Split

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Dear Bump,

I plan on winning the chess tournament this year.

I’m tired of getting second place. Jesse Chao has won first place since the first grade. His smile looks like a string of gray pebbles. Everyone in the math club knows I can beat him. I need to practice some more, that’s all. I’ve been asking Mom, but she says she can’t remember how to play anymore. I don’t understand, she remembered fine last month.

I don’t know who I’m supposed to play with now.

When I asked Boone if he could help me hone my skills, he laughed. “No way, Red. Gonna be way too busy. JF told me Julie wears a bra now.”

Boone thinks I should ask his father because Johan and Nick used to play when Nick was little.

It’s hard to imagine Nick Lund as a little kid. I try picturing his eyes on a smaller face, but can’t do it. His eyes are so different from little kids’ eyes. Little kids’ eyes look like cough medicine bottles.

Nick’s eyes look like a picture I saw of a coral reef.

Except the coral reef wasn’t as beautiful.

Boone has blue eyes, too, but when he looks at me, it doesn’t feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

I’m shy about asking Mr. Lund. He’s always so busy. I think that’s why Dad doesn’t like him. “That man came to our country, and he’s going around stealing people’s jobs.”

But when I asked Dad if he wanted to be a locksmith, he just glared at me.

Dad likes Mrs. Lund plenty, though. He’s always so nice to her. She used to be in magazines in Norway. Her hair is the color of my beige dresser and her eyes are almost bigger than her ears. They’re blue. She wears lipstick and smells like Grandma’s rose potpourri. She never wears pants, just half-skirts. She doesn’t take off her shoes in the apartment and when she walks down the hall, they make a clanking sound I like.

She came by yesterday. She brought some cold fish and some kind of red soup. She and Mom sat at the kitchen table, and Mrs. Lund made Mom eat like a baby.

Mom cried the whole time.

Some girl with a belly bigger than a pumpkin came by with some boys this morning. Dad helped them load your crib and dresser in the back of their truck. He lit a cigarette and watched them drive away. I was standing right next to him, but he never said anything.

Tomorrow’s Sunday and we’re going to church. Father Neil is going to say something about you. Everyone is coming.

Even the Lunds, and they never go to church.

I don’t really like church, except for the communion. I like the way Jesus tastes.

* * * *

Now that I’d been reading my childhood entries in the last few days, I found myself debating on writing again.

But really, how healthy would it be to hash up the past or dwell on my current problems? What twenty-nine-year-old man kept a diary? Seemed like an odd and self-indulgent thing to do. Yet, I couldn’t help wondering if Aunt Fran had been right. Maybe writing could be something therapeutic and provide me with some healthy introspection. I could give it a try. Here. With you…Bump.

How did one sum up seventeen years? I supposed one couldn’t, really.

The Lunds moved away in 1988, a week shy of my thirteenth birthday. Johan bought a house on the south shore. Boone promised we would keep in touch, but we never did. Aside from a love note I received from Lene that Christmas, I remained without news of the Lunds all these years.

Mom never truly recovered from your death, Bump. I used to tiptoe around that apartment, even when she was awake. In 1994, she bought a piano at a garage sale. From that day on, she spent countless hours teaching herself to play. Chopin was her favorite. When I left for university, she could play fairly well. That piano was her lifeline. Still was today. I enjoyed watching her thin fingers dance on the keys.

Only then could we really connect. Only then did she ask about my life.