The Sickroom: A Novella Page 4

  Almost there, Macon panted, and I wanted to beg her to keep going, to pedal us through the park and across town and on and on until there was no more night to hide us, just so I could go on feeling this way. The rush was addictive (and though I didn’t know it then, I would spend a great deal of my adulthood chasing after it—in drugs and lovers, art and travel, drugs and more drugs, different drugs, harder drugs—only to come out of it none the wiser and no closer to being thirteen years old with the wind in my face feeling, simply, completely, thrilled to be alive). When we stopped in the parking lot by the tennis courts I climbed out of the cart (oh how I would have jumped, had I been able) and flung my arms around Macon. I didn’t say anything and neither did she, but somehow it cut the string with which she’d been winding herself. When I let her go she was Macon again, my Macon, and the night was ours.

  The playground was like a forgotten toy, too cheerful in the dark. Macon snatched up her sketchbook, settled herself in the grass, and before I even made it to her side she was sketching. The moonlight wasn’t bright enough to draw by, and I could have held the flashlight, but she didn’t need it. She hardly looked at the page. I’d never seen Macon draw before, and it was mesmerizing and a little scary. It was as though she’d fallen into a trance. Her hand crossed the paper, back and forth, in a lulling motion that might have been calming save for the violence of the scribbles. She finished one drawing and flipped to a fresh page with hardly a pause, her eyes darting to the next object, the next scene, ever hungry for more. She got so hot she pulled off her top and worked in her undershirt. She seemed almost to stop breathing.

  I didn’t know if this was how it always was when she drew (and when I watched her draw again, a few weeks later, I would learn that yes, it was, but not nearly so bad, not nearly so much). I didn’t know what to think except that I was glad I’d come, that she’d let me come. I was glad I could see her like this and know that someone else felt things and didn’t know what to do.

  I sat cross-legged in the grass and watched over her shoulder. Sometimes I dozed, and when I woke up she’d moved to another spot in the park and I had to find her, picking up her discarded sketches as I went. (She even sketched as she walked. Aunt Vera told me once that Macon would make art in her sleep if she could. It was in her veins, like mothering in some, malice in others; Macon was art. She couldn’t be any other way.) At some points we sat back to back, holding each other up like soldiers in the trenches. At some points I think she wanted to stop—she would pause and flex her aching hands—but she kept on. I wondered how she knew when to stop for good, how she knew the end when it came.

  As the moon began to fall, we found ourselves by the pond. I splayed out on the rocks on my side, and Macon began to draw me. She was calmer now, better, like a toddler who’d cried out her tantrum. I was half-asleep (a state I was so used to by now that it actually felt like waking to me), my shirt under my head like a pillow, my lips loose and sleep-drunk.

  Is this where you always go? I asked her.

  Yeah, she said, for sketching. She didn’t stop drawing. (Nothing could make Macon stop when she got going. Nothing.)

  Always in the night like this?

  Yes.

  And you paint here, too?

  You think I could drag a canvas out here? No. But I painted in my room for a while, when you first came.

  What for?

  I felt shy.

  I knew it was something like that. I thought so in the beginning.

  You’re smart, Jacob. Mom always says so.

  She does? I felt a flare of pride. But why? I asked. Why come here?

  It’s easier sometimes, she answered.

  But it’s so dark, I replied sleepily, though a part of my brain realized that wasn’t what she’d meant.

  She said, I mean, it’s easier to be like this when no one else is around.

  I’m here, I said, perking up, almost panicked, as though it was possible, somehow that I wasn’t actually there.

  Macon took her eyes away from her sketch long enough to kick me, playfully. Yeah, she said, but you’re just Jacob.

  Does it help you?

  She thought about it a moment before replying, It’s like a cold shower. I come out clean and shivering and sometimes wishing I never did it in the first place. Yeah, it’s like that.

  Do you—

  She chuckled. You’re just like Handle, she said.

  I gaped at her. (How could I possible be like Handle?)

