Euteneuer

May, 2015

SONS OF THE BLACK FOREST

Jacob Euteneuer

Thesis

Approved: Accepted:

______Advisor Department Chair Mr. Eric Wasserman Dr. William Thelin

______Committee Member Dean of College Mr. Robert Pope Dr. Chand Midha

______Committee Member Interim Dean of the Graduate School Mr. Robert Miltner Dr. Rex D. Ramsier

______Date

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CHAPTER

I. PETER SEES A UNICORN…………………………………………………………...1

II. PETER SEES ANOTHER UNICORN………………………………………….…...27

III. PETER SEES YET ANOTHER UNICORN…………………………………….…..54

IV. PETER KEEPS SEEING UNICORNS……………………………………………...91

V. HOW MANY UNICORNS WILL PETER SEE…………………………………...125

VI. PETER SEES A LOT OF UNICORNS…………………………………………....158

VII. PETER RIDES A UNICORN……………………………………………………..224

VIII. PETER FALLS OFF A UNICORN………………………………………………257

IX. PETER EATS THE UNICORN……………………………………………………296

iii CHAPTER I

PETER SEES A UNICORN

Jennifer leaned over the table and gave me a look that meant she either wanted to kiss me or clamp her teeth down on the arteries in my neck. It was always hard to read her face.

She clenched her jaw and spoke without moving her lips. “And are you cleaning out his ears?”

It was the first time she had brought up our son in the whole conversation. They told me to keep “controversial subjects” to a minimum, and I always did. When she was ready to talk about something, she did.

I nodded. “Yeah, If I remember. Usually every couple of days after he takes a bath.”

She looked around the silent room. The calm white walls and buzzing fluorescent lights made it feel like an ER, and in a way it was. It was a room that had seen its fair share of emergencies.

“You have to do it every day.” She tapped her finger three times on the table separating us to count out the syllables of “every day.” “That’s where the body stores up toxins and tries to excrete them from the body. If they build up, he’ll start to become unwell. It’s your responsibility to take care of him. You have to clean them out every day. They won’t let us have Q-tips in here. That’s why no one ever gets better. They 1 make us talk and give us drugs, but they won’t let us touch a goddamn Q-tip. The drugswork at first—really well—they shock the system, but after a while they start to accumulate in the body. If we can get the poisons out of our bodies instead of putting more in, we’d be fine. But they won’t let us. They think I’ll push it into my brain, but I know better than that. I’m a mom. I know how to take care of someone. I took care of you. I took care of Henry. I know how to do it. They just won’t let me.”

I stared at the clock on the wall behind her. The place smelled like boiled corn, wafted into the whole complex from wherever the cafeteria was. Our time was almost up.

I came to this room, or occasionally they let us walk together out by the fence that separates the Behavioral Center from the nearby pond, every week for the past three and a half years just to talk with her. I guess a little bit of me was still in love with her, but really I did it for our son. I knew how hard it was to grow up with one parent and thought it might be easier on him if I could report back weekly about how his mom was doing.

It didn’t really matter. He could barely remember her and was fine with having me, my mom, and my grandpa raise him. Despite what the doctors said, I thought

Jennifer was getting worse. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if they let her back out into the real world. Of course, I thought everything was going fine until she tried to kill herself and was committed to the Behavioral Center by a mental health board due to

“mental illness and dangerous behaviors.” Maybe I wasn’t the best judge of sanity.

Most people liked me when they met me, but there must have been something else about me that made people want to kill themselves. First my dad and then my fiancé, or ex-fiancé whenever I got around to bringing up the controversial subject. She still had

2 the engagement ring. It was kept in a box with the rest of her personal belongings, and when I tried to get it back, they told me I had no legal right to it.

“Promise me you’ll give Henry a hug and clean out his ears for me.”

I nodded again and sipped the last of the bitter coffee from my tiny Styrofoam cup.

“Promise,” she said with teeth clenched again.

“I will. I’ll do it tonight.”

The staff worker who had been observing our conversation through the glass window buzzed the door that led to the vestibule. When the first door closed, another buzz rang out and the second door was opened. “Time to go,” the woman said. Her voice was high and chirpy.

Jennifer leaned over the table again and offered me her shoulder in hug. I leaned over and put my arms around her. Under her side of the table, I could see the cuffs that led to the chains that bound her hands to the floor. Her fingernails were covered with flecks of dried blood from where she had been chewing them before I arrived. She said seeing me always made her nervous.

“I love you,” she said. The staffer held the door open for me as I walked out.

“You too,” I told her. It was six days, twenty three hours, and fifteen minutes until I had to go through that again.

After Jennifer had tried to kill herself and got committed, I moved back in with my mom. It worked well. The reason most people don’t want to move back at home is because of their dad. I didn’t have that problem. Between my mom and my grandpa, there

3 was always someone to watch Henry when I worked or went to visit Jennifer. There was no rent, but it did feel pretty shitty to be twenty-nine and living in the house I grew up in.

When I got home, Henry was helping my mom stir a crockpot full of chili. Mom was thrilled to have her grandson with her at all times and probably would have paid me to live there. My grandpa was sitting in the computer chair watching a pirated stream of a

Munich Premiere League game in German. Unlike most people his age, Grandpa had been an early adapter of all technology. He still had an original Pong cabinet in storage and had an iPod before I did. He nodded at me as I plopped down on the couch.

I always felt guilty about Jennifer trying to kill herself and wanted to talk to my mom about it. I never did.

In some way, it had to be my fault. I was the closest person to Jennifer. I knew her better than anyone and still didn’t see it coming. Either I was the reason for her attempt or

I was too stupid to see she was on the verge of suicide. I don’t know if my mom would have understood or had anything helpful to say, so I never asked her about it. We had a long history of not talking about things.

I mentioned it to my grandpa once, and he said I was a fucking idiot for feeling guilty about something someone else did. I sort of used that as my mantra ever since, though I had plenty of reason to doubt it.

My dad killed himself on June 27th, 1984. He was found with a gunshot wound to the head on the second floor of the parking garage of City Hospital. The nurse who had been walking into work told the police that the “It’s a Boy” cigar in his right hand was still smoldering when she found his body. In his left hand was the .45 caliber Colt M1911 that my grandpa had brought home from World War II. The first officers on the scene

4 quickly ruled it a suicide and spent the next two hours trying to contact my mother at their home. They did not know that she was on the third floor of the hospital attempting to get me to breastfeed for the first time.

My birth certificate and his death certificate were processed at the same time.

He was thirty two years old. I met him once but of course don’t remember him.

My mom said we look a lot alike. The same cowlick in our dark brown hair. The same gap between our two front teeth. Tall, lanky bodies. Our ears rest close to the sides of our head. My grandpa, my dad’s dad, said that I’m better off for never having met him. I guessed that my dad would have said the same thing about my grandpa had the situation been reversed.

In a way, it made sense to me. It kept everything in balance. The world’s population went up one and then it went back down one. Maybe he had done me a service. Some people are shitty fathers. Some people do more by doing nothing. That’s the kind of person I’ve had to tell myself my dad was. When my own son was born a little over five years ago, I told myself I’d rather die than not be there for him. “Dad” was his first word. I probably didn’t mutter that until I was six or seven years old.

There is a special kind of guilt that comes to a child whose mother dies during the birthing process. A personal shame and infamy comes with that kind of thing. It’s different when the death’s voluntary. I’ve always had to wonder if my dad killed himself for me or because of me. My mom never really talked about my dad. I think she knew it was coming. Sometimes, it’s all in the timing.

That’s all I want to say about my dad for now.

5 I had the TV remote in my hand and was flipping through channels without paying attention to what was on. I stopped on a cooking show and watched an attractive middle-aged Italian woman who was probably a giant bitch in real life stew tomatoes when I realized I could actually be doing that with my son instead of watching someone do it on TV. I got off the couch and went into the kitchen.

“Daddy!” Henry said. He hopped down from the stool he was kneeling on and wrapped his arms around my leg.

“Hey, Buddy.” I reached down to pick him up and kissed the top of his head. He was getting heavy. He already weighed forty five pounds and in a year or two he wouldn’t let me pick him up let alone give him a kiss. “It smells good in here.”

“Were making dinner,” he said and pointed to the crockpot. I bent over and took a whiff of the chili. “Be careful. It’s hot. It’s spicy and it can burn you. Is that funny?”

“Super funny,” I said and set him back down on the ground. He scampered up the stool and took the wooden spoon from my mom and started to stir.

“How’d it go?” my mom asked.

“Good. She’s doing good. Better, I think.”

“Well that’s good.” My mom turned around and started to pull down cups and bowls for dinner. “He didn’t say anything while you were gone, but you can tell he misses his M-O-M.”

Henry turned around on the stool. “M-O-M spells mom. Is that right, Dad?”

“Yes it is,” I said. He was pretty smart for a five year old.

My grandpa shouted from the living room. “Who turns on a television and then leaves it on when I am trying to watch my game? Why would anyone do that? Peter, what

6 are you trying to do? Am I supposed to turn my game up and go deaf? Turn off the TV already.” He muttered something in German that I couldn’t comprehend over the dueling noise of a soccer match and a cooking show one room over.

When I was little, I had a pretty good command of German, but as I grew up, I stopped speaking it. All I could do now was count, swear, and tell someone hello.

Grandpa grew up speaking German. That’s what I told people. He tells a different version.

Gunter Märchen, whose birth certificate reads Woodrow Prose, was born in 1927 though his birth certificate states he was born in 1925. My grandpa has gone by the name of Peter his entire life. According to him, it was a quick twist of fate and some cleverness on his part that won him the name of Woodrow Prose that he refused to use. He never got it legally changed, but when his only child, my father, Paul was born the birth certificate had “Marchen” listed as the last name.

My grandpa spoke perfect English and beautiful German. He would shout out a swear in German occasionally in public or mutter a few words under his breath, but he always denied being from Germany to anyone who asked. In high school, I thought it was just a carryover from the anti-Nazi sentiments that led up to WWII when he was a teenager, but as I got older and heard more of his stories, I realized that had nothing to do with it. The ability to deny to oneself what seemed so obvious to others has been passed down to me through at least three generations.

My grandpa came to the United States from a country he called Unsichtbarwald.

He was born and raised in a the village of Wolmerspur. None of these things exist on a map. When pressed, my grandpa said that it was a country the size of Monaco and had

7 never been under German rule. It is located in the southwestern corner of the Black

Forest in the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg.

My grandpa was the son of a clockmaker. Gunter knew nothing of the contemporary world outside of Wolmerspur—no one there did—but he had plenty of ideas about it and knew he didn’t want to spend everyday building clocks. He waited for seventeen years in the village until his chance to leave happened to stroll in on the town’s only road.

Part of my grandpa’s story is hearsay, at least the way he tells it. The start of the story was related to my grandpa by the original Woodrow when the two happened to meet.

Woodrow Prose had been part of a small expeditionary squad who crossed the border from France to Germany in 1944. Shortly after the crossing, they were ambushed by Nazis. The GI’s managed to overtake the outnumbered Nazis, but by the time the gunfight was over, only Woodrow and two of his brothers-in-arms were alive. They spit on the Nazis and did their best to bury their dead. The squad’s orders were to meet up with a Special Forces team that had parachuted into the city of Freidburg and had been blowing up bridges and railroads the past month. With a handful of German knives and

American guns but no map, the three pushed on toward Freidburg.

They knew the general direction, but had to rely on instinct to keep them away from the Nazis on the right roads. After a few days of walking and the depletion of C-

Rations, the three brothers-in-arms came to a giant oak that sat in the middle of a three- way fork in the road. They made camp beneath the tree and discussed what to do next.

The three decided to split up and each take a different path, but they couldn’t decide who

8 would go down each way. The path the led northeast might lead them into the ambush- ready Black Forest. The path that continued straight north look well-traveled and was probably used by the Nazis. The path that broke off toward the northwest was covered in small stones that made walking difficult and might very well take its pedestrian back to

France.

After they had argued for a while, they noticed three birds had landed on the three different paths. Each of them picked a bird and stuck a knife into the trunk of the oak tree. If one of them ran into trouble or had to retreat back, they were to remove their knife to let the other two know they had turned back. They stabbed their knives into the meaty trunk, shared one last smoke together, and continued their march alone.

The first GI took the northwest path because it had an osprey on it. He thought the road must lead to a river, and where there was a river there were usually towns. He was right about the river, but he drowned trying to cross it after he discovered the bridge over it had been destroyed.

The second GI took the northern path. On it sat what he thought was a barn swallow, but what my grandpa claimed was an alpine swift. The swallow had reminded the soldier of lazy summers growing up on his parents’ farm in Kansas. He followed the swift up into the hills of the Black Forest and froze to death in the rain unable to make a fire.

The third GI, the original Woodrow Prose (or my grandpa, or some sort of combination of the two), followed a cuckoo down the third path. The bird hopped down the path in front of him mocking the private with his call. As he had feared, the path led him into the heart of the Black Forest. Woodrow had to quicken his pace to keep up with

9 the bird. The first few miles of his trek were tense. He ducked into brambles that ripped at his ears and the backs of his hands. Every time a squirrel scurried through the undergrowth, he brought his rifle to his shoulder and held his breath. Only the steady calling of “cu-koo” kept him heading down the path.

After a while, the fear and tension melted away and he was overcome with a sense of waldeinsamkeit. Waldeinsamkeit is a German word for the feeling of being alone in the woods. There is a similar word that is also untranslatable that describes the fear of being alone in the woods or the sense that something bad is going to happen in the woods, but that is not what waldeinsamkeit is. It is a sense of solitude and belonging with the natural world, and Woodrow was stricken with. He took off his boots, tied them together, and slung them over his shoulder. He stepped off the path and walked on the soft beds of needles and leaves beneath the trees. He paused to smell the sharp scent of pine mixed with the sweet smell of crisping leaves. He plucked wild blackberries and lolled them over on his tongue until he bit down on them and marveled at how his dry, salty mouth turned moist and sour. He wiped the dark red juice from the berries over his fatigues.

As the sun started to set, he held his hands out in front of him and watched the sun filter through the leaves and land on his palms. He stared up into the tiny cracks that that let the light in and blew his breath out to make the dust motes scatter.

It was only when the sun had gone all the way down that he started to wonder where he was and how he would make camp. The last bit of twilight was fading when he hopped back on the path. He followed it and gathered dried moss and sticks to make a fire. When he was about to set down and rest for the day, he noticed the path branched off

10 to the east before heading up a steep hill. He walked a few paces down the side path and came to a wall of trees. There was a row of pines three trees thick with each trunk bumping into its neighbors. The pines extended as far as he could see in either direction, but he was determined to cross through them and make camp on the other side. He reasoned they would make for a good windbreak and a great structure to attach his lean- to. He had to climb up the first five branches of a tree until he was fifteen feet high just to get past the first row, then he had to climb down two branches to get past the next before climbing up nearly twenty feet and jumping down to get past the whole thing.

He hit the ground hard and crumpled. He got up to dust himself off and my grandpa was standing there staring at him.

Woodrow immediately pulled out his sidearm and leveled it at Gunter. My grandpa raised his hands into the air and shook his head at the soldier.

“You a Nazi?” the soldier asked. My grandpa kept shaking his head. The soldier wiped the sweat from his head but kept the barrel of his gun pointed at my grandpa’s chest. “Soldat?” the soldier asked again.

“Nein,” my grandpa replied.

Woodrow lowered the gun a bit but kept his finger on the trigger. “Are you a

Jew? Juden?” he asked.

“I say yes, will you put down gun?” my grandpa said.

The sound of English made Woodrow tense. He squinted at my grandpa. “Where am I? Why are you speaking English? You a spy?”

11 “Welcome to Unsichtbarwald. I am called Gunter. We have good schools here, and there are no Nazis here. Only my family and town and village and people.” He said

“Nazis” with a hard “t” in the middle like it was an English word.

“I’ve never met a Kraut that’s been nice to me. How do I know you’re not lying?”

My grandpa put his hand on his chin and tried to come up with a reason for the soldier to believe him but couldn’t. “You don’t know. I speak German but am not

Germany. You speak English but aren’t England. We are the same. I can take you to the village. Are you needing food?”

Woodrow was hungry and tired from the days of walking and reasoned that if

Gunter wanted him dead he’d already have shot him. So he followed my grandpa to

Wolmerspur.

Here the story itself branches off. Once when I was eight or nine, my grandpa had been drinking after a brutal German loss in a World Cup elimination match and told me the same story except Woodrow had been shot in the shoulder and had to drink from

Wolmerspur’s Nixie Fountain. He also described the Nazi ambush in a lot more gory detail complete with blood and intestines. He didn’t believe in censoring things for the sake of children, which is probably why he was the one who told me my dad ended up shooting himself when I was younger than Henry. The usual version, the one I’ve heard every time but that once, is much more family friendly.

Gunter took the soldier to his parents’ home. They fed him potato soup and ham and explained how Unsichtbarwald’s position in the Black Forest kept it isolated. When

Bismarck pulled for the unification of the German states, Unsichtbarwald opted out, and no one seemed to notice. The thirty thousand or so residents of the country went about

12 their business. They kept their own money and own laws. They kept to themselves. They had not heard about the Great War and were shocked when Woodrow told them about the world-wide war taking place around them.

Woodrow stayed in the house for a week. His waldeinsamkeit would not leave him. His father had been a watch repairman in Chicago, and he started observing my great-grandfather in his workshop. He learned the basics of wood crafting and left the world and its war behind him.

While Woodrow was eager to stay in Wolmerspur, my grandpa was trying to find a way out. He always told me he had seen things when he was growing up there and knew he wasn’t welcome to grow old there. In other stories, he told me about his stalking of the white wolf, his theft from dwarves, and friendship with the Headless Monk. All of these were supposed to add up to the fact that he was no longer welcome in Wolmerspur.

He saw himself as an outcast. Life in the forest was good for most. No one ever had a reason to leave Unsichtbarwald, and Woodrow was the first to show up there in forty years. As with everything he saw or experienced, my grandpa took it as a sign.

One night while Woodrow was sleeping, my father snuck into his room and stole his belongings. He put on the soldier’s uniform, pocketed an ancient English language dictionary he had stolen from the town’s meager library, holstered his gun, and marched out of the town to where he had first met Woodrow. By the time my grandpa had cleared the three-thick wall of pine trees that surrounded Unsichtbarwald, he had become

Woodrow Prose. They were the same height and build, the same dark brown hair and blue eyes which he passed down to my father and me. Woodrow’s features were darker.

He had black hair and hazel eyes. By the time my father made it to Friedberg, he had

13 already had several more adventures out in the real world. He joined up with a British company of soldiers and passed off Woodrow’s papers as his own. The Brits eventually got him hooked up with an American company. He didn’t know how to be a soldier and mimicked what everyone around him was doing. He did what he was told to do and shot at who he was told to shoot at. It didn’t take him long to find out that everyone else was doing the same.

When the war was over, he was sent back to the States with a Bronze Star and a

Purple Cross. He moved to Ohio and avoided Chicago. He threw away any correspondence he received from Woodrow’s family, but continued to draw a check from the U.S. government for several years after the war and even went to radio repair school on his G.I. Bill. Every check he received from the government was made out to

Woodrow Prose and signed in big fancy letters “Gunter Märchen.” Never once was it questioned. When he fell in love, got married, and had a kid, he dropped the umlaut but made the name change official by calling my father Alexander Marchen.

That’s the way Grandpa tells it at least. I love him and he is as much a dad to me as he is a grandpa, but I can’t wait for when he dies and I get to open up that storage unit he has kept under lock and key since before I was born. He claimed all his stories were true, and most of them didn’t change though he told them to me hundreds of times. I knew better. When I was little, I would beg him to tell me about the cave giants and the nixies or the one about the dwarves silver stein. I still like the stories, but I wish he would admit they were just stories. He told them so many times that they became real to him.

When I asked my mom if she thought he had dementia, she clucked her tongue at me and shook her head.

14 “Petey, I know your grandpa says a lot of things, but he is the smartest person I’ve ever met. If he can still build a radio Macgyver-style from a quartz, a paperclip, and a potato, I think he is doing okay.”

It wasn’t that she believed anything he said, but she knew a sharp mind when she saw one.

Back in the kitchen, my mom grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

“Peter,” she said. “You’re doing it again.”

I blinked and looked around. I was standing in the kitchen. The chili fumes filled my nostrils and the overhead fan my grandpa had installed was violently rattling as the blades spun.

She bit at her fingernails and then wiped them on her apron. “God, I hate it when you do that. You’re just like him sometimes.”

“Him” was my dad. Whatever genes were in my grandpa were passed down to my dad and then to me. We all looked the same and had the same habits. It freaked me out a bit when I would even see it in Henry. Sometimes I would look over at him and see him running his tongue over his top lip while he tried to concentrate. I would stare at him for a while and then catch myself doing the same exact thing. Or, when trying to answer a particularly difficult question, we would each rub our chins between our thumb and index finger. Maybe it was taught, but I don’t remember doing the teaching.

“I’m fine, Mom.” I said. She always worried whenever I did anything that my dad did. “Is dinner almost ready?”

“Almost,” she said. She hesitated and then added, “Sometimes I think it isn’t good for you to be visiting Jennifer. Crazy breeds crazy, you know?”

15 I shook my head at her.

Henry was busy putting napkins and silverware on the table. The only thing he liked more than soccer or our hikes in the woods was helping his grandma do pretty much anything she asked him to do. He was a little slave for grandma love. He came back into the kitchen.

“Dad, are you ready for my soup?”

“Yes, sir.” I let him hold my hand as he guided me to my seat. Over the stewing chili, I hadn’t smelled the warm smell of cinnamon rolls in the oven, but when my mom put them on the table, I realized how hungry I was.

Grandpa made his way into the dining room as soon as the rolls came out of the oven. He said his sense of smell was his best sense and had kept him alive on an occasion or two. The stories were lies, but he did have an incredible nose. Sometimes I wanted to take him with me into the field to see if he could use it to help me find a stubborn natural gas deposit.

The rolls were sweet and melted in my mouth, but the chili was bland. My mom was afraid to make anything too spicy because she didn’t think kids should have spicy foods. I took a few bites of the chili and made a show about how good it was to make

Henry happy.

It wasn’t even seven, but I had to get to bed early. A new round of mud-logging was set to begin tomorrow, and I had to be at the worksite by five in the morning. The company had said I was the contractor with the most experience, which meant that

James’s contract hadn’t been renewed. When I was in grad school for engineering geology, all anyone could talk about was all the jobs that were out there. There were

16 plenty of jobs, but each one required a different-sized piece of your soul. I found one that only took a shard and was happy to have it. Being the most senior geologist on the team though made me nervous. I wasn’t scared of making a mistake, I just knew that whoever got paid the most was the least likely to survive the next round of budget cuts.

“Why do you have to go to bed so early, Dad?” Henry asked. He did this all the time. “I thought we were going to go hike and count birds and squish bugs.”

“Tomorrow we will. I promise” I had been trying to teach Henry about the different species of birds, and every time he saw a new species we marked it on a giant chart that hung on the back of his bedroom door.

When I was done eating the rolls and picking at the chili, I went upstairs to shave and brush my teeth before bed. When I was done, Henry was waiting on my bed with a book. I read him Ten Apples up on Top, and he kissed me good night. He left the door open a crack on his way out. My mom said he likes to check in on me before she puts him down for the night.

The sun was still an hour from rising when I got to work. A tent was set up in the middle of a boggy meadow. The ground gave way and squished juicy mud onto my work boots. I didn’t care much for the drilling, but being out in a field before we ripped it all up was my favorite part of the job.

I worked for Shanksy Environmental Solutions as an engineering geologist. My job really had two parts. The first was to look at data and take samples in order to find the best sites to drill and prepare for fracking. There were trillions of cubic meters of natural gas right below the Rust Belt, and a dozen companies were all buying up land to get at it.

17 I graduated at the right time. I was able to stay in Northeast Ohio and get a good job in my field.

No matter what a person does, they end up killing what they love. Movie directors are forced to cut their favorite scenes. Biologists document scores of generations of fruit flies and watch each one die within their plastic cases. Chefs throw away dishes they spent hours on because of a few too many grains of salt. My job was no different. My grandpa raised me outside. I loved trees and cliffs. I used to stare at sandstone strata for hours and run my hand along the grooves of pockmarked pudding stone. I stomped around countless creek beds picking up arrowheads and any rock that caught my eye.

I still got to spend some of my time working outside, but instead of playing around and marveling, I tell energy companies which ecosystem to tear apart. When they were done with that and got everything they wanted, I told them where to cut a hole in the ground and shove the waste in. This site had no real use other than grazing land, so the company had got it cheap. There were no deposits underneath, but hopefully it would make a nice place to put a couple million gallons of waste water. The only way to make sure was to drill down into the earth and pull up the mud. From that, I analyzed the data to form what we called mudlogs. If it was stable and not too porous, waste would go in. If it wasn’t, then the company would give the land to a holding company and try to turn it into a strip mall.

Even though it had been a dry winter, the field was full of crickets. Their chirrup rose and fell, but no matter where you stood, it never got louder or quieter. Southwest of the field, there was a small pond that a farmer had once used for his cattle. It was

18 abandoned now, but the croak of bullfrogs kept it company. I made my way to the white tent. I could see a light coming out from the flaps of the door.

I walked in and blinked until my eyes adjusted to the light. The tent was cramped.

It was full of computers, microscopes, and four men in orange jumpsuits sitting in chairs.

I recognized a one of the guys which was surprising. The mud loggers were subcontracted, so I never got to work with the same group of guys twice. Whoever could do the best job in the cheapest way got the work. The company didn’t value experience. It would have been great to see familiar faces every day I went to work, but if I wanted that,

I should have been a bartender.

“Pete, we were wondering if and when you’d show up. Good to see you again.”

Sean got out of his chair and shook my hand. He was one of the smarter mud loggers. We had been on a few different sites together both logging and drilling. He was working toward a master’s degree in soil mechanics. The rest of the guys came from construction or the military.

“You too,” I said. “I always wonder who’s going to be with me at the next site.

Good to have you back.”

“Wish we could say the same thing about James,” Sean said.

I nodded and walked over to the microscopes to see if they had started working on any samples. “You guys pull anything up yet?”

“Nope,” one of the mud loggers sitting down said. He looked to be about fifty. He had a few days’ worth of stubble and his sideburns were a mix between grey and brown.

There was a dip of chewing tobacco in his lip.

“Just waiting for you to tell us where to dig,” Sean said.

19 “Bring a flashlight, and we’ll go find a spot,” I said. Sean rummaged through a giant foot locker until he found some orange safety vests and a half million candle power light. The older guy slung a vest on and followed me and Sean out of the tent. Company protocol was to always send three people out into the field for safety reasons.

The sun was beginning to crest over the horizon in the east, but we still needed the flashlight to stay out of some of the deeper bogs. Every step we took rattled the field’s tall grass. Chipmunks and mice scurried ahead of our thunderous footfalls.

“So what happened to James?” I asked. “Couldn’t get them to renew his contract?”

“You didn’t hear?” Sean asked. I looked at him, but he couldn’t see my face. He put the light on my chest, and I shook my head. “Well, you know how he was. A bit of a drinker. He showed up to the dig in Brimfield all sauced up and started trashing the lab. I wasn’t there, but a buddy I know said he was smashing microscopes and humping the drill bits. My buddy said James climbed on top of the roof of a ‘dozer and started spinning. He fell off and separated his shoulder. He got fired, and now he’s suing the company.”

I tried to imagine James in a drunk rampage. He was a quiet guy. Short and a little fat with a receding hairline. Everyone in my field either comes from geology or engineering. James came from the engineering side and looked the part. I worked with him, but we weren’t friends.

Maybe his wife left him or his kid got cancer. Something had to have set him over the edge to put on the display Sean described.

20 “Doesn’t sound like James,” I said. I held up my hand to motion them to stop and squatted down close to the ground. It was high and dry where we were standing. It felt like a good place to dig. “I knew he was a drunk, but I didn’t know he was a maniac.”

The other guy pulled the tobacco out of his mouth and threw it away. “Seems everyday people are getting crazier and crazier. It’s the mercury in the tapwater. Some guy shoots up a preschool so the next guy feels like he’s got to blow up some babies in the hospital.” He dug in his pocket for his can of Skoal and put a fresh dip in. “Even here where you think people’d be smarter than that. Last year, those kids were caught torturing pigs in the woods. Couple years before that, that broad went batshit and nearly killed all those people.”

“Shut the fuck up, Eddie,” Sean said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sean turned to look at me. “He’s been fucked up since the Persian Gulf. He’s an idiot.”

“Call me what you want,” Eddie said. “All I know is: you put poison in, just like we’re doing here, you get poison out. Simple.”

“You don’t seem to mind cashing the paychecks they give you though.”

“Guys,” I said. I knew Sean was just sticking up for me, but I didn’t need it. He was taking his point too far. “What do you think about digging here?” I tore some grass out and clawed out the soil until I hand a handful. “Seems like we could have some good clay and rock beneath us.”

“You’re the boss,” Sean said. “It looks good to me.”

Eddie grunted and stared off at the horizon. The sun had started to rise, and a thin red fingernail of it could be seen over a hill a mile away.

21 “Alright,” I said. “Bring the boys out here and lets—.” I stopped in the middle of my sentence. At first I thought my legs were just tired and wobbly. Then I realized they were shaking. Eddie and Sean were looking around like a deer who heard a twig snap. I put my hand back on the ground and felt the tremor move beneath it. Then it stopped. The robins in the trees and the swallows in the grass had gone silent, but they started chirping as soon as the ground stopped shaking.

“What the fuck was that?” Sean asked.

“I think it was an earthquake,” I said. “A little one, but big enough for it to be felt.”

“Poison in, poison out,” Eddie said.

I ignored the old vet. “Sean, flag and mark this spot. Get the team out here and pull out some samples. I need to call corporate. They’re going to want to hear about this.”

Sean nodded and pulled out a can of orange spray paint. I jogged off toward my car to grab my phone. I called my mom first. She answered on the first ring.

“Something wrong, Petey?” she asked.

“Are you and grandpa okay?”

“Of course. What happened. What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t feel the earthquake?” I asked. The house was twenty miles away, and depending on the epicenter and magnitude, it might not have been felt there.

“Honey, are you okay? This is Ohio not California.”

“There was a quake, Mom. We felt it out here. I want you to call Henry’s school and make sure he’s okay.”

22 “Of course. I’ll do it right now. I’ll call you back if there’s anything to worry about.”

“Love you,” I said and hung up.

Henry went to school three blocks from home. If my mom didn’t feel it, then the school would be okay. He’d probably be sad he missed it. Natural disasters are exciting to kids. I dialed up the company and waited on hold for ten minutes before I got a hold of my boss. He said they didn’t feel it at the fracking site, but headquarters picked it up on seismograph. They had someone working on it. He said it was beyond our control, and it was. I went back to work.

The earthquake was all over the news when I got home from work. I didn’t want to watch any of it, so I took Henry out for a hike along the trail at Wagon Tongue Creek.

It was a nice wooded trail with a serpentine creek that made its way over and under the trail at several points. We picked up big rocks whenever we saw them to throw into the creek the next time we crossed it. I tried to teach him how to whistle, but he couldn’t do it and got frustrated. He stopped to pick up a stick and started swinging it at some low hanging branches.

“If someone stabbed a knife into a tree, would the tree get hurt?” he asked me without ever taking his attention away from his swatting.

“Trees are alive just like you and me, so I think the tree would get hurt? What do you think?”

“I think it’s not nice.”

“What made you think of something like that?” I asked him.

23 “Grandpa told me a story about Nazis and people stabbing trees and some of the people who stabbed the trees got killed. Do you think they died because they were mean to the tree?”

“I think so,” I said. “I hear a cardinal up ahead. Let’s keep walking.” Henry dropped the stick and the subject.

I pointed out the cardinal to him. It was a female, and he wasn’t impressed. His favorite bird was the goldfinch, but they only hung around meadows. I loved walking in the trees though, so I never told him the reason we didn’t see any on our hikes.

“Dad, let’s talk about Mario.”

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?” He was played video games for a half hour every day with Grandpa, sometime an extra hour with me, and was fascinated by

Mario. He had stickers on his wall and a set of PJ’s with Mario and Luigi on them. He was obsessed with Bowser. Whenever he got interested in something, he always liked the bad guys more than the good guys. He thought The Joker was way cooler than Batman. I didn’t know if it was something to worry about or ignore.

“Why does Bowser always want to take Princess?”

A chipmunk darted in front of us on the path and ran inside an old log.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s got a crush on her.”

“Is that why Mario hates Bowser?”

“I think so. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said. I could tell he was working something over in his head. He had one finger on his chin and was bobbing his head as we walked. “If someone took Mom, would you have to go fight them and jump on their head?”

24 “I would definitely jump on someone’s head if they tried to take your Mom.”

Henry didn’t talk much about his Mom which was fine with me. It was usually only school stuff—when his teacher wanted her to sign a permission slip or bring in birthday treats—that brought her up.

“Does Mom live in a castle?” Henry asked.

“No, she lives at the hospital, remember?”

“I wish it was a castle,” he said and picked up the seed pod of a sycamore tree. He picked at the fluffy seeds until only the hard pod in the middle remained.

“Me too,” I said. “Come on. I hear the creek up ahead.”

When we got home, I gave him a fruit snack and turned on the TV for him. Then I went up to my grandpa’s room and gave him hell.

“What do you think you’re doing telling a five-year old a story like that?” I yelled at him from the doorway. He was lying on his bed reading a book.

“I tell lots of stories to lots of people. What are you talking about?”

“Henry said that you told him that bullshit story about switching places with

Woodrow.”

My grandpa sat up in bed and looked at me with the sides of his mouth drooping down into his wrinkles. “Is it any different than the stories your mother forces him to hear at church? People stabbing people with spears, cutting off ears with swords, throwing people into furnaces. At least my stories are true.” He paused to pick something out of his molars with his index finger and then looked at me. “I told you the same story hundreds

25 of times when you were his age. Now look at you. You have a good job. You have a smart son. What could be the harm?”

“He’s too young to know the difference between one of your stories and the way the world actually works.”

My grandpa shut his book and dropped it on the ground. “And you are too old,

Peter.” He got off the bed and pushed past me to get out of the bedroom.

I spent the next thirty minutes or so explaining to Henry the difference between made up things like on TV and what Grandpa says and real things like what he and I do every day. By the end of the conversation, he seemed to have a shaky grasp on the difference, but the finer points eluded him.

“How do I know if something is real or if it is just made up?” he asked.

“If you ever don’t know the difference, you just come ask me. OK?”

He nodded and went back to his TV show. It had been a long week.

26 CHAPTER II

PETER SEES ANOTHER UNICORN

I was early for my visitation with Jennifer. I waited outside of Building Four because I didn’t want to be in that fluorescent lit room any more than was necessary. A pair of techs walked out of the building.

“Can I help you?” one of them asked. They were both tall men who looked like they spent part of their day lifting weights. Not the kind of people you wanted to be alone in a room with. Besides the doctors and therapists, everyone at the Behavioral Center had the same look to them. They had seen plenty of crazy shit and knew how to not let it faze them.

“I’m just waiting to visit a friend,” I said.

“You’re Jennifer’s fiancé, right?” I nodded at the man. His hair and skin were both dark. “I’ve seen you here before. You’re a good man, you know that? I don’t think she’d make it without you. Highlight of her week. She’s been doing better too.”

“Good to hear,” I said and faked a smile. The guys walked off into the parking lot, and I headed inside.

It was still early, but I didn’t want to run into any more of Jennifer’s handlers. I grabbed a cup of stale coffee and was cleared to enter the room. Several loud buzzes and opening of mechanical doors later, I was sitting at the table.

27 Jennifer walked in after a few minutes. She was escorted but wasn’t forced into cuffs this time.

“I had a dream about you,” she said as she sat.

“Was it a good one?” I asked. It might have been a lie. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a few days. Her eyes were half shut and her hair was in a tangled, lazy ponytail.

“We were walking in the woods, but you were going too fast. I tried to catch up, but you kept walking faster. Finally, I sprinted up to grab your shoulder. You took another step and fell down a well. I jumped in after you.”

“It’s just a dream.”

“I spend half my time here sleeping.” She reached out for my coffee, and I slid the cup closer to me. Her doctor was strict about things like that. He said the caffeine could interrupt her meds. “When I’m up, I wish I was asleep.”

“It can’t be that bad,” I said. “You have cable here, right? And movie nights.”

“None of the movies can have kids in them because of the pedophiles I’m in here with. It goes against their treatment.” She put her elbow on the table and rested her head on the palm of her hand. “They won’t even let me have a picture of Henry. They think someone will steal it.”

“He misses you,” I said to cheer her up. “We were just talking about you the other day. He thinks you’re a princess.”

“I am. Aren’t I? Isn’t that what you used to tell me?” Her eyes were watering and a tear drop fell straight from her eye onto the table. “I’m not crying because of you.

Sometimes tears are just a physical reaction to life.” She put her index finger into the tiny puddle and smeared it around the table.

28 “Do they have you on some new medication?”

“Sure,” she said. “Why not?” She took her head off her hand and looked me in the eye. “Henry thinks I’m a princess, but I can’t tell what you think of me. Sometimes I think you think I want to be this way.”

“Jennifer, that’s not true.”

“Show me a picture of Henry,” she said.

I pulled out my phone and flipped through a few recent pictures of our son. If I handed her the phone, visiting hours would be over. She reached out toward the phone, but didn’t make a move to grab it. She knew better than that.

“I think if I had his picture in my room, I’d do better. I’d feel better. Can you talk to Dr. Foster and see if he will let me have a picture of you and him?”

“I’ll ask him,” I said.

“Tell him I need it. I do need it.”

“Did you hear about the earthquake?” I wanted to change the subject. Nothing I ever said to her psychiatrist ever did me or her any good. Not to mention it involved making an appointment weeks in advance and filling out a bunch of paperwork.

“They don’t let us watch the news anymore. Too much violence. The techs told us about it though.”

“First one around here ever. Or at least since white people have been here.”

She nodded but wouldn’t look at me. She kept slowly nodding even though I wasn’t talking anymore.

“Henry was sad that he missed it,” I said.

“You can go. I don’t feel like talking today.”

29 “Umm, are you sure?” I asked. “We only get an hour a week. I can stay. We don’t even have to talk.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I need to go to sleep.” She got up and walked over to the door. She waved to the worker running the system to let her out. The first of two doors opened into the vestibule, but she didn’t go in.

“Why didn’t you stop?” she asked. Her eyebrows were scrunched together and she held her right hand in her left.

“Stop what?”

“In my dream. Why wouldn’t you wait for me?” She stepped into the vestibule.

The worker hit a button and a buzzer sounded. The first door slid open and a tech met her to escort her back to her building. She didn’t turn around the whole way out. It was just a dream, but judging her mental state, it probably didn’t make much difference to her.

The company line was to stay hush about everything, so we kept pulling up mud log samples to find a suitable site to pump in waste water. Privately, I think most of us with any training knew that what we were doing had caused the quake, but there was no proof. Without hard evidence, we could keep doing whatever we wanted.

A 2.8 magnitude earthquake isn't enough to knock over a lean-to let alone damage any real structures. It was a curiosity more than anything.

I left work early to take my grandpa to a doctor’s appointment. He was a fine driver and had never been in an accident but had trouble filling out the medical history forms that doctors required.

30 He was waiting outside the front door when I pulled into the driveway. He hopped in the car, strapped his seatbelt across his chest, and fiddled with the radio. He turned on

NPR.

“Bah,” he said and turned it off. They were talking about the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing. NPR were about the only people in the world who used that term instead of “fracking.” They must have been Battlestar Galactica fans.

“You think they’re trying to run me out of a job?” I asked.

“No, I’m just tired of it all,” my grandpa said. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“People don’t like change so they spend time talking about it instead of doing something about it.”

“Well, if that earthquake is a result of fracking practices, it’s probably a big deal.”

“It was one little quake. I was lying in bed and didn’t feel it. If people around here felt a real earthshaker, then I would stand and pay attention.” He looked out the window.

I veered onto the interstate that headed south of town to one of the sprawling medical complexes that had specialists for every organ and part of the body. Today, my grandpa was going to see a dermatologist about some moles on his bicep.

“You act like you fought in Japan instead of Europe,” I said. “Did you have a secret life on the Pacific Rim that you haven’t told me about yet?”

“We had earthquakes in Wolmerspur. They happened all the time. Big ones too.

The kind that split the land and cause sink holes to swallow houses.”

I knew from my European topography seminar back in grad school that there was a fault that ran beneath Germany. It snaked its way under the Black Forest and was partially responsible for the Rhine river valley. There were earthquakes in Germany, but

31 they didn’t cause the earth to crack and houses to topple. They were on the same scale as the one that hit Ohio two days ago.

“There’s no possible way that could happen, Grandpa. It’d take a 6.0 or higher quake to cause that kind of damage. The fault lines there aren’t built to do that kind of damage.” Sometimes his exaggerations got him into trouble. “I don’t think there’s ever even been anything higher than a five in that part of the continent.”

He sat up in the seat. “Who said it was caused by fault lines and tectonic shifts? I never said that. You’re the one jumping to conclusions.”

A black Mercedes swerved in front of me in the right lane. Most people around here drove angry, and I did my best to let them and stay out of their way.

“So what was it?” I asked. I knew he wouldn’t let me turn the radio back on, and I didn’t want to drive the rest of the way in silence.

“A lot went on in Wolmerpur simply through tradition. None of us ever talked to the cave giants, and we certainly didn’t have a written agreement with them. Our transactions with them went on the way they always did: turning a blind eye toward them stealing the occasional livestock in favor of them not rampaging through our village. A cave giant is not a creature you want to piss off. In the long run, a lost sheep or goat every couple of weeks is well worth the safety of children and the town.”

“So cave giants caused the earthquakes? You managed to live in a thriving town that was cut off from trade from the rest of the world and suffered constant high magnitude earthquakes at the hands or feet of cave giants?”

32 “Shut up, will you?” my grandpa said. “If you would let me tell my story, you would know that it didn’t happen that way. That’s why I don’t like to tell you new stories. You have more questions than Henry.”

I gripped the wheel tighter but didn’t say anything.

“Good. So, the cave giants ate some of our livestock but in turn didn’t kill us.

They were dumb but smart enough to know that we were the better shepherds and farmers. If they killed all of us, they would lose an easy bite of food every once in a while. It worked great for hundreds of years. Me and my friends, we had never even seen a cave giant. That all changed when I was fifteen.”

I nodded for him to go on. I knew he wanted me to respond and basically beg for the rest of the story, but I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure.

“A drought hit our town. It didn’t rain all spring. Then, it didn’t rain all summer.

Every day was cloudy with no sunshine but also no rain. It went on this way until the town’s granary was depleted and all the livestock had been slaughtered. We were starving. The elders passed rules banning people from having sex. It wasted too much energy, and there was no way the village could support new mouths to feed. We were surviving but just barely. Things were bad for us, but they were just as bad for the cave giants.”

“And what does a cave giant look like?” I asked.

“Ugly,” he said. I tried to throw him off and make him stumble over his own story, but he was too quick. “On average, I’d say, about ten feet tall. Their skin is ashy and pock marked. They all have blue eyes and stringy, dark brown hair. They don’t stink as much as you would think, though.”

33 “You know, we could be rich if you discovered giants and brought it to the attention of the scientific community.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Are we poor? Did we lose all our money and no one told me? What do we need more money for?”

“Nevermind,” I said. Traffic stopped moving in front of me. I brought the car to a halt.

“Stop interrupting. So, things were bad for us, but the giants were never smart enough to store up much in their granaries or caves or whatever they used. Things were worse for them. When one of the town’s children went missing, the elders knew that the giants had eaten her. They knew what had happened, but they didn’t know what to do.

We couldn’t fight them—giants are stronger than gods—but we couldn’t let them go around eating us. I knew my parents would never let me out of the village with the giants out eating everyone they came across, so I woke up before the cock one morning. I grabbed a bag, a few specks of grain, a hammer, and a nail and went off to stop the giants.”

“You should’ve taken a gun,” I said.

My grandpa laughed. “Shows what you know about giants. It’d take a tank to kill a giant. I took what I needed and left before the sun was up. A lot of what people believed back then doesn’t work anymore. Even when I was little, most of the tricks had already stopped being useful. I still knew a thing or two though. The giants’ caves were along the river, but they were spreading out looking for food. I had to find one of their footprints before I met them at their caves. Giant footprints are hard to come by. Sure, their feet are huge, but they’re so big that they blend into the forest floor. Plus, cave

34 giants all have flat feet. They don’t leave much in the way of tracks. It took me half the morning to find one. When I came across it, I took the hammer and nail out of the bag. I found the center of the footprint and drove the nail into the ground. That’s an old binding trick. If you put a nail in a creatures tracks, they aren’t able to leave their homes.”

“And that’s how you stopped the giants? I thought it was going to be more heroic and include more earthquakes.” I hadn’t heard my grandpa tell a new story in years.

There was an art to his storytelling.

“It’s an old trick, but it isn’t that powerful. As soon as the nail starts to rust, the binding is broken. I only had a day, two at most, to take care of the giants. The nail was to keep them in place for the time being, and maybe, if things got bad, I would have a chance of running away if they turned on me. With the nail in place, I headed to their caves. There are caves here in Ohio, but those aren’t suitable for a giant. You would think they needed big cavernous rooms, but caves in the Black Forest are tiny. Sometimes the rocks jut out from the ground and crack or a river or stream will wash away the earth from the top of boulders. A cave giant will crawl into any crevasse and call it a home. I made my way to the river. All the pine trees in the forest were brown. I had never seen anything like it. The drought was killing everything but the bugs. Somehow, the smaller a thing is, the better it survives a disaster. There were gnats and ticks everywhere. My forearms were bleeding by the time I saw the first cave. I was sweating and it burned in every little bite. It smelled like Christmas—like pine nuts roasted over a bonfire, but it was hot. The giants had all gathered around their homes. There was nowhere else for them to go. They were big and strong, but everything in this world has a weakness.”

35 An ambulance whizzed by us in the car. It was driving thirty miles per hour on the shoulder of the interstate. There must have been an accident ahead of us. Traffic was inching forward.

“What’s my weakness?” I asked.

“You’re like a vampire.” He leaned forward in his seat and tried to see where the ambulance was headed.

“My weakness is garlic and holy water?”

“Don’t be stupid. I am so glad you’re not stupid. If I’d had a stupid grandson, I would’ve killed myself.” He stopped trying to follow the ambulance and stared out the passenger side window instead. “Though only smart people kill themselves. Maybe I should've had a stupid son.”

My grandpa was the only person who really talked about my dad, and he did so in the bluntest way possible. He knew the facts and didn’t mind sharing them. When I was younger, I would beg for details.

He shook his head. “You’re like a vampire. Sure you can eat Italian food and cross yourself when you walk into a church, but you can’t see your own reflection even when someone holds a mirror in front of your face.”

“Thanks, Grandpa.” I said. My mom was right. He was still sharp as a chef’s knife.

“Now, cave giants are strong and tough, but they are also stupid and prideful.

They knew something was up when I walked into their territory, but I knew how to play into their pride. I challenged them to a series of contests. If I won, they had to stay away from Wolmerspur forever. If they won, I agreed to give them fifty sheep, fifty goats, and

36 fifty children—myself included in that number. They were dumb, but they knew how to bargain. If they wanted all that, they could have grabbed it with little hassle, maybe a few dead giants. I upped the ante on them. I told them that I would win all three contests. If I lost even one, the entire town of Wolmerspur would become their slaves. We would groom them and grow food for them. They couldn’t resist.”

Whatever had happened in front of us started to clear up. I switched lanes and started scooting along at twenty miles per hour. We were going to be late for the doctor’s appointment.

“So what were the three contests?” I asked. I liked this story. It made me feel like a little kid again.

“Like I said, cave giants are not humble, so I played to their egos. I challenged them first to a stone throwing contest. Throwing rocks is like baseball to cave giants.

They chose their best hurler. She was a big lady, dumb as she was ugly. Her skin looked like marble. It had white veins encased in grey flesh. I told them I needed to do some stretching. I walked over to a tree and set up my bag. I did some calisthenics by that tree while I waited for a hungry bird to go after the grain. When I was done, I carried my bag over to the giants. That giant lady, she picked up a pair of rocks and put one in my hand.

