Wingspan

Mom was made out of something light and airy, some ethereal substance that had floated down from above. And while Dad always struggled to pull himself up, even if it meant dragging someone else under like they said a drowning man would do in a panic, Mom was barely able to keep both feet on the ground at all. At least, that’s the way he had always seen them, from the time of his earliest memories. Mom, floating in and out of rooms, breezing in to tuck his feet in at night while he pretended to be sleeping. As soon as she floated out again, he would purposefully kick the covers off because that’s how he wanted them. He had just never had the heart to tell her.

Her feet were completely covered already, but he tugged at the hospital blankets anyway, just to make sure. She had always been a light sleeper, but she gave no sign of waking now.

When he was too young to go to school and they had to stay inside on the coldest of the rainy days of the Oregon winter, Mom played all kinds of games with him. She was so damned good at playing pretend. She had even been the mama bird, teaching him to fly as they cleared away most of the living room furniture and he leaped off the couch, flapping his arms as hard as he could. When he asked her if he had flown, even just a little, she had told him that she had seen it and that someday, he would be like a great big eagle, soaring above the clouds. She could see that too, she said.

Mom had always been a person of intuition. Her intuition had led her to the truth he had tried to hide as a teenager so many times that he finally gave up and just told her everything.

Out in the yard in the summer when he was little, she had feigned injuries and crashes and had let her house be “on fire” again and again so he could rescue her in his fireman’s hat and matching coat, and had even been convinced to play the part of a robber (though he could tell it was a stretch for her) so he could arrest her while wearing his policeman’s hat. He would climb up in the cherry tree in the backyard and pretend he was a baby bear trapped in a tree. She would “rescue” him from the tree and take him home just in time for lunch. On the best of the sunny days, they would make a blanket fort under that same tree and they would bring out big stacks of books and some baby toys to keep his sister busy.

Even though he knew Mom was a grown-up, she had never seemed quite as grown-up as Dad. Dad could empty a room of its playfulness, imaginary worlds evaporating like the mist on spring mornings, with only his presence. When Dad walked into a room, he always had to dig his heels in to keep from being dragged down beneath the earth by the pull that felt like it would suck him under. It reminded him of the ACME “BlackHole” on the old Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon. When Coyote placed his black hole in Roadrunner’s path, it swallowed the entire cartoon scene. He fought against the black hole, fought to stay aloft the way Mom did, bobbing in the air like a helium balloon, managing to evade the swipes Dad took at her. But when Dad yelled at him, instead of floating up, instead of being sucked down, he felt himself grounding into the Oregon mud, growing stronger and thicker like an oak tree. After all, if he didn’t plant his feet, ready to fight, who would take care of Mom and baby sister if Dad got too mean?

Who would take care of Mom now, if she, well, if things didn’t go well? And even if they did, she wasn’t getting any younger, he thought.

It wasn’t that Mom didn’t have rules like other grown-ups, because she did. She taught him right from wrong and she taught him to play nicely with his sister and how to be polite and use his manners, and she told him to listen to his teacher when she sent him off to pre-school. He had cried on the first day, and the teacher-helper had brought him to the big side window so he could wave goodbye to her as she walked away, carrying his sister on her hip and pretending everything would be just fine for all of them. Every day he waved to her at the window, and every day he tried not to need to wave. He tried to be brave like the other kids were. Why couldn’t he just join in the games right away? But every day he waved to her and she waved back, pretending not to be sad.

It was after Dad went to Iraq and they were getting ready for the Christmas play that he forgot to wave. He had been swooped up by volunteer parents to try on a shepherd costume as soon as he walked in the door, and by the time he remembered he hadn’t waved, it was almost snack time. He hadn’t known until he was grown that she had cried that day.

