The Watcher

18

“I wonder if you could help me with something.”

Leo is standing outside my front door, drawing circles on the ground with the tip of one shoe. The morning air is still chilly, and I shiver in my thin clothes. I almost didn’t open the door at all, thinking about my puffy face and my bloodshot eyes, but then something came over me: a cold streak of worry. What if something’s happened, if he needs my help? Where did that worry come from? Was it from something Leo had said the previous day, from what I saw play out in the kitchen between Veronica and Philip, or from my violent nightmare? Maybe a bit of all three.

But Leo seems OK. He looks maybe a little pale and has a hard time getting to the point.

“You did say that… Do you remember saying that I could ask you if…”

Finally he gets it out, what this is about. They’ve been given a writing assignment at school. They have to describe a childhood memory as clearly and in as much detail as possible. The contents aren’t important. What matters is how well they express themselves. Their language arts teacher wants them to focus on developing the characters. “Use all your senses. Make me feel something and experience the event as if I were there” were the instructions she gave them.

Leo tosses his head and flips his bangs to the side, but a few locks remain stuck at eye level. He brushes them aside and then shakes the rest of his bangs back down over his face. It’s not due until next week, but he’s already done and would really appreciate my thoughts. If it’s not too much trouble, of course.

As I listen, a sequence from last night’s disconnected dreams comes back to me. The one where I reached out my hand to run it tenderly and protectively over his hair, as if I were his mother, someone’s mother. And then the voice reminding me that wasn’t in the cards for me.

Leo heaves off his backpack and pulls out a thin folder, explaining that his essay is inside.

“It’s about my mother,” he says, holding the folder out to me.

I’m the one who takes it, even though it’s not about me. Although I’m very aware of how my hand reaches out, how my fingers close around the folder, I feel strangely separate from my movements.

Leo smiles at me bashfully and at the same time gratefully, reminding me that there’s no hurry. I think of the hours that lie ahead of me, all the empty minutes and all the seconds without anything to do, without anything sensible to do at all.

“I’ll look at it during the day,” I say. “Stop by after school if you want, and we can discuss it.”

I intend to go through Leo’s essay right away. It’s just that after he leaves and I return to the kitchen, the display on my phone shows that I’ve received a new text message. I read that and then fall onto a chair, trembling. I read those two sentences over and over, and each time I expect the words to transform before my eyes, for the meaning to become something else. But no matter how many times I do, the content of the message remains the same. Thinking about you. Hope you’re doing well.

It’s from Peter. The man I built a life with. The man I thought would be the father of the children I longed to have. The man I am living apart from. The man I haven’t stopped loving.

Thinking about you. Hope you’re doing well.

It’s only seven words, but between the lines it says something else, something more. This time, this attempt at contact cannot be dismissed as a mistake. Somewhere inside me a silent scream forms, one that wants out but has gotten stuck. A scream of unfulfilled longing, of desire and absence, of grief and broken dreams. I’m thinking about you, too! But I can’t answer, just can’t. I run my hand over the top of my head. And then I keep sitting there.

Many hours later, I slowly walk to the front door again, trying out various excuses in my head, preparing myself to disappoint him. But when I open the door, it doesn’t really turn out the way I’d anticipated.

Leo is standing outside, half turned away with one shoulder pulled up toward his ear. He’s wearing a gray hoodie with words on it, the same as this morning, but now he has the hood pulled up.

“This is for you,” he says.

An instant later, I’m holding a bag. It contains a yellow watering can with flower petals around the end of the spout. I look up questioningly.

“To take care of your new plants,” Leo says hoarsely.

“Thank you. That was nice,” I respond. “This is really nice, but you shouldn’t be giving me presents.”

“It’s not actually a present, more of a thank-you for… reading my essay.”

Leo is still turned half away from me, being careful not to let the right side of his neck show. But when he moves, I see them anyway: obvious marks from a felt-tip marker on his skin.

