CHAPTER 17

Twenty-four hours had passed since the nightmare of the mis-sent text.

But there was some good news.

I’d just come from Dr. P.

“The swelling around your vocal cords has significantly decreased,” he said. “I don’t expect permanent damage, so you can resume dreaming of being a famous rock star.”

I raised my good eyebrow. Once I had invented a group called Epic Scientists, but had only gotten as far as writing the title for a hit song. It was called “The Data Says You Like Me.”

True story.

But I never really had the dream of becoming a rock star.

He said if I kept up my therapy, I should expect fast results.

“You should expect fast results,” Dr. P said. “Probably be saying my name out loud in four to five weeks if you keep up with your exercises. You might also be able to start eating more solid foods.”

So that was good news.

But also bad news. Sandy would let me go as soon as I could speak. I knew that. I even understood it. But I didn’t want to accept it.

I decided to distract myself by working on math. Yes, I know that’s sort of lame: forgetting a girl by doing something mathematical. But here’s another weird story Uncle Reed once told me. There’s a technique they teach Special Forces soldiers to employ when they’re under intense questioning. It’s thought that if you run the multiplication tables in your head while answering a question, you can beat a lie detector test. So why not apply that method to forgetting about anything?

It worked.

It worked really great. I started looking up facts about multiplication. Then I just couldn’t help but do more research on strange flights and missing objects. The more I researched, the less the falling sensation took hold of my body. It was a good strategy. I logged hours of computer-screen therapy. I forgot about the missing flag for a little while, too.

It was a great distraction until I found something new to worry about.

Did you know that one new worry can cancel out one old one?

Now, Grandpa didn’t know how to efficiently use the computer. Nope. Not at all. He might have been super smart about rifles and reconnaissance and how to drill patriotism into new recruits, but he knew nothing about how to close out computer programs. Every time I used the computer after he’d been on it, I’d find about fifty windows open, sucking up all the computer memory. He did this all the time.

All. The. Time.

Even before he lived here, he’d come over and work on our computer.

Yours just works better. Mine’s too slow, he’d say, and I’d think, Yeah, because you have fifty windows open. Don’t they teach you that in the army?

But I liked to spy on Grandpa’s search history.

Weather sites. Old-car rallies. The best kind of food for a turtle. Balms for joint ache. Climate-change conspiracy theories. You never knew what you were going to find with him. Back when I had a voice, I could go look at his computer history and sneak it into a sentence to get him worked up.

For example, My science teacher said old cars are damaging our environment and could be linked to climate change.

The face. The Grandpa face. A mix of frustration and grumpiness and I’m gonna tell you, kid all in one. I used to love getting him to make that face. I had to laugh on the inside. Any outside laughing was cause for a push-up challenge.

So you think you’re funny, do you, Kovok? Well, I can still beat you at push-ups! Drop and do twenty, he’d order.

And I’d have to drop right there and do twenty push-ups. By the time I was on push-up number fifteen, he’d be done and standing over me. Who’s laughing now, Kovok?

True story.

So I sat down in front of our computer and snooped at his open windows.

The first window: Baylor Liver and Pancreas Disease Center.

The second window: Willowbend Health and Wellness.

Third: Dr. Lisell, oncologist.

And it went on and on.

Articles about the pancreas. Best foods for pancreatic cancer patients. Best treatments. Best prognoses.

With each window I scanned, I tried to follow what I read. Connect it to Grandpa.

I didn’t like the associations my brain made. It formed a mind map like one of those school analogy assignments where you draw a line across the page from one word to another.

Apple—Fruit

Shoe—Foot

Stomach problems—Grandpa

Grandpa—Cancer

I pushed away from the keyboard like it was suddenly toxic. Dangerous. Like I understood too much, too fast.

“What are you doing?” Grandpa’s sudden ninja-like presence never stopped surprising me.

I spun around lightning fast and there he was, holding a coffee mug, wearing his aviator sunglasses, smiling. Smiling either because he scared me or he caught me. He wore that you need to drop and do push-ups face, too. I figured he’d caught me.

“What are you staring at?”

Shrug.

“You’ve got a question, Wayne, let it out.”

