V. H. King's Ink

Most men die once, but my father isn’t like most men.  He’s careful.  Quiet and soft-spoken.  He loves hugs more than anything in the world, but Mom says he wasn’t always like that.  He’s free now, Mother likes to say sometimes.  She always looks a little sad when she says it.  She also looks like she couldn’t be happier.  My parents are like that—contradictions of pretty much everything around them. 

When I wheel myself into the kitchen, he’s sitting at the table, toying with the necklace I’ve never seen him without.  The chain is simple but sturdy.  The pendant is a small vial with something red inside.  No matter how many times I asked him what was inside it, he never told me. 

A reminder, he would say.  A warning.  A memory.  A lifetime. 

“Your mother should be back soon,” he says.

I reach into the fridge for my water bottle and chug nearly half of it.  I wipe my mouth and then my forehead, still breathing hard.  My teeth clench as my stomach rolls.  I know better than to drink so fast after a workout, but I just couldn’t help myself.  I breathe slowly through my nose, wondering if Mom went for bagels or for donuts. 

“Is Naomi up yet?” I ask. 

“Practicing, I think.”

I roll my eyes, smiling to myself.  Practicing means my little sister is the equivalent of a statue and not to be disturbed for at least three hours.  She’s the only twelve-year-old I know who can sit still. 

“I’m going to go shower.”

Dad nods, the vial around his neck catching the light.  A glittering ruby that isn’t real.  I want to ask him about it, but I don’t.  I wheel myself back to my room and fumble through my drawers for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.  Up until a few years ago, I didn’t know about my dad.  Well, I knew he was my dad, I just didn’t know how it all went down. 

He was three months pregnant with me when a stray missile blew up the neighborhood where him and Mother lived.  They were away on what I guess was their honeymoon, and came back to a literal war zone.  With just the suitcases in the backseat, they decided to start over.  But their city wasn’t the only one hit by a stray missile, it turned out.  There were a number of so-called government accidents, and it triggered a rash of riots across the country. 

That was how the world ended, he said. 

It was hard to believe that the world had ended, if we were still living in it.  He’s tried to explain it a few times.  There used to be police shootings, arrests, evictions, and all other kinds of wild things that would happen to people for no reason.  Naomi understands it better than I do, which sometimes makes me wonder if she’s his favorite. 

Anyway, the missile crises leveled the field.  It was like the whole country had decided it had had enough.  Dad says when he had me, he had never been more afraid in his life.  That’s also hard for me to believe, since he’s always been so calm.  Mother says he worries.  Naomi says Dad hides his worry—because that’s what parents are supposed to do, duh.  She’s such a know it all. 

After I’m dressed and I put my laundry in the hamper, I sneak down the hall and poke my head in my sister’s room.  Naomi and I get along okay, mostly because we’ve always had each other to fight with.  She’s seven years younger than me and a complete pest, but I love her company. 

While she stands by her window, absolutely still, I scan her bookshelf.  There aren’t any books on the shelves, just pictures.  So many pictures.  Sidewalks, tree branches, school buses.  Stoplights and rain puddles and power lines.  Naomi takes pictures of the most ordinary things and somehow turns them into art.  Maybe that’s what she learns, from standing still for hours on end. 

I hear Mother’s voice on the other side of the front door before it opens.  She’s singing to herself, which she always does.  It’s my favorite thing about her.  There’s a rustle of her coat and the bags and whatever else she’s carrying.  Naomi still doesn’t move, despite the noise in the kitchen.  I think I should go help set the table or something, but I stay put. 

Naomi says that Dad likes to make Mother breakfast because it reminds him of before.  By which she means, the days before they were parents.  As if being a parent is the worst thing in the world. But maybe she means before…whatever it was that ended the world.

“What do you think Dad keeps in his vial?”

It’s not the first time I’ve asked her this.  Her answers are just as cryptic as Dad’s.  I swear they’re two of a kind.  Mother gets it I guess, but I’m the clueless one of the family.  Naomi doesn’t say anything, which I expected. 

“Mother’s back,” I tell her, although I’m sure she can hear.  “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

My eyes land on a photo of purple petals on rich brown soil.  Mother is very particular about her garden, so I’m surprised that this picture exists.  I’m not so surprised that Naomi got it, though.  If anyone can do the impossible, it’s her.  The petals look soft enough to touch.  I can imagine their cool, almost-wet feeling between my fingers.  I can feel the breeze that scattered them in the dirt—something humid yet fresh, like after a summer storm. 

The next thing I smell is spices, which means breakfast is almost ready.  I almost tell Naomi to make it to the table before I eat her share of the sweets, but I don’t.  That picture of the petals—something about it reminds me of Dad’s necklace, and all the stories he tells about the world before we were born. 

In the kitchen again, Mother has spread out a platter of fresh fruit, a stack of two dozen donuts, and a giant skillet with a veggie-and-egg scramble. There’s coffee and juice too.  My stomach rumbles, and Mother grins at me. 

“How were your sprints this morning?”

“Okay.  That hill at the end of the cul-de-sac still kills me, though.”

“You should rest after breakfast.”

“I’ll help clean up first.”

“Naomi’s not eating?”

“Beats me,” I shrug.  “She’s practicing.”

