The Colors of Odds and Ends

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. The dimples deepened as the sky turned slowly with the stars, their light falling soft as padded feet. Their dancing, just a breeze on top the trees waiting for the siblings to tire, end each summer night, and go to bed. Both were up past their bedtimes. Though for this summer, no curfew had been placed on them and nothing pressed to get them up in the morning.

The moon waxed and waned in month-long winks. Charlie understood as time moved through summer and passed through the streets and alleys silent as wind in grass that the sky had caught her in one pleasant smile after another; that moon and her, conspirators in secret plans. She would get home from the late night teenage reverie in the greatest of moods because love had snuck to her heart. Just the threads wrapped ever so slowly during that summer to fold her into the mystery happening around her.

Rudy also saw the moon slowly open as that summer progressed. He saw how it moved across the sky, starting in one spot near when school let out and he said his goodbyes to his friends leaving for vacation. Then, shining the cat-like stare across the nighttime, the brightening moon arced over the horizon, slowly opening through the midnights’ fog to end across the night in a completely new place from where it began. Rudy understood that by the end of the summer things would change. His sister, Charlie, would go off to college and he would remain here with his father for the indefinite future. Though, it likely would not be just the two of them. Carl Sandmeyer took to seeing Paula Martinez in semi-regular fashion, finding excuses to meet her for coffee while convincing himself that the kids were practically grown and they should start exploring their independence.

The hours before Charlie came home, or for that matter their father, Rudy fed himself on what he could find. His father would stay out and work late, though near the end of the summer it was obvious he was pairing with his new love. Sometimes Rudy would go to Neil’s house and eat with his family after the two boys got out of summer camp. Lake Michigan provided endless amounts of daylight entertainment. Canoes and splash wars with their paddles, sailboats that caught the breeze in sun bleached yellow sheets, and the one large boat where the entire adolescent camp would row in unison, which was held together with wood glue, plaster and duct tape called ‘The Arc.’ Neil was not allowed over to Rudy’s. His parents knew that Carl was working late on most days and would not allow both twelve year old boys unsupervised for indefinite, long periods of time. The two boys would feed off of each other's adolescent ideas and for sure one of them would be hurt. After so many hours of rerun television and not enough night baseball games because the Cubs played in the afternoon on the Superstation, Rudy took to setting up his father’s telescope and stare at the stars.

He quizzed himself on the summer constellations, borrowing a book from the library that glowed in the dark after absorbing light from a flashlight. Aquila was the first he identified, though it was purely by chance. The June night, clear of light from the quiet residential street in the north suburb of Chicago, proved a quiet resource of entertainment. The first night he looked up for no reason other than frustration at his boredom and threw his head back in self pity that his dad was not yet home. He caught the purple clouds as they began their twirl into the night gathering their gowns about before the entrance to the dance floor. This night they had the tinsel of golden threads trailing behind as they spun into the shape of a pirouette waving streamers. Thread after thread fell through the sky, sparkling as they came down, fizzing out as the spool ran out of gold. He looked around the sky at this choreographed mystery and could not decide what he wanted to do more; watch the spectacle dance above him or run to figure out what the hell he was looking at. Absorbed in the night time, he stood for what seemed like hours and it may have well been when he turned to the sound of his sister's voice.

“You’re not doing drugs are you?” Charlie asked.

Rudy blinked and turned in the direction of her voice. “No.” he said. “Though I could see why you would ask that.”

He turned and sat on the patio collecting what he knew was there but had put on the periphery while the light fantastic held his gaze.

“It was just really pretty,” he said. “I was looking at the meteor shower.”

“That’s cool.” Charlie said.

“You don’t happen to know what it’s called do you? Like the name of it?”

“Nope. Sorry, Rue.” she said and shook her head. “You’ve caught the attention of someone too.” she said and motioned to the grass.

Rudy turned to where she had pointed, by the cottonwood tree in their yard, but saw no one.

“Lower.” she said and he saw the flash of two eyes as they quickly fell into the grass by where the tree trunk met the earth. He saw the outline of the cat as it sank into the shadows, now aware that it was no longer secret in its voyeurism. It got as low to the ground as it could.

“How was your night?” Rudy asked, turning back to his sister.

“Good.” she said, betraying nothing. “Hung out with the gang again.”

Rudy nodded. “What do you guys do?”

“Not a ton really. Just look for stuff to do. Today we rearranged Harin’s room so that the sun would not blind her so early in the morning. We swapped places of her bed and her desk really.”

“You moved furniture?” He said smiling.

“Yes. It was fun.”

Rudy returned to watching the small part of the sky throw gold across the dark. The purple clouds tossing out the fans on their dresses to rise and fall with the wind.

“Everything keeps moving.” Rudy said. Charlie looked the other way. She was in a good mood and did not want to have a conversation about how sad it was to leave. The cat stood up on its front legs while the two had turned their attention elsewhere. It looked at the siblings and eyed each as they spoke.

“Dancing might be fun.” Rudy said. Charlie turned back to him not understanding what he was saying

“Dancing?” she asked.

“If you guys are looking for something to do. You should go dancing.”

Charlie smiled. “That actually sounds like a good idea. I will bring that up at the next meeting.”

“You make it sound so formal.” Rudy said, turning back to his sister smiling.

“We call roll. There’s a list.”

