Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

“Yes.”

She picked up a stick and touched one of its pincers until the creature scooted into a corner. Then she just stood there, the sun through the window catching the edges of her hair. In a certain light, she was actually kind of pretty.

“I just happened to be walking by, Paulie.”

“I walk by all the time.”

“Well, he was in some kind of sociable mood. He was going on about how math is a curse.” I laughed. “He told me that I have it, too.”

She looked away. I could see the little shivers in her jaw. “Well,” she finally said. “Good for the two of you.”

THAT WEEKEND, DAD and I returned to Tapington. Mom had made a list of things she needed. From the dock, she and Paulie lifted their iced-tea glasses and Bernie lifted his matted head as Dad and I edged out the driveway in the Country Squire. On the dashboard, the top page of Mom’s pad fluttered in the air vent, shivering the thickly penned words THANK YOU! and DON’T FORGET! into my vision.

Dad drove fast, the windows down. At a gas station south of Felt City, he left me in the car while he used the restroom. In the hot asphalt fumes of the lot, I ducked down in the seat and took my dose. Then I picked up Mom’s list. It was several pages long. The first page read:

Kleenex (full one, by fridge)

Sun hats (Paulie’s — cellar door?)

SPAGHETTI POT (biggest don’t forget LID)

Drainer (spaghetti)

Lid for pot

Foot cream (white)

Bernie nail clippers

Nice cotton dish towel, yellow one

Leather leash by door maybe on rack

Hans shorts (khaki, second drawer, back)

Paulie sandals (skinny brown)

Pruning knife (garage, and clippers?)

Striped swim suit (haven’t worn in years — call)

When Dad returned, I set the pad back on the dash. He buckled his seatbelt and said, “Me, for example.”

“Me what?”

He pulled out a sweaty can of ginger ale from the cooler and held it up to the light. “I was young when I learned the importance of will,” he said. He snapped it open. “I was young when I learned to appreciate difficulty. What it takes to do something that nobody thinks you can do.” He took a long swallow, then turned and looked at me appraisingly.

I looked back like the hardened criminal I was. “Wow,” I said. “Extremely interesting, Dad.”

Sometime later, on the Ohio side of the border, we left the highway and started down a country lane. At the end of the blacktop, looking out over an astonishingly rectangular pond, stood a restaurant with a hand-painted sign over the door.

s’MAMA’s

Folding chairs leaned against garbage cans. The lot was filled with every manner of vehicle, from rusted tractors to a cream-colored Cadillac with its leather convertible top folded down behind the seat. Black people worked at the counters, and white people sat at the tables. It was a barbecue joint. I’d passed this way on every one of my trips to Chicago with my mother, yet I’d never had any idea such a place existed.

Dad went to the counter. Something about the swaying car ride, the murmuring crowd, and now the salty smell of the meat — I could see it flaming inside the wall ovens — caused my roll to open like a sinkhole.

s’MAMA’s

The so-nearly-achieved symmetry of the name began devouring me.

I sat down at a table. I was a crayfish in a tank, and people were studying me through the glass. I waved my claws.

“What?” said Dad. He was standing at the table with a pile of Styrofoam boxes in his arms, looking queerly at my face. “I didn’t hear you.”

I turned and gazed out at the pond. In biology that semester, we’d seen a film of gazelles at a water hole. At every moment that the herd was drinking, there was always one gazelle who kept an eye on the horizon. At the tables now, the human beings were doing the same thing. At each table at least one person — in our case, me — was watching for lions.

Eating.

People were happy when they were eating.

“Suit yourself,” he said, smacking down the boxes and pushing in beside me. Ribs and corn. When he’d picked clean his first order, he slid a second one over in front of him. For many minutes we didn’t speak. Now and then I rechecked the horizon. I’d managed to wrestle myself to the surface of my mind.

People were happy when they were eating.

That’s why it made them vulnerable.

In the pond, fish were jumping peaceably, just often enough to signal that they were watching me. They were trying to calm me. Thank you, fish. I turned and made an effort to appreciate my father. He tore at his meal. He gnawed the gristle, then nibbled at the joints. He sucked on his fingers. When he was done with the meat, he dispatched two pieces of corn, sliding and turning the cobs like a machine designed to remove the kernels. Then he pulled a plastic fork from the bag and poked it around the hollows of the bones, looking for marrow. Finally, he picked up a thoroughly eaten rib and sucked at it again. “God,” he said. “Ribs.”

“Yup.”

“Your mother doesn’t ever make ribs.”

Something had changed him.

“Sometimes she does,” I offered.

“Nope. Never.” He wiped his fingers on a sharp-smelling towelette and leaned back in the chair with his hands behind his head. “Now that was food,” he said, gazing out over the table.

I realized why he was different: she wasn’t here .

I was the gazelle watching the horizon. I was responsible for bringing us back to safety. After a certain amount of time, I said, “I know that, Dad.”

“You know what?”

“I know what food is.”

He narrowed his eyes, picking up the corn-fork again and poking it around. “You’re a funny one.”

“How is that?”

“I know you know what food is.”

“Okay.”

“That’s not why I said it.”

“Okay.” I looked across at him. “I wish Mom could have tried this.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She’d like it.”

“No, she wouldn’t. Neither would your sister.” He looked doubtfully at me. “You haven’t touched yours. You mind?”

My roll was a huge black bird inside me now that suddenly cawed and spread its wings. I gulped.

He reached. “You mind?”

“Please.”

When he’d finished what was in my box, we returned to the car, and for the rest of the ride home he stared out the windshield while I stared out the side window, scouring the horizon.

I, too, was different when my mother wasn’t around.

Not far outside of Tapington, he turned to me and said, in what sounded like an amused voice, “Do you know who Knudson Hay is?”

“No.”

“He was my boss at Princeton. There’s a conference at the U of M, and he’s coming out for it.”

“So?”

“Well, he’s going to drive up afterwards and stop by the cabin.”

“Well, that’s nice, I guess.”

He looked back at the road.

“I’m wondering,” he said, “if I should tell your mother.”

—

AT DUSK, WHEN we reached Tapington, my roll was still jackrabbiting around inside me. My father opened the front door of the house and led me in. Here we were, just the two of us, in a hallway as cool and still as a mausoleum.

I suddenly understood that the family who had lived here was dead.

The winter coats in the tiny closet were their mummies. A tall father, gruff and oblivious, dandruff pasted to his shoulders. A short mother, diligent and cheerful, her red rainboots pressed together. Two teenagers, poorly fit to the world. Folded Kleenex in the girl’s pockets. Powdery traces in the boy’s.