An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England_ A Novel - Brock Clarke [133]
And then there is Thomas Coleman. He's living with Anne Marie and the kids now, but when he visits, he and I never talk about them. He comes by himself, every other week. Thomas has put on some weight: I can see the buttons on his shirt strain a little with his new gut, can see his shirt collar creep up and crowd his jowls, too. He always comes on Monday, always with a red face, always with that suburban man's weekend yard-work tan, and I can imagine him on my self-propelled mower; no doubt he keeps his shirt on, and no doubt the other Camelotians like him for that. But we don't talk about any of that stuff, either. We don't talk about whether he knew, or suspected, that Deirdre had set those fires. We don't really talk about anything at all when Thomas visits: we sit there in silence, just two ordinary men with fires and dead parents in their pasts, and a common family in their present, and who knows what in their future, and hearts with holes in them, holes that are in various stages of excavation and filling. I don't understand why he visits me; when he does, I am sorry to see him come, and then I'm sorry to see him go. I don't understand that, either.
Then there are Anne Marie and the kids. Sometimes Anne Marie brings the kids with her and sometimes she comes by herself. When all three of them are there, I talk to Katherine and Christian about their days and what goes on in them. Katherine is fifteen years old now, beautiful and tall and dark haired like her mother and something of a model citizen, too. Last week when they visited, I learned that she'd just been chosen to go to Girl's State.
"I'm so proud of you," I said.
"Thank you," she said.
"What's the difference between Girl's State and Boy's State?" I asked her.
"You must be kidding, right?" she asked back, and I said, "Yes," because I must have been.
Christian is twelve years old, smack in the middle of the age of balls and bats. It's not clear he can speak about anything else, and because we have so little time together, I don't ask him to. Recently he's become obsessed with athletic footwear and its latest innovations. For basketball, Christian told me last week, the soles of his shoes are filled with air; for baseball and soccer, his shoes have spikes that are made of something that isn't metal and isn't plastic, either.
"What are they made of, then?" I wanted to know.
Christian thought about this for a minute, hard. He has a head like mine, outsize for his body and a little blockish, and I could see it begin to corkscrew with the effort of his thinking. Finally he gave up and said, "Something safe."
"I hope so," I told him, and then, because I could sense the guard behind me about to remind us of the time and how we were out of it, I told them both, as I always do, "I love you," and they both nodded, as they always do. A nod means, Yes, we love you, too, Dad, among children who are too shy to tell their father that they love him even though there are so many reasons not to. Everyone knows that the nod is the same as an "I love you, too." This is the most common kind of knowledge. Is it not?
When the kids are around, Anne Marie and I don't talk much. But when she comes by herself, as she did yesterday, we have plenty to say. They're things we've said already, many, many times, although the questions don't seem to lose their interest because of the repetition. I ask if she's OK, if she has enough money, and she tells me yes, yes, she's fine. I know they've promoted her to full-time manager at the home-supply