“What do you have here?”

“What?”

I raise my hand and point to his neck.

“Oh, that’s nothing.”

But he lowers his shoulder somewhat, and when I lean forward to look, he doesn’t turn away. It says “Retard” in big green letters, in sharp contrast to the red skin surrounding it. The word covers most of his neck. Leo didn’t subject himself to this voluntarily. That much is clear. It must have been multiple people, someone doing the writing and one or two people holding him down.

“Leo—”

“It’s just some guys at school who think they’re funny. I try to ignore it. It’s easiest that way.”

I stare at the blotchy skin on his neck and think about the nasty note that fell out of his book the other day. I remember how he asked me not to tell his folks about it and how we then somehow drifted off the topic, moving on to totally different things.

“You should really talk to your parents,” I say. “So they can help you. Leo, you need to show them what—”

“Never! My mom can’t see this. She’s not strong enough.”

His voice is quiet, hardly more than a murmur, but neither his tone nor his word choice leaves any room for doubt. He lowers his face so his bangs fall over his forehead.

My mind races, but then I step aside, possibly against my better judgment.

“Come in and wash yourself off.”

He has no backpack with him today, but I accept the bag with the watering can and show him the way to the bathroom. Leo closes the door and starts washing himself at the sink. I go into the kitchen and put the watering can on the windowsill. It glows like a yellow sun in the colorless room.

In the bathroom, the water shuts off and then starts running again. I set some milk to warm in a saucepan and measure a few teaspoons of cocoa and sugar into a mug. Hot chocolate was one of my mother’s specialties, something she made my sister and me for special breakfasts and holidays when we were kids. Many years later, when the darkness descended over me, my mother started making me hot chocolate again. I remember how she would come to my room with a cup and try to get me to drink. Slowly, patiently. In the beginning, I refused, but she didn’t give up.

Finally I gave in and accepted both the drink and her taking care of me. “How could you take it so well?” I asked Mama, much later. “How could you restrain your own feelings and stay calm? How were you able to be there for me so completely, on my terms?” By that point, the disease had already started to eat her up, and she was noticeably weak when she answered. “Angry cursing wouldn’t have helped. Compassion is the only way to reach you.” Then she smiled at me, the same wry smile my sister has inherited, before adding: “And sugar.”

When Leo comes into the kitchen, his neck is scrubbed clean, and only faint remnants of the ink are visible on his blotchy skin. They’ll be gone soon, too. What will be left is the wound on the inside. I decide to refrain from asking about the who and the why for the time being. If he wants to tell me, he will. Right now, he needs something. A place of refuge, I think, and immediately regret my choice of words, scared of ascribing too much importance to my role in this.

“Do you want a sandwich?” I ask. “Maybe some crackers?”

The folder with his essay is sitting on the kitchen table. While Leo drinks his hot chocolate and eats oat crackers, I tell him the truth: that I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. He repeats that there’s no hurry, says that he realizes I’m surely busy with work and writing and other things. He actually adds that at the end—“and other things.”

Other things? That would be contemplating my ruined marriage, I suppose. Thinking about you. Hope you’re doing well. The words that have been spinning around inside me all day, standing in the way of what I should’ve been doing. I had to hold them at a distance for a while, maintain a little space before I knew how I’d respond.

Something yellow catches my attention from the corner of my eye. The watering can. I turn around again and sneak a peek at Leo. Then I pull the folder over and put my hand on it.

“If you want, I can read it now,” I say.

“Now?”

I nod.

“Like, right now?”

Leo asks if he can take a little tour of the house while I’m reading, saying that he’ll be too nervous otherwise. I give him permission but warn him that there’s not much to see.

“The bookshelf is in the living room,” I say. “Go see if there’s anything you want to borrow.”

He goes off, and I open the folder. The cover sheet is completely blank, so it isn’t until I turn the page that I see the title in bold dark letters:

“Two Little Lifeless Bodies” by Leo Storm.