Traplines by Eden Robinson

Author:Eden Robinson [Robinson, Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-36394-7
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 1998-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

Second Contact

When he woke up that Sunday, Tom locked himself in the bathroom and sat on the toilet. Man, Mike was going to laugh his head off. He’d say something like, “When’d the lobotomy look come back in style, shit-for-brains?”

He could wear a baseball cap. Pull it low. But then he’d have to take it off in gym. It could blow off. Mike wouldn’t be fooled, that was for sure. He got up and faced the mirror.

“Jeez,” he said, running his hand through what was left of his hair.

“Tommy?” His mom knocked on the bathroom door. “Tommy, are you finished?”

“In a minute,” Tom said. He wrapped his head in a towel. Fuck, this is stupid, he thought. He took the towel off and opened the door.

His mom put her hand to her mouth, a silent-screen movie star’s gesture.

“That bad?”

“No,” she said, starting to smile. “Oh, Tommy, it looks just fine.” She reached up and touched his forehead. “I haven’t seen your eyes for so long, I forgot what color they are.”

Tom looked down. “I dunno. I think it’s weird.”

“No, it isn’t. You look like a kid again.”

“It’s just hair.”

“No, you look really good, Tommy.” She pulled him forward, out of the doorway. “I’ve got to pee.”

Tom stood in the hallway, nerving himself to face Jeremy. But when he went into the kitchen his cousin wasn’t there. Tom looked in the living room and back in the bedroom, but Jeremy wasn’t home.

In the kitchen Tom fixed himself some Captain Crunch. The sun was coming through the kitchen window. His mom came in and made herself toast. She was humming and kept stealing looks at him, shaking her head. She sat opposite him, reached over the table, and ruffled his hair. “I told you so.”

“What?” Tom said.

“You and Jeremy. You’re friends.”

Tom wrinkled his nose. “I guess you could call it that.”

She tried to pinch his cheek and he ducked away. “You look like your grandfather when you do that.”

“Do what?”

She wrinkled her nose at him and squinted, looking peeved. “Oh, admit it. You and Jeremy are friends!”

“Mom,” Tom said. But she seemed happy, and she hadn’t for a long time, so he kept his mouth shut.

“—fly home soon, maybe even for Christmas, what do you think?” She smiled at him expectantly. He made himself smile, scrambling to piece together what she’d just said. “Great.”

“Oh, Tommy, it’ll be so much fun! You’ll see. We’ll get a huge tree and I’ll help Mother with the turkey.”

As she talked, he shrank from the thought of a family Christmas, with everyone mouthing love and good wishes and not meaning a word of it. Well, he thought, already resigned, it’s nine months away. Things will change between now and then.

He finished breakfast, washed his dishes, and put them away, while his mom reminisced at the table, changing the facts to suit her new story. They hadn’t thrown her to the wolves, innocent and wronged, as she usually said. No, in this version she’d left home and they’d lost touch.

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