Father's Day (15 page)

T
HE NEXT DAY,
after dropping Harvey at school, Jason drove out to the cemetery where his brother and sister-in-law were buried. He found the headstone using a map outside the custodian's office. Then he stood in the grass wondering how deep the bodies went. In one pocket he'd brought a drumstick he got years ago at a Satanic Hell Slaughter concert, after drunkenly wrestling it from someone who'd drunkenly wrestled it from someone else. In his other pocket was Harvey's second-grade class picture, which he'd placed in a freezer bag to keep the rain off. He set both items on the grass, where the stone disappeared into the earth. Then he stood back and read their full names.

“You probably don't even know I'm here,” he said. “But here I am.”

He sat in the grass for a while, then lay back so there was nothing but sky.

Closing his eyes, Jason imagined he was stuffed in the casket with them—trying to move his arms, a nest of hair at each cheek—unaware if, on the surface of the earth, it was day or night, summer or winter. He wondered if—even for a split second—the dead knew they were dead, or if any shred of memory remained.

After he was officially granted guardianship of Harvey, Wanda said that if he kept smoking, he might not live to see
her graduate from high school. Over time, Jason had considered her warning, and the more concerning consequences of what would happen if he died within the next twenty years . . . What if Harvey took up with the first asshole who told her she was pretty? Who would be there to save her when things turned nasty? Who would care enough to knock the guy's teeth into the back of his head? If saving Harvey meant another stint in jail, so be it. If it meant fighting to the death in a parking lot, so be it. But if he was prepared to die for her, shouldn't he be prepared to live for her too?

Jason sat up and looked at the grave where Steve's grown-up body was buried, imagining his own name there alongside his brother's. Then Harvey's name chiseled underneath. It would happen one day for sure, though what tortured him the most was not the certainty of his death but the possibility that Harvey would be alone; that they might never find each other again, once this life had ended.

W
HEN HE GOT
back from the cemetery, Jason threw his cigarettes in the trash, then took the leftover marijuana from the freezer and flushed it down the toilet.

He would miss getting high in the evenings—but had known for a long time that he would lose custody of Harvey if the police found out, or if the courts demanded a urine sample, which Wanda said they could do at any time.

On the way to pick Harvey up from school, Jason stopped at the drugstore for some sleeping pills, thinking he'd pop one, or maybe a half-one, if he got anxious from the nicotine withdrawal, which was already clawing at him.

He wandered the aisles looking for nicotine gum but all he
could find was cough medicine and dental floss. An employee stacking small boxes of lipstick stopped what she was doing and asked if Jason needed help. There was a tattoo on her wrist of a bird in a cage.

“Trying to quit then, huh?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

“How long's it been since you had one?”

“About an hour.”

The woman laughed, then led Jason to a locked case behind the registers. She took out a few different no-smoking kits and explained the differences between gum and the patch. When Jason picked out what he wanted, she rang him up and put his purchases in a plastic bag.

“Come back and let me know how it goes,” she said.

“I've been smoking for a long time,” Jason said. “So it's not gonna go well.”

“You have to really want it.”

“It's still gonna be tough.”

“Well, you look pretty tough to me,” the woman said, then turned because a man with some severe hip disability was trying to get through the door with his walking sticks.

“At least you're not like that,” she said with a laugh. “Can you imagine?”

A
FTER BUNDLING INTO
the backseat with her school bag, Harvey buckled in and told Jason she was starting a dog club with her friends.

“But we don't have a dog,” Jason said.

“No—
we're
the dogs. I'm a greyhound called Bryan that got rescued. You can be a dog too if you want.” Then she
noticed that Jason was chewing something. “What's in your mouth?”

“Gum.”

“Can I have some?”

“No.”

“That's so selfish,” she said. “You never think about me.”

W
HEN
H
ARVEY WAS
asleep, Jason lay in bed going over what he might ask at the parent-teacher conference. He still had the black turtleneck he'd worn for his court interview, and that would cover the tattoo on his neck.

