The Water Wars - Cameron Stracher [13]
Kai climbed the steps ahead of me, his calves outlined against the thin fabric of his trousers. He rang the buzzer, and my father welcomed us. He offered us a snack of crackers and soy cheese, which Kai was happy to accept. We ate in the living room and played board games. The wi-screen glowed softly in the background, playing its constant stream of news, entertainment, and information. We ignored it. It was too early for homework, and I never had much anyway. Will returned, and the three of us swapped stories while Will tried to extract more information about the river.
Soon this became our regular schedule. Our father would leave the door unlocked with a plate of cheese and crackers at the table. Most of the time he would greet us in the kitchen, but sometimes he would let us be. Kai and I grew comfortable with his absence, and I almost forgot the tension of having a boy in my home without a chaperone. At the end of every day, when the black limousine arrived outside our building, Kai seemed reluctant to leave. More than once our father took pity and invited him to dinner. Then we would prolong our game-playing or storytelling until it was finally time for me to do my homework. When Kai was long gone, I’d take a dry shower, set out my clothes for the morning, and read from my mother’s collection of Great Books of the Twentieth Century: a ten-volume set with torn paper pages, cracked bindings, and scribbled pen markings—the only bound paper volume in our home.
“Poor boy,” our father would say.
“He’s not poor,” said Will.
But we knew what he meant. We just had to look into the bedroom to imagine what it must be like to lose your mother at an early age. Kai feigned indifference, but I understood better than he thought I did. When I tried to get him to talk about his mother, he shrugged and said he really didn’t remember her. He wouldn’t say much about his father either except that he traveled a lot. Although he was open about his diabetes and showed me the workings of his insulin pencil, he didn’t talk much about the disease. He only spoke about the mechanics of treating himself.
Mostly we talked about scavenging, and adventure, and places we wanted to see. Kai mentioned the giant Arctic Ocean—so large it had swallowed Iceland and most of Greenland. I said I’d always wanted to see the Great Dam of China. We played board games, word games, and number games. Kai had a stunning memory and could always recall where a card was hidden or when a piece was last played. He won most of our contests and could even beat Will in Counts, a card game that required a quick hand and an even quicker mind for numbers.
When Kai went home, Will and I stayed up late speculating about him. Will said Kai feared his father and the burden of keeping the river secret. I said Kai missed his mother and was lost without her. Will teased me and said I was falling for him. I told him I wasn’t interested in boys—especially not one whose father wouldn’t even let us visit his home. But long after we stopped talking, I would lie in bed thinking about the way Kai’s pale hair fell in front of his eyes, and how he bent his head as if he were praying when he listened to me talk.
One weekend morning our father surprised us with three passes to the gaming center. It was a place we begged to go but usually could not afford—ever since we had gone to a party there last year, going back was all we talked about. It was a lukewarm dry Saturday with no rain in sight, but suddenly the day seemed full of promise. Our father explained that he had traded some of Kai’s water for the passes, but I noticed no water was missing.