65. weird, world.
Amari hesitated. When the door to the shed was closed and the little plastic stop sign was hanging from the handle he and Scout were supposed to leave Mama alone. He knew it meant she was trying to concentrate on her artwork, that she needed some time to herself.
He knew how important that was. There were times when he wanted to be alone, too, when he wanted peace and quiet, when he’d sign “private” at Scout and Daddy and go sit in the chair tucked in the corner of the bedroom and read or color or just look out the window for a while. He and Mama were a lot alike in that way-sometimes they did their best thinking and feeling when no one else was around.
But every time he saw that closed door with its red sign he’d think of another door. A door that, in the perspective of his memory, stood fifty feet tall and had a huge rusty chain locking it to the wall. Painted right in the center was a bright yellow triangle with a jagged red lightning bolt in the middle. Miss Kali had warned to keep away from that door after one of the other boys had gotten too curious; she’d said there were dangerous things behind it and his imagination had crafted all sorts of deadly threats: toothy monsters and slithery things with too many legs.
Or maybe there were more sad men behind the door, like the man who had stood in the corner and stared at him for days until Daddy came and sent him away. The man who had been hurt with a knife, who still had blood on his shirt, the man who tried to talk to him but couldn’t because there was a big hole in his neck and his voice didn’t work any more…
Amari knew he was different-he’d known this for a while. He was capital-S special, as Daddy put it. He could see things most people couldn’t. Daddy and Mama and Scout and Uncle Pooh Bear and Aunt Charlie all knew this. But what they didn’t know, what he’d never really explained to them, was that he remembered everything. Everything he’d ever seen was tucked away somewhere inside his head, and if he concentrated he could bring those old memories back out and it’d be like he was looking at them for the first time all over again.
He’d learned this was part of being capital-S special two months ago.
Every Sunday night the whole family would sit down on the couch after dinner and watch a documentary together; Daddy loved documentaries, and they watched ones about animals in the tropical rainforest, and space-Scout liked the series Cosmos the best, because she liked the way Carl Sagan talked and thought his hair was funny-and all the parts of the human body and how it all worked.
And one Sunday they watched a documentary about the brain.
The narrator called it “nature’s super-computer”, which Amari knew meant it was very complicated and could do a lot of different things. Scientists have studied the brain for hundreds of years and they still don’t really understand it, the documentary explained. For instance: memories are a bunch of chemicals and things called “synapses” (Amari liked that word, it was a sound that had a lot of sizzle to it) but some brains remember them more vividly while others forget them very easily. And, the narrator said, most people’s memories don’t start to stick properly until they’re four or five years old. Which is why grown ups can’t remember what it’s like to be a baby.
Except Amari could very easily remember what it was like to be a baby. He remembered learning how to crawl and how his first steps ended with a bad fall that hurt his knees. He remembered a woman, who abruptly disappeared just before he went to live at the orphanage, and how she had long thin braids that she wrapped around her head like a crown. This, he realized later, was his mother. Not his Mama, but his mother. When he remembered her smile and the dimples in her cheeks-the same dimples he had when he smiled in the mirror-he always felt a tight pinch in his chest.
So he did his best to keep those memories tucked away in the back.
He’d never brought up these memories because he thought it would make Mama and Daddy sad. Only a few weeks ago he had overheard Mama say, “I know it wasn’t a terrible place, but I’m glad Amari was too young to remember much about the orphanage.” And if he told her that he thought about the maintenance door every time he saw the door to her studio closed, with the stop sign hanging from the handle, he was worried that she’d feel bad for reminding him of that time before he came to America to be their son. Maybe they didn’t want him to think too much about his life before them-it was all very confusing and loud inside his head when he thought about all of this, so he tried to just not think about it at all.
He raised his hand and knocked carefully, the “shave a haircut, two bits” rhythm Bugs Bunny always did. There was a faint noise, a rustling and the clink-clink of a paintbrush being dropped into a jar of water, before the door opened. “Hey, sweetie,” Olivia said, wiping the paint from her fingers onto the thick canvas apron she sometimes wore while she worked. “Is dinner ready?”
Amari nodded solemnly. Baba Gloria made some kind of soup. She said it’s called s-o-l-y-a-n-k-a, he said, finger-spelling carefully. He peered around Olivia curiously-he always liked to look at Mama’s pictures while she was making them. It was magic the way she could take paint and spread it across a canvas, making trees and buildings and people just appear with a few strokes. Sometimes she would set up an extra frame and let him paint with watercolors. She’d promised he could move up to oil paints in another year or so; Scout wasn’t allowed to paint, after a mishap a couple months ago.
Olivia smiled, stepping back. “Come on in and tell me what you think.”
It was Baba and Uncle Harry. He recognized them immediately, even though they were both a lot younger. Baba didn’t have any wrinkles, and her hair was a lighter red, and she was dressed in a white ballerina costume with feathers in her hair. And Uncle Harry had on a black suit and a bunch of roses in his hands. They were standing on a stage, in the middle of a spotlight, just smiling at each other-they both looked very happy, almost like they were glowing, and he felt a little flip-flop in his chest. It reminded him of the way Daddy and Mama looked at each other, they way they’d turn to face one another when they cooked in the kitchen while music played.
“I just added the finishing touches. It’s a surprise for Baba,” Olivia said, crouching down beside him. “Do you think she’ll like it?”
He crossed his arms over his chest.
“You think she’ll love it? Good-I think so, too.”
It’s just right, he signed. It’s just like how she remembers it.