She cried again at the Mother’s Day Tea. In fact, all the moms had cried that day when he spoke, and he wasn’t exactly sure what he had done. Mom had arrived, floating into the room in her usual way, at the start of the Preschool Mother’s Day Tea. She sat down in a tiny chair, smiled, and waved a tiny secret wave to him as he stood in his place in the formation for singing. He smiled and waved back. After singing, they sat in rows on the carpet and then each student had to stand up with the teacher and tell everyone what they loved about their mom.

They had practiced the other day, with the teacher writing down what they said, just in case they got nervous in the moment. One by one, the children were invited to the front of the group to stand next to the teacher. They were supposed to say their name and then, “I love my mom because…” He watched as his classmates squirmed and had to be prompted in whispers by the teacher.

“I love my mom because … she makes cookies!”

“I love my mom because … she lets me watch TV.”

And on and on. Finally, his turn came. He knew he would not need even a whisper from the teacher. He grounded his feet and spoke clearly,

“I love my mom because she does everything, ’specially since Dad is in Iraq.” He swayed slightly as he finished, twisting back and forth like a tree in the wind.

That’s when Mom broke down and all the other moms did too, but they all said they weren’t sad. Just crying silly mom-tears.

When Dad came home, after pre-school graduation and his sister’s birthday party out in the backyard, Mom smiled and laughed for a while and he went to bed when he was told and even took a bath without too much protesting, just because he was happy. He drew a picture of his family in crayon with Mom and Dad and him and his sister and Mom put it up on the refrigerator with scotch tape because she was afraid of his sister swallowing refrigerator magnets by accident. Dad said she was crazy for being worried, but he had seen Mom take a dead fly out of his sister’s mouth, so he didn’t say anything one way or the other. You could never tell with little sisters.

He wasn’t sure when things began to change again. Maybe it was when Dad said Mom was crazy for not having refrigerator magnets, or maybe it was when he told her she looked stupid almost all the time and why couldn’t she dress nicer or smile more like other people.

Maybe it was when he pretended to be choking when he ate the chicken she had cooked because he said it was too dry. He had laughed at first, just because Dad was being silly, but when he saw Mom’s face he stopped mid-laugh. At bedtime, he still went to bed without a fuss and even took a bath without being asked, but not because he was happy. He helped with his sister more too, learning to play pretend almost as good as Mom did.

The day of the preschool Mother’s Day Tea, after the moms had left and the kids were all at recess, one of the bigger boys said, “I’m glad my daddy isn’t in Iraq. He plays with me every day.”

He wasn’t sure what came over him, but he felt his feet grounding themselves on the playground asphalt. His fists raised themselves and he hit hard, harder than he had ever hit before, surprised at the way the boy’s face felt slightly damp and soft where he planted the first punch. Later, when his teacher asked him why he had done it, he had no way to explain. He just shook his head and said he didn’t know why. He was still in time-out when Mom came to pick him up.

On the way home, buckled into the back seat next to his sister, he still hadn’t found the words for what had happened when Mom asked him why he had punched another boy in the face. But she left the silence alone for a while and then, her voice sounding tired, “Well, it has been a rough day, huh? Some days are like that. But we learn our lessons and move on right?” She paused. “Did you like being in time out?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go.” And that was the end of it. At the time, he wondered if she knew what had happened. Now, looking back, he knew that she did.

He was in third grade when she first used the word. Alcoholic. He had been at the neighborhood swimming pool with Dad. Dad had taught him to swim and he was good at it. Mom joked that he was just like an otter, always happy to play in the water, even when it was freezing cold. He had lost track of Dad a while ago, but that was okay. He ducked underwater and swam along the bottom of the pool. He could hold his breath a long time, probably because when Mom wasn’t there, Dad held him underwater long after his lungs cried out for air. The first time, he had come up flailing and furious, hot salty tears mixing with the chlorinated water. Dad was laughing. He needed to toughen up, Dad had said, and he plunged him under again. He started working at it late at night, lying in bed, holding his breath and counting as far as he could make himself. One day he told himself, he would be tough enough that no one would laugh at him. He surfaced strategically, floating quietly, barely noticed by anyone at all, which suited him perfectly as he pretended to be on a secret mission. He was surprised when Mom showed up at the pool.