It was cold and wet from the river water. It covered my entire palm, but to her it was a pebble—the kind they used for skipping stones. She reared back and threw the rock straight up into the air. We sat around and waited for thirty seconds before it came crashing down to the ground. It plopped in the bank and sprayed us all with mud. The giants thought it was hilarious. When it was my turn, I pretended to drop my rock on the ground. When I bent down to pick it up, I pulled a little nuthatch from my bag. I cupped

37 the bird in my hand, pulled my arm back, and then made a big show about launching the rock into the air. The bird flew straight up into the sky until it was out of sight. The giants were never known for good eyesight. We sat and waited for three minutes before I dropped the real rock out of my bag onto dry ground. ‘I think I just won,’ I told them.

They weren’t happy, but they knew there were two more left. ”

“We’re going to be late to your appointment,” I said.

“Who cares? When has a doctor ever been on time for a patient?”

“So what was the next contest?”

“I let them pick the next feat in order to make it fair. A tall, lanky giant challenged me to a jumping contest. I’ve never been much of a leaper, and this fellow looked like he could hop over the moon. I was a little worried, but I had a plan. Giants make poor goatherds and even worse farmers, but they could grow the most delicious apples. I told them I needed a quick bite before the next competition. I walked the tall one over to an apple tree. All the bottom branches were picked bare, but a few ripe apples remained at the top. I asked the giant to bend the tree down so I could pick one of them.

He pointed to an apple slightly above his eyes. ‘A little higher,’ I said. ‘Higher.’ He bent the tree all the way down to the ground so I could pick an apple that grew on the tallest branch. I put my hand on the fruit. ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘I’m ready to jump now.’ Well, the giant let go, but I held on. It snapped back upright and sent me sailing all the way over the tree. ‘See if you can beat that jump,’ I bragged to them upon landing. The tall guys mouth was hanging open. He closed it and gritted his yellow teeth. He rubbed his massive paws together and bent at the knees a few times. He let loose a jump. He only got a few inches off the ground. Giants are strong, but they're not good jumpers. I didn’t

38 even need to cheat, and I still would’ve won. Now, the giants were angry. They all started jumping. Even though they barely got off the ground, it still shook the world. The apples fell from the trees. Boulders fell from the cliffs into the river, and its waters started to flow backwards.”

“So that was the earthquake you felt?”

“Not even close. Anger is a cumulative thing. It builds and burns until it boils over. The giants were furious, and it was my turn to pick the final event. I tried to appease them. I challenged them all to an eating contest. We gathered up the apples from the ground until we had hundreds of them. ‘I bet I can eat more apples in a minute then all of you trolls put together,’ I told them. Giants hate being called trolls. It’s like calling a man a woman. Giants can’t jump, but they can eat. And they were hungry. We headed into one of their caves. It was dank and musty. The walls were covered in moss, and the floor was littered with bones. I looked around for a human skull or signs of the little girl, but there was nothing.”

The tone of his voice dropped a little whenever he mentioned that girl. He always claimed he was an only child. Maybe she was like a sister to him. He was an only child.

So was my dad. Henry was as well. There’s a sickness that comes to being the only child of a family, especially if you’re a boy. So many hopes and dreams are pinned to you. So much history is supposed to be passed down to you.

“I was hungry and probably could have given one or two giants a run for their money, but to beat the whole clan I was going to have to cheat. I had my bag tucked beneath my shirt. When the apple eating contest started, I pretended to put them in my mouth but was really stuffing them into my bag. Giants don’t chew their food. They

39 swallow it whole. I pretended I was doing the same. I was jamming my bag full of apples as quick as I could grab them but was barely keeping pace with the giants. I grabbed the last apple on the table and smiled at the oafs. I rubbed it on my bulging shirt and took a big bite out of it. I finished it in three bites and tossed the core on the ground. ‘I win,” I said. ‘And I’m not even full.’ Now the giants were incensed. They raged. They punched the walls of the cave and stomped their feet on the ground. Everyone knows giants are poor losers. The earth shook and split open. The bones that had been piled up in the cave spilled down into a dark crevasse. I scooted the stump I was sitting on back away from the lip of the fissure. One of the giants fell into the black depths, and that just made the rest angrier. I knew they had no intention of honoring their bargain.”

I was weaving in and out of cars to try and get my grandpa to his appointment on time. It had taken weeks to get into the specialist, and I knew it would take even longer if he missed it. I tried to split my attention equally between his story and the traffic.

“I shouted at them, ‘Stop. You’ll kill us all.’ It didn’t work. They were too riled up, like Henry when we have to quit in the middle of a Mario level. ‘I’ll show you the secret to eating so much food,’ I yelled at them. That got their attention. Giants love eating. If they could learn to eat even more, they would listen. I asked one of them for a knife and they gave me a sword. I turned the point to face my stomach and cut through my shirt and the bag beneath. I pulled out an apple from the sack and bit into it. ‘If you have a cut from the middle of the ribs to your navel, you can eat forever. You can even eat food twice.’ Now that got them going. They grabbed the sword and picked up even more weapons. They gutted themselves right in front of me. A whole clan of cave giants tumbled over and died together. It was like something some of my fellow GI’s saw in

40 Japan. Not that the Japs were stupid like the giants—they were doing it for different reasons. I stood alone in the cave. I had taken care of Wolmerspur’s problem, but I knew you didn’t kill a whole clan of cave giants without some repercussions.”

I pulled into the parking lot in front of the dermatologist’s office. “We’re here.”

“Some of the rival clans wanted to make me their king. Others wanted me dead, but no one dared challenge me. They left Wolmerspur alone. It blizzarded every day that winter, but we were happy. We knew the drought had broken and would have a good harvest the next year.”

“Good story, Grandpa,” I said. I got out of the car and walked around it to open his door and help him up.

“I never thought I’d feel another earthquake again,” he said. “I really didn’t.

You’d think I was old enough to stop assuming things, but it’s the human condition.

Peter, the important thing is to never be scared. When the earth shakes or when people go missing, you have to fight the fear. You understand that, right?”

“Sure,” I said. He couldn’t resist moralizing. “But what about when people die?”

“It’s okay to be sad. Grief is fine. Just don’t be afraid.”

The man had dark colored moles on his arms and was headed into a dermatologist’s office. I didn’t know if he was telling me or talking to himself.

“You can beat a giant, Peter. All it takes is work and willpower.”

Henry was coloring at the kitchen table when I got home from work. My mom was in the basement doing the laundry, and my grandpa was upstairs taking a nap. I kissed the top of his head and tried to make out what he was drawing. There were three

41 circular scribbles. Yellow in the top left, green in the middle, and red in the middle right.

I learned that it was always better to have him tell me what a picture was than trying to guess myself.

“Sweet picture. What is it?” I asked him. He had his tongue jutting out of his mouth and was making green rectangles all across the bottom of the page.

“Mario and Luigi are trying to get Bowser, but guess what? Bowser has magic now. Did you know he could do that?”

“No.” I played every Mario game ever created. The best parts of my childhood were spent in my room with a Super Nintendo controller in my hand. He put his crayon down and looked up at me.

“Magic’s not real. But Bowser found special magic, not the kind you know. He makes people poison. Look.” He pointed at the green scribble. “Luigi’s poison. He’s going to hug Mario, and then they die, and Bowser wins.”

I walked from the dining room to the kitchen. “Why does Bowser always win?” I grabbed a Pepsi from the fridge. I opened it, took a sip, and gave Henry a drink from it.

“Isn’t Bowser the bad guy?”

“Bowser wins because he’s bigger than Mario and Luigi and Toad and Princess.

The big people always win.”

“Not always. Grandpa claims he fought and beat some cave giants. They were bigger than him.”

“Grandpa said that you said you didn’t like it when he told me stories. I’m not supposed to tell you when he tells me stories. That’s what Grandpa said. Is that a secret?”

42 “I like Grandpa’s stories. He has lots of them. You just have to remember that they’re stories.”

Henry stared at his picture. “I asked him to tell me a story about Bowser, but he said he never met Bowser, and so he didn’t have any stories about Bowser.”

I wiped some of the condensation off the side of the can. It was hot in the house.

The oven must’ve been running in the kitchen, but I didn’t smell anything cooking. The house had its usual dried glue smell.

“All stories are made up. Right? That’s what makes them stories.”

“What about George Washington. Is he made up?”

“That’s history. It’s different. Is that what you’re learning about in school?”

“No, he’s in Wacky Wednesday. That’s a story.” He picked up his paper and studied it. “Can I go to the hospital with you?”

“Your mom’s hospital? Is that what you mean?”

He put the picture down but still wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Yeah. My teacher says I need mom to help me for our play.”

“You’re putting on a play? What’s it about? Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”

“We all have to pick a saint. Mom is supposed to help me pick and make a costume. That’s why I need to go to the hospital.” He looked at me like I was stupid. It all made sense in his little five-year-old head. He scrunched his eyebrows at me which was adorable because they were dark and bushy for a little kid. He got them from his mom, but his head was covered with my dark hair.

43 “Oh,” I said. “Mom doesn’t feel good, but me and Grandma can help you.

Grandma knows everything about the saints. I know a lot too. Did you know that there is a patron saint of lumberjacks? His name is Saint Gummarus. He used to chop down trees with his hands. Not even Bowser could do that.”

“I think Bowser could do that. He’s really strong. If I dressed up like the gum- guy, would I get to have an axe?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. He curled his bottom lip and made a fake sad-face.

“Grandma knows more about this kind of stuff than me. She can help you pick out an awesome saint. Plus, she knows how to sew. Don’t worry, Bud. We’ll make sure you look great.” He shrugged his shoulders. I hoped that the urge to see his mom was driven by his teacher and not anything else.

My mom came up from the basement carrying a blue laundry basket. “Well hey there, stranger.” She said to me. I walked over to her and took the basket from her hands.

The plastic was warm from the clothes. It smelled like soap and flowers. “Where have you been all this time?” she asked. She put her hands on her hips and stretched out her back.

“Work, chauffeuring grandpa around, trying to raise my son. Mainly working.”

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.” She sat at the table and picked up Henry’s picture. She looked it over and then turned to Henry. She smiled and gave him a thumbs up. I put the laundry basket down, and we both started folding it.

“You should feel lucky. Most moms only get to see their kids every couple of months.” I picked up one of Henry’s shirts. It had a monster wearing a football helmet on it.

44 “I am lucky,” my mom said. She put her hand over her heart. “Every day. I’m lucky.” She put one of my grandpa’s shirts under her chin and folded the sleeves down and over. She was good at this kind of thing. “Henry, go get your grandpa and then wash your hands. Dinner’s almost ready.” Henry hopped out of his seat and sprinted up the stairs.

“How do you get him to listen to you like that?” I asked.

“I give him cookies and sometimes let him play an extra fifteen minutes of

Nintendo.”

I reached into the basket and pulled out a pair of mom’s underwear. I dropped them from my hand. “So what’s for dinner?”

“Food,” my mom said. “I never got to ask you how your visit with Jennifer went.”

“It was good.” I put my hands on the table and stopped folding laundry.

“Sometimes she’s up, and sometimes she’s down. I never know what to expect when I walk in there. This week, she was definitely down. It’s exhausting.”

“You’re a better man for it.” She was still folding clothes. She didn’t even need to think. It was a mechanical motion to her. “Henry’s a better kid for you going to see her.

He needs some sort of connection to his mom.”

I got up from the table and glanced back at the stairs. “Have you heard about

Henry’s play?” My mom shook her head. “He wasn’t telling anyone about it because they’re supposed to have their moms help them with costumes and everything. I told him me and you could handle it.”

“Someday Jennifer will be better, and we won’t have to worry about all this.”

45 “I don’t know if she’s ever going to be cured or get better or whatever they want to call it. Even if she is, I don’t know if she should be around Henry.” It wasn’t something I tried to think much about. After I was denied access to the engagement ring,

I dropped it. I wasn’t going to bring it up to Jennifer, so I just let it fall to the side.

“I know you think that me and your grandpa are just as good, but you can’t replace a boy’s mother. He needs her in his life. And it’s your responsibility to make sure it happens.”

“So it’s my fault Jennifer went crazy?”

“Petey, it’s not anyone’s fault. Do you think she wants to be the way she is? It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility. You made a decision long ago to have a kid with her, the rest has already been written.”

I sat back down at the table. Henry was most likely upstairs jumping on my grandpa’s bed instead of washing his hands. “So I’m stuck with this the rest of my life? A beautiful, smart boy and a crazy, dangerous ex-fiancé?”

“You’re just like your dad. You think the world is out to get you.” She finished folding the clothes and stacked them back in the basket to put away. “You’re not stuck with anything.” She stood and looked down on me at the table. “There are some things you’ll never be able to get off your conscience.”

“Like Dad?” I asked. I rubbed my molars together.

“Exactly. For whatever he did wrong, he did the right thing when he married me. I could have done more to save him. I could have, but I didn’t. You know what the right thing is. You have to do it or live with it the rest of your life.” She walked into the

46 kitchen and pulled open the stove. She pulled out some eggplant and potatoes. “Our family has its problems, but we can’t abandon each other.”

I wanted to ask if she was talking about my dad again but held back. She was trying to help. When Jennifer and I told her that we were going to have a baby, she was happy. Jennifer couldn’t see, but I knew she was ashamed as well. She offered me a loan for the engagement ring, and it took me a year to take her up on the offer.

“Henry, Grandpa, dinner’s ready,” I yelled up the stairs. Henry came running down, and Grandpa followed at a slower pace.

Henry sat down at the table and grabbed his miniature fork and spoon. When my mom put his plate in front of him, he stuck his tongue out.

“Ughh, eggplant! I hate purple food.”

My mom was able to coax him into eating it anyway. She knew how to get her way.

The seismograph needles hadn’t moved all week. Sean started a pool at work for when the next one would come. We were in the tent studying samples of the sediment and detritus from the field. The whole site was looking like a bust.

“Today’s your day,” Sean said. “If a quake comes, you’re $120 richer.” It was just him and me in the tent. The rest of the mudloggers were outside tearing up some land with the ’dozer.

“Finally, I’ll be able to retire.” I stared into a microscope. I thought the ground here would be full of shale, but there was a surprising amount of sand. My chair started to

47 rattle, and I jerked my head away from the view piece. Sean was standing behind me shaking my chair.

“Come on now. You didn’t think you’d be that lucky, right?” He smiled and brushed his hair back over his head. “I’m the one that deserves that money. I have student loans to pay off. You’re the one making the big bucks.”

“If you’re getting into this field for the money, you should just stop now.”

“Really?” Sean asked. He walked over to the lab’s printer and grabbed two sheets of paper. “I thought it paid well. Why’d you get into it then?”

“The groupies.” I got up from the microscope station and walked over to Sean. He handed me the papers.

“We should get a beer after work sometime,” Sean said. He had his hands on his hips.

I studied the mudlogs. They looked like a series of echocardiograms if someone was having four simultaneous heart attacks. “That sounds great I said. I don’t remember the last time I had a drink.” It had been before Jennifer’s arrest. Neither of us were big drinkers, but sometimes we liked to share a bottle of sweet red wine.

“Cool,” Sean said. “I think O’ Shanters has dollar drafts tonight. Even the fancy stuff is only a buck.”

“Oh,” I said. I looked up from the print outs. Sean was tossing a plastic water bottle back and forth between his hands. “You meant tonight?”

“Sure. Doesn’t work for you?”

“No,” I said. “I have to take my grandpa to the doctor’s.” I hoped Sean didn’t remember or never knew his appointment was two days ago.

48 “No worries. Sometime though.”

“Definitely,” I said. “This doesn’t look good.” I handed the papers back to him.

“The rate of penetration is way too high. The porosity is medium-high, but combine the two together and we have another no-go.”

“You picked this site, didn’t you?” Sean asked. He bit his lip and used his index finger to trace the erratic lines that measured the various data we had collected from drilling.

“Yeah. It wasn’t my first choice, but I thought it’d still be good enough.”

“You’re losing your touch.”

I could still hear the machinery outside. It drowned out everything else. The only benefit was the rich, loamy smell it stirred up from the ground. Sean said it reminded him of a funeral, but I’ve never been to one that I remember. To me, it smelled like the holes I used to dig in the backyard as a kid. For one summer, I was obsessed with getting to

China.

The whir and rumble outside stopped and was replaced with shouting. I looked at

Sean. He set the papers down and pointed at me.

“You’re the boss around here. It’s your job to quell any uprising by us subcontracted subordinates.”

We walked out of the tent and into the sunlight. The rest of the mudloggers were huddled up in their orange jumpsuits. They were surrounding someone I couldn’t make out between the bodies. I could only see the person’s hands waving above their heads.

Sometimes a farmer who had to foreclose their land would get pissy and come back to

49 spray the place with buckshot, but that was rare. I’d never seen anything like that happen, but I’d heard stories. I expected the worst.

“Don’t fucking touch me, ya sot,” I heard Eddie say. He pushed whoever was in the middle of the circle, and they stumbled to the ground. I walked up to the group and clapped my hands.

“What’s going on?” I asked. They parted as they heard my voice. “James?” My old boss and mentor James was pulling himself up. It was three in the afternoon, and he was noticeably drunk.

“Peter Piper,” James said. He brushed some of the dirt off of his jeans. “Finally someone who will listen to sense. This your crew?”

“James, what are you doing? My god, you can’t be here like this. Come on, let me give you a ride home. We can talk in the car.”

“Didn’t drive all the way here just to get a free ride home,” James said. “I’ve had a revelation, and I need to share it with you all.”

“Jesus, James. Stop. Come on now.”

“No, you stop, Peter Piper. I’m drunk, but I’m serious. I need to talk to all of you.

Aren’t any of you interested in why I got fired?”

“Because you’re a drunk,” Eddie said. James spun around to look each of my men in the eye.

“Cause and effect, buddy. I’m a drunk because of what I discovered. I found out the truth, and I couldn’t take it. But maybe one of you can.”

Sean leaned in and whispered to me. “I’m going to call the police. Last thing we need is another lawsuit from a drunk ex-employee.” He stepped away from the circle.

50 “Moses was wrong,” James said. “He said there were Ten Commandments, but I found out there’s only three.”

“You want to preach, go to a church,” Eddie said. He looked like he wanted to spit on James.

“James,” I said. “You’re drunk, and that’s okay. But you can’t be here. I’m happy to give you a ride wherever you want to go. I’m even willing to listen to what you found out. You know me, I’ve always listened to everything you’ve said.”

“I came here to say something, and I’m going to say it. These are three commandments of the anthropocene. Number one: we are all just energy. Everything is energy. Everything is sacred.” He held three fingers up and counted off as he went.

“Two: everything falls apart. This should not be feared. It should be accepted and embraced. We no longer have to be perfect. And three: the only way to stop falling apart is to stop moving. There, I said it.” He pulled a flask out the pocket of his jeans. Sean rejoined the circle.

“Cops are on their way,” he whispered to me.

“Alcohol is energy. We are energy. Fire is energy. Don’t you guys see? It’s all the same.” We twisted the cap off the flask and brought it half way to his mouth before stopping.

“James, you can either leave now with me and we can talk about all this, or the cops are going to come here and arrest you for trespassing.”

James dropped the flask to his side. He looked me in the eye. The smile and energy left his face. He didn’t look scared, just disappointed. “You never understood, did you Peter? What we’re doing here is only a small part of a much greater mechanism. You

51 don’t understand, but I can show you.” He lifted the flask and shook out its clear contents onto his left hand. He dropped the silver flask into the tall grass of the field. He pulled a lighter out of his back pocket.

“We’re all the same,” he said. He flicked the lighter two times until the flame caught. He brought the tiny blue flame closer to his hand. He looked at me again and shook his head. The crickets and the birds had gone silent. It was like the moment right before the earthquake except this time the ground stood still. He plunged the lighter into the palm of his hand.

A flame leaped off of his skin. It was orange and blue and twisted in the air.

“We’re all the same,” he said. He sounded like a beggar on a street corner. “We’re all the same. We’re all the same.” Now he was shouting. He waved his hand around. He shook it over and over again until the flame died out. The air smelled like burnt hair.

“Nothing can hurt us, Peter, when we realize what we’re made of.”

I don’t know what Sean had told the police on the phone, but the first car on the scene drove straight through the field and stopped ten feet away from our circle. The officer got out.

“Your ride’s here, ya fucking idiot,” Eddie said.

The cop asked what was going on, and I pointed out James to him.

“This man’s trespassing on private property,” I said. “He’s drunk and needs to be removed.”

James didn’t even resist the officer.

He went quietly into hand cuffs.

52 As the officer led him away from me, his head was down, but he was still looking me in the eye.

“You don’t have to fall apart, Peter,” he said. “All you need to do is stop moving.”

53 CHAPTER III

PETER SEES YET ANOTHER UNICORN

“Sometimes I forget that the world is still moving outside of this place,” Jennifer said.

“It’s like I don’t remember what a season is supposed to feel like. Do you ever get that way?”

We were outside. It was May, but people were already saying it was the first day of summer. That’s what it felt like. It was hot and humid.

“It’s Ohio. That’s how the weather works here. One day it’s snowing, and the next it’s seventy degrees.”

“You know they say that everywhere? I’ve never been to a place where they don’t sit you down and say, ‘If you don’t like the weather, wait fifteen minutes. Har har har.’

Why is that? Does everyone just want to be different?”

“I think most people want to be the same,” I said. We walked along the edge of the courtyard where it bordered the muddy bank of a runoff pond. Jennifer stopped and grabbed the chain link fence with both of her hands.

“I love the way metal makes my hands smell.” She brought her hands up to her face and sucked in. “Is it because it reminds me of when I was little and climbed fences half this size playing hide-and-go-seek, or do I actually like the smell?”

“You seem awfully contemplative today,” I said.

“There’s not much to do in here but think. Thinking is what made us all crazy, so 54 they put us in these boxes like were bad children.” She shook her finger at the fence.

“‘Now sit here and think about what you’ve done. Think and think and think until you’re better or your head explodes, whichever comes first.’ Most of the people in here are probably praying for spontaneous combustion.”

“And what are you praying for?” I asked her. This was as lucid as I’d seen her in months. I knew not to get my hopes up though. As quickly as she got better, she got worse. She yo-yo’d and oscillated tracing perfect sine waves over my life.

“I think I finally figured everything out. They tell us over and over again in here that we have to want to get better as if we all made a decision to be crazy. It’s all bullshit, but it’s right. That’s what I figured out. People speak in clichés because there the closest thing to the truth most people have ever come across. I resisted for so long, but I want to get better. I want to see Henry. I want to sleep in the same bed as you. I’m not better now, but I can be.”

She gave similar speeches before. She always viewed it as if there were some trick she could perform to get out of this place. I looked at the metal fence and followed it up to the razor wire that spun over the top.

“We want you to get better too,” I said.

“Remember when you first introduced me to your mom and grandpa? Your grandpa told that story about the devil who lived in a bottomless pit in the hills of

Germany. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t a story my grandpa told a lot, but I heard it plenty of times.

“I feel like I’ve been falling for a long time,” she said.

55 We weren’t holding hands. We stood shoulder to shoulder against the fence. I didn’t want to lead her on and make her think that if and when she got out things would be the same between us.

“Remember when we took that Biology class together?” she asked.

“BIO 106? Of course. You sat behind me on purpose so you could cheat on the tests. You forced me to sit next to that kid who didn’t shower instead of sitting next to your boyfriend.”

“Geez, you make me sound like a witch. I tried to work out a series of hand signals with you, but you didn’t want any part of it. And don’t act like it wasn’t a fair trade. I remember writing plenty of History and English papers for you. We cheated our way through college together. We make a good team. I couldn’t have got through that class without you.”

“You’re smart,” I said. “You could have put in the time and got a good grade.”

“But remember the lab? No way.”

“Dissecting the snake? That wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be.”

“That was exactly as gross as I thought it would be,” she said. “But the worst part was when we had to go to that pond and dig up samples.” Her body shivered in the thick, warm air. “Digging in mud for bugs and stuff. Oh my god. I freak out just thinking about it. The mud smelled like shit and looked like shit. It probably was. And then all the little things crawling around in it. Oh my god. It was full of little worms and things with pincers for arms and oversized mouths. They were all eating each other and shitting on each other. It was horrible. I don’t even remember what we were supposed to learn. I had nightmares for weeks about waking up with a tail and antennae.” Her breathing was

56 becoming more rapid. “I would wake up and run to the mirror to check my face. I would splash water on myself. It wouldn’t go away. God, I can’t even think about it now. It’s making me sick.”

“It wasn’t that bad. They’re just bugs. That’s their lifecycle.”

“Is that what we were supposed to be studying? Lifecycles? I feel like that was what we covered more in Abnormal Psych than Biology.”

“Not life stages. Lifecycles. Like how a bug undergoes metamorphosis.”

“You were better at biology than me. I think I must have repressed everything I learned in that class. It sounds beautiful though.”

“It’s how bugs are born from eggs, become larva, transition to pupa, and end up as adult insects. They change their body’s shape and function each step of the way.”

“Wouldn’t that be great?” Jennifer asked. She backed away from the fence and sat down at a picnic table. I followed her. “When something has outgrown its usefulness, you just shed it off and something functional takes its place.”

I sat across the table from her. It was painted green a long time ago. Everywhere the paint was cracked and split so the worn, gray wood shown through. I picked at a tiny patch of paint with my thumbnail. “It’s more complicated than that,” I said.

“Well tell me about it, Mr. Scientist. I’m ready to learn now.”

“It’s a grand design. The bug doesn’t get to pick what stays and goes. It’s all set into motion before the egg even hatches.”

“Keep going.”

“I don’t know much more. I’m not an entomologist.”

57 “What’s that?” Jennifer asked. She was hunched over the table and was running her hands back and forth with the grain of the wood.

“An entomologist is someone who studies bugs.”

“You think they’d be called anthropologists.”

I looked up at her. She had her dark eyebrows scrunched low to her eyes. She was staring at me.

“Anthropologists study people and culture and stuff,” I said.

She smiled at me. I saw the bottoms of her two front teeth. “It was a joke, Pete.

I’m crazy not dumb.”

I forgot that about her. She used to be funny. She used to make jokes, equal parts lame puns and toilet humor. She used to make me laugh.

“Good one,” I said. “Henry would appreciate it.”

“How is he? Does he miss his mom?”

“He was waiting around with news for you. He wanted to tell you he is going to be in a play. His class is putting on a show, and they all need to dress up as a saint.”

“I never would’ve sent him to Catholic school.”

Jennifer wasn’t Catholic, but my whole family was. Her mom died when she was young and her dad was genuinely not worth knowing. She spent time in foster care. It wasn’t until high school that she and her brother found a home that wanted to keep them.

Religion wasn’t a big part of her life. Neither were parents.

“It was my mom’s idea. She’s the one who pays for it.”

“Do you think I could be a good Catholic? I always kind of wanted to be a nun.

There’s something sexy about nuns.”

58 “I think you would be a terrible nun. What if they made you take a vow of silence?”

“Why do you take everything I say and turn it into a joke?” She stood and took a step away from the table. “You’re like the opposite of me. One second you’re nice and the next you’re a giant asshole.”

“How is that the opposite of you?”

“You switch back and forth. I’m everything all the time.”

I stood up and took a step toward her. She backed away. “Don’t,” she said.

“Fine.” I sat back down. I didn’t make everything into a joke. Sometimes it was just hard to handle it all. It’s hard to know what to expect.

I looked over at her. She hand two fingers underneath her chin. Her eyes were looking up into the sky but her head was level.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Shut up,” she whispered.

She was everything all at once. That was the worst part. She was nice and mean, friendly and aggressive, funny and depressing. It wore me down.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m measuring my heart rate.” She wouldn’t look at me. She kept staring into space. She dropped her hand to her side and took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean anything I just said.”

“It’s okay.”

“I don’t think we’re opposites.” She moved closer to the picnic table but didn’t sit down.

59 “It’s okay” I said. “You’re not going to hurt my feelings.”

“I think we’re the same. Really. Sometimes I think it could be you in here and me on the outside. Do you ever think that?”

“No.” I wasn’t crazy. I was forced to be the responsible one.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She sat across from me. “Have you ever driven in the mountains?”

I had never been to the mountains with her. Sometimes I forgot that there was a

Jennifer before all of this, a Jennifer before we met. “My grandpa took me to West

Virginia once.”

“Driving in the mountains always overwhelmed me,” she said. “That’s where I’m at now. When you get to the top of the road, you can see for miles. You can see the most beautiful lake off in the distance, but you don’t know how to get there.” She bit her nails and spat out tiny bits onto the table. “Tell Henry I miss him. Tell him I am going to get better and see him soon.”

I nodded at her but looked over her shoulder.

“Do you even talk to him about me?” she asked.

“I do. Every day almost. You’re his mom.” She turned her head away from me and put her fingers back under her chin. I followed her line of sight toward the pond.

There was a flock of geese floating on the water. They had stayed there through the winter. Some geese never migrated, but lately, more and more were sticking around

Ohio. They never left. I couldn’t decide if it was change or the lack of change. It bothered me.

“An hour takes a lot longer when you’re not here,” she said.

60 I walked her back to the building where she was shuttled away. I headed out to my car. A honking V of geese flew overhead my head on their way to the pond.

Soon the geese would build their nests and lay their eggs. And then they would begin to molt. The males and the females both lost their feathers so that when the goslings hatched, the entire family couldn’t fly. It didn’t really seem fair.

Henry used the name of the sporting goods store in every sentence. It was hilarious because he was oblivious and not really doing anything wrong.

“I love Dick’s,’ he said. My mom blushed. “Dick’s has all the sports. Dad, can I get a new soccer ball?”

“No, buddy, we’re here to get some extra stuff for camping, remember?” Every year when it started to get hot out, my mom and I took Henry camping for a night in the forest. Despite the recent trips to the doctor, Grandpa was determined to go. Last year he had the flu, but he didn’t get sick all winter and demanded to go with us.

“I’ll get you a soccer ball,” my grandpa said. “A good European one. Really, anything but Nike is good. You go pick it out.”

Henry walked off with my mom toward the soccer section. He was good at the sport. He could dribble well and was fast. He toe-punched every shot he took, but my grandpa had been working with him on using his shoelaces to launch a well-placed ball into the net. Their “practices” in the backyard involved a lot of my grandpa sitting in a chair and telling Henry stories about Germany’s three World Cups while Henry kicked the ball, chased it down, and kicked it again.

My grandpa and I headed over to the outdoors section.

61 “It’s going to get cold out there,” my grandpa said. “I need a nice mat and the thickest sleeping bag they have.”

I didn’t know what the best sleeping bag for an elderly man would be. His doctor would be furious if he knew that Grandpa was going camping especially this early in the season.

We studied the wall of sleeping bags. Some were filled with down and others were made of “space-age” fibers. I thought the world moved beyond the space-age sometime in the 80’s, but advertising folks must not have got the message. I didn’t know the term for what comes after the space-age, but it was what I was living in. Maybe the uncertain-age.

“This one looks perfect. Goretex, thermal body mapping technology, water- resistant shell. I like how all that sounds.”

I grabbed the sleeping bag from the shelf. Despite its gargantuan size, it was light.

“Are you sure you want this one?” I asked him. “It doesn’t feel like it’s going to be heavy enough to keep you warm.”

“You’re a fool. Things don’t need to be heavy to keep you warm. You think sleeping under a piece of metal will keep you cozy? It’s about layers. You can’t judge a thing by how much it weighs. Do you want a UNIVAC or a MacBook?”

I put the sleeping bag up on my shoulder. We walked over to the sports section of the store. My grandpa stopped at the gun counter.

“I need to get my fishing license so I can show Henry how to fish.”

We waited at the glass-box counter for someone to notice us.

62 “Do you ever think about killing yourself?” my grandpa asked. He was looking at the rows of shotguns displayed behind the counter.

“Grandpa, Jesus, what kind of question is that? Are you worried about me or something?”

“It’s a legitimate question,” he drummed his fingers on the glass. “I don’t think you’re going to do it, but then again I didn’t think your dad would blow his brains out either. I wish I would have asked him.”

“No, I’m fine, Grandpa.”

“You get angry like I touched a nerve or something. It was just a question.”

I swiveled my head around looking for an employee to help end this conversation, but no one was in sight.

“I’m not going to kill myself. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Good,” my grandpa said. “If I could go back, I would ask your dad that same question. He probably would’ve given me the same answer, but at least then I would’ve felt better about the whole thing.”

“Did you think, even in the back of your mind, that he was going to kill himself?”

I asked my grandpa. It was something I needed to know. Grandpa obviously saw something of my father in me. I wanted to know if the urge came on in a sudden rush or was a slow swell. I felt like I deserved to know.

“I’ll tell you a story,” my grandpa said. “It’s a short one. Listen close because this one has a moral.”

“Is it about my dad?” I asked. He was avoiding my question.

“No, it’s about the war.”

63 “Oh,” I said. He turned around to lean back against the counter. Then he took a breath and started his story.

“Toward the end of the war—we all knew it was about over—our supply trucks got switched up. Sometimes that would take out a whole company of men, but for us, it meant that the only thing we had to eat for three weeks was turkey, canned peaches, and green beans. Every meal was the same. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. At first it was funny. ‘Thanksgiving every day,’ the other guys said. After a week, the thought of dry turkey and tinny peaches made us want to vomit, but it was all we had to eat. We didn’t know how long it would last, so we ate it three times a day. Two weeks of this and we were all essenverrückt. We were going insane from the food. We were digging a fresh latrine. It was hard work. The ground was near frozen. It made us hungry, but the last thing we wanted to do was eat more turkey, beans, and peaches. The guy next to me sticks his shovel in the ground and says, ‘I wish I had a banana. I’d do anything for it.

Wouldn’t you guys hop the moon for a banana?’ No one laughed. We would’ve killed for a banana. We killed for less than a banana plenty of times before. Well, that man next to me puts his foot on the shovel and digs into the earth. He pries it up, and guess what?”

“What?” I asked him. Of course it was going to be a banana. That’s how my grandpa’s stories worked.

“It was a banana. Green and yellow. He bent over and picked it up. You would’ve thought he found a diamond. He picked it up and held it in the sky. He was crying. He peeled it right there in front of the latrine and took a bite. He mushed it around in his mouth. He offered a bite to me and the rest of the guys, but we refused. Some of us out of

64 superstition, the rest out of a sense of respect. The man wished for a banana and he got it.”

“So, he willed a banana into existence?” I asked.

“I doubt it. The point is, the next day we had a mission and he volunteered for it.

He was supposed to set up a blockade on a road. He and another man set off, but as soon as they got to the road, a sniper blew his head off.”

“Quite the moral.”

“You’re missing the point, Peter. You don’t have to go to war to know what it’s like. All of us men were thinking the same thing. Did he wish he was dead? There were times during the fighting and the waiting and the marching and the waiting when each and every one of us wished we were dead. For a man to make a banana or to get his head shot off, there isn’t much difference. We’re all made of the same stuff. If you want something, you usually get it.”

A man came out from an “Employees Only” door and walked up to the counter.

“I don’t want to kill myself, Grandpa,” I whispered.

“What?” the man asked.

“Nothing,” my grandpa said. “We need fishing licenses. Quickly please.”

The man wrote out two. One for Gunter and one for me. We walked out of the store with a sleeping bag, soccer ball, two fishing licenses, and a camping pad. I ended up paying for everything.

We walked out to the car. Henry was sandwiched between my mom and grandpa.

He was forcing them to swing him in the air. I grabbed him in the air and tickled him behind his knees and put him into his car seat.

65 “Don’t forget my buckle, Dad.” I latched the seatbelt across his waist and closed the door.

As I walked over to the driver’s side, my grandpa leaned in and whispered to me.

“I know what you’re thinking: be careful what you wish for, but the real lesson is: don’t go digging for bananas.”

Dr. Hassen’s office was lit like a brothel in a movie. I supposed he thought it provided ambiance, but in reality it was dark with an odd reddish glow.

“Peter, right?” he asked. I nodded. “My apologies. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

And, of course, it’s harder when you’re not a family member. There’s nothing tying you two together other than your own obligations.”

“And our son,” I said.

Dr. Hassen was sitting behind his desk. He had installed metal bookshelves around the top of the room and had some bamboo in a vase growing on his desk. All of it was an attempt to make his office feel different than the rest of the painted cinderblock walls and tiny rooms of the Behavioral Health Center.

“Yes. Of course. How is he handling all this?”

“Great,” I said. I scooched back in my seat and flattened my pants.

“That’s important. We do offer services to the young children of patients. You know that, right?”

“I do, but he’s doing fine with it.”

66 The doctor pulled a thick manila folder from a file cabinet and leafed through it.

“Jennifer is doing much better as well. The staff’s notes mention how much of a calming influence you are on her. You should be proud.”

I faked a smile. One of the reasons I stopped meeting with the doctor was because it became clear that his main job was to dispense meds. The staff was way more involved with Jennifer than him. I didn’t even know the last time he had seen her face.

“She seemed normal the last time I talked with her. I was wondering if this is what I should expect or is it just a brief lapse into sanity. Is she really getting better?”

The doctor nodded and scratched his chin. He flipped through a few more pages of her file. “She is,” he said. “Her thoughts and behavior are much more consistent.” He paused to let me agree with him. He stared at me.

“I can’t even tell anymore,” I said.

He nodded and bit his top lip. “Now, the reasons why she is getting better are a bit trickier. Overall, she’s rebounded as well as anyone could expect. The medications help, of course, but she has a habit of not taking them. She’s doing so well that at times it takes the staff a week or two to catch on that she isn’t being properly medicated. If she stays on her medications, she’s as functioning as you or I. That’s the easy part, though.”

“It’s going to get harder?” I asked. I recognized a bit of Henry in my voice.

Dr. Hassen closed the file and folded his hands together. “I shouldn’t have said easier, and I didn’t say harder. Potentially, Jennifer’s situation could become very different. Now, I know you two aren’t married, but she needs you. An hour a week isn’t enough.”

67 I felt the blood drain from my face. My cheeks turned cold. “Are you saying she’s going to get out soon?”

“I never said that,” the doctor said. He shook his head like he was scolding a child. “I never like to give a time frame for such things, but it is a possibility. We have patients waiting in prisons, and Jennifer is occupying a bed she doesn’t really need. I mean, she was never really a harm to others. If she wanted to harm others, she wouldn’t still be here. Right?” He smiled at me with all his teeth.

“So, you’re full here and that means she’s cured.”

Dr. Hassen clucked his tongue a few times and smiled. “Do you always jump to conclusions like this?” He didn’t pause for me to answer. “Jennifer is functioning with medication. What she needs now is cognitive behavioral therapy. That requires at least two one-hour meetings a day with a therapist and also additional help from those around her. We can’t provide that amount of attention to a single patient in our facility.”

“I don’t think I can provide that outside of your facility.”

“Now, I know I’m throwing a lot out at you, but is there a date planned for the wedding?”

“No,” I said. There was never a date, not even when things were good between us.

There was a ring and Henry.

Dr. Hassen stopped smiling. “I wouldn’t want to force or rush anything, but consider this: as your wife, you would have much more legal control over Jennifer and her situation. It is possible that she could be released into your custody much quicker than she would be allowed out on her own. The cognitive therapy I mentioned, that could be covered by your insurance if you were married. It only makes sense.”

68 “I don’t think it’s your place to pry into my personal life.” My arms started to throb. I realized I was clenching my fists. I tried to relax.

“That wasn’t my intention. You came here looking for an escape plan for your fiancé, and I was trying to show you an option.”

“That’s not why I came here,” I said. I breathed in through my mouth and out through my nose. I caught myself squinting from the dim lighting and rubbed my eyes.

“All I wanted was to see how you felt about letting Jennifer have a picture of our son. Try to get her to a point where I can bring Henry to see her.”

“I misread the situation,” Dr. Hassen said. He cleared his throat. “I apologize. As to the picture, of course. I couldn’t stop her from having it even if I wanted to, legally speaking. That was your decision when she first came her.”

“But I did it at your recommendation.”

“She’s getting better. If a picture of her son causes a setback, she is doing much worse than we thought.”

I got out of my seat. “Good. Thank you for your time, Doctor. That’s all I needed.

I’ll leave it with the staff in her building.” I turned to walk out.

“Sir,” he said as I was leaving. He had already forgot my name. “Consider what I said. I think you’ll find it is in the best interest of both your son and your fiancé.”

I swiveled on my feet to looking him in the eyes. I lifted my eyebrows to force a smile and nodded my head.

The picture was of Henry trying his best to climb a lamp post in the park. He had two feet off the ground and clung to the metal for his life. His knees were scrunched up

69 into his face, and he was smiling. I dropped it off to the staffer who operated the set of doors in Jennifer’s building. I didn’t want to have to go all the way in. My mom was making dinner at home, and Henry would be upset if I was late.

I got in my car and headed home. I was tired of making this drive.

I get that people change, but usually it’s a gradual thing. It’s not an everyday occurrence or even a weekly thing. If Jennifer got out, then which Jennifer would walk out of those doors? She was everything all the time. There was a point in our lives where

I loved everything about her. The way she ate in small, clipped bites. The way she took song lyrics literally and turned them into something ridiculous. The smell of her hair after a shower. I thought I could still love her, she was the mother of my son, but I knew I couldn’t do it all the time. I pulled into the driveway behind my mom.

When I opened the door to the house, the dueling smells of lake water and fake taco seasoning hit my nose. Henry ran to me before the door was closed.

“Dad, we’re having fish tacos for dinner, but they’re not gross.”

“That’s great, buddy. Did you help grandma make them?”

“Yes. They’re just like regular tacos, but instead of food in them there’s fish. And then I put the whole thing of lime juice on them so they don’t taste nasty.”

I held out my hand, and he gave me a high five. He hopped into my arms, and I carried him into the kitchen.

“How’d it go?” my mom asked. She whisked a bowl of mayonnaise with one hand and squeezed in lime juice with the other.

“Great,” I said.

70 She smiled at me and wiped her brow with her forearm. “Good,” she said. “It’ll help balance the bad news I got today.”

“Did you go see Mom?” Henry asked. “Is she going to come to my play?”

I turned from my mom. She had been trying to find a way out of the camping trip for the past week, and it sounded like she had found one.

“I didn’t see your mom. Sorry. I was doing work stuff.”

“Oh,” Henry said. He picked his nose and wiped whatever he found in there on his shirt. He walked over to the table and sat by himself to wait for dinner.

When we were all seated, my mom broke the bad news.

“So the hospital called today,” she said. She stabbed her fork at some bits of cabbage that had fallen out of her taco. We all stopped eating to look at her. “Samantha has the flu and can’t work. I’m the only nurse in the building available to cover her shift.

I’m sorry.”

I knew it was coming. She usually found a way to get out of the camping trip. It just took her longer than normal this year. I looked over at Henry. He was playing with his spit. He still hadn’t put it all together yet.

“So, you’re not coming camping?” I asked.

My grandpa shrugged his shoulders and went back to his fish tacos.

“Grandma,” Henry said. Now he was paying attention. “You have to come.

Who’s going to help me make smores? Dad doesn’t even know how to cook.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry. I want to come. I really do.” I stared down my mom. She looked Henry in the eye as she talked to him. “But there are a lot of sick people, and it’s

71 my job to take care of them. They need me. I have to help make them better. I know you’ll understand, and you’ll have fun with your dad and Grandpa.”

Henry’s forehead turned red and tears rolled down his cheeks. He tried to keep his eyes open, but they were overflowing with tears.

“Grandma, you said you were coming but now you’re not. That’s lying.”

My mom got out of her seat and walked around the table to Henry. She kissed the top of his head and then pressed her cheek against his. Henry sobbed and took long, labored inhalations.

“Sweetie,” my mom whispered to Henry. “You’re going to have so much fun, you won’t even notice I’m not there. I’ll take care of the sick people. You go fish and have an adventure. When you get back, you can tell me all about it. We can get ice cream.”

Henry closed his eyes and held them shut. He forced his face away from my mom’s. He let out a slow, deep breath.

“Okay, Grandma.” He wiped the tears off of his cheeks and picked his taco back up. My mom stood behind him. She glanced at me, and I raised my eyebrows for a second at her. She returned the look and then sat back down.

“Henry,” Grandpa said. “I got this for you. You’ll need it on the camping trip.”

He got up and walked to the living room. He came back with his hands behind his back.

He handed Henry an expensive looking flashlight. It was blue metal with six or seven

LED bulbs in the head.

“Thanks!” Henry shouted. Bits of tortilla flew from his lips. “Is it magic?”

My grandpa laughed. “No, I got it at the hardware store, but if you find a witch in the woods, she could make it magic.”

72 Henry turned the light on and shone it in my eyes. “This is awesome.”

I flung my hand out in front of me to cover the light. “Super awesome. You better save the battery for the trip.”

He finished eating his dinner with one hand. With the other, he rolled the flashlight back and forth on the table.

I thought back to my earliest memories and tried to pinpoint how old I was. I remembered playing Contra with Grandpa and making paper snowflakes with my mom. I have no idea how old I was for either of those. Everything was a wash. Sometimes, I wish my family moved around when I was young so I could demarcate experiences by locations and pinpoint an age range. Some people were able to timeline their childhood’s via trauma, but that all happened to me before I could even speak. I wanted Henry to have plenty of good memories—experiences he could place in a line and trace back to see where he came from and how he got to where he was. Things he could take with him even when he was all alone.

I should’ve got him a flashlight.

“Good job eating dinner, Buddy.” I told Henry when he was done. He thanked me and ran off to play Mario with my grandpa. I let my mom clean up the dinner by herself.

It was odd going to bed after Henry for once. I wasn’t used to staying up that late, and I missed my window for sleep. I lay in bed and ran through a checklist of everything we needed for the trip.

I rolled over and stared at the outdated, floral wallpaper my mom put up when I left for college. Giant crimson red peonies draped from ceiling to floor. In some parts of the country, wildflowers are also called weeds.

73 When I was on that foggy border between sleep and consciousness, I felt a vibration. It ran through my body. The earth was moving. I wouldn’t have felt it if I wasn’t lying in bed. It was so subtle, like a shiver after someone blows on the back of your neck.

I got out of bed to check on Henry. I didn’t want him to be scared. He was sleeping with a stuffed panda bear tucked under his arm. He hadn’t felt a thing. I crept back to my room and tried to sleep.

I wondered if Jennifer would have done the same thing. Her maternal instincts were never that sharp to begin with. The Behavioral Center had to have dulled them to a butter knife. Henry would be a different person if he was raised by her. He wouldn’t be as sensitive or pensive. He would’ve been abrasive and honest. It’s hard to say if that’s better or worse.

There’s a point in every mining operation where the guys on the site know it’s running dry, but the orders keep coming down from corporate to squeeze a little more out of the dig. Right before she goes cold, there’s always one last bonanza. The way a runner sprints the last one hundred yards of a marathon. I was so tired but couldn’t sleep.

The earthquake scared me, both in a professional and personal way. If I lived in

California or Japan or somewhere earthquakes were common, it would be different. This was Ohio. There was a consistency to life here. Seasons changed in a predictable way.

The same lady bagged my groceries every Wednesday. I supposed if I was brought up somewhere else, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Even now as I calmed down, it felt like less and less of a major event. I could get used to anything if given enough time.

74 Calling it camping was a stretch. The tent was set up twenty five yards from the car and in sight of a restroom with running water. There were even grills stuck in the ground for campers too lazy to start their own fires.

It didn’t matter. I got to be outside with Henry.

Our camping spot was a mile off the interstate. It was never crowded, especially this early in the season, and was situated next to a small lake. After I set up the tent, we took our fishing poles and bait to our spot.

Grandpa took me to the same outcrop of limestone when I was a kid. Back then, there was no toilet or metal grills. Grandpa was bitter about the change, but I thought it was a lot better than crapping in the woods.

“I can’t fish until I go to the potty,” Henry said.

“Just go off the side,” my grandpa said.

Henry’s mouth opened in awe. “I can poop into the lake?”

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. Come on. I’ll walk you to the bathroom.”

I held his hand as we made our way through the short, dry grass. He didn’t want me to come in with him, so I told him to yell for me if he couldn’t find toilet paper. It took him less than a minute to do his business. I didn’t bother forcing him to wash his hands since we were going to be handling worms and fish. It definitely went against the standards of hygiene Jennifer would have enforced. He came out of the bathroom with his pants still at his ankles.

“I need help with the button,” he said. I pulled his pants up and snapped the fake button together. “Dad, is that our bathroom?”

“It’s for everyone to use.”

75 “Are you sure? I think it’s Santa’s.”

“Why would Santa have a bathroom here?” Most of the time I could follow

Henry’s five year old logic, but sometimes he lost me.

“Well, someone wrote E-L-F all over the bathroom. That spells “elf,” right?”

“Very smart,” I said. “Stay here for a second.”

I opened the swing door to the unisex bathroom and looked around. Some kid with a permanent marker had written E.L.F. on every possible surface. Even the toilet lid was covered in black letters.

