and blind and helpless. “I don’t want you to hear—”
“I want to watch cartoons.”
Mom was still kneeling on the floor in front of the television. Her shoulders were slumped and her head was down.
“Derek, I—”
“Cartoons.”
She straightened up a little and turned, pulling her hair out of her face with her fingers and putting it behind her ears. Her cheeks were wet and her bottom lip was bleeding. She must have bitten it. Some hair fell back in her face but this time she didn’t move it.
“I meant to—I didn’t know how—”
“
Mom jumped and in the kitchen Josie dropped something. It broke. I could tell by the sound. Mom took the remote from me and entered the code to unlock the kid channels. I sat on the couch with my arms folded and my chin all down into my chest like I was a turtle hiding in its shell.
The Adventure Kids channel was on and some kid in one of those safari helmets was letting a big tarantula walk up his arm. It was orange and black and moved slowly, its two front legs feeling the air. The kid was saying how its legs were covered in these tiny hairs and how they itched and tickled him at the same time.
Mom still knelt in front of the television and the way she was kneeling made me think of a marionette with the strings cut. If you put a lamp on her head she’d be a table. I laughed at that. I couldn’t help it. On TV the tarantula was now on the kid’s face. I laughed at that, too. I probably would have kept on laughing forever if I hadn’t suddenly thrown up all over the table.
12
WE DIDN’T EAT DINNER that night. Nobody thought to make it and I didn’t think any of us were hungry anyway. Mom went from kneeling in the living room to sitting in the kitchen. The phone rang a lot and after a while Aunt Josie stopped answering it. I think she may have gotten tired of me asking her who it was.
“It’s people who heard about your dad calling to say how sorry they are,” she said.
“Why are they sorry?” I asked. “They didn’t do it.”
“It’s called sympathy, Derek,” she said. “They feel bad for us because we lost your dad.”
“But we didn’t lose Dad,” I said.
“Oh, Derek.” Aunt Josie blinked a few times fast. If she was trying to hold back tears it didn’t work. “You do know he’s… gone. You understand what that means, right?”
“Yeah, but he’s not lost.”
“Derek, sweetheart, yes he is.”
“No, he’s not. He
“That’s different.”
“No it’s not. Lost is when you don’t know where something is. We know where Dad is. So he’s not lost.”
Aunt Josie sat back in her chair and wiped the tears from her eyes with her fingers. Mom cleared her throat and spoke. Her voice was soft but even.
“Isn’t your show on now, Piggy?”
“What show?”
“With the special episode?
“You mean
“That’s it.”
“Aren’t I still punished?”
“You’ve been punished enough.”
Her face was pale in the kitchen light. Except for her eyes, which were red with dark circles underneath. She started to smile but stopped. Maybe she realized it was stupid to smile and pretend everything was okay when we both knew it wasn’t.
“Why don’t you go to the living room and watch your show, okay?”
“Can I just go to my room instead?”
“Of course you can but I thought—I mean, you’ve waited so long to watch your show.”
“I know. It’ll be on again though.”
I didn’t want to look at my mom so I looked at my hands instead. They were sort of dirty. My pen had leaked at school today and there was a big blue ink smudge on my finger, and out of my ten fingernails, six needed cutting.
“Don’t bite your nails,” Mom said, “you’ll get worms in your belly.”
I put my hand back in my lap, not liking the way Mom was looking at me. It seemed like she was studying me, trying to guess what I might do or say next. I was used to people at school looking at me like that but I didn’t expect it from her. I always thought she knew me better.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“Can I go to my room, please? I really just want to go to my room right now.”
“Would you like me to come with you?”
I heard her but didn’t answer. Instead, I stood up and left the kitchen and when I heard her say she loved me I didn’t respond to that either. The phone rang again as I climbed the stairs to my room and the last thing I heard before closing my door was Mom’s tortured cry and the sound of the phone being torn from the wall.
Dear Derek—
How’s my guy?
I’m writing this in my bed in the field hospital. Don’t worry though I’m fine. Your daddy just did kind of a dumb thing. I woke up the other day with a bellyache and I didn’t tell anybody right away and it got worse and worse until I couldn’t even walk. The doctor said I had a bad infection in my belly called peritonitis and they had to do an operation to fix it.
Now I have to wait until I’m better before I can fly again and guess what—it’s called being “grounded.” Funny, huh? I didn’t think grown ups could get grounded, did you? Anyway I hope getting better doesn’t take long. The longer I’m here the more missions I’ll be passed over for and I don’t like not doing my part.
I hope school is going well and that we’ll see each other soon!
The Knight Rider lunch box was on the floor—on its side and empty. I’d taken all of the envelopes out of it and all of the letters out of the envelopes and my bed was now a sea of paper. I was adrift in the middle of it, clinging to the last one hundred and fifty-five words my father had written me—hanging on to the letter as if it were a life raft. He’d used six hundred and thirty-three letters and had written seven paragraphs including the salutation and whatever the part where you put “sincerely” was called.
When I finished reading the letter I read it again. Apart from comic books, the letters from my dad were the only things I read more than once. I usually read them two or three times each time I sat down with them. I had even memorized whole parts of them completely by accident.
I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes, the letters crinkling loudly underneath me. Then I rolled over and faced the wall because I didn’t want to see the helicopter model when I opened them. I saw it anyway. In my head. Only it wasn’t the model, it was the real thing and it was getting hit with a rocket over and over again and