I had lots of questions. But it wasn’t like any of them were going to push themselves out of my “significantly improved” throat.

“Your mother’s home, so go help her with the groceries,” he commanded.

In the kitchen, Mom boiled water for pasta. I rearranged the blue glass birds back into circle formation. Then I made my dinner smoothie.

I wrote a note: Set out two plates?

Maybe a change in Grandpa’s diet would reveal a clue.

“Yes. Two.”

That didn’t give me any data. He wasn’t eating anything different from Mom.

“How is your friend Denny?”

Good.

“That’s good. I’m glad you’ve made a new friend. New friends are important, don’t you think?”

Important. Sure.

“I might have a new friend, too. How would you feel if I went on a date with a new friend?”

I found myself double shocked. First I find out my grandpa might be sick. Right when he’s not the most annoying houseguest ever. And second, my mom is querying me about a date. My mom dating? Let’s just say that rarely happens. She is super picky, as she should be.

I wrote on my notepad: Who?

“His name is Tim LeMoot. And why are you wearing those sunglasses to the dinner table? You look like you’re spying on me.”

Wait, Tim LeMoot, the Texas Boot?

“Yes.”

The TV lawyer guy?

“Yes.”

Tim LeMoot! TIM LEMOOT! Tim LeMoot who screams through our TV?

“Yes, Wayne, that’s the guy.”

What??? Why??

“Well, we have a lot in common.”

After your money?

“No, nothing like that.”

Facts: Tim LeMoot, the Texas Boot, is that accident-injury attorney, and my mom has recently been in an accident.

Smelled like a bad idea.

“I know what you’re thinking. That it’s a bad idea. But he’s a human being. He happened to graduate from Southern Methodist University and has a thirteen-year-old daughter named Debra. He likes to play Ping-Pong, and he also sails on White Rock Lake.”

I looked at her bug-eyed and she said, “I anticipated your interrogation, Wayne, so I thought I’d just go ahead and give you his biography.”

I wrote: Does he like Jane Austen movies?

It was doubtful he did.

“Well, I don’t know. Why?”

And I wrote: Because YOU do. Important!

“Look, the truth is that we went out a couple of times before the accident, so…”

Oh.

What was I going to say to my mother about dating, huh? That was a place I didn’t want to go. It made me feel nauseated just thinking about it. Tim LeMoot. The Texas Boot. No way was that a good idea.

Was he the friend who gave you advice about the airline thing?

“Well, yes.”

Later, we sat at the dinner table, and Mom and Grandpa ate plain buttered pasta while I drank what felt like my millionth fruit smoothie. Nobody talked. The forks made a racket and you could hear every slurp of the straw. If Hank Williams had been in the room, I bet you could have heard the crunch of lettuce between his jaws.

I studied the two of them. They held their forks the exact same way. They spun the pasta around their forks three times. They unfolded their napkins the exact same way. They probably kept their secrets about illnesses the same way, too.

Now, because I didn’t know if either of them talked to each other about cancer or dating, I decided to make the dinner conversation a little more interesting.

So I passed a note to Grandpa: Mom’s going on a date with the Texas Boot.

“Can’t be worse than Mr. Medieval,” Grandpa said, shoveling a forkful of pasta into his mouth.

I’d forgotten all about Mr. Medieval.

Mr. Medieval was a jousting trainer for the Medieval Times restaurant, and if you think I’m a nerd with facts, well, at least I spread around the topics a bit. Mr. Medieval was a two-topic guy: jousting and himself.

You, lad, may call me Sir Mike, he’d said when we went to see his show. And then he kept referring to himself in the third person. Sir Mike thinks that you would make a good serf. Sir Mike has reserved seats for you at the seven thirty showing. Sir Mike will show the lady to her table. Sir Mike would like to challenge you to a duel.

And I always thought, Sir Mike should lose our phone number.

Eventually, he did.

“Oh, Wayne, your dad called. He can’t make it this weekend.”

That made three weekends in a row. I guess Grandpa scared him off good. Or maybe he was still mad that I hadn’t gone with him to see about our case. I still hadn’t asked Mom what all that was about.

Dinner ended with lots of ice cream and no more talk about Mom dating.

I’m going to the park.

“Take your phone,” Mom said.

