♦◊♦
She called on the third day of the third week of the third month after she left. Robby did not tell his father.
She picked him up after school in a car he’d never seen before. It was sharp, black and shiny. She was leaning against the car and talking on her cell phone. He heard her say, “I gotta go” as he got near.
She was wearing red lipstick, black sunglasses that were bigger than the top part of her face, and a shirt where Robby could see too much of her boobs. His mom didn’t dress this way. This mom’s hair was lighter, bigger. He thought there maybe was some sort of mix-up. She was walking toward him, saying his name, opening her arms. But even as she approached, smiling like she meant it, Robby thought, Stranger danger! Stranger danger! and he suddenly wanted to turn and run. As she pulled him into her softness, he wanted so badly to cry, but he did not. She smelled like he remembered but newer, like something bad had washed off.
“Let’s go to the park,” she said, opening the car door for him. “I bought Subway.”
She got in the driver’s seat and started the car. Her keychain was heavy and jangling with sparkly charms and silver chains. He’d never seen it before. Too many new things. The car got smaller. The seat was so slippery and cold. He kept his hands in his lap. The keychain made a noise like bells whenever the car hit a bump. It was an un-pretty sound.
The park was the one they used to go to when Robby was littler. His mom would make sandwiches and they’d set up a blanket by the duck pond. The three of them would play Frisbee or football or ride bikes and then eat lunch. His dad would call his mom his “Sunshine Sweetheart” and she would say, “Stop it, Phil,” in a way that didn’t mean stop it at all. After lunch they would let Robby play on the playground while they sat on the benches and watched him. His dad would push him so high on the swings he thought he would fly for a mile if he let go.
In the summer, they would swim at the City Pool attached to the park. There was a kiddie pool and a regular, big pool. The big pool had a diving board, a high dive and a slide. The high dive was higher than the fence, higher than the building and Robby’s dad would climb the ladder all the way to the top like it was nothing. Robby would watch his dad, like God, so high, so brave, just him against the sky. Everyone would watch, even his mother who would shade her eyes from the sun with her hand, a smile on her face that seemed proud and not at all scared.
Before he would dive his dad would kiss the tops of his fingers and move his hand down and away from his mouth, until it was pointing at them, like he was sliding the kiss off his fingertips, sending it to fall on their heads.
He would take a deep breath and walk forward while raising his arms, then he’d lower them and with a quick back-forward motion his arms would spear the air in front of him as he pushed himself off. He would fly for a moment; eyes closed, chest puffed, arms splitting wide, legs straight, toes pointed, the noise of the swimmers below held hostage in the genesis of his dive: a Swan Dive. In that moment, Robby thought his father looked just like Superman.
Robby and his mother sat on a bench, one that wasn’t falling apart, and ate their sandwiches. Robby watched kids play on the playground equipment, all of it rusty. He wondered if the park had always been this broken.
His mom asked lots of questions but none that he had been waiting for. He answered them all and when she was done he asked her only one.
Afterward, he made her drop him off a block away.
♦◊♦
“She said it wasn’t my fault, Dad.” Robby was on the floor, rolling his trucks over the laundry he’d just folded. His dad was laying on the couch, watching cartoons, an empty bowl of cereal balancing on his belly. He was sucking on a spoon.
“Wha … Robbs?” The metal garbled his question.
“Nothing, never mind,” Robby answered, rolling his truck. “Do you remember the slide at the City Pool?”
“The what?”
Robby remembered being scared of the slide and his dad making him go on it anyway; the ladder hot, wet and high. His dad treaded water at the bottom, yelling, “I’ve got you Robs. I’m right here! Come on! I’ve got you! It’ll be OK! You’re my brave boy!” Robby remembered sitting at the top, not wanting to push off; everyone watching, the white chute long, curved and ominous stretching out below him, his dad’s head bobbing so far below, patience wearing thin.
“Robby! People are waiting! Let’s go!”
It was hot out but Robby felt hotter. His dad’s face had changed. He looked over to his mom, she was shading her eyes again, but her face held no smile and no pride, only fear. He wanted a Superman right then, in that moment that was so perfect for a saving; the swimmers would hold their breaths again and watch while Robby got scooped into the sky. But instead, this time would be a different sort of genesis, of something that would never be breathtaking.
“Goddamnit Rob! Shit or get off the pot!”
Superb fiction. xTx’s work never fails to engage and rip the rug from underneath me.
This is really beautiful.
Tragic. I am still waiting to be save by my dad… who sadly passed away.