“We have to go now,” she called out to him without any explanation.

“Why? Where’s Dad?” He asked, dripping as he climbed over the concrete edge.

“I’ll tell you later. Go get changed.”

“Where’s Sis?”

“She’s at a friend’s house. Let’s go get ice cream.”

He never ate strawberry ice cream again after that day. He had not known that his Dad had left the pool, desperate for a drink. He had showed up hours later staggering at their house, not knowing where he had left his son. Mom was desperate, had been calling his cell, had driven by the pool and had seen the truck still in the lot. She told herself that of course they were just having a great time swimming. After all, it was Saturday morning. What could happen on a Saturday morning? But she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that would not go away and the night before she had dreamt of a dragon.

He could see her shaking as they drove in silence to Baskin Robbins Ice Cream, but she said, “Let’s pretend you are my new pet otter!” They got ice cream cones and walked to the park because the warm sun was better for otters after a swim. In fact, everything would have been perfect if she hadn’t said that word. Why did she have to say it? It wasn’t like he thought everything was fine. Hadn’t he seen the dark circles under Mom’s eyes? Hadn’t he seen her weariness as she drifted from work to home and back, dropping him off at school and taking him to soccer practice? Hadn’t he seen her like a tattered leaf caught up in the wind, blowing this way and that but never settled?

Alcoholism, he learned, was a killer of hope.

After that day, they had a secret code. He was her helper, and whenever Dad had been drinking, they used secret words in an imaginary game to tell each other. Just the two of them were in on it; not even his sister knew. He wasn’t sure if Mom wanted him to think it was fun, just another pretend game, but he didn’t, and they didn’t talk about it. They just played it, day after day. He was given a flip phone which should have been cool, but he only used it to call Mom and use the secret code. His code name was Eaglet. Dad was the Coyote, and Mom was Mama Bird. If he even thought that Dad was drinking or acting unusual, he would call.

“Hi Mom. Can we play pretend?” That was how she knew he needed her. Miraculously, the system worked.

She had finally left Dad when he was in middle school — tsk tsk, such a terrible time to make that choice, they said in the gossip circles of his friends’ parents. Maybe his little sister wouldn’t remember things, but why had she made it so hard on the boy? And just when he needed his father the most, they said. Wasn’t his father a war hero? And they couldn’t put their finger on it, but there was something off about his mother. She never drank or smoked and she wasn’t one to flirt with men. None of the usual things that could be said about divorcees could be said about her. But there was something about her that was just not quite worldly. Like she was off in the clouds. Just not right, they said, shaking their heads. She knew what they said without hearing it, but she had no time to address the gossip. Being off in the clouds was the only way she knew to keep from being sucked under.

In reality, he had never needed his father, he thought angrily at times. He had heard the insults hurled at his mother late at night when she hoped against hope that both her children were sleeping. He wondered why she hadn’t left years ago, but she fluttered and bobbed, dodging the barbs attached to the hurled words. She smiled a pretend smile in the morning, when Dad promised to take them all camping, promised to teach him to build a proper campfire and take him hiking and even shooting. At those times he felt he was lucky to have a Dad who knew things. A Dad who had been to war and had a Bronze Star to prove it. Maybe he did need his father.

In fact, maybe he was the only one of them who did. Sis didn’t need anyone but Mom, and everyone could see that Mom would be better off without Dad. Maybe she would just float away without the weight of Dad around her neck, but at least she wouldn’t have to be always on edge, as if the world was covered in broken glass. Thank goodness she knew how to walk lightly. Maybe he needed his Dad because there was something wrong with him? How could he know? He was just eleven. Maybe she was staying with Dad for him. That was something she would do, but it was too much for him to think about.

Mom left him the day Dad went to jail. She had answered the phone just moments before, her eyes growing larger with every word spoken on the other end of the line.