  Always so curious, she explained. Always what, how why.

  I settled back down then, satisfied. Does he ask you about your art, too?

  No.

  You should do faces more, I said.

  I’m doing you aren’t I?

  You should draw more people though, you’re so good at them (I’d actually thought this for weeks, but had never said so. I’d come across a charcoal drawing she’d done of a little girl in a tattered dress that had filled me with an unspeakably sad feeling, a feeling so strong I’d had to turn the page quickly, to escape it—the only truly masculine reaction I’ve ever had).

  Hmm, she answered. Maybe.

  I sat up and leaned toward Macon, my movements so sudden that her pencil scratched across the page. She gave me a see-what-you-did? kind of look and started to erase, but I stilled her hand. I said, You should draw what you want to draw, but you shouldn’t turn away from what’s harder just because it’s hard. (I’d done it, I’d brought the subject back around again.)

  I said, You owe it to yourself. Then I let her go.

  I’ll try, okay? Macon said. She waited for my nod. She said, I’ll give it a try.

  As we walked slowly back to the bike (I was basically sleeping on my feet), I said, You never paint Collin.

  She hefted her supplies in her arms and answered, a little wearily, No, Jacob. I don’t paint Collin.

  On the way back to the house I fell asleep and dreamed of our afternoon. Aunt Vera had decided I wasn’t getting better fast enough and she’d packed me in the car with the other kids to go to the doctor (who tutted and gave me stern looks and told me to rest, rest, rest. Then he gave me a lollipop and told me not to eat it all in one place. Aunt Vera forced a laugh. I didn’t). Afterwards she bundled me up in the sweltering car and told us all to sit tight while she picked up some things at the pharmacy.

  You stay right here, she said. I’ll just be a minute.

  Naturally, we were all up and out of the car as soon as she rounded the corner. No mother has ever gone shopping for just a minute.

  The pharmacy backed onto a mall and the boys, Macon and I wandered aimlessly through the halls. My fever had spiked. I could tell by the way sweat kept beading at my hairline and running down into my collar, but yet I was still shivering, even with the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. At one point Handle yanked me down to show me an action figure in the toy store window and I swayed and almost toppled over.

  Whoa, he said, pushing me back up. Not again, Jacob. He put his palm flat against his chest. I don’t think my body can take it. I’m not kidding.

  At the intersection of two hallways Collin ran into some kids he knew. That’s when it all went wrong.

  They were sitting at a table by the fountain, just sitting there, staring into space. They must have been brother and sister—they had the same stringy dirty-blonde hair and lips, curled at the edges in a sneer—and it was clear Collin knew them, though they weren’t friends. When he saw them he went right for them, like Handle going for a cupcake, but they didn’t seem quite so eager. The boy whispered something into the girl’s ear as we approached and she rolled her eyes.

  Collin stood by their table, tapping his fingers on the tabletop, and I plunked down in a seat without being asked (which might seem rude, but I was feeling so ill at that point I just didn’t care). Collin explained that I had mono and right away the girl made a sound and switched seats so she was sitting diagonally from me. She looked at me like I was an open sore. I coughed in her direction once b
y accident and then again on purpose.

  As the girl was rolling her eyes a second time, I looked around for Macon and noticed that she’d held back. She was sitting on the edge of the fountain with Handle (who was leaning far in, trying to reach the quarters that had drifted to the centre). She was staring hard at the back of the chair closest to her, and there was something strange about the way she was holding her body; stiff, almost like she wanted to become stone, like the fountain. When I called her name she looked over at me ever so slowly and then, like a pendulum, her head turned away again. It was almost as if she hadn’t seen me at all.

  I didn’t know what all this was about. I was too sick to put the pieces together with any kind of swiftness.

  Hey, don’t I know you? the boy said. For a moment I thought he was talking to me, mostly because Collins froze all of a sudden and Macon sucked in her cheeks and gazed up at the ceiling.

  Is there something I’m supposed to be doing? I wondered feverishly. Do I have a part in this play?

