Boy of the Moon

7

Christopher-Elliot's fingertips were stained silver as if he had dipped his hand in a mirror. He sat at his desk, on his wooden chair with the cushion stamped with goldfish, and admired how obvious it was that he had spent his morning tracing the outline of Emile's rushed drawing, deciphering the words that weren't there from the figures that were: an invitation. Emile had drawn himself and Christopher-Elliot sitting face to face on either side of the fence that separated their gardens, with a half-moon above them. They would meet at night. He would have to bring a blanket with him because Emile had drawn it that way. Christopher-Elliot liked to see the way Emile saw him and drew him, with a wild smile and wild curly hair. But he found it most interesting to see how Emile had drawn himself. This is what his fingers had been lingering over this whole time.

Emile was almost invisible. In a burst of pure exasperation, it seemed, he had colored his whole body silver; his hair, his skin, his clothes, his face were lost in the silver noise. 

It hadn't been long (maybe three hours) and his father was already awake. He had tapped on Christopher-Elliot's door in that timid, drawn way of his, popped his tired face around the slit door to wish him a "good morning, little man" and slipped Christopher-Elliot a note under the door after it had clicked closed. His father was like that - he said the things he couldn't say out loud by writing. It was the second note Christopher-Elliot had received that day. It read:

"Do not be worried, little clown fish. Your mother won't be here for another week but it will all be OK. Grandmama's a little sick."

Christopher-Elliot knew his father preferred to write 'okay' instead of 'OK' because he was an 'intellectual' who like long words more than short ones because they "distracted people from what you really meant" and that was good. But his father couldn't do what he preferred when his wife was not at home. He couldn't even be the self he preferred. Christopher-Elliot knew. He also knew that his mother couldn't be the self she preferred with his father. It seemed impossible to him. It was what Emile called a paradox and what Christopher-Elliot called family.

With the exclusively blue-tipped pins he picked out of a box, he pinned Emile's crumpled drawing onto his corkboard, next to a photo of him and his mother swimming together. His father was there, too, but he had been taking the photo. As he always did.

In any case, his father must have truly believed that it would be OK because he had used 'OK'. It meant he wasn't trying to distract Christopher-Elliot with a longer 'okay'; it meant his mother would be home in a week with his grandmother again. His mind was comforted by such a simple thing, maybe because he hadn't learned how easy it was for adults to not mean what they said, out of habit. If he had asked his father, opened the door just then to ask him 'Is it really going to be OK?', he would have had the non-verbal reply he knew to be the truth. It was one of those things one came close to uncovering, but never did.

In the end, come close Christopher-Elliot did. He went downstairs, opened a new pack of fish-shaped cereal, poured out his milk and noticed his father standing, with his back to him, over the counter where the coffee machine was, doing nothing. He was wearing the long, yellow-checkered boxers that made his legs look more caramel-coloured than the dark brown they usually were. They were the ones Christopher-Elliot's mother liked best. Whenever she took them down from the washing line, she would fold them up nice and neat with a far-away smile on her face; or, when Christopher-Elliot's father came down to breakfast with them on, she would find excuses to stand particularly close to them for reasons Christopher-Elliot couldn't fathom.

And his father kept staring at the mug in his hand. Christopher-Elliot felt compelled to say something so he said:

"Baba, are you making coffee?"

His father shook awake and quickly let go of the mug as if repulsed by his absent-mindedness. He cleared his throat and replied:

"Yes. Would you like some? I think I've made enough for two again."

It seemed reasonable enough to Christopher-Elliot that his father could have poured a little too much water in the coffee machine - it was an honest miscalculation to make when you were tired. But before he could answer in the affirmative (his father had never offered him coffee before!), he heard a strange strangled sound. His father's back shook as if there were earthquakes beneath his skin. There was that sound again! It was only when his father hunched over the counter and struggled to pour the coffee straight, that Christopher-Elliot realized he was crying. Fumbling with his spoon, he decided to do what his mother did to comfort him when he cried.

He quickly stepped behind his father and wrapped his arms around his waist, trying to shush him the same way his mother did. He wondered if the comforting still worked if he wasn't tall enough to fully envelop the person, like him and his mother in their cocoon. This thought spiked when he felt his father begin to cry harder, choking no longer but bawling, pushing out air as if he had taken in too much in big sobs.

A sad lump formed in Christopher-Elliot's throat.  He was not his mother. He couldn't make his father feel better. Yet, he waited. Until he knew his cereal resembled an aquarium full of soggy puffer fish, until the coffee stopped steaming, until his father stopped trembling, he waited. He felt his father's hand pat his own.

"Thank you," he said. He was so quiet.

"Are you feeling better?" asked Christopher-Elliot. He hoped his father hadn't forgotten his offer of coffee.

"Yeah. The coffee just made me sad all of a sudden." Then, recovering himself, he poured out the cold coffee. "Are you sure you want some?"

Christopher-Elliot tried not to look too eager by nodding his head in a solemn show of reluctant approval. This made his father smile a very tired smile.

"Look at you," he thought aloud, "Growing up to look more like Essie without my permission. It won't be easy."

Christopher-Elliot wasn't sure what his father meant when he said it wouldn't be easy, and how his mother had anything to do with it. They made the coffee together and sat down to eat a fresh bowl of cereal, and spoke of which park they would go to that day. His father noticed how silver his fingertips were but did nothing but raise his eyebrows. For a moment, Christopher-Elliot wanted to believe that he had been living alone with his father his whole life.