Olivia stood and started tidying up her table of paints. The little shed wasn’t like other people’s sheds; not like Jordy’s shed, where her dad kept his lawnmower and bags of mulch. Mama’s shed had whitewashed walls covered in lots of shelves, where she put her tubes of paint and charcoal sticks and brushes and thick pads of paper. The two windows had curtains and were often open for ventilation, because turpentine could be dangerous if you breathed too much of it in. And there was room in the middle for a big easel and stool, and a table for her palette and jars of water, and a comfy chair in the corner for when she painted someone’s portrait. “You’ve Seen that, huh?” she said, screwing lids back onto the tubes.
Baba showed me. She was telling me and Scout stories about Uncle Harry, and she asked if I wanted to See him. And then I asked Daddy if he’d show me some things about him. Uncle Harry was a nice man. I wish he was still here. I wish he could visit like Baba does.
Olivia’s smile became a shade rueful. “I know, baby. We wish that, too.” She adjusted her easel and took one of his hands. “Let’s go try Baba’s soup.”
The solyanka was strong and bitter, but good. Scout demanded a second bowl with an authoritative sweep of her spoon, which made Gloria laugh. “Perhaps in a few years you will fancy some of my Turkish tea, too, eh?”
As Ben began gathering up the dishes, he quickly cut her off before she could argue: “The chef gets to relax now,” he said firmly. “I’ll take dishwashing duty.”
“Oh, very well,” she relented. “But I will give the children their baths tonight…” Her brow began to furrow and she pressed a finger to her temple, lips pinching tight.
Are you okay, Baba? Amari signed in concern.
“Yes, Maksim, I just have a little headache,” she said faintly. “Perhaps I shall go lay down for a while. It is rather hot in here, from the oven…”
“Do you need anything?” Olivia asked. “A glass of water? Aspirin?”
“No, no, thank you, darling girl, I will be fine,” Gloria insisted, waving her hands. “I just have these spells sometimes.”
“Amari, why don’t you and Scout go clean up the living room? Quietly?” Ben suggested lightly, plunging his arms into the soapy water. “Mama and I will come and help in a minute.”
“Is she alright?” Olivia asked in a careful undertone as she wiped down the kitchen table.
“She told me she gets migraines sometimes. Usually… before a vision,” Ben said.
“Has she seen a doctor? It could be something serious.”
“You know how Gloria feels about doctors. She’d rather trust in essential oils than an MRI.”
“Still.” She put the butter back in the fridge and shut the door. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”
“Always a promising sign,” Ben said with a grin. “About what in particular?”
“California is an awfully long ways away. And as the years pass, I’m not all that comfortable about how-well, we’re the only family she has, basically, and if something were to happen…” She sighed and leaned against the fridge, pushing at a magnet with a fingertip. “I know she likes her independence, and her friends and clients. She’s got quite the network out there. But… The kids love her. You love her. I love her. I know she loves us. Maybe we could suggest…”
“How long have you been thinking about this?” Ben asked quietly, setting a plate on the drying rack.
“A while. Are you telling me you didn’t know already?” Olivia asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Contrary to what you may believe, dear wife, I am not omnipotent. More a… receiver that picks up inconsistent frequencies.” He pulled out the stopper and watched the suds gurgle down the drain. “Although I’d swear that you’re becoming rather perceptive, because I’ve been thinking along the same lines myself.”
“They always say married folks develop telepathy.”
“And once again I’m left wondering who ‘they’ are that always say such things,” Ben said, drying his hands on a towel and reaching out to encircle her waist. “Let’s talk to her after the kids are in bed, if she’s feeling up to it.”
She kissed him lightly, brushing a strand of dark hair behind his ear, and stepped forward. “I’m gonna go shut up the studio-I left the windows open and Weatherman Chuck said there’s a chance of showers tonight.”
As predicted, the sky was starting to bruise when she stepped out onto the deck, the wind picking up and much chillier than it had been an hour ago. She hurried down the steps and crossed the yard, skirting the edge of Scout’s sandbox, and flicked on the shed’s light to give the space a final glance over before locking everything up.
Olivia froze in the doorway. Scrawled across the white planks of the floor was the word H U R R Y in black paint. The window started to swing on its hinge, banging against the frame, as the breeze picked up with a sharp whine. A sudden croik made her jump, eyes snapping up to where a crow was perched on the back of the chair. A dripping brush was still clutched in its beak, its feathered shoulders hunched and jet eye gleaming with far too much intelligence.
She turned and ran back for the house, just as the door burst open and Ben shouted her name.
“We have to go,” he said, voice shaking and face pale.
“Where, why?” she gasped around the tight knot in her throat. Scout was crying in the living room, frightened and confused by the sudden tension in the air. Amari was hugging her tightly, trying to calm her, but his own fear was scrawled across his expressive face. Gloria hurried into the room, dragging one of her bags.
“We must go now,” she said to Olivia. “Pack a bag. Only essentials.” She dropped to her knees beside the children and enveloped them with her arms. “Hush now, darlings, this will be an adventure,” she said before lapsing into Russian.
Olivia yanked at the dresser drawer with enough nervous force to pull the entire thing off its casters. Ben dashed past her for the closet, snatching their old duffels from the top shelf and grabbing clothes from the hangers. “Are they coming?” she demanded, voice shriller than she had wanted.
“Gloria saw them,” Ben said breathlessly. “October showed her a place.” He hurried into Amari’s room, then Scout’s, then the bathroom. “We’re going to Fort Worth.”
“Texas?” Olivia said, slinging her purse over her neck. “What’s in Texas?”
“Someone named Yàw.”