As The Sea Is Now Deep - 4. Chapter 4

Graeme and Liam were very quiet all morning. Maybe we’d just all settled into a comfortable zone. Or a shy one: I mentioned going to the lake again, but nobody seemed keen.

After an hour of geometry that bent my brain into more angles than Euclid could ever have imagined, I'd had enough. I stared out at the garden. Ivy snaked up against the old pine trees; I could make up a bloom of toadstools flanking the edge of the woods. A strange sadness welled up my core: I felt old, terribly old.

“I think we should go home.”

The others nodded. My mom had phoned; she and my dad wouldn’t be coming for lunch. As I told Grandma I needed to leave she looked at me as if I had personally run through her soul with an awl. Grandpa would be disappointed too.I had heard him clacking away at the Underwood all morning, and I’d now be denying him an opportunity to share his latest contribution to literature.

As we made for the door, I remembered the envelope Old Mr Cooper had given me.

Grandma didn’t seem perturbed at all when I mentioned his name, and grabbed the envelope quickly.

“What is it, Grandma?”

“Just seeds.”

“For the garden?”

“What else would they be for? You sure you don’t want to take anything to eat, Jakey?”

I shook my head.

We rode back in silence. At the point where the trail forked towards the lake, I thought of the previous day.

The strangeness came upon me again. I felt drawn to turn back, but I forced myself ahead.

When we reached the main road Liam got off his bike and put a meaty hand on my shoulder.

“Thanks, Jake. I really enjoyed being with you guys.”

He was smiling and I swore his usually grey eyes had become the green of the forest.

I realised I was staring. “Any time,” I said looking away. “I think we all worked well together.”

Liam looked at Graeme, and then back at me. "The lake was fun. Even with the girls crashing.”

"Even?" said Graeme. "I thought that was the highlight for you."

"Shows how much you know," the big boy deadpanned.

"If you say so," I said with a smirk, and the three of us set off for our houses.

o0o0o

As I walked through the door I saw my father was sitting at the dining room table, still in his teal scrubs. There was dried blood just beneath where his name was embossed on the pocket. A surgical mask hung limply over his chest, dangling by a single knot. I'd never seen him in his theatre get-up at home. His face was red and he had a half-full glass of whisky in front of him. My mother was staring out at the window, rubbing her eyes.

“Mom? Dad?”

My mother turned around.

“Jakey? I thought you were at Grandma and Grandpa.”

“I wanted to come home. What’s up? I thought Dad was going to be in surgery all day.”

Mom looked down and fiddled with the edge of her blouse.

My father cleared his throat.

"Could you go to your room, please, Jacob?” he said flatly.

He almost never called me Jacob. The darkness in his voice made me feel queasy. I nodded and turned around and went up the stairs and walked into my room.

I heard low rumblings of voices ricocheting below. I went to my CD player and put in the Nirvana album my sister had given to me for my birthday. I turned up Smells Like Teen Spirit.

I let Kurt Cobain's voice reach out to me, coaxing me into his angst. I felt weirdly safe, as if I'd offloaded some the odd dread that had been building up in me all morning.

During the silence before the next track I made out my mother’s voice, higher than I’d ever heard it.

“Do you want me to get rid of it?”

I switched off the hi-fi and crept towards my bedroom door, opening it just a crack so I could hear better.

Silence.

Then my father’s voice: slow, deep, glacial.

“How can you ask me that?”

“I’ll do anything.”

“God, Mary. You caused this. And it’s illegal and dangerous. And... fuck... why am I even making decisions for you?”

“David. Please. It’s only eight weeks.”

“I couldn’t care less if it were eight months!” he yelled. I heard a glass being thrown against the wall. My mother started sobbing.

I raced down the stairs.

“What the hell’s happening?”

My parents, startled, stared at me. The pain writ on both their faces stabbed at my eyes. A pool of whisky and shattered glass spread on the floor in front of them, glinting in the early afternoon light.

“Mom? Dad?”

“Your mother’s pregnant.”

My eyebrows knit. “Pregnant?"

My father nodded at no-one in particular.

"But Dad... you can't any more. You've had a... you know, they tied off your..."

“Exactly. I can’t any more. I think... I’m moving out.”

“Oh God,” said my mother, and started crying.

A cold tingle in my feet swirled up my legs and into my spine and started squeezing around my heart.

I spoke, finding myself in a badly-dubbed foreign movie, my voice out of sync with the action. “Wait now, you’re saying that...”

My mother managed a feeble nod.

“What the fuck?!” I yelled, my cheeks reddening instantly, partly in shame at cursing, partly in rage. “Who, Mommy? Who? Actually, I don’t think I want to know...”

“Jacob...”

I summoned what calm I could. “I think I’m going back to Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

“Son, wait,” my father said, his voice now soft.

“No,” I said. “This isn’t happening.”

I ran out, rage and fear and confusion bleeding out of my eyes and merging into the summer heat.