Amity Gaige - Schroder

“Little boy? Can’t you speak?”

I burst into tears.

“Oh, leave him alone, Gerhardt,” said the woman in the doorway. “For God’s sakes. Does it even matter anymore? What are you going to do, send them back?”

I awoke with a headache, as if I’d been drinking heavily. I sat upright on the edge of my bed for a long time, watching Meadow sleep. Dawn was a reckoning. In the daylight, it was difficult to deny that I had only one clean option. This thing about Meadow being in danger was a misunderstanding. I could clear that up by returning her to Albany as soon as possible. I’d pay fines. Maybe I’d even be arrested. None of that caused the physical aversion I felt just as soon as I pictured myself doing the right thing. Why? Because I wasn’t ready to blow up my life. Maybe nobody else cared about it, but it was my life. My lovingly constructed American life. I wanted to keep being who I was. I wanted to keep being Eric Kennedy. If I went back now, they’d make me be Schroder. And claiming that name would be part of my punishment, a ceremonial rite. And no one would listen to me when I would tell them, But I am not Schroder, no one would understand what I meant by that. It’s your legal name, they’d say. I understand that it’s my legal name, I’d say. And they’d say, Are you really in any position to object?

In the warped glass of the window over Meadow’s bed, I spied my face, gazing back at me plaintively. I ran my hand around my jaw. I gave that sad sack face a couple fit slaps that brought water to my eyes. Harder, I thought. You’re not even capable of hitting hard enough. I stopped to catch my breath.

“John fucking Toronto,” I muttered, getting up to shave.

Meadow and I headed out into a hazy morning. I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm as I had the day before. I kept staring with preoccupation out at the lake, wondering which way they’d come from. Maybe this was just the imprinting of my childhood’s apparat, but it seemed to me that if you scratched anybody deep enough, you’d reveal some criminality, a questionable exchange or evasion, a moment where he or she bent the law at its most flexible joint. And so I had believed — right up to the moment when I saw myself on TV — that I had not “kidnapped” Meadow but that I was merely very, very late to return her from an agreed-upon visit.

“Daddy,” Meadow said, shaking me by the wrist. “Aren’t we going to Mount Washington yet?”

“Not today,” I said. “I just feel like kicking around here.”

“But how many days do we have left?”

“Plenty.”

“How many is plenty?”

“We’ve got plenty of time, OK? Why don’t you go play?”

“I want to play with you .”

“I’ve got a headache.”

“Why does your head ache, Daddy?”

“I don’t know, Meadow. Maybe because you keep asking me questions. Now, please. Leave me alone. I need some time to think. Don’t you ever just want to be alone?”

Her face clouded. Fine, I thought, I hurt her feelings. Fine. She had, to my mind, another long, blessed day, an entire beach all to herself. She had her whole life. She walked down the beach, moping, kicking sand, digging up rocks, not going very far.

That’s when a tall woman in a sheer nightgown emerged from Cabin One, her arms stretched expressively over her head.

“Well, hi ,” she said when she saw me. “I’ve got neighbors.”

Meadow and I both jumped. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, and Meadow, who’d been squatting in the water smiting two rocks together, drew to standing.

“Hi,” I said.

The woman walked in a lazy path toward the beach, which was not ten steps from her door, and stood there on the grassy rise between Meadow and me, her hands on her hips. I could see the outline of darker panties beneath her nightgown. The woman seemed unconcerned by this.

“ Hey ,” she said, shaking a finger at us. “Isn’t that funny? I saw you guys yesterday. At that bar in town. I remember you because I thought, how funny to bring a little kid into a bar. How old-school. Like we’re back in County Cork or something.” The woman looked down now at Meadow, who stood in her spangled bikini, rubbing one bare leg cricket-style against the other. “But I bet you had fun, didn’t you, hon? You didn’t want to be left out, did you? No. I’ll tell you what. You can learn a lot in a bar.”

Meadow’s eyes grew large behind her glasses. Our statuesque neighbor looked even more impressive from her knoll, staring back at us with the smile from her previous question still on her lips. Was she pretty? Not technically. She was too formidable to be pretty. I ran over the scene from the bar in my mind. I remembered a blond woman in the booth, yes. Hadn’t she left before the news story about us aired? I walked toward her, my hand extended.

“Hi,” I said. “My name’s John.” I gave an inner wince. “John Toronto.”

She took my hand firmly. “Hi. I’m April. April Los Angeles.”

“OK,” I said, taking my hand back quickly. I waved it toward Meadow. “And that’s my daughter, Chrissy.”

“Hey, Chrissy!” the woman shouted.

Meadow shifted her weight from one leg to the other. Then she came closer, if only to get a better look.

“So what do you want to be famous for, Chrissy?”

Meadow squinted. “Excuse me?”

“When you grow up. What do you want to be famous for? Everybody wants to be famous for something.”

“I want to be a lepidopterist.” Not unkindly, Meadow added, “Lepidopterists study butterflies.”

“You’re not going to be famous for that .” The woman laughed huskily in Meadow’s direction. “Forgive me for not raising the pitch of my voice when I talk to you, sweetheart. I don’t do baby talk. Then again, you don’t seem the type of child who likes to be bullshat. Are you? Look how erect you’re standing. Puts me to shame.” She then turned to me and said, “Why do all young girls want to work with animals?”

I grinned. “Maybe because they’re beautiful and gentle and the world is harsh and cruel?”

April touched me on the arm. Now that we were standing side by side, she seemed less Amazonian. I glanced again at the nightgown, which while not entirely sheer was definitely not outdoor wear.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” she agreed. “I myself once ran a very successful pet hotel. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”

The woman stood unmoving.

“Oh,” I said. “Where are you going?”

“To get some groceries in Swanton. I’m out. Do you guys have a piece of bread or something? I’ll pay you back. You need anything? I’ll get it for you. I’m starved .”

It was Meadow who went into our cabin and got our neighbor two pieces of Roman Meal. She placed them on the plastic card table beside the Weber grill and spread them with mayonnaise, then topped each with a slice of cheese, then stood watching while April devoured her sandwich.

“I’m going to get us some meat to grill,” April said, kicking the Weber. “I’ll make you two a feast, you’ll see.”

Meadow stood observing the woman in her quiet, anthropological way. For a six-year-old, she was a pretty good judge of character. If she had said to me, This woman is bad news , I would have taken her word for it. But a lonely man is not a skeptical one. Sitting beside her in a matching plastic lawn chair, I inhaled deeply, disguising as a sigh my desire to take this woman in, even just the smell of her, to say Let’s! to somebody, to say Let’s! to the giving and the getting. My brain seemed to flicker and go out. So what, it had done little for me so far.