“You’re right, Buddy. I think that is Santa’s bathroom.” We walked back to

Grandpa, and I tried to think of what E.L.F. could stand for. It was probably some little jerk’s initials. Grandpa had the poles all ready to go by the time we got back.

Henry stared at the white Styrofoam container of bait. His legs dangled over the ledge. We were about fifteen feet above the water line. “Fish eat dirt?”

“Usually we catch them with corn or lures, but Grandpa thought we should try using worms this time.”

Henry smiled at my grandpa. “The worms catch the fish for us?” he asked.

“No, no, no,” my grandpa said. “We catch the fish. We use the worms and the hook and the fishing pole. It’s all about what we do. The worms are just the bait.”

Henry opened his eyes wide and looked around like he had a secret. He stuck his hand into the Styrofoam container and dug around. A smile broke out on his face.

Between his thumb and middle finger was a four inch nightcrawler. He held it in front of my grandpa.

“Show me,” he said.

76 My grandpa took the worm and wrapped part of it around his index finger. Then he ripped the worm into two.

“Grandpa!” Henry shouted. “That’s not nice. Now the worm can’t help us get the fish.”

My grandpa held up his hand to Henry to get him to stop. He waved him closer and gestured toward the fishing hook.

“You have to make sure the worm is on there good. If it’s not, you just gave the fish a free lunch.”

My grandpa put the hook through one side of the worm and wrapped it around the hook before pinning the other side to the barbed spike.

“That’s awesome,” Henry said. He turned to me. “Dad, do we really get to put the worms on the hooks?”

I nodded. “Help me get this one on, and we’ll see if we can snag a fish.” He grabbed a fistful of dirt from the cup and dug a new worm out. He took one side in each hand and pulled as hard as he could. The worm tore near his right hand into one small and one large piece.

“Sorry, worm,” he said. He dropped the small end onto the rock and took measured steps toward the dangling fishing hook.

“It’s sharp,” I warned him. “It will hurt really bad if you touch it. You need to be careful.”

He nodded. His tongue jutted out of his mouth as he concentrated on the hook. He got the worm on but needed help to pin it a second time. When it was secure, I helped him cast the line into the water.

77 Jennifer only ever made it to one camping trip, but she loved it. She named every fish we caught, and when it was time to set them back in the water, she whispered a secret to each of them. I didn’t want to think about what it would be like now. She’d probably break down if I had to grab the pliers to get a hook out of a fish’s gills. If she ever got out, I think she’d be even more sheltered than when she went in.

We sat in a line with Henry in the middle. Most of the fish were spawning. We got a lot of bites and stopped keeping track after about fifteen fish. They were all shrimpy sunfish or large-mouthed bass. Henry was much more interested in the worms than the fish anyway.

“What birds do you all see?” I asked him to get past his morbid fascination.

He didn’t look up from the bait container. “Two turkey vultures, a great blue heron, a green heron, and I see an osprey nest but no birds are in it.”

“Good job, Buddy, but I don’t see any green herons out here.”

Henry found another worm and dropped it from one hand to the other over and over again. “It’s in those water sticks on the other side. You have to look close, Dad.”

I looked at the opposite bank. There was a bed of cattails surrounded by a small algae bloom. I stayed fixed on it waiting for something to move. After a minute, I saw the water ripple and a young green heron stomped out of the reeds.

I turned to congratulate Henry on his find, but he was absorbed in the worms. He was trying to line them up in rows on the rocks, but they kept squirming away. Every time he got one in place, the rest would squiggle out of line.

I let him play with the worms and talked with my grandpa about when he took me here years ago.

78 “Someday,” my grandpa said as he reeled in his line, “the sun is going to explode, and this lake will be the first thing to dry up.”

“That’s a little dark for such a nice day,” I said.

“I’m just glad I won’t be here is all. Remember when you were eight and found that fish flapping around on the shore?” I nodded. “Well, your great-great-great-grandson is going to need a whole lot of buckets to put fish in when the sun finally gives up.”

Henry interrupted our conversation. “Are Grandma and Mom friends?”

My grandpa looked at me and shook his head discretely.

“Of course they are,” I said. “What made you think of something like that?”

“Well,” he said. He looked up from his worms. “Grandma said her job is to make sick people better and you said that Mom is sick. So, if they’re friends, then Grandma can make Mom better and she can come to my play. Grandma needs to go to Mom’s hospital and make her better or she won’t be able to see my play and she’ll die and then I won’t have any moms.”

I set my pole down. I never had parent friends. Henry came before everyone else was settling down and making families. I read a lot of books on raising kids and being a good parent. Some of them were good and most were awful. After Jennifer’s arrest and sentencing, I spent too much time on Amazon trying to find a book that matched my situation. I never found one. I could probably write my own by now. It would be one page and all it would say is, “This will break your fucking heart on a daily basis.” At least that way, some future parent could be prepared.

I walked over to Henry and gave him a hug. “Buddy, that is a great idea. We will have to tell Grandma that when we get done camping. But I don’t want you to worry

79 about your mom. She is going to get better. Sometimes, when you’re sick, it just takes a long time to get better. Your mom is getting better. She isn’t going to die. I promise.

Okay?”

Henry nodded. I gave him another hug and looked over at my grandpa. He shrugged his shoulders and reeled in his line. I decided that it would be better for Henry to do something active instead of sitting around and torturing worms while he thought about his mom. I took him on a hike through a thin line of trees that surrounded the far side of the lake while my grandpa stayed at camp and got the fire going.

The buds on the trees were sprouting, but it wasn’t enough to form a full canopy.

We made our way down the path. Henry spat in every shaft of sunlight. I finally had to tell him to stop.

“Okay, Dad. Rock beats scissors. Scissors beats paper. And paper beats rock. But do you know what is the strongest?”

“I think they’re all strong.”

“Wrong. Water is the strongest. Water breaks rocks and scissors and paper. Water can even beat Bowser because Bowser can’t live in the water. He can only live in lava.”

“You’re right. But why is water so strong?” I asked him. Sometimes I liked to test him. Other times, I just liked to see where his mind went.

“Because it’s everywhere like God. There’s even water in the air, but you can’t see it. If you follow where the water goes, there’s always something special at the end.

Rainbows are just water and light. That’s what God promised.”

80 I smiled at him. The trail rose onto a hill, so I put Henry on top of my shoulders and carried him up there. He grabbed a dangling branch and almost got yanked off. He showered the leaves he ripped off on my head.

“It’s snowing leaves,” he said and laughed. He was having a good time and that was all that mattered.

We reached the top of the hill, but he refused to hop down from my shoulders. My back was aching, but we were almost back to the beginning of the trail. I could hear the distant hum of traffic.

“Are you going to be super happy if Mom ever gets to come home from the hospital?” I wanted to pose it as a hypothetical. Something that might happen in the future or might never happen at all.

“Sure,” was all he said.

I took him down from my shoulders. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“Is mom nice?” he asked.

Sometimes I forgot how little Henry knew about his mom. Not just her situation but her personality. He was a toddler when it all happened, or at least, when it got worse.

“Super nice,” I said.

“Marcus’s mom isn’t nice. I don’t want a mom if she isn’t nice.”

I held his hand the rest of the way. The sun was setting when we got back.

Grandpa set up three long sticks each with a hot dog on the end. Henry cooked his until it was black and refused to eat it. He was satisfied to fill himself up on smores, and I wasn’t going to tell him no.

81 “Okay,” my grandpa said when it was good and dark. “Finish cooking your marshmallow and be quiet. I decided I’m not going to tell my usual camping story.” His usual camping story was about how he tricked a witch into giving him a magic pot that filled itself up with whatever you needed but broke when he told his first lie to his mother. “That story is too childish, too moralistic, and we are all men here. We need a man’s story.”

Henry extinguished his marshmallow, stuck the whole thing in his mouth, and spat it right back out onto the ground.

“Can’t wait,” I said.

Henry stood, kicked dirt on the marshmallow, and then hopped onto my lap to listen to the story.

“Now, you two know me well. You know I like to hold onto things and never get rid of them. It’s one of my best features. But I wasn’t always so smart and thrifty. One of my greatest regrets is the day I lost both my hat and my stein.”

“What’s a stein?” Henry asked.

“It’s a cup you drink out of when you want to celebrate. A big, fancy cup.”

“I want one of those,” Henry said. “I need one.”

“Then you will have to find one,” my grandpa said. “That is what makes it so special. Nothing is ever as wonderful as discovering it by yourself. Now, of course, I can’t tell you how I lost the hat and the stein until I tell you how I first found them.” He bit the last of the marshmallow from his stick and tossed it in the fire.

“You’ve never been to Germany, but someday I will take you there. It’s a beautiful place. I think I settled in Ohio because, at times, it reminds me of home. I know

82 there are forests here, but they are tiny compared to where I grew up. The Black Forest goes on forever when you are eleven years old. I was lucky. My father was a clockmaker, so I didn’t have to work in the fields. I cared for the chickens in the morning, studied with him in the afternoon, and was free to do whatever I wanted in the evening. My favorite thing to do was to take a book and go on a hike. You and your dad get your hiking spirit from me. But unlike you and your dad, I never went on the same path twice.”

Henry turned around in my lap and nodded at me like it was a new, great idea.

“There was too much to see and always new places to find. One day, I found the perfect walking stick as soon as I reached the woods and set off on my journey. I cut through the trees and over the small hills. Soon, the hills became bigger and bigger. From the top of a hill, I could see mountains in the distance. They spanned the whole horizon, but one in particular caught my eye. It was shorter and closer than the rest, but what made me pay attention was its color. Those in the back were gray, but that small mountain glowed red. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, maybe the mountain was catching the sun’s rays as it began to set, but each time I came to a new hill, the mountain kept its reddish hue.”

“It’s a volcano dragon,” Henry said. “Isn’t it, Grandpa?”

“That’s what I thought at first. I never met a dragon, so I pushed further on my hike. Eventually, night fell and I stopped to make camp. Even in the dark, the mountain still gave off its glow.”

“Dad,” Henry whispered. “It’s a volcano dragon for sure.” I patted him on the head, and he turned back around to face Grandpa and the fire. I hadn’t heard this one in a long time. I knew it wasn’t a dragon, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Maybe a

83 giant’s forge or something equally ridiculous. His stories had a habit of changing based upon the audience that was listening.

“When I woke, I walked straight toward the mountain. I didn’t think anything could stop me. I was wrong. I was prepared for thorns and thickets and boulders, but not my own curiosity. As I got closer to the mountain, I saw a small cave. Usually, I would have stayed far away. You never know what is going to be in a cave. A bear, a troll, a wolf. But this cave was different. I could almost hear singing voices escaping from its mouth. I peeked inside the cave to see if it was occupied. There was nothing living in the cave, but I can hardly describe what was there. I stepped inside and expected it to be cold, but it wasn’t. It smelled of gravel and crushed earth. All over the walls were what looked like ice. I ran my hand over the side. It wasn’t ice, it was crystal. The entire inside of the cave was lined with quartz. They caught the sun’s morning rays and refracted them over and over again. A million rainbows filled the cave. I went in further and the light started to get dimmer. I came to a massive structure. It was like a frozen explosion. Giant crystals erupted from the walls and were like statues of light. Some of them were as thick as me, others were as thin and delicate as a blackberry vine. I kept going. I wanted to see what other wonders the cave contained. As I passed the giant crystals, the light began to return. I could see another way out. I could smell the fresh air and hear the breeze whipping past the cave entrance. I took another step, and the pure white crystals turned red. They shot their light throughout the cave and out the entrance like a grenade in a bunker. It was a bull’s nightmare. I walked out of the back of the cave.”

“Grandpa,” Henry shouted. “You should have taken the crystals with you. We could be rich and live in a castle.”

84 “I thought the same thing, Henry, but sometimes when you see something so beautiful, you feel compelled to leave it undisturbed for the next fortunate visitor to stumble upon. I couldn’t live with myself if I had broken those crystals.”

“But we’d be rich!”

“Someday,” my grandpa said, “you will see true beauty and understand.” Henry crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. “I was overwhelmed by the crystal cave, but even that didn’t prepare me for what was on the other side. When I stepped out, the sun shone in my eyes and I closed them. The world’s sweetest smell filled my nose. It made me dizzy. A whole bottle of the most expensive perfume couldn’t match the sweetness or the heaviness of the scent. I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by roses. It wasn’t a rose garden, it was a rose forest. Rose bushes as tall as a giant towered over me. Some had thorns the size of daggers. Over the tops of the rose bushes, I could see the mountain.

I was at its base. The roses and the crystals combined together to give it the reddish glow

I saw from far off. I was careful to keep my hands to myself. I walked for an hour through the rose forest admiring the different kinds of roses. Most were red, but they came in every color. Pink, purple, blue, orange, white, black. Some had the tips of their petals one shade and the rest of the flower another. Some were small and shy about showing their beauty. Others were lush and full, opening their carefully placed petals for the world to see.”

A log in the fire cracked and collapsed in on itself. Henry jumped a little in my lap but didn’t say a word.

“I made my way to the foot of the mountain. There were hundreds of paths through the rose forest, and they all led to the same place. When I got to the mountain,

85 there was a small throne carved out of the crystal. On the throne sat a small dwarf with a crown woven out of thorny rose stems. He set down a silver stein and then hopped off his throne. The stein was beautiful. It was carved with a scene of sirens singing on the Rhine.

Rubies the size of your eyes were studded around the bottom and the top. ‘Welcome to the Royal Rose Sanctuary,’ he said. ‘I am King Laurin.’ I genuflected to the dwarf and bowed my head. It had been a long time since he had seen a man. He dealt mainly with the nixies, gnomes, and dwarves. He had forgotten how devious we humans can be. He trusted me immediately. ‘Why did you not pick one of my lovely roses?’

“‘I did not know they were mine for the taking,’ I told him. It was not true. I would have ransacked the whole place if I had been in the right mind. Fortunately, I was overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty. I could not have killed one of those plants. It was a good thing I did not. The dwarf king turned to me and said, ‘Do you know the punishment for taking one of my roses?’ I shook my head. ‘Anyone who plucks even a single rose from my bushes will have their right hand and left foot cut off.’”

“Can you do that?” Henry asked. Grandpa always found a way to work some gore into any story he was telling. I guess at his age, there was little difference between five and fifteen.

“Of course,” my grandpa said. “I asked the king, ‘So no one takes the roses?’ He shifted the crown on his head and said, ‘Oh, they do. And they never forget it for the rest of their life.’ I turned around to survey his sanctuary. It seemed to ring around the entire mountain. This King Laurin seemed to delight in severing people’s feet and hands. He was really a terrible little man. I knew I had to do something to get back at him.”

86 “But he didn’t do anything to you,” Henry said. “You still have your hands and feets.”

My grandpa looked at his hand and foot and then nodded at Henry. “You’re right.

I do. But remember, one of the worst things you can do in life is stand by and do nothing while another commits great evil.”

“But,” Henry said. My grandpa cut him off.

“I knew I had to trick King Laurin. So I played into his ego. I complimented his roses and his throne. I told him his dwarf beard looked very full and rough. Then I sprung my question on him. ‘How does one king, even one so mighty, catch anyone who intrudes on his domain?’ He smiled at me. ‘If you really must know,’ he said. He stumbled over to his throne and swatted at the air. He held up his hand at me. ‘Whoever wears this hat, becomes invisible.’ He put his hand on top of his head and disappeared.

‘With this, I can watch people even when they think they’re alone.’ It really was quite amazing, but I knew a man so vain would have to prove he was right. ‘I can still see you.

You are not invisible.’ If I could have seen the king, I’m sure he would have been red with anger. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ he asked. Now, whenever anyone asks this question, always say two. It is almost always two. ‘Two,’ I told him and let out a fake yawn. He reappeared with his hand over his head and then started shaking his fists at me and screaming. ‘It does not work,’ I told him. ‘Here, I will show you.’ I held out my hand. The dwarf studied my face for a second before extending his hand. I reached out and felt the soft, invisible wool. I snatched the hat from his hand.”

“Did mirrors not exist in the Old Country?” I asked my grandpa. I wanted to trip him up in front of Henry. I couldn’t get the kid to sit still through a single page of math

87 problems, but he would hang onto every word my grandpa said. I wanted to break the spell on him.

“Of course we had mirrors. My childhood crush, her father made mirrors. They were so fine and sturdy that you could drop them on the ground and they wouldn’t break, but where was the dwarf king supposed to get a mirror in the middle of a rose forest?”

My grandpa stared at me in the same way he did when Jennifer and I told him we were going to have a baby. “Quiet now or you will ruin the story for your son.” Henry turned around and shushed me.

“Now, I had the invisibility hat, but this little dwarf needed a bit more to stick it to him. I slid the hat on and vanished. ‘You are a fool,’ the king said. ‘You disappeared, just as I told you.’ I ran around where the king was standing and headed toward his throne.

‘Not as big of a fool as you are,’ I said. He turned around to face where my voice came from, but by that time, I had already slipped his fancy silver stein under my shirt. I took off running through the forest of roses until I made my way back to the crystal cave. The whole time, I could hear King Laurin shouting and cursing my name. I knew I had done the right thing. The next curious traveler who reached the rose forest would have a bit of a heads up on that evil king and would hopefully keep their limbs intact. And that is the story of how I got my dwarven stein and invisibility cap.”

Henry yawned. It was getting late and already way past his bedtime. “But you said you were going to tell us the story of how you lost them. That’s not fair.”

“Can you really lose something that was never yours in the first place?” Grandpa asked him. Henry turned around to look at me for an answer.

“I think it’s time for bed, Buddy,” I told him.

88 “No,” Henry said. He jumped off my lap. “Make Grandpa finish his story.”

“Some other time,” I told him. “It’s late. Time for bed.” I scooted him off to the tent.

“Do I have to brush my teeth?” he asked.

“Nope. Not when you’re camping.”

“Awesome,” he said. He yawned and shook his head to try to keep awake. I helped him unroll his sleeping bag and get good and warm for the night. “Dad, when do I get to start doing my adventures?” I could only see his eyes and nose. The rest of him was tucked away beneath the blue nylon of the sleeping bag. Somewhere in there, his hands wrapped around his new flashlight.

“Right now,” I told him. I kissed his forehead. “Every day is an adventure. Don’t you think?”

“Kind of. I just wish I had some jewels.”

I gave him another kiss and crawled out of the tent. My grandpa was busy covering the camp fire with water and sand. I helped him fill the bucket in the lake and carry it over to the fire. It took a few trips. He never made a small fire in his life.

At the edge of the lake, he stopped and put his hand on my back as I bent over to fill the bucket.

“You know,” I said, “you shouldn’t tell him stories like that.”

My grandpa patted my back as I stood. “You’re a good dad,” he said. “I’ve always thought that.”

“Grandpa,” I said. He was trying to change the subject, but he cut me off and kept the conversation going in the direction he wanted.

89 “I have cancer,” he said. “Melanoma on my skin. I don’t want you or Elizabeth or

Henry to worry about it. I will be okay. I just thought you had a right to know.”

I tried to make out his face in the bit of moonlight, but I couldn’t. He turned and walked back to the tent. I heard him unzip the flap and crawl in.

I stood there by the lake holding a bucket full of water. It didn’t seem right. He was old, but I felt like he deserved more. I felt like he should get two lives. One for him and one for my father. It didn’t seem right that he wouldn’t live to be one hundred and sixty. The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t seem right that anyone would die before they reached the age of one hundred and sixty. Unless, of course, you put a bullet in your own head.

I walked back to the tent and slipped into my sleeping bag. I was on the right,

Henry was in the middle, and my grandpa was on the left.

There was just enough room for the three of us.

90 CHAPTER IV

PETER KEEPS SEEING UNICORNS

I forgot what it was like to not be the first one up.

The sun was shining on the eastern side of the tent, and I was sweating a little in the heavy sleeping bag. On a normal day, I would either be at work or sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and trying to mentally prepare myself for Henry’s bottomless energy, my mom’s persistent but love-filled tugging, or Grandpa’s nonsense.

I never got to sleep with Henry, not even when he was a baby. Doctor after doctor warned Jennifer and me about the dangers of co-sleeping. The way they talked about it made it seem like the films about sex they showed us when we were fifth graders in

Catholic school. Babies who slept with their parents had nearly double the risk for SIDS.

Henry always slept in his crib. Now, he was grown up. There was no evil demon lurking around the bedside waiting to steal the breath out of a baby’s mouth. Jennifer said the old babas at the nursing home where she used to work actually believed that. I didn’t have to worry about babas or Jennifer or Henry dying in the crook of my arm. I could sleep with

Henry on a camping trip. I rolled over and put my hand on him.

The sleeping bag crumpled under the weight of my arm.

I bolted up in the tent. It wasn’t like Henry to get up early or even get out of bed without permission from a grown up. I scrambled to the zipper flap, and my knee came down on my grandpa’s ankle. 91

“Get off,” my grandpa said. “Why would a person do that?”

I got off of his foot.

“Henry’s gone,” I said without even turning around. I ripped open the tent’s flap and squinted into the bright sunlight. Henry was probably just in the bathroom. He always went pee as soon as he got out of bed. I scanned the shore of the lake as I jogged toward the bathroom.

“Henry,” I yelled into the tiny concrete building. I kicked open the lone stall. It was empty except for the E.L.F’s written all over the walls. I sprinted out the door. This wasn’t like Henry. The kid asked permission to turn on the TV or go upstairs. He didn’t do anything without asking first.

I got back to the tent. I put my hands on my hips and spun around in a circle looking in every direction. Grandpa struggled out of the tent and stood next to me.

“Where’s Henry?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s not in the bathroom. Go check the car.” I ran to the rocky outcrop we had fished on. From the perch, I could see all the way across the lake. I peered down into the water. The first five feet or so were clear, but then it got dark and cloudy. I should’ve taught Henry how to swim. When I was five, I could do the backstroke. Somewhere in the mess of my life, I had forgotten to sign Henry up for swimming lessons even once.

I turned toward the car. Grandpa was walking back and shaking his head. I met him at the tent.

92 “I told you we should have gotten him a cell phone,” my grandpa said. “We could call him right now. They even have GPS tracking apps you can put on your kid’s phone.”

“Shut up,” I screamed at Grandpa. I didn’t know where else to look. I wanted to keep spinning in circles until I either found Henry or collapsed to the ground. Henry was smart. He wouldn’t go in the water, especially without an adult. He had to be on the trail.

It was only a mile long.

“Take the back of the trail and try to find him,” I said. “I’ll start at the front and meet you in the middle.”

“He’s around here somewhere, Peter. He’s a smart, capable boy. We will find him, and he will be just fine.” Grandpa started a slow saunter toward the back of the trail.

I know he usually wasn’t a morning person, and he always complained about needing to get his blood flowing before starting the day, but there wasn’t time for that kind of thing. Henry was out there, and I had no idea where that was.

Just to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind, I peeked back in the tent. Maybe

Henry had cuddled himself into a ball at the bottom of his sleeping bag. Sometimes I forgot how small he was. He could hide in places I would never even consider looking. I reached my hand into this sleeping bag.

He wasn’t there. His flashlight was missing too.

I got out of the tent and headed toward the trail. He had to be there. I started at a sprint but was really out of shape. I couldn’t remember the last time I worked out or even played a game of basketball. My heart started to hurt. It was just a muscle after all. Like the tongue or the hamstring.

93 “Henry,” I yelled. I looked back and forth to each side of the trail. “Henry.” Each time I shouted his name, the chatter of the squirrels would die off and then pick up a second later even louder. I was being drowned out by them. A robin was tweeting in a branch. I got closer, and it took off into the air. In every hike we’d ever gone on together,

I never saw Henry step a foot off the trail. He would be there somewhere. He was probably sitting with Grandpa on the other side of the trail right now. All I needed to do was get to them. I just needed to keep running.

I reached the crest of a hill and nearly ran into Grandpa. He was holding a walking stick and tapping it on the ground like he was blind.

“He’s not with you?” he asked. The little color left in his face turned white. “I thought, of course, you would be the one to find him. That’s how it would be in a story.”

“Oh, God.” I put my head into the palms of my hands. I rubbed my eyes. “Where is he? You don’t think he went in the water. Do you?”

“It’s too cold. He would have yelled the second his toes touched the waves.”

“We need to call the police,” I said. I looked around. The trees all looked the same. Most of them were skinny saplings that survived the latest cull by the park management. If Henry was out in the woods, he wouldn’t have any idea how to get back.

I pulled out my cell phone, dialed 911, and explained to the operator what happened. She told me to wait by the parking lot. A cruiser with a K-9 unit would be there in thirty minutes.

“We need to go back to the tent,” I said. “The police are coming to help, and if

Henry is going to show up anywhere, it’ll be back at the campsite.”

94 Grandpa walked painfully slow. I wanted to run back to the parking lot as if getting there sooner would will the police into showing up earlier.

“Don’t you need to wait twenty four hours before filing a missing person claim?” my grandpa asked.

I picked up the pace and expected Grandpa to do the same. “Henry’s not missing,” I said over my shoulder. “He’s lost. The police are on their way.”

It didn’t take long to get back. I had covered the majority of the trail on my jog.

Grandpa had hardly done anything. We sat on the trunk of the car and waited for the police to show up.

Grandpa coughed and scratched at his dry elbows. “I’m a lot older than you,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear one of your stories. Not now, Grandpa.”

“No story,” he said. “What I wanted to say is that of all the children I’ve ever known, Henry is the one I would expect to get lost. He’s also the only one I can think of that will have no trouble finding his way back home.”

“I don’t want to talk, Grandpa.” I stared straight ahead. I heard a car on the nearby interstate and stood on the bumper and to see if it was the police. It wasn’t.

“He’s a smart boy. He had me and you teaching him. How could he not be? He will find his way.”

“Why are you doing this? Please, just this one time. Stop talking.”

“I’m making things better, Peter.”

I hopped off the trunk of the car. “Just shut up,” I said. “You don’t know anything. All you do is talk. You never listen. I’m begging you to shut up. You don’t

95 know where Henry is. You don’t know that he’s fine. What if he’s floating in the reeds on the other side of the lake? What if someone grabbed him and took him? You don’t know, so just shut up.”

I wanted to rip something in two. I wanted to throw a rock through the window of my car. I needed to destroy something.

My grandpa finally got the message and didn’t talk. He got off the car and walked over to the lake. He stuck his walking stick in the water and swirled around the mud.

I paced up and down the parking lot waiting for the cops. All I could think about was the first time I took Henry out after Jennifer’s breakdown. He needed a pair of jeans, so I took him to the store.

He was almost two at the time. He was in this battling stage where he wanted to test the boundaries of dependency and his own free will. He held my hand into the store, but when we got to the boys clothing, he wanted to pick out his own jeans for a vacation that never made it past the planning stage. I let go of him and let him scan the racks for a pair that caught his eye. I was a bit overwhelmed. I didn’t even know what size he wore.

Henry was almost wo, so I assumed he wore 2T-sized clothing. While I scanned the clothing, I lost track of him. I touched my thumb to my palm and remembered he wasn’t holding my hand anymore. The aisle was empty. Henry wasn’t there.

I panicked. I already thought I wasn’t going to be able to raise him alone, and this confirmed it. In college, I worked in retail and clucked my tongue whenever a Code

Adam came over the store’s intercom. Now, I was the one frantically searching for my kid. I ran over to the next aisle. Henry wasn’t there. I ran up and down looking for him. I

96 hit a call button for customer assistance and chewed on my fingernails while I waited.

Then I heard a laugh. It came from inside a round dais of children’s pajamas.

Henry had been hiding in it the whole time. My eyes were cloudy when I yanked him out of the clothes. I yelled at him right there in the store. He had no idea what was wrong or why I was yelling at him. When I was done screaming at him, I hugged him until my arms hurt. I promised myself it would never happen again.

But it did, and I was waiting for the cops to come to help me find my son.

I didn’t even hear the cruiser pull into the parking lot. When I turned around, there were two cops standing in front of me. One of them held a German shepherd on a leash.

I explained the situation to them. Neither of them responded. They nodded their heads and jotted a few notes on a mini, yellow legal pad.

“Do you have something of your son’s we can use to establish a scent?” the shorter of the two said.

I led them to the tent. The dog rutted around in Henry’s sleeping bag and then let out a short howl. The German shepherd led us from his leash.

“I’m going to check the woods,” my grandpa said. “You all follow the dog.”

The policemen nodded as if they were looking for his approval. I followed them onto the same part of the trail I started my jog on. After about a quarter of a mile, the dog stepped off the path.

I stopped walking.

Henry wouldn’t do that. Something was wrong. Someone had to have taken

Henry. He wouldn’t do that. The policemen didn’t say anything. They just bobbed along

97 wherever the dog took them. I watched them weave between the saplings as they headed deeper into the woods. I closed my eyes and let the bit of water in them roll down my cheeks. I took a deep breath, wiped my face with the hem of my shirt, and stepped off the trail.

The German shepherd led us to a stream and let out a short yip.

“That’s not good,” the taller one said. “If your boy spent much time in this little stream, it might be hard to pick his scent back up.

The dog put a paw into the water and recoiled. The water must have been cold.

The taller one holding the leash pushed forward and led the dog to the other side of the stream. From there, the trio followed the flow of the water deeper into the woods.

My mind was filled. Mario and Jesus and floods and wolves. Grandpa kept reassuring me that Henry was a smart boy, and he was. But he was five years old, and every five year old in the world is inherently stupid. He knew of the world but he didn’t know how the world worked. He saw it all through a box or a story. Despite what I tried to teach him, I knew he couldn’t really tell the difference.

I hopped over the water, it was only a couple of yards wide, and followed the policemen. We climbed up a hill and bent away from the stream. I tried to stay positive, but it was hard. I kept picturing Henry lying cold on the ground, blood streaming out of his eyes, ears, and mouth. Henry cried at the site of blood. I couldn’t take it. The squirrels and cardinals were gone. The only sound was the snuffling of the dog in beds of dried leaves and the far off sound of a woodpecker pounding on a long dead pine tree.

We came down the other side of the hill where it rejoined the stream. Crooked between a pair of broad-based ash trees was a small shack made of mismatched planks of

98 wood. It was the kind of thing people used to build to house tackle and supplies when out on a fishing trip. Judging by the stove pipe coming out of the top, it probably had racks for smoking fish inside.

The dog pulled up and let out a yip. The two policemen exchanged glances without turning around to acknowledge me. I’ve never been in a fight in my life. I didn’t have brothers or sisters, so I’ve never even punched another human being. But if Henry was in that shack, I was going to murder someone. My thoughts switched from Henry’s lifeless body to me running a knife up and down the ribcage of some sick guy who deserved even worse. I wanted to kill someone. I lost myself in a bloodlust. It was probably the first time I’d let the world fade away since Henry was born. It scared me how much I liked it. The cops paused at the door and put their hands on their holstered guns.

I pictured Henry in there lying on one of the racks, gutted like a trout. I’ve read stories about mothers lifting minivans off of their crushed children. I was ready to tear a tree out of the ground and smash in the skull of whoever had done this to him. I’d crack his head in and then rip apart the grey matter of his brain with my fingernails. I’d kill his whole family, anyone he ever even talked to.

The shorter officer kicked in the old warped door to the shack. His partner peeked in and shook his head. It was empty except for the impromptu fishing rack made of pine boughs and two by fours. On the middle of the rack, a mother possum was hanging upside down with three baby joeys clinging to it. They slept through our intrusion.

For a second, I was happy. Henry wasn’t dead. He wasn’t some empty shell and a story on the news. Then my knees started to wobble. My thighs were already exhausted

99 from my recent jog and the weight of my body was pushing my feet into the ground like a pair of tent stakes.

“Trails cold,” the taller cop said. He turned around to look at me. “It’s okay,” he said. “These things happen. You’d be surprised how often. It’s almost always just a scare.

It’s very rare where anything bad happens. We’ll go back to the parking lot and get a full search team in here. He’s a little boy. He’s around here somewhere.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything. I followed them back toward the trail.

I never had a dad to wrap me up in all that masculine identity and “be a man” talk.

It’s always been a strength of mine. It’s a strength of Henry. I taught him that. But then I let this happen.

The trail was almost in sight when the German shepherd tightened on his leash and let out a quick bark. The officers picked up the pace. The path was shielded by a ring of young trees. When we weaved our way through the saplings, Grandpa was standing on the path with his hands on his knees.

“No Henry?” he asked. I shook my head and helped him stand up right. I put my arm around his back as we made our way back to camp. “I felt so useless standing there. I thought if he heard me out here whistling and stamping my walking stick, he might come out from wherever he was.”

“Thanks,” I told him. His face was white but his cheeks were red. He wasn’t supposed exert himself like this. I was going to end up burying my son and my cancer- stricken grandpa in the same year.

Our camp came into view as we got off the trail. The zipper flap of the tent was waving in the breeze. I wished I had friends to help me get a search party going. I spent a

100 lot of time cutting everyone out of my life, but now I needed them. There wasn’t even a name in my head on who to call. My mom was going to be a mess.

The police cruiser was parked at an angle next to my Prius. Other than that the lot was empty. There wasn’t another person in the park.

“Dad!” Henry yelled.

I turned my head to the lake. Henry was standing at the top of the rocky outcrop.

He waved and came down the stone running. I ran to meet him. He was crying and wiping tears away as he ran.

I wrapped my arms around his body. I hugged him until he coughed. I let my fingers fall neatly into the tiny spaces between his ribs. His moist cheeks rubbed against mine. I dug my nose into his hair and breathed in the stale, unwashed musk. He was taking his giant, crying breaths. Between every exhalation, he repeated “Dad” until he was out of breath. I finally let go of him and looked him in the eye. He was smiling and crying at the same time. I put his tiny fingers in mine and ran my thumb across the back of his hairless hands.

He wiped the last tears from his face and let out a small shudder. “Dad,” he said in a quiet voice, “why did you leave? I came to the tent and no one was here. That wasn’t nice. You scared me.”

I picked Henry up and held him in my arms even though he was getting too big for that kind of thing. I kissed his squashed, little nose.

“Henry, where did you go? What happened? You know you’re never supposed to leave without an adult.”

He struggled a bit in my arms so I put him back on the ground.

101 “But there was an adult. A guy was standing outside of our tent. He said he knew you and that it was okay for me to go on an adventure with him.”

“Henry—,” I said but one of the policemen cut me off.

“Looks like you found your boy.”

I turned around. Grandpa and the pair of policemen were standing right behind me.

“Yes,” I said. “This is Henry. He’s my son. Thank you for all your help, officers.”

“Glad we could be there for you. But we need to file a report. This might be a botched kidnapping. If there was a man here with him, we need to have it on record.”

“There was,” Henry said. “He was super nice.”

All the murder and rage and inadequacy came back. Henry was missing for six hours and then he suddenly reappeared talking about a man. He didn’t look hurt or traumatized, but I knew something terrible had happened.

The taller of the two officers squatted down and looked Henry in the eyes. “Can you tell us what happened? We need to know exactly who this very nice man was so we can find him and thank him. Do you remember everything that happened?”

Henry nodded and smiled at the officer. He didn’t answer the officer though. He let go of my hand and walked past us to where the fire had been. He sat with his legs crossed. “Stories have to be told around a fire. Right, Grandpa?”

My grandpa waved at Henry and shuffled over to the fire ring.

“Officers, my son is a smart, nice boy, but he likes to embellish. You can’t really expect to get any reasonable information from him.”

102 “Just let him tell us his story. If it’s a flight of fancy, we’ll file the usual report and be on our way. We have to cover our bases too, though.” They left and joined

Grandpa around the fire pit.

I sat down last and put my arm around Henry.

“Well,” he said. “Okay, remember when we were all sleeping in the tent?” My grandpa and I nodded at him. “Well, okay. I was sleeping too, but then I heard something outside, but I was still in the tent. I thought it was a bear because it was making a lot of noise. Bears are afraid of the sunshine. That’s why they live in caves. So I grabbed my flashlight to try and scare the bear before he ate all of us.”

I turned to look at the policemen. I nodded at them to indicate that there was nothing going on here. I was just thankful that nothing had happened to Henry.

“But it wasn’t a bear. It was a grown up. He was as tall as Dad and had one of those coats that people wear when they don’t want anyone to see what they’re wearing.

It’s like a coat but it is long to the ground and has lots of flaps.”

“An overcoat?” one of the officers said.

“Maybe. Are they long coats?” The officer nodded. “He was wearing an overcoat, but the best was that he had candy. Like lots of candy. Chocolate and sour candy. He told me I could have all of it if I helped him. I know I’m not supposed to take strange candy, but then he said he knew my dad. He said my dad’s name is Peter, and his name is Peter.

And Grandpa said I need to help people. So I went with him, but as soon as we got to the path he disappeared. I walked on the path for a while but I couldn’t find him, so I had to go into the trees.”

“Did the nice man tell you his name?” the shorter officer asked.

103 “I don’t know. He never told me.”

“What did he look like?” the taller one asked.

“I already said that part, remember? He was tall and had a long coat with candy in the pockets. Lots of candy.”

“But what did his face look like?” I asked Henry. The officers were right. This wasn’t just a usual Henry story. Something happened.

“Guys. This is my story. Half his face looked nice and the other half looked sad.

But he was gone now. I couldn’t find him.”

“Excuse me,” the taller officer said. He got up from the circle and walked a few paces before he started talking into the radio on his shoulder. He was calling in a report for a suspicious man who was wanted in connection with Henry’s kidnapping. Just like that Henry went from being lost to kidnapped.

“So, I walked into the trees to look for him. I found the water, and I remember from school that you should always follow the water to find people. Mrs. Steward said that. I walked next to the water for a long time. It was dark, but the moon was bright and

I had my flashlight. It was awesome. But then I saw another light shining back at me, so I ran to the other light. But guess what. It was my light. It was just a reflection. There was a special hill. It wasn’t made of dirt. It was a glass hill. It was shiny and smooth, and when I touched it with my hand, it felt cold. I tried to walk up the hill, but it was super hard. I kept slipping and falling back down to the bottom. I put my flashlight in my pocket and ran as fast as I could and this time I made it up the hill. All the lights from the stars were in the glass hill. It was amazing.”

“Did you ever see the man again?” the officer asked.

104 “This is my story,” Henry said and crossed his arms. “You can tell your story next.”

“Henry,” I said. “Answer the policeman’s question. He’s trying to help us.”

“I never saw him again but that’s not the story. After I got to the top, I slid down the other side and it was super fast. I was going so fast that I went right into the water. It was cold so I got out right away. I went to grab my flashlight and guess what was in my pocket.”

“Candy?” the police officer said.

“No,” Henry replied. A big grin broke out on his face. “It was a magic fish. The magic fish could talk and he told me he could help me. I wanted to see if he had lips like a person or just fish lips, but my flashlight wouldn’t work because of the water. So, I asked him to fix my flashlight. He said he couldn’t do that because he didn’t have arms, but he knew a witch nearby that could help me. I put the magic fish back in the water so he didn’t die and went to see the witch. She wasn’t really nice, and her house was stinky.

And it was small.”

The taller officer rejoined the group and nodded at Henry.

“The witch said she would give me three wishes if I gave her my soul, but Mrs.

Steward said my soul already belongs to God, so I gave it to the witch but really its God’s so I didn’t really need it anyway.

“Was the witch a real person?” the shorter officer asked. Henry slanted his eyebrows at the officer. “I mean, was she real like the man at the beginning was real?”

105 “Duh,” Henry said. “If she wasn’t real she couldn’t be in a story. Anyway, I let her borrow my soul and got three wishes. Grandpa, you are going to like this part. My first wish was that Germany wins the World Cup.”

My grandpa leaned across the long-dead fire and high fived Henry. He was enjoying this too much. He wasn’t worried at all. To him and Henry, it was just a story.

“Dad,” Henry said. “I used my second wish for you.”

I smiled. Maybe he was kidnapped or maybe he just scared the hell out of me and disobeyed everything I ever taught him. Whatever it was, he was still the same, thoughtful Henry. That was enough to be grateful about.

“What did you wish for me?” I asked him. He reached up and put his hands around the back of my neck. He pulled me closer until our foreheads were touching. He stared at my eyes

“I made the witch promise to give you the thing you really, really want.”

“And what is that?” I asked.

He nodded his head up and down three times then let go of my neck.

“So after I used all my wishes, the witch got really mean. She said she was going to eat me because I smelled like candy. She grabbed my arm and licked it. Then I told her

I would taste even better if she cooked me. She thought that was nice of me. I told her I would help her get things ready because she was even older than Grandpa. I found a barrel and told her she could cook me in it if she used lots of hot water. So I pretended I couldn’t get in the barrel. I said she had to show me how to get in. She hopped in the barrel, and I closed the lid. Then I looked around her little house for a hammer and put lots and lots of nails in the barrel. Then I took her to the top of the glass hill and rolled

106 her down it. She was super bloody. But I shouldn’t be in trouble for that because she was mean, and mean people are bad. Bad people die.”

My grandpa nodded at Henry. He was actually proud of him.

“The barrel went into the lake and sank to the bottom. Then I came home and was looking for you guys forever. I was getting scared but then I saw Dad. And everything was good.”

My grandpa gave Henry a few polite claps after he finished the story.

“What was the third wish?” the taller police officer asked. They were enjoying this too. It was probably the most fun on the job they’ve ever had.

Of course, I knew what the third wish was. The officers didn’t know Henry or my grandpa, but I did. The wish involved an opossum and that neatly wrapped up everything in the story. Just like my grandpa’s always did.

“That wish was for me,” Henry said. “It’s a secret.”

“Oh, come on. You can tell us. That was a good story. Police officers need to know all the things about the story. You can tell us.”

Henry just shook his head.

“Officers,” I said, “Again, thanks for everything. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Henry told his story and now we need to go home. He has school tomorrow.”

“Certainly,” the taller officer said. He shook Henry’s hand and then turned to me.

“Sir, can you follow me to the car?”

I walked along with both the officers until we were out of earshot from Henry.

“Quite the kid you’ve got there.”

107 “Thanks,” I said. “It was just a story. He’s okay. None of it happened. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“There’s still the question of the man,” the shorter officer said. “Someone was here. If there’s a possible predator on the loose, we need to find him.”

“The whole thing was made up,” I said. “Are you going to put out an APB for the witch too?” The taller cop smiled, but the little one stared at me.

“We’re glad he’s okay,” the taller officer said. “But we still need to file a report.”

He turned toward his partner. “Why don’t you go get LauraLee a treat and put her in the cruiser.”

The shorter police officer yanked on the dog’s leash and walked away.

“Look,” the taller officer said. “My ex-wife’s a real bitch. Our divorce was messy as hell. Custody battle got even uglier than her in the morning.”

I nodded but didn’t get exactly where he was going.

“It’s not easy raising kids when you aren’t married.” He nodded and darted his eyes towards my ringless fingers. “I’m guessing you don’t live with the boy’s mom?”

“No,” I said. She’s in an insane asylum.

“It’s a shame most dads are assholes. They make the rest of us look bad. There are certain procedures I got to go through, but you’re one of the good ones. I’ll make sure the report reflects that.”

“Thanks, but I don’t really get what you’re getting at.”

The officer coughed and cleared his throat.

“It’s clear to me that negligence didn’t play a role in the boy’s disappearance, so you won’t have to worry about Protective Services stopping by your house, but, well, if

108 there are any custody issues, this is going to hurt your case.” I tried to jut in and stop the officer, but he held his hand up to let him finish. “I know it wasn’t your fault, but it happened on your watch. I just wanted to give you a heads up. Sometimes you can just talk these things through with the boy’s mother. That usually works best for everyone involved, but the report will be on the record if anyone cares to look.”

“Thanks, officer. Thank you for everything. I genuinely appreciate it.”

He tipped his hat to me, walked to the car, and drove away.

Grandpa was taking down the tent, and Henry was busy reenacting how he rolled the witch down the hill. I pulled up the rest of the stakes, and folded the tent. I didn’t like to think about it, but whenever I did, I just couldn’t understand my dad. What he did, the way he abandoned my mom and me, didn’t make any sense. If something had happened to Henry, I would’ve killed myself. He did it the other way around. Henry was my world.

Without him, I was fine with packing up and heading off to whatever comes next. The problem was with my dad, not me. He made that clear the day I was born. I rolled up the last sleeping bag and we piled into the car.

“Well that was an exciting camping trip,” I said after everyone was in and buckled. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the interstate. “Henry, I really liked your story, but you can never ever do something like that again. Me and Grandpa were very scared when we couldn’t find you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Henry said from the backseat.

“And we liked your story, but now that we are alone, you need to tell us what really happened. Right, Grandpa?” I stared at him. He ran his fingers up and down the length of the seatbelt.

109 “Tell us what happened, Henry,” he said.

“I already did,” Henry said. “I’m not lying. I trust you.”

“Henry,” I said. I was tempted to pull off to the shoulder but kept on driving.

“Tell us right now what really happened. We were so scared for you, Buddy. We just need to know what happened so we can make sure it won’t happen again.”

“Germany’s going to win the World Cup and then you’ll believe me. I won’t ever do it again. Okay?”

“Henry,” I yelled. I slammed on the brakes. I stared at him in the rear-view mirror. He was fighting back tears.

“Peter,” my grandpa said. “Just let it be. He’s safe. Be happy.”

I let it go for now and switched my foot back to the accelerator.

“Okay,” I said. “Just remember. Camping trips are special things, and if you didn’t go on the camping trip, then you can never ever hear stories about what happened on the camping trip. Everybody understand?”

Henry and Grandpa nodded. I would have been happy to drive the rest of the way home in silence, but that wasn’t Grandpa’s or Henry’s style. They started planning a victory party for when the German team took the World Cup.

When we got home, I was ready to sleep even though the sun hadn’t even set. I told Henry to run inside and tell Grandma we were home.

My grandpa got out of the car and stretched out his back. I stared at him across the roof of the car.

“No more stories,” I said.

110 “I told you: be happy.”

“I’m serious. He’s my son, and I am the one who gets to make these decisions.

Not you.”

“You think my stories are harming him? You think that’s the boy’s biggest problem?”

“You’re not the one who has to deal with it,” I screamed. “You’re going to be long dead, and I’ll be the one stuck visiting him every week in whatever hellhole he finds himself forced in. This was your fault. No more.”

I walked away from the car. I could put the camping gear away later.

My mom was waiting for us at the door. Henry was already wrapped around her legs.

“How was the trip?” she asked.

“Great,” I said. “Wish you could’ve been there.” I walked past her and headed up stairs. I needed to shower, eat, and get to sleep. I needed to be at the worksite at five a.m.

And tomorrow was Jennifer Day.

My brain needed a rest. My legs were sore, and my back hurt. I went to bed without supper. While I lay in bed and relived the day’s events, Henry came in to tell me goodnight.

“I love you so much, Bud,” I told him. “You don’t even know.”

“Yes I do,” he said. “You tell me every day.”

“Henry, what happened today—you leaving without an adult you knew—that was really naughty. You can never do that again. Do you know how scared I was? Remember

111 what it’s like to feel scared or when you have a bad dream? That’s how you made Dad feel. You don’t want to make me feel like that, right?”

“It was an accident.” He grabbed the hem of my comforter and ran it back and forth between his thumb and index finger.

“It’s okay. I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad.” He leaned in and kissed me on the forehead. “Me and

Grandpa are watching a show with a funny clown in it. Will you teach me how to juggle?”

“Sure,” I said. I let out a yawn. “We can learn how to do it together. Sound good?”

He smiled and nodded. “Good night, Dad. I hope you have a good sleep.”

Henry tiptoed out of my room. He was such an amazing little boy. The kind of kid

I would murder someone over. He’s probably the only person in the world I would say that about.

Sometimes it amazed me how much a person’s worldview is determined by the time they wake up to go to work. The guy who works the graveyard shift and the average

9-to-5er not only see very different sides of the world but also have to work to actively shape the world around them to their schedule. I was tired of getting up at four in the morning.

I went through the motions of my morning routine and was out the door a couple of hours before the sun would show its face. I was halfway to the car when I heard someone moving behind me. I clenched my fists and spun around.

112 “Peter, it’s me.”

It was still dark and my eyes hadn’t adjusted from the indoor lights. I stood there staring at the blob of a person until my pupils dilated enough to make out a face.

“Jesus, James. What are you doing here?” He actually looked well, at least compared to the state he was in when I had to have the cops arrest him. He was clean- shaven and wearing unwrinkled jeans with a polo shirt.

“I need to talk you. Sober this time. Can we talk?”

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened. I tried to give you every chance to leave without getting the cops involved. I’m sorry, but what did you expect?”

