Knitting Needles

Prologue Sewing Scissors

When Oscar was seven years old, he stole his mother’s sewing scissors and cut his bangs to the scalp.

In that instant, Oscar understood that power could be a metal thing, cold and hard to the touch, filling his chest with warmth, his heart with joy.

In the moments that followed, that power would be snatched right out of his hands by his screaming mother, leaving the pit in his chest cold and joyless.

His name hadn’t been Oscar then. But it was now.

“What have you done?” his mother had cried.

There was no way for him to know back then that this would become his brand, the slogan chanted out at the end of every big decision, his mother’s favorite words to spit in his face.

“It’s alright.” Or that this would be the balm for however long his father lasted. “I think it looks wicked.”

He had gentle hands, his father. Oscar remembered them on his shoulder, thumb rubbing the rough cotton of his T-shirt, soothing him, quieting the aching in his chest after his mother’s screams. She’d been so loud.

“There you go. Now I’m jealous.” His father’s laugh had been the stuff of coziness, logs crackling in the fireplace on the coldest nights of winter, lentil soup simmering on the stove, a soft blanket on the couch.

Oscar remembered his own grin, stretching across his face as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His father had done a good job evening his hair out, cutting away the wisps that had brushed his neck and shoulders.

Maybe Papa had realized then, already, that Oscar was supposed to be Oscar.

“You look like a million dollars, Spike.” Maybe that was why he always called him Spike.

Oscar smiled, remembering the light in his father’s eyes, the lines at the corners, already there.

He hadn’t marked them then. Maybe he’d filled them in now, altering the memory.

Maybe Oscar had erased the weight that must have made his father’s shoulders sag.

Maybe his ears had erased the words of the screaming match his parents had in the room next door late that night.

The next time his father fixed him up, it wasn’t just hair.

Oscar was thirteen and quite done with it all.

He’d been arguing with his mother all afternoon, throwing every curse word he knew her way, cussing her out as though this would make her unpurchase the monstrosity that hung on his bedroom door.

Had she never stepped into his room? Had she never taken a look at the posters on his wall?

Maybe his mother pretended not to realize which of his clothes found their way to the laundry hamper.

Oscar was quite sure she’d rifled through his closet, cutting the tags off the things she’d bought him over the years, the tops and skirts and dresses he never wore.

Maybe it made her feel better. Maybe then she could pretend they had been worn.

“I’m not wearing that fucking thing.” Oscar didn’t particularly like that he’d started to cry, that his voice had grown hoarse, that his throat felt scratched by the end of it.

“You’re not going to the school dance in ripped jeans and a band T-shirt!” Maybe his mother’s throat was scratched, too.

Good. She deserved it. Oscar had scratched so many more parts of himself on her account.

“It’s alright, Spike. We’ll fix you right up.” His father’s throat wasn’t scratched, his voice smooth and soft as cotton, that low, deep croon Oscar couldn’t help but envy.

“Papa, I don’t want to wear that,” Oscar mumbled.

His father’s lips were tightly pressed to one another, but the line of his mouth was still curved into a smile.

Oscar would ignore the tears that filled his father’s eyes.

He’d pretend that he hadn’t seen his father blinking them away as he pressed wet toilet paper to the fresh cuts on Oscar’s wrist.

“You should never wear anything that makes you want to do this to yourself. We’ll go shopping tomorrow, you and me.

How’s that, bud? And we’ll get you a proper haircut, better than what I can give you.

It’ll be fun. Pancakes after.” His father had the deepest brown eyes Oscar had ever seen.

He wished he’d inherited more from him than this. His kindness, maybe.

Except his father would never have called his mother a selfish bitch or told her to go fuck herself. He never would have screamed at her to fucking die. So maybe Oscar wasn’t as kind. He would be, when he got out of this place.

But Oscar didn’t really want to leave, not with Papa living in the house, not with his lentil-soup-fireplace-warmth blanketing Oscar from his mother’s harsh comments, keeping his hands tucked in so he wouldn’t reach for the sewing scissors.

It had been an ugly gash this time, and Oscar couldn’t stop the bleeding. There was just so much of himself he wanted to cut, to shed, to remove.

“What do you say, Spike?” Papa fixed the end of the bandage around his arm.

Oscar had never wrapped himself up in bandages before. Maybe this was why it had always stung so badly beneath his long-sleeved shirts.

“I liked it when you gave me a haircut before.” Oscar gave Papa a smile, the first since his father had walked into the bathroom.

He’d knocked first. His father always asked for his permission before he did anything. He never bought him clothes he might not like. He never rummaged through his drawers while Oscar was at school.

“You were seven, Spike.” His father laughed. “But I can try and fix you up a little if you’d like.”

Oscar would like. There was more hair on the floor now than there had been then.

His mother had never really let him go to the hairdresser on his own after the incident with the sewing scissors, policing every trim and hovering around the stylist. Oscar wouldn’t be surprised if she started bringing a measuring tape along.

Well, not anymore, he supposed.

Oscar’s phone shook him out of his trance.

It was hard not to think about Papa today of all days.

He would have come with Oscar, would have been sitting here next to him.

He would have been smiling, more lines now around his eyes, if they had been allowed to grow, to deepen, if he had been allowed to age.

His Papa hadn’t. He and Oscar had barely made it out of the barber shop together that day when he’d stiffened beside him and dropped to the ground, clutching his chest.

“It’s alright, Spike. You’re alright.” Those had been his last words before he’d lost consciousness.

Oscar hadn’t been able to make the emergency call. Someone else must have called. It didn’t take long for the ambulance to come, but it was too late for Oscar’s father. The suit his father had bought him for the dance lay crumpled in its plastic bag, discarded on the sidewalk beside Papa’s corpse.