Other parents would probably be there, waiting for their time slots, so his plan was to get in and get out. Over the past year, Harvey had pleaded with him to organize playdates with girls from school on an ever-changing roster of best friends. Eventually, he gave in and contacted their parents over email. He would drop Harvey at the curb, then watch her go up the front steps and ring the bell. When the other parent waved, Jason took off, then returned a few hours later, honking the horn, which meant it was time for Harvey to come out. He had never met any of the other parents in person.

T
HE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON
after school, Harvey sat on Jason's bed eating pizza, watching him pick out clothes. When he found the black turtleneck, it was in a ball at the bottom of his closet with moth holes in the front. His only other option was a black button-down shirt with the tie Wanda had brought over. Jason had no black pants to match the shirt, so he put on some dark blue sweatpants, which from a distance Harvey said looked dressy.

Jason had never left Harvey alone in the house, but she assured him that she knew which channels on the TV she wasn't allowed to watch, and promised not to eat anything in case she choked.

When it was almost time to leave for the school, Harvey got up to pee and found Jason standing at the mirror sticking Band-Aids over the tattoo on his neck.

“What are you doing that for?”

“What do you need, Harv?” He said in a voice that meant he was about to get irritated.

“Can I have some root beer?”

“You shouldn't drink fizzy drinks so late. Remember what the doctor said.”

“What about chocolate milk?”

“Sure, but get it before I take off.”

“Okay, but I need to pee.”

Jason stepped out of the way, then closed his eyes until Harvey got off the toilet seat.

When he was about to leave, Jason noticed Harvey's Converse All-Stars sitting by the door. “Jesus, how many times I got to tell you to put your shoes away?” She sprang off the couch, but Jason waved her back. “Actually, just stay there until I get back,” he said, fingering the Band-Aids. “Does this look stupid?”

“A little.”

“Then what do I do?”

Harvey shrugged. “Keep them on, I guess.”

“What if someone asks what happened?”

Harvey took a slug of chocolate milk. “Just tell them you accidentally cut your head off.”

W
HEN
J
ASON RETURNED
home a few hours later, Harvey was asleep on the couch with the television on. When he nudged her shoulder, she stirred.

“I only had to pee once,” she mumbled. “And I didn't eat anything, in case I choked.”

“Good girl.”

“Did you meet my teacher?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she say I was good?”

Jason carried Harvey into the bedroom and set her down on the mattress. “Arms up,” he said, and she put her arms up so he could get her pajamas on.

“What about my teeth?”

“It's too late now. Just brush twice in the morning.”

When she was under the covers, Jason stood there looking at her. “You're a great kid,” he said.

Harvey opened her eyes. Her fingers on the edge of the blanket. “And you're a great man.”

A
FTER MAKING COFFEE,
Jason took his mug out to the front step and sat down. It was late, and his neighbors' houses were already dark. He reached for his cigarettes but then remembered and let his hand fall. The coffee was so hot he could only take sips.

The teacher had shown him Harvey's schoolbooks. “Look how neat her numbers are,” she said. “Especially the eights.”

Jason looked at the numbers, written slowly in pencil. There were math problems too, and green checks the teacher had made where Harvey got things right.

Jason asked where Harvey sat. The teacher pointed to a wooden desk. Stacked on top was a metal-framed chair—like all the others, except that it was where Harvey sat, and where she waited all day to come home.

“Harvey is so helpful,” the teacher went on. “If there's a hat or a shoe on the floor, she picks it up and puts it away rather than just stepping over it.”

“Yeah, that's good.”

“I think it's very mature,” the teacher said. “Probably something she learned at home?”

Harvey's main lesson books had pictures of sheep and short sentences about wool. “She really responded to this subject,” the teacher told him. “Did you grow up on a farm, maybe?”

She also mentioned that Harvey was the only girl the boys included in their games. “And I have to tell you,” she said, “Harvey talks about her father all the time in class—oh my goodness.”

“What does she say about him?”