James looked up at the stars. He turned back toward me. “I did what I had to do and you did what you felt you had to do. I understand and apologize. I wasn’t myself.

Can we talk in the car?”

“Why are we talking at all? Are you stalking me? It’s four-thirty in the morning and you’re waiting in my lawn to pounce on me.”

“I have an offer for you.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and rocked back and forth on his heels.

“I’m not interested. I can’t get you your job back, especially now. I’m sorry.

There’s nothing I can do for you even if I wanted to.”

“Just listen. When we worked together, you would listen to everything I had to say. I respected that about you. “

“James, I’m going to be late. I don’t have time for this now or ever. I feel bad about everything, but that’s as far as it goes. Now leave.” I pointed toward the street. It

113 was empty except for the dim halos of light from the streetlights. I didn’t see his car anywhere. He wasn’t moving, so I brushed past him to my car.

“I thought you cared about your son,” James said.

I dug my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around my phone. If he said one more word about Henry, I’d have the police here. I walked back over to James and got in his face.

“Whatever you think you’re doing needs to stop. You don’t know anything about me or my son. We worked together. That’s it. Now get out of here.”

“I know you care about your son, and that’s all that matters.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I’m calling the police.”

“Just listen to what I have to say and then I’ll leave. I promise. I have kids of my own, you know.”

I let my hands fall to my side but didn’t put the phone back in my pocket.

“I’m leaving for work in two minutes. Say what you have to say and then get out.

Never come back to my house.”

James looked up at the sky again. “Not here,” he said. “In the car.”

I learned a lot from working with James in the field. He taught me everything he knew and then he was either deemed replaceable by Shanksy Inc. or he went off the deep end.

“Get in,” I said. I slipped into the driver’s seat, started the car, and turned the radio off. James walked around the back off the car and hopped in shotgun.

“I’ll be quick,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I was drunk the last time we talked, but I meant what I said. My eyes have been opened. What you’re doing—what

114 we were doing—is going to kill us all. The earthquakes are just the start. We are pumping poison into our wells so that we can take out more poison that we burn to fill the air with poison. It’s the Law of Conservation. All that muck has to go somewhere. It goes into our bodies and stays there. You and me, we can deal with it. It’s our kids who are getting fucked. They’re going to die. Their world is going to burn, and it will be all our fault. Not a collective ‘our’, but a me and you. Me and you, we’re the ones doing this. You can stop it. You’re smart, and you have access that most of my friends could only dream of. Two roads are ahead of you, Pete. One of them is a world that is just slightly better than the one we have now. The other leads to your boy’s hair falling out and him vomiting blood until he dies a slow, delirious death from dehydration. Every living thing needs water.

What will you do when there isn’t a drop to give your son let alone you? Is that the path you want to go down?”

“Get out,” I said.

“Pete, I haven’t even given you my offer yet. You’re going to like it.”

“I don’t want to hear it. You think I don’t know what we’re doing? You called me smart but you’re acting like I’m an idiot. If I thought my son was going to pay for what

I’m doing, I’d stop right now. It’s safe. I personally oversee the construction of every well. I run through the checklist of every barrier and failsafe. I live here. I grew up here. I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t sure about it.”

“And just how long will those barriers and failsafes last when a big one hits? How high on the Richter scale do we have to go before the shale formations crumble into underground aquifers or the steel containments buckle and give way?”

115 “Your times up. Get out and never come back.” I reached over him and open the passenger side door.

“You haven’t even heard my offer yet.”

I held my phone up and punched in 9-1-1. I hung it in front of his face. “Go now or I hit send.”

James shuffled in his seat. “Take this,” he said. He shoved a small business card into my hand. “There’s a number on there you can call anytime. Think about what I said.” He put his hand on the hood of the car and pulled himself out.

I looked at the card and flipped it over. “It’s blank,” I said.

He bent over and stuck his head back in the car. “It’s all about energy, Pete.

Remember? Look at the card in the sun. Your fiancé, Jennifer, she was prepared to die for what she believed in. I’d think you’d be the same way.” He closed the door.

I rolled down the window. “Is that a threat?”

“I’d never threaten you. I still respect you despite what you think of me. Here’s a new offer I say only because I respect you: either call the number on that card or don’t go to work two weeks from today. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“No.”

James’s eyes darted up to the sky and then back at me. “Kids are the best thing about being alive. Enjoy your time with your son. They grow up faster than you’d ever think.”

He turned away from the car and walked down the sidewalk.

I put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. I was late to work for the first time in my career.

116 The weekend crew had made a mess of the site like they always did. Nothing was plugged in and papers were strewn everywhere. I spent half my morning cleaning up and not getting any actual work accomplished.

“Even worse than usual,” Sean said. He was spinning himself in circles on his chair.

“Entropy,” I said. Sean had worked with James too, but I didn’t want to let him in on what had happened. If Henry had taught me anything, it was that secrets were sometimes best well kept.

I could see a lot of Jennifer in James. The way he fidgeted and glanced around like he was being watched. The faulty logic that always somehow led back to himself.

Everything was a conspiracy and they were always at the center of it. I couldn’t deal with that kind of delusional narcissism anymore. It was exhausting.

I needed a break.

I left Sean alone in the work tent and walked outside. I wanted to walk down to where the pond was and eat the lunch my mom packed for me. I was the boss now. I could do whatever I wanted.

I headed in the direction of the pond. A flock of geese flew in a “V” over my head. I looked up at them and was blinded by the sun. I looked back down and fumbled around in my pocket for the card James gave me.

I held it out in front of me. It was still blank, but then faded blue words started to appear.

“Earth Liberation Front,” the card read at the top. Below that were the italicized words, “In Harmony, Together” and an out-of-state phone number.

117 I flipped the card over and waited for the image to form. Slowly, the group’s logo appeared in the same muted blue. There was a circle formed by a snake eating its own tail. In the middle of the snake-circle were the letters E-L-F.

This was what I imagined purgatory looked like: faded white walls, buzzing fluorescent lights, no chance for escape, and seated in front of me, the sins I needed to answer for.

“Thank you so much for the picture of Henry,” Jennifer said. “I love it. Now, I just need one of you.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’ll try to find one. I’m sure my mom’s got plenty.”

“How is your mom? Did she find a way to bail on the camping trip?” She bit on her nails in between each sentence.

“She picked up a shift at work. Henry cried for a minute, but he gets over things fast.”

“Just like his dad,” she said. I studied her face. I couldn’t tell if it was a compliment or a dig. Despite everything, I felt like there were things I could only tell her.

She knew me better than anyone.

“I hate this room.”

“You should see where I sleep.”

“I can imagine,” I said. And I could’ve, but I didn’t want to. This place was a black hole. The closer I got to it, the harder it was to escape.

“I could really use a picture of you in there. If you know what I mean.” She looked me in the eyes and then glanced down through the table at my crotch.

I didn’t respond.

118 “When I get out of here, just you wait. I am going to fuck your brains out. It’ll be like when we first met. You’ll have to pay me to stop.” Her voice had an edge to it. She said it like a threat. I might’ve attributed it to her condition, but that was the way she talked when we first met. It was what made me fall to my knees and worship her. Now, though, I couldn’t stand it. It only served to remind me that she had a knack for violence and forcing her will.

“And when is that going to be?” I asked.

“My sentence is up. I’ve done my time. I’m just waiting for them to tell me I’m cured, and then things can go back to normal.”

I laughed, but she wasn’t kidding. She spat out a tiny piece of fingernail onto the table separating us from each other.

“Is it something that can really be cured?” I asked.

“Maybe that’s not the best word, but you know what I mean.”

“Did the doctor say that?”

“Well, not in those words. I’m better though. I can feel it.”

“But you aren’t the one who gets to make that call,” I said.

She nodded but didn’t say anything. She tilted her head a bit to the left then leaned back in her chair.

“You know what the worst part about being here is?”

“The food? The roommates?”

She shook her head.

119 “It’s the way you look when you come in here. Like I’m some broken thing you need to tend to. Like I’m your responsibility.” She stared at the ground “That’s the worst.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I don’t think of you like that.”

“I’m talking about the way you act and the way you look.”

“It’s not true.” She wouldn’t meet me eyes. I knew she was right, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I could admit to her.

“Last year,” she said and swallowed. “They told me you asked for the engagement ring back.”

“I just wanted to make sure it was safe.”

“Every week you have the same dead look in your eyes. How am I supposed to ignore it? Why do you even come here?”

“I come here every week to make sure you’re okay. I come here so I’ve got something to tell Henry about his mom. He asks about you every day. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“God, of course. You blame everything on him. What if there was no Henry?

Would you still come see me?”

“If there wasn’t a Henry, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Stop it.” She slammed her open palm on the table. “Stop blaming me. Stop blaming Henry.”

“I’m not blaming anyone. The courts already did that.”

“I did what I thought was right at the time. Don’t you think I know how stupid it was? It ripped me from everything I cared about. My world was you and Henry. I haven’t

120 seen him in almost three years. You want to know why I’m still fucked up? Take any kid away from their mother and see how she reacts. If we were animals, I would’ve killed them all and left their corpses to rot.”

“Maybe I blame everyone around me because it’s their fault. I didn’t take Henry away from you. You did that. You chose to do that.”

“You think it was some switch that got flipped? One day I was fine and the next I was crazy?”

I started to answer but she cut me off.

“I was depressed. I admit that, but you didn’t help. You thought it was just a phase. Something I needed to get over, but it wasn’t. I was sick, and the one person closest to me, my fiancé, looked me in the eyes and called me weak. It took strength to do what I did. It wasn’t right, and I’m still paying for it, but it took a hell of a lot more balls than you’ve ever had. What are you? How do you think of yourself?”

“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” I said.

“You act like you’re some kind of fucking martyr. Someday you’re going to realize everyone’s life sucks, not just yours.”

“You don’t think I know? You want to know the difference between me and everyone else? They all made their lives into hellholes. You have to think the world’s a place worth saving to be a martyr.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Look at you. Take some fucking responsibility for the world you’re living in. I did. I admitted what I did was wrong. I stood in front of a judge and swore to it. What have you ever done to make the world better?”

121 She was trying to hold back her tears. I could see tiny pools of water in the corners of her eyes.

“For three years,” I said, “I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. Then Henry came along and I knew it. But you couldn’t be happy. You let your depression wreck our lives. You ripped our family apart, and now a part of my taxes from the job I’m stuck going to every day pays to keep you here away from me and my son.

That’s your fault. Everything is your fault. I’m tired of feeling guilty for something I didn’t do.”

“You’re a monster. You should be in here. You’d get along with the rest of the fucking psychos I’m forced to spend my days with. You don’t deserve Henry.” She was bawling.

I laughed.

“And you do? What, are you going to train him to come along on your next suicide bombing?”

“Stop,” she said.

“He doesn’t even know who you are. He knows what I tell him. You want to know why?”

She shook her head again and again. Her tears flew from her face and splashed onto the table.

“Because I love him more than anything. More than any other person, any other idea, any thing. He’s mine. He was ours, but you gave that up. You sold your soul and your only child to your own fucking neuroses. I may not be a martyr, but I’m a saint. And you, you’re just one more problem I have to deal with.”

122 I stood. She rested her forehead on the table.

“Don’t leave me,” she said without lifting her head.

I waved to the worker to open the door.

“Do you remember when we first met?” she asked.

The mechanical buzzer sounded and the door slid open.

I looked behind me. She was turned around in her chair staring at me.

“Yeah,” I said. It wasn’t something I thought of often.

“I still love you. I know if I wasn’t in here, it would be different.”

“But here we are,” I said. I took a step forward and nodded at the worker to close the door.

“Tell Henry I love him. I love you. You two are all I have.”

The first door closed and the second opened. I nodded at her through the glass, and she collapsed back onto the table.

Outside the behavioral center, I stumbled to my car. I got in and punched the steering wheel. I had meant to confide in her. I wanted to tell her about Grandpa’s cancer, about Henry’s disappearance, and James’s early morning visit. When she wasn’t manic or depressed, she was the only person in the world I could talk to.

I started the car and drove past the barbed-wire lined fence that separated her world from mine.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket to call my mom and tell her I would be late for dinner. I slid my finger across the surface to unlock it. My home screen was a picture of Henry in a cowboy hat riding a horse. I stared at the picture for a second. Then I hit the lock button on the phone and threw it at the passenger side window because I was about

123 to call my fucking mom and tell her that I, a twenty nine year old man with a son and a job and an advanced degree, was going to be late for dinner at the house we shared.

Jennifer and I used to always say that we saved each other. We made each other better. All I knew now was we had changed each other. Whatever we were now, it was because of the other. We were connected to each other by more than just a ring and a baby. I don’t think I could break that connection. I wouldn’t know how even if I wanted to.

This was my life. It was the only one I’d ever get.

124 CHAPTER V

HOW MANY UNICORNS WILL PETER SEE

I decided not to go home. I drove around in my car and watched the sunset in the rearview mirror.

The gas was running low, and I couldn’t think with all the stop signs, pedestrians, and stop lights. The clicking of the turn blinker was driving a hole into my skull. I scanned the horizon for a steeple. Thankfully, it was a Catholic church.

I parked and hoped it was the kind of place that had perpetual adoration. I tugged on the door and it opened. Inside the dimly lit church were six pillars and an old man kneeling in the front pew.

I sat in the back and studied the stain-glass windows. The church was connected to a school and the back window on the left side was the requisite Jesus chiding the adults to “let the little children come to me.” The rest were saints. At the front right was the church’s patron saint, St. Jude the Apostle.

I let the kneeler down but remained in the pew. I didn’t really come here to pray. I just needed to stop driving.

Everyone in my life was always telling stories. Henry’s were chocked full of a mix of Mario and whatever his teacher was telling him about the Bible. Grandpa’s were

Grimm’s fairy tales blended with deluded fantasies of a life he wished he led. Mom didn’t tell stories as much as judge and prod, but she fell into line when it served her. If 125 she wanted me to go get fast food, she would tell a story about a difficult patient or arrogant doctor. If she wanted to get out of camping, she made up a lie about having to cover a shift. And when she wanted to get away from all of us, she said she was cleaning the church and would come home with dollar store trinkets she claimed people left in the pews.

I had stories too, but it wasn’t something I spent much time thinking about.

Though, that was the reason I came here in the first place.

I met Jennifer at a Halloween party when I was twenty-two-years old. It felt longer than six years ago.

I was sitting at home getting high and playing Halo 3 when my freshman roommate from the dorms came barreling into my apartment. It wasn’t the kind of place that had tenant-only entry or washer/dryer or any of the kind of things I would look for now.

He had a handle of vodka tucked under his arm and a blunt tucked behind his ear.

He was wearing two pieces of orange fabric stapled together with some black spots taped here and there around his torso.

“What the hell, man?” he asked.

His name was Quentin but he told everyone to call him Q. No one did. If it wasn’t for the random roommate selection process employed by the dorms, I never would’ve hung out with a person like him. As it was, he was one of my best friends. Even though he was loud, got into fights, and had sex with anything that would oblige, he cared about people in a way I didn’t.

126 “What?” I asked him. I didn’t take my eyes off the screen. I was piloting a

Warthog and the pre-pubescent kid running the turret sucked.

“It’s Halloween. We’re going out.” He walked from the living room to the connected kitchen and pulled out some dirty shot glasses. He filled them up.

“Do people still do that?” I asked. The Warthog took a laser blast and blew up. I turned from the TV. Quentin waved the shot in front of my face. I grabbed it and studied the dust particles floating in the clear liquor.

“Normal people do. Tonight, we are normal. Except you gotta get a real costume.

No ghost or mummy or shit like that.”

“What are you supposed to be?” I asked. He stuck the shot glass out and we clinked them together before tipping them back.

“I’m Fred Flintstone, numbnuts. Now go get ready. I know of a sweet kegger.”

I groaned. “Didn’t we outgrow those things?”

“You’re sitting alone in your apartment playing videogames on one of the biggest drinking nights of the year, and you’re going to tell me about being grown up?”

Quentin grabbed the controller from my hand. I got up from the couch and went to my room to rummage around for a costume.

“Load a bowl before we go,” I said. He didn’t respond, but it would be ready. He was good about that kind of thing.

After I got my costume on and we smoked, we hopped into my car and drove to a giant six-bedroom house a couple of blocks from the university.

“Here’s the deal,” Quentin said. “Every time you say a science word to a girl, I’m going to punch you in the dick. Sound good?”

127 “Can’t wait,” I said.

The house was trashed, and it looked like it had been that way prior to the start of the party. It was about three quarter’s dudes. I expected to turn a corner and see someone shooting up, but thankfully, it wasn’t that kind of party.

The keg was in the unfinished basement. Quentin paid five dollars apiece for each of our cups, and we started drinking. One corner of the basement was covered in broken glass bottles. Five guys dressed as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a Casey Jones with an overweight April O’ Neil crowded around the keg. They were debating the cultural significance of the original manga versus the nineties cartoon.

“Well,” Quentin said, “I was going to save this for later, but I can’t take much more.” He pulled the blunt from behind his ear, and we headed upstairs. We found the backdoor and stepped out onto a rickety, amateur-made deck. There were two girls sitting on industrial cable spools smoking cigarettes. I nodded to them, and one of them smiled back. Quentin lit the grape-flavored paper, took a hit, and passed it to me.

I sucked in and imagined the smoke filling up every inch of my lungs. I let out my breath and a little cough.

“Is that pot?” the girl who smiled at me asked. “Thank God. I was about to kill myself.” She walked over and grabbed the blunt from my hand. Her friend stayed on top of the wooden spool.

She took two hits and passed it to Quentin.

“I like your costume,” I said to the girl. She was wearing a teal bed sheet toga- style. There was a princess tiara on her head and a toy microphone covered in aluminum foil in her hand.

128 “It sucks because I’m not wearing a bra, and I already have small boobs.”

“We don’t mind,” Quentin said. “Name’s Quentin but everyone just calls me Q.”

“I assume the Q stands for questionable,” the girl said. Her friend laughed behind her.

“I’m Peter,” I said and stuck out my hand.

“Are you applying for a job or something?” she asked. “Who the fuck shakes a girl’s hand when he meets her?”

I liked this girl. She had blonde hair and dark brown eyebrows. She was skinny and her eyes were blue. When she looked at me, it was like she was trying to melt me with heat vision. It was intense.

We finished smoking and gathered around with her friend at a table made of plywood and cinder blocks.

“So I get the budget Fred Flintstone,” the Statue of Liberty girl said, “but who are you supposed to be?”

I stood and held my hands at my side. I was wearing old blue overalls with a red t-shirt beneath. On my head was a Cleveland Indians hat with an “M” taped over Chief

Wahoo.

“It’s a me, Mario” I said in a bad Italian accent.

“You don’t even have a mustache,” the girl said. She stood and walked over next to me. “Come on.” She walked down the wobbling stairs to the dirt filled backyard.

I followed her. I didn’t know where we were going, but it was better than hanging out with Quentin and her downer-of-a-friend.

129 “Oh my God,” she said once we were a dozen yards away from the deck. “I have to pee. Hold my torch.” She handed me the microphone, hiked up her bed sheets, and squatted down.

“There’s a bathroom inside,” I said.

“Yeah, and it’s probably the grossest thing about that house.”

I didn’t know if I should look away or meet her eyes while I was talking and she was peeing. I found a happy medium in staring at her legs. They were tan and the little muscle on them bulged as she squatted. She was beautiful.

“I’m glad you guys came out here. I hate going to ugly parties.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Let me guess, you’re like super smart but socially inept. Am I right?”

“That’s kind of a harsh way to put it.”

“An ugly party is when you go to a party and everyone is ugly, so the only good- looking people, me and you for instance, are swarmed by all the uglies until we inevitably hook up and go home together because we are the only attractive people there.

I’m just glad I found my partner at the beginning of the night instead of the end.”

“So, is your friend one of the uglies then?”

“Of course. I’m not as pretty as you think I am.” She finished peeing and stood back up. “I look great next to her, though. Everything’s relative, you know? You don’t happen to have any toilet paper tucked away in your overalls, do you?”

I patted my pockets and shook my head at her. “Should we go back?”

“Why?” she asked. “We already found each other. I’m Jennifer, by the way.”

130 We stayed in the backyard for two hours talking. We sat on the ground. She picked what little grass there was and threw it at me. I told her about the Theory of

Relativity and promised to take her to an Indians game. She talked about the first time she got caught shoplifting and promised to steal me something nice very soon.

She offered to give me a ride home but took me to her place instead. Quentin could find his own way home.

She lived with her friend in a tiny apartment on the edge of a forest. It smelled like baked bread and incense.

“This is going to sound weird,” she said when we were sitting on her couch, “but I have a ton of laundry to fold, and if I don’t do it now, it’s not getting done. You can help me. I’ll be right back.”

She left me alone in her apartment. I got up from the couch and looked around.

The walls were bare. There were no pictures of friends or family or any other accoutrement. I peeked in her room. Her box spring sat on the ground with a mattress on top. She had a handmade quilt for a comforter and no sheets. I heard the door open and rushed back to the couch.

Jennifer walked in with a blue, plastic laundry basket full of clothes. She dumped them in the middle of the living room and started folding them. I sat down next to her and grabbed a plain, yellow t-shirt to help out.

“I don’t know if this is weird or not,” she said, “but unless you want to stay up for a whole other load of laundry, we aren’t going to be sleeping on sheets.” She pointed at her costume.

131 “I’m fine,” I said. I was staring at her one exposed arm. Her wrists looked like they could be snapped by sudden movements and her elbows were sharp points. I grabbed a handful of clothes. When I looked down, it was full of her underwear.

“These are nice,” I said holding up a pair of lacy, black panties.

“Thanks, I’ll remember that next time we hang out.”

“Is this what you do then? Bring back unsuspecting boys to your apartment to help you with your laundry?”

“You think I’m a slut, don’t you?” She threw a pair of half-folded jeans back onto the pile of clothes.

“I never said that.”

“I like you and you like me, right?” I nodded. “Then why fuck around?” She put her arms behind her back and untied the knot in her toga. She yanked the bed sheets off of her. She was entirely naked. She sat on her knees and rocked back and forth. Then she jumped on me.

We had sex for the first time on a pile of her clothes in the middle of the living room.

I was falling hard for this girl.

Jennifer always wanted more out of me, and I was happy to try and give it to her.

After we’d been together for a couple of months, we were sitting around her apartment talking about all the places we wanted to visit. She laid on the couch with her feet in my lap. I wanted to go to Germany first and then Rome. She wanted to hop around Japan and

Korea until we ran out of money and had to come back home.

132 “When can I meet your mom? I’m starting to think her and your grandpa don’t exist. You’re not like secretly married already or something, are you?”

I had never brought home a girl to meet my mom. I didn’t have that many opportunities to do so, but even then, it wasn’t something I was keen on doing.

“How could I be married? We’re with each other every day?”

“Then you’re an orphan,” she said. “Like me.”

“My mom would love to meet you. Grandpa will bombard you with stories and compliments. They’re good people.”

She pulled her legs off of me. She pulled the ponytail out of her blonde hair and shook her head.

“This is going to be amazing. Let’s get all fancy and dressed up. Can we do it tonight? Right now?”

“Umm,” I said. I felt like this was the kind of thing that need preparation and advanced warning. “I can call her and ask, but that might be awkward.”

“Babe, you have got to grow up. You’re not a kid anymore. The way you talk about your mom makes it sound like you still live in her basement. She should be your friend now that you’re grown up. She’s not going to yell at you for living your life.”

“She’s my mom. She’s always going to be my mom. She wants me to be her perfect little son, so that’s how I act around her.”

Jennifer bent down to eye level and cupped my face in her hands.

“Love your mom,” she said. “Show her who you really are. That’s what love really is.”

133 So, I called my mom and asked her if I could bring Jennifer over for a fancy dinner. My mom was thrilled. So was Jennifer.

I watched old episodes of Firefly while she got ready. She poked her wet head out of the bathroom door.

“Go get ready,” she said. “I’ll be okay without you.”

I went to my apartment and grabbed a wrinkly shirt, some khakis, and a tie. I got in a quick few levels of New Super Mario Bros. and went back to her place.

She was stunning. She was in a black dress that went to just above the knee. It was tight but not slutty. Her hair was up with a simple braid running across the crown of her head. She looked like something out of a Greek myth.

“Oh my god, you seriously need to invest in an iron. Take your shirt off.”

I took my shirt off and helped her set up her ironing board. She showed me how to get the wrinkles out while not burning the fabric. I put the still warm shirt back on and dropped my tie back and forth between hands like a Slinky.

“You look beautiful,” I said.

“You don’t know how to tie a tie, do you?”

I shook my head and thrust the tie toward her. She reached around me and pinched my butt.

“I’ll show you how to do it, and then you tie your own tie.”

She draped the tie around her neck and lined up the thin end to her belly button.

Then her hands moved a bunch and she had a half Windsor knot around her neck.

“Now you do it,” she said and handed me the tie.

134 I tried to copy what she had done but got lost half way through the process. She ended up doing it for me.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?”

“I worked at a men’s clothing store in high school until the manager felt me up in the changing room and I punched him in the teeth.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“It’s okay. I don’t punch very hard.” She pulled on the knot and straightened out my collar. “Now you look as good as me. You ready?”

We hopped in my car and drove to my mom’s house.

My mom and grandpa were both wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I had neglected to tell them about the dressing up part. I felt like an idiot. Jennifer didn’t mind. She walked up to my mom and kissed her on the cheek.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Jennifer said. “Peter won’t shut up about you.

Sometimes I think I’m his mom and you’re his girlfriend.”

My mom smiled at her and then glanced at me.

“Mom this is Jennifer. Jennifer this is my mom, Elizabeth.”

“And you must be Gunter,” Jennifer said. She walked over to him and gave him a hug.

“Call me Grandpa,” he said. “Everyone else does. It’s just easier that way.”

“My grandpa drank pints of whiskey for breakfast and told my mom she was fat.

You’re not that kind of grandpa, are you?”

I could tell she was joking, but my mom was shaking her head and looking at the ground. My grandpa laughed. That was his kind of humor.

135 “I will always tell you the truth,” Grandpa said. “And you look amazing.

Elizabeth here made us all a fine dinner. Let’s go eat.”

Dinner was chicken parmesan with spaghetti and garlic bread. It was delicious. It made me miss eating real food at a table every day.

“So, Jennifer, what are you studying?” my mom asked.

“She wants to be a nurse,” I said. “Like you.”

“I love helping people,” Jennifer said. “I’m not too good with all the science and stuff, but I get by. Peter helps when I need it.”

“Well,” my mom said, “That’s the most important part. It’s all about the patients and what they need. You need to be sharp though. You don’t want to give someone ten cc’s when they’re supposed to get ten ounces.”

“I’m pretty observant,” Jennifer said. “And, if you care about the people, you make sure you do everything right. Where do you work, Elizabeth?”

“In the NICU at City Hospital.”

“Oh, wow,” Jennifer said. “That is amazing of you. I could never do something like that.”

“It’s worth it,” my mom said. She cut down on her chicken breast while she stared at Jennifer. The knife gave and crashed into the plate with a loud clang.

“Jennifer’s interested in geriatric care,” I said.

“Well,” Grandpa butted in, “there is always going to be babies and old people.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have any nurses. Only doctors. Even calling them doctors was a stretch. They were great at what they did. One time, a girl in the village fell ill. Her lips turned blue, but she was breathing fine and didn’t complain about the cold.

136 The doctors got together and decided that they needed a tincture of rose hips, evening primrose, and hyacinth. But it was the winter, and no one knew what to do.”

“Grandpa,” my mom said, “please, you promised. No stories tonight. You have to let other people talk.”

“It’s a short one. A happy one too.”

“Grandpa,” I said, “you’ll have plenty of time to tell Jennifer stories.”

“Well,” Grandpa said. “Someone needs to tell a story. It isn’t a Marchen dinner without a story. Jennifer, how did you and Peter first meet?”

Jennifer set down her fork and knife and smiled. She took a sip of water and set the glass down.

“Okay,” she said, “I was at this party dressed as the Statue of Liberty and feeling like a huge idiot for even showing up at this dingy house. My friend and I were outside smoking when Peter and his old roommate waltzed outside. He did a bad Italian impression, I peed in front of him, and from there, we’ve been together almost every night.”

Jennifer reached over the table and grabbed my hand. I smiled at her but was trying to figure out how best to spin that story into something my mom could digest.

“A girl your age shouldn’t smoke cigarettes,” my mom said. “Besides all the cancer and health risks, think of what it will do to your skin.”

“We’re going to quit once we’re done with college. Right, Peter?”

I stuck a large chunk of breaded chicken in my mouth and nodded.

“Well, good,” my mom said. “I’m glad you two have a plan.”

137 The rest of the night faded into small talk about the weather, college, TV shows, and the difference between the World Cup and the Super Bowl.

It went about as well as I expected it to. Jennifer was herself the whole time, and I admired that about her. She never hid who she was even when she wanted someone to like her. She was too much for my mom. It would’ve been nice to have brought a girl home in high school to help break my mom in, but that never happened. Jennifer was right though. My mom needed to see who I was now and what I was doing instead of always seeing me as her little boy. If a girlfriend and mother didn’t get along, it wouldn’t be the first time in history that happened. I could give them both what they needed.

We spent the next five months together. We registered for classes together, slept under the same roof every night, and went out to shows and yelled at the bands. What we did the most, though, was smoke pot, watch infomercials, and have sex. It was the second happiest time of my life next to bringing Henry home from the hospital.

Then, one day, she didn’t respond to any of my texts, wasn’t in Biology class, and didn’t answer her phone. She showed up at my apartment in the middle of the night with her eyes bloodshot and her hair in a frizzy mess. At first, I thought she was on a bender without me.

“Too busy getting fucked up to talk to me?” I asked. I was playing Super Smash

Bros. Brawl and absolutely dominating the computer players with Yoshi.

“Turn the game off,” she said.

“Hold on. Just got to kill Jigglypuff two more times, and I win.”

“Turn it off,” she screamed.

138 I paused the game and looked at her. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor and crying. I tossed the controller on the couch and fell to the floor with her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

It took her a few seconds to steady her breathing. “We need to talk.”

“Like we’re breaking up? What happened? Oh my God, what is going on?” My eyes were hot and my head hurt. Jennifer was the best thing to ever happen to me. Now, I was losing her for no good reason.

“Just settle down. Only one of us can freak out at a time.”

“Okay, okay. Just tell me what’s going on. I won’t freak out. I swear.”

She put her hand on my knee. “So, you know how when you’re high and everything’s great but in the back of your mind you feel like you’re forgetting something.

Then it turns out that you did forget something?”

“Sure.”

She reached into the pocket of her hoody and pulled out two white sticks. At first,

I thought they were tampons. She handed them to me, and I pulled my arm back.

“Just look at them. Please.”

I used both hands to grab them and pinched the sticks between the fingernails of my thumb and index finger. I flipped them over and saw them from what they were: pregnancy tests. Each one had two dual lines breaking up an otherwise-dull white backdrop.

She was pregnant.

“Please don’t hate me,” she said.

139 “I don’t hate you.” I stared at the blue lines until they were all I could see when I looked away. They were burned into my retinas.

Jennifer stood and started pacing. “It’s all my fault. I forgot to take my birth control. I was just having fun with you and smoking and everything. I forgot for a couple days. I didn’t think it would matter.”

“I need a second,” I said. I got up from the floor and stepped out onto the balcony.

I lit a cigarette, a habit I picked up from Jennifer. One we were both going to need to stop. I smoked two, and I didn’t think about anything other than the act of smoking. How to light a cigarette by cupping a hand over the lighter so even in the wind, there’s still a steady flame. The way I was taught to inhale by breathing in the smoke and then breathing in the air. The way a cigarette burns unabated, running orange rings around the edge of the paper. The way tiny wisps of smoke rise and linger before being whisked away. The last drag that tastes a little different because you’ve begun to hit the filter. The flick that sends the butt sailing, and the shower of sparks as the cherry hits the pavement and quickly snuffs itself out. I went back inside.

We sat Indian-style on her bed facing each other.

“What are our options?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” She didn’t want to do anything other than commiserate.

That’s not how I was. I needed a plan. A set of actions I could accomplish.

“I don’t know. I mean, what do you think we should do?”

“I am not getting an abortion.”

I was glad she was the one to say it.

140 “Okay. It’s your choice. I’m not going to force you to do anything. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t make you.”

I was trying to stay calm, but my mind was screaming. It kept telling me I was fucked, over and over again.

I looked back at my life and saw bridges engulfed in flames. I saw my possible future paths narrow down to a singular road. It would be me and her and a baby. I would’ve rather been getting high and K.O.’ing various Nintendo characters than pondering my progeny.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said.

“You don’t have to say anything, but I had to tell you. I couldn’t keep it in anymore.”

I never had a dad. I didn’t know how to be one. The closest thing I had to a father- figure in my life was Grandpa. I loved him, but he wasn’t a model to follow. I wanted kids someday, and I wanted them with Jennifer, I just didn’t think it would go down like this. I had thought about what kind of dad I wanted to be to my kids. Then it hit me: today was my first day of being a dad.

This was real.

“I’m here for you,” I said. “No matter what. Our kid will be the coolest little baby ever. This is going to be fun.”

“Then why can’t I stop crying?”

I looked at her and held her hands in mine. She snorted and sucked some snot back into her nose. I kissed her on the lips.

“Someday it’ll stop,” I told her. But it never did.

141 “How are we going to tell your mom?” She smiled at me, but the tears kept coming.

“Maybe we could just email her?”

She laughed and fell into my hug.

“Let’s just tell Grandpa and wait for him to leak the info to her. I mean, he’s the only one I really want to tell. I don’t think I even have my brother’s phone number anymore.”

We decided to tell my mom over dinner the next day. We thought the sooner we got it out of the way, the better things would be.

Jennifer and my mom still didn’t really get along. Neither of them ever told me why. It was like some secret that nobody was allowed to talk about. Jennifer was brash and candid, but she was always able to shape the situation around her personality. She had a way of talking and acting that made anyone she talked to feel like she was on their side. It didn’t work on my mom. From the moment I introduced the two, my mom saw her as an adversary. For so long, it was just me and my mom. Now, someone succeeded in taking me away from her.

So, the enmity between them was the first problem. It was what Jennifer was worried about. My worries were different. My mom was Catholic to the bone. She didn’t dream of watching grandchildren play baseball, she dreamt of going to their baptisms.

Having a kid out of wedlock was visual confirmation of the carrying of mortal sin on one’s soul.

I wasn’t looking forward to dinner.

142 My mom made spaghetti and meatballs. Grandpa was physically present, but he was busy playing with his new 3G iPhone. I knew the key to preventing a meltdown from either of the women was to get Grandpa on our side early.

I chopped a meatball in half with my fork and complimented my mom on the renovations she was doing. She had taken down the wallpaper in the living room that had been there since I was a kid and replaced it with blocked chevrons in alternating black and white. My childhood room was the only thing off limits. She refused to let anyone, even me, update it. She would die before she let someone take down my Kenny Lofton poster.

“Jennifer and I have something we want to tell you,” I said in between bites. I looked over to Jennifer for help. She stared at her plate.

“You’re not moving in together, are you?” my mom asked.

I ignored her question and put my hand on the table next to Jennifer. I wiggled my fingers until she grabbed my wrist.

“Yesterday,” I said, “Jennifer and I found out we are going to have a baby.” I looked at my mom but she didn’t look up from her spaghetti. I waited a second and still nothing. Grandpa put down his iPhone.

“Congratulations,” he said. “This is the best thing that will ever happen to you. I hope he gets your brain and her frame. He’ll be the perfect soccer player. We need a drink to celebrate.” He got up and walked to the kitchen.

“I’m so happy,” my mom said. She was still pushing pasta around her plate with a fork. She looked up at me. Her lips were straight, but as she studied my face, a smile broke out. “Oh, my gosh. We have so much to do. I mean, we’re lucky this happened

143 now. We’ll still be able to get a date booked at the church. Summer wedding season won’t bog us down. Then, of course, we have the baby to worry about.” She stood and ran over to Jennifer. She gave her a hug and patted her stomach.

“Mom,” I said. “Let’s take this one life-changing hurdle at a time.”

“Oh, come on, Petey. You can’t have a baby if you’re not married. Believe me, the Catholic Church has changed. Father marries pregnant couples all the time. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s not something we’re really thinking about right now,” I said.

“Why not?” Jennifer asked.

I stared at her. I couldn’t believe she was taking my mom’s side on this.

Yesterday, she was a crying mess on my bed. Now, she was ready to get married.

Grandpa came back in to the kitchen with four shot glasses and a bottle of authentic German zwetschgenwasser, a strong schnapps made from plums.

“Now is not the time to argue. We can do it later. Now, we celebrate.” He filled each of the glasses and placed them in front of each of us. “To a healthy baby boy.” He raised his shot glass in the air.

“Grandpa, Jennifer can’t drink. She’s pregnant.”

“A drink will be good for the baby. It will let him know what life is like. This one time, we all drink.”

I looked over at Jennifer. She shrugged her shoulders and picked up the liquor.

We drank to the baby. The schnapps was sweet and burned all the way down.

144 We let the subject of marriage fall to the wayside. It was clear where we all stood.

After dinner was finished, my mom and Jennifer hugged. I gave Jennifer a kiss and told her I would call her later in the night.

As soon as the door was closed, my mom turned to me.

“Petey, I know this is all coming at you so fast. But I’m proud of you and excited to have a grandbaby. I want you to know that I’m happy to give you the money for the engagement ring. It’s not even a loan. I want you to have it.”

“It’s not a question of money, Mom.” I pulled my coat on. I didn’t want to stay in that house any longer than I had to. “Someday, it’ll happen. I still need time to process all of this.”

“It’s important for the baby,” my mom said. “He needs a stable home to grow up right.”

“I know, Mom.” I stepped toward her and let her kiss me on the cheek. “Jennifer and I are together. We will be. Marriage can wait.” I walked over to Grandpa and gave him a hug.

“You’re going to be a great dad,” he said. “I can feel it already.”

I left the house and went home to play videogames before Jennifer came over for the night. We spent the day talking about baby names and whether we wanted a boy or a girl. When she left to go to work, I called up Quentin and met him at his favorite bar, The

Dugout.

He was happy to meet up but confused. I think he thought I must’ve been dying or moving away.

I ordered us each a beer and drank half of mine before telling him.

145 “Jennifer’s pregnant,” I said.

“Aww, fuck. You’re kidding me, man.”

“Nope.” I started peeling the label off of my beer bottle.

“That sucks. I’m sorry. And she’s going to keep it?”

I dropped the tiny scraps of paper onto the bar.

“It’s not that bad. It’s not like my life is over or we’re a bunch of high school fuckups. We’re adults. We can handle it.”

“Sure, but still. That’s not the kind of thing you want to hear from a girl ever.

Right?”

“I don’t know. I’m kind of excited. I like kids. I could be a good dad.”

“Well, fuck, we need to throw you a bachelor party or whatever you do for people about to have kids.”

“It’s called a shower.” I tipped back my beer and finished it off.

“Whatever it is, you’re going to need it. Do you realize how crazy chicks get when they’re preggo? My sister-in-law lost a whole chunk of hair from just spending everyday thinking about the bad and scratching her head. I’m not even shitting you. It was gross.” Quentin raised his hand and got another round of beers.

“I’m more worried about me going crazy than her. I’m excited now, but I think that is all that is holding me back from a full meltdown. Once the high wears off, shit is going to get real.”

“Hey, you need a godfather? I’d love to help you raise that kid. I mean, I feel like

I’m responsible for its conception. I basically introduced you two.”

146 I studied my face in the mirror behind the bar’s liquor bottles. I had a few wrinkles around my eyes, but I still looked like I was seventeen.

“You can support the kid financially, and Jen and me will give it the love.”

Quentin took a sip of beer and swished it around in his mouth.

“Shit, this is a lot to take in. I think I would’ve already cut off a finger or something if it was me. How is she taking it?”

“She’s doing good,” I said. “She’s already planning everything out. She bought a bunch of books before she even told me. She’s taking vitamins. There’s this thing called folic acid. If you don’t take it when you’re pregnant, your kid’s brain grows all out of whack. So she’s taking that too. And she’s trying to cut preservatives and meat out of her diet. All that shit’s got poison in it. Apparently, it doesn’t mean much to us, but since babies are so small, it rocks their world.”

“Oh,” Quentin said. He swiveled in his stool to look at me. “I got it. I’m going to throw a keg for you and all the proceeds will go toward buying diapers for the baby.

That’s the kind of party you need to have.”

“Sounds great, except Jennifer can’t drink.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t.” He lifted his bottle in the air. I picked mine up and clinked it against his. “Cheers”

“Cheers,” I said.

Quentin got the next two rounds and then we left. He was getting too jacked up about the keg/diaper party, but I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t happening to him. He was just an observer. It was happening to me but mainly to Jennifer.

The only thing I could do was wait.

147 It took us until she was six weeks from her due date to move in together. We were with each other every day, but we both had leases that had to expire before we could find a new place. It was so much better living together. We were always there. There was no driving or sitting around alone.

Henry refused to come out of the womb. He must have liked it there. Jennifer finally talked her OB into inducing her when she was forty weeks and six days. The day before the birth, we packed our bags for the hospital stay.

“You’re not thinking about it, are you?” Jennifer asked.

I folded up a few plain white pairs of underwear she would need after the birth and put them in the suitcase.

“Thinking about what?” I asked.

“Your dad. Killing yourself.” She walked over to our dresser and grabbed the ultrasound pictures of the baby. She handed them to me. “I don’t think you are or you would. But I had to ask. Just for my sanity.”

“I’m not, Honey,” I said. That was half true. I wasn’t thinking about killing myself, but I was thinking a lot about my dad and why he did what he did. It was all I could think about the third trimester.

“You’re not your dad, Pete.”

“How do you even know? I mean, I never even had a chance to meet him.”

She took the pictures from my hand and put them up to her nose.

“You’re still here, aren’t you? That’s more than he can say.”

I kissed her and rubbed my hand over her huge belly. She fell back onto the bed.

In that position, it looked like she swallowed a globe.

148 We went to bed early, but I don’t know how much either of us slept.

Then came the labor. It was eight hours long which I’m told is relatively quick.

We waited and when the contractions became too much, Jennifer got her epidural. After that, it was easy. She fell asleep in the hospital bed. I stayed awake next to the machine that monitored the baby’s heartbeat and her contractions. Each time the contraction machine spiked, I looked over at her, but she kept softly snoring in her teal gown.

The contractions sped up and her cervix spread far enough for the baby to make its way into the world. Two nurses and a doctor joined me and Jennifer in the room. One second there were five of us in the room and the next there were six.

I cried when I held Henry for the first time. Jennifer was bawling. After they recorded his vitals and measurements, we invited my mom and grandpa into the room.

My mom’s tears fed Jennifer’s, and they turned to puddles of mush together. Grandpa lit a cigar in the hospital room and had to be escorted out by security. All of it was amazing.

I was glad my dad missed out on this kind of thing.

After two sleep-deprived days, we got to take baby Henry home. That was the first time the whole experience felt real. We drove down Market Street and pointed out the landmarks and fast food restaurants to the baby. Jennifer rode in the back and cradled the car seat the whole way home. He was sleeping by the time we made it to our apartment. We put him in his crib for the first time and hovered over him.

“He has your chin,” I said.

“Oh, please. He looks just like you. Everything about him looks like you.”

149 “He is pretty adorable.” I pulled my eyes away from Henry and looked at

Jennifer. She was silently crying. At first I thought it was out of happiness, but then she let out a giant sob. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. She wiped the tears off of her cheeks. “I know he can’t love us now, but someday he will, right? I mean, someday I’m going to feel him loving me back.”

“Of course. Every little boy loves his mom. Eventually, he will try to kill me and marry you. Remember our psych class?”

She let out a little laugh. We let Henry sleep in his crib. The doctor told us to sleep when the baby slept, so we did. We spooned in bed, and I let exhaustion take over. I woke up to both Henry and Jennifer crying.

I thought it would get better. I googled “post-partum depression” but the general consensus of the internet was that it was hard to tell the difference between it and the general effects of pushing a baby out of the birth canal. I let it slide. For the most part, she was still the same Jennifer. She was different, but so was our situation.

And, it’s always been hard for me to tell if I’m changing or the people around me are changing.

Right before Henry started crawling, I thought things were at their worst. He was crying in his crib, and Jennifer and I were lying in our bed trying to ignore him. Finally, my alarm clock went off and I got up to head into the lab and get some research for my thesis done.

“Can you grab him?” I asked as I brushed my teeth.

Jennifer just moaned and turned over in bed. I finished getting ready.

150 “I have to go. Are you going to grab him, or do you want me to bring him in here?”

She didn’t respond so I sat on the edge of the bed. I put my hand on the blanket’s bulge where her hips were.

“Honey, Henry’s crying.” I shook her legs through the covers.

I peeked at her eyes. They were forced shut. I got off the bed and went to Henry’s room. He was sucking on both of his hands at the same time. He smiled when he saw me.

I picked him up and patted his diapered butt. I dropped him off next to Jennifer in our bed.

“Okay,” I said. “I have to go. You guys going to be alright?”

I poked Jennifer, and she rolled over to look at me.

“Just fucking go already.”

For the past month, Henry slept through the whole night. It felt exhilarating to get eight-straight hours of sleep. At least for me. Jennifer couldn’t sleep. She would wake me up with her tossing and turning. She would shove my pillow out of the way and yank some of the blankets off of me. I would go right back to sleep and hardly remember it in the morning. Not her. Even when she put on makeup, she still looked tired.

“I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay before I left.”

She sat up in bed and glanced at Henry.

“Jesus,” she said. “It smells like burnt popcorn in here. What did you have for breakfast? This whole house stinks. It’s disgusting.”

“I haven’t even eaten anything yet. We can clean tonight.”

151 Henry started crying in bed. He smashed his head back and forth against my pillow.

“He needs his diaper changed,” I said.

“Then do it. I’m exhausted.”

I picked Henry up and walked him over to the diaper pile in the corner of our room. I unbuttoned his onesie and blew on his tummy. He let out a low-pitched giggle.

“I’m going to be late now,” I said. She didn’t answer or even roll over to look at us. “This is something you need to do.”

“Who do you think does it when you are at school?”

“He’s got diaper rash. He needs to be changed right when he pees or poops. And you need to put Desitin on it.”

“He’s fine. Babies wear diapers. They get diaper rash.”

I finished wiping Henry’s little butt and threw a new diaper on him.

“Honey,” I said. “I’m serious.”

“Go. I’d hate to make you late.”

“Get out of bed. Come play with him.”

“I’ll get up when you leave.”

“Okay, I’ll see you guys tonight.”

I walked toward the door, but Jennifer still didn’t move in bed.

“My god,” I said. “It’s your kid. Take an interest in him. Stop being some weak, shriveled up little girl. It’s hard, but we made this choice.”

She ripped the comforter off of her and got off the bed.

“Better?” she asked.

152 “If you’re too tired, take him to my mom’s. She’s got the day off. She wants to help us, so we might as well take advantage of it.”

“Go to school,” she said. “I can raise my own kid.”

I left for the University and tried not to think about it. Sleep deprivation is a crazy thing. It can kill you faster than thirst. It can make you into a different person. If she could just get some sleep, everything would be okay.

But it didn’t get better. Little things I loved about her started to become problems.

Her energy turned from bright to manic. Her cynicism went from dark to depressed. And the paranoia. Her boss at work was out to get her. The other employees were stealing from the patients. Someone was putting sugar packets in her gas. She said she could hear the granules clanking around her engine.

Then one day, I came home to a rancid smelling house. She had taken all the meat from the fridge and freezer and threw it in the trash. I asked her what happened.

“We’re vegans now,” she said.

“What? I love hamburgers.”

“Peter. Animals are being slaughtered so you can have some wasteful beef. The animals’ children are being slaughtered. What would you do if someone killed Henry?”

“They’re animals, not people.”

“Punch a cow in the face and see if it still wants to be your friend.”

“What are you talking about? Why would a cow be friends with me? It’s not like we’re eating dogs.”

153 “See,” she said and pointed at my face, “See what you’re doing. You’re making false distinctions. If you wouldn’t eat a dog, you shouldn’t eat a cow. It’s the same thing.

Humans are animals too.”

“Honey, calm down. What is this really about?”

“It’s about the lives of billions of animals. Animals like us. Why can’t you see that? We need to build a better world for Henry.”

I gave in. I could eat tofu and portabella mushrooms for her. I had one semester of graduate school left and had already wrangled an internship with Shanksy, Inc. Things were so hectic that I didn’t want to push the subject. I thought ignoring the issue would make it go away.

