A warm fire crackled in the stone fireplace, the smell of burning oak mixing happily with the sweet scent of hot apple cider and cinnamon that wafted from a pot on the stove. Rikki had just popped a tray of corn muffins into the oven and soon the entire downstairs would smell like a Whittier poem.
Rikki jostled the logs with the poker, picked up a pen and a brown leather portfolio from the oak desk, and sat down on the couch. Propping her feet up on the ottoman, she flipped to a blank page on the yellow pad and began drafting a letter to my mother. The letter would describe the occurrences of the past months, including the memories of abuse that involved my mother and grandmother. It would be a painfully controlled letter, each prickly word carefully chosen for its precision and weight.
The density and closeness of Rikki’s emotion frightened her, but she knew that writing the letter and dealing with the confrontation that might follow fell directly on her shoulders. My mother was going to want to see Kyle before long, and she could not be allowed to. Not after what Rikki had seen Clay go through. Not after what Uncle Dennis had implied. And not after what we’d learned about Switch.
Over the course of several grueling sessions with Arly, Switch had revealed that his first memory was in my mother’s bedroom looking back at a very young, very sad Cam standing in the hall just outside the door. My mother was in her bed with the unmistakable look of predatory desire. Cam should not see this. Cam should not do this. No. I’ll do this. Go away, boy. Close the door. Wave goodbye and close the door. And I did. I’d waved goodbye to Switch and pulled the bedroom door closed, and Switch had been abused. Switch had done what my mother had wanted. And when she was finished and said, “Good boy, Cam,” it was Switch who’d hated her. He’d chuckled silently to himself that she didn’t even know his name. Oh, yeah, he’d been a good boy, though. Switch had been a very good boy.
Rikki wrote the letter, and the words came rapidly in snarling bursts, pouring out of her heart onto the pages. The oven timer went off, snapping her out of her intense concentration, and she put the pen down, realizing her hand was cramped from gripping it so tightly, from pressing so hard.
Rikki got up and turned off the oven, pulled the muffin tin out, and placed it on a towel on the counter. The sweet, moist aroma penetrated the brittle cage of her thoughts and she inhaled deeply through her nose, letting it seep in.
Just then, Kyle and his friend Adam came zipping through the living room wearing capes and masks and waving flexible plastic swords. They stopped in the kitchen.
“Mommy, that smells great!” Kyle said. “What is it, cake?”
“Corn muffins. Want one?”
“Itchy, you want one?” Kyle said to Adam—he’d nicknamed Adam “Itchy the Great” after a tiny rubber toy figure.
“Yeah!” Itchy shouted, like he’d just seen a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth.
Kyle shouted, “Yeah!”
“Okay, go wash up,” Rikki said. “They’re going to take a minute to cool down. Do you want orange juice or cider?”
Itchy said, “Orange juice, please,” and Kyle looked at him and said, “Yeah!” and they gave each other a high five and ran off toward the bathroom.
A half hour later I got back from Arly’s. Rikki was back on the couch still working on the letter when I walked in the front door. She looked up and smiled at me.
“Hi!” she said. “I’m glad you’re home.”
I sniffed. “Mmm, this place smells so good.”
“Corn muffins and hot apple cider.”
“Great,” I said, putting my journal on the table. I took off my jacket and hung it in the closet. I wiped my feet, walked over to Rikki, kissed her, and went into the kitchen. I poured myself a cup of cider, put a muffin on a plate, and sat down in a big oak chair by the fireplace.
“How was Arly’s?” Rikki asked.
“Hoo boy,” I said, looking into my cup. I blew on the cider and took a sip. “Mmm, this is good.” I looked over at Rikki, still watching me, waiting to hear. “It went all right,” I said. “Not dead yet.”
Rikki frowned.
I took a bite of the muffin and sat back in my chair munching. It was good to be home. Rikki went back to writing.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“I’m writing a letter to your mother.”
Instantly, shudder, switch, gone, and Bart was out. “Hey, Rikki,” he said, crossing his legs casually.
“Who’s there?” Rikki said, looking up from the letter, realizing there’d been a switch. She recognized Bart’s mischievous grin. “Oh, hey Bart. Cam got upset when I mentioned his mother, huh?”
“Christ. He’s so sensitive.” He eyed my sneakers and muttered, “I should be wearing Beatle boots.”
“Huh?”
“Nothin’. So, a letter?”
“To his mother. To tell her about what’s happened, and about what people remembered. What do you think of that?”
“Beat her over the head with it,” Bart said, popping the rest of my muffin in his mouth. He mumbled, “Probably break on her hair.” Rikki watched him wash the muffin down with some cider.
“She can’t be allowed to see Kyle,” Rikki said. “I don’t think there’s any choice here.”
“No,” he said casually. “Definitely not.”
“I know this is upsetting to Cam,” she said, “and if he’s listening now, I want him to know that it’s going to be all right.”
Bart shuddered a little and said, “Uh oh, I think I gotta go. Love your muffins.” He shuddered again, and we switched and I was back. I shook my head a couple of times to clear it.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Did you hear?” Rikki said.
It took a second for Bart to fill me in. “My mother and Kyle,” I said. “She shouldn’t see him.”
“Right,” Rikki said. “There’s no choice here. We can’t let her be alone with him, and we have to tell her why.”