“Of course, I will come pick up the dog. No, I do not want to speak to him.” She put the phone down.

“Pack your overnight bag and help your sister,” was all she had said. “I’m going to get the dog. Your Dad will be gone for a while.”

All along, he had known exactly what was happening.

He never blamed her, and the counselor told him he couldn’t blame his father, because it was the addiction and the sickness that was at fault. Besides, he was a veteran, and a veteran was a hero. Everyone had to agree with that. Pastor John said everyone would be back together soon, and he called Mom in for counseling.

Still confused, he asked no questions. Mom took him to Boy Scouts so he could be taken camping and fishing by other people’s dads. Even so, he grew up quickly, strong and grounded like an oak. They stopped going to church for a while, and Mom tried taking them hiking and floating in the river on Sundays. She wasn’t as good at it as Dad, but he was good at pretending too.

He knew Mom was proud of him, but like everything about Mom, it was a tentative, always-questioning sort of proud, surrounded by worry. She did worry. She worried that his Dad would see that he and his little sister were her only source of hope and joy and he would somehow manage to take them away too. Not that he hadn’t tried, but when it mattered, Mom had grounded herself and fought harder than she had ever fought. Carefully, though. She recognized the possibility of her efforts backfiring, and she allowed them to see him, even though she knew he would try to turn them against her. He himself had fallen for the lies and manipulations a time or two, rebelling against Mom and her careful spending habits due to her never-ending lack of money and her ever-present lack of confidence. His rebellion was not long lasting, though, and he returned home. He worked hard in school and got a job at Safeway. He helped raise his sister. Mom blew from job to job, always believing that they were on the verge of really getting somewhere financially. The problem was that though she wanted them to believe it, she never believed it herself. He understood. She had spent so much time with Dad, she struggled to believe in herself at all.

After Dad gave up alcohol, there were prescription drugs from the VA, antidepressants, Oxycodone, and muscle relaxants. But still he couldn’t sleep. He smoked pot and told everyone he didn’t need counseling. Counseling was for the weak. When he hit rock bottom and they took away his car and foreclosed on his house, he tried going back to Mom. She thought about it, too. Not because she thought that he loved her, because she knew that he didn’t. Not because she was in love with him, because that had ended the first time he chose alcohol over his children. She thought about it because she could feel the tragedy in his life and it sank a hole in her heart every time she saw him. In the end, he took her to dinner one night to try to start again. She sat across from him, sipping her iced tea as he told her that he knew who she was. That she was great at pretending to be a good person, but he knew her heart was black and full of the Devil. It might be, she thought, but she didn’t have time to think about it. She had kids to raise, bills to pay, work to get done. He was on his own. She set him free, and even though she still hoped he would float upward like a hot air balloon once it is untethered, he only managed to skim along the rocky ground, tangling himself up again and again. She tried not to think it was her fault.

What was she thinking now? Her son wondered, as she breathed in and out in even intervals. He had never seen her sleep this soundly, but then, she had never been under anesthesia before. Her body, though a small frame in a big bed, appeared heavy, grounded. He felt a tear form in the corner of his eye. Just before it fell, the nurse whisked in.

“She’ll be coming around soon. It’s good that you’ll be here. The doctors say everything went well.”

He managed to grunt some sort of response and she gestured that he should move closer to the bed. Standing beside her, he touched her hand gently. Her eyelids fluttered.

“Mom?”

“Son?” She had to take a moment to get control of her eyes, which seemed to roll around in her head before focusing on him. She saw the nurse and he saw a tiny smile start in the corner of one eye.

“This is my baby, you know,” she said to the nurse, sounding older than he remembered.

“I know! He’s here to see you!” responded the nurse with a big bright smile. He noticed how clearly she spoke, and that she looked Mom directly in the eyes as if this would help pull her back from the ether and into the real world. If only she knew that Mom had never fully been a resident of the real world.

The nurse moved around the bed, checking her pulse, making notes, plumping up the pillows, and making a big deal of moving her to a little more upright position.