Oscar wore the suit to the service instead, ignored his mother’s screaming about it being ugly, about it being shameful, about it being too blue for a funeral.

“Papa bought it for me,” Oscar had said.

He never heard a word of that ugly hour they spent in the church, the pastor speaking about what a kind man his father was. If only they knew how kind. If only everybody else could know what a good papa he’d been to Oscar and his little sister.

But Oscar didn’t have the power to stand up and tell them. Power was a cold hard thing, and Oscar couldn’t grasp it. It slipped through his fingers every time he tried to reach for it, and all he could think about was that he’d never even told Papa his real name.

Now, sitting in the waiting room, Oscar opened Lina’s text message.

When are you home from the clinic? I made some of Papa’s lentil soup for you. Do you have a ride?

Papa wouldn’t have asked if Oscar had a ride.

He would have been here. Maybe Oscar wasn’t being fair.

At least she’d texted. At least his sister had offered to feed him.

To visit. They’d told him in the other appointments that he’d need all the help he could get.

It was his fault that he hadn’t told her.

Maybe Oscar was a little too proud, proud enough that he’d taken the rest of the savings his father had put together for him and spent them on a nurse to come and help him sit and eat and do literally anything for the next few weeks.

Or maybe it was just his way of pretending that if Papa paid for it, then some part of him must be here, lingering in the small sum he’d been able to split between Oscar and Lina, just enough to turn him into the person he wanted to be, the person he was. Always fixing him up.

“Which doctor is doing yours?” the man sitting next to him asked.

His voice wasn’t as deep as Oscar’s had become, but he had more hair on his chin than Oscar did.

Papa had never really managed to grow a beard either.

Maybe Oscar had inherited more than his brown eyes.

He saw it now, that warmth, reflected in this other man, the same curve of the mouth, the same gentleness. He looked about Oscar’s age, too.

“Schwartz,” Oscar replied. “Who’s doing yours?”

“Zimmerman.” He banged his head against the wooden panels of the wall. His short brown hair glinted red as it caught the lamplight.

Oscar liked that the clinic was lit up in yellow, that the chairs were orange, that there was a small bookshelf lined with queer novels, the same that filled his own shelves back home. He liked that it didn’t feel so much like a hospital.

“When do you have to go in to prep?” the other man asked.

“Soon. They made me take a pregnancy test.” Oscar laughed.

It was a bitter thing, cold and hard as the sewing scissors his mother now kept in a locked drawer.

At least she had up until Oscar left home four years before.

He wondered whether she would scream if she saw what it was Oscar was cutting from his body now.

“Because I’m getting laid left, right, and center.

Look at all the lovers fighting each other to bring me to surgery. ”

“Felt.” The other man’s laugh sounded more genuine to Oscar, but everybody in the world sounded more genuine to his ears.

He never had quite managed to become the image of his father.

“I didn’t have anyone to bring me either.

” He shrugged. “My friends live out of town, and I don’t really talk to my family. ”

“You’re paying for the nurse, then? To take you home and feed you soup?” Oscar arched an eyebrow at him.

“Honestly, in honor of having these removed today, I think it’s appropriate to say that they’re milking me dry for this.” He had a gorgeous smirk, too, lopsided, with lips that disappeared into his mouth, cheeks that turned pink, eyes that crinkled.

“That’s actually a good one.” Oscar slid his phone back into his pocket. He could respond to Lina before they took his phone away. “My gaming friends aren’t even in the country, actually.”

“Maybe it’s fate, then, that we met each other today of all days.” The other man fiddled with a loose thread on his blue jeans. He shrugged. “Feels like it, anyway.”

“Yeah.” Oscar had never really been good at this part of being human, the small talk, making friends.

He wanted to be. How many days and nights had he yearned to be able to text someone and head out for a cup of coffee or a trip to the bookstore?

“Do you like books?” Oscar hadn’t felt this brave since he’d lopped off his bangs that one evening thirteen years before.

“I’m scared,” the other man said at about the same time. “Are you?” He looked up at Oscar, smiling again, eyes a little wide. “Sorry, what were you about to say?”

“I’m terrified, actually,” Oscar replied.

Maybe this was a more pertinent topic of conversation than whether or not the two of them liked books.

Oscar hoped someday he could sit with someone and talk about frightening things over coffee.

“But it’s alright. You’re alright.” Oscar could only hope that he sounded half as warm as his father would have, saying the same words.

Papa had said them to him so many times. It had kept him alive for so long.

“You think?” the other man asked. “I’ve wanted this a long time.”

“So have I,” Oscar replied. “We’ll be alright. You know, they’ll fix us right up, and then maybe after, when we’re better, maybe we can meet for a coffee and talk about it. Or maybe we can go for pancakes. What do you say?”

A light came on in the other man’s bright eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, mouth spreading.

“Oscar Peters?”

Oscar’s head whipped to the side, gaze landing on a nurse in scrubs, her long blonde hair pulled into a tight bun. She had an encouraging smile on her face, the same blue eyes as his mother. Kinder.

“They’re ready for you,” she said.

Oscar gave her a nod and turned to the other man.

“Good luck, I guess,” the other man replied. “And yes. Pancakes sound perfect. I’ll leave my number for you at the reception desk.”

“I’ll ask for it,” Oscar replied, standing up. He’d have to text Lina before he undressed. “You are going to be fine.”

“Yeah,” the other man said. “I know that now. Name’s Aaron, by the way.”

“Oscar,” Oscar replied, mouth spreading into a smile. “But you can call me Spike.”