I came home from the lab one day in June when Henry was eighteen months old to find him sitting in a laundry basket by himself. All the lights in the apartment were on, but Jennifer wasn’t there. I freaked out. She had abandoned Henry. I didn’t know how long she was gone. I called her phone over and over again, but she didn’t answer.

Then I got a call from the cops.

I dropped Henry off of at my mom’s house and headed for the police station.

They had Jennifer in custody. I refused to believe them until they let me peek in on her.

She was sedated and strapped to a hospital bed.

This is the part where it stops being my story. Everything else comes from the police report and the man who saved her.

I don’t know what she was thinking or what got in her head and refused to leave, but something broke inside her that day, though she must have been planning it for a while.

154 She left Henry in the house alone. She drove sixteen miles south to the Excel meat processing plant. She got passed the plant’s security and made her way to the grated kill floor.

Then she started screaming. Over and over again until finally a few of the workers noticed the strange girl in the middle of the plant.

They thought she was in trouble or in pain and ran to help her. She pushed them away. When they realized she wasn’t hurt, they called in security to get her out of there.

That’s when she showed them the homemade explosives wrapped around her stomach.

According to the police, there was enough there to put a dent in the Earth.

An alarm was sounded, and the plant was evacuated. Everyone left little Jennifer except for one security guard.

“You don’t want to do this,” the man said.

“Get out,” Jennifer screamed at him. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just need this to stop.” She waved her arms around.

The cattle were stuck in the chutes and moo’ed and bucked at each other. Several red warning lights flashed around the building signaling an evacuation.

“I’m not going to let you hurt yourself,” the man said.

“I’m doing this,” Jennifer said. She ran her finger over the top of the detonator.

“I’ll kill us both if I have to.”

“You don’t seem like the killing kind. You made a mistake, and I’m not going to let you make another one.”

“Leave now.”

155 The man walked up to Jennifer and hugged her. He held her in his arms. She broke down in tears. She fell to the ground. The guard kneeled and pushed her frizzy hair behind her ear.

“It’s over,” he said. “It’s okay.” He put his hand on hers. She looked him in the eyes and loosened her grip on the detonator. As soon as he had a chance, the man ripped it out of her hand and shoved her on her stomach. He put his knee in her back and ziptied her hands together. He yanked her off the ground and hauled her out to the dozen police cars outside of the plant.

It was all over the news. Once the media found out she was a mother, the story took off. Every news station and pundit had an opinion on Jennifer.

I don’t remember the full list of charges that were brought against her. It included attempted murder, possession of an explosive device, trespassing, and hostage-taking. In the end, her lawyer was able to plead down to only a charge of making terroristic threats resulting in the evacuation of an inhabited building, a Class-D felony. She got a guilty by means of insanity deal and was sentenced to three years at the Behavioral Center and release upon recommendation by a state-licensed doctor.

That was almost four years ago. It was the worst part of my life that I remember, and I didn’t even do anything.

The church was glowing in light. I looked down at the tile floor. They were tiny splotches of blood on the ground. As I studied the pattern, I felt a drip slide off the bridge of my nose and fall to the ground.

My nose was bleeding.

156 I used to have this problem when I was little. I would get them all the time. The doctor said it was because I picked my nose, but I never did that. My mom put a humidifier in my room, but it didn’t help. Eventually, the problem went away on its own.

I snorted and tried to force the blood back in my nose. I searched my pockets for a tissue, but didn’t have one. The drips kept coming no matter how much I tried to suck them back in. I grabbed a missal and tore a page from the back index to dab my nose and clot the blood.

I pulled out my phone with my right hand and kept the torn page up to my nose with the left. I had been sitting in the church for three hours. My mom had called and texted me a dozen times.

I heard quiet footsteps and looked up. The man from earlier was gone, but a priest was walking up the center aisle toward me. He had silver hair, black shirt and pants, and a white collar around his neck.

I shoved the missal page in my pocket and stood up.

“Can I help you, sir?” the priest asked. His hands were folded and rested on top of his belly.

“No, sorry, Father.” I brushed past him and walked to the door. Out of habit, I dipped my fingers in the holy water and crossed myself.

“God loves everyone,” Father called to me as I finished the ritual.

Of course he did. That was the job we gave him.

I left the church and went home

157 CHAPTER VI

PETER SEES A LOT OF UNICORNS

It was well past bedtime when I got home. The only light on in the house was the kitchen’s. I opened the door and kicked off my shoes as quiet as I could. The door let out a long squeak when I closed it. I tiptoed up the stairs to check on Henry.

He was sleeping with his mouth open and each arm was wrapped around a stuffed animal. A white wolf and a brown monkey. I kissed him on the forehead and snuck out of his room before he could hear me.

The door to Grandpa’s room was closed, but I could hear him snoring behind it.

Only my room and my mom’s were empty. She must’ve picked up a late night shift. I went down the stairs to get a drink of water, clean off my bloody nose, and make sure all the lights were turned off.

When I got to the kitchen, I could see the door to the basement was open and the lights were on. I could hear my mom rummaging around through the ancient boxes and abandoned plastic tubs.

I went down the steep, unfinished stairs. The place was an absolute mess. I mean, it was always filthy down there. The only person that ever came down here was my mom when she did the laundry. I only went to the basement twice a year: in November to bring up the Christmas tree and January to take it back down.

The wires and pipes were all exposed. Cobwebs gave the whole ceiling a 158 feathered look. Dust sat on every horizontal surface. The whole place smelled damp.

When I was little, I used to pretend there was a giant underground pond in the basement.

I would make fishing rods out of sticks and yarn and sit on the cool cement floor by myself.

A centipede crawled over my bare foot and I jumped. In the back corner by the fireproof filing cabinet, my mom jerked her head around.

“Holy macaroni, Petey. You scared the life out of me.”

I walked over to her and tried to give her a hug.

“Get your big arms off me. I’d ground you right now if I still could.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I lost track of time. I planned on being home for dinner, but it was a rough meeting with Jen.”

My mom slammed the filing cabinet shut.

“Well, you could at least think of your son. What am I supposed to tell him when you don’t come home at night? For all I knew, you had gotten yourself locked up with

Jennifer.”

“Mom, stop it. I apologized.”

“You always were good at saying sorry and making people feel like you meant it.”

I stepped closer to the filing cabinet and brushed some spider web off my face.

“What are you doing down here anyway? Henry need his immunization records or something?”

“Well, I came down here to look for my old sewing machine, but I decided to do some snooping.”

159 I brushed the dust off an old copy of Candyland. Henry was probably too old for it by now.

“Snooping around in your own house? How’s that even possible?”

My mom walked past me to a blue plastic tub. She pulled off the lid and start tearing through Henry’s baby clothes.

“None of this stuff is even mine,” she said. “Sometimes I’m surprised that this is still my house.”

I put the board game down and helped her look through the baby clothes. “You think the sewing machine is in here?”

“There’s too much stuff. It could be anywhere.”

“You’re the one who decided to keep most of this. I don’t need Henry’s baby clothes. Henry doesn’t need them. We should donate them to the church.”

I pulled out a tiny onesie that read I’m cute, my mom’s cute, and my dad’s just lucky. I tossed it back in and closed the tub.

“We can’t give this stuff away. These are our family’s memories. The tuxedo you wore to your first communion is down here somewhere.”

“If I ever become Pope, that’ll fetch a nice price.”

My mom moved a wastebasket full of dryer lint out of her way and kept looking through boxes.

“So, you didn’t come home for dinner. You let your son go to bed without saying goodnight to you. What could Jennifer possibly say to upset you so bad? I’d have thought you two had been through it all by now.”

160 “They’re talking about letting her out. I mean, the doctor said something to me, but I didn’t believe it. Now, Jen’s got it in her head, and you know she won’t let something like that go. She can act as sane as anyone when she wants to.”

My mom flipped open a box and started pulling Halloween decorations out of it.

“Well then, the trick is to just keep her wanting to stay sane, right? It’s not that different than how anyone else gets through life.”

“What are you really doing down here?” I asked.

She shoved an old rainbow clown wig back into the box.

“I already told you. I’m looking for my sewing machine. Unless you want to hand stitch Henry’s whole costume yourself.”

I sat down on a plastic tote whose lid was struggling to stay shut.

“Did you shrink it? Because I’m wondering why you’re looking in boxes and filing cabinets for a giant sewing machine.”

She ignored my question and kept rummaging through boxes labelled

“Ornaments,” “Maps,” and “Gloves, Hats, etc.” She walked right past the box that held her wedding dress.

“Maybe it’s in his storage locker. That would be the way he’d do it.”

I got up from my seat and walked over to my mom. I put my hand on top of the tub she was trying to open.

“Let me help you,” I said. “Just tell me what you’re really looking for.”

She crossed her arms.

“I’m still mad at you.” Neither of us moved. She tugged on the lid but I kept my hand planted on top.

161 “Have you figured out the hardest part about being a parent yet?” she asked me.

I rubbed my chin with my free hand. I could think of a dozen answers. It was hard to love someone more than yourself. It was hard to punish someone you loved. It was hard to be responsible for the life of another human being. All of those were hard, but I knew they weren’t the hardest.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s not something you can be told. You have to live it. I hope you never have to find out. Now, get out of my way. Either find the sewing machine for me or go to bed.

You have to work in five hours.”

“Have you ever been to Grandpa’s storage locker?”

“Your grandpa has a lot of secrets. It’s hard to keep track of them all.”

I pointed to a spider crawling up a support pillar. My mom turned and then squashed it to death with her hand.

“Were you looking for a birth certificate? Is that why you were in the filing cabinet?”

My mom laughed.

“Oh, Petey. I’m too old to care about whether his real name is Woodrow or

Gunter. You grew up with him and his stories. I didn’t.”

“You know, don’t you? I promised him I wouldn’t say anything.”

“Unlike the rest of this family, I don’t keep secrets. I had a hunch something was wrong. Do you know he took the bus to the doctor the other day?”

My mom stopped searching random boxes and started pacing.

162 “It’s bad,” she said. “Isn’t it? I was trying to find his insurance card so I could look him up in the database at work. Just tell me, no more secrets.”

I walked over to my mom and hugged her. This time she let me. I pulled back and put my hands on her shoulders.

“Sometimes I forget he’s your father-in-law and not your dad.”

“Petey, he’s the only other person on this planet who knows what I’ve been through. He’s old, I know, but I love him more than I ever loved my father. We all have to die, but I feel a lot better if I know when it’s coming.”

“Grandpa’s not dying, Mom. He just has skin cancer. A mole or something. They lop it off and he goes back to shouting at the computer screen and trolling teenagers on

Reddit.”

Tears rolled down my mom’s cheeks. She sat down on the cold cement floor and sobbed into the crook of her elbow. I got down on the ground with her.

“It’s going to be okay. Grandpa’s the toughest, strongest person I’ve ever met. He doesn’t even use shaving cream. He just splashes water on his face and gets to work with the razor.”

I pulled her hand away from her face and she squeezed it.

“You don’t understand. Nothing’s that simple at his age. Anesthesia becomes a touch and go kind of thing. Blood loss can happen rapidly. One problem can cascade into a dozen others. There’s no such thing as simple for someone like him.”

I couldn’t argue with her. This was her area of expertise. Jennifer would have said the same thing. But I knew it would be different. Cancer couldn’t kill my grandpa. It would take a dozen trolls and a headless horseman to rein him in.

163 “I’ll find the sewing machine,” I said. “I promise.” I kissed her on the cheek and shuffled between Henry’s old high chair and some Christmas wrapping paper.

“Did he ever decide which saint he’s going to be?” I asked.

“He told me some name that sounded made up. Said it was the saint of magic. I think you need to direct him toward something a little more real.”

I pushed aside some old wall paper and pulled out a box with “crafts” written on the top. I pulled it open and picked through pipe cleaners, construction papers, and an unpainted, store bought bird house.

“I say we let him do whatever he wants. Remember when I wanted my confirmation name to be Wenceslaus and you made me pick Frances Xavier?”

I wanted to pick St. Wenceslaus because he reminded me of Christmas, but my mom thought the name sounded ugly, as if Frances Xavier rolled off the tongue.

“Do you know what he asked me before bed tonight?”

The craft box didn’t contain anything beyond what you could find in a preschool room. I shut the lid and kept looking. My mom kept talking.

“He was lying in bed with his stuffed animals all around him and I could tell he was working something out in his head. So I asked him what he was thinking about.”

Three tubs sat on top of each other. I knew the top two were the Christmas tree and decorations, but I never bothered to check what was in the third one before.

“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘What happens when you die?’.”

I set the top two totes on the ground and looked over at my mom. She was still sitting on the ground but wasn’t crying anymore.

“What did you tell him?”

164 “What do you think? I told him we all go to heaven and he can have all the candy he wants there and never has to go to school.”

“Fuck, Mom.”

She stood and stomped over to me.

“Peter Alexander Frances Xavier Marchen, do not speak like that to your mother.

In fact, don’t ever talk like that. What was I supposed to say?”

I looked down at the ground. There was a large rust spot from where a pipe had leaked.

“Tell him the truth. Tell him you don’t know.”

“I did tell him the truth. If you think for a second that little angel isn’t making it to heaven, then I raised you wrong.”

“It’s not that, Mom. He’s a kid. He needs to think about these kinds of things.

You can’t just give him easy answers.”

“Hasn’t his life been hard enough already? Doesn’t he deserve some easy answers every now and then? I mean, he lives with his grandma and great grandpa. His dad is stressed and exhausted from work. His mom is in a mental institution. What harm can there be in telling him he’s going to paradise?”

I ignored her question and pulled open the tub. The sewing machine rested inside with a couple dozen spools of thread and a pin cushion.

“Told you I’d find it,” I said.

“You’ve always kept your promises, Petey. I’ll give you that much.”

She leaned in and gave me half a hug.

165 “Now, go to bed. You’re going to be even more exhausted tomorrow if you don’t get some sleep.”

I carried the sewing machine up the stairs for her and then went to brush my teeth.

I made sure my alarm was set and curled up alone in my queen sized bed.

I wanted to figure out a way to bring up the dying conversation with Henry again.

I needed to let him know that it was okay to think about those kinds of things. That it was good to question what we know and what we can never know, but I didn’t want to traumatize the kid. He had a good heart, a great heart, but he was so damn sensitive. He sponged around his life picking up every tidbit of knowledge but also every feeling and emotion the world put out.

I fell asleep thinking about my father’s funeral. I’d never even asked my mom what it was like.

I woke up six hours later. The entire house was shaking. I could see waves rippling through the walls. I bolted out of bed and ran for Henry’s room.

He was sitting up in bed rubbing his eyes. The shaking didn’t stop. His books rattled off the shelf. The pictures he drew and my mom framed fell off the wall and the glass cracked. In the other room, I could hear my alarm going off. I had slept right through it.

I held Henry in my arms until the earthquake stopped.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Are their giants outside?” he asked.

I looked down at him. He was crying, but that was pretty ordinary for him.

166 “No, that was an earthquake. Totally natural. Just like when your tummy rumbles when you’re really hungry. Are you okay?”

“That’s what an earthquake feels like? In the movies there’s always more explosions.”

My mom started screaming from her room. I picked up Henry and dashed across the hallway.

“Peter, oh thank the Lord you’re alright. Look.” She pointed to the far corner of her room. “How bad is it?” The dry wall had a crack in it up the side to the ceiling, which also had a nice split right toward where her fan hung.

“We need to get out of here. Structure might be damaged.”

We went and grabbed Grandpa from his bed. He was laughing.

“Takes me back,” he said as he worked his feet into slippers. “Now that’s something for the news to report on.”

My mom grabbed a box of granola bars from the kitchen, and we went outside.

Every other person in the neighborhood was out even though the sun was barely risen. I was late for work. Grandpa promised he would give someone a call and have them look at the house. My mom was already on hold with the insurance company. I ran back inside, turned off the gas, grabbed some jeans, and went back out.

I bent down to Henry’s eye-level.

“You still okay?”

“Yeah, Dad. Nothing even happened. I was like jello for three seconds and then it was nothing.”

167 “Good. I love you. Grandma will call school to see what they’re doing. Maybe we can get a hotel room tonight. Swimming pool and everything. The ground might shake again soon, but that’s normal.”

“If I don’t have to go to school, why do you have to go to work?” Henry asked.

It was a good question. I didn’t want to go. I was already late, but if I had been on time, I would’ve been at the site when the quake hit. They wouldn’t put the drills in the mud without me there to supervise, so the equipment was probably still good. Still, there had to be plenty of fallout.

“Don’t worry, Bud. Grandma and Grandpa will be here. They’ll take care of you.”

I kissed him on the forehead and made my way to the car. I got in and started it up. Henry came over to the window, and I rolled it down.

“I’m not worried for me,” he said. Then he turned and walked back to my mom.

I shook my head, rolled the window up, and backed the car out of the driveway.

I glanced down at my phone. I had a couple of new emails and several missed calls. I rolled out onto the street and checked for traffic. As I pulled up to the stop sign at the end of the block, I saw the missed calls were all from Sean. The first two were from a little after five, probably wondering where the hell I was. The last one came two minutes ago. I’d be at the site soon enough.

Driving through the city toward the interstate, I saw the damage the quake did. It wasn’t just a crack across the wall in my mom’s room. Tree and power lines were down.

Most of the traffic lights weren’t working and the ones that were blinked red lights over and over again. It was getting to be rush hour, but traffic was light. If it were up to me, I would’ve stayed home with Henry.

168 As I turned to get on the interstate, three ambulances whizzed past me on the shoulder. It was stupid to be out driving around when aftershocks were inevitable, but the trip to work was flat with no bridges. The worst that could happen was I had to pull over.

At least in the car, I didn’t feel the tiny rumbles that followed the big one. The drive was easy. Away from the city, nothing seemed to even notice my whole world shook for a few scary seconds.

When I got to the site, the first thing out of the ordinary was a black Shanksy company car parked outside the tent. It was sitting about ten feet from the entrance. I parked my car further away and jogged up to the tent. Before I could go in, I saw the mudloggers and Sean in a huddle about a quarter mile away. I fought the temptation to peek inside and see if the equipment was okay and went to see why they were standing around.

“You picked a hell of a day to be late to work,” Sean said as soon as he saw me.

“Tell me about it,” I said. “What’s the damage? And what’s Shanksy doing here?”

None of the other men had turned around. They stood in a semicircle like it was some kind of army formation.

“I tried calling you,” Sean said. “First when you were late and then when we saw it. I didn’t know if you’d be scared or thrilled.”

Shit. It had to be a drill. The bits were diamond tipped and cost three or four times my salary. They had busted one and since I was in charge, I was going to be the one to blame.

“So, you called Shanksy in?”

169 “I did, but they got here before I even hung up the phone. Must’ve known something like this was coming.”

“Just one bit we lost?” I asked.

“What are you talking about? Didn’t you get my message? Jesus Christ, Pete. You gotta see it for yourself.”

He turned around and waved for me to follow him. One of the loggers saw me, and then they all opened up. They were standing at the edge of a depression. Some earth must’ve shifted during the quake. No wonder they were all worked up. If the ground could shift, it meant using this site for waste water disposal was out of the question.

“I don’t even know how something like this could happen,” Sean said, “but my background’s in engineering, not geology. It’s making me want to go back to church.”

I caught my breath and stepped up to the lip of the depression. Except it wasn’t a depression. It was a giant fucking hole in the ground. I looked across. It was about twenty feet in diameter. A near perfect circle.

“This a joke?” I asked Sean. If it was, the guys had pretty poor timing. The earthquake was real. It was going to cause a million beautiful headaches in the Shanksy boardroom. The last thing we needed was for corporate to come out here and see us not taking things seriously.

“I couldn’t have done this if I tried,” Sean said. He had his hands in his pockets.

He had done the right thing in calling Shanksy when I didn’t show up or answer my phone, but I could tell he felt bad about it.

“So what is it? A freak sinkhole or what?”

“You’re the boss,” Eddie said. “We were waiting for you.”

170 “Well,” I said. I didn’t know how to follow it up. My mind was scattered. I needed to formulate a plan for getting through the day and dealing with any possible fallout from the earthquake. Aftershocks, broken pipes, shifted ground. We needed to reassess the whole site now. Everything had changed.

“No need digging new holes if we already got one this big. My bet is we have a lot of limestone beneath us here. Maybe throughout other parts of the field, but this must be ground zero.”

I tried to lead my men, but I couldn’t stop thinking of Henry. He hid it well, but there was no way a natural disaster couldn’t shake him. He was already so fragile.

“Alright,” Sean said. He clapped his hands. “I’ll look over the logs. See what we might’ve missed. Eddie, get some guys together with the ultrasound equipment. Get me some vitals on this hole. Everyone else, set up a safety perimeter here. Tread lightly. If you see anyone in a suit, pretend like you’re working.” He turned to me. “Sound good?”

I nodded. Sean was probably going to take my job from me someday. I was okay with it.

“You better go see what Shanksy wants, Peter.”

“Right,” I said. “Come with me.”

All the men scattered in different directions. The excitement was over. They lived through the region’s biggest earthquake since recorded time. They all had a story to tell their kids now.

“You okay?” Sean asked.

“Sure. Overslept is all. Still waking up. Thanks for handling that.”

“No problem. Now tell me what you think happened.”

171 I looked at Sean. He kept his head level even as we powerwalked to the tent.

“Sinkhole brought on by the quake. Not uncommon. Means the sites a bust and we all get another few weeks of paychecks.”

Sean stopped walking.

“I grew up in Florida. I’ve seen sinkholes. That’s not what happens. That was some sci-fi shit back there. It’s like Moleman drilled down there or something. Too perfect to be natural.”

I didn’t slow down for Sean.

“Gather all the logs and the spectroscopies. I want to know what you see. Look for calcium and carbon. Also, get me the readouts for clay composition here and at any other Shanksy wastewater sites. We thought we were fine here, and then this happened.

Any other site we dug up could be the same.”

“But did you see the hole? It was a circle. When have you ever seen something natural like that?”

I stopped outside of the tent and waited for him to catch up. My job paid well, gave me time to be home with Henry after school, and let me use my degree. But it was taking over my life. I wanted something where I could just put numbers into forms and forget about it as soon as I went home.

“Nature hates straight lines. Circles are normal. Equal pressure on every point.

Stop overthinking this, Sean.”

I pulled open the tent’s flap. Inside, a short man in a grey suit and red tie was standing over a computer. He didn’t hear me come in and shifted over to the next work

172 station. I watched him. He would type a few things on a computer and scratch his ass.

Then he’d move on to the next one. Finally, I coughed to catch his attention.

“Peter Marchen?” the man asked. He had black hair and thin, brown eyes. I walked over and shook his hand.

“And who might you be?”

“Dun Gansu, assistant to the COO. Please, sit down and do not touch anything.”

Sean waltzed in behind me and sat down at a computer to start pulling up the old logs.

“Did you not hear what I requested?” Dun said.

Sean put his hands up in the air and scooted his chair away from the station.

I expected to have to deal with plenty of paperwork and consultation meetings after the quake, but I couldn’t figure out why the guy was here. If Sean’s account was true, Shanksy had already been on the way when the quake hit. Dun seemed like the kind of guy who didn’t ask questions.

“So, Dun, what is Shanksy saying about the quake?” I asked. He stayed focused on the computers and methodically moved through them and returned in the same order.

“This site has been compromised and is officially non-operational.”

That made sense. Whatever the reason he came out here, he knew how to handle what happened. Still, I wanted to pick his brain.

“I agree,” I said. “But I think the problem is bigger than just this site.” Dun swung around to look at me. “I mean, if it happened here, there are plenty of other digs we worked at too.”

“Please tell your friend to leave,” Dun said.

173 Sean got up and left the tent without me having to ask.

“It’s a sinkhole,” I said. “It’s nothing to lose our heads over. We couldn’t have predicted this, but if other sites have similar set ups, they may be just as vulnerable. We need to start running through the old data.”

“Perhaps you misunderstood me. We believe there is an informational leak at this site and have decided to burn our assets in the area. You, of course, will be retained.”

I studied Dun’s face and could tell he was doing the same to me.

“You mean corporate espionage or something like that?”

Dun pulled out a chair and sat down across from me.

“Yes, quite.”

“That’s impossible. The only one with root access is me. These things are all on a

LAN connection anyway. If anything, I should be the one under suspicion and the rest of the guys here should still be working.”

“Are you attempting to indict yourself?”

I sat up in my chair. This guy meant business. He hadn’t broken eye contact since he sat down.

“Not at all,” I said. “But I happen to like some of these guys, and I know they get the job done whenever we ask them to do it. You can’t just firebomb this place and let them all go.”

“We already have.”

“That’s not how their contracts work. You can’t just come in here when we’re in chaos and tell everyone they’re done.”

“You talk like a lawyer. I was told you were our head engineer here.”

174 “It’s not fair, is what I’m saying.”

I’d been suckered into a handful of leadership retreats and exercises by Shanksy in the past. Not as bad as doing trust falls and joining drum circles, just the regular shit about leading by example and holding yourself accountable. But Shanksy never really outlined the hierarchy and chain of command. I mean, I knew I was in charge, but I don’t think I had the power to fire anyone. That’s what I was really worried about: looking

Sean and the rest of the guys in the eye and telling them their paychecks had run out.

“I do not make those decisions,” Dun said, “and those decisions have already been made.”

“Then why keep me? I’m the one in charge here. If something went wrong, it was my fault. Besides, there is more going on here than just company secrets. If you didn’t notice, there was a giant earthquake an hour ago. We got a real problem in the field.”

Dun stood but left his chair in the middle of the tent.

“We have reason to believe you are above suspicion in this manner. Additionally, we have always been pleased with the thoroughness of your work. A new opportunity has emerged. Shanksy is conducting a meeting in Columbus in six days, and your presence is required.”

“And what if I don’t want to work for a company that keeps looking the other way and fires my whole team on a little bit of suspicion?”

Dun stepped in so that he was inches away from me. He looked down at me.

“Then I suspect your son will grow very hungry.”

I about lost it. Dun was a foot away from my face. His breath smelled like coffee and cigarettes. His teeth were yellow, and I wanted to make my knuckles bleed on them.

175 No one fucking threatened me or my son like that. I bolted up from my chair and caught his chin on the top of my head. I heard his jaw snap shut and hoped his tongue was between his teeth.

“Oh my god,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m weird about personal space. Didn’t mean to get you. You okay?”

Before Dun could answer, a vehicle pulled up to the tent and a pair of car doors slammed shut. Maybe some more Shanksy execs or even the cops. We both turned and left the tent.

Outside, the world had kept on going. A Channel 4 News van with a satellite spinning on top was idling next to the tent. A lady and a cameraman were already trudging their way through the field. I ran after them. I wanted to leave Dun behind, but he was faster than me. He sprinted in front of the pair and put his hands in front of them to stop the cameraman.

“You are on private property and must immediately leave.” Dun pulled out his phone and dialed. “The police will arrive shortly.”

The lady started talking, but Dun turned his back to them and spoke with the dispatch on the phone. The guy meant business.

I caught up to them and stood next to Dun. Whatever happened in the tent didn’t matter now. Dun and I were on the same team. The last thing we needed, that my job and livelihood needed, were a bunch of reporters stomping around our site.

“You need to leave,” I told them. “Now.”

“Sir,” the lady said, “We were expressly invited to come here.”

176 “I doubt that.” I looked around the field for Sean, but couldn’t make out any individual faces. I was staring into the sun, and all the mudloggers looked the same. Dun was hunched over and whispering into this phone. I started to doubt that the cops had been called at all. A threat was usually good enough, I supposed.

“Edward Kemp called the station and invited us here.”

Jesus Christ. Fucking Eddie. Not only did he tell the press about the hole, but he attached his name to the story as well. If he knew what I knew—that he was officially out of a job—it would’ve made sense, but he didn’t. He was just chasing whatever tiny chance of glory he could get his paws on.

“He doesn’t have the authority to make those kind of decisions.

“Well,” the lady said. She glanced at Dun on the phone and the loggers backing a

Bobcat up to the tent. “Until we see a badge or you throw us over your shoulder and carry us out, we’re going to take Mr. Kemp up on his invitation.” She whirled her fingers around for the cameraman to start recording.

I should’ve stopped them. I should’ve grabbed the camera from the man’s shoulder and tossed it into the pit. I could’ve ran in front of them, waved my arms, and swore until they finally cut, but I didn’t. This wasn’t ever in my job description. Shanksy dug themselves into this mess, and it wasn’t my responsibility to get them out.

It felt good to be so passive. To just watch instead of plan and plot.

The reporter and her cameraman made their way to the edge of the hole and pointed the camera downwards. She pulled a wad of gum from her mouth and let it slide off her palm into the pit. The cameraman tracked the wad for a split second before it disappeared in the darkness.

177 Dun shoved his phone into the inside breast pocket of his suit. “Stop them,” he said.

I held my hand out in front of me like a butler. “After you,” I said.

I followed Dun as he stomped up to the cameraman. He put his hand on the man’s back, but the camera kept rolling. Dun stepped around the man a mere foot away from the lip of the hole and put his hands up to block the camera.

For a second, I saw how it could all play out in my head. The cameraman would jerk the camera back and push his body forward into Dun. Dun would teeter at the rim of the hole and wave his arms like a little kid trying to fly when he thought no one was watching. And then, Dun would disappear into the hole. Life would go on for the rest of us. Sean and the rest of the mudloggers would never know they had been fired. Hell, even

Eddie could stick around. After all, it was Eddie’s misguided phone call that caused it all to happen. Or maybe that was too short-sighted. The hole and the quake weren’t Eddie’s fault.

But it didn’t matter. Dun was more agile and calculating than I gave him credit for.

The cameraman brushed Dun away and stepped to the side to keep the reporter in the shot. In one swift move, Dun ducked below the camera’s field of vision, held his hands above his head, popped up, and ripped the camera from the man’s shoulder.

“The fuck?” the man said. He was probably used to idiot pedestrians wanting to wave to their moms back at home, but I doubt anyone had ever taken his tool of the trade right from his hands.

178 “You’ve been asked to leave,” Dun said. “The police will be here shortly. Your voices and faces have been recorded and you will be prosecuted.” He held the camera with one hand above the depths of the hole.

“That’s private property too, bub,” the cameraman said. He inched his feet a bit closer to Dun and the hole. “You break that and the cops will be talking to us both.”

“You fail to understand,” Dun said, “This land and everything on it or below it is owned by Shanksy International.” He let the camera slip from his hand. The man dashed a step or two toward the pit but knew better than to risk his life for his camera. I watched it fall from Dun’s hand, hit the side of the pit a few feet in, and then disappear in the abyss to join up with the reporter’s gum.

“Little fucking twat,” the man said. He stepped toward Dun. The reporter backed away from the side of the hole. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know whose side I was on, but I wasn’t going to let Dun get killed over something like this.

“Both of you,” I said. “Stop.”

They ignored me. The man had his hands at his side and was rhythmically clenching and unclenching his fist. Dun stood with his hands clasped in front of his black business suit.

There were no fantasies this time. No movies playing out in my head. I could see

Dun’s move if he had to make it. He could side step the man and matador him into the hole if he had to.

I heard heavy breathing and turned my head. Sean was now standing next to me.

Like everything else, this had gone too far too quickly. Nothing like a natural disaster to get people acting like maniacs. Maybe James was on to something. The earth

179 shook that morning, and we were all still vibrating from it. It was ringing around our skulls like a fly buzzing at a window. Unable to escape and break free. Seeing the destination but having no idea of how to get there. All that clear glass showing promise but no means to a reward. And then the hole in the ground. Its pi-perfect proportions. It’s seemingly endless depths. And Sean, still standing next to me, still unaware that life was about to get much harder for him.

Then I heard the sirens.

We all stopped what we were doing. Dun spat on the ground. The cops rolled up through the bumpy field next to us. The man pulled out his cellphone, pointed it at the hole, and gave a worried look to the reporter. Dun strode past us and started speaking to the cops and pointing at the news team.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Sean. “The last thing I want to do is deal with all this shit.”

“But we still got a ton of work to do,” he said.

I looked around the site. The drills had been ferried back near the tent and the loggers were scattered around the field.

“This is Dun’s mess now. He can clean it up.”

Sean kicked at the wet ground. “That’s fine for you. You’re salaried. I’m hourly. I need this. Tuition ain’t cheap.”

“Is that offer for drinks still good?” I asked.

“Sure. After we’re done here.”

I stared at Sean and it was like looking at Henry on the rare occasion I got to put him to bed. He had so much fire in his eyes. He had energy to burn. The cells in his body

180 were methodically producing it, but the world or me or some combination of both would have to deny it.

I explained the situation to Sean the same way Dun had to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder. Sean was like the little brother I’d forever been denied.

“Fuck,” he said and tilted his head back to stare at the sky. He put his hand to his head and started rubbing his temples. When the earth shakes, the world falls apart.

“Drinks are on me,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”

Dun was still shouting at the cops and pointing every other second or so at the news team.

I walked with Sean in silence to our cars. I had a week’s worth of Shanksy office work ahead of me. There would be plenty of time to file reports and answer questions.

“Go home,” Sean shouted to the other loggers as we passed the tent.

They all look confused but relieved.

“Nice knowing ya, Eddie,” I said and got in my car.

I followed Sean out of the field parking lot and off to the main strip in the nearby town. It was still early, but the bars were open. Sean headed into a place called Tam O’

Shanters and sat at the bar. I hopped up on to the stool next to him and gave a weak wave to the bartender. He nodded at us but didn’t come over. A second later, I heard a cough behind us.

“What can I get you gentlemen?” a woman said. I turned around to look at our waitress.

181 She was young. Dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and a distinguishing crook in her nose that was only noticeable in profile. She looked out of place next to all the shamrocks and orange, white, and green decking the walls.

I tried to spit out an answer, but I needed to clear my throat. “Menus,” I said. It came out like a pubescent boy with a hitch between the first and second syllable.

“Two Guinness’s and two shots of Jameson, too,” Sean said. He turned to me.

“I’m going to run up your tab, but I think I deserve it.”

The waitress looked at me for confirmation and I nodded. She walked away, and for the first time in a long time, I realized I hadn’t had sex since Jennifer. It didn’t really matter. I was getting good at self-sacrifice.

“Get your mind outta the gutter,” Sean said.

I turned back around and put my hands up on the bar. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I looked around at the bar. It was narrow with only high-top seating and booths on the opposite wall. In the back by the restrooms was a pool table and a jukebox.

The bartender dropped off our drinks without saying a word to us.

“So,” Sean said and knocked back his shot. “That’s really the end of it then?”

“Sounds like it.” The flat screen hanging above the bar was flashing up the weather.

“What are we going to do?”

I should have been more prudent when I told Sean Shanksy was letting everyone go. He thought I was out of a job too.

“I’m being retained. At least according to Dun.”

182 “Fuck him, and fuck Shanksy too.”

I took a sip of my beer and wiped the foam off my lips.

“I could try to get you hired on at the next dig. I’ll vouch for you. They’ll listen to me.”

“And what then? Wait around until I get fired by some suit again? You got a certain amount of job security. Meanwhile, people like me who are trying to get through school sign dinky little contracts that say we can be fired at any time for any reason.” He flipped his shot glass over and pushed it away. “Jesus, Peter. I’m sorry. Haven’t even finished my first beer and I’m already getting mopey and philosophical.”

I hardly would’ve called his venting philosophy, but I got where he was coming from. I spent a lot of time when Jennifer was pregnant and Henry was first born worrying that way. I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted to do what a father was supposed to do.

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Mope all you want.”

The waitress came up and placed our menus on the bar.

“Can I get another Jameson, Honey,” Sean asked.

“Jesus, don’t call her that. She’s wearing a nametag.” I looked over at the waitress. She blushed a bit. Her name was Stephani.

“I didn’t mean anything by that.” Sean turned away from the bar to look at the waitress. “I’m spoken for, Stephani, but my friend here, while I don’t know the state of his love life.”

I butted in. “We need a minute to look over the menu,” I said.

She did a quick raise of her eyebrows. “Take your time,” she said and left us.

183 We turned back around to watch the silent weather forecast.

“You know,” Sean said in between sips of beer. “I only said that so you could swoop in and save her.”

“I’ve tried saving women before. It’s not really my thing.”

“Either way, now I look like a dick and you look like a saint.”

The bartender dropped off Sean’s shot.

“She’s young,” I said. “Like, illegal young.”

“Gotta be eighteen to serve alcohol.” He held up his shot glass and motioned towards mine. I picked it up and clinked it against his. “To life, and all the stupid surprises it has up its sleeves.”

“I can get on board with that toast.” I threw back the whiskey. It had been years since I last had a shot. It was just as awful as I remembered.

“Look at it this way,” Sean said and then shook his whole head in response to the fire in his throat. “Now you got an in with the sexy waitress if you want it. Nobody’s going to force anything on you.”

“And what do I say to her? ‘Want to come home with me to my mom’s house. We have to be quiet because my son and grandpa are in the other room?’”

“How is the boy?” Sean asked. I was happy to talk about Henry instead of my future prospects.

“He’s great. Already reading chapter books even though he’s still in kindergarten.

He’s way more focused and dedicated than I ever was. His teacher said he’s the most responsible student in class. No one would’ve ever confused me for a responsible kid.”

Sean had finished his beer and was spinning the glass around on the table.

184 “Must’ve had it in ya, though. Some things just take time to rise to the surface.”

“I guess,” I said. “But if I had the choice between being responsible and being irresponsible, I’d choose irresponsible every time.”

“Life doesn’t give us choices though, does it? I mean, one minute you think you have a steady job, a career path with a real future, and a handful of classes left to take and pay for. Then, all this latent energy underneath it all boils up to the surface and just completely wrecks it. Leaves you staring at the sun where there used to be a moon. My dad always said, ‘There are only two things to life: eating and fucking. And when you can’t do one, find the other.’”

I picked up the menu. It was one flimsy page printed on resume stock paper.

“I’ve heard of worse ways to get through life.”

“My mom divorced him when I was in high school. He died of diabetes a month after I graduated.”

“At least you had a dad,” I said and set the menu down. I already regretted saying it. If there was one thing my mom and grandpa had taught me, it was to never feel sorry for myself.

“Maybe it was a blessing.” Sean stopped twirling his glass around and went to work tearing up his coaster into tiny pieces. “I don’t think there’s anything worse in this world than a shitty dad. Or, at least, no one can fuck you up more than a bad dad. When I get to heaven, I expect to see all the world’s moms and maybe a dad or two. They can really fuck you up.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Shit, I’m just digging myself in a hole.” He smiled at me. “A bottomless pit.”

185 “You heard my opinion on it. What’s yours?”

“On the hole in the field? The hell if I know. Could be like you said, but I’ve never seen or read anything like that. Maybe it was a logging hole that just happened to cave in. Could be the start of the end of the world. I’ll tell you what, it freaked me out. As pissed as I am about not having a job, I’m more upset about not getting a chance to study it.”

I picked up the menu again and then set it right back down because I’d already read the whole thing twice.

“You remember James?” I asked.

“Hard to forget your old boss when he gets arrested right in front of you.”

I nodded.

“Ever think he was right?”

Sean set his beer down and looked at me wide-eyed. “Don’t tell me you’re picking up on that crap? I don’t want to call him crazy and dismiss him, that’s not fair to you and what you had to go through, but still. He’s fucking crazy.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m alright in the head. I’m not saying I’m going to go set myself on fire, but I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what he said. You’re still a young, idealistic, college student. Don’t you ever feel like what we do, or did, at

Shanksy is wrong?”

“That’s a slippery slope to go down. I mean, you could say eating beef is a lot worse because it takes up tons of water and releases plenty of methane. Sure, Shanksy isn’t planting trees or making love to earthworms, but it isn’t evil. Think of all the ways

Shanksy benefits people. You have to weigh the pros and the cons.”

186 Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the waitress walk toward us.

“So what are the pros and the cons, because I don’t even know anymore? We provide cheap natural gas. We help low income households keep warm in the winter, but we also find a spot out of the way and fill it up with as much toxic, carcinogenic sludge as we can. Those wastewater sites, nothing can grow or live there for hundreds of years.

God forbid the containment leaks, and all current indications point to some serious, earth- shifting leaking happening.”

“Do you realize how big the Earth is? Do you know how many billions of gallons of wastewater we could toss down the earth and never notice it was missing?”

“That scares me more than it reassures me.”

The waitress, Stephani, politely sidled up to our seats. I couldn’t stop looking at her eyelashes. They were long. Like something out of a cartoon.

“Do you guys know what you want to eat?”

I ordered a reuben and fries. Sean got corned beef and cabbage. She took our menus and sauntered off to the kitchen.

“Just admit it,” Sean said. “You got a thing for the waitress.”

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the swinging door to the kitchen had shut.

“Sure, she’s beautiful. That’s all I know. I’m not in any position to do anything else.”

I had finished my beer by this point. With the shot included, it was the most I’d drank since I finished grad school. I could feel the booze sloshing around in my gut.

187 “Well what is your situation then? You’re not my boss anymore, so I can ask you whatever the fuck I want.”

“I’m going to need another beer if we’re going to get into all of that.”

I waved the bartender over and ordered myself a Miller Lite and Sean another

Guinness.

“I don’t know what you all know, so you’ll have to stop me if you’ve already heard some of it.”

“Only know what the news said. Her name’s Jen, right?”

I nodded. “Jennifer. We met at a party in college. A couple of months later, we found out she was pregnant.”

I told Sean the story that ran through my head from start to finish every single day. He nodded but never interrupted me. I caught him all the way up to the actual incident.

“Wait,” Sean said and held his hand up. “She just left your kid at home all by himself? That’s child endangerment. You can go to jail just for that. How come that was never on the news?”

“It wasn’t her, though. I mean, she did it. It was her fault. But the woman I talked to at the police station. That wasn’t her. It’s,” I started but fumbled for the words. “She didn’t do that to Henry. Her illness did. And she was already being punished enough for her delusions.”

The waitress popped up out of nowhere and dropped off our food.

“Not happy drunks, I see,” she said.

“We thought you left us for good is all,” Sean said.

188 “I’m here ‘til close. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

She had a mole on her right cheek I hadn’t noticed before. Sort of made her look like a movie star. She walked away and left us to eat. She had a perfect sense of timing.

She might’ve looked eighteen, but it seemed like she had worked in food service for a long time.

Sean put a whole slab of corned beef on his fork and started tearing it apart with his teeth.

“So what’s the situation like now? You still engaged? Conjugal visits? She crazy or sane?”

“I don’t know,” I said and put a big bite of reuben in my mouth.

“On which account?”

“Well,” I said and swallowed. “There’s no conjugal visits allowed.”

“And is she getting better, getting the help she needs?”

“Her doctor wants to let her out, but I’m not so sure. Some weeks she’s depressed, sometimes she’s manic, and the rest, she’s just Jennifer.”

“Well, hell. That’s good news.”

I turned to look Sean in the eye. “Is it? It should be, but I just can’t get myself to feel that way.”

“Don’t love her anymore, or can’t get yourself to forgive her?”

I turned back toward the bar and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was a mess from not showering in the morning and running my hands through it all afternoon. I looked tired and far away.

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

189 Sean tossed the last bit of cabbage into his mouth and stood up. He shrugged his shoulders. “Love lasts forever. Forgiveness just takes time.” He looked around the restaurant. “I gotta go pee, then let’s shoot some pool. Finish your beer and meet me in the back.”

Sean walked off to the men’s room, and I pushed my plate away. I took my bottle of beer and headed to the back. I had the balls racked and the cues chalked by the time he got done peeing.

Sean broke and somehow managed to get the eight ball in off the bat. He flashed me a goofy smile.

“Beginner’s luck,” he said and reracked the balls.

I broke next and the balls barely moved on the felt. I hadn’t been one of those kids who grew up in a bar playing pool and stealing warm, leftover drinks off the table. My mom would’ve been ashamed of bringing a kid into a bar. In a lot of ways, she felt more like an ideal than an actual mom. She was always there when I needed her, even when I was an adult. She always did all the chores, all the cooking, and never complained. She was perfect, and it sort of wrecked me when it came to being an adult. I didn’t know how to do anything. What was worse was it took me a long time to realize that wasn’t normal.

Even now, I couldn’t see my mom as anything but a mom. She wasn’t a widow or a nurse or a woman. She was just my mom.

Sean managed a shot that put his ball in the hole and knocked mine away from it.

“You got all the geometry of pool down,” he said, “you just need a little more control. Don’t overthink it.”

“Good advice,” I said.

190 Sean kept ordering more rounds. He was a couple of beers ahead of me, and I couldn’t keep up. I could barely stand. I didn’t want to see what my tab was, but it’s not like I spent my money on anything anyways.

“Can I get something off my chest?” Sean asked in between games.

“You want to punch Dun and Eddie and Shanksy right in the fucking mouth?”

He laughed a little but shook his head.

“I told you my dad was a piece of shit, and most guys my age either got their heads in the clouds or up their asses. But I feel like you can help me out here.”

“Go for it,” I said. I was leaning up against a booth and looking around for the waitress. It was getting dark outside and the bar had a couple more people in it now, so she was too busy to stand around and wait on us hand and foot.

“My girlfriend, we’ve been together for a couple of years now. Best thing about my life. Love her to death, but we’re not ready to take the plunge and get married. Both of us.”

“Better to wait than rush into something you’re not sure of.”

“Hold on,” Sean said and hiccupped. “It gets better. Last week, she corners me at my apartment and tells me she’s pregnant.”

I looked over at Sean and tried to read his face. I didn’t think he was trying to pull one over on me, but I knew how these things work.

“Congratulations,” I said. ‘That’s great.”

“I know, right? She tells me, and I’m jumping up and down. I’m excited, but she’s just standing there with her arms crossed staring at me. We usually use condoms, but, you know how it is.”

191 I nodded to make it look like I was on his side. He was my friend, and I didn’t even know her.

“Okay, you can throw me a baby shower later. It boils down to this: I want the baby and she don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Her dad’s a pastor and her mom’s a bitch. Thinks they’ll kill her if we don’t get married, but we don’t want to get married. At least not right now.”

“There are a lot worse things in the world than having a baby out of wedlock.”

Sean leaned his pool stick against the wall and came over to the booth I was leaning on.

“Exactly. And you, you know that. Which is why I need your help. I need you to give some advice, some words I can use to convince her to keep the baby.”

“Oh,” I said and tried to stand up straight. “I’m not sure it’s my place to do that.

I’m not even sure it’s your place.”

Sean waved his hands in the air. “I get ya, but I’m not trying to tell her what to do with her life. I wouldn’t make her do it, and I can’t stop her. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get to say what I’m thinking and at least have my peace.”

“So what are you thinking?” I asked to stall and try to think of something good to say.

“I’m thinking I need to find King fucking Solomon before that baby of ours gets cut in half. I’m the dad. I’m just as responsible as her.”

“Yeah, you’d think that. But you’re wrong. You’re not the one that has to carry that baby around for nine months while your body rearranges itself. And you’re not the

192 one who’s got to deal with the shame of walking around with your belly sticking out and no ring on your finger.

“Man,” Sean said. He picked up the pool cue leaning against the wall and gently brought it down on his knee as if he was preparing to snap it in half. “You’re supposed to be on my side. I want this kid. I want to be a good father.”

“Okay, okay.” I grabbed the cue from him and walked around the pool table. “I’m on your side.” I set the cue ball in the middle of the table and smacked it against the short side bumper. “When Jennifer first told me about Henry, I didn’t want him. Thank God she did. The other day, my grandpa looked me in the eye and asked me if I was thinking about killing myself. He’s the only person who could ask me something like that. But I’m glad he did because it made me stop and think. It never crossed my mind to off myself, and then I had to think: why? And the only answer I could come up with was Henry.

There are other people in my life I care about—my mom, Grandpa, even Jennifer, hell, I care about you too—but I don’t think I’d miss any of you if you had to up and leave. I know that makes me sound like an ass, but I’d kill anyone of you before I let Henry scrape his knee. And that’s a kind of love most people spend their whole lives searching for. It’s a redeeming sort of love. The kind that can save a person or a relationship. I don’t think I’ll ever really know why Jennifer did what she did, but I think the reason I go see her every week is because I understand why she did it. I don’t know how she got there, but she felt like she had to do it to protect her son. If you guys don’t have the kid, you’ll be fine. But if you have that kid, there’s no going back. You get a taste of that kind of love, and the rest of life is just shit.”

I looked up from the pool table. Sean was just nodding his head.

193 “Perfect. Thanks, man. I’m going to write this down.” He jogged and darted through the small groupings of other people up to the bartender and wrangled a pen and paper from him.

I pulled out my phone with the intention of letting my mom know that I was going to be late getting home. I sent her a text and double checked it to make sure I included all the words. I think I got most of them.

