Dad measured me tonight. I’ve grown half an inch. Dad said it might just be that I need a haircut because my hair grows up and out instead of down. I told him I didn’t appreciate his pessimistic attitude.
A while later, Mom called. I guess I’ve been really missing her ’cause I didn’t have the energy to do my usual “one-word answers in a frosty tone” routine. I really wanted to talk to her. “Did you ever get to watch ‘Saturday Night Smash-Up’?” I asked. They rerun it on Sunday afternoons, so if she misses it, she can sometimes watch it then.
“No,” she sighed. “I went to the TV room, but some other patients were already watching a hockey game.”
“Want me to tell you what happened?”
“Please.”
“Okay. Close your eyes.” I started with a play-by-play account of the match between El Toro (her favorite) and Jack Knife. It was a great fight. El Toro and Jack Knife used to be best friends, and they’d often partner up in the ring to fight a couple of heels. Then, one day, El Toro got sweet on Jack Knife’s ex-girlfriend (another wrestler named Holly Wood), and next time they were in the ring together, Jack Knife turned on El Toro, whacking him in the head with a metal chair. Since then, they have been archenemies.
“It looked like El Toro had it in the bag,” I told her. “Jack Knife was lying on the mat. El Toro turned away and pumped his fists in the air. So he didn’t see Jack Knife stand up. Next thing you know, Jack Knife spins him around and gives him a Bionic Elbow. El Toro dropped like a rag doll.”
“No! Oh, I hate Jack Knife!” she said.
It was a brilliant conversation, and no, I’m not being sarcastic. Mom is almost as big a GWF fan as I am, and it’s the one thing we can talk about that doesn’t end in tears.
Then I made the mistake of telling her about the tote bag, and it ended in tears. “I wish you were here,” she said.
“Yeah, well,” I replied, my voice frosty again. “I wish you were here.”
From September to December, we’d lived with Pop-Pop and Grams in Picton, Ontario. Growing up, I used to love visiting their place. But not this time. This time, it sucked.
Mom spent a lot of time in bed. She only left the house to see a psychiatrist in Kingston three times a week. Dad picked up a few odd construction jobs through Pop-Pop and Grams’s friends. And I went to the local school. But Pop-Pop and Grams had told their closest friends what had happened, and, of course, word spread. So after two weeks of putting up with the stares and whispers of the kids in my class, I announced that I wasn’t going back. What’s weird is that Mom and Dad didn’t even argue with me.
For the next couple of months, I did my work through correspondence school, using Pop-Pop and Grams’s ancient PC. I barely left the house. My wobblies grew, and so did my furies.
Just before Christmas, we were sitting at the table eating Grams’s meatloaf when Dad said, “I think we should move to Vancouver.”
My mom dropped her knife and fork. “What? When?”
“There’s a lot of construction work there,” Dad said. “And I have my license in BC.” He’d co-owned his own construction company in Port Salish, but two months after IT happened, he sold his half to his partner. “Plus Henry can start at a new school there. Fresh start.”
Mom was quiet.
“What do you think, Henry?” Dad asked, trying to fill the silence.
I liked the idea. A fresh start in a new city, where no one knew our story – it sounded brilliant. Even Pop-Pop and Grams were onboard. They knew we couldn’t live with them forever. We decided we’d move after Christmas. Dad lined up the apartment on Craigslist.
But a couple of days before we were supposed to leave, I heard my parents shouting upstairs. Then my mom came down. Her eyes were red. “Will you go for a walk with me, Henry?”
So even though it was sleeting outside and bitterly cold, I walked with her through the streets of Picton, past the other old redbrick homes and the enormous snowbanks.
“You know how much I love you,” she said, her voice shaking.
I nodded, but I felt sick.
“I’m going to stay with Pop-Pop and Grams for a while longer. Just until I …”
The possibilities for the rest of that sentence were endless. Just until I … lose ten pounds on Weight Watchers? Just until I … grow a beard? Just until I … can start loving you and your dad again?
Dad tells me all the time that Mom still loves me, but that is very, very hard to believe. Sometimes I feel just as angry at her as I do at Jesse, like if they were standing in front of me right now, I’d give them both a Bionic Elbow.
According to my parents, I used to have terrible temper tantrums when I was little. I can remember lying in the middle of the grocery store aisle, screaming and pounding my fists into the floor because Mom wouldn’t buy Cocoa Puffs. I remember that the actual anger didn’t last very long; it would switch to humiliation really fast, like somehow I knew, even at three, that I looked like a total dork. That would make me even angrier, only now I’d be angry with myself. My mom always seemed to get it, because she’d scoop me up and hold me really tight against her so I couldn’t flail, and eventually I’d get exhausted and go limp in her arms.
But my furies went away, like they do for most kids. Then Jesse did what he did. And every so often, they come back.
The first time it happened was right after Mr. Marlin slammed the door in my face, because that’s when I really knew it was over for us in Port Salish. People hated me and my family as much as they hated Jesse. So I went home and I tore Jesse’s room apart. Then I took his manga collection and ripped every page out of every book.
The second time was the day after Mom said she wasn’t going to move to Vancouver with us, and I started speaking in Robot-Voice. I said some really nasty things. “Mother-bot. You. Are. Totally Pathetic. I Hate. Your Freaking Guts.” “Go to Hell. Pop-Pop-bot. Do Not. Get Involved.”
That’s right. Robot-Henry even swore at his own grandpa.
The day Dad and I caught our plane, Mom didn’t even come to the airport. She went to her appointment with her psychiatrist instead. Dr. Dumas called us the next day in Vancouver to tell us that Mom was exhibiting signs of a nervous breakdown, so he’d admitted her to the psych ward, where she’s been ever since.
I refuse to blame myself.
Jesse made this mess, not me.
After we got off the phone with Mom, Dad and I put on the TV. A few minutes later, someone knocked on our door. I looked through the peephole. It was Mr. Atapattu. I think he was holding a plate of food, but I couldn’t be sure.
I didn’t answer. I just tiptoed back to the couch and tore open a fresh bag of Doritos. Mr. Atapattu must’ve known we were home though, ’cause the TV was playing quite loud and my dad even called out, “Who is it, Henry?”
But you know what? Tough.