Tilt - Alan Cumyn [60]
And that’s where Feldon was. Squatting by the edge of the greenish brown water, his hands on his kneecaps, eyes so serious. Neurosurgeon.
The big fishing rod was lying on the bank behind him, unused.
“Hey!” Stan said, breathless but still strong.
Feldon didn’t get up, but his face lit and Stan felt suddenly that they really were brothers.
“The fish in here swim backwards!”
Stan kneeled beside him. “Backwards?”
Feldon pointed. The fish was hardly a minnow, almost invisible in the murk, especially in the low slant of the sun. It was sliding backwards.
Slowly, slowly.
“Your mom’s here,” Stan said.
Feldon was mesmerized by the water.
“She’s pretty worried about you. I think we should go back to the house.”
Not a movement. Feldon’s eyes were fixed, his body quiet and still.
“I’m going to come visit you,” Stan said. “No matter where you end up living. They can’t keep brothers apart.”
Feldon nodded. He took a bit of grassy fluff and dropped it in the slowly moving water.
“Here, fishy. Have some lunch.”
The fluff floated off, swirled around a rock, got pulled into the main channel.
Feldon stood up finally. “I have to get off my feet,” he said with great seriousness.
“Do you?”
“To make a jump shot,” he said.
—
On the way back Feldon talked a lot about the fish.
“He wanted to have lunch but he couldn’t get to the top. Maybe he can’t swim very well. He’s just learning.”
“Maybe the current was pulling him backwards,” Stan said.
A police car raced past them with siren screaming. Feldon looked up, unconcerned. It seemed to be heading in the direction of their house.
“Where’s the girl?” he asked.
“What girl?”
“The big girl.”
“Janine’s at her house now,” Stan said. “I’m going to call her later. A whole lot of dust needs to settle first. But I’m going to call her right after.”
Another police car whipped around the corner and sped past them, lights flashing, siren on full wail. Every car all the way up the hill homeward moved over to make room.
“You should bring her some flowers,” Feldon said.
“Flowers? Really?”
“Girls like flowers.” Feldon scrambled up a low wall off the sidewalk toward some patch of garden Stan had never noticed before. It was the front lawn of the seniors’ residence across the street from Longworth Mall.
“I don’t think you should be picking those.” But Feldon went ahead as if he’d heard nothing. Yellow ones, some purple, others that were not quite red. What was the color? Russet.
In very short order Feldon had put together a decent bouquet.
“Girls really like flowers,” he said again.
The Tilt-the-World groaned in the parking lot across the street. Hardly anyone was on it, and yet it just kept going.
A third police car screeched past, bound for hell up the hill.
“Maybe we should go see Janine first,” Stan said. “I could phone home from there.” He wanted to see her again right away. Let her know it was all right.
“Maybe she could give me some more hot chocolate,” Feldon said.
They were walking again. Heading home.
“Her mother’s got cancer,” Stan said. “She’s dying.”
“Where will she go then?” Feldon asked.
“I have no idea,” Stan said.
“Maybe when you die, that’s when you learn how to use your tail and your fins,” Feldon said. “You can go up to the top and have lunch.”
“You’ve really been thinking about this,” Stan said. The sun was so low the sky looked metallic, like a photograph in a glossy book. The silver beast tilted but just for a second the world stayed steady.
“Not really,” Feldon said. “I just now thought of it.”
Slowly, slowly they walked up the hill. Stan was mesmerized by all of it — from the slant of the light to the beauty of the traffic to the bittersweet feel of every step.
I’m going to remember this day for the rest of my life, he thought.
Then, only a few steps later, his stomach clenched around one particular thought.
Where did it come from? Why this instant?
Why did he suddenly know that today was the day he’d got Janine Igwash pregnant?
25
Pregnant. Why hadn’t he realized it before? Because he