It felt like he was underwater forever. I remember staring at that straw hat and thinking that Dad wasn’t coming back. I was so afraid. More afraid than almost any other time in my life. In my mind, he was dead. I was already mourning his loss. Then, at last, he burst through the surface of the water with a smile on his face, and a second later, he was laughing. I felt so happy. So relieved to have my father back.
But I don’t remember anything else about the day. All I really remember is the Mello Yello can, the straw hat, and the feeling that I’d lost Dad forever.
And now I have. I’ve lost him forever, and with him, all the details of that day are gone, too. Every bit of that day is gone except for those few details in my brain. Erased from the universe forever. That day by the water and hundreds of other days that I can’t remember or can’t quite remember or never knew. Days that Dad was supposed to tell me about when I was older. His first kiss. His first driving lesson. The time he threw his first punch. The first time he fell in love. Every single one of those moments is lost forever. I can never know anything more about that day by the water or anything else about my father ever again.
Except that Mrs. Foley knew my father. She knew him before I knew him. Before Mom knew him. It’s like finding a few pages of that long-lost book behind a blue door.
She returns with a check in her hand. “I made it out to cash. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you next week.”
“See you next week,” I say. I turn. I climb down the four steps and start down the cobblestone walk, and then I stop, and turn back. Mrs. Foley hasn’t moved. It’s like she was waiting for me. Like she knew something else was coming.
“Did you go to middle school with my dad?” I ask.
She nods. “Grade school, too. We were in the same kindergarten class. I remember him from the very first day of school because of his name.”
I laugh. I can’t remember the last time I laughed about anything to do with my father, but imagining this woman as a little girl, hearing my father’s name for the first time, is hilarious.
“It was actually the first time our teacher called the roll,” she says, climbing down the porch steps and joining me on the cobblestones. “We were all sitting in neat little rows, hands folded on the desk. I was so nervous. I didn’t go to preschool, so it was my first time in a classroom. My first time with a teacher. Your dad’s, too, I think. We sat alphabetically, so your father was sitting in front of me. Parsons and then Perkins. It was like that all the way through grade school. Then I heard Mrs. Avicolli call out his name. Does anyone ever forget their kindergarten teacher’s name?”
She pauses for a moment and looks up, like she’s waiting for the clouds or the sky to answer her question. I’m about to tell her that my kindergarten teacher’s name was Ms. Owen, and no, I don’t think anyone forgets their kindergarten teacher’s name, when she starts speaking again.
“Sorry,” she says. She smiles. “When I heard Mrs. Avicolli call out ‘Venus Parsons’ it was all I could do to not laugh. I didn’t know about how his name rhymed with … well, you know. I just thought how silly it was for a boy to be named after a planet.”
I nod. “Venus is almost always the first star you see in the sky at night. Not really a star, but it looks like one. My grandmother named him Venus because she thought of my father as her very first star.”
“I never knew that,” Mrs. Foley says. “He never told me.” She speaks softly, like she’s just heard something important. Like she’s just been given another page in the book of my father.
“Yeah,” I say. “But I bet that didn’t help him when the kids started calling him Penis Parsons all day.”
“No, it did not,” Mrs. Foley says. She takes a couple steps back and sits on the steps of the porch. Put her hands in her lap.
I wait a moment, then I move forward and join her. It’s different now. We’re not paperboy and customer anymore. I’m not sure what we are, but it’s definitely more.
“And I bet it didn’t help that Venus is a woman’s name, too,” I say.
“No, that didn’t help either,” she says, smiling again. “But I’ll tell you this: it didn’t take long for your father to put an end to the teasing.”
“What did he do?” I ask. I feel myself lean forward, like Mrs. Foley suddenly has a gravitational pull. I’m interested in what she will say next. I’m more interested in this than anything else in my life right now, and Mrs. Foley seems to know it.
She looks up again, but this time she looks like she’s caught in a memory of my father from way back when. She can see him. I know it. I wish I could see through her eyes. See my dad when he was still young and happy and brave. She stares into the sky for another moment, and then she smiles. Looks right at me. “It was so simple, really. He just acknowledged how funny his name was and moved on. ‘Yes, my name is Venus, and yes, it rhymes with penis,’ he would say. And that would usually be the end of it. Sometimes he would even crack jokes at his own expense. That’s when I knew I liked him.”
“Because he was funny?”
“He was funny, all right. Even as a little boy. But it was mostly because he was confident. He didn’t give a hoot about what other people thought. That’s a pretty attractive thing at any age.”
This does not sound like my father.
“You thought he was cute?” I ask.
She smiles. “We were sweethearts for a while. He took me to the freshman-senior dance. I loved your father in that way that only a teenage girl can.”
I’m staring at my father’s high school girlfriend. I can’t believe it. It’s like meeting a part of my father that I thought was lost forever.
“I miss him,” she says. “I’m so sorry that he’s gone.”
“Me too.”
There’s a silence between us, but this time it’s not awkward. It feels like we’re standing in the same silent space.
“Next week, then?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Next week. You can put the money in the mailbox if you want.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be here. Just knock on the door.”
“I will,” I say.
I can’t wait.
six
Mom’s car is parked in the driveway. I’m happy. At least that’s what I tell myself. I can finally stop being a dumbass. I’m going to walk inside the house, take one look at Mom, and see that she’s real. That she’s been here all along.
But then my other voice speaks. It surprises me. I almost fall off my bike. I need to plant my feet to keep myself from toppling over. You can lie to yourself if you want, but that won’t make it true.
The other voice might be right this time, but it’s not like it’s God’s voice inside my head. It’s just me, saying the things that I don’t want to hear. My other voice has just as much of a chance of being wrong as I do.
Mrs. Newfang says it’s normal for people to have another voice in their head that speaks to them from time to time. Especially creative people. I’m not creative, but she thinks I am, so I just nod when she talks about it.