  It’s that art kid, the boy said to his sister. (They really were ignoring Collin altogether.) You know, she did that painting of the garden mum put up beside your bedroom.

  The sister was unconvinced. That kid? she said, thrusting a purple fingernail in Macon’s direction. What is she, like, eight?

  She’s ten, Collin said tersely. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Macon flinch.

  What, is she your sister or something? the boy asked.

  Sure is, Collin answered with a broad fake smile. Want to see her make something?

  The boy turned to his sister who shrugged and dug into her eye with her index finger, rubbing and rubbing until it was red and raw and her makeup had smudged all to hell. Whatever, she said.

  The next thing Collin did confused me so much that I lose track of what was going on. Reaching across the table, he grabbed the plastic salt and pepper shakers, opened up the metal flaps on the top and emptied them both onto the table. The boy and his sister watched avidly, but I kept glancing up at Collin in puzzlement and eventually I was distracted by Handle’s wiggling legs as he tried to reach even farther, his feet kicking as though he was swimming the front crawl.

  Then I closed my eyes for a minute (or ten, it’s difficult to say) and when I opened them again Macon was sitting beside me, hunched over the salt and pepper. I smiled when I saw her and tried to put my arm around her shoulder in a hug (it was the fever talking), but found that I couldn’t because Collin was standing behind her, pushing his thumb into her back to make her sit up.

  Here, draw something, he said. He pulled the pencil out of her hair so it flopped loose and loopy around her ears and thrust it into her hand.

  She can make art out of anything, he said to the boy and girl.

  Then he gave Macon a particularly filthy look. He said, She’d make art in her sleep if she could.

  I frowned. I’d only just caught a wiff of the tension hanging in the air, thick as molasses.

  Gripping the pencil so hard her fingertips began to turn white, Macon moved her hand forward and made a single circle in the pile of salt and pepper. And there she stopped and would not start again, no matter how Collin prodded her.

  The girl whistled. Well, woopdeedoo, she said. My little cousin can do better than that, and he’s two.

  Collin’s cheeks turned red with embarrassment as the two kids began to gather their things to leave. Macon’s face was impassive. Suddenly seized with disgust at the whole situation, I leaned across the table and pointed at the girl’s pointed little face. You look like a drowned rat! I said throatily. (It seemed as good an insult as any.)

  Handle (who always had the best timing) came over to the table just then, his pocket jiggling with change. Spying the spilled salt and pepper he said, Wow, what a mess! Then he smacked his wet hand down in the salt and flicked some at Collin and in the ensuing battle the brother and sister made their getaway, waving their middle fingers wildly. I scowled after them.

  When they were good and gone, I looked over at Macon.

  Her eyes were squeezed shut and her hands, one still gripping the pencil, were clenched tight. Actually her entire body was clenched, every muscle held tight, as though she was tensing for a blow. I wondered if I should tell her that Collin was gone, off chasing Handle, but thought better of it. I felt I’d be intruding just by speaking to her. She’d closed in on herself; her shoulders curled forward, her chin buried in her chest. Her whole body seemed to be screaming Leave Me Alone.

  It was then that I finally realized—though to be honest it had been pretty obvious all along—that Macon didn’t like the attention that came with being the little prodigy painter. In fact, it horrified her to be recognized on the street, singled out in front of everyone. (She said to me, years later, There’s such a fine line between genius and freak. And the thing is, when you’re just a kid, it’s hard to tell which side of the line you’re on). Making art in front of a crowd was, to her, almost a violation.

  Now that I understood this, I could sympathize. I knew a little something about wanting to hide a part of yourself.

  When she was sure her brother wasn’t looking, Macon straightened up, dropped the pencil and walked straight for the exit, with me trailing behind. She didn’t look back. We walked quickly, but all the same it wasn’t long before Collin caught up with us. His voice chased us toward the door, loud and brash. It seemed to fill up my head and amplify when it got inside. Insistent. Merciless.

