exactly like the one Ms. Derryberry had owned.
The doctor set it in motion, and Chuck immediately relaxed. The V-shaped threads rocked back and forth, back and forth. Again and again the silver balls fell tapping into place. The sound filled Chuck with a gentle, swaying, hammocky feeling. “A neat little gadget, this, isn’t it?” Dr. Finkelstein said. He cracked his knuckles and continued. “So let’s get started. On Monday we were talking about your chores at home. Will you write down your least favorite chore for me?”
“The tub!” Dr. Finkelstein said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Yes, there’s nothing worse than having to clean the tub. Is there anything else you dislike about living at home?”
The doctor’s face became animated as he read the note. He was interested, but he tried to pretend he wasn’t. Unless he was only pretending to be pretending he wasn’t. Sometimes people played elaborate games to hide their true feelings. The doctor jotted something down on his pad of paper. “Your pretend dad?” he prompted, reaching for the desk toy. He pinched hold of one of the hanging metal balls. When he let it go, the toy rediscovered its rhythm.
Chuck explained the difference between real dads and pretend dads. He wrote down some of the clues he had uncovered. How real dads never filled the house with their shouting. How they didn’t twist the hair on their sons’ necks. How they ate dinner without flicking their food at anyone. How they didn’t secretly wish that their sons were dead. Or not dead, exactly, but that they’d never been born. Chuck filled card after card explaining things to Dr. Finkelstein. Most dads were real dads, but Chuck’s dad was pretend. The clues, though small, all came together to prove it. The doctor kept reaching for the toy and restarting it. Before Chuck knew it, he’d used up the whole hour.
“We’ll have to stop now, I’m afraid,” Dr. Finkelstein said. “Can you send your mom in alone for a minute? I need to discuss something with her, something having to—”
Chuck finished his note while the doctor was still speaking.
“Oh, then your dad—your pretend dad—then he’s here? That’s fine, just fine,” the doctor said, twisting his shoulders. There was a popping noise and a button of light. The light flashed open where his spine joined his neck. “Ask him to step inside for a second, would you?”
Chuck left the office and sat down on the couch. He waited while his pretend dad talked to Dr. Finkelstein. The door, a bulky oak, let hardly any sound through. Chuck heard his pretend dad shouting two words: “completely ridiculous.”
He came out brushing the doctor’s hand from his arm. His teeth were set so firmly his jaw was shaking. “Move,” he said, stomping past, and Chuck followed him outside.
They sped home in a thick smell of burning gasoline. His pretend dad left the car slanting across the driveway. The engine continued to run after he removed the key. It rattled and coughed and then sputtered to a halt. He said, “So I understand I’m not your real dad. Imagine my surprise,” and he pulled the car’s emergency brake. “I guess that means you’re not my real son, either.”
He yanked Chuck across the bench seat by his elbow. With long, angry strides, he hauled him toward the house. He was as indignant as Chuck had ever seen him. Chuck tried to keep up, but it was too hard. His shoes kept leaving scars of dirt in the grass. The scars didn’t glow, which meant the grass wasn’t hurt. A root made Chuck stumble, and he tripped and fell. He became a plant, dirt, a fish in a puddle. There were bits of leaves stuck to his blue jeans. He had grass in his hair and between his lips. His pretend dad lifted him to his feet, armpits first. Chuck was sure—pretty sure—he intended to kill him. He realized it was something he had always seen coming. He wanted to have one last Coke, one last cookie. He wanted to hug his elephant and all his bears. He wanted to say good-bye to everything that loved him.
His pretend dad opened the door and shoved him inside. There was his mom, standing wide-eyed and gaping at them. She was opening the mail with a miniature wooden sword. Someone must have given her a ride home from work. “What’s all the ruckus, you guys?” she said to them. “Good lord, Chuck, you’re covered head to toe in dirt! That’s it, into the tub with you right now—chop-chop!”
Reluctantly, his pretend dad’s fingers loosened their grip on him. Chuck had little doubt his mom had saved his life. He felt like he was waking from a bad dream. Miles of jagged rocks had been rushing up at him. The wind was beating like a flag in his ears. The ground was going to separate him from his skeleton. Then he was lying in bed, eyes open, wide awake.
He went to the bathroom and took off his clothes. The chafed skin of his armpits shone in the mirror. He filled the tub with water and heaps of bubbles. He could hear his parents arguing, that awful tumbling noise. The running water made it impossible to recognize the words.
In the tub, the bubbles shifted every time Chuck moved. They were like clouds changing their shape in the sky. A little rhinoceros rose up inside them, then knelt over. It seemed to lift its horn before it was overwhelmed. Its life was short, temporary, just a few seconds long. There were flies that hatched and died in a day. Chuck had seen a program about them on TV once. He turned the faucet off and heard his parents shouting. His pretend dad was saying, “Don’t give me that business. He gets it into his head to push some kid—”
“Who was picking on him, don’t forget,” his mom interrupted.
“And we get stuck with a thousand-dollar hospital bill.”
“Which means you get to knock him around
There was a pause while his pretend dad punched something. “You cannot—
Chuck turned the faucet back on to muffle their argument. It was just him and the water and the bubbles. Blowing on the bubbles made a cave appear inside them. Waving his feet made the heat roll through the tub. Eventually, his parents’ voices grew too loud to be camouflaged. His mom’s came first, sharp and full, like a siren. “If that’s the way you feel, why don’t you leave?”
Then he heard his pretend dad saying, “Maybe I will!”
Finally the door slammed shut like a paper bag exploding.
Chuck stayed in the warm water for a long time. The bubbles slowly swallowed one another, sinking and spreading open. Eventually, they were just a few islands of white film.
After the heat vanished, he climbed out of the tub. The house was so still he heard the air conditioner ticking. The silence seemed too big, too eerie, and he shivered. He wasn’t sure he wanted to open the bathroom door. The thought of what he might find made him afraid. He pictured his mom lying in a pool of light. A pool of white light, a pool of red blood. He imagined his pretend dad speeding away in the car. Chuck would be an orphan with the sad parts included.
He ran to his bedroom and crawled under the covers. He wished his mom had given his stuffed animals back. At last, though he wasn’t sure when, he fell asleep.
He woke much later, in the darkness of early morning. It was 5:52, according to the clock, and then 5:53. He got up and walked quietly into the living room. Both his parents were there, lying senseless on the couch. They were hugging, their bodies curled together like two tadpoles. His pretend dad must’ve come home while Chuck was sleeping. He must have kissed his mom and apologized to her. How had Chuck ever convinced himself that anything would change? He tiptoed back to his room, but he wasn’t sleepy. He lay on his side, his hand beneath the pillow. Soon, bit by bit, the dawn began filling the curtains. He thought that his heart would stop beating from sadness. There it was, the sun, coming up just like always.
Ryan Shifrin
As one has to learn to read or to practice a trade, so one must learn to feel in all things, first and almost solely, the obedience of the universe to God. It is really an apprenticeship. Like every apprenticeship, it requires time and effort. He who has reached the end of his training realizes that the differences between things or between events are no more important than those recognized by someone who knows how to read, when he has before him