I was having a hard time getting anything accomplished on my phone. I never realized it until I was drunk, but the touch screen on a phone is a lie. I wasn’t really touching anything. I never could. There was this layer of glass separating me from what I wanted. Nothing lined up perfectly straight. I held my phone horizontal up to my eye and peered down the screen like a stretch of train tracks. No matter what I did, there was always something in the way.

Despite my and the phone’s limitations, I managed to open up my email and read through a few messages that had been sitting there all day. Two were from Shanksy—one pre-quake and one post—and the other was from James. His read: I won’t force you to make a decision. You must arrive there on your own making. We all take different paths, but the destination is always the same. The situation has changed. The Boss would like to meet with you. This is not a recruitment nor is it a committal. The Boss said he needs to see you. You set the date and location. Any other provisions you need, The Boss will make it happen. What should I tell him?

I didn’t reply.

On some deep level, I knew what Shanksy was doing was wrong. Not just unethical but wrong. We were ripping apart ecosystems and pumping poison into the

194 ground. Sure, there were benefits, but I was too estranged from them. All I could see was the vacant fields and piles of rubble. I was able to hold on for so long because what we did wasn’t any worse than corporate farming or strip mining, but I was getting sick of choosing the lesser of two evils. James was my mentor. He’s the reason I still had a job with Shanksy after he was let go. I wanted to help him personally and professionally.

The Shanksy emails differed only in a few choice words. The first asked if I was available for a meeting on Monday. The second demanded that I come to a meeting on

Monday. Until then, I was on paid leave. It was the best news I received in a while.

“Okay,” Sean said when he got back. He was waving his piece of paper in the air.

“I got what you said, at least the feel of it if not the right words. It’s more violent than I’d hoped, but it helps get the point across. I forgot to ask you one thing. I want some anecdotal evidence. Can you just give me a story or even a line about how happy it’s made you?”

“You sound like a goddamn reporter,” I said.

“I’m a fighter, man.” He threw some shadow punches and hopped around. “I’m fighting for my right to make babies. Help me, Peter Marchen, you’re my only hope.”

“So you want a story about how happy I am?”

“Exactly.”

I walked over to the pool table and picked up the cue ball. “Well, on the day I was born, my dad shot himself in the head. My grandpa, who raised me like a son, has cancer.

I’m almost thirty years old and live with my mom. My baby’s momma is in a mental hospital. I just watched every employee I was responsible for get fired. And my son, the whole reason I even keep going on, well, I can’t tell if he is going to win the Nobel Prize

195 or shoot up his kindergarten class.” I tossed the ball up in the air and caught it in the same hand. Its surface was so smooth. Not a dent or fleck on its surface. A perfect sphere.

“That’s not what you wanted to hear. This is about you, not me. But here’s the thing with happiness. You never really feel happy, do you? It’s just something you remember to keep you going.”

“Pretty fucking bleak man. Remind me not to get drunk with you ever again.”

“Alright, alright.” I set the ball back down on the felt. “So, happiness is only a memory. And kids, they are just little memory machines. You know how little of my own life I remember, like actually, vividly remember? Maybe five moments. But Henry. I remember every day with him. I remember every moment and milestone of his life. And I think that’s as close to feeling happy as anyone can ever get.”

Sean didn’t say anything. He just kept nodding and staring off into the space behind me.

“We close early on Monday’s,” Stephani said out of nowhere. She was like a little ninja-waitress. She weaved in and out of the groups of people and no one ever even noticed her until she wanted them to. “Can I get you guys anything for last call?”

“No,” I said and smiled at her. “I’ll close out my tab. Thanks.”

She smiled back and then snuck away to run my card.

“You get enough material to file your report?” I asked Sean.

“Yeah, I did.” He walked up to me so his face was only a couple of inches away.

“And I really appreciate it.” He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a big hug.

“Fuck.” He let go and stepped back. “Fuck ‘em all.”

“Can I ask you something before they kick us out?”

196 “Anything,” Sean said.

“I’m only saying this for two reasons. First, because you’re my friend. Second, this’ll probably be the last time we ever see each other.” Sean started to interrupt, but I cut him off. “You know about ELF?”

“The hippie, terrorist group?” I nodded. “Bunch of dumb fuckers who can’t see the forest for the trees. Think blowing shit up will make the world a better place. Why?”

“I’ve been thinking about James, and that giant hole, and Henry, of course.”

“Let me stop you before you start getting stupid. If you’re thinking about joining up with those guys, then I might as well rip up this piece of paper. Nothing good can come of it.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just, well, fuck. If the world’s going to end, I want to be a part of it.”

“But don’t you see the way out? It’s Henry. You can’t change the world and you sure as hell can’t change people. But you can make them. You make Henry into something great.”

I put my palms into my eyes and rubbed them back and forth.

“You’re going to be a great dad,” I said. “Now or later, it doesn’t matter. I promise you.”

Sean offered me a ride home, but I refused. We hugged, said goodbye, and he promised to keep in touch when and if the baby was born.

I sat on the curb outside the bar and texted my mom to come pick me up. I was too drunk to sit up let alone drive.

197 Sean was about my only friend in the world. And he was a good guy. It made me pretty damn sad to see how situational our friendship was. That’s kind of how I built my life though. Just going from one thing to the next, using up whatever resources I needed along the way.

“You’re not barfing, are you?”

I turned my head around to see who had said it. It was the waitress, Stephani. She had her apron folded up in one hand and was texting on her phone with the other.

I stood up and dusted my pants off for no real reason other than I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

“No,” I said. “Not yet, at least.”

She put her phone in her back pocket.

“Your friend leave you?”

“I’m just waiting for a ride.”

“I can give you one. Maybe the judge will let me write it off as community service.”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. I kept trying to look at her and not stare at her. There’s a difference. I just wanted to remember what she looked like.

“No thanks,” I said and suppressed a hiccup. “I live pretty far away. And you shouldn’t really invite strangers into your car.”

“You got a kid, right? Wasn’t that what you and your friend were talking about?

You can always trust a guy with a kid. Especially when he seems to care about them and doesn’t have a wedding ring.”

198 “Are these actual rules, or are you making stuff up?” I was starting to get pretty dizzy. I would’ve taken the offer right out, but I thought speeding along in a vehicle might make me puke. I wasn’t going to vomit all over some pretty, little waitress’s car.

“If you can’t tell the difference, what’s it matter? Come on. I’m right here.” She pointed to a white Impala parked next to my Prius and got in. I tripped over my feet on my way to the passenger side.

The inside of the car was messy. Straws and napkins blew around once the windows were down and loose change was everywhere. Despite the mess, the car smelled like basil and citrus.

“So, where do you live?” Stephani asked.

I gave her direction and then sat silently while she fumbled around with her CD player. She finally settled on an old John Prine song. I fought a battle between staring out the window and getting dizzy and trying not to creep her out by staring at her. I settled on looking at her skinny kneecaps sticking out of her ripped jeans.

“You know,” Stephani said as one track faded into the next. “I can’t save you.”

I laughed. It was the best thing anyone had said to me in a while.

“I’m done with saving.”

“I just meant that, like, I didn’t want you to think I was going to open up a whole new world to you and show you how to enjoy life again. I can’t do that.”

“Is that what people want?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders but kept her eyes on the road.

“If I was younger, but I’ve been through that all. I think a girl tried to save me once, and maybe she did, but then I had to save her. Two-way street, you know? And it

199 didn’t work out. It’s still not working out. I’m past saving or being saved. All I want is a ride home and a job that doesn’t have shitty hours.”

“So, I was right about the kid then?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s five. Goes to kindergarten. Already reading.”

“And his mom? Are you guys a thing?”

“Sure.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m putting you off. Didn’t mean to get into your personal life.

Just trying to make conversation.” She pulled onto the interstate and gunned it. I didn’t realize the car was a stick right away.

“No, you’re fine. I just. Do you ever think how different life is for beautiful people?”

She let out a laugh. “Is that your best line?”

“Didn’t really mean it like that. I mean, you are beautiful. That’s what got me thinking about it.”

“So what do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Everything just seems different. Like, if I’m talking to someone, I just talk. But if I’m talking to a beautiful person, I’m much more interested. I suddenly care about everything they say. I want to please them. Sometimes I feel like I could love anyone as long as they were beautiful and loved me back.”

She changed lanes and passed a car.

“You think life is easier for pretty people? Like, I don’t have to work as hard because people think I’m good looking?”

200 “No, I didn’t say that. But I think you know what I mean. It’s not easier, just different. Like, you grow up in a whole different way. You get attention when other people don’t. That’s gotta have an effect. Maybe it just makes you expect it, and life gets harder. I’m not saying anyone’s life is easy. We all get fucked up somewhere down the line.”

“I get you,” she said. “And your girlfriend or baby’s momma or whatever she is.

Is she beautiful?”

I closed my eyes and thought of Jennifer back before she was committed. She was beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful. We used to lay in bed, and her hair would get in my mouth. I would run my tongue over the thin strands and taste the residue of her bitter conditioner. I would take deep breaths and smell the flowery scent of her dry shampoo. And her skin. Even in the winter, it was never dry. Always smooth.

“Yeah. Yeah she is.” I slunk down in the seat and put one foot up on the dash.

“Sometimes I think it’s a curse,” Stephani said. “Like, I’ll be with a guy and I’m thinking, ‘Does he want to fuck me, or does he just want to fuck something pretty?’ You get all this self-doubt. And then you start spiraling and thinking, ‘Maybe I’m not that good looking. Maybe I’m just a conceited asshole.’ You’re right about one thing though.

Beautiful people are different. I’m not calling myself beautiful, at least out loud, but you do get all this attention and you start caring about being beautiful. And as soon as you start caring, you start feeling inadequate. It’s like rich assholes who don’t tip well because they’re obsessed with money.”

I nodded.

201 “Yeah, it’s like if you think you’re the smartest person in the room, then someone else already has one over you.”

We let the conversation stop there. I tried to sing along with the songs playing on the radio in my head, but I kept getting tripped up. I wanted to put my hand on her thigh, and maybe she would’ve let me, but I never had enough confidence to do something like that. I think I missed out on a lot of life. My world had become so narrow, and I’d become so use to it that I didn’t want anything to change.

“So, this beautiful lady of yours, are you guys in love?”

We were getting closer to my mom’s house, and I showed her the exit to take.

“We were,” I said. “It’s hard to tell.”

The car started to slow as we made our way through the neighborhood.

“Better to have loved and lost,” Stephani said.

I sat up in the chair and took some deep breaths because my mouth was starting to go overboard on the salivating.

“Yeah, the thing no one tells you about that is sometimes love has consequences.

So even when the love goes, you got a sweet little five year old boy standing in its place.

And kids need love. They feed off of it. Kids are hungry. And the amount of energy it all takes. It’s not fair.”

Stephani pulled into my driveway.

“I suppose that’s as good a way as any to end the night,” she said.

I opened the door but didn’t get out.

“How about we leave it at this: I thank you for the ride and take a step outside.

Then I come back to the car and tell you that I think I’m falling in love with you. You

202 shrug your shoulders and say maybe you could love me too. Then I promise to never come back to the bar ever again, and you drive off. Later on, when one of us are on our death beds, if we live happy lives, then everything worked out. If we end up miserable and alone, we can think back and say, ‘Ah, that was it. That’s where everything went wrong.’ And at least we’ll have something to blame. Some happy memory to hold on to.”

I still didn’t put my hand on her thigh. I stepped out of the car and turned back to thank her one last time.

“You know,” she said, “I don’t think I could’ve loved you, but we probably could’ve made each other happy. At least had a little fun.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Then, in the end, it’s all the same. Right?”

She nodded her head a couple of times. “Right on.”

I closed the car door and backed away from the car so she could put it in reverse. I waved to her as she drove down the street.

A few lights were on in the house, so I knew it was safe to go back inside. I fumbled around in my pocket for my keys and phone.

I got the door open and glanced at my phone. My mom was frantically sending text after text wondering where I was. I sent her a quick message to tell her I got a ride and made up a story about how I left her a voicemail telling her not to come. She could give me hell tomorrow. For now, I just wanted to sleep. I went upstairs and plopped on the bed still in my clothes.

203 I didn’t set my alarm. I didn’t need to. I had the rest of the week off. Before I passed out, I kept replaying the car ride in my mind. One part kept bugging me. It all felt too good, and nothing even happened.

It made me wonder: was the best thing to do in life to just do nothing at all?

Regrets are better than heartbreak. I’d rather live with ghosts than corpses. Made-up stories.

Memories and memoires and memories.

I slept in because I needed it and wanted to avoid talking to my mom. When I pulled myself out of bed, I had the house to myself. I showered for forty five minutes to make the hangover go away, and it worked a little. When I was in college, I would go to work hungover and just plug away like nothing had ever happened. I was getting old. My legs ached the same way they had when I chased Henry through the woods while camping. I always thought old age was something that would pounce on me from the bushes when I was in my fifties. I never expected it to creep into the end of my twenties and slowly start taking away all the things I had taken for granted.

I didn’t know where Grandpa was, but that wasn’t uncommon. He had his own life and schedule. I don’t know what he did when he left, but he stayed busy. I didn’t remember the last time I was alone in the house. With Grandpa and my mom living there, and eventually Henry, it was always bustling. Someone would have the TV or radio up, pots clanging in the kitchen, Henry smashing Hotwheels against the hardwood floors.

Now, there was just silence.

204 After I cleaned up, I sat on the couch. There were things I wanted to do, things I always said I didn’t have time for. There were books, not just science books but book books that I wanted to read. There were a few more adult-oriented videogames I wanted to play, but it all seemed pretty depressing. Like if I started playing them during the day by myself, I was a walking troll who never did shit in life. And my head and legs ached.

It was easier just to watch TV.

So I turned on some afternoon talk show with a group of women sitting around a table. Half of them seemed reasonable and insightful. The other half was just there to squeal, scream, and defy logic. It was pretty easy to get lost in all the back and forth. It felt great to just do nothing.

Then they teased a story after the commercial break. They showed a glimpse of footage from a local TV station, and it was impossible to mistake what it was. I had spent a month out in the field. However things shook out with Dun and the cops, the film had made its way out into the world. I sat up and waited out the commercial break. The show came back on and the lead lady started going on about the environment, consequences, journalistic responsibility, and a bunch of other stuff that didn’t really seem connected to the hole that opened up after the quake. They ended up talking about fracking and the environment for about a minute before moving on to whether or not journalists have a responsibility to “go beyond the law” to provide vital information to the public.

I could see their point. Of course, they brought up Watergate and Snowden, but the basic argument came down to this: is a person’s evil diminished if they stand in front of an even greater evil? None of the ladies brought it up like that, but it was where they

205 were headed before the discussion turned into confessions about “violating” their partner’s privacy and snooping on their phones.

I’d had enough. I turned the TV off, and lay down on the couch to take a nap I didn’t really deserve. Besides, I already made up my mind. It was a freak sinkhole. None of the soil composition data or the sonography images backed it up, but that all changes when the Midwest starts getting hit with earthquakes. It was just an impossibly deep sinkhole. Round, dark and endless. Hell, we all came into the world via something like that. It’s just that none of us remember.

I woke up to Henry sticking his finger in my nose and giggling. Grandpa was hovering over him, playfully shaking his head.

“Sick, my boy?” he asked.

I still felt like shit, but the nap helped. I shook my head and grabbed Henry for a hug.

“How was school, Bud? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Dad, you have to see this.” Henry ripped off his backpack and started digging through it. He pulled out a yellow piece of paper. “It’s a soccer league. It starts in a month. It’s like, a professional league. You even get special clothes to wear. Grandpa is going to help me practice right now.”

Henry tugged on the fake button of his pants until the slider came undone and wiggled his pants off. He tossed them onto my face and sprinted upstairs to change into shorts.

I pulled the pants off me and sat up.

206 “Back to your old ways then, eh?” Grandpa asked.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was looking more hunched over than usual. The walk to Henry’s school must’ve tired him out. His skin looked like awkward fitting spandex. It was bunched up at the wrong places.

“Two nights ago, you are out all night. Yesterday, you need your mother to pick you up from a bar. What is in store for tonight?”

“I got the week off from work. But I’m done trying to have fun. I think I like working more. It hurts less.”

Henry ran down the stairs and dove onto my lap headfirst.

“You ready, Ding-Dong Donky Kong with a big fat pong?” he asked.

Some things can only be learned via recess and the playground. I didn’t know if it was insult, a compliment, or just a bunch of nonsense. I followed him and Grandpa outside.

Grandpa set up some cones for Henry to dribble through and a goal at the other end of the yard to shoot at. Henry, with his seemingly endless amount of energy, weaved his way through the cones and toe punched shot after shot into the goal. He was pretty light on his feet. Better than I ever was.

I sat next to Grandpa in a plastic chair.

“Elizabeth knows,” I said to him.

He didn’t even turn his head at the news. “Of course she does. This is her house.

She’s smarter than you give her credit for. Smarter than you or me. Smarter than your dad for sure.”

207 I ignored the jab. He was just as important to me as my mom. They had raised me together. Maybe I did doubt my mom from time to time. I mean, she was a nurse and great at her job. She knew more about pediatric care than some doctors. It was just, with all the Jesus talk and everything, it made me feel sad for her at times. I tried to be a good

Catholic. I went to school for a long time. I volunteered with her to help out in the church. But in the end, I just didn’t see. Science became my philosophy. I don’t know how my mom was able to keep her training and her faith separate. They seemed incompatible, but my mom had a knack for bending things her way. For a long time, I felt embarrassed of her and her faith. Now, I was starting to realize that it didn’t make her less smart or more gullible. It made her a better person. She could live her life.

“Is she right?” I asked him. I wanted to talk to him about his cancer, but my mind wandered every time.

“I have cancer. So what?”

“She thinks it’s serious. Worse than you’re letting on?”

“It’s cancer. Does it get any worse?” He paused to let me respond but started back up before I could. “We all have these billions of cells inside us. We are the cells. And one day, one cell decides to split into two. Usually all goes well, but some times, the split is messy. A tumor forms. The cells keep multiplying forming this mole, this lump. And then the body turns on itself. Cancer is life. It’s never good or bad.”

I put my head in my hands.

“Can I come with you to your next appointment? I want to hear what the doctor tells you.”

“I’ve just told you what they told me.”

208 “Well, I can be there to support you.” He was refusing to make eye contact with me. Instead, his head bobbed and followed Henry’s path over and over again through the cones.

“I want to tell you a story,” was his answer to my request.

“No,” I told him. I leaned forward in the plastic chair. “Jesus, Grandpa. I just want to know if you are going to be alright. Don’t you owe me that? And if you’re not, I need to be able to prepare myself. This isn’t just about you. It’s your cancer, but you’re a part of all of our lives. We deserve to know.”

He finally turned to meet my stare.

“Selfish little brat. My life is my own. I have chosen to share it with you. Now, listen to my story.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, all this uncertainty wears me down. You, Jennifer, my job, Henry. I can’t take it all the time from everywhere. Just tell me what is happening.”

“I’m trying to. Stories all have answers if you can find the right question to match them to.”

I slouched down in my chair. Nothing was going to stop him from telling his story.

“I’ve told you how I left my town of Wolmerspur and fought for this country in the war, but stories always have more stories in them. The deeper you dig, the more there are. This is what happened to me after I left but before I was found.”

In the grass, Henry booted a ball that flew for twenty yards until it smacked the neighbor’s fence a few feet up in the air. It was a great shot.

209 “Henry,” my grandpa yelled. I didn’t even know he had been watching Henry.

“Use the side of your foot. Only fools kick with their toes.”

He turned back to me.

“I stole away in the night with Woodrow’s clothes, guns, and papers. When I reached the tree line, I turned my back on everything I had known and walked until the world finally stopped looking familiar. It was breathtaking. Trees are trees, but the simple fact that they were unknown to me made the world fresh. I had no idea where the path would take me. The maps in Wolmerspur’s library were outdated, much like my English at the time, but I did not leave my world behind to simply walk on the path. I stomped into the forest bed and made my own way. I had brought supplies, but my water was running low. I needed to find something to drink. With that in mind, I headed north. You should always head downhill if you are looking for water. After two days of walking, I came upon a small pond. I sprinted to its edge and lapped at the water like a dog. Best water I ever drank. At first, I thought it was because I was so parched, but after I was sated, my senses returned to me. I realized I had not come across that pond by chance.

Across the water, a golden-haired woman sat upon a rock. She was humming a song my mother used to lull me to sleep as a child. In her hand was a comb the same color as her hair. She ran it from root to end with the delicacy of a harpist.”

I couldn’t take any more of these bullshit stories.

“I can’t do this,” I said. “I can’t listen to your story when all I can think about is you dying. Just tell me what is going on, and I’ll sit and listen to the end. No interruptions.”

210 “Just tell him, Grandpa,” Henry said from the lawn. He had his hands on top of his head and the ball tucked between his feet. He was trying to flip it up in the air and bounce it off his head.

“I have two moles. One here.” He pointed to his arm. “And the other is on my lower back. They are malignant. I need to have surgery to get them removed. Good enough for you, Peter?”

“So, that’s it? Lop off the moles and you’re good?”

“Sure, if it will get you to shut up.”

“Grandpa.”

“They’ll know more when they cut them out. If I decide to have the surgery.”

“You have to.”

“No, I have to finish this story. Now listen. On the other side of the pond sat the most beautiful golden-haired girl I’d ever known. She was humming a song that made me want to both throw myself at her feet and drown myself in the pond. She heard me trampling up and jumped a bit in surprise. Her stare stuck my boots in the path. I had forgotten I was wearing a soldier’s garb, and had intimidated her. I used my hands to pick up my legs and kept pushing forward. She ordered me to stop, and began to add words,

German words, in between the bars of her humming. I couldn’t help myself. I desperately tried to get closer to her. I was a moth, and her golden hair the light. I made my way to the foot of the rock she rested upon. My legs gave in and I fell to my knees. I stared up into her face. Her eyes as blue as the arctic tern’s.

‘She looked down on me with a sense of surprise and pity. ‘You are a slave to your body’ she said, and with a wave of her hand, she took the very breath out of my

211 lungs. I gulped for air. It seemed as thick as potato soup. I forced myself to swallow it down. When I had regained my senses, but still not my ability to breathe fully, she was gone. The only proof of her existence was her golden comb, stuck in the mud at the pond’s edge. She must have dropped it when I startled her.”

“Is this the story of how you met Grandma?” I asked him. For all the tales he had from Germany, I had never heard him tell one from the States. My grandmother died of tuberculosis when my dad was still in diapers. It was sort of a family tradition.

“No,” he said. He took a moment to study Henry’s form and nodded in approval.

“Your grandmother was American. Smart, tough, and proud. Forged in the Depression. A real hell raiser. Beautiful, too. But this is not her story.”

“What is her story?”

“There are always more stories than time. Perhaps if you wait and let me finish.”

I leaned back in the chair and nodded for him to continue. I was straddling the edge between despair at his cryptic cancer remarks and pure revelry in his stories. Maybe this would be the last one he ever told.

“I picked up the comb,” Grandpa continued, “and sprinted off into the clearing where the lady must have gone. I did not make it far. My breathing was still slow. I paused under a pine tree but couldn’t get my wind back. Suddenly, it occurred to me, I needed to focus on my breathing. It was no longer automatic. Each breath needed to be forced down my throat and into my lungs. Each exhalation required me to think about the air swirling inside me and push it out. I was scared. More scared than the first time I heard a German machine gun. I had taken for granted this process so essential to my life.

I stood up and continued to beat out a trail after the golden-haired woman. I cleared my

212 mind and fell into a rhythm. Each left step I puffed out air. Each right step I sucked it back in. These tiny, staccato breaths made it so my pace was near a crawl. I was lightheaded, but more than anything, I feared falling asleep. If I had to force myself to draw each bit of air, there was no knowing what would happen if I lost consciousness. I continued on through the night. My pace was not so terrible that my muscles tired, but the mental effort was exhausting.”

“You can cut the suspense,” I said. I could relate to the exhausting mental effort.

It took everything in me to fight off the hangover, appreciate my son, and battle with the revelation that Grandpa needed a surgery he wasn’t comfortable with having. “I know you don’t die.”

“God dammit, Peter. You are still so much the little, fatherless boy I raised. It speaks poorly of me and you. How many of my stories have you heard? Don’t you know that the outcome is all the same?”

“It’s good technique, good storytelling, but with everything else going on in our lives, I’d rather talk about your treatment plan or Henry’s day at school.”

“And why are those more important? I will die. You will die. Henry will die.

Now, let’s be pleasant and enjoy ourselves. Okay?”

“Fine,” I said.

“I made my way out of the forest and onto a road. It was wider than what I was used to. Built for cars and tanks, not horses and carts. I recognized it from Woodrow’s story. Near the fork, I found the tree him and his comrades had used as a marker. I pulled a knife from the trunk and left the other two there. I didn’t know then that they were already dead. I sheathed the knife, crossed the road, and continued through the fields and

213 wild until I heard the rushing sound of a river. It was the Rhine. I had never seen it, though of course I knew about it. I had come to its narrowest, deepest point. My side was flat and covered in silt. The other rose into the air. A giant cliff face with a steep drop.

The steel blue water rushed on. White, foamy waves crashed against the rocks. On top of the cliff, sat the golden-haired woman. Her bare feet dangled over the ledge. I forced several deep breaths through my body and prepared for the crossing and climbing. I was never much of a swimmer, and the current was swift. If losing the automation of my breath was a curse, well, at least it adapted me well for the water.

‘I crossed the river and did my best not to get pulverized by the rock. The water was cold which made it even more bizarre. As I started my ascent, the waves would creep up the cliff face. I kept expecting the cold to take my breath away, but I was numb to it.

My breath had already gone. The cliff was about a hundred feet high, but the climb was not so hard. Everywhere were foot and hand holds. Whole ledges for me to rest and forcibly return my breathing to normal. I was tired, more than I’d ever been, but to stop meant I would need to sleep. And sleep meant death. There was nothing for me to do but continue on. I kept the lady’s dangling feet in my vision at all times. I feared losing a glimpse of her would make her disappear, and the chase would begin again. I didn’t have the energy for it. But I made it. I hurled myself over the lip and lay down with my hands on my chest. I pushed my chest in with each breath. I was failing. I couldn’t keep living if it meant I had to think about each and every breath I took.”

I was watching Henry, who had slowed down considerably, while Grandpa told his stories. It reminded me of when I was growing up. As a kid, everything seemed to come so fast. The bursts of energy and the waves of fatigue. It was easy to want

214 everything and make a plan to take it all. Grandpa called me his Little General when I started school. I wanted to be good at everything, which meant I was adequate at a lot and a master of nothing. I could play every position on a soccer field equally well, but there was always someone better than me at each one. I wanted my composite score to dominate others, but when it came down to it, their specific skill set beat mine every time. I wanted Henry to find a passion and stick with it. If he liked soccer or cooking or chemistry, it didn’t matter. I wanted him to stay with one passion. I had burned up all of mine—soccer, baseball, drawing, coding, distance running—and thought it better to move on to the next than rekindle the fire I’d lost. Henry had the perspective and drive to become a master of anything he chose, as long as he could choose.

I turned to Grandpa who was still telling his story unabated. I tried to focus in the way I could as a child. I put all my energy in being an observer of him. His every tic and language choice. I wanted to remember him in a way that most of my memories lacked. I needed to be able to replay these moments in my mind when they were no longer available.

“I turned to the lady and coughed out some of the Rhine’s cold water. I was cold, dizzy, and exhausted. I couldn’t even get the words out of my chest. I turned over and held her golden comb out to her. She smiled when she saw it, stood from her perch, and walked over to me. I lifted my hand and offered the comb to her, but she wouldn’t grab it.

Instead, she stepped over me and straddled my body. She plopped down right onto my chest, and with a whoosh, the last of the air in me escaped. I was going to die there on that rock. I had barely left my village, but already my time was over. I wanted to see the world but got entangled with this golden-haired lady and she would be the last thing I

215 would ever see. The smile never her left her face. She enjoyed watching me struggle for any little bit of air.

‘She bent her head down and put her nose up to mine. Her breath smelled of moss and juniper berries. ‘Why would you bring this back to me when I’ve taken so much from you?’ she asked. And I didn’t know the answer. I felt like the Sphinx was getting ready to devour me. It felt like a riddle, but I wasn’t clever enough, at least not in the state I was in, so I just told her the truth. ‘Everything comes back to you in the end’ I said, ‘but I couldn’t wait that long.’ She took the comb from my hand, tucked it into her sleeve, and stood. I took breath after breath and reveled in the pure, cold air atop the rock. I flopped my head to the side and stared off at the horizon. I could hear the water rushing below me, but all I could focus on were the trees far past the patchwork farmland. And somewhere in those trees was the home I would never see again.”

“We could go back,” I said. I knew my grandpa had a reason for every story he told. Maybe he was homesick. Maybe it was for a place or a home he had never even been, but that didn’t mean the pain he felt didn’t creep into his voice. “Me, you, and

Henry. We could go to Germany. I think I’ll have plenty of time off from work.”

“I don’t think I could go back to Wolmerspur. There are roads that shut down and never reopen, but just because you leave a place, doesn’t mean the place leaves you.

Now, be quiet. My story is almost over.

‘The lady went back to her spot on the edge of the cliff and patted the rock next to her for me to take a seat with her. I crawled like an infant to join her. She put her arm next to mine and we stared together at the grey clouds in the sky. She took out her comb and ran it through her hair while I tried to gain back my composure. In the end, she

216 offered me a choice. I could have her undying love as long as I remained faithful to her, or she would return the automation to my breathing. She was so beautiful, like something you see in a magazine but never real life. It would have been easy to stay faithful to her.

We could have lived a hermit’s life in the forest together. We could have been happy, but that was not the choice I made. I had lost something essential to me, and I needed it back.

To lose something you never even knew you had, it can do crazy things to your mind.

She offered to be my breath, to fill my lungs as I slept each night, but I knew I could not do it. There are some things in this life we are not meant to think about. I always thought it would be my lungs that gave out and let me die.”

“You’re not dead yet,” I told him.

“No,” he said. “But soon.”

I didn’t want to linger on that topic.

“So you got your breath back?”

“Yes,” he said and shook his head to get back on track with the story. “The lady with golden hair, she leaned in close as if she was going to kiss me, but right before our lips met, she let out a gush of air like the north wind in winter. It filled my whole body, and after that, I was fine. When my senses returned, she was standing with her back to the river, her heels hanging over the back of the ledge. She gave me a smile that looked more like a smirk and jumped backwards off the cliff. I scrambled to my feet to see if she would be okay when she landed, but there was nothing. Not even a splash. She was gone.

‘Three days later, I happened upon an American force repelled back by the Battle of the Bulge. They took me in, and now I am here.” He waved his arms around at our backyard in Ohio during the end of spring. “And I hope you understand my story.”

217 “I do,” I said. I wanted to indulge him. I knew he loved to get up on a soapbox.

“But I like it better when you tell me.”

“Good,” he said. “You’ve always been smart like that.” He stood from the chair.

“And now, if you haven’t taken them all already, I think it’s time for a nap.” He walked into the backdoor and was careful not to let it slam shut.

Henry had given up on soccer and was lying in the yard. He picked grass and threw it up into the air like confetti. I grabbed a handful myself, walked over to where he was, and sprinkled it down on him. He laughed and spit pieces back into the air. I lay down next to him.

“So, Grandma said you got your saint all picked out for the play?”

“Sort of. I still need to do some research. I don’t want one of them that just helped people. I want one that’s got magic.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“Yes it is. King Solomon had a magic ring that he used to kill demons, and Saint

Bernadette found magic water that cured people.”

“Okay,” I said, “but maybe those are just stories. Remember how not all stories are true?”

He didn’t answer me, and I didn’t want to kill any imagination left him. So I let it end there.

“Dad, did people really think the Earth used to be flat?”

“Yes, but that was a long, long time ago. Thousands of years.”

“Didn’t they ever look?” he asked. A few clouds floated by and obscured the sun.

218 “They did, but the Earth is very, very big. It’s huge. You couldn’t walk all of it even if you lived to be as old as Grandpa.”

“But look,” Henry said and held out his arm. He started all the way above his head and traced a straight arc over his body until his hand reached the ground by his legs.

“It’s half a circle. And in China, some little boy is doing the same thing and making the other half. That’s all they had to do.”

“You’re really smart. If you lived back then, you would’ve been the head scientist.”

“I do have some science questions. And you’re a scientist.”

I pointed up to the clouds. “That one looks like a Koopa Troopa.”

He followed the tip of my finger into the sky. “I think it’s a wolf with a tumor.

Like Grandpa.”

“Did he teach you what a tumor was?”

“Kind of. He said it’s a lump on your body that means it’s time to die.”

I shouldn’t have expected any less. Grandpa never held anything back.

“Does it make you sad that Grandpa might die?” I asked.

“Well, he said everyone dies. So I don’t get why it’s so scary.”

I rolled over onto my belly so I could get a better look at him.

“It’s scary because then we won’t ever get to talk or play with Grandpa again. He will be gone forever.”

He looked over at me and decided it was a good time to sit up and pick his nose.

219 “That’s okay,” he said with his finger still up his nostril. “We all die. I’ll just die and then I can hang out with Grandpa again. I’m not really worried. Grandma said heaven is better than Earth anyway.”

“Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to push it. If he wasn’t miserable yet, I wasn’t going to make him. “Do you have any other questions?”

“Umm, I’ve kind of been thinking about something.”

Henry was like me. He had layers. I knew he was milling death and Grandpa around in his head.

“What is it?” I asked.

“If I stick an egg up my butt and then poop it out on my bed and keep it warm, will it hatch and be a baby brother?”

I laughed. I was glad the subject changed, but even more so, it was something I could see he had spent a lot of time thinking about.

“No, Bud. That’s not how it works. Only girls can have babies. And they don’t have eggs. The baby grows in the mom’s tummy.”

“Dang,” he said. “I wanted a brother.” He lay back down.

“I always wanted a brother too,” I said.

We watched the clouds together for a little while longer.

The rest of the week went by without an earthquake. My mom would only talk to me when Henry was in the room, but I knew it wasn’t forever. She felt like she needed a way to punish me, and this was her way. Even growing up, I was never in trouble or punished. If I did something wrong, she simply withheld her love until I broke down and

220 begged for it. Soon enough, I’d have to do it, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I was enjoying my time off from work. I even read the first fifty pages of Candide, a book Jennifer read for me in college.

The one thing I was dreading was my weekly meeting with her. Considering how our last one ended, I didn’t want to go. Hell, it was always a chore to go, but I always went. I owed it to her, and it gave my weeks a routine. I wasn’t going to stop now. And, I felt like I needed to apologize. My mom was right. There wasn’t any fault in what had happened. But there were ramifications. I had been the one stuck dealing with those, at least that’s what I used to think. I put my life on auto and just plowed through it all. I did the best I could. Jennifer on the other hand, she had ramifications too. Legal, personal, familial. Her life stopped the day it all went down. I always thought about how hard it was for me to pick up the pieces, but really, her life was far more shattered than mine. I kind of felt like a selfish prick.

I didn’t think I could ever forgive her, but I knew I needed her to forgive me.

I was in the room waiting for them to bring in Jennifer thinking about how I wanted to word everything. I wanted to let her know that I was getting a better handle on her side of the situation, but I was dealing with a lot out here on my own. I didn’t want to make it look like I hadn’t meant everything I said in our last meeting. I just wanted her to know that I felt bad about saying it, and that it wasn’t fair to her to be treated that way. I kept running the phrase “not fair to you” through my head while I waited.

I used to think that there was just some switch in her head that had flipped, and maybe it would fall back to normal. But that’s not how mental illness worked. It was a slow burn, at least in her case, and I had been part of that. It comforted me to think of it

221 as just a chemical imbalance or a quick change in personality, but lately, that scared me.

If that’s how it really worked, then I was pretty close to have it happening with me.

I heard the first set of doors open and looked up. One of the techs was walking in, but Jennifer wasn’t with him. The second set of doors opened.

“I’m waiting for Jennifer,” I told him.

“Yeah, I know you, man. But she ain’t going to be here this week.”

The guy had on scrubs and kept adjusting his crotch when he said it. I recognized him. He was usually out smoking when I came to see Jennifer, but sometimes he was the one who brought her in. Jennifer always said the techs were the best part about this place.

I don’t know how highly that spoke of the techs, but at least they didn’t treat her like shit.

“Is she okay? Can I see her?”

“She’s fine. Doing great, actually. Thing is, she said you probably weren’t going to come.”

“But didn’t they tell her I was here?” I asked. Sometimes the bureaucracy of this place drove me nuts. There were always forms to sign. Check-in sheets to fill out. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be an actual patient.

“We told her. But she’s not coming.”

I didn’t understand. She was stuck here, and I was her only visitor. I was her connection to the real world. I knew things went bad last time, but they had gotten bad before. Never as heated as last week, but we fought just like we did before all this. Maybe she had finally had enough of me before I had enough of her. Before all this happened, before Henry, I always kind of thought that’s how it would shake out.

“Well, tell her I’ll be here until my times up. Tell her I’ll be waiting for her.”

222 “Can do, man. But if I’m being honest. She was burned up all week over you.

Funny thing though, it’s been good for her. Gave her focus. She’s about done with this place.”

“Me too,” I said.

The tech nodded at me like he had any idea what the hell I was talking about and turned around to leave.

“Tell her I’ll be here today, and next week too.”

He had his back to me but held his hand up in the air to acknowledge he heard me.

I waited for fifty minutes under the buzzing lights for Jennifer, but she didn’t come. Maybe it was what I needed. For so long, I wanted a break from her, and now she was giving it to me. I think empathy has always been my biggest problem.

On my way out, I left a note with the tech running the entrance to let Jennifer know I would be back next week.

I kept thinking about her not showing up. The whole drive home. I hadn’t thought about her in that way for a long time.

It felt good to miss someone.

223 CHAPTER VII

PETER RIDES A UNICORN

My mom was waiting up for me when I got home. It was well past time to clear the air between us. With a few exceptions, I’d always lived up to her standards. I made her standards mine. She wasn’t mad at me for sending her around the city looking for a drunken me as much as she was pissed about abandoning her and the rest of the family right after the earthquake. She had been mumbling “responsibility” and “duty” under her breath the whole week whenever I tried to make up with her. I was glad she was ready to talk.

Henry was already in bed and Grandpa was doing whatever he did when he wasn’t on the computer. She was sitting at the kitchen table watching her tea bag spin on its string above her empty cup.

“Are you ready to let me apologize?” I asked. She didn’t break her gaze from the tea bag, and I took her silence as an invitation. “I’m sorry, Mom. I should have been here the whole day after the quake and what happened to the house. I should have been home to quell Henry’s fears before he went to bed. And I shouldn’t’ve let you ride around town all night wondering where I was.”

“You always apologize, Petey. Always. Why is that?”

“Because I feel bad. I put you in multiple crappy situations, and, like always, you

224 handled them for me. I feel like I owe you something. I feel bad and apologizing makes me feel better.”

The tea bag still dangled though its rotations had slowed.

“Just once,” she said. “I want you to do something selfish and not feel bad about it. Was I the one who taught you that? To always feel bad for doing something for yourself? I tried my best, Petey. But you know how hard it is.”

“You were an amazing mom. You still are. Why else would I come back and live with you as a grown man?”

She dropped the tea bag into her cup.

“It’s bad, Petey. Worse than we thought.”

“The house? I thought it was just cosmetic?”

She shook her head and tears rolled down her eyes without even blinking.

“A girl in one of my continuing education classes, she works in Oncology at City

Hospital.”

It was about Grandpa. Apparently, it wasn’t just a couple of moles and the decision of surgery with increased risks of complications.

“I knew he wouldn’t tell us, but I thought as a nurse, I’d see it more clearly.

Recognize the signs and start planning. And the detachment. I thought I’d seen enough beautiful, tiny babies pass away that I could get through this. But I don’t think I can.”

I reached my hand across the table and snatched up my mom’s.

“He’s a fighter. I know he can’t live forever, but he can get through this.”

My mom shook her head. I was trying to be optimistic, but it was useless to debate medicine with her. She wouldn’t lecture me on strata or mineral analysis.

225 “Good grief,” my mom said. “I’m not even related to him, but I feel like I’m being widowed all over again.” She pulled her hand away from mine and set it in her lap.

“That sounds stupid. Maybe you do get your selfishness from me. But when your father died, he was the first and only person there for me. My parents were in Cincinnati—this was before they moved to Florida—but after I left the hospital, it was just me, you, and

Grandpa. Me and him, we were both widows. I invited him to live with us, and it was the best decision I ever made. He brought so much to this house. He might as well be your dad. Henry doesn’t even know he’s his great grandpa.” She let out a deep breath and started talking quicker and quieter. “I hate every inch of this. All this attachment. Every day the world falls apart a little more. And little Henry. Poor, little guy. He thinks

Grandpa is a king. How are we going to tell him?”

“I think Henry knew before any of us did,” I said.

My mom smiled for a second. “Well, that would be the way your grandfather would do it.”

“He was telling me a story the other day, and as aggravating as that can be when you don’t want it, I tried to remember every detail. I studied his cadence and the rhythms of his speech. He’s something else. I think I wanted to be able to emulate him, but I realized I couldn’t even come close.”

“He’s got more practice than you,” my mom said and stood. “Want me to put the kettle back on?”

I nodded and watched her move around the kitchen like a machine. Every cupboard and drawer effortlessly opened and shut.

“So what name do you think will be on his death certificate?” I asked.

226 My mom didn’t even turn around.

“Not now, Petey.” She put the kettle on the gas burner and sat back down. “I wish you would just drop your weird obsession with his name. They’re just stories. Here’s the facts: Gunter raised you, and I couldn’t have done it without him.”

“I know,” I said. She was an expert at shame. “I was just trying to change the subject.”

“Well, how’s Jennifer doing?”

“Good,” I said. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Let’s just take things one family-rending crisis at a time.”

“That’s the thing. I think she’s going to get out soon, and I was wondering what we’re going to do.”

“Is that what she told you today?”

The tea kettle whistled, and my mom shot up to pour us both a cup.

“Sort of. Her doctor and some of the workers mentioned it too. Maybe she really is getting better.”

“That’s great news. I understand why you’re hesitant, but you have to understand: the woman locked up in that place isn’t the same woman who tried to blow up a building.

It’s—grief and stress and the world, they can make you do things you never imagined.

But she’s not the lady who did those things. And you can’t hold it against her for the rest of your lives.”

I sipped my tea and recoiled after it burnt the tip of my tongue.

“I get that. I’ve forgiven her. I know why she did it, I just don’t know how she got there. I don’t think she is going to go all radical again. It’s Henry I’m worried about.”

227 “Haven’t you realized yet: Henry isn’t the one you need to worry about. He is blossoming.”

“But I don’t think I can ever bring myself to let him be alone with her. She abandoned him. I don’t care about the cows or any of that. I was the one who came home to baby Henry crying by himself in a laundry basket.”

“I can’t tell you what to do, how to feel, or why God gives us the life we live, but

I do know this. As soon as you got her pregnant, Jennifer became a part of our family.

And she will always be a part of this family.” She grabbed her cup of tea and stood.

“Family gets a free pass. Henry needs his mom. You may not believe me, but I think you need her too. If she gets out, when she gets out, she will live with her family.”

I couldn’t even process what that life would look like. We would need another bedroom to house us all. It seemed like the day to day would be so hard, but life itself would get easier. I wanted us all to just multiply by zero and start back at the beginning.

No cancer, no insanity, no bombs, no magic, no earthquakes, no ecoterrorists, no remorse, no saints, no dead fathers.

We could fall in love again. All of us.

“Do you even have a job anymore?” my mom said as she walked out of the kitchen.

“Meeting with the higher-ups tomorrow.”

“Aren’t those lovely?” my mom said. I smirked and nodded my head. She stopped before she got to the stairs. “Petey?” I got up and followed her into the living room. She looked so small at the foot of the steps. Like a child wearing a wig. “You know how proud I am of you, right?” I nodded again. “You know what the best part about being a

228 grandparent is? Your own kids finally realize how much you’ve always loved them. I’ll always love you, Peter. There should be a word for that feeling. Maybe Grandpa has a

German one.”

“If not,” I said. “I bet he can make one up.”

She smiled, and I followed her upstairs and went to bed.

I dreamed of the bottomless pit out in our wastewater field. Me and Henry were out there together. We kept daring each other to try and jump over it. I think one of us finally did, but I couldn’t remember who.

Shanksy’s regional headquarters were an hour and a half away. They wanted to meet me in the conference room. It definitely wasn’t one of those synergistic workplaces with open spaces and standing desks. The walls were cinderblock painted off-white, and the lighting was the same plastic-covered fluorescents that the Behavioral Center used. At least the conference room’s back wall was a floor to ceiling window.

I sat at the giant table with six men in suits. Dun was there, and so was Charles, the HR guy who hired me way back when. The other four I had never met. Charles led the discussion.

“Peter,” Charles said, “before we begin, we’d like you to just give your general thoughts and impressions about the field site and what you saw happening there.”

I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry. There was a pitcher of water and glasses in the corner of the room, but I couldn’t just get up and walk over there before answering the question.

229 “Well,” I said, “From the start, it seemed like a good fit. We knew the water table there was relatively shallow, so getting below it wouldn’t be a problem. The initial mud logs came back hopeful. High amounts of clay, low calcium levels. It had a nice layout, flat with one hill and the only open water was a cow pond a few miles away.”

The white guy beside Charles cut me off. I didn’t know his title, but almost of all the upper execs were Chinese or Korean. Maybe he was the Chief of Regional

Operations. I didn’t know. I worked in the field and tried to stay out of all the corporate politics.

“We ain’t worried about the field. Hell, there’s a goddamn hole in it now. Two hundred meters deep, at least. It’s useless to us.”

“The sink hole, at least that’s what my training and research has led me to believe it is, is unfortunate. But with the amount of seismic activity recently, I believe the same potential for disaster exists at a number of different sites around here.”

The white guy chimed back in. “You’re not the only geo we got here. We’re already looking into that. Problem is, you were the only one in a leadership position at the site. What we want is to tell us about your crew. Anything give you cause for doubt?

Ever think someone might be up to something?”

I wasn’t sure what they were getting at. Of course, James came to mind right away, but unless Sean or another logger told them about that, they couldn’t know anything out of the ordinary had went down.

“Is this about Eddie and the news people?” I asked.

“That idiot’s already been served his papers,” the white guy said. “We’ll see him in court.”

230 “Just tell him,” Dun said.

I looked over at Dun to see where he was going. He didn’t make eye contact with me. He didn’t stare at the ground or anything else either. He was watching one of the top execs. He probably wasn’t the kind of person I should’ve started something with.

Charles decided to let me in on what had happened.

“We have reason to believe information that could be valuable to competitors and others was stolen from the site.”

I decided right then to not say anything about James. There were only two outcomes. One, James’s life, which was already spiraling, would get a lot worse, and I couldn’t do that to his kids. Two, I’d get pulled in to it all because I’d been in contact with James personally, and more importantly, through email. I didn’t know what, if anything, had happened, so I decided just to stick with that. Sometimes ignorance was the best policy.

“How so?” I asked and folded my hands on my lap. I wanted to look eager and interested. “All the logs from that site are useless. You said so yourselves. What of value could have been taken, and what would they do with it?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Charles said. “We know unauthorized data backups were made at the site. We we’re hoping you had insight as to what could have been of use to a rival company or who on your team would have been in a situation, both personally and professionally, to do it.”

And then I started to worry less about James and more about Sean. I didn’t know much about the corporate espionage world, but I’m sure it paid well. Sean was on the

231 computers more than me, and he possibly had a baby on the way. But he wouldn’t do that. Not to me.

“I’ll be the first to admit,” I said, “security at the site was lax. The computers were password protected, but it was common practice to leave them running to expedite the work. But I never saw anything out of the ordinary. And none of my crew, none of them, ever gave any indication they were disgruntled. Personally or professionally. Well, at least until they all got fired.”

I unfolded my hands and started to run the fabric of my dress shirt between my thumb and index finger. A nervous tic I’d picked up as a kid with the satin lining on my favorite blanket.

No one said anything. Charles looked at the white guy and kind of cocked his head.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m curious. Why is there no suspicions surrounding me? I had root access to all the data. If anyone had the most chances to do it, it would’ve been me. I mean, I didn’t do it, but it doesn’t make sense. There’s something I’m not being told.”

Charles let out a small cough to clear his throat.

