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On his sixth birthday, his mother brings him to the beach. The skies are a bleak dark-blue. The sun is hidden behind swollen clouds. Sea breeze trills through the air, as tidal waves rising from the ocean, slams against the black craggy shoreline, bursting into tiny water-blue sparks.
There is no one here but his mother and him.
She sits down on a tree trunk, ripped from the ground by strong winds. Stares at the pink-tinted horizon. Her hands wrapped around her upper arms. Presses her lips into a small smile when she notices him staring. The wind whips her long straight hair at wild directions. Her eyes are always wet. But the tears never fall. Sometimes, she would swipe her eyes with her thumb, when she thinks he’s not looking.
He wonders. Knows better to keep quiet.
Before they leave, she takes out a blueberry cupcake from her big purse, sticks a numbered candle on it, and lights it with a brass pocket lighter—there’s an eagle branded on its right side, and initials B.M. on its bottom.
“Make a wish, kiddo. Not too fancy, yeah.”
Harry closes his eyes and makes his wish.
—
Harry has never met his namesake grandpa. He died years ago, before Harry was born, and his mother has always been tight-lipped about his death. But he knows a few things. His grandpa loved fishing, grew up with two best friends named Billy—also strangely part of his name—and weird-sounding Quil, and laughed a Santa Claus belly-born laugh. Grandpa Harry smiled a lot in the old photo albums.
Harry knows grandpa’s anniversary by heart.
It’s the only time of the year where his mother cooks halibut, or king salmon when she gets her bonus from the hospital, and gives Harry the go ahead to eat ice-cream before dinner, and again for supper with banana-topped waffles. Later, once Harry helps to clear the tables and she hangs the washed plates on the dish rack, they would huddle together on the sagging couch, watching reruns of Molly of Denali on a flat-screened tv, and she covers him with a quilted blanket sewn by Grandma Sue.
He hugs his mother tightly.
She kisses his forehead. Tender and soft. Then tickles him at his weak spots, laughing as he struggles to get away from her devilish ticklish hands, and he pleads for her to stop, trying to tickle her back.
She grins. “One last tickle and it’s time for bed, kiddo.”
—
He meets his other grandad—step-grandad, because mum said he’s adopted by dad, and this is dad’s dad, but he doesn’t think it matters because it’s him, mum, and dad smiling happily in the sepia-toned photographs decorating their home—when his mother isn’t busy at the hospital. But dad died a long time ago, when Harry’s only three. His memories are hazy, as much as a three year old can remember anything.
His mother drives them both to Iron Lake every third weekend in a red Volkswagen that sputters puffs of greyish smoke.
Grandad Curtis swoops Harry up in a bear hug, lets his twiglet legs dangling in the air, as grandad rubs his nose on both sides of Harry’s face. “You’re growing too fast, bud,” he declares, white mist forming when he talks. “You’re almost as tall as me.” Grandad Curtis is tall, though he had started to stoop a little, and still a head taller than his mother, and people has commented her as a tall drink of water, whatever that’s supposed to mean. He turns to his mother, whispering, “Lee, feed your kid with lots of milk and maybe grass. He’s got the making of a star basketball player, like my Kris.”
She chuckles, curving her arms around Harry’s shoulders.
Harry only reaches up to his chest.
Maybe one day. He’ll grow as tall as Grandad Curtis, or Grandpa Harry, although if he’s being honest, grandpa looked average height as best. Still, there’s a chance. His uncle is super tall too, he thinks. His mother used to say his father—his real one—is a giant. Harry can’t find any photos to support this, but she sounds sincere enough.
Besides, his mother never lies.
—
For his eighth birthday, the weather is absolutely terrible. So bad he suddenly flinches. Thunderstorm rages not too far from the beach, and lighting crackles and whips across the skies so loud that Harry presses both hands to his ears. So, his mother promises to celebrate it with a proper cake from the mall. He doesn’t mind, as long as he has his mother with him, Harry’s great with not having to blow candles on a dreary beach.
She tells him to wait at Burger King’s. “Give me ten minutes tops.”
He grins. “Sure, sure.”
She ruffles his hair, a habit she does when she’s not focusing on him. “Great. So, time to choose or forever hold your peace, blueberry or chocolate—”
He interrupts, dramatically rolling his eyes, “Chocolate frosting, duh, mum.”
She laughs, puts her hands up in the air. “Alright, just double checking.” Hands him his iPhone—"only for emergency,” she says repeatedly, and hurriedly adding, “no games”—before walking towards a row of bakeries, next to Walgreens.
Harry still can watch kid-friendly YouTube videos on his iPhone.