“Well . . .” the teacher said, “We all know about the motorcycle you're building in the garage, and that your tacos and meat loaf are amazing—but your chicken is a little dry, I'm afraid.”

I
N THE TAXI
home from Leon and Isobel's apartment, Harvey watched the flickering outline of her face on the glass. She remembered how she'd felt the moment the lights went out over dinner, when they were only four voices.

Low voices came now from the car radio. They had lulled her father to sleep. Passing streetlight washed over his hands and his face. The shoes he'd bought for the trip were dusty from their day of walking at Versailles. His feet rested at a slight inward angle, which made Harvey realize that he was once just a child like Isobel.

When they got home to her apartment on rue Caulaincourt, Harvey made up his bed on the couch and slipped Duncan in as a surprise. Then she took off her makeup and set the dishwasher.

In the middle of the night, Jason was woken up by a noise outside. For a moment he didn't know where he was. Then he saw Duncan on the floor next to his shoes and it all came back.

The time flashed in pale green on the DVD player, and he counted six hours back, then reached for the TV remote. It was hard to see which button to press in the dark, but he held down the big green one, and after a few seconds the flat-screen lit up with people speaking French in a news studio.

Jason flicked through the channels, but it was all foreign-
language shows. In the end, he settled for a program about train journeys in Switzerland. He got Duncan and brushed him off, as a red train snaked through snowy mountains. The tattoo Harvey had drawn on Duncan's neck had faded, but his eyes still opened when you sat him up, and closed when you laid him down.

After the program, Jason went back to sleep but woke again at first light to the sound of rain. He put on his clothes, folded away the bedsheets, and sat waiting for the day to begin.

When he couldn't sit anymore, he went into the kitchen and stood by the window. Most of the neighbors' shades were still pulled down. In the sky, an airliner moved in and out of gray clouds. Rooftops glistened.

Then Jason stood outside his daughter's room. The door was open a few inches, the way she liked it at home. He peered in at the shape of her body under the bedclothes.

When she used to fall asleep in the car, he would lift her out of the seat, then carry her on one shoulder. Her favorite pillowcase was brown with owls on it. Harvey would close her eyes and rub her cheek on the fabric. In winter, Jason gave her a hot-water bottle. She used to remove Duncan's clothes and bounce him on it.

An hour later, when Harvey opened her eyes and pulled on her robe, she found her father sitting at the table with breakfast laid out.

“Oh my God, this is amazing.”

Jason selected a chocolate croissant for himself, then held out the plate for Harvey to take one. “Sleep well, Harv?”

There was a box of macaroons and some éclairs with colored icing. Jason passed Harvey a paper cup of coffee.

“But I have a coffeemaker,” she said.

“Yeah, but I didn't know how to work it. Deli coffee is good here.”

“I can't believe you went to the patisserie.”

“I had to point at everything,” Jason said. “Because she doesn't speak English.”

“She doesn't speak French either,” Harvey said. “It's the owner's wife, she's Russian.”

“I wanted to tell her that I work around food too—but nothing so beautiful as what she got in her shop.”

“Well, I'm glad you didn't go to the new boulanger on Caulaincourt,” Harvey said, dipping her croissant in the coffee. “Because it's a total rip-off.”

During breakfast they talked about Leon and Isobel, chuckling over what Isobel had said about blind people eating in the dark. When Harvey asked how her father had slept, he told her all about the red mountain trains of Switzerland.

Harvey said it was early enough to see Notre Dame before the lines started forming, if they got ready quickly.

“And don't forget, you have to pick something else from your Father's Day box.”

When they had finished eating, Jason carried the breakfast plates into the kitchen and put them in the sink, as though they were back at home.

Then he watched his daughter make coffee in her machine, and drank a cup in front of the television. It was mostly news programs and soccer, so Jason settled on something called
Hélène et les Garcons,
which seemed easy to follow because there were kids in it.

When they passed the patisserie on the way to the Métro,
the Russian woman who had served Jason was in the window setting out cakes.