“As a multi-national corporation,” he said and I could tell he had used that line a thousand times. “Shanksy has access to some of the best industrial psychologists available. Given your situation—a single father, estranged partner, family in failing medical health, and so on—we have every indication to believe you wouldn’t risk your job or freedom on something like this.”

I filed away for later the obvious intrusion into my personal life and possible

HIPAA violations by the company who employed me.

232 “Okay,” I said. “I apologize for not being able to be of more help regarding the possible security breach. But if I’m allowed to speak freely,” I glanced over at Dun and the white guy. Both of them were scribbling down notes on yellow legal pads. “I think we need to reassess our aggressive expansion in this region. We risk both the goodwill of the public and possible legal ramifications if we continue drilling and pumping without taking a hard look at the safety of our disposal sites and the connection to increased seismic activity.”

The white guy scribbled something out on the paper and then looked at me. “Our contacts in the State have informed us that in four days, the Governor will be issuing a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.”

In an instant, I went from fantasizing about having a new, better job to the harsh reality that I no longer had a job. It was one thing to wish for something better when you already had a paycheck, it was another to be left floundering with no direction. At least it gave me a better sense of how Sean and the loggers must have felt.

“So, just like that, we’re done here?” I asked. “Has the popular opinion swung that far?”

“It’s temporary,” Charles said. “A knee-jerk reaction to the big quake. The

Governor doesn’t want to be responsible for a school or hospital crashing down just because we helped fund his campaign. We just need to let the issue fade to background.”

“And in the meantime?” I asked.

“Since operations here will be on hiatus, we are looking to expand in other areas.

Part of the reason we brought you here is to offer you a new opportunity. Of course we have holdings in North Dakota, but we are looking for someone with field experience to

233 get a few test sites up and running there. It offers a pay increase, moving expenses, and you wouldn’t believe how cheap it is to live out there. You’d be a king.”

I’d never been outside of Ohio for more than a week. Didn’t their industrial psychologists understand that? I couldn’t leave this place. Henry’s school was here. My mom was here. Sure, they could pack up and head out with me, but not Jennifer.

“I’d like some time to think about it,” I said.

“Of course,” Charles said. “We’ll get the details to you in a day or two. Check your email. Is two weeks enough time?”

“Perfect.”

I stood up to leave. The Chinese and Koreans stood up with me. Charles and the other white guy stayed in their seats. I thanked them all, apologized for not being more helpful, and headed out to the elevator.

On the way down, I pulled out my phone and sent a quick email to James.

I want to meet The Boss, I wrote.

I got his response on the drive back home. It listed the day, the time, and geographic coordinates as to where to meet. It felt like a spy game, one I fantasized about playing as a kid.

When the Governor’s moratorium came out on Thursday, I had to tell the rest of my family what it meant for my career. My mom and Henry were not thrilled about the prospect of moving to North Dakota. Not that my mom would come with us, but she’d grown so accustomed to having us around that she would’ve if I asked her to. I wasn’t

234 really entertaining the idea of moving across the country, but I kept it in my back pocket as an escape plan. Grandpa was the only one who took an interest in any of it.

Mom was at work, and Henry was at school. I dug around in the basement until I found some dice and a cup to roll them in. He was sitting at his computer in the living room scrolling through Buzzfeed articles too fast to read them.

“Let’s play a game,” I said.

He jerked in his seat and closed the tabs on his browser.

“Of course,” he said. “I always enjoy winning at dice.”

We went to the kitchen table to play a push-your-luck dice game he called Weird

Animals. The game wasn’t about animals, but I’m guessing it meant something different in German. It involved rolling four dice and seeing how close you could get to twenty without going over. You had two opportunities to re-roll any or all of the dice again, but if you ever went over twenty, you busted and didn’t get any points that round.

“So, the Governor can just say, ‘Stop,’ and you all have to stop?” he asked.

“Shanksy’s got lawyers and lobbyists working on it, but essentially, yes. They own the mineral rights to the land, so other forms of extraction are possible, but hydraulic fracturing is more than just extraction. It require the use of specific chemicals, tons of water, and a place to put it all.” I felt like a corporate shill just trying to explain it.

“Then you are out of a job, at least here in Ohio?”

“For now,” I said. I rolled the dice and had a score of sixteen. I rerolled a one into a six and busted. “But there are other opportunities available. I could teach at a community college, or be a consultant for an environmental law firm. Fracking was just

235 the easiest, best paying job there was when I got out of school. I’m trained to do other things too.”

Grandpa rolled a straight twenty out of the gate, smiled, and jotted down his score. He had a way with dice.

“Well, after I’ve beaten you, I want you to take me out to the field and show me around. The Governor can’t stop you from doing that, can he?”

I got my dice rolls up to nineteen and pushed the dice over to him.

“No,” I said. “But why go?”

“I want to see this hole in the ground the news was so keen in talking about. And,

I want to know what you did for a living.” He tossed the dice on the table, picked out a six and a four, and rolled again. “I’m dying, so I’ve decided to take an interest in your life.”

“It’s a bit of a drive. Are you up for it?”

“When I was in Germany, I saw a bottomless pit once. I want to compare notes.”

“I’ve heard the story. There won’t be any devils in this one. It’s just a sinkhole.”

“I’d rather numb my ass on the seats of your car than this wooden chair. Let me grab my coat.”

It was a nice day for the middle of spring, but Grandpa had been complaining about being cold for a few weeks now. I think old people are always just cold. They lose mass and become more sensitive. It’s just part of growing up.

We walked out the door, and I helped him down the steps. In the house, he was fine. He knew his way around. But outside, I think it scared him a bit to be so vulnerable.

236 I felt guilty for dragging him along on the camping trip even though he would’ve crawled off his death bed to be there. How was I supposed to know he was dying?

I helped him into the car and headed down the old, familiar route to the field site.

“I think it’s a real shame that Germany and Ohio occupy the same latitudinal space,” he said once we got going on the interstate.

I looked over at him. He was slumped up against the window, his chin resting on his hand. He didn’t look too different from Henry.

“That’s an odd complaint.”

“I spent my whole life looking at the same flora and fauna, experiencing the same rhythm of the seasons. I would have liked to have seen something different. Have

Christmas in the summer. Grow a palm tree in the backyard.”

I nodded. “But isn’t it nice to be able to expect something. Know that you have a chance for a white Christmas. Or see a sycamore tree and think back to being a kid and pulling apart all of its tiny, fluffy seeds? Isn’t it comforting?”

“Something like that,” he said and continued staring out the window.

I rolled into the site and parked the car. There were a few new “No Trespassing” signs posted in the makeshift parking lot and one longer, laminated piece of paper on the post detailing the possibility for prosecution, but I was technically still a Shanksy employee. They didn’t pertain to me.

Grandpa refused my crooked arm for support and walked with me stride for stride into the field. Even though it had only been a little more than a week, I was surprised at the semblance of normalcy that had returned to the site. The tread marks from the heavy equipment were still on the ground, but the rain had already started to wash them out.

237 Without the roar of the drills and the presence of a whole crew, the birds had returned to the site. Several swallows swooped at insects flying in the air. From the thin strip of trees off to the east, I could hear a blue jay squawking at a robin. Probably trying to steal its nest.

I tried not to idealize the scene and its return to a more natural state. I never liked what I did for Shanksy, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t without its merits. Fracking was better than the billions of dollars in subsidies thrown at corn and ethanol. It gave people like Sean and even Eddie a way to provide for their families.

But it also ripped through local water supplies that made the recent spurt of droughts even worse. It lowered the water table, meaning farmers had to irrigate even more. It poured wastewater into questionable places with an even more questionable list of chemicals in the drinking water.

In some ways, it was a trade of water for electricity. James would’ve called me stupid. In the end, it’s all the same.

I led Grandpa up to the edge of the hole and put my hand on his shoulder to steady him. The last thing I needed was to see him teeter over and fall forever into the pit.

“It’s smaller than I thought,” he said.

“Doesn’t live up to the newscast hype?” I asked.

“No, it doesn’t. I guess it’s like when I was a kid, and I finally worked up the courage to give the sun a nice, long stare. It was smaller than I imagined, but that didn’t make it any less powerful. I could see it’s hollowed out projection on the back of my eyelids for a week.”

“Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to stare at the sun?”

238 “Of course,” he said and brushed my arm off his shoulder. “Why do you think I did it?”

The sun was shining, but the wind was cold. My mom would’ve yelled at me for bringing Grandpa all the way out here, but she wasn’t here. I shamed myself a lot for having to move back in with her, and the thought of starting a new life in a new state had its appeal. But I don’t think I could’ve brought myself to actually move away from everything I’ve known. Grandpa was old, and it seemed like his biggest regret was not shifting his latitudinal position. North Dakota wouldn’t change that. Neither would staying with Shanksy.

“You think it really is bottomless?” I asked.

Grandpa leaned over the edge and let some spit dribble out of his mouth and into the dark maw of the hole.

“No such thing,” he said. “Just a hole that starts here and meets up in the middle with another hole somewhere in China.”

“Sure, but at least you’d be somewhere different.”

“What would happen if you fell in?” he asked.

“Well, the pressure within the Earth would crush and kill you.”

“No,” he shook his head. “At the bottom of a well, you can look up in the daytime and see the stars. The hole blocks out all the light. Here, you could fall forever and stare at the stars.”

“You’re wrong,” a voice from behind us said.

I jumped and had to watch my step as to not slip a foot over the pit’s edge. At first

I thought it had to be the cops or Shanksy security, but when I turned around, it was just a

239 guy. He was wearing a bright red hoody, gold athletic shorts, and a new pair of white K

Swiss shoes.

“You can’t be here,” I said. Grandpa looked the guy up and down and shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t as concerned as me.

“And what makes you different from me?” the man asked.

I pulled out my Shanksy employee badge and flashed it at him.

He gave a slight mock-bow.

“Then we have you to thank for this,” he said and gestured toward the hole.

“Look,” I said, “I just work here. Don’t go blaming me for the way the world works.”

“I was thanking, not blaming,” the man said. “This is no ordinary hole.”

“We’re leaving,” I said and tugged on Grandpa’s sleeve. “If I see you when we’re pulling out, I’ll call the cops.”

“You were wrong. The morning of the earthquake. There was a simultaneous vision. Our leader, he granted us the power to see.”

I’d spoken to enough crazy people in this field. I think Eddie was onto something with his whole crazy breeds crazy thing. Everyone on this fucking planet was going nuts.

I wasn’t going to indulge their fantasies.

I started to walk away. I could hear Grandpa’s plodding steps behind me.

“The gates to Heaven have been opened. We will be accepted if we can only commit. We must be active participants in this life. The path to the afterlife has been revealed.”

240 The guy was a near perfect mix of my mom and James, only I couldn’t imagine either of them in his ridiculous get-up. We kept walking, and the man’s rant rose to a shout.

“The angels are demons,” he shouted. “The demons are angels. We are all the same. You must choose to accept them in your life. The gates have been opened. They will soon shut.”

I picked up my pace despite the fact that Grandpa was already walking as fast as he could. I got to the car, unlocked it, and turned around to check on Grandpa. He was hobbling up to the car, and the man had disappeared back into the trees.

I helped him in, started the engine, and waited to see if the man would make another appearance. I had my phone in my hand ready to get the police here.

“Friend of yours?” Grandpa asked once he got his seat belt buckled.

“I just want to wait a minute to see if he comes back here. Dammit. I feel responsible for this now. I’m supposed to be on a break from work.”

“He won’t come back.”

“He’s a nut. How do you know what he’s going to do?”

“I’ve seen many people like him. I’m German after all. He wanted to spread his gospel. With that done, he has no other use for us.”

“I’ve made a habit out of not trying to predict what crazy people will do. Just let’s wait a minute.”

Grandpa rubbed his hand together and stretched out his neck while we waited. I could tell his back was hurting him by the way he was sitting.

“A story to pass the time then,” he said.

241 “Not now,” I said. I studied the tree line trying to make out any sense of movement at the edge.

“I’m afraid that is all we have,” Grandpa said. “You snoop on your friend while I tell the story. Okay?”

I didn’t answer, which was as good as a “yes” to Grandpa.

“A short one,” he said, “because our time here is so short. When I was growing up in Wolmerspur, there was a legend passed down to scare us kids about the weathervane that stood atop the Great Clock in the town’s center. Now, this weathervane depicted a cuckoo instead of the usual cock, but it was old. Older than my grandparents. And it had long ago become so rusted that no wind, not even the mighty gusts that blew down from the North in the winter, could move it. But that didn’t mean the weathervane never moved. The legend was that the weathervane pointed to wherever the next death would occur. Since it was in the center of town, it was impossible not to steal a glance at when going on your way. Sure enough, you would wake one morning and find that it had swiveled around to point east instead of to the south. Now, the vane did not cause death nor did it make death imminent. It simply showed where the next death would happen. It wasn’t always right, but it was never wrong. Finally, the mayor of Wolmerspur had enough and called a town meeting. All the adults were required to attend, and many of us children were brought along as well.

‘In the meeting, the Mayor cited the weathervane as an unhealthy preoccupation and made a motion to have it removed from atop the clock. People then, as they are now, do not like change. They were several votes of yes, but the majority voted against its removal. They feared it would be a bad omen. The Mayor saw he was defeated, but did

242 not give up. He gave a passionate speech about not letting our lives be ruled by fear. In the end, even against the town’s wishes, he pledged to remove the weathervane. He adjourned the meeting, and we filed out of the building. My parents and I were near the front, and by the time we left, a crowd had already gathered around the entrance. While we were in the meeting, the weathervane had shifted. No one ever saw it move, but we all took note of its current location. It was pointed right at the mayor’s house. He was the last to leave, and upon seeing the crowd, he glanced up at the cuckoo.”

I kept staring out the window, but didn’t see any sign of the man. Even if I did see him, was it really my responsibility to report him to the police? I didn’t owe Shanksy anything. And being out here would only raise questions to Charles, Dun, and the rest of the suits back at headquarters. I was done with this place. My only wish was that Shanksy wouldn’t be able to find a developer, and this field could return to its natural state.

“Well,” Grandpa continued his story, “the Mayor decided that it was a good a time as any to remove the weathervane. He whistled for some of his lackeys to put up a ladder. He himself would be the one to take it down. His face was white as he gingerly put his hands on the ladder and began the climb. Even as a child, I could see his body shake with each step up and recognized the fear coursing through his body. He made it to the top, pulled out a wrench and hammer, and began work on the weathervane. It was badly rusted and stubborn as the Mayor himself. He used the wrench as a lever and after several strong whacks with the hammer, he managed to pry it loose.

‘He looked down on his constituents and shook the weathervane in his hand like a trophy. A few people cheered, but most of us were sad to see it go. He took one step down the ladder, and the rung broke. He slipped but caught himself. The crowd let out a

243 collective sigh, and by the time he made it down the ladder, most of them had dispersed.

The Mayor kept the weathervane in his house like a relic. He thought it would be a reminder of the folly of superstitions. He was wrong.

‘A week later, he died in his sleep, the cuckoo pointing at his bed. Much of the town felt satisfied in their fears and suspicions, but no one dared put the vane back in its proper place. The deputy Mayor officially ended any debate on the subject, and the weathervane was tossed into a lake.”

I put the car in reverse and backed out of the lot and onto the highway.

“Sounds like the Mayor got what was coming for him,” I said.

“Oh, Peter,” Grandpa said. He resumed his post staring out the window at the trees as we whipped past them. “You see, dying is the easy part. It is those left alive that have to deal with it. That is the hard part. The people of Wolmerspur, they had no guide now. Their Mayor and their weathervane were both gone in one fell swoop. A few years later, word trickled into the town that war had started. And we knew why.

‘Not always right, but never wrong. Sometimes this life is such a terrible burden.”

“Agreed,” I said.

It was only Thursday, but I was already planning each and every word I would say to Jennifer on Sunday if she showed up.

Even after we got home, I couldn’t get Grandpa’s words out of my head. I wanted them to stay there. I forced them back and forth between my ears.

Not always right, but never wrong.

Not always right, but never wrong.

244 As everything else around me fell apart, there was still the matter of Jennifer. In general, I shielded her from most of what was going on in my life. I tried to keep our conversations focused on Henry, and despite Grandpa’s cancer and the likely loss of my job, I could always count on Henry to be a beacon. It was an unfair expectation to put on him, but he never let me down.

I waited in the visitor’s room for Jennifer and convinced myself that last week was a fluke. A depressive episode that wouldn’t let her drag herself out of bed and into our tiny little chamber. I tried, though not that hard, to block out questions as to whether or not I was the cause of that depressive episode or if what the tech had said was accurate and she was doing better than ever.

She was smiling when I finally saw the tech lead her into the room. And it wasn’t an I-figured-out-whose-poisoning-the-world smile or a prescription-induced stupor smile.

It was the coy little smile she got whenever she could tell she had a secret no one else knew. It always scared me.

She sat down, leaned forward, and start drumming her fingers on the table. We had long ago implicitly decided to forgo formalities. The complete bullshit of asking how the other was doing when we were both miserable wore thin quick.

“Who wants to apologize first?” she asked.

“I’ll take a crack at it,” I said. I sat up in my chair and pulled the sleeves of my shirt down a bit. “I shouldn’t have said almost everything I said last time. I definitely shouldn’t have attacked you. I meant what I said though. I’m not trying to give you a fake

‘I’m sorry if you were offended’ apology, because I realize what I said and the way I said it were wrong. This whole situation has been awful. Everything about it. We went from a

245 little family with our own special problems, to an utter fucking mess. That happened to both of us. I held you responsible because you were the one who set it all in motion. I felt trapped, but even after all the time that passed, I’ve only now started thinking about how trapped you must’ve felt. Hell, you’re in prison. You’re literally trapped.”

The smiled had faded from her face. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she nodded her head at me like she was listening to her favorite song. I don’t think she enjoyed watching me apologize, but it felt like we were working up to something.

“Henry was a mistake,” I continued on. “I think we can both agree to that. But it turned us into a family which is something me and you both don’t have a lot of. We weren’t ready, probably still aren’t. But no one is ever ready to have the world turned upside down. Neither of us handled it well. The best part about babies is they don’t remember the beginning.”

“Is that it?” Jennifer asked.

“I could keep going, but all I really want to say is that I know I can be an uncaring asshole. And, I used to think that what you did affected me more than anyone else, but now I realize how much it affected us.”

“That’s a start,” she said. Her smile was like a dolphin’s: playful but a little bit of menace beneath it.

“Don’t make this harder. I really do feel bad. I wouldn’t feel anything if I didn’t care. Now it’s your turn.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said.

She was methodically pushing back her cuticles one finger at a time. I don’t think she even realized she was doing it.

246 “That’s all?”

“I think so.”

I wanted to flip that fucking table and walk out. I spent the past two weeks guilting myself about her. I groveled in front of her, and she couldn’t even give me more than a shrug of her shoulders.

“Sorry for what?” I asked.

She looked over my shoulder and stared at the back wall.

“For meeting you. For having Henry. For losing my grip on reality. For forcing you to raise our son alone. For dragging you here week after week. For loving you quicker than I should have. For not loving Henry quicker than I should have. For going insane. For being me. For everything, really.”

“You don’t mean that.”

Her attention broke from the wall and shifted to my eyes.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think I do. I don’t think I’m sorry for anything. I’m sorry for what happened to you and Henry. But I’m not sorry it all happened. I felt this energy inside me, and I had to let it out.”

“And is it all out?”

“Sometimes I think so, but sometimes I think that was what made me me. It’s what made you love me. Sometimes I want it back.”

“But that wasn’t you.” I said it like a declaration, but it was really more like a plea.

“No, you’re right. But I admire the person that it was.”

I let out a small laugh. I tried to hold it in but couldn’t.

247 “I’m not laughing at you,” I said. “Just at us.”

She nodded to let me know she knew what I was saying.

“Well here’s a good one: they’re kicking me out of here.”

I knew it was coming, but I still wasn’t ready for it. Maybe I wouldn’t have ever been ready for the news. It took me so long to adjust to this kind of life, and now it was ending. I thought growing up was supposed to make everything more clear. Your options would be highlighted and paths would be shown, taken, and the rest forgotten.

But that’s not how it was. Everything had grown murky. A fog would lift and then a moonless night would replace it.

“When?” I asked.

“Don’t act too excited. They might lock you up.”

“I am excited. Believe me, I’m ready to be done with all of this.”

“I’ll still have mandatory therapy sessions, and it’ll be hell finding a job in healthcare with a felony, but I feel like all this weight I’ve been carrying around for over three years is gone.”

“I’m happy for you. Henry’s going to die when I tell him.”

Her eyes filled with a light I hadn’t seen in a long time.

“I didn’t know if you would be able to take off work and pick me up, so we haven’t set a date.”

“That won’t be a problem. I can be here whenever you need me.”

“And what about us?”

That was the real reason I wasn’t jumping out of my seat. I’d been able to put everything off for so long, I’d stopped thinking about it all. I felt like our relationship was

248 back to where it was when she first got arrested. I had asked her for forgiveness, and she apologized as well, but too much had changed.

“Well, I want you to come live with us. To live with Henry. I think that’s for the best. The rest we can figure out later. Henry is all I really care about right now.”

“Me too,” she said. I don’t think she meant it.

We worked out a schedule. I would pick her up next Wednesday at one.

And then my life would become something else. There was a chance it went back to the way it was. After Henry but before the depression. After we fell for each other but before we fell apart.

At the very least, there was hope.

I got home from visiting Jennifer at a decent time. There was no extended waiting or driving around after to clear my head. Henry was still up, and I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow.

He was drawing pictures of saints when I pulled him away to come play video games with me. I started up Super Smash Bros. and watched him mull over his character choice. I took Link and guided him through all the various characters and their respective franchises. He couldn’t decide between Bowser or Dark Pit.

“Bowser’s strong but Dark Pit is fast,” I told him. It didn’t help the decision making. “Why do you always pick the bad guys?”

“They’re cooler.” His cursor hovered over Bowser, who was known to him and already had an allure. In the end, the novelty of being Dark Pit won out.

249 “Link’s cool,” I said. “He has a sword, bombs, and a bow and arrow. He saves the whole Kingdom of Hyrule and rescues Princess Zelda.”

“But that’s why he is boring,” Henry said as the match started. “The bombs are cool, but why does he have to save the princess? Don’t he and Mario and the other guys ever have their own stuff to do?”

“Of course,” I said. “But it all gets wrapped up together.”

“Like worms?” he asked. He wasn’t very good at the game. He was more suited to Mario games and their dual button input. Smash Bros required him to use four inputs, and his timing was awful. I had to resist the urge to constantly kick him off the side or spike him into a hole.

“No, like, Mario wants cake and Princess was going to make him a cake but

Bowser stole her and now he needs to get her back.”

“Can’t he just buy one with all his coins?” Henry walked off the ledge of the stage and fell to his death. He couldn’t get the hang of jumping.

“Well, in Zelda, Link lives in the forest but the forest is dying, so he saves the

Deku Tree and then on his way to stop the volcano from exploding, he finds out Princess

Zelda can help him, but she gets kidnapped, so if Link wants to save the world and all his friends in the forest, he has to save Zelda first.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t live by a volcano,” Henry said. The game wasn’t going his way, and he was getting antsy and contrarian.

The match finished, I had six KO’s to Henry’s one.

“Let’s play Donkey Kong Country instead,” I said and switched the discs out. “No princesses to save. Just bananas to collect a homeland to reclaim.”

250 The jazzy soundtrack and bright colors seemed to bring Henry back to his usual self.

“Grandpa’s kind of like Cranky Kong, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I said. Cranky was the Donkey Kong back in the original arcade game.

Now, he had a wrinkled muzzle, long white beard, and a cane he bounced on and shook in the face of anyone he talked to. “And you’re like Diddy.” Diddy was the little kid-ape in a baseball hat and red shirt.

“Cranky’s going to die soon too.”

“He will if you don’t watch out for the spikes. You gotta hold on to the vines up here or you’ll get hit.”

Donkey Kong was harder than Mario, but we had played that game to death when it came out. Every night he would beg me to play with him. If I didn’t, he would wail in bed for half an hour. It was the worst. I tried to feel noble about denying Henry instant gratification, but really, I’d rather just be playing video games with him.

“Everyone can die though, not just old people. Right?”

I wish my mom hadn’t told him about heaven and paradise. I could see the appeal in it all to five-year old. He couldn’t shake it from his mind. Or maybe it was healthy to spend so much time thinking about death when he was so close with Grandpa.

“Everyone can die,” I said. “But really, only old people die. If you stay healthy, you don’t die for a long time. Eat your vegetables, run around. That kind of thing makes you live longer.”

Henry’s Kong fell into a hole after being shot out of a barrel and he had to wait for me to find an extra guy to bring him back.

251 “But if Mom was dead, you would tell me?”

“Your mom’s not dead. I just saw her tonight.”

“Well, you always say that, but I never see her. Didn’t you say when Grandpa dies I won’t be able to see him or play with him? I think Mom’s dead.”

“Your mom loves you, and she isn’t dead. I’ll prove it to you.”

Henry set his controller down.

“You can’t just show me a picture. Grandpa told me what Photoshop is.”

“Did Grandpa tell you Mom is coming home from the hospital? In like, four days.”

He eyed me to see if I was joking. He was so often emotionally crushed that he put up a guard against it. He felt everything in such a pure way. It made him guarded even if he was so sensitive.

“Jokes that are mean aren’t funny,” he said.

“I wouldn’t joke to you about this, Bud. In four days, Mom is going to come home. Her doctor said she is better. She feels better. I told you she wouldn’t have to stay at the hospital forever. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

He nodded and picked back up the controller. Tears started running down his eyes as he jumped and rolled into enemies.

“I thought you would be happy,” I said.

“I am,” he said and wiped away the snot dribbling out of his nose. “I shouldn’t have wasted my wish on Germany though.”

“What do you mean?”

252 “When I got lost in the forest and the witch gave me three wishes, my first one was for Mom to come home. I used my second one on Germany winning the World Cup, but that’s stupid.”

“It’ll make Grandpa happy,” I said. I took one hand off my controller and rubbed his back.

“You can’t be happy and dead. I should’ve wished for his tumors to go away, but he didn’t tell me about them until after.”

I lived with the guilt of causing my father’s death for so long. I could see what was happening to Henry. Somehow in his five-year old mind, he was putting himself responsible for not saving Grandpa. I wanted to shake him and tell him it wasn’t his fault, but that’s not how this kind of guilt worked.

“We all die, Bud. Even if you could have gotten rid of the tumors, Grandpa still would die from something else. I think it’s better to use your wish on something that will make him happy whether he is here or in heaven.”

We finished the level and smashed the bonus barrel. It gave us sixteen extra lives.

I pushed my controller away and took Henry’s from his hands.

“Bud, look at me.” He was still staring at the two monkeys dancing around on the screen. I pulled his face toward mine. “You are the nicest boy ever to even think about using your wishes for someone other than yourself. If I was your age and got three wishes, I would’ve had a magic carpet, a swimming pool, and lasers that shoot from my eyes. But you didn’t do that. You used your wishes to make everyone around you happy.

I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. I love you. And in a couple of days, we are going to be a family again. Me, you, Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa. We are all going to

253 be living here together. It hasn’t been that way since you were a baby. Your wishes were to make other people happy, and those are the only kind of wishes that come true.”

He fell into my hug. When he pulled back, he was done crying. It was hard to tell what got through to him and what fell to the wayside, but I think he understood what I was saying.

“And there’s still your wish, Dad.”

“I think it already came true. You said you wished for what I wanted most, and what I want most is for us to be a family again.”

“No, that was my wish for mom to come home. Your wish is still out there.”

I smiled at him. He was excited to see it come true. If Germany took home the

World Cup in the summer, I’d probably have to go back out to the forest and try to find that witch myself.

“Well, I can’t wait for it to happen then. I’m sure it will be the best surprise, the best wish ever.”

He picked the controller back up but I stopped him before he could start up the next level.

“Time for bed. You still got school tomorrow.”

“But I need to tell you about my saint. I finally picked him.”

He stood, ran over to the couch, and started jumping on it.

“Who is it? Francis of Assisi? Maybe Saint Peter like your dad?”

“It’s Saint Agabus.” Henry jumped a last time, landed on his butt, and sprung to his knees on the floor. “He’s the saint of magic.”

“But magic isn’t real. Are you sure Agabus is a saint?”

254 “Well, he’s not the saint of magic, but he is the saint of people who can tell the future. The saint of prophecies. I learned his prayer.”

“Let’s hear it,” I said. While I was a recalcitrant Catholic, I always thought the saints were the best part of the religion. They were just ordinary people. Praying to them was a good way to focus on something specific, and I always lacked that kind of clarity.

There was a saint for everything—sore throats, pawnbrokers, gamblers, and teachers— and I’m sure divination needed its own saint. At least Henry had picked a good one.

He closed his eyes, pressed the palms of his hands together, and started weaving his head around in a small circle.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” Henry said like a Buddhist monk. “Glorious Saint Agabus, prophet and disciple, do not let my faith be weakened by my fears of what the future will hold.

Amen.”

He opened his eyes and looked at me for approval.

“Awesome,” I said. “How long did it take you to memorize that?”

“I remember everything.”

“Well, I just remembered it’s time for bed. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Henry said and held up both hands to stop me. “After you pray to him, you get a free prophecy. Want to hear it?”

“Of course.”

He closed his eyes again and did his little trance shtick. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and smiled.

“Nice,” he said. “The prophecy says that we will have spaghetti and meatballs when Mom comes home and you will explore a cave filled with treasure.”

255 “Your mom doesn’t eat meat.”

“Well, sometimes it’s hard to hear what Agabus is telling me.”

“Okay, now it’s time for bed.”

I hurried him up the stairs, got his teeth brushed, and read him a book about the

Super Friends. I turned off his light but kept the door ajar and the hall light on. I went to the bathroom, grabbed Candide, which I still wasn’t halfway through, and peeked back in on him.

As usual, he had a stuffed animal crooked in each arm. His mouth was open and a puddle of drool was already forming on his pillow. He looked uncomfortable but peaceful. I wondered how long that would last.

256 CHAPTER VIII

PETER FALLS OFF A UNICORN

I didn’t sleep well leading up to Jennifer’s release. I never slept well as a kid, but

I thought it was something I had grown out of. It wasn’t dreams, I hardly remembered any of them and what I did was just bits and pieces. I had a ton of anxiety I was trying to shove back down my throat, but that was pretty much how I operated. Really, I was more worried about the sleeping arrangements. Thinking about sleep is the best way to not sleep.

On the drive to the Behavioral Center, I actively tried not to take any of it in. I made that trip so many times, I didn’t want it to be a part of me. I was ready to be done with the whole thing. Life was going to be different. Hopefully better, maybe worse. But it was a change I had prayed for three years ago and slowly started dreading as time moved on. Now, it was all coming to an end.

There was always Henry though. I always had him.

I thought I would have to go in, sign some forms, be debriefed, and then wait for

Jennifer to be released. But there she was. She stood in front of the administration building in the same clothes she had been arrested in. She had a small, plastic-leather tote filled with her personal belongings. I pulled the car up to the curb and got out to help her.

“I know we said one, but I actually got out at noon.”

257 “And you’ve just been standing here the whole time?” I almost asked her why she didn’t call me, but then I remembered she didn’t have a cell phone.

She didn’t have anything. No income, no car, no friends. There were a couple of garbage bags filled with clothes and pictures in my mom’s basement, but other than that she was free.

“I told them on purpose. I wanted to make sure I could handle myself out here alone. I wanted to know what it felt like to not have someone looking over my shoulder.

To just do whatever the hell I wanted.”

“And how did it feel?” I asked and opened the passenger side door for her.

“Alright,” she said and got in.

I had already rehearsed everything we could talk about on the drive from the

Center to home. I didn’t want it to be awkward.

“So were they sad to see you go?” I asked.

“I don’t really want to talk about it. Just drive, I want to take this all in.”

“Really,” I said, “because I want to leave it all behind.”

She nodded but didn’t respond.

I respected her wish and drove in silence. I didn’t even turn the radio on. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Henry’s not out of school for another hour. Is there anything you want to see or do before we go to my mom’s?”

I studied her face whenever I could afford to take my eyes off the road. I was done psychoanalyzing her, but didn’t people try to read the other’s mood all the time? I

258 wasn’t forcing anything on her. I couldn’t tell if she was manic, depressed, or caught in between.

She turned and smiled a Jennifer-smile at me. A lot of teeth and a little bit of crazy in her eyes. Crazy in the way I used to say it before all this happened.

“You’re going to laugh at me, but there is one thing I have been fantasizing about for a long time.”

I wouldn’t have sex with her. Hell, I wasn’t even prepared to kiss her or put my hand on her thigh. Things couldn’t just snap back to normal like that.

“What is it?”

“I want to go to Taco Bell. I am dying for a chalupa. Okay, go ahead and laugh.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I’m not going to laugh,” I said.

“Oh, come on. You always had a good sense of humor. Lady goes to the insane asylum for trying to blow up a slaughterhouse, and now she wants some fast food beef.

Even I can see the humor in it.”

“I’m more confused than anything. I guess I just don’t know what to expect from any of this. But I can do Taco Bell.”

We decided to go inside instead of drive-thru. It gave us time to relax, and the restaurant felt less claustrophobic than the car. We ordered our food, filled up our drinks, and sat down.

“Oh my god,” Jennifer said, “I forgot how sweet pop is. It’s like, making my teeth hurt.”

“They have iced tea.”

259 “God no,” she said. “I’ve had enough watered down tea to drown an elephant.”

I looked down at the receipt to find our order number even though we were the only two inside.

“So, what did Henry say when you told him? Is he excited?”

“Very, but I think we need to set up some ground rules.”

“Like what? What are we going to tell him?”

“We’ll just tell him what I always do: a modified version of the truth. You were sick, you went to the hospital, and know you’re better so you are coming back home.”

She picked up her pop and chewed on the straw.

“That’s so fucking dishonest. Why can’t I just tell him what happened?”

“Because he wouldn’t understand. I barely understand.”

“God, I forgot how awful you can be. Why do I always forget? Don’t you resent your mom for not being honest with you as a kid?”

I never really thought about that. My mom always had a reason for doing what she did.

“I don’t resent my mom. What do you want to tell Henry?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like this is my story, and I want our son to know what happened. Don’t you wish you knew your dad’s side of the story?”

“My dad killed himself when I was born. I don’t give a shit about his side of the story.”

Jennifer nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, “because that’s what your mom told you to think.”

“Look. My dad’s dead and you’re still alive. It’s not the same thing.”

260 “If you think someone shoots themselves in the head and isn’t going through some serious mental shit, then you’re an idiot. This is my mental illness. My struggle.

Henry, and you, are what got me out of it.”

“He’s too young,” I said.

“Fine. But when he’s older, we will tell him the truth.”

They called out our number, and I grabbed our food. I set it down on the table and unwrapped a soft shell taco. Jennifer ripped into her chalupa like a shark bearing down on a seal. Bite after bite with no stopping to breathe.

“So,” I said between bites, “as far as sleeping arrangements go, you can sleep in my room, and I’ll sleep with Henry.”

“Wait.” She set her food down. “We’re not sleeping together?”

“I don’t want to rush back into anything. This is hard for me too.”

“You’re my fucking fiancé, and you’re not going to sleep in the same bed as me?

Why the hell did I even get out?”

“I didn’t want you to take it like that,” I said. I wished our food hadn’t come up yet, so I had an excuse to leave the table for a minute.

“Are you seeing someone else? Pete, you wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Not at all. I just feel weird about all this. It’s like I didn’t have enough time to mentally prepare myself.”

“You had three and a half years.”

It worked out to about 180 visits to the Behavioral Center. It was well over half of

Henry’s life. But it all felt so sudden.

261 “No,” I said. “You had three and a half years. I spent that time working and raising our son to make sure you had something to come back to.”

“A bed for myself in the room next to my son and fiancé?”

“We fell in love once. Why can’t we do it again? Why rush?”

She balled up the paper wrapper from her chalupa in her hands and dropped it onto the tray.

“Now you’re saying you don’t love me? Fuck! I never thought I’d miss the stability and monotonous routine of the nuthouse.”

“That’s not what I said. I do still love you. You were the first person I loved.

You’re the mother of my child. The thing is, right now, I don’t feel an intimate love with you. Like, I need to find that feeling again. It’s been a long time.”

She put her head in her cupped hands. She was whispering something to herself I couldn’t hear.

I heard her take a long breath and let it all out in a tight lipped exhale.

“Fine,” she said. “I got you to fall in love with me once. It wasn’t hard. I can do it again.”

“Is that how you think about us?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Then why love me at all? You make it sound like you tricked me or something.”

“Or maybe you got me pregnant. Works both ways. Doesn’t it?”

“That’s not fair.”

“There are a lot of reasons I love you. Still love you. I’ll just have to remind you of all of them.”

262 “Tell me one.”

“Well, you came to see me every week for three and a half years, even though sometimes I didn’t take meds and yelled at you, or sometimes I took my meds and bawled in front of you. You kept coming back. Two weeks ago, when I didn’t show up, it was only because I refused to believe you were going to be there. I had convinced myself that you would abandon me. But you didn’t. Even after they came and told me you were there, I still didn’t believe it. They had to show me the note. I read your note, saw your terrible handwriting, and that’s when I knew I was ready to get out. Now you tell me: why do you love me.”

I finished the last of my pop and put it on the tray with the rest of the trash.

“Because you were brave enough to stand me up.”

I rubbed the grease from hands onto my jeans and stood up.

“You ready? Henry will be home by now.”

She stood up and stretched out her back.

“I feel like I’ve spent the last three and a half years sitting in the world’s most uncomfortable chairs. Maybe that’s why we were all crazy there.”

“Just wait until you get to sleep in a queen size bed.”

“I don’t want to go to your house yet. I need some time to think about what I’m all going to say.”

“Should we stay here then?”

“No,” she said and looked out the window. The sun was just starting its descent across the sky. “I want to drive around with my head out the window like a dog. I want to feel like I really am free.”

263 We walked out of the restaurant. The tiny, stunted, Eastern Elms around the restaurant were starting to bloom. In a couple of months, their green leaves would turn blood red.

“You got gas money?” I joked.

She stopped and dug around in her little tote.

“No, but I got some killer prescription drugs. You might like them.”

“That’s okay,” I said and got in the car. “You can pay me back later.”

We drove around for a few hours. I took her all the way up to the lake, but she didn’t want to get out and walk the beach. Big open water like that always scared her.

Still, she liked to see all the birds swooping and squawking in the air. I could tell she was nervous about going home, but I didn’t want us to be late for dinner. We piled back in and listened to classical music the whole drive home. I never knew she was into that, but people can change over the course of several years.

She was digging her fingernails into the seat belt strap when we pulled into the driveway.

“It’s going to be fine,” I said.

“I’m just going over everything I want to say. I’ve thought about it so much. I don’t want it to feel rehearsed. It’s genuine.”

“We’re all on your side here,” I said. It was true. No one wanted for things to go back to before—for her to be better—than me. It was a lottery ticket I was depending on.

“The doctor, he always told me to embrace my stress. Diamonds out of coal and all that shit. What if I’m not fit for this?”

“Then you break. But at least you know.”

264 I opened the door and stepped out. Jennifer didn’t move, and I poked my head back in the car.

“I still think about killing myself, but I don’t fantasize about it anymore. That’s progress right?”

“I’m glad you feel like you can talk to me about these kinds of things,” I said.

“I’m not trying to trap you or guilt you or anything. It’s more practical than that.

Suicide just feels like a viable option sometimes.”

I rested my arm on the top of the car door and took a breath.

“My mom would say the Church teaches that anyone who commits suicide isn’t in a proper state of mind and thus shouldn’t be held to blame. I don’t know your state of mind, but I know Henry’s. And I know what it’s like to grow up without a parent. You wouldn’t do that to him. It stayed the trigger once, it’ll work again if it comes to it. Now, you ready?”

She nodded, checked her hair in the rear-view mirror, and got out of the car.

I led her up to the front door, pushed it open, and held my hand for her to go in.

“You first,” she said.

I walked into the house. It smelled like tomatoes and garlic. All the lights were on, and Henry was sitting on my mom’s lap. He bolted off the couch as soon as he saw me. His eyes were shining.

I tried to hold on to that moment of eternal hope and optimism for as long as I could. He smiled at me but ran past to his mom. I was going to have to get used to that.

“Mom!” Henry screamed. He dove into her and nearly knocked her over.

265 Jennifer wrapped her arms around him and stuffed her face into his hair. She rubbed his back with her hands. She was sobbing and sniffing the snot back into her nose every other second.

“So big,” Jennifer said over and over again while they embraced.

She finally pulled herself away from him, wiped her nose and eyes, and gave him a kiss.

“I missed you so much,” she said.

“I thought you were dead.” He was crying and jumping up and down. “These are happy tears. I’m so happy. Do you want to come see the toys in my room?”

“Of course,” she said.

Henry took her hand and led her through the living room. Jennifer stopped him in front of Grandpa and my mom.

“It’s been too long,” Grandpa said and hugged her. “I was beginning to think you didn’t like me.”

“It’s good to see you too, Gunter.” She turned toward my mom, and they gave each other a short hug. “And Elizabeth, I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done with Henry and with Peter. You don’t know how much it means to me.”

My mom grabbed Jennifer’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Anything for family,” she said.

Henry tugged at his mom’s arm.

“Come on, we’re not going to have time to play before we eat.”

266 He led her up the stairs, and I followed them. Henry proceeded to give her a full tour of the house as if she had never been there before. But to him and his memories, this was all the first time.

After fiddling around with some Legos and poring over Henry’s collection of rocks, sticks, and feathers he had found outside, my mom called us down for dinner.

We were having spaghetti and meatballs, probably at Henry’s request. My mom really wanted to make this night perfect for him. Jennifer didn’t eat the meatballs, but she made a show of slurping down her spaghetti in front of Henry. To him, she was like a statue come to life. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and I couldn’t stop watching them.

“Which tastes better,” Grandpa asked, “a home cooked meal or freedom?”

“Can’t have one without the other,” Jennifer answered.

“We’re so happy to have you home,” my mom said.

“Thank you so much for taking me in,” Jennifer said and set down her fork. “But we don’t need to act like nothing’s changed. I know things are going to be different. I hope they are. I want them to be. While I was in the hospital, I kept thinking about how bad I’d fucked up.”

My mom’s attention shifted to Henry, but he didn’t seem to notice. Jennifer kept going.

“When you make mistakes, things need to change or you just keep going down the same road. So, I don’t want anyone to act like nothing’s happened. But I wanted to thank all of you for making sure I had a place to come to, and a little boy to come home to, once it was done. It’s about the only reason I got out.”

“Mom,” Henry interrupted, “do I have to go to school tomorrow?”

267 “Umm, I think so.”

“Yes,” I said, “you do. Mom will be here when you get back.”

Grandpa cleared his throat.

“Henry,” he said. “This is your life now. You have to get used to it. Your mom and dad will be here when you go to school, and they will be here when you come home.

You need to think that is normal. But do not forget how special it is either.”

For the first time since we started eating, Henry took his eyes off his mom. He looked at Grandpa and gave him a slow, single nod.

“Well, can Mom take me to school and pick me up?”

“I’d love to,” Jennifer said. “Maybe you can even introduce me to your teacher.”

“Her name’s Mrs. Clark,” I said. “The final parent-teacher conferences are next week. You can meet her then.”

Grandpa stood up from the table.

“All good homecomings need two things,” he said and went into the kitchen.

He came back holding his bottle of zwetschgenwasser and five shot glasses. I hadn’t seen that tapered bottle in six years. Grandpa had more hiding places than a magician.

“A stiff drink and a good story.”

He set one glass in front of each of us, including Henry. He filled up the ladies glasses first, than mine. He hovered over to Henry.

“Grandpa,” I said. “He’s five.” At this point, I was less looking forward to taking a shot of hard alcohol than I was trying to fight off Grandpa from giving liquor to my son.

268 “Then he gets five drops,” Grandpa said. He held his thumb over the spout and let five tiny dark purple beads fall into the glass.

He filled up his own and then motioned for us all to stand. Henry looked over at me.

“It’s okay,” I said. “This is special. It’s a celebration. You won’t like it anyway.”

Henry took his shot glass and held it up above his head. We all clinked our glasses in the middle and took our shot. Henry and my mom sipped theirs.

“Did you like it?” I asked Henry. I could tell from his scrunched up face that he didn’t.

“I think I’m drunk,” Henry said. We all laughed and I waved for him to come over and sit on my lap while Grandpa told his story.

I had never thought of it this way, but it was kind of a blessing to not have

Jennifer around while Henry was growing up. Me and him, we were so close. I was already struggling with the jealousy of having to share him with another parent. It was the same with my mom and I, except there was no chance of my dad ever coming back.

“Now that we are sufficiently relaxed,” Grandpa said, “I can tell my story.”

“I’ve missed these,” Jennifer said.

“It is so nice to have an appreciative audience. Now, growing up in Wolmerspur long before iPhones, the rhythm of our lives was set by the Great Cuckoo Clock in the town’s center. Every morning, you had to set your watch to its bells, and before you went to bed at night, you made sure to wind the house clock to its chimes. My father was the town’s master clockmaker, a position passed down from father to son in my family for as long as we cared to remember. It was his job to not only train the next generation and

269 earn his keep from crafting clocks, but also to continue the work on the Great Cuckoo

Clock.

‘Now, a cuckoo clock like the one hanging in the living room, is often ornate, but the Great Cuckoo Clock was something else. It was designed to never be finished. Each clockmaker added to the decoration, made improvements to the automatons, and provided the upkeep to ensure its proper functioning. In those days, clock making was passed down through apprenticeship and latent learning. There were no books on making and maintaining clocks. All the knowledge was in my father’s head, and the Great

Cuckoo Clock was supposed to represent this.”

“But what if the clockmaker died?” Henry asked.

Grandpa was always willing to allow Henry’s questions and interruptions.

“That happened a time or two, but the clock was designed to let the apprentice learn. It was huge, as tall as the town center and as wide as a stable. When you work with a clock, it is the delicacy of all the moving parts that makes it hard. On the Great Clock, everything was magnified. You could see how each part dictated the movements of its brothers. If the clockmaker died while the apprentice was still young, time could be spent learning within the clock itself. It was yet another way to pass down the knowledge.”

“It’s like Big Ben out in the middle of the forest,” Jennifer said.

Grandpa scoffed. “Big Ben is an Englishmen’s idea of practicality. The Great

Cuckoo Clock of Wolmerspur was a work of art. Immediately above the clock’s face, the mount and rack of a giant elk protruded. The sides were covered in finely carved vines, and each quarter of the clock face was surrounded by trees in a different season. In the top right were trees covered in buds. The bottom right was a beautiful crowd of trees in

270 full bloom. The bottom left had trees losing their leaves, and it had been crafted so that it looked like the leaves were falling and twirling when you stood below. The top left’s trees were barren, their thin branches twisting and entangling so that on cloudless nights, you could stare through its carved branches and feel like you were in the forest even though you were safe in town. So much time and energy had been spent on the clock that each subsequent generation had to work harder to make their details, their decorations stand out amongst the rest.

‘My father, when I left, he was still working on his contribution to the clock. He was trying to devise a way to make the chiming-on-the-hour cuckoo fly around the clock and disappear into the back. He spent all his free time working on that bird. It was only as large as my fists put together, but it consumed his whole life.”

Grandpa started coughing. Even when he was done, he didn’t pick his story back up.

“So what happened to the clock?” I asked to prod him back into the story. “Did it get damaged? Did you add your own contribution? You must’ve studied as a clockmaker under your father, right?”

Grandpa took a deep breath. I didn’t know if he was tired or sick.

“I studied clock making. It’s the reason I took up radio repairs when I came to the

States. It felt like the closest thing. So many parts, each worthless, but together a whole.”

His body shook and he reached out his hand to grab his side.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

My mom got up from the table and walked over to him. She grabbed his free hand and measured his pulse. She tapped her foot to help her keep time.

271 “I’m sorry,” Grandpa said again and shook his hand loose from my mom. “Here is a shorter, humbler story: I need to pee, so much so that it hurts. But to urinate hurts even worse. Being so old, I think I can make some declarations. Life is simply a long chain of decisions based on what type of pain you would like to feel and which you would like to avoid.”

My mom put crooked her arm under his shoulder to help him up.

“Gunter, come on. Let me help you up stairs to the bathroom and then you can lay down.”

“I still have enough pride to not relieve myself in front of my daughter-in-law,” he said and brushed off her arm.

“Let me help you,” Jennifer said. She didn’t get up, but held her hand out to

Gunter. He took it and smiled at her.

