Slide - Kyle Beachy [1]
“Our boy,” Carla said, beaming as she wrapped up the rolls and the meat.
I could see my father preparing to talk. He was examining his hands, pulling his frame slightly inward, revving. Richard stood over six foot and was handsome the way people found reassuring. His hair, full and gray, embraced age without submitting to it. I watched him shrug slowly and look up from his hands.
“How's the car running?”
“It's a great car,” I said. “I love the car. Thank you guys, again, for the car.”
“Be sure to check the oil tomorrow. You know how to check the oil?”
“Of course, Pop.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “Well, give it a check tomorrow. And then what else? Is there a plan? You check the oil and I'll poke around if you like, find something for you. Not to say hurry up and decide. Not to pressure. Your mother and I are just glad to have you around for a while. Aren't we, Carla? But will it hurt to start thinking about things? No it won't. History of the world, nobody's ever died from giving a little thought. Not a single bruise caused by thinking things over. Really: we're just glad to have you back. Wait—I'm in Cleveland this week. Back on Thursday. Poke around then.”
I smiled and he seemed to smile kind of, and this was good, then he nodded and looked back at his hands.
My mother moved to my father's side. “The important thing is there's food here whenever you want it. Chicken wings, toasted ravioli, twice-baked potatoes.”
I climbed the stairs to the second floor. I stepped into the newly redecorated bathroom and watched myself brush teeth, then spent minutes leaning onto the sink, examining my reflection. In the bedroom, I opened and closed the wardrobe and several dresser drawers. I was continually impressed by the sturdiness of my parents’ furniture, dark old wood that hinted at permanence. My poster of Ozzie Smith mid-dive hung over my bed and my sheets smelled of some theoretical sunny and breezy afternoon, the middle of a field. I lay down, closed my eyes, and breathed. Sleep, lately, was becoming an issue.
Some time later, I tossed back sheets and stood. Downstairs, I moved from one room to the next, turning corners with soft steps. Every few years my parents would hire crews of men to come and hang sheets of translucent plastic, rip up floorboards, and push walls outward. Two years ago they furnished the basement. Before that they lengthened the patio into the backyard, then they added the sunroom, where nobody ever went. The living room had once been the family room. I stood where the current living room used to end and looked into the most recent addition. The office, Richard called it. The computer room, Carla called it. I touched picture frames and ran fingers across new plaster. I leaned against the enormous desk and waited.
A timer made the rooms go even darker than before.
Back upstairs, the house grew colder and I crawled deeper into the bedding so that soon only my face was exposed. I may have been acting like a child, but in this room it was sanctioned. It was okay.
Audrey was on an airplane. Or she'd already landed.
Where was it. Paris.
There was noise directly above me, the scraping of some creature in the attic. Plural creatures. From inside the fabric-softened and spring-breezy cocoon I watched shadows of branches dance across the wall. Rain.
Breakfast was two eggs fried into the middle of hollowed-out pieces of toast. My mother poured orange juice, moved about the kitchen, disappeared, then came back to write onto a Post-it she stuck to the phone.
“I think there might be squirrels in the attic,” I said.
“Squirrels?”
Before retiring, my mother had been a universally loved second-grade teacher. She won annual awards and was showered with Christmas gifts by the parents of her students. It took very little effort to imagine her leading a class. That short, wavy brown teacher hair, the full-length single-color dresses, flats—her whole package was perfectly educational,