Milo cringed, remembering the afternoon that he and Andy spent speaking English in object-verb-subject order, the grammatical structure of the Klingon language.
Twinkie want you?
Ping pong play us.
Klingon like I!
“The nineteen- and twenty-year-olds,” Emma continued, “are the ones who become the lawyers and bankers of the world. They wear the thousand-dollar suits, drink the microbrews, and go to the gym at lunch. They drive sports cars and take power naps and play golf on the weekends and marry the prom queen. You know the type. And based on the car we’re in now, I’m guessing you’re not it. Am I right?”
“I don’t think everything is as simple as you make it seem,” Milo said, deciding to take a stand against Emma’s brash absolution. “It’s pretty narrow-minded to think that every guy in the world would fit neatly into one of your categories. How would you feel if I did the same for women?”
“Oh, I have categories for women too, and I can tell you all about them later on, but for now, just tell me. Do you fit into the ten- and eleven-year-old category?”
“Well, I don’t speak Klingon and I’m not a musician or a teacher, if that’s what you mean.”
“Milo, I’m not trying to insult you. I’m not saying that those ten- and eleven-year-old men have anything wrong with them. As painful as it is for me to admit, considering the men I seem to always choose, I believe that the ten- and eleven-year-olds make better husbands. They tend to be loyal, they’re better with children, and they’re just easier to get along with. The nineteen- and twenty-year-olds have bigger houses and better retirement plans, but most of them, unless they’re ultra-religious, never finish sowing their wild oats, and they’re more complicated in general to deal with. Gimme a geek any day. But not every woman is as smart as I am. Some care about the house and the car and the well-dressed man. Some want a nanny and a vacation home on the beach and the admiring friends. Maybe your wife is one of them and finally realized it.”
Again, Milo said nothing. Part of him wanted to reject Emma’s ever-condensing, ever-delineating notions of marriage and men, but there was truth in what she said, even if she wasn’t entirely correct.
More important, he was suddenly in need of a sealed jar of Smuckers. Milo didn’t know how many of these jars were needed to satisfy the current demand, but if he didn’t get to one soon, he worried that this might be just the tip of the iceberg.
chapter 28
“Okay. Your turn. Tell me what it was like to run away.”
The two were sitting in a booth at a McDonald’s off Interstate 95, just over the Virginia line. Milo had ordered a double cheeseburger, fries, and a vanilla shake, and Emma was attempting to swallow a mouthful of Big Mac. Thirty-two ounces of Coca-Cola stood in front of her, her fingers laced around the cup, ready to wash down the two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese once there was room inside her mouth. Milo had never seen a woman stuff so much food into her mouth at one time, and he couldn’t help but admire the size of the bite. Emma grinned in response to his request, held up a hand in a silent plea for patience, and continued to chew and swallow the food with visible effort.
After parking the Honda and entering the restaurant, Milo had told Emma that he had forgotten his wallet inside the car so that he could access the trunk and retrieve two jars of grape jelly. He placed the jars into his coat pockets, one in each, and reentered the restaurant, making a beeline for the bathroom before Emma could see his bugling pockets. Once inside the privacy of a stall, he spent about a minute opening the jars, hoping that they would be enough to satisfy the demand.
Thankfully, they were. After resealing the jars, Milo placed them on the floor and left them there, wondering what the stall’s next occupant would think upon seeing two full jars of grape jelly alongside the toilet.
“I used to run away all the time when I was a kid,” Emma said, still chewing on the remaining mouthful of sandwich. “There were probably times when I ran away once a week. Whenever things got tough at home, my solution was to leave. I guess all those times running away were dress rehearsals for the big one. I’d hide under the bridge at Getchell’s Stream or up in our tree house until my parents would finally get around to looking for me. But I never went too far, so they’d always find a way to track me down.”
“But they never found you once you made it to Chisholm. Right?”
“Nope. That was the plan. When I was hiding in the tree house, I knew they’d eventually find me. A tree house isn’t much of a hiding spot when your parents know about it. But Chisholm was the real deal. When I decided to head for North Carolina, I knew that there was no turning back.”
“Why Chisholm?” Milo asked. “Was it the only place outside of Massachusetts that you had family?”
“No. I chose it because my Aunt Kaleigh and Uncle Owen lived there. I knew that if I showed up at their door, they would take care of me no matter what.”
“You didn’t think they’d call your parents?”
“No, I didn’t. The last time we had come to visit, the summer before I ran away, my aunt had said something to me. Something odd. Like she knew about my father and what he was doing. What he was trying to do. We were in the kitchen, drying the dinner dishes together. Everyone else was outside in the front yard, playing Whiffle ball. She was telling me stories about when she was a a little kid, and then she just stopped talking. All of a sudden. Right in the middle of a sentence. Then she put down the dish cloth and grabbed my arm, real hard, almost to the point of hurting me, and she pulled me close. She said, ‘If you ever need a place to go, just call us, Tessie, and Uncle Owen and me will be there lickety-split.’ Lickety-split. That’s just how she said it. I think it was her way of telling me that she knew what was going on and wanted to help. So that’s what gave me the idea. Only I did one better. They didn’t need to come to me. I made a plan to come to them. I knew that if they came to Blackstone, my father would have me back in a month. But if I disappeared … if I went to North Carolina and just disappeared, he might never find me. Six months later, I did.”