“Thank you both, but I am fine. Sit down. I will finish my story.” He waited for my mom to walk back to her seat before he resumed. “The Great Cuckoo Clock of

Wolmerspur will never be finished. It was designed that way. As long as women continue to have children, the work will never be done. As with all things it is better this way.”

He rubbed his hands together and stood.

“Now, Henry and Peter, when you retell this story, please remember to add in the details. The White Wolf, The Headless Monk, a troll. You can see how they connect to the clock. It is all just one long story. I am going to take Elizabeth’s suggestion and go lay down.” He turned to Jennifer and did his best to bow. “I am so happy to have you here. You have not heard all my stories, and that makes you the greatest treasure. Henry, will you help me up the stairs?”

272 I started to say something, to tell him I could help him, but my mom kicked me under the table. If Grandpa wanted Henry to go with him, then I shouldn’t stop them.

They slowly made their way out of the dining room and up the stairs.

“Peter,” Jennifer said, “you didn’t tell me Gunter was sick. Is it bad?”

My mom and I didn’t say anything. I looked her in the eye to let her know I wasn’t ignoring her.

Jennifer grabbed a now cold dinner roll, tore off a chunk, and shoved it in her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said in between chewing. “Once, after I had just met him, he told me happiness is like candy. You can’t have too much of it or you’ll get sick.”

“After your father died,” my mom said, “Gunter was the only one there for me.

One night after I had spent the day crying and changing diapers, he gave me his weird smile. ‘At least you’ll have some stories to tell him,’ he said. ‘That’s worth more than a full-time nanny.’ His sense of humor isn’t for everyone, but it saved me when I needed it.”

They were both throwing in their Grandpa stories, so I decided to give one of mine.

“Grandpa, well, I don’t even know why I call him that. He’s my dad as far as I’m concerned. You know all of his stories have lessons or morals, even if he says they don’t.

But I think the best thing he ever taught me was that love and hate aren’t two sides of the same coin. They are the coin. That’s all there is to this world.”

Henry came running down the stairs.

“Grandpa says goodnight,” he said.

273 “Let me help you clean up,” Jennifer offered my mom.

I took Henry into the living room and finished up his homework before bedtime.

When everything was finished and clean, he insisted that Jennifer be the one to take him upstairs and put him to bed.

“I have to teach her how to do everything,” he said.

“I can help show her too,” I said as I made my way toward the stairs.

“I want Mom to do it. Just once. You got to put me to bed a hundred times, but

Mom’s never done it.”

I looked over to Jennifer. She was soaking it all up. I think she needed to feel this way from Henry. It was good for her, so I gave in.

“I’ll be up later,” I said. “Remember, Dad’s sleeping in your room too.”

He gave me a kiss, and then I stayed at the foot of the stairs as Henry walked

Jennifer through his teeth brushing, water drinking, and story reading routine.

I had time off from work, time I’d been craving. And now I had even more time. I went from a full-time parent to a part-time dad. All this time was fucking crushing me.

Grandpa had said the Great Cuckoo Clock of Wolmerspur was designed to never be finished. But whether they wanted it to or not, one day it would be. Either the town would just give up or the world would end. Nothing could go on forever.

Eventually, Jennifer came down the stairs. She was beaming, and I could tell putting Henry to bed had improved her state of mind.

“I think I’m going to go lie down as well,” she said from behind the couch.

I got up and walked over to her.

“You don’t have to. We can watch a movie or something.”

274 She grabbed her right wrist with her left hand.

“To be honest,” she said, “I’m not really used to all this. I’ve spent so much time being alone, this is all a bit overwhelming. I think I kind of came to depend on that isolation. At least for tonight.”

“Well,” I said. “Goodnight then. Henry’s school starts at 8:15.”

“I’ll be ready,” she said.

We each stood there for a couple of seconds too long. Then I turned and went back to the couch. I heard her creep up the stairs to not wake Henry or Grandpa.

It bugged me. The whole thing did. Jennifer seemed more comfortable about all this than me. She was just slipping right back into the fold of our lives, but I had spent the past three and a half years keeping this machine running.

But I couldn’t think like that.

Life would keep going, keep happening, whether I wanted it to or not.

The next day, I was scheduled to meet with The Boss and hopefully get a better understanding of what ELF wanted from Shanksy and what they had in mind for me. I wasn’t really entertaining the idea of actually giving them anything, but I knew I was done with Shanksy. I wasn’t going to move across the country for them. I wasn’t going to help them rip up the Earth and fill it with shit it the name of low energy costs. The whole thing felt like a game. If Grandpa’s dice had taught me anything, it was fun to see which way they fell even when it wasn’t in your favor. I just wanted to see what the roll was.

I pulled Grandpa aside to fill him in on what I wanted him to do. He didn’t look well, but he was sticking to his daily routine.

275 “I have to go attend to some work stuff,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ll be back when

Henry gets out of school, but I want you to go with Jennifer to pick him up.”

“She knows where the school is.”

“I know, but I want to make sure everything goes smoothly. And I want you to promise me that you will stay here with him and her until I get back.”

“You’re lucky I don’t have any plans yet,” he said.

“Just promise me.”

“I thought you were off work for two weeks. Why can’t you stay? What if I’m needed somewhere else?”

I pulled out my phone to check the time. I didn’t want to be late.

“Grandpa, you have cancer and couldn’t even get through dinner last night. If someone says they need you, tell them I need you more. Okay?”

He nodded and gave me a hug.

“Be safe,” he said.

I told Jennifer that I was heading into work and that Grandpa wanted to go with her to pick up Henry. She was fine with it. She was sitting on the couch hoarding the remote control. It must’ve felt good to be able to watch whatever she wanted.

I left the house and got in my car. I hadn’t had the time to look up the coordinates for the meeting, so I punched them into Google maps and turned on voice directions. The monotonous robot voice led me.

I figured it would be at some strip mall head shop or maybe a local co-op, but the further I drove, the more things looked familiar. I didn’t come out this way often, but by

276 the time I pulled into the camping grounds parking lot, I knew where the meeting would take place.

Henry had found it weeks ago on our camping trip. The bathroom covered in

ELF’s. There were a couple of cars parked in the lot, but it was a nice day and the trail around the lake made for a nice hike. I figured it was better to have extra people here. If

The Boss was a nut or some ecoterrorist armed to the teeth, well, at least I wouldn’t die alone.

I walked past the empty fire ring and headed for the restroom. I stopped before I got in. I hadn’t smoked pot in years but never forgot the sense of paranoia. It was hitting me hard. What if this wasn’t ELF. What if it was an elaborate set up from Shanksy? In the meeting with them, they acted like I could never do something like this. They acted like they knew something I didn’t. Maybe this was it.

But I hadn’t done anything wrong yet. At worse, it was a trap, and I would be blacklisted from Shanksy. I didn’t care about that anymore. There was nothing they could do to hurt me. I was the one with the power.

Crickets were chirping from within the stall. Someone who had recently visited had been drinking too much coffee and forgot to flush the urinal. It wasn’t that bad though considering it probably got cleaned twice all season.

I stepped up to the sink and washed my hands while I waited. The door to the lone stall opened and out stepped James.

“Jesus,” I said. “Please tell me you’re not The Boss. I knew this was a bad idea.”

“Petey, I’m not The Boss. I’m only his messenger.”

277 “No. That’s not how this is going to work. I told you I wanted to meet with The

Boss. If I wanted to hear you spout your theories, I could just pop out of my house and catch you on my lawn at five in the morning.”

I looked at James. He looked skinnier than before. I couldn’t smell alcohol on his breath, but his hands were shaking. And the tips of his fingers were covered in permanent marker. I guess he was the one spreading ELF’s message all over the bathroom walls.

“You should know, The Boss does not call himself the boss. He is our leader but not by his own design. Some men are born for greatness while others make it themselves.

The Boss is both. He understands transferal. He moves in energies. He plans in epochs.”

“Then where is he?” I asked.

“The governor has stopped Shanksy, but entropy is inevitable. Momentum is the result of velocity and mass. All that energy must go somewhere.”

“I’ve been through this with you before. I’m not doing it again.”

“The Boss needs you. He wants to meet with you in private.”

“And what does he want? This was supposed to be our private meeting.”

“His request is simple: he wants the composition of the slick water and proppant

Shanksy uses in its wells.”

There was no real reason to divulge that kind of information unless a rival company was looking to increase efficiency. That was the reason fracking companies lobbied to keep the formulas private.

“So some other company can swoop in and take a chunk of Shanksy’s business?

I’m not interested in dealing with the lesser of two evils anymore.”

278 “It’s poison, Pete. And the people have a right to know what is sitting below their drinking water.”

“What will happen to the information if The Boss gets it?” I asked. If The Boss had a plan, I wanted to know what it was before I got involved.

“The Boss works for mankind. He will release the information to the public so they can decide how they value their lives and the lives of their children.”

“You can go online and find plenty of pro and anti-fracking websites that give lists of fracking fluid composition. I don’t see the point.”

“Yes,” James said. He took a few steps back and eyed himself in the mirror. “But to lie and to not tell the truth aren’t the same thing. My son is autistic. My daughter has asthma. My wife is depressed, and I’m a drunk. The moon is moving away from the

Earth. The sun’s solar flares grow more unpredictable. It has to stop, Pete. You could save us.”

“Shanksy didn’t turn you into a drunk.”

“No. The poison of the world did. The imbalance Shanksy creates. Rich and poor.

Hot and cold. Sick and healthy. The world we’ve created, it can’t last. ELF will end it, or the world itself will end.”

“I don’t want to end the world,” I said. If I had known it would be James, I wouldn’t have come. I couldn’t deal with anymore crazy. “I have what The Boss needs.

Signed papers from Shanksy sitting on my computer. But I’m not even going to think about it until I meet him.”

“Peter Marchen. A good, German name. Determined and hard working. But still, we all have our faults. The Boss knew this would happen. He will come to you.”

279 “When?” I asked.

“The Boss plans in epochs.”

“Then I’ll be dead, and the world will have moved on from fracking and caring about all this shit anyway.”

“Every generation thinks it is the greatest. Every generation thinks it will be the last. No one understands that they are here solely to ensure the next.”

James had been my mentor. I was smart enough to know the technical side, but he had taught me the personal. He navigated me through Shanksy’s politics and practices.

He was a people person, and I was just a kid. But he had lost that. He was a shriveled core of himself.

“And what do your kids think of you?” I asked.

“They think I’m pathetic. Just like you do.”

James brushed past me and left the bathroom. I stayed in for a minute to rewash my hands. I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t sleep much last night in Henry’s tiny bed. He was a cover hog. The situation would have to change.

In the back, behind my reflection, all the backwards ELF’s scribbled on the walls looked more sinister. The mirror had flipped them, and the proximity of the backwards

“F” and “L” made them look like swastikas.

And I thought of Grandpa, who was dying, and who had nearly died in World

War II. And I thought of his storage locker, filled with secrets.

There was a responsibility I had, but I didn’t know to who.

I spent most of my life trying to find ways to not think. Video games, booze, weed, sex, books, work. There were all just ways to get my mind distracted.

280 It wasn’t worth it. None of this was. James was a deluded alcoholic. The Boss would never show up.

I was done with Shanksy, done with ELF, done with everything that wasn’t me. I had a family at home. They were important. They were the only thing worth thinking about. If they survived, life was a success.

I left the bathroom and hopped in my car.

The drive home was much less tense then the last time I had made this trip.

I never really thought about dying before I had kids. I did stupid shit like getting drunk and then playing chauffeur or jumping off houses onto trampolines. Death never entered my mind until Henry.

Kids.

Once Henry was born, dying was all I could think about. He needed me. If I died, it would affect him irrevocably. A kid outliving a parent isn’t something to shrug off. It was a burden. Not everyone was up for the task.

I pulled into the driveway, and could see Grandpa sitting on his computer through the front bay window. He was good about listening if you took a hard stance.

Inside, Jennifer and Henry were playing with his giant plastic Batcave. She was hopping around with a little Wonder Woman figurine, and he was smashing the Joker and

Two-Face into her with all his little might. Nobody looked up when I came in.

I scooted up behind them, put Robin into his plastic motorcycle and crashed it onto the scene.

“Dad,” Henry shouted. “Robin’s dead. The Riddler already got him.”

“Oh,” I said and tossed Robin over my shoulder. “How was school?”

281 “Good. My play is next week, and Mom said she is coming too?”

“Of course,” I said. I was ready for the novelty of having Jennifer around to wear off. I missed being Henry’s center of attention. I was happy she was here and involved with Henry but couldn’t get used to the seismic shift it created in our family.

“I’m going to go upstairs and change,” I said and left them to play together.

Grandpa grunted at me as I walked by.

I put on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt then lay on the bed and read Candide. I only had sixty pages left. It had been far too long since I finished a book. My life the past three and a half years had been a weird mix of extreme passivity mixed with fervent activity. Reading seemed like the perfect mix of the two. It was what I needed.

I stayed upstairs until my mom came home and dinner was ready. Jennifer had asked for some space, and I knew she deserved all the time with Henry she could handle.

It amazed me how the small talk flowed during dinner. Grandpa didn’t even offer to tell a story. I didn’t know if he didn’t want to interrupt or was just too tired. Jennifer always had an energy to her, and even in mundane conversation, she could make it interesting. Her exuberance was offset by Henry’s silence. Usually, he was the one who did most of the talking, and the rest of us would respond and explain. Now, he sat with adoration in his eyes and just stared at his mom while mindlessly shoveling food into his mouth. It was good to see him so happy though.

After dinner, my mom asked me to go downstairs and bring up the sewing machine. She and Jennifer were going to put the final touches on Henry’s Saint Agabus costume. It was basically a toga with some green sequins trimmed around the sleeves, but

282 Henry wanted them to add a giant gold cross to the center. I took the opportunity to get some alone time with Henry.

I dragged him over to the TV and turned on Super Mario 3D World. Since one of the power-ups was a bell that turned your character into a cat, we called it Kitty Mario.

“Let’s check and see if the gold train is back,” he said.

I let him take control of first player and escort us to the hidden level where occasionally a train appeared made from solid gold that shot out stacks of coins and let you get tons of extra guys. It was his favorite part of the game.

“Do you like having Mom home?” I asked.

“It’s like having a play date every day. With you, Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa, I always have someone to play with.”

“But don’t you like playing by yourself sometimes?”

Henry as Mario hopped down a pipe to get to the golden train. I didn’t know if he was focusing on the game or processing my question.

“No train,” he said. “And being alone isn’t fun. If I do something awesome, no one even knows. No one can laugh at my jokes.”

“But it’s nice to be able to relax, or think, or just do whatever you want without having to worry about other people.”

Henry took us inside a level where the flag pole you jump on to end the level constantly moves. The faster you chased it, the faster it ran away. The trick was to trap it in a corner.

“That stuff’s for old people,” he said. “I like to play, and you can’t play by yourself.”

283 “Games are fun,” I said. I paused the game to get his full attention. “Henry, remember before when we talked about the difference between what’s real and what is just a story?” He nodded at me. “I want you to tell Dad if anyone, even Mom, ever says something you think might not be real. I like it when you tell me stories, so if someone says something weird or doesn’t make sense, I want you to tell me about it.”

“Well,” he said. “The other day, Grandpa told me that in Heaven you can eat the clouds and they taste like your favorite food. But clouds are just water. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Thanks for telling me that story, Bud. I love you.”

“And sometimes, Mrs. Clark says things about Mr. Clark that don’t make sense.

Like, he clears his history before she can see it, but what does that even mean?”

Before I could answer, my mom called Henry in to the dining room. His costume was ready.

He shimmied out of his pants and ripped off his shirt. Jennifer helped him slip on the toga.

“It looks great, Bud. Mom and Grandma did an awesome job.”

Henry held his hands in front of him as if he was meditating. Then he jumped and did a bunch of karate chops.

“Are you the saint of ninjas?” Grandpa asked for them threshold of the living room.

“No,” Henry said. He shout out his hands with open palms. “I’m the saint of magic. Abra-ka-boom.”

284 He took off at a sprint and ran straight into the wall with his hands. Then he spun around and did that to the rest of the walls in the dining room.

“I’m not feeling well,” Grandpa said after Henry had calmed down. “I’m going to bed.”

“Henry should go up to,” I said.

“Mom can take me,” he said. “We’re making plans.” He rubbed his hands together like a melodramatic villain.

Jennifer and Henry followed Grandpa up the stairs.

“Just one story,” I yelled up the stairs. Henry’s bedtime routine was important. I didn’t want it getting messed up.

I sat on the couch and flipped through the pages of my book without actually reading any of them. When Jennifer came down, my mom excused herself to give us

“some alone time”.

“Was he good?” I asked her.

“Perfect. He’s got quite the set up. Like, OCD-style. He needs to get a drink, brush his teeth, get a drink, read his story, get a drink, then he needs to arrange his stuffed animals so that they form a box around him, and then he can go to bed.”

“He just does all that so he can stay up later,” I said.

“Why does talking about stuff like that make you so uncomfortable? Some people are just different.”

“I can’t really relate to it. It’s hard for me to empathize.”

“Well, at least sympathize then.” She scooted closer to me on the couch.

“Did you clean out his ears?” I asked.

285 “I know you’re trying to make fun of me, but it’s true. I read it in a journal.”

“I read up on it after you told me that. I don’t think it’s true. Ear wax helps stop bacteria and fungi from getting into our bodies.”

She leaned back away from me.

“It’s not about what’s trying to get in our bodies. It’s about what’s trying to get out. We don’t live in the Garden of Fucking Eden. This world is filled with chemicals and poison. People like you tunnel into the earth, top it off with chemicals, and then go on your merry way."

“I don’t work for Shanksy anymore.” It was the first time I said it out loud.

“So what’s next for us? Neither of us have jobs, we live in your mom’s house, and we don’t sleep together.”

“We’ll get by. I have plenty of money saved up.”

“I was hoping you would notice, but of course you didn’t.”

I turned away from the TV to look at her face. She was skinnier than when she first got arrested. I didn’t ever care about her weight, and maybe it was still the same, but the shape of her face. It was thinner. Her chin and jaw more pronounced.

“Notice what?”

“I’ve been wearing my engagement ring all day, and you didn’t even notice.”

“I’ve got a lot going on,” I said.

Jennifer stood up from the couch.

“You don’t have a job. You have no friends. You didn’t take your son to school, pick him up, or put him to bed. You’ve basically been reading and playing video games all day. What do you have going on that is more important than the people around you?”

286 I turned the TV off.

“We should talk about our engagement. I want to put it off until we can fall back into a better routine. It’s too much right now.”

“Pete, you and Henry are the only thing I got. This isn’t my house. Elizabeth isn’t my mom, and Gunter isn’t my grandpa. I have my son and my fiancé. That’s it. Fuck.

Everyone’s life is a mess. Let’s try to make ours better.”

“You’re right,” I said.

“I’m going upstairs. See you tomorrow.”

I turned back around on the couch but kept the TV off.

“You can come if you want,” Jennifer said.

I didn’t answer her. I should have, but I didn’t.

Instead, I fell asleep on the couch. My life was work. And I was tired.

I woke up on the couch and it was like being at a friend’s house for a sleepover. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I wasn’t in my bed.

Someone was crashing down the stairs. I could hear them sobbing and sniffing their nose. I thought it would be Jennifer, but when I pulled myself up on the couch, I saw my mom.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Petey, get dressed. We need to take Grandpa to the hospital.”

I pulled the blanket off of me and rubbed my eyes to wake up.

“Okay,” I said and hopped up. “Let’s go. What do we need to do? Do we need to carry him to the car?”

287 “Get your shoes on and meet me up stairs. I think he can walk if we help him, but he’s in a lot of pain.”

I ran to the front door, stomped my feet into my shoes without untying them, and then sprinted up the stairs. My mom was already in Grandpa’s room, helping him to sit up and trying to get him to drink some water.

I sat down next to him and put my hand on his back. He recoiled and pulled away.

The past couple of weeks he looked so hollow, but now he felt swollen.

“Can you get up, Grandpa” I asked. I put my arm under his shoulder, and with my mom’s help, we lifted him off the bed.”

He groaned but was able to stay on his feet.

“My back is in knots,” he said as we got him down the stairs.

I opened the front door with my free hand and led him down the stairs.

“Even in the city,” he said as his feet shuffled toward the car, “you can sometimes see the stars.”

We put him in shotgun and my mom hopped in the back. I opened the back driver’s side door.

“I need to get Henry,” I said.

“He’s fine. Grandpa needs help now. We can get Henry in the morning.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not leaving him with Jennifer. You weren’t the one who had to come home to find him abandoned in a laundry basket. He can sleep at the hospital.”

I slammed the car door shut before she could respond. I sprinted into the house, up the stairs, and into Henry’s room. I gave him a few shakes.

288 “Bud, you need to get up. Just for a little bit. We need to take Grandpa to the hospital.”

“Is it morning,” he asked. He was still clutching his stuffed wolf. I picked him up and let him rest his head on my shoulder. We made our way back to the stairs.

Jennifer was standing in the hall way in a pair of sweat pants and one of my t- shirts.

“What happened?” she asked. She sounded wide awake.

“Grandpa needs to go to the hospital. My mom says it’s bad. I’ll let you know how things are going in the morning.”

“No,” she said. “I’m coming.”

“We’re fine. We need to go.”

She crossed her arms and walked toward the stairs.

“I’m a fucking geriatric nurse. I’m coming too.”

I didn’t have time to argue with her. If she wanted to come, I couldn’t stop her.

We piled into the car, and I started speeding through the abandoned streets. City

Hospital, where I was born, was a little more than five minutes away. Henry was in his booster seat and cuddled up next to Jennifer. No one talked. Every time I took a sharp turn or the car hit a pot hole, Grandpa squirmed in his seat.

I pulled up to the ER entrance, ran out to grab a wheelchair, and helped my mom get Grandpa in.

I opened the back door to talk to Jennifer.

“Help my mom get him in. We’ll park the car and come find you guys.”

She hopped out and walked in with my mom and Grandpa.

289 I’d never seen him in pain. I saw him pull a fishing hook out from beneath his thumb nail without flinching. He broke a finger when I was little and just taped it to the next one and went on with his life. Watching him wince and seethe was like realizing

Santa wasn’t real.

I parked the car in one of the parking garages and carried Henry into the hospital.

The receptionist directed us to Geriatric Oncology. My mom and Jennifer were waiting in the lobby out front for us. They were staring at the TV on the wall and taking the occasional glance at each other.

“What did they say?” I asked. “No ER or ICU?” I didn’t know shit about how hospitals or health care. What I had learned was from my mom or Jennifer telling stories.

But it had to be a good sign that Grandpa didn’t need immediate care.

“The doctors are in there now,” my mom said. “Based on what he told them before we got kicked out, it sounds like end stage renal disease. His kidneys aren’t working. They’re going to try dialysis.”

I set Henry down on a chair next to his mom.

“Okay, good,” I said. As long as there was a plan, I felt better. I needed to know that something was happening. “So, dialysis and then what? Why is he in Oncology?”

My mom looked down on the ground. Jennifer shifted Henry’s head off her shoulder and walked over to me.

“The lymph nodes near the kidneys have noticeable growths on them.”

“Like when you have a cold or ear infection?” I asked. My mom and Jennifer were prepared to handle this kind of thing. I wasn’t.

290 “His kidneys are failing. They’ve failed. They’re going to run dialysis and then give him an MRI and CT scan.”

“And the lymph nodes?” I asked.

“Mean he likely has renal cell carcinoma that’s spread to his lymph nodes.”

“No, it’s skin cancer.” I looked past Jennifer to my mom. “Did you tell them it was just skin cancer?”

She nodded her head but was crying at the same time.

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“We just need to wait,” Jennifer said. “See what his scans show.”

“But we have to do something.”

Jennifer nodded. She reached out her hand, but I pulled mine away.

“Waiting is something,” she said. “It’s all we got.” She sat back down.

I paced up and down the lobby outside of the patient rooms while Henry slept and

Jennifer stroked his hair over and over again. I looked at my mom and could tell my pacing was keeping her on edge. I was exhausted already, so I took a seat next to her.

She grabbed my hand off of my knee and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s hard,” she said. “And that’s okay.”

My eyes were burning, and I fought off blinking for as long as I could. As soon as

I did, a few tears slipped down my face. Jennifer was right, the only thing I could do was wait.

I watched the same six news stories cycle through CNN each hour. I kept asking my mom when we would get some news, and each time she answered with “soon.”

291 Henry and Jennifer were sleeping, and my mom was starting to nod off, so I took to pacing again. I walked back and forth in front of the TV waiting to hear about

Grandpa.

Then the news anchor mentioned Northeast Ohio and my attention shifted.

“Disturbing news out of Northeast Ohio. Remember a few weeks back when we reported on a confrontation between authorities and a local news station about the appearance of a bottomless pit? Well, it’s in the news again, and this time it is much grimmer. We’ve received and verified amateur footage of what appears to be a cult calling itself The Acolytes of the Eternal Fall. While the clip is not graphic, we must warn you that what it shows is quite grave.”

The camera broke away from the anchor and into some shaky, but high quality footage of a group of maybe twenty people all dressed in red hoodies, gold athletic shorts, and white K-Swiss. Each one was holding a candle. They were huddled around a man standing at the edge of the hole. The man said something to the camera I couldn’t make out because the volume on the TV was too low. Then he turned, held the candle above his head, and stepped into the pit. The others followed his lead, each stepping up to the edge, raising their candle, and falling into the opening. The person running the camera crept closer to the hole and held it over the edge as the individuals jumped in.

Their candles were visible for only a second before being snuffed out by either the wind or the depths of the hole. When all twenty had falling in, the man turned the camera on himself.

It was the same guy Grandpa and I had seen out in the field.

“The gate to the afterlife will close at sunrise,” he said. “Join us.”

292 Then he set the camera down on the ground. I could see his candle waver over the screen for half a second and then he presumably joined the rest. The shot showed only the stars above the field for a few seconds before cutting out.

I couldn’t believe it. I spun around to see if anyone was awake and watching, but no one was.

I put my hands up to my temples and rubbed them. They were gone. All of them.

I’m sure the police and fire department were already at the scene, but if Shanksy’s estimation of at least two hundred meters deep was right, it was already too late.

It was unsettling. Honestly, it was fucking scary. But more than anything, I wanted to tell Grandpa what I had just watched. I wanted to tell him a story for once. I knew he would appreciate it in a way the others couldn’t.

When the sun came up outside and there still wasn’t any news from the doctors, I called Henry’s school and told him he wouldn’t be coming today. Then I sat down and tried to rest even though I knew I wouldn’t sleep.

Eventually, around seven in the morning, a nurse came out and went to my mom.

They whispered back and forth, and at the end, the doctor gave my mom a hug.

I walked over to my mom.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“We can see Grandpa now. Come on. Bring Henry.”

He was sleeping in his chair with his neck at an impossible angle. I slipped my arms under him and scooped him up. Jennifer shook herself awake, and together we followed the doctor into Grandpa’s room.

293 He was lying on his bed, IV’s and a respirator hooked into him, but he smiled when he saw all of us.

He was struggling to breathe.

“So nice of you all to come. A man deserves to die surrounded by his loved ones.”

Henry hopped down from my arms and ran to him.

“Grandpa,” he said on his tiptoes trying to get closer to his face. “You promised to come to my play.”

“I will,” he said between breaths. “But maybe as a ghost and not as a grandpa.”

“Dying’s not fair,” Henry said and started crying.

“Yes it is,” Grandpa said. “It’s life that’s unfair.”

I scooched up to the bedside and took his wrinkly hand in mine.

“How do you feel?” I asked him.

“That’s the sad part,” he said. “I’m on morphine. I don’t feel anything. I want to know what death feels like, but the doctors.”

“You’re not dead yet.”

“No, but I also wasn’t made to live forever.”

He gave me a smile and my hand a shake. I stepped away so Jennifer and my mom could talk to him.

He was adamant that he would soon die, but he was happy. And he looked the same as he did all week. According to my mom, it was just a matter of time. There was no outlook for him, just the hope of a peaceful few days.

294 After a while, Grandpa wanted to go to sleep. We set up shifts to stay with him. I volunteered to go first. My mom took Henry and Jennifer home, and I pulled up a chair next to him and watched him sleep.

He was right. People don’t actually die. There are only those living who know dead people. It is their affair, not the dead’s. But I still wasn’t ready for it. It was stupid to think I ever would be.

295 CHAPTER IX

PETER EATS A UNICORN

It surprised me that the world kept on going when mine had seemingly come to a stop. I guess there was a reason I’d been called selfish before. But it wasn’t just the birds outside the hospital windows or the buses on the streets. It was the cable news cycle and the small talk chatter at the nurse’s station. I heard a lot of people and read plenty of articles about the perils of the Information Age, but, like Grandpa, I scoffed at them. My thinking was that it’s better to know and be aware even if it scared or depressed then live your stupid, uninformed life.

But now I could see I was once again wrong. The constant flood of sob stories, genocides, kitten videos, and crowdfunded philanthropy weren’t there to enlighten or inform. They were there to make you forget. And all I wanted to do right now was remember.

I watched a lot of CNN while Grandpa slept in the hospital. One day, there would be the story of twenty-six beheadings in Syria, and the next day some new atrocity replaced it before I even had time to process what it meant to slice off someone’s head, what happened to the families, what it meant to me and my family, and what should be done to stop it or if it should be stopped. There was a wealth of information but no depth.

296 Or maybe I was just pissed off because Grandpa was withering away in the bed next to me. They knew what was wrong with him, but there was nothing they could do to help him.

It was Sunday, so I was able to bring Henry along with me to stay with Grandpa in the hospital. We played Weird Animals and made up stories while Grandpa slept.

“Mom said you said heaven isn’t real.” Henry rolled the dice but didn’t look up at me. I could tell he didn’t like being in the room when Grandpa was sleeping, but it was the only way to make sure he was there when he woke up. Henry lived for those moments when he could get a few words in with Grandpa.

“I didn’t say that,” I said. “Or, at least, it’s not that simple.”

“So, you did say it. Or is Mom lying?”

“No one’s lying because no one knows the answer.”

“Grandma said she’s one hundred percent sure about heaven.”

I pursed my lips. I didn’t want Henry to be the dick at Catholic school going around telling everyone heaven was fake, but the scientist in me was begging him to be more inquisitive.

“Do you know anyone in heaven?” I asked.

He put his finger on his chin and thought about it.

“Saint Agabus!” he shouted. “And all the saints. You have to be in heaven to be a saint.”

“That’s what the teach you, but they don’t know. And being sure about heaven and knowing about heaven are different. No one’s ever died, gone to heaven, and then told us about it. Heaven could exist. It might exist. But we can’t know it exists.”

297 “But why do Grandma and Mrs. Clark say they’re sure?”

I set the dice down on the table in an attempt to get Henry to look at me.

“Because dying is scary. And it’s scary to watch the people you love die.”

“I’m not scared of dying,” he said and I could tell he meant it.

“That’s because you haven’t been alive for very long. The longer you live, the older you get, the more you get used to being alive. And not being alive can be very scary. Just like watching Grandpa die is very scary. It’s okay to be scared. And it’s okay to not know something.”

“Are you scared?” he asked.

“I’m scared, and I’m sad.”

“I think I am too.”

I leaned across the little end table we were throwing dice on and gave him a hug. I could see his thin neck forcing down a swallow.

“Dying’s an adventure,” Henry said. “And life is just about getting all the stuff you need to go. Your friends, your family, and your stories. That’s what Grandpa told me.”

“What did I tell you?” Grandpa asked.

Henry and I shot up from the table and went to his bedside. Henry ran over and put his nose next to Grandpa’s.

“That butts poop jelly and bats taste like licorice.”

Grandpa started laughing but it turned into a cough and threw his body into a fit. I scooted in front of Henry.

“You okay?” I asked when he stopped coughing.

298 “If I have to have you help me onto the bedpan one more time, I’m going to die of embarrassment.”

“It’s the circle of life,” I said. “You can’t mess with it.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it. How are my boys?”

“We’re good. I taught Henry how to play Weird Animals.”

“Grandpa,” Henry said from behind me. “When you die, if you come back as a ghost, I don’t want you to forget our secret knock.”

“Me and you,” Grandpa said. He held up his hand, thumb and pinky finger sticking out, and rocked it back and forth. “We are the same. We always remember.”

“Please don’t haunt us if you come back as a ghost,” I said.

“I think there’s time for one last story,” Grandpa said.

“Just rest. You can tell stories when you feel better. We’ve heard them all anyway.”

“But I never told you the story of Wolmerspur’s disappearance.” His breathing was slow and heavy. I could tell he was struggling for every breath.

“It’s okay, Grandpa.”

“We were isolated. We feed the squirrels out of our hands, and they came to expect it.” His breaths were becoming more erratic. Sometimes he could barely force a word out before having to pause and rest. “We didn’t know we weren’t alone. I’m so glad you and Henry could be here.”

I grabbed his hand.

“Of course we’re here. We wouldn’t want to miss your story.”

299 “Oh, Peter,” he said. He took a giant gulp of air. “Stories never die, only storytellers.”

And then his head turned to the side, and that last breath of air he took in never came out. I squeezed his hand hard, but I knew he was gone. I looked over at Henry. He was standing at the foot of the bed, tears in his eyes.

Henry’s head titled slightly, and I waved him over. He took, small, quiet steps. I let go of Grandpa’s hand, grabbed Henry’s and put all three of ours together. Then I gave

Henry a hug, picked him up, and went to find a nurse.

Grandpa was buried in the Catholic cemetery next to his wife, my grandma I’d never met. It wasn’t the same cemetery my dad was buried in. I’m sure it looked the same, but my mom never took me to see it.

The burial was sparsely attended. A few employees Grandpa had worked with at the radio shop came, and there was one vet from Grandpa’s unit. He was deaf and in a wheel chair, but I thanked him and the others for coming. Grandpa was old. He had watched so many others around him die that when his time came, it was really just my mom, Jennifer, Henry and me. He would’ve wanted it that way though.

My mom handled all the paperwork and legal stuff, and I had to fight her to get my way with his tombstone.

The cemetery had long ago outlawed monuments or markers that rose a foot or more above the ground. Almost all the graves were marked by stones set in the ground.

Grandpa’s was no different.

300 It gave his name, Gunter Friedrich Marchen, date of birth and date of death, and then the inscription I fought for.

Henry wanted it to say He killed Giants and Nazis, and maybe that would’ve been a better fit, but my mind was made up.

Not Always Right, But Never Wrong, it read.

After the casket was lowered into the ground and some dirt was piled on top of it, we hung around as a family. There was no wake to hurry off to, just the silence of the house.

It was a clear day. Warm and no breeze. A lone turkey vulture swung in lopping figure-eights above us. Everything was very quiet.

“I think he loved me the best,” Henry said. He was done shedding tears. For him, it was losing Grandpa that was sad, not putting him in the ground.

“I think you’re right,” I said. “He had a lot of love, and he wanted to make sure you got the most of it.”

“When we get home,” Henry said. “I want to start writing and drawing his stories so we don’t forget any of them.”

“I’ll help,” I said.

My mom took Henry’s hand and walked over to me. She kissed my cheek and then whispered in my ear.

“There’s dignity in suffering, Petey,” she said. Then she pulled back, looked at the open grave, and crossed herself. “We’ll wait for you at the car. Take all the time you need.”

301 I watched them walk away. Henry couldn’t bring himself to skip, but he still had a bounce to his step. Him and Grandpa, they had made their peace. They only knew each other for five years, but I don’t think either one was closer with anybody else in the world.

Jennifer still stood by my side.

“I think of all the people I’ve ever met,” she said, “I liked Gunter the best. I don’t mean I loved him more than you or Henry, or that I was closer to him than anyone else.

It’s just, he was the best person. The best human being. From the minute I met him, he treated me like an equal. And that never changed.”

I started blubbering because I couldn’t get any words out of my chest. The weight and the loss kept everything in.

“It doesn’t feel right,” I said once I regained some composure.

“It shouldn’t,” Jennifer said. “I’m so sad, and so sorry for you, Pete.”

I kicked some dirt from the edge of the hole into the grave.

“You know, when you’re a kid, you have all these ideas and visions—archetypes,

I guess. Like, this is the way a barn is supposed to look. This is the way a knight is supposed to act. This is the way a waterfall is supposed to be. But then you grow up, and it all turns to bullshit. That’s the way I feel about this cemetery. I want it to be dark and creepy with dead trees and little arched tombstones, ravens squawking, that kind of thing.

But it’s sunny and lined with budding elms, and all the grave markers are set in the ground. It doesn’t seem like Grandpa at all.”

“He was a fairy tale,” Jennifer said. “We were lucky he was ever real, ever here with us, even if he’s gone now.”

302 “I think I’m ready to say goodbye now.”

“I’ll meet you at the car,” Jennifer said and walked away.

Once she was over the hill, I laid down in the grass next to his headstone and stared up at the sky. I wished there were clouds.

I wished for a lot of things. Of course, I wished Grandpa was still here. I wished I never gave him a hard time about his stories. I wished I got the chance to take him back to Germany. I wished I never made him feel guilty for my father’s death. I kept wishing and waiting for some clouds to roll by.

I was about to get up when I heard someone creeping up next to me. I figured it was Henry coming back to say a final goodbye, but then a man spoke.

“Mind if I lay next to you?” he asked.

I jolted and turned my head to look at him as he laid down.

He had brown hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a black hoody and black cargo pants. At least he was dressed for a funeral. I didn’t get a good look at his face because most of it was tucked under his hood.

“This is a burial for my grandfather,” I said to the man. I put my palms into the ground to stand up.

“I know. Came to pay my respects.”

The man was still lying down, so I finally got a good look at his face. A giant scar ripped across the left side of his face from the corners of his mouth back all the way to the ear. Around it was pocked scar tissue up to the eye and down to the chin. His eyes stayed fixed on the sky, and where at first I was only able to tell he had blue eyes, now I could see that part of his left eye was pooled with red blood.

303 “How did you know him?” I asked.

“We go way back,” the man said.

I felt ridiculous sitting next to the man out there in the cemetery, so I stood up.

The man stayed where he was.

“Friends? Work?”

The man put his fingers up to his face and started rubbing his chin as he stared off into space.

“More than that, I guess.”

The man’s voice had an uncanny quality to it. Like listening to your own voice on a recorder or home movie. It was familiar but distant.

“Thank you for coming to the service. I’m sure Gunter would’ve been glad you were able to make it.”

The man let out a little laugh.

“I see he convinced you to put that name on his tombstone. Me? I was never that convinced.”

I looked back up at the sky, but the clouds still weren’t there and the turkey vulture had moved on as well.

“How long did you know him?”

“Whole life. Off and on.”

“Thank you again for coming. If it’s not too much, I’d like to say my goodbyes in private.”

304 The man stood, dusted some grass off his pants, and looked me in the eye. The scar on his face had left a little extra tear between the corner of his mouth and the start of his cheek. Each breath he took made it flap a little bit.

“Oh, my little Pete. I wish you knew him like I knew him.”

“He was my grandfather. He lived with me. I was at his bedside when he died. I don’t mean any disrespect, but you don’t know me.”

“I know a little,” the man said. “But then, we all know people in different ways.

Don’t we?”

“Would you like to pay respects to my mother? She’s over by the road. I need to say goodbye alone.”

“I don’t think your mother would like to see me. I pay all my respects to you.

You’re a good kid.”

I looked over at the hill. I knew on the other side of it, my mom, Jennifer, and

Henry were waiting for me.

“What did you say your name was again?” I asked.

“Come on,” the man said. “Don’t you know by now?”

And I think I did, but I didn’t want to say it. I hadn’t for years. It never even crossed my mind. I wouldn’t say it out loud, and I wouldn’t say it alone.

I shook my head at him.

“Fine,” he said. “You don’t want to say it, then you can just call me The Boss.”

I studied his face, the shape of his nose, the crooked gap in his teeth. His hair was brown on top, but grey on the sides. Every week I took some time after the shower to pluck them out of my own head.

305 “James said it would take epochs,” I said.

“James is devoted but useless. You’re useful but unmotivated. Probably my fault.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I want a lot of things, and you could probably give me some of them, but you won’t. No, the only thing you’ll give me is what’s in your pocket.”

I put my hand on my pants and felt the USB drive in my front pocket. It had the

Shanksy files. I ran them through some of Grandpa’s more insidious programs on the computer to make sure anything related to me had been removed. Some of Grandpa’s friends on Tor helped with the rest.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Sure you do. You’ve been carrying it around with you since Woody died. You don’t have to give it to me though. Things like this work better when everyone’s on the same side.”

I pulled the flash drive out of my pocket at tossed it to him.

“I don’t want it anymore. Give it a couple of months though. Let Shanksy forget I ever existed.”

“Petey,” he said and put the flash drive in his pocket. “I’d never let anything bad happen to you. Never have, always will.”

We stood there for a few moments and waited for each other to say something.

“Well, I’ll let you say your goodbyes. I know how important they can be.”

He turned on his heels and walked away from the road toward the older part of the cemetery.

306 I watched him walk away and thought of Jennifer and what she would do in a situation like this. She was always braver than me, more sure of herself. More fearless.

She would ask him, so I did.

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

He turned around but didn’t walk back.

“Oh, Pete. Don’t you know by now? Everyone’s got a story, but only a few of us are fit for telling it.”

Then he turned and marched off over the next rolling hill. In a few seconds, he was gone.

I looked down at Grandpa’s grave.

“Thanks for teaching me how to tell a story,” I said.

Then I walked back to the road, back to the car, back to my family.

And it occurred to me, Henry’s wish for me had come true.

The next few days around the house were quiet. Henry went back to school, and

Jennifer gave me plenty of space. When I did talk with her alone, she was warm and comforting in a way I had rarely been.

At dinner, we pushed food around on our plates. We told stories about Grandpa but we didn’t tell his stories. At least not yet.

Henry oscillated between excitement, his normal state of being, and long bouts of not talking. We all just needed a bit of space and time. Besides, Henry had his play to look forward to. It gave him something else to think about, and he spent hours in his room rehearsing both of his lines.

307 Everybody takes their own path when mourning, but what finally shook us all out of it was when Grandpa’s lawyer contacted my mom. She had been handling all the legal and financial matters, though I forced her to let me pay for half of Grandpa’s funeral.

When we all sat down to eat the night of Henry’s play, my mom announced she had read Grandpa’s will.

“It’s a bit unusual, but it’s Grandpa. He even had one of his friends notarize it. I’ll just read it to you all.” She cleared her throat and pulled out a piece of notebook paper.

“I, Gunter Friedrich Marchen, having at first thought I had already given everything I could in this life, have come to find there are still several matters to take care of. First, for

Elizabeth, I leave her the room she has lent me all these years along with twenty years of rent, now overdue, in the form of all my electronics and the liquor hidden behind the false shelf in the lazy susan. For my one-day-to-be granddaughter, Jennifer, I leave my favorite blanket and a few thousand dollars to help you buy your own car. Finally, there are Peter and Henry, the last of my blood on this planet. Since each owned half of my heart, half of my attention, and half of my genes, I give them each equal ownership of all my stories.

They are now yours to tell. Because you will find this only mildly amusing, I have one last gift. To Peter, there is a key to my storage locker. I have paid its rent in full for the next twelve and a half years. When Henry turns eighteen, he shall receive the second key to the locker, and everything inside is for both of you.”

“So, wait,” Henry said. “I get half of his treasure?”

“Yup,” I said and smiled at him. “I get the over half.”

“But why do I have to wait so long?”

308 “Because Grandpa is Grandpa,” I said. “Now clean up and we will get ready to go to your play.”

He ran from the table, splashed some water on his face, and wiped it off with a tea towel. Then he ran upstairs to get his costume on and rehearse his lines one last time.

Jennifer and my mom cleaned up after dinner, and I went to the living room to finish reading Candide. I only had a couple of pages left.

When I got to the end, I felt pretty stupid. After Grandpa died and I officially resigned from Shanksy, I had been getting by repeating, “It is the best of all possible worlds.” It became my mantra. And then at the end of the book, Dr. Pangloss says that was just some bullshit he made up and didn’t really believe in.

But maybe I wasn’t dumb. Maybe my naivety was a gift. This was the only world.

It was the best and the worst. It was the only one I had, and that was enough. It was the best world because it was the one with Henry.

I set the book down when he came barreling down the stairs in his Saint Agabus costume.

“Let’s do this,” he shouted then jumped on the couch to practice some karate.

We all got in the car and drove to Henry’s school. Folding chairs were set up in the gym, and there was a makeshift stage made from cut out plywood crudely painted to look like trees and bushes by Henry and his classmates.

Henry ran off to Mrs. Clark when we got there, and we took our seats in the second row. I sat between Jennifer and my mom.

The show started with Father leading all of the saints up the middle aisle as they sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”. Once they got to the stage, they all stood shoulder

309 to shoulder with big smiles on their faces. Then one of the kids on the far end leaned to the side and one by one, each saint fell down to the ground in a big show of flailing limbs and faked “ouches.”

“Oh no!” Father said from the side of the stage. “All of the saints have fallen down.”

One little girl dressed in blue robes stood up in the middle.

“That’s okay,” she said. “Because saints are human just like us. We all fall down, and we can all stand up. I’m Saint Bernadette. Mary appeared before me. I am the saint of shepherds and the poor.”

Then the rest of the kids stood up and a few more took turns introducing their saints. I didn’t know when it was Henry’s turn, but I knew it was toward the end of the play.

The same shtick played out a few more times. Once, some first graders came in to act as bullies, but the saints showed them the errors in their ways. A few more scenes played out until it seemed like every kid had said their lines except Henry.

The stage was cleared except for one little boy wearing contemporary clothes. He was standing in the middle under the spotlight holding a bunch of lottery tickets.

“Please,” the boy said, “Jesus and the saints, let me win and be rich.”

Then the spotlight moved to the far right of the stage and landed on Henry. He strode toward the boy in the middle.

I looked over at my mom. She had her phone out and was recording Henry’s entrance. I turned to Jennifer. She was smiling and sitting so her butt was hovering

310 between the edge of her seat and the ground. She saw me turn my head and looked at me.

I smiled at her, and she scooted back in her seat.

“That’s not how it works,” Henry said. “We saints are examples. We can show you how to be holy, but you have to do the work.”

The other little boy walked off the stage.

“I am Saint Agabus,” Henry said and waved his arms around.

I looked at Jennifer again. The spotlight was coming down from behind her head, and every wisp of her hair was illuminated. Her breathing was quick and stunted. I could tell she was nervous for Henry. I stared at her in profile. The familiar curves of her nose and arches of her eyebrows.

I put my hand on her thigh and gave it a little squeeze. She smiled but didn’t turn her head. Then she put her hand on top of mine and held it there.

“I’m supposed to tell you what my saint is and who he was, but a couple days ago, my Grandpa died. So I came up with new things to say.”

I whipped my head back and forth to see if my mom or Jennifer knew what was going on.

My mom tilted her head in confusion a bit but kept on filming.

Jennifer was smiling and nodding her head. Henry raised his hands up and began.

“Agabus is the saint of divination, which means telling the future. But no one knows what’s going to happen in the future. I used to think my mom would come home from the hospital, and we would all live together, my mom and dad, my grandma and grandpa, but then Grandpa died. And my future changed. Grandpa was my best friend, and now I know that I don’t have to worry about the future because the past is just as

311 important. Grandpa told me it’s all connected, and when I grow up and have babies, I’ll show them then the lines and stories that connect them to Grandpa. I don’t know the future, but I know my past, and that’s what makes me happy.”

Henry kept his arms up in the air for a few more seconds before collapsing them to his sides. As soon as he did, Jennifer started clapping. Everyone else joined in. The spotlight on Henry cut out and the stage lights were turned on. The rest of the kindergartners filed on to the stage, locked hands, and took several bows while we all kept on clapping.

Finally, Mrs. Clark and Father came out and thanked us all for coming and gave the kids another round of applause. When it was all over, Henry came running over to us.

I held out my arms and he jumped into them. I gave him a big hug.

“Did you guys like it?” he asked.

“It was amazing,” I said.

“You were perfect,” Jennifer said.

“So smart and so cute,” my mom said.

Henry pulled away from my hug and did some showy bows in front of us.

We gathered up our things and made our way out of the school.

As we walked through the parking lot, Henry jutted between Jennifer and me. He took both of our hands and started swinging his arms. I met eyes with Jennifer and smiled.

Then we started to swing our arms too. The three of us fell into a rhythm. Jennifer and I both pitched our arms backwards, took a step forward, and swung Henry up into the air.

312 And I made one last wish.

I wished he could always remember that feeling. Forever hanging beneath the orange glow of the street lights. Perfectly balanced by his mother and me.

THE END

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