  Here comes the famous Macon Wheeler, he cried. The prodigy painter and artist extraordinaire! Here she comes, folks! Here she is!

  People stopped to stare. It was only a few meters to the door, just a matter of moments. But a lot of damage can be done in a moment.

  Collin kept it up until we came to the doors, yelling even louder as he ran out of space, as though to make up for it. And when we burst out into the cloudy day, Collin ran ahead and whirled around on Macon, glaring at her with such fury, as though it was she who had injured him. As though, just by being herself and good at art, she was to blame.

  Macon stood far back, against the glass doors, holding her middle.

  What the heck, Collin? Handle cried. What the heck was that about, huh? I mean, I’m serious, that was crazy. You’re crazy!

  She didn’t cry, though.

  (I’d never seen Collin like that before. I’d never known. And I never looked at him the same again, not even later, when I befriended him and, I think, became a little like him for a short time. In that one brief hour I learned to hate, really hate, a weapon I would one day turn on myself. I have my cousin Collin to thank for that.)

  By the time Aunt Vera returned to the car we were all sitting quietly, Collin in the front now. He was back to his normal impatient self, horsing around with Handle, changing the radio stations. Macon sat beside me, deflated, defeated (because what could she do? He was her brother, and this was how it had always been and always would be. That fact sat like a boulder on her chest, sinking her into the seat. I wondered if she’d ever be able to push it off. I wondered if she’d ever pick it up and hurl it at Collin, right at his stupid jealous head. I thought I would have; he deserved it! But that wasn’t Macon. No, that wasn’t Macon at all).

  We parted ways at the stairs. It was almost light.

  Goodnight, cousin, Macon said. (She was weirdly formal, sometimes.)

  As she turned, I called out in a whisper, Is it better?

  She turned back, frowning. What?

  Do you feel better now?

  She paused and scratched at her head with the end of her pencil, but she didn’t answer (though I imagined I saw her shake her head, quickly, just once). Then she disappeared into the hallway, her short blonde ponytail bobbing away in the dark.

  It’s funny how the mind rearranges things. Though I know the night in the park was only the start of my friendship with Macon, and that the real meat of our relationship —the most urgent confidences, the greatest laughs—were all ahead of us, in memory I
always see that night as the beginning of the end. I fast-forward through our happy month right to the end of the summer, skipping the best parts as though they matter little (when they meant everything to me at the time). What’s coming overshadows, and all our innocent play, our silly jokes and games, just can’t measure up.

  You always remember the worst parts the best.

  I was sorely punished for our adventure in the park. A full day of activity including a trip out of the house, plus an all-night vigil by Macon’s side—with or without naps, I was bound to feel the effects.

  I slept nearly uninterrupted for a full week.

  Aunt Vera was thrilled. She felt I’d truly taken Dr. Farber’s words to heart. I, when I was conscious, was bitterly disappointed. Here was my first chance to see one of Macon’s creations through from start to finish—I’d actually seen the subjects, watched her make those pencil marks on paper, sat with her while she’d turned them from thing to picture—and now I was missing the crucial part, the change from drawing to paint!

  I caught only dim glances as I trudged to and from the bathroom, fuzzy images I couldn’t quite connect with the finished product. Had the green swath become this pair of bushes? Had she changed the colour of the sandbox? And where had the red hill gone? Where? (Macon was never able to figure out what this “red hill” was all about. There wasn’t a hint of red in the four paintings she completed that week. Maybe I’d seen an older painting? Or the cabinet by the wall? Or her orange t-shirt with the birds on it? No, I’d seen her painting a red hill. A RED hill! The image would remain lodged in my head for weeks afterward—the illusive red hill of my sleep-addled brain.)

  She must have worked feverishly. Normally it took Macon a full week to finish just one painting. Four paintings in seven days was incredible. I didn’t quite believe it when she told me, the morning I finally awoke for real, my eyes opening as though from a winter’s hibernation. I could swear I heard them creek.