“I don’t understand. Your mom didn’t know where you were going?”
“Nope. She didn’t even know that I was safe for a long time. I didn’t want her to know. I know it sounds terrible, but she just let things happen, Milo. She knew what was going on and did nothing. She was afraid of my father and couldn’t stand up to him. Couldn’t say no. I was thirteen years old, and even then I knew I couldn’t trust her.”
“So how did she find out?”
“Auntie Kaleigh started to get worried. I had been gone for almost a year and I guess my mom was pretty depressed. Blaming herself for me disappearing. Thinking the worst. Probably just like Cassidy, now that I think of it. Auntie Kaleigh got worried that Mom might become so depressed that she might try to do something to herself, so she convinced me to send a letter to the doctor’s office where she worked. No return address. No phone number. Just a typed-up note without even my signature. Uncle Owen drove all night and mailed it from Daytona just in case there was a way to trace the postage mark. I told Mom that I was safe and happy and never planned on coming home. I told her not to worry and that it wasn’t her fault. I told her that I was with people who were taking care of me and who cared. Then I told her to burn the letter and never to tell Dad about it. I don’t know if she listened, but probably not. Some guy came to Chisholm a couple months after I sent it, knocking on my aunt and uncle’s door and asking questions. He said he was a private investigator working for my mom and dad. Then another guy showed up about two years after that, and then another a few years later. They knocked on even more doors, asking the same kinds of questions. Kelly thought that you might be another one of those guys, but when I heard that you mentioned Cassidy, I knew you were for real.”
“So you didn’t live with your aunt and uncle when you got here?”
“God, no. I knew I couldn’t live with them, because I’d eventually be found, but I thought t
hat they might find a place to hide me, and they did. They had friends who lived about twenty miles south of here who owned a farm. Uncle Paul and Aunt Kim. They weren’t really related to me, but that’s what I called them. They grew sweet potatoes and cucumbers and Christmas trees. They had four kids already, and they took me in and raised me like their own. What’s one more, right?”
“And what? They adopted you?” Milo asked. “How did that work?”
“Like I told you before, there are ways of getting a new name. New social security number. New birth certificate. New everything. I don’t know how it was done exactly, and it’s probably very different today, but that’s how I became Emma Keck. Niece of Paul and Kim Keck. I know it cost my aunt and uncle, my real aunt and uncle, I mean, Kaleigh and Owen, a lot of money. Probably most of their savings. Not to mention Uncle Paul and Auntie Kim. Taking in somebody else’s kid couldn’t have been easy or cheap. We had to invent a brand-new life for me. I had to learn lots of new stuff, fake stuff about a dead mother in Minnesota and a deadbeat dad and a year of foster care. My brothers and sisters—that’s how I came to think of Paul and Kim’s kids—they had to learn it too. Just in case someone asked them about me. Kelly knew the story too. She’s Auntie Kaleigh and Uncle Owen’s daughter. She’s a couple years younger than I am, but she was home the night that I showed up on their doorstep, so they had to tell her too. They all knew my story and helped me stay hidden. After college, I tried to pay Uncle Paul and Auntie Kim back, but they would never take a dime. So about four years ago, after I sold my second book, I bought them a new tractor and had it delivered on their front lawn one Sunday morning. I figured the one thing you can’t return is a tractor, no matter how much you might want to. You can’t imagine their faces, finding this huge John Deere sitting on their front grass at sunrise. It was great.”
“And you never went back to Blackstone? Never went back north at all?”
“Nope. My therapist has tried to get me to go for years, but I just couldn’t. Even when I got news that my mom had died, I couldn’t bring myself to go. There was nothing there for me. No reason to deal with all that bullshit ever again. Until now.” Emma stuffed the rest of the sandwich, an amount larger than her first bite, into her mouth and began a full minute of laborious chewing. Finally, she had cleared enough room to apologize. “Sorry. I’ve always been a lousy eater. In my house, you had to eat fast or you didn’t get seconds. Five kids on a farmer’s income.”
Milo excused himself from the table to use the restroom. He wanted to try to use the restroom before leaving, but he also wanted to delay their departure as long as possible, dreading their return to the stifling confines of the Honda. Inside the restaurant, things had gone well. Feeling less enclosed and considerably less vulnerable, Milo had been able to relax and chat with Emma without fear of any demands arising. And even if one did, he wasn’t worried that the demand could not be met without informing Emma of his condition. The freedom and the mobility of the outside world, the world beyond the plastic and steel enclosure of the Honda, gave him confidence that all of the problem-solving strategies that he had developed over the years could be utilized in the event that a demand arose. Once he was trapped within the car, however, all of his experience and preparation would be useless. Regardless of his skill, there was no way that he could open jars of jelly, crush Weebles, or peel the price tags off books while simultaneously driving alongside a woman he barely knew. Once they were back inside the car, everything would be considerably more difficult.