There’s a man, about two tables away, gawking at him. Barely blinks. Looks like Harry. Like an Indian—no, that’s not the right word, his mother used to remind him, he’s native, not and never an Indian, because they’re not from India, or something like that. He’s got blue-black hair, like his except Harry ties his in a ponytail, and the man’s hair is short, growing out, and swept back, much the same as the male models Harry had seen in fashion magazines. His shoulders are tough, and broad, and slightly slouched. Bad posture. He has dark eyes that looks sad. Like his mother’s. The man opens his beardless, moustacheless mouth, then closes it. Drums his fingers on the table, like he wants to say something—
Harry walks up to him, sitting across from him. Extends his hand. “Hello, sir,” he begins. His mother taught him good manners and whatnot. Plus, he likes talking to strangers sometimes. He tells the man his name—Harlan William Clearwater-Hyatt, but Harry for short, Hars by his mother, and only by her—and smiles.
“Black, I mean, uh, Jake Black.”
“Hello, Mr. Black,” Harry repeats, beaming. “Nice to meet you.”
The man wipes his grease-stained hand on his pants, taking Harry’s hand in his big-boned one. “Uh, hello to you too,” he coughs into his other fist. Pushes his paper plate, almost over flowing with French-fries. “Want some.”
Harry takes one fry, smear the French fry across a small ketchup blot. “Thank you.”
Mr. Black clears his throat, thumping his hand on his chest twice. Then takes a large gulp of his Pepsi. “I know a Seth Clearwater years ago—”
Harry brightens. “That’s my uncle. He lives in La Push, with my auntie and my older cousins, Harris, and he’s called Harry too, but he’s big Harry and I’m little Harry, and oh, my other cousin, Martin, but everyone in the rez calls him ‘Marty’, so he and big Harry rhymes together. Harry and Marty,” he pauses to take a breath. “Every Thanksgiving, they visit us, and Auntie Gretchen cooks smoked salmon, and it’s really good. Not good as mum’s. Because mum always adds a special ingredient and it’s so good that I ate so much and vomited on Uncle Seth’s shoes. Have you eaten it—”
Mr. Black chuckles. “Take it easy, kid. Go slow. Breath.”
Harry blathers about everything and anything that crosses his mind. The weather. The beach. The basketball games, not the NBA, or the WNBA, but the ones his mother’s high school team used to play in the rez. He once tried fishing, but his fishing rod snapped, and he almost fell overboard from his Uncle Sam’s boat. Scary times. And his Aunt Bernie is a powwow dancer, and a cop—isn’t that cool, and she works for the tribal police. Oh, he can’t forget about the wolves. He rattles fun-facts about sea wolves, rambles how they only eat salmon heads, earns another nervous laugh from Mr. Black—and Mr. Black never interrupts him, letting him finish before asking questions about those wolves, about his favourite sports, about his favourite colour, about his age, about his mum—
“Do you have kids, Mr. Black?”
Mr. Black’s smile falters a bit. He rubs his neck, and suddenly, he sounds a little sad. Hurt, maybe. “No, I don’t. Not from the lack of trying.”
Harry taps his chin. Forehead crinkled. “So, do you want kids?”
Mr. Black is quiet. Feels like it’s an hour, but it’s not, because Harry checks his SpongeBob wristwatch, sees the seconds hand ticking, one, two, and counts to twenty-six, when Mr. Black finally finds his voice, and there’s a sharp hitch in his tone, when he shrugs one of his stiffen shoulders. “Not anymore—”
Mr. Black is not alone.
There’s a woman, younger than his mother, sidling up to Mr. Black, wraps an arm over his veiny biceps. “Who’s this cutie-patotie,” she coos. Her cat-like eyes are an eerie shade of brown that almost looks red, that reminds Harry of a lioness about to pounce on its prey, he’d seen a lion mauled an antelope on a documentary with his mother once, and had to sleep on her bed for weeks. She has reddish-brown curly hair, which she tucks behind her ears. Squints at Harry, like he’s a petri dish, curiously studying him. “Doesn’t he look like Nahuel, Jacob, because the resemblance is uncanny—” Then, she strikes a hand to his cheek, pinching his skin.
Mr. Black quickly wrenches her pale hand away from Harry’s face. “Stop it, Ness.”
Ness ignores Mr. Black. She slinks to Harry’s side, kneading her slender feline hands together, like she wants to touch Harry, but stops herself, chooses to fiddle with the huge diamond ring on her right hand. Her accent is clipped, the Mid-Atlantic kind that sounds a bit nasally, and funny to Harry’s ears. “What’s your name—”
“Harry.”
Harry’s mouth parted open slightly, so his mouth resembles a sort of smile. Under his shirt, his armpits are creating their own rainstorms. His heart skitters down to his legs. The hairs on the back of his neck erratically stands. Stranger danger, Harry. He scoots bit by bit towards the chair’s edge, pushing his heel up, pooling his energy at the tip of his toes. Waits. Twists his shoe so he can scram when he can.