I grabbed my skateboard and set out down Cedar Drive. The sky was full of heavy gray-blue clouds. A storm was coming. You could smell it in the air. I got to the park and walked to a clearing where there weren’t any trees to obstruct my view of the sky. I lay down and watched the sky. The planes crossing. The flashes of light. The sound of distant thunder mixed with the metal-whistling sound of planes slicing the air. The jets—a stream of fast-moving air. I’d gotten to know all their sounds now. I could support a plane for sixty seconds over the park before it disappeared behind the tall cottonwood trees. I prayed the storm would do nothing but rain. The planes would all arrive safe. Happy.

Tonight, 14A was a Chinese exchange student who listened to music.

Another plane carried an entire family to California, where they were going to see the ocean for the first time.

The last plane was just like my old school bus. Carl the bus driver was now Carl the pilot. The rows of seats were filled with kids from Beatty. The plane headed toward the water tower. So I raced home on my skateboard and watched it fly on. I got inside the house just before the rain hit.

Later, I went to bed, my head all mixed up. I called Mr. Darcy into my room and talked to him in an inaudible whisper. I’d been getting good at just mouthing words to Mr. Darcy.

You know what makes you forget to remember the girl of your dreams or beat-up faces or unfound flags?

Mr. Darcy had no answer.

The fact that your grandfather might be sick just when you were starting to get used to him being around, that’s what. Just when you were counting on him being there.

Just makes you want to give life a high five, doesn’t it?

Or a punch in the face.

Why? Why? Why?

Hours later, I couldn’t sleep. The rain had come and gone. So I decided to sneak outside for a run.

I told myself I’m still a sort-of boyfriend because Sandy thinks I believed her little sister sent that text. And she doesn’t know I’m starting to make vowel sounds in Dr. P’s office. And Grandpa? He’s just doing research. Mom’s going out with the Texas Boot and I’ve got leads on the missing American flag. It’s just out there waiting for me to find it, and as soon as I do, everything will be fine.

Everything was fine.

Everything was probably fine.

I grabbed my Adidas from the space next to the front door.

“Couldn’t sleep, either, huh?” It was Grandpa and I was busted.

I shook my head.

“You take your phone when you go running, don’t you?” He knew.

I nodded.

“Good. Safer that way. Stay alert.”

There was no topic I could scribble. No notepad to scribble it on.

“Hey, now that I think about it, mind if I run with you?”

I smiled. Absolutely!

“Okay, let me get my shoes on.”

We got outside and he stretched a little.

Grandpa set out running in the direction of the bus stop, and I trailed behind him. Across the street, the big white Christmas snowman was still out in my neighbors’ front yard. Only it was flat and deflated and weighed down with rainwater. I remembered that decoration. Back in December, when it was inflated, it had two outstretched arms and looked like it wanted to hug you. Now it merely looked like it had surrendered, fallen forward, and melted. And it made me wonder what my neighbors were waiting for and why they couldn’t just put the stupid snowman away.

“Step up your pace, Kovok!”

I put my hands up in the air. I tried to communicate Where? What?

“We’re running until I get tired, and I’m not tired yet.”

Good, I told myself. Don’t get tired. Keep running. Sick people don’t run, do they? Healthy people run. Grandpa is healthy. Very healthy.

I prayed that was a fact, not just a wish.

DATA

Wind-speed performance:

Zero miles per hour = still air and no movement

1–3 miles per hour = leaves rustle, minimal kite movement

4–7 miles per hour = wind felt on face, flags flap gently

8–12 miles per hour = wind felt on face

17–21 miles per hour = small trees sway

22–27 miles per hour = tree branches move, wires whistle, land kites

28–33 miles per hour = strong winds, whole trees in motion

48–55 miles per hour = trees uprooted, structural damage likely

Wind speed on date of crash: 50-plus miles per hour

Question: If a 4-pound cotton object with the dimensions 5 feet by 9.5 feet goes aloft at 30,000 feet, flying 500 miles per hour, does it have the power to land at a distance greater than 17 miles from the crash site?

Hypothesis: A kite-like object weighing four pounds has greater wind surface and less downdraft than the typical suitcase; therefore, it would travel farther eastward.