As he returned to their booth, Emma rose, piling the detritus from their meal onto the plastic tray. She appeared ready to leave. Though he knew that he could only delay their departure by minutes, Milo couldn’t resist trying, if only for a few more moments of relaxed conversation. “Have you ever noticed how much water a urinal uses to flush?” he asked, hoping the question might return Emma to her seat.
“I don’t use a lot of urinals, Milo. I know you haven’t seen me naked, but I don’t have a penis. Makes it hard for me to pee into a wall-mounted toilet.”
“Right.” Even without the aid of a mirror, Milo knew that he was blushing.
“But I’ll bite. How much does it use? Why do you ask?” She hadn’t returned to her seat, but at least she had stopped moving for the moment.
“Oh. Well, a urinal has this information written on top. Most of them do, anyway. And they all say the same thing: one gallon per flush. Not in words, but they all say ‘one gpf.’ Gallon per flush. Does that seem odd to you?”
“The initials, you mean?”
“No, not the initials. The gallons per flush part.”
“Milo, I told you. I don’t have a lot of urinal experience, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“But you don’t need experience to find this odd. Think about it this way. Of all the amounts of water to possibly choose, what are the odds that one gallon is the perfect amount to clear the average urinal? What if the thing flushed eight-tenths of a gallon instead? Or nine-tenths of a gallon? Am I expected to believe that nine-tenths isn’t enough, but one gallon is just right?”
“Okay,” Emma said. “But what’s your point?”
“With every environmentalist in the world telling us to conserve water, warning us that we only have so much fresh water on the earth, don’t you think it’s shameful that the urinal companies would choose an arbitrary amount of water to flush their toilets instead of figuring out the exact amount needed?”
“I guess. This really bothers you, huh?”
“It does. But not because of the wasted water. I mean, I’m not happy about the waste, but I don’t understand why it doesn’t bother other people too.”
“I guess that in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t such a big deal to people.”
“That’s what Christine says, but I disagree. Think of all those millions of flushes every day. Each one of them is probably wasting a little bit of water each time, and that adds up quick.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
“And another thing. Why am I always hearing that we have only so much fresh water on the earth, and when it’s gone, it’s gone forever? What about all the salt water that evaporates from the ocean and falls on the land as fresh water? Isn’t brand-new fresh water being created all the time?”
“This kind of stuff drives your wife a little crazy, huh?”
“No, it doesn’t, and that’s the problem. She thinks I get all worked up over these silly little things, but they aren’t silly.”
“That’s what I meant,” Emma said. “She doesn’t understand why you get so upset about things like this. Right?”
“Exactly. A few months ago we were at dinner with a few of her coworkers, and I came back to the table after using the restroom and told them about the one gallon per flush thing. And the evaporation stuff. I thought it went fine, but on the way home, she asked me why I couldn’t just enjoy a peaceful dinner without complaining about toilets and the water cycle. But that’s the kind of stuff I’m interested in. Not toilets, exactly, but stuff other people don’t notice. You know?”
“Sure. But from Christine’s point of view, she might think that the dinner table isn’t the place to be talking about urinals, especially if you’re out with her friends. Her coworkers, even.”
Milo didn’t know what to say. In the car, it seemed as if Emma had taken his side of the marital dispute, and that had brought him both relief and satisfaction beyond measure, particularly after he realized how frustratingly insightful she could be. But now it appeared that she was standing alongside Christine, making the same kind of arguments that his wife would make. In fact, she had just sounded eerily like Christine. Milo wondered if his attempt to delay their departure with his urinal observation had just cost him Emma’s allegiance.
“Don’t get me wrong, Milo. I’m not bothered by it, if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re done eating anyway, and McDonald’s is hardly fine dining. In fact, I think you might be right about this u
rinal thing. One gallon does seem suspicious. I’m just saying that if you were out with your wife’s coworkers, she’s probably hoping that you’ll make a good impression on them, and talking about urinals at the dinner table, as insightful as your observation may be, might not make the impression that she was hoping for.” She waited a moment for Milo to speak before adding, “Just something to think about. Okay?”
“Sure,” said Milo, feeling torn between Emma’s frustrating yet seemingly sensible position and his desire to find someone who would allow him to simply be himself. Throughout his entire life, he had been forced to hide so much of himself from the world, so much so that his desire to reveal the parts that he did not need to hide was enormous. He didn’t want to pretend to be a wine-drinking cosmopolitan who refrained from urinal talk at the table. If he couldn’t share his mastery of “99 Luftballons” or his need to pop ice cubes from their trays, he wanted to at least be himself in the other facets of his life, in the parts that he had hoped were somewhat normal. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe his need to smash Weebles and peel price tags and trick people into saying words that thundered away in his head was just the tip of the iceberg, one group of oddities piled upon others that he had not been sensible enough to hide.
It occurred to Milo that perhaps Christine had finally gotten sick and tired of all of Milo’s strangeness. Maybe in the end, it hadn’t mattered if Milo hid his incessant demands from Christine, because his entire life was nothing but an enormous, pulsating mass of oddity and strangeness and abnormality. While he had been focused on keeping his inexplicable demands a secret, perhaps he had failed to realize that he was odd and strange even without the demands, and that his relationship with Christine never had a real chance.