Rudy laughed and told himself that he would go to the library and get a book of summer constellations when he got out of camp tomorrow. Tomorrow night, if the meteor shower still fell, he would set up his dad’s telescope and watch the earth move into the dust to watch as it lit up the fringe of the clouds. He would find out the name of the gold fabric of the sky.

“Dad’s home.” Rudy said, nodding to the patio doors. Carl walked parallel to the sliding glass doors as he put his bag down on the table and let out a yawn. He took his tie off long ago but still wore the blazer he put on this morning. Khakis and shiny brown shoes were the most unoffending dress he could think of for the office. He wore them as the low risk badge of safety keeping him employed and fed. Taking on this project for the firm and becoming the assistant counsel on the Conical bankruptcy litigation was a good way to increase his billable hours. A decent work load that would still allow for time to spend with Charlotte and help her get ready before her first semester at Stanford. But Marion backed out at the beginning of June leaving Carl the point man for the firm and the firm as the trustee for the bankruptcy filing. Every investor wanted to get paid. But of course there was no money. Carl could only explain that in so many different ways and only so many times before the numbness of repetitive anger and frustration came from every conversation. He was glad to be home. Staring at the clock it was after midnight.

Carl saw a pair of eyes flash in the darkness from his periphery. He turned and they were gone but instead saw his children looking at him from beyond the sliding glass door of the back patio. The backyard light was off and they stood in the half dark of the house’s inside light falling at their feet. Charlotte turned in her chair looking at him over her shoulder, her black and purple highlighted bob length hair fell over her ear. She held her face, that same face he knew twenty years ago, just over the suspenders ribboned on top of her white collared shirt. Rudy stood one foot on the top step of the patio the other on the deck. He turned red in the sun today though not too bad and wore his red Chicago Bulls shirt from the game they went to in the spring. Carl had wanted to make sure he knew about the wonders of Michael Jordan before the team disbanded.

Then he remembered why he did this, this mundane and banal work of helping people through the fall apart process of bankruptcy. Because the image that froze him of his two children so close to him beyond that glass wall was of them being more than children. He touched the glass. They were the far off magic of his life that he tried to support and lift up the best way he knew how. He could see from their faces that they were both about to take a step in their move farther away from him. He was never more proud or more profoundly sad.

“You guys are up late.” Carl said, opening the sliding patio door.

“You are also up late.” Rudy said.

“Yeah. This is a lot more work than I expected, this Conical thing.” Carl sat in the other patio chair beside Charlie. “But today it looks like I got some help. Paula, who is a very good paralegal, has offered to come on board with the project. So that’s encouraging. Hopefully no more midnight homecomings.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Charlie said. “You will still work the hours to do the job beyond well. Even in the short term, if I believed you, you are not coming home at a normal hour.”

Rudy looked away and searched for the cat in the grass. Charlie hated the corporate talk of ‘offered to come on board.’ She counted the minutes before he would drop a ‘moving forward.’

Carl sucked his teeth. “Yeah. Yeah. And what time did you get home?”

Charlie tilted her head in faux coquettishness. “Why of course the proper time, father. Whatever do you mean?”

“How’s Harin?” he asked.

“Good. Gearing up for college life. Doing the things.”

“That’s good. You too, yes?”

“Yes. I also do the things.”

“Seriously. The list we made at the beginning of June? Where are we with that?”

“We are not doing the things on the list, dad. This is a list you made for me.”

“I tried to make it with you so you had some input on what needed to happen before you left -”

“Are we going on Saturday?” Rudy turned to them to interrupt their always escalating conversations. Charlie and Carl sat silent for their own reasons. Charlie was going to have fun this summer. The last three years in high school were harder than they should be, harder than most anything else she will ever do in her life - figuring out everything with these two. She was tired of the people and their sad appealing eyes; teachers, students, parents and every want to be mother trying to fill in for day or two. No. She was done.

Rudy stepped up fully on the patio. The clouds above and behind him began to gather. The purples lit from the southern Chicago sky grew darker as the clouds grew taller.

“I think we should go on Saturday.”

“Rue…” his father began. But he couldn’t bring himself to say that they shouldn’t. That he was tired of holding onto a memory he knew he would never let go. It just didn’t need to be the forethought of everything else. But his son was asking for help.

Charlie put her head back and looked at the fast moving clouds. No longer were they dancing. This looked like a storm.

“I don’t want to go.” she said her head still pointed at the sky. She did not want to have this conversation. This was not the fun part of this summer she imagined.

“You don’t want to go.” Rue said.

She dropped her head and looked him square in the eye.

“I’m tired of being sad. I would like to do something else.”

“Dad, make her go.” Rudy turned to his father. He looked at both of them in turn.

And through a voice half breaking he said: “She can make her own decision.”

The three of them stayed still for a moment longer.

“I’m sorry, I’m very tired.” Carl said. “I need to go to bed.” He stood up and wiped a tear from his eye, then pulled the glass door open and shut it behind him.

“Sorry Rue.” Charlie said. “I need to move on.” She rose out of her seat. “Don’t stay out too late. Sleep is important.”

Rudy stood alone on the patio unable to completely process what just happened. The cat still stared at him. A low roll of far off thunder sounding of memories unresolved grumbled across the lake toward the city. Rudy was afraid that the past would repeat itself just as the start of rain hit him on the shoulder. The cat, feeling the rain, rose on silent legs and moved on.