“Would you like a sip of water?” she asked, offering a cup with a straw. Once that was accomplished, she instructed his mom to rest as much as possible and whisked out of the dim room. He watched as his mom seemed to get a little less heavy on the bed. He willed her to float upward, as she always had, but she drifted off to sleep again, though he thought a little less heavy this time.

He pulled a wooden chair close to the bed and sat down to watch her sleep. His sister would arrive tomorrow, flying in from Paris where she had been on an exchange for her study of Art History. He looked forward to seeing her. She had been terrified to fly until he joined the Air Force and told her about the first time he jumped out of an airplane. That’s when she had decided that if he could jump out of one, she could at least get on one and go somewhere. She had been a world traveler ever since. He had been playing a combined role of brother and father for a long time, but she was finding her way. Sometimes remembering that he had to set a good example for his little sister gave him the courage and strength he needed in his own life too. Mom was right, they needed each other.

He thought about jumping out of airplanes, and the first time he had done it without being tandem with the instructor. He had been terrified, certain he would get to the open door and freeze. He tried to clear his mind completely, just focus on following orders, procedures, instructions. He often took comfort in blindly following orders. It had to be done, he told himself. No other choice. She stirred in her sleep.

“Mom?” he whispered, hoping she was awake. She fluttered then opened her eyes.

“I was dreaming of angels,” she said. “It was just like the time you told me you jumped out of the plane. Remember? I woke up dreaming of angels.”

“I remember. You called me. And I told you about my jump.” But she had drifted off again.

In the end, he was not able to clear his mind. Not even close. He couldn’t focus on the orders of the jumpmaster, who told them when it was clear and when to go. His thoughts were racing a million miles a minute. He thought he might throw up, and silently willed it not to happen. The guy in front of him crouched in the opening.

“Go!” commanded the jumpmaster. He was next. He moved into position mechanically.

His entire being was screaming at him in panic. There was no way out.

“I remember it like it was yesterday.” She was awake again, and speaking. “Wasn’t that amazing that I was dreaming of angels on that day?” She smiled as she spoke.

“Yes, Mom.” He laughed. “You and your dreams.”

“They always mean something,” she said seriously. “You have to pay attention, but when you do, you know.”

“I know, I know.” He waited to see if she drifted off again. “Do you need anything?”

“No. Just let me rest.” He felt he was in some uncontrolled freefall. There was no action he could take, nothing to be done but wait for the next signal. He dozed off and his love for her mixed with hers for him in the hospital room air and rose up through the ceiling and beyond. He floated with her and her angels above the hospital for a bit, but when he came back to the wooden chair he landed hard. What came next? There was no turning back, either she recovered or she didn’t, but all he could do was move forward.

On the day of his first jump, crouching at the edge of everything, he suddenly felt her hand on his shoulder and nothing else. He was back in the living room on a rainy day in Oregon. This time, he was wearing the cape from his Batman Halloween costume.

“Am I ready to fly, Mama?” he asked her, trying his best to move his head like he thought a baby eagle would as he crouched on the back of the couch.

He remembered his dad telling him about the pararescue jumpers in Iraq.

“You’re on the ground, everything is going sideways, you’ve got wounded and you can’t get anyone to them. You know you’ve got assets in the air, but it’s not your call. Then, all of a sudden, you see them — just like angels, here they come, parachuting in to take care of your wounded. And you’re like, ‘Where did these guys come from!’” He shook his head as if still in disbelief. It was the only time he had seen his dad tear up. “Just like angels,” he had repeated.

It was silly, and he knew it, but he felt butterflies as he spread out his Batman cape. He saw the face of his little sister, looking up at him, looking up to him. He saw the relief in his father’s face, knowing that his wounded men would be rescued. Then he saw her face, and he heard her voice:

“It’s time,” he heard. “I’m so proud of you, and someday, you will be a great big eagle, soaring above the clouds.”

He looked back and only nodded once before he jumped.