A train was arriving when they got to the platform, and most of the cars were empty because it was after rush hour. They almost missed their stop because Jason didn't realize you have to open the doors yourself.

They approached the cathedral from the north, passing the Hôtel de Ville, which Jason thought at first was Notre Dame. Harvey told him it wasn't even a hotel.

When stone walls and dark towers rose into view, Harvey told Jason that when Notre Dame was built, Paris was just straw-roofed houses and people pulling wagons through mud.

When they arrived at the entrance, people were already waiting to go in, so Jason said he'd be happy just to walk around the outside. Then a thunder of bells announcing the hour changed his mind and he told Harvey that he wanted to hear them from inside.

The line moved quickly. When they were almost through the main doors, a young couple sneaked in behind them. Jason felt anger rising in his stomach. He was about to say something when he realized that the girl, who was about Harvey's age, was just copying her boyfriend. It would be something they looked back upon, he thought, when they were old and their lives had almost passed.

Once inside, the line broke up and people took separate paths. Iron stands of lit candles illuminated carved faces, and signs everywhere asked visitors not to talk as they shuffled with cameras and backpacks beneath a glowing patchwork of stained-glass windows.

Jason dropped some coins into a metal box marked
MERCI
,
then took two candles from a wooden crate and gave one to Harvey. Behind the silent choir of lights was the wooden statue of a man holding hands with a young child in despair. The man was wearing a hat that looked like an acorn. There was an ax on his belt. The child's face was twisted with crying, and one of his feet lifted off the ground as he pulled on the sleeve of the woodcutter.

Jason said that Notre Dame was like being inside someone's body, moving around under the ribs, and breathing in the musty air of old lungs. Then he remembered the bells, and they found a quiet pew from which to listen. But when the hour came and went, Jason and Harvey realized that you could only hear them from outside the cathedral.

“That's so weird,” Jason said. “I don't get it.”

Harvey said she felt safe inside the church.

A hundred feet above their heads, a banner was strung across the ceiling. A distant figure in a small boat was rowing through a storm. Jason asked Harvey what the words meant.

“It says, ‘Come,'” she told him, “‘for He has been calling you.'”

“Who's
He
? God?”

“Or Jesus,” Harvey said.

Jason looked at the banner again and nudged his daughter. “If that was Vincent in the picture—there'd be a fishing pole hanging off the side.”

W
HEN THEY WERE
at the exit, Harvey turned quickly and went back inside the church. She stopped at one of the iron
candle stands, took a few coins from her purse, and dropped them in the metal box. Then she lit a single candle and set it on the highest tier.

When they were outside, Jason asked whom it was for, but she wouldn't say.

The streets leading away from the cathedral toward the Latin Quarter were crowded. In some places it was hard to walk, as people had bunched up, waiting for a sign to cross rue du Petit Pont.

After twenty minutes of walking, they stopped at a Quick hamburger restaurant on the corner of Boulevard San Michel. Jason said they should sit side by side in the window. The restaurant was busy with tourists, but the staff spoke English and Spanish, and the lines moved quickly. Harvey warned her father that the fries didn't come salted, so he should pick up a few packets with the straws and napkins.

“Why don't you get us a place to sit?” she said. “I'll get the burgers.”

Jason handed her a twenty-euro note and looked around for empty seats. He imagined finding a table at the same time as a gang of French thugs. But then when he got to the front window, there were plenty of empty seats, and the thugs he'd imagined were a pair of teenage boys laughing at something on their cell phones.

Harvey appeared a few minutes later with their burgers and a Sprite for Jason. They chewed in silence, watching people go by outside. Then Jason asked Harvey what she would do if two people cut the line in front of her.

She thought about it for a moment. “I wouldn't do anything,” she said. “Because it doesn't matter.”

“But if you got there first . . .” Jason said. “They have no right to push in, right? It's not fair.”

“I guess so. But it's just a line for fast food. It's not like we're starving and they're giving out the last few pieces of bread on earth.”

