I’m going to sit right he
Jack was out in the backyard the following day.
Like always, he was pounding and shaving away at a woodworking project, ignoring the world—but especially me.
A dewy fog blanketed the yard since the sun hadn’t risen enough to burn it away.
When I stepped off the back steps, the fog seemed to swallow my bare foot, chilling me to the bones and causing droplets of condensation to collect on my skin.
I hadn’t bothered to do more than put on basketball shorts since no one was going to come to Jack’s and see me half-clothed.
Across the yard I traipsed, the wet grass tickling and pulling at my feet as I made my way from the house and over to Jack.
As I approached him, he didn’t even look up to signal that he knew I was there.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know, obviously, but it was the routine we had fallen into over the last few weeks.
Jack ignored me, I let myself be ignored.
I was done with it.
“I’m going to help you,” I said.
Jack faltered in his hammering for a second, but then went right back to his project.
“Did you hear me, Jack?” I asked more loudly than was necessary. “I’m going to help you with your project.”
Still no response from him.
Anger boiled up in me and I slammed a hand down on the wooden tabletop he was sanding.
“I’m going to help you, you stubborn bastard!”
Jack’s movements stopped, his hand holding the sandpaper frozen against the wood. He didn’t look up, though.
“Let me help you,” I said, my voice cracking. “Please.”
For a moment, I thought Jack would look up at me, maybe frown with consternation, but relent to my request. Instead, he started sanding again, his hand moving slowly at first, then picking up speed, aggressively sanding away at the wood, smoothing out some imperfection only he could see.
Resigned, I walked away from Jack and his project and slogged back through the yard to the back steps. Turning around, I plopped down on the steps, trying to ignore the wetness from the morning dew, and stared at Jack.
“I’m going to sit right here,” I said loudly enough that he could hear me across the yard. “When you need help, I’ll be waiting. I’m not leaving.”
Jack continued on about his business.
The morning sun sauntered across the sky and hours ticked by, the fog burning off incrementally until lunchtime arrived.
By the noon hour, the grass was baking in the August sun and the steps felt more like sauna stones against my backside.
Sweat was trickling down between my shoulders blades and running towards the waistband of my shorts.
I didn’t move.
Even when Jack stopped working and brushed past me on the steps up into the house, I sat and waited like I said I would.
When Jack came back outside, just a few minutes later, he had a plate containing a sandwich and chips.
A soda was in his other hand. He went back across the yard, laid the plate on the table, and went back to work.
In between working on the table, he’d take a bite of his sandwich or chips, or take a sip of his soda, but he ignored me.
I continued to sit and watch.
Jack continued to ignore me.
He only came near me to go up the steps to return his plate to the kitchen, to get a drink, or use the bathroom.
Even as the afternoon grew orange and hazy, and the sun began its descent towards the horizon, I didn’t move.
By dusk, Jack seemed to be done sanding the table—I couldn’t imagine spending a whole day manually sanding a table so thoroughly—and he covered it with his tarp.
Then he headed back inside, brushing past me as he went up the steps for the last time that day.
I stayed on the steps. My skin felt cracked from sitting in the summer sun all day, and my lips were chapped. My throat felt like a desert. But I stayed outside until the sun had disappeared from the sky and the first stars were starting to twinkle.
Back inside, Jack had a bowl of leftover spaghetti from the night before. He wasn’t sitting at the table, waiting to have a family dinner. Instead, he was in front of the T.V., watching some innocuous comedy as he ate.
All I could do was make a plate of spaghetti and set it in the microwave to heat up.
As I waited, I drank three glasses of water, directly from the tap, then filled a fourth to go with my dinner.
Then I sat at the table and ate my pasta and drank my water.
Alone. Jack didn’t even come into the kitchen once he was done with his bowl.
So, I cleaned my plate and glass, put them in the draining rack, and made my way to the stairs.
When I had reached the second floor, I could hear Jack rustling around in the kitchen, cleaning up his dinner plate.
Up on the third floor, I stripped my shorts and boxers off in my room and then ducked into the shower.
Minutes later, even though it was barely evening, I was climbing under the covers of my bed.
I hadn’t even bothered to put on pajamas.
The sun exposure from the day made me feel sick, as though I had the chills. I shivered and shook under the covers in bed, wishing I had an extra blanket, but I was too proud to ask Jack for anything. Sometime, probably around nine o’clock, I fell into a deep sleep.
A door opened and closed somewhere as I drifted off.
Was Jack leaving?
In my imagination, awake and daydreaming, I am the desert tortoise. Alone and wandering my arid ecosystem, fulfilling the duties bestowed upon me by whatever power decides what we will be when we are given life.
When I dreamed that night, I was a caterpillar. But not quite. I was in a chrysalis, waiting to see what life would bring. Wet and warm, packed in tightly, I had nothing to do but wonder what would happen when my shell split and I climbed out into the waiting sun.
As that happened, as the pod split and light poured in and fluid seeped out, and my eyes adjusted to the new world around me, what would come of me?
Would I become a butterfly? Would I forget that I was once a caterpillar?
Would anyone care that the caterpillar they’d known was missing?
I awoke the following morning, my shoulders raw and angry against the crisp sheets of my bed. Gingerly, I made my way to the bathroom and examined myself in the mirror.
I wasn’t a tortoise. I was a lobster.