Ness repeats his name with a slow roll of her tongue. Continues to smile.
But her smile is a curve of white straight teeth. She blinks, and it looks sharper, like the edge of a kitchen’s knife. Looks strained and weird on her small porcelain face. Her voice is chalk scratches on blackboard, like sound effects from old cartoons. “Your surname, Harry, what is it—”
Harry swallows. “Hyatt.”
Ness pushes her blood-red lips into a pout, “Are your parents around—”
Harry slowly nods. Of course, that’s not true. Dad died when he’s three. Mum went to get his cake somewhere in the mall. He knows better than to lie. But, he cannot bring himself to correct his white head-nod lie. Behind Mr. Black and Ness, he sees his mother carrying a fancily-ribboned cake box, smiling at him, and then freezes—
Mr. Black’s eyes dart over his shoulder, and his face loses its colour, as he shoots up from his seat. He is gigantic. Massive. So, so, so tall that Harry has to crane his neck to look at Mr. Black.
“Leah,” he mutters.
Ness swivels her head so quickly, following his line of sight.
His mother walks towards them. Her shoes pitter-patter across the linoleum, with such speed and silence, like she’s running. Her brows knotted deeply, like she’s worried. Don’t talk to strangers, kiddo, she reminded him time and time again. He’s in so much trouble, and he knows he’s grounded, and it matters little that it’s his birthday, because he’s broken her one cardinal rule—
Harry takes his chance, bolting to his mother, and slinks behind her back.
Mr. Black trails closely after Harry. He’s staring at Leah, at the bakery box in her hands, and his expression slackens.
“Hey,” Leah starts. Cautious.
Like she knows Mr. Black. Not knows a person because they wave to each other every morning, when they take the newspapers from the front lawn. It’s different. It feels friendly. Like the way Harry knows Lana, his pre-k classmate, would choose ducky floats over the fruit-shaped ones. Like that. Suspiciously close. Maybe long time ago. She doesn’t have many friends, outside Auntie Bernie, and Grandad Curtis, and Uncle Embry, and Uncle Sam, and Auntie Emily. She never talks about Mr. Black.
“Hey,” he sputters.
Harry narrows his eyes at his mother, at Mr. Black, at Ness still sitting at their table, well, perched on the edge of her seat, and her fingers crushed the Kleenex box. Something strange is going between them three, and he doesn’t quite know what it is, and he knows he’s missing important clues, because the air around them shifts to a cold airless draught, and Ness hasn’t blink once—and there’s a flash of rage across her beautiful face, twisting her smile into a cruel glare.
“You look good,” Mr. Black eventually says.
“You look the same.”
Mr. Black grimaces. Like mum’s words had unexpectedly smashed a hammer on his chest. Like all the wind in his lungs emptied. He scrubs his hand over his mouth. “Yeah, yeah,” he sighs, weakly. “Fashion never dies, as Rosalie liked to say, it’s all cyclic. Hard to make me look good, when I looked like this.” Gestures a dismissive hand over his blazer. He clears his throat again and scrapes a smile on his mouth. Gives Harry a long and hard, unreadable stare. “You got a cute kid there.” His tone seems to crack here and there, when he speaks, when he looks at Leah—the way Uncle Sam glanced at Auntie Emily when they’re under a mistletoe Alden held while standing on a wooden crate.
Leah spares Harry a fleeting gaze.
For a flickering second, her eyes looked wistfully sad. Like the times when Harry peeked at the living room, and she had a cigarette clipped between two fingers, and there were fresh tear-tracks on her cheeks. Then, her mouth curves into a half-smile. “He gets it from his dad.” Looks at Mr. Black, in her most serious expression—he’d only get that once in a blue moon, like the time when Harry didn’t clean his bedroom after her third warning.
Mr. Black winces. “Right, right, sorry for the hold-up.”
Leah shrugs feebly. “It’s fine.”
Mr. Black’s lips twitch. His Adam’s apple bobs.
Like he has more things to say, instead he exhales aloud, and mumbles through his breath, a sound that barely registers as a whisper, “It’s great seeing you again,” to which Leah curtly nods—and then, he turns away from them, trembling. His long brawny arms hanging limply by his sides. Ness attempts to bring him close, wrapping her arms around his, presses her lips to his cheek. But he doesn’t look at Ness, or react. Lost so deep in his thoughts.
His mother lets out a deep sigh.
“You ready to go back, kiddo, I got the candles,” she says.
Harry nods, intertwining his fingers with hers. “I’m not in trouble, right,” he hedges, tilting his chin up, so he can look at her, and lopsidedly grins. He has enough of the mall and the strange happenings between his mother and that weird couple—but he likes Mr. Black, because he’s nice.
Leah raises her brows, puzzled. Laughs. “Not today, Hars.”