“What would you do then?” he said.

“Then I'd probably fight,” Harvey said. “Unless they had a baby to feed or kids. Then I'd just let them have it.”

Jason laughed, and the aggression that had begun to manifest outside Notre Dame quickly broke apart. “You always know the right thing to do, Harvey,” he said. “I wish I was more like you.”

W
HEN THEY GOT
to the Luxembourg Garden after lunch, people were sitting on green metal chairs with ice cream cones. Jason asked Harvey if she wanted a cone, then dragged together a pair of chairs for them to sit on.

On a patch of grass near an overflowing trash can, a man about Jason's age in torn clothes was pretending to do martial arts. Jason watched as he waited in line at the ice cream stand, as the man raised his fist to an invisible enemy, then threw his leg out to one side with a cry. When he started jumping in the air and punching at the same time, people turned and laughed. Next to the man was a metal shopping cart with a rolled-up sleeping bag, portable radio, several pairs of shoes, a tennis racket, and a stack of flattened boxes and old blankets.

Harvey had been watching the man too, and when Jason got back with the ice creams, she asked him what it's like to beat someone up.

“It feels like the right thing to do,” he said. “Until you actually do it.”

“I wonder if I'll ever get into a fight,” Harvey said.

“People don't fight like they used to,” Jason said. “When I was growing up, it seemed like everyone was fighting. Your generation is different. Kids today fight with themselves more than with other kids.”

When they finished eating, Jason saw that the line at the ice cream stand was gone, so he bought another cone and took it over to the man doing martial arts.

D
OWN BY THE
fountain, children were sailing wooden boats on a pond.

Harvey and her father watched. Then Jason went to the shed where you could rent them, and returned holding a blue boat with
NO. 15
printed on the sail. He handed Harvey the cane that came with it. “You can push off first,” he said.

Part of the fun was seeing if you could get to the other side of the small lake before the boat did. Harvey challenged her father to a race, but he kept holding her arms, so it wasn't fair.

After half an hour, Harvey returned the boat, and they found an empty bench under some lush, wide-leafed trees.

“All we do in Paris is eat and sit down,” Jason said.

“Well, tomorrow we're going to my office, Dad. I want to introduce you to my boss, Sophie, and show you what I've been working on. It's like being at art school, but the deadlines are tighter, and the client is in charge of how the finished product looks. Which is a bit sad, as they usually have bad taste.”

“But you get paid,” Jason said. “That's important.”

In the background, they could hear the roll of children's laughter. School had ended for the day, and the Luxembourg playgrounds were filling up.

Jason asked if it was a good time to open the present he had brought from his Father's Day box. The item he had picked out was very small, and he thought it might be a token from Chuck E. Cheese's—to signify all the birthday parties, the games they'd lost and won, and the tickets exchanged for things now forgotten. Jason remembered Harvey's school friends lined up at the long colored tables, chewing hot dogs with their mouths open. Parents waiting in small groups with their coats on.

Harvey said there was one more place she wanted to take him, and he could open his present there. Around the bench, the uncut grass was wet from rain that morning. Jason could smell it and could smell the trees.

The Avenue de la Grand Armée was only a few Métro stops from the Latin Quarter. Harvey explained that this was where Parisians came to browse for new scooters and motorcycles. She kept saying she wanted to buy him a mug from his favorite motorcycle shop, or a key chain, or sweatshirt, or a hat.

The first store they went into sold Royal Enfield bikes, which Jason said were modeled on famous editions from England in the 1950s, but that the engines were too small to really do anything with. The shop was small too, and most of the bikes were kept outside on the sidewalk with films of plastic over the seats.

“Remember the skull I painted on the gas tank for your birthday, Dad?”

When Vincent and his wife would come over on Saturday nights to watch movies and eat pizza, Jason sometimes took the gas tank down from the shelf to show it off. Harvey had painted a skull with her name above it.

The next shop they went into sold Italian bikes that were mostly red and black, with wide back tires and shallow treads.