Twenty-Five #2
The vision faded away as I felt my leg cramp, but still under the effect of the sleep drug I rubbed it out and drifted back into sleep.
All night I rode that wave, each time I would start in the same place, but found a new detail.
A pair of black women’s shoes peeking out from under the bed, the toothpaste tube, squeezed from the middle, a painting of a lighthouse on headland over a crashing ocean.
This was Rilee’s house! My dreams were back, they hadn’t left me! Something inside me relaxed, released, and spread out. A knot in my soul that had been tight for so long I hadn’t realized it had been spasming, eased. Knowing she’d returned to me unlocked something I’d sealed up.
I woke refreshed to a quiet house. The clock read nine forty-four. Sleeping pills always make me wonky if I don’t let them run their course. They’d kept me under all during the morning tumult. But I didn’t have anywhere to be today. Thursday. The day before I would see Rilee in her own home.
There was coffee, but it was old and I didn’t need the pick-me-up, so I poured it out and cut up a banana into some frosted flakes.
What to do? I checked my email and sent one to my voc-counselor.
Any word on the safety job? Then I called the company itself and left a message.
I checked the job boards my counselor had signed me up with, but the listings wanted heavy lifting or long-haul work.
While showering I concluded that Kathy was probably right, I was going to need to think about something different.
Something out of the box. Or maybe a different box.
My thoughts took me to Jackie’s school website, and then the district, and then the substitute application.
I could sit and stand, maybe even drive a bus.
I downloaded an application but couldn’t figure out how to fill it out on my phone.
I was like the old man at the grocery store unable to use his debit card.
In disgust I tossed the phone on my bed and went outside.
It was cool and overcast, but the icy nip of winter was gone.
Tiny bumps were forming on the bushes, leaves getting ready to emerge, and a sprinkle of green was emerging in the lawn.
I could sit in a classroom with a bunch of kids if I had to, but I would probably die a bit each day if I didn’t breathe fresh air.
Pulling free a piece of fluttering plastic lodged in a barberry bush, a discarded grocery sack, I entered the garage where the trash cans were.
Lukas’s workbench was well stocked, saws, a routing table, drill press, even an air compressor in the corner.
When you sell tools you’re going to see something you want.
But Lukas was too busy to really use them much, a box of drill bits was still shrink wrapped.
I let my fingers inspect the hardware until I realized with a cold sweat my phone was inside and I had no idea if the safety company had called me back.
They hadn’t, but once back inside my foot was dragging a bit so I sat down for a few minutes before doing my home therapy program.
When I finished the exercises, I was puffing like a middle schooler after the mile run.
I used to be able to climb up a rocky hillside dragging a heavy gauge winch chain without getting winded.
Now some stretches and resistance bands caused me to break a sweat, it wasn’t fair.
Perched across the back of my dresser were the pictures of the bonsai trees I’d drawn.
Given enough care most trees bounce back from something bad, like a fire, or lightning strike.
But the slow constant work of a beetle infestation, or bad water or air, would get one every time.
They just got ground down under the constant pressure until they broke.
My gaze lingered on one of the drawings.
The twisted pine on the ocean cliffside.
Taking it to the kitchen I added some detail to the bark, shading to the waves, and tufts of grass to the rocky shore.
It reminded me of the painting of the lighthouse in Rilee’s bedroom.
By late afternoon I’d spent more time on that one drawing than on any I’d drawn in high school.
Digging through Cami’s art drawer I came up with a pad of stiff watercolor paper and a roll of double–sided tape.
The painting paper was stiff and substantial and had a texture, almost like fine birch bark.
It made an excellent mounting board for the drawing.
I didn’t know if Rilee would like it, but I think I was going to give this to her. With a bottle of wine.
No phone call from my counselor or the company.
Kathy and the kids arrived home around the time I finished my walk around the neighborhood.
The air was damp, threatening a cold rain, and my cane felt sticky in my hand.
I thought about getting one of those canes made of knotty wood, but each time I picked one up I put it back.
It was easier to think about the crappy aluminum one as a temporary medical appliance, like a cast or a sling.
A nice cane was a fashion statement, one I’d rather leave on the rack. It reeked of permanency.
Entering the house through the garage I saw a weather worn piece of cedar fencing.
The wood had grayed with exposure to the elements, and the grain had begun separating.
It looked like the twisted bark of a sharimiki bonsai tree, peeled back to reveal its heart wood to the elements.
I was out of gas, but as I went through the motions of dinner conversation, I could see my drawing surrounded by the white space of the mounting paper and nestled into a simple frame of distressed wood.
“Ulrich isn’t going to be by next week.” Kathy dropped the bombshell in the middle of her discussion with Lukas about work and supply orders. “He says he has too much to do in Seattle to get out this way next week.”
Lukas looked at his fork full of green beans before answering. “One week shouldn’t kill the plants as long as they are watered correctly.”
“You’ll need to nip the new growth,” I mumbled.
“What?” Lukas asked around his beans.
“Trees are starting to bud, if you want to keep the bonsai small you need to trim off the new growth.”
Kathy and Lukas had some kind of married person conversation with their eyes before Lukas said, “Thanks. I’ll let the guys in the nursery know.”
“Did you hear back about that safety job you and Jackie applied for?”
“No, but I left them a message today.” And thank you for reminding me that my fifteen- year-old niece had to help me.
“Well, I’m sure they’ll call. You’ve been the hardest working guy I know. You work harder than I do,” Lukas laughed.
Gathering up my dishes I wasn’t laughing.
It had been a long time since I’d worked a hard day.
And I was still sleeping in my niece’s bed.
I probably could tell Lukas I would come and trim up those trees.
He would probably even pay me for it, put me on the payroll.
But then I would be working for my brother-in-law, because I couldn’t get a job anywhere else.
When everyone else turns their back on you, all you’re left with is family.
And family doesn’t have a choice, they have to choose you.
Or not. Rilee certainly hadn’t chosen her father. And I wasn’t choosing Lukas.
Cami was watching TV, something candy colored with loosely drawn animation.
The show seemed to have no plot and the characters might have been misshapen animals or sorry looking people, but the mindlessness of it allowed me to plan out the picture frame.
How to slice the fence slat into strips with the table saw, how to route out the mounting cuts.
Shouldn’t take very long. If it wasn’t for the concrete floors and how tired my legs were I might have tried it tonight.
Instead, I watched a green bunny serve rainbow colored ice cream cones to bald otters.
However humdrum my day, Rilee filled my sleep.
I wanted to reach out and touch her cheek, feel it against my thumb, but all I did was stand in the bathroom doorway while she looked over her shoulder.
A rectangle of sun played across her feet, her toes curling in the fibers of the carpet.
There must be a window where I couldn’t see.
I tried to fix everything in my mind, the natural brown undertones in her blond hair, the two freckles just behind her jaw, head shaped depressions in the pillows.
There was more there, but when I awoke it was gone.
Despite the vividness this dream was like trying to hold smoke.
You could smell it on your fingers afterwards, but the substance of it just slipped away.
The dreams before had come true. I’d met Rilee, we’d had dinner and seen the play.
Was the fogginess of this dream because it was just a dream?
Something my own subconscious had created from my own desire?
Instead of worrying about tonight I got up. Better to get to work.