Dad pushes himself away from the table and goes down the hall halfway through fixing his plate.  I glance at Mother, who winks at me.  Her hair is always frizzy and wind-blown, which is another of my favorite things about her.  If Naomi and Dad are the ones who can always sit still, me and Mother are kind of the opposite.  We like to keep moving, in some way or another.  I almost ask her what’s in Dad’s vial, but I decide not to.  I never have, even though I’ve thought about it plenty of times. 

“The market was so lovely this morning.  I had to stop myself from buying every single bouquet of flowers there was.  Marjie’s got like three new glass designs on her table and is working on more.  She’s trying to get ready for summer, even though she always sells out of her wares before the day is through.  I told her you could help again, if you’re not too busy.”

“I hate getting up that early.”

“Oh, but you love Marjie!”

“He loves Marjie’s nephew.”

“You should’ve stayed in your room,” I tell Naomi.

She grins at me, because she’s right and everyone knows it.  I take the last Bavarian crème donut, just to spite her. 

“I think it’s cute that you have a crush,” Mother says.  “Have you two struck up a conversation yet?  Sometimes it can be hard, but at least you two have the shop in common.”

“Mom—”

I only say that when I’m annoyed.  Or embarrassed.  And unfortunately, I’m predictable, so Naomi says it at the exact same time I do, mimicking me in perfect unison.  I have half a mind to throw the other half of this powdered donut at her, but then she would get the satisfaction of eating it.  I scowl at her instead. 

“Jace might not like the shop so much, since he always spends his time there.” Mother says.  “Maybe you two can go somewhere else, have a little time to yourselves.”

“Doubt it,” Naomi butts in.  “He’s busy with classes and bookkeeping for his mom.”

“Well, everyone needs a little free time,” Mother says.  “You can’t work forever, you know.”

She glances at Dad when she says it.  I think she winks, but it might be a trick of the light coming through the window.  I stuff my mouth full of egg-scramble so I don’t have to say anything.  Dad says a part of him died when he was nineteen.  I know he means transitioning, but I wonder if he ever had to live through anything this embarrassing.  Probably not. 

After breakfast, Mother goes out to her garden.  Naomi slings her camera around her neck and hops on her bike, ready to capture the world in all of its ordinary wonder.  Which leaves me and Dad to clean up the kitchen and work on laundry.  Sometimes we talk when we’re doing chores, but a lot of times we’re just quiet.  I kind of expected him to say something about relationships or whatever, but I’m surprised when he asks me something else entirely.

“Are you happy?”

I blink. 

I can’t think of a lot to be sad about.  He asks me this every now and then, but never when I expect it.  I’m surprised to find myself thinking of Jace with his bookkeeping and his dreams to have a nice little business someday. A bookstore or a little art shop.  I think of Naomi with her practicing, and that picture of purple petals. 

“I guess.”

“But?”

“I don’t know.”

Dad hums.  I don’t want to tell him that sometimes I feel as plain as a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.  Nothing noticeable.  Not that I want to be noticed for anything.  Sometimes I guess I just wish I was special to someone, or had something that was special to me.  But I’m not telling my dad that.  If he worries, the way Mother says, then I don’t want to give him more to worry about. 

“Were you happy when you were my age?”

“I was dead, remember?”

My dad winks.  His jokes are weird, even when you know him. 

“You couldn’t have been dead for an entire year.”

“You’re right.  It took a long time for me to figure out what it meant to be happy.  By the time I realized what happiness was, I’d been happy for a long time already.  Sometimes I miss what’s right in front of me, even when I’m paying attention.”

“Is that why you keep your necklace?”

Dad doesn’t say anything for a long while.  He irons shirts while I fold towels and mate socks.  The washing machine shudders through its spin cycle while the dryer turns and turns and turns.  It’s a Saturday like any other, and that makes me feel at ease.  Sometimes there’s nothing more that I want, than moments like this.  Mother says that’s something me and Dad have in common; that we truly enjoy the present. 

“We don’t always have a choice,” Dad says, starting in the middle of a thought I’m not sure I’ll be able to follow.  “When it was the end of the world—everything that happened, right before you were born—it was to create the opportunity of choice again.”

“What did you do, when you didn’t have a choice?”

It’s out of my mouth before I can help myself.  Sometimes I forget that my parents had an entire life before I was born.  Mother is full of stories about her and Dad, but I don’t always get to hear his side of things.  I want him to tell me more, but I don’t always know how to ask.  I don’t want to be weird. 

The dryer buzzes, just as I finish the last of the towels in the basket.  Dad goes to rotate the laundry, and I look out the window at the flowers swaying in the summer breeze.  Mother’s sunhat bobs as she digs out weeds, the pink and red ribbons on it fluttering.  Dad bought it for her, this past Valentine’s Day.  I gave her and Naomi flowers, which in retrospect feels silly since we have a garden and there are wildflowers everywhere.  But it was something I wanted to do, and I’m still glad I did it.

“What do you want for lunch?” Dad asks when he comes back.  “Sandwiches?  Salad?”

“Sure.”

“We’re still getting ice cream after, right?”

Naomi slams the back door as her voice echoes down the hall. 

“Of course we’re getting ice cream,” I tell her.  “Are you a Winters or aren’t you?”

Naomi shrugs.

“Sometimes things change.”

She walks to the kitchen, here eyes focused on her camera screen. Maybe the next time I go to the market with Mother, I’ll see if I can find some picture frames for her. Or maybe Jace knows where to find cool handmade ones.