Another shower was had, though this time I wasn’t shivering.
I felt as though the world was a brick oven and I was a pizza being burnt to a crisp.
I adjusted the shower knobs so that the water was just warm enough to clean with, but cool enough that it didn’t feel as though it was stripping my flesh from my bones.
After my shower, and the delicate use of my towel to dry off, I couldn’t find anything in my medicine cabinet to soothe my sunburn.
So, I slipped on a pair of light sweatpants and a lightweight long-sleeve shirt.
In the bathroom mirror, a red-faced demon peeked out at me, cackling hysterically at my hubris.
Downstairs, I scarfed down a bowl of sugary cereal—my favorite—and made my way outside.
Jack had already eaten and was working on the table in the yard.
On the second step was a bottle of aloe vera gel and a bottle of sunscreen.
I glanced over at Jack, but he was still in “ignore the kid mode,” so I snatched up the bottles and bolted back into the house.
I didn’t get far. Once inside the house and in the kitchen, I stripped off my shirt and sweatpants carefully and slathered my body with the aloe vera.
Immediate relief.
It didn’t fix my sunburn, but it soothed my dry, red skin.
Made me feel a little closer to human. Before I set the bottle on the kitchen table, I squirted a healthy glob into my hands and rubbed it into my face slowly.
A moan of relief escaped my throat as the skin of my face slowly began to feel less and less like sandpaper.
After using the ointment that Jack had set out for me, I slathered any skin that would be exposed to the sun in the sunscreen.
Then, shamefully, I made my way back outside.
Just as I had the day before, I sat down on the steps—though more carefully this time since my skin felt like it would split open at any sudden movement.
“I’m going to be here,” I said to Jack. “I’ll help you when you’re ready.”
Jack didn’t respond. He didn’t pause his work or acknowledge me.
So, I sat and watched Jack as the morning sun slipped by overhead.
When the sun was directly overhead and sweat was darkening the pits and back of my shirt, Jack suddenly stopped working.
He stood by the table for the longest of moments, as though contemplating something deathly important.
Finally, when I decided that maybe I should go inside to reapply sunscreen, he looked over at me.
Though he was incapable of making the sound, his whole body moved as though he sighed. He looked at me, waving to make sure he had my attention, and I sat up rigidly. Jack signed “lunch” to me.
“You want me to make lunch?” I asked, a little more enthusiastically than I had intended.
He signed “yes.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to control my voice as I rose from the steps. “Anything okay?”
Jack didn’t sign, but he nodded.
I turned to march up the steps, grimacing at the ass-shaped wet spot I’d left on the steps. I’d actually sweated through my sweatpants, which loaned credence to their moniker.
Inside of the house, in the blissful AC, I threw together two sandwiches and chips on a couple of plates and grabbed two sodas.
Lingering to enjoy the AC and dry out a little bit, I spent too much time making sure the sandwiches were stacked perfectly and sliced in two with precision.
Before I was ready to face the heat once more—both literally and figuratively—I made my way back outside.
Jack was picking away at a piece of the table with his thumbnail, examining some minor imperfection when I made my way out to stand beside him.
At my approach, he glanced over at me, then went back to picking.
I couldn’t tell what it was that had him concerned with his work, but I set the plate gently down on the table in front of him.
“Sandwiches and chips?”
Jack gave a quick nod. I set the soda down.
“And a soda,” I said.
Jack snatched it off the table and I froze; afraid I’d offended him. He set it on a hip-high block of wood to his side. He brought both hands up in front of his chest as if cupping the air, not quite facing me, then lowered both hands marginally while bringing his fingers together.
Wet.
“The table is wet?”
Jack jabbed his thumb at the can.
“Oh,” I said, “yeah. Sorry. I didn’t think about that. Sorry.”
He waved me off. I stood there watching him, holding my plate, my soda can tucked under my arm as he concentrated on the table.
Jack frowned, his eyebrows knitted together, then turned to face me, though he avoided eye contact.
He brought both hands up to mid-chest and tapped the tips of his fingers of one hand against the other like two birds pecking at each other.
I looked down at the table for several moments.
“Yeah,” I said. “It looks even to me.”
Jack’s frown softened a bit and he lifted his index finger of his right hand to sign again. Like Danny from The Shining, he flicked his index finger up and down as if “Tony” was talking.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “I’m sure. It looks even to me, anyway.”
Jack made the “okay” sign. He was still avoiding looking at me, so I took that as my cue that while he was conversing with me again, my closeness wasn’t exactly appreciated.
So, I went back across the lawn to the back steps and sat down.
I placed the soda can on the step next to me and laid the plate on my lap.
I’d give Jack room to stare at the evenness of his table while he ate his lunch.
Before I could tuck into my own sandwich and chips, I popped the tab of the soda and took a healthy swig. Finally, when I set it on the step beside me again, I looked over at Jack.
“I’m sorry, man,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Jack stood there for a moment, and I was certain he was going to ignore me, but he finally made an okay sign, still not quite facing me. Then he made a sign with his hand like bullhorns, and used his thumb to jab at his chest a few times.
Me too.
I smiled. “Okay.”
Jack was a man of few words. Literally and figuratively. I didn’t force him to say anything else or acknowledge our gradual march towards forgiveness.
I could be okay with “me too.”
He had been okay with “I’m sorry.”
What else was needed?