“I know,” I said weakly. “It’s just ... what if ... this didn’t happen. This isn’t happening. How am I supposed to ...” I heard Rikki growl with annoyance as my head began to throb and I felt myself falling into the dark zone, the swirling place where angry mustangs bucked and kicked, their eyes blazing, teeth bared ... at me. Then whispers came from inside—dead man, dead man, dead man—louder and louder—dead man, YOU'RE ... A ... DEAD ... MAN!!!
I sprang from the chair and screamed, “STOPPP ITT!!” clamping my hands over my ears in a futile attempt to block the deafening sounds within. Rikki scrambled from the couch, dropping her notepad and pen, and rushed over to me.
“Cam! Cam!” she shouted, frantically grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me.
Kyle ran into the room crying, “Mommy, what’s wrong with Daddy?” with panic in his little voice. “Daddy?” he called, grasping my hand. Instantly the sounds vanished, and my gaze locked on Kyle’s huge pleading eyes.
“Oh, my God,” I said breathlessly. “Kylie, I’m sorry.” I pulled him to me, and Rikki hugged us both tightly. “I’m so sorry I scared you.”
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” he pleaded.
Rikki dropped to one knee. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she said. “Daddy just had some thoughts in his head that made him really upset.”
“I thought he was yelling at you.”
“I would never yell at Mommy like that,” I said.
Rikki said, “Kylie, we need to talk about something. I’m going to set Itchy up in your room with a movie. Be right back.” And she headed out of the room.
Kyle and I sat down on the floor and waited. Rikki came back in a minute and sat down cross-legged with us. She took a deep breath.
“You know how Daddy’s been acting kind of different lately? Sitting in your closet and not answering right away when you call him and stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s because he remembered some really bad things that happened to him when he was very little. Things that upset him a lot. Things his mom did to him.”
“Grandma?” Kyle said. “What kind of things?”
“Remember what they taught you in school about good touches and bad touches?”
“Nobody’s s’posed to touch ya here,” he said, pointing at his crotch. “Or push ya.”
“Right. Well, Grandma didn’t push Daddy, but she touched him on his penis.”
“That’s baaad,” Kyle said, and inside my head started to glow red, and I heard an echo of “that’s baaad.”
The echo continued as Rikki told him more, and I got far away and only heard her words every now and then pinging off the walls of my mind. “She wasn’t supposed to ... said not to tell so she wouldn’t get in trouble ... it hurt his mind very badly ... pushed it out of his mind so he wouldn’t have to think about it ... he gets far away ... sometimes like a child ... can’t help it ... did she ever touch you like that ... you would tell me if she had, right ... yeah ... we’re not going to be seeing Grandma anymore.”
“Good,” Kyle said, and the word whooshed like a slamming door. I was back.
Kyle cupped my face in his hands. “You all right, Dad?”
“Yeah. I’m all right.”
“Don’t yell ‘stop it’ anymore, okay?”
“Okay.”
The worry melted from his face and a smile replaced it. He stood up, looked at us both and said, “I’m gonna go play with Itchy now.” And he took off.
Rikki and I were quiet for a minute. A log crackled and hissed and Rikki glanced over at it. “Well, now he knows,” she said. “A little.”
Rikki picked her portfolio up off the floor and looked for the pen. She found it sticking out from under an end table, grabbed it, sat back down on the couch, and flipped open to the letter.
I slumped wearily into my chair, noticing the empty plate on the end table.
“Did I finish my muffin?” I asked.
“Bart did,” Rikki said flatly, her focus back on the letter.
I bit my lip. “I hope he picked up the check.”
* * *
Rikki was draining spaghetti in the brass colander while I sliced up a loaf of Italian bread at the table, not all the way through, but like they do in restaurants so you can break off a slice or two. Itchy had gone home and Kyle was upstairs singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” with Frank Sinatra. He thought his name was Franksin Atra and called him Franksin. Rikki and I loved that.
“What’s it like?” Rikki said over her shoulder.
I knew what she meant. I cut the last two slices, picked up the loaf, and held it up with an end in each hand.
“It’s like this,” I said. “All these separate pieces, but connected at the bottom. And the information travels along there so everyone sort of knows what’s happening if they’re paying attention.” I flexed the loaf so it yawned and different pieces moved to the apex. “Constantly shifting, back and forth, so one minute I know what’s happening and the next minute Kennedy’s the president.” Anger and frustration jabbed at me as I showed her. I raised the bread over my head with one hand, about to throw it, but stopped myself and dropped it into the basket. I pulled a chair back, slumped into it, and put my face in my hands. Rikki turned around still holding the colander.
I babbled, “What if I’m just nuts? What if nothing happened? What if I’m making all this—”
“Enough,” Rikki shouted, slamming the colander down on the counter. It startled me, and I looked up at her. She was still facing the sink.
“Cam, there’s no way. Goddamn that denial! You think Davy made that stuff up about your grandmother? Clay? Switch? Are they making it all up? Did you make them up? That’s impossible.” She slapped her hand against her forehead. “I can’t believe this,” she said, half to herself. “You’re mind’s a floppy loaf of bread and you think you made it all up.”
Rikki turned around to face me and leaned against the counter.
“You haven’t seen them like I have. Nobody could make that up. And even if they could, why the hell would they?” She shook her head. “This is real, Cam. You better believe it.”