The Nest

  “Maybe it means things will be okay.”

  When I was little, she and Dad had sometimes gone to church, but they pretty much stopped a few years ago. The occasional Easter or Christmas. We didn’t talk about God or anything. Nicole blessed people at night, and she must have gotten that from Mom or Dad. But Mom also read her horoscope every day; she said it was just for fun, so I didn’t think she took it seriously. Once I’d heard her say there was more than us in the universe, but I wasn’t sure what she meant by that exactly. Aliens, or some kind of supernatural forces, maybe? I didn’t know if she believed in a god, though.

  All I knew was that this dream made me feel better. Waking up from it, I’d just felt happier. It happened sometimes, a dream that cast a kind of hopeful light from the night into the daytime.

  Mom was feeding the baby from a bottle. She’d tried to breast-feed him, but he wasn’t very good at nursing. Something about the mouth muscles not being strong enough.

  Afterward the baby was sleepy, and Mom put him back into his crib. When I looked at the baby, here’s what I saw: a baby. He looked normal to me, ugly, like a turtle, his neck all wrinkly. Tight little red fists. Nicole had looked like that when she’d been born. And I’d looked the same too, in the pictures.

  Here’s what the baby could do: He slept a lot. He made funny faces. He kicked his arms and legs. He stuck out his tongue. He cried. He made pterodactyl sounds. He was a noisy gulper. Sometimes he spluttered and choked, and Mom patted him on the back. He gripped your little finger with his fist. He looked at bright lights. He looked past you, and sometimes right at you. Sometimes his eyes were half-open; sometimes they were wide open and bright and curious. He kicked his skinny legs and struck out with his arms at nothing at all.

  But when I looked at the baby, mostly what I thought of was all the things I couldn’t see—all the things that were going wrong inside him.

  I felt stupid having a babysitter. I didn’t need one, but Nicole did, and I didn’t want to have to look after her all the times Mom and Dad were at work, or taking the baby to his appointments.

  Her name was Vanessa and she was a zoology student at the university. She was taking a course over the summer, and the rest of the time she worked for us. She spoke very calmly, and sometimes I wished she’d talk faster. I got impatient waiting for her to finish sentences. She lived in a basement apartment a few streets over. Her clothes had a musty, scalpy smell. Nicole really liked her. She said Vanessa was good at playing castle and talking about bugs and horses.

  I was inside watching TV, where it was air-conditioned and there were no wasps. Dad had showed Vanessa my new EpiPen and where we kept it in the medicine cabinet of the downstairs bathroom.

  Through the sliding patio doors, I could see into the backyard. Vanessa was on the deck. She walked to the table and poured a drink of lemonade for Nicole, who was on the swings. Then Vanessa stared at the wooden table and kept staring. Her look was so intense, it made my skin crawl.

  I went to the door and slid it open. “What’s the matter?”

  “Shh.” Without looking up, she waved me over. She nodded. There was a big wasp on the table. It had pale markings, like the one that had stung me a few days before.

  “I’ve never seen one like this,” she said.

  “It’s not a yellow jacket,” I told her.

  “Or a hornet. Hmm.” She seemed genuinely curious. “Maybe it’s an albino. But it’s definitely a social wasp. A nester.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Look what it’s doing.”

  The wasp was scraping its head along the surface of the table. There was a very faint clicking sound.

  “You see its mandibles?” she whispered.

  “Why’s it eating the wood?”

  “Not eating it. The adults just eat nectar.”

  “So what’s it doing?”

  “Collecting it.”

  Behind the wasp I saw a pale line where the surface had been scraped off.

  “It takes a bit of wood fiber, mixes it with its own saliva, and then regurgitates it.”

  “Why?”

  “To build the nest. Look, there it goes.”

  I took a step backward as the wasp lifted off and rose into the air. Almost in the next moment another insect landed heavily on the table. It took me a second to realize it was actually two bugs. The one on top was a big silvery wasp, and it was clutching a dead spider beneath it. The spider was bigger than the wasp, and it took the wasp a couple of tries to lift off again. Slowly, like an airplane with heavy cargo, it rose into the air with its kill, slewing off in the same direction as the first wasp. My breakfast lapped greasily against the sides of my stomach.

  “Looks like you’ve got a nest nearby,” Vanessa said, holding her hand to her eyes as she tracked the wasp.

  It was high up now and didn’t seem interested in stinging me, so I followed Vanessa as she walked along the side of our house, past Dad’s favorite Japanese maple. We tilted our heads way back.

  “See it?” she asked. “Waaaaay up there.”

  Under the eaves, right at the peak of the roof, was a tiny semispherical ball. A few shapes moved around on the outside. Our wasp disappeared inside.

  “It’s all different fibers from trees or plants or wood tables. That’s why the nest can have several different shades.”

  “It’s just kind of gray,” I said.

  I looked more closely at the wooden posts of our fence, and everywhere I saw little white lines. The wasps were eating our fence and table to make their nest.

  “It’s amazing,” Vanessa said. “They’re amazing little architects and engineers.”

  “I’m allergic,” I reminded her.

  “I know exactly where your EpiPen is.”

  The nest was above and to the right of the baby’s room.

  From down the street came the sound of a bell ringing. Nicole ran over, looking all excited.

  “It’s the knife guy!”

  She bolted into the house so she could watch from the front door. Nicole was fascinated by him. He’d started coming around just this summer. He drove a strange stubby van without doors, slowly, ringing his bell, to see if anyone needed their knives sharpened.

  Vanessa and I followed Nicole through the house. My little sister threw open the front door and stood on the porch, waiting. It was weird how excited she got about the knife guy. On the side of the van were lots of faded pictures of knives, and in big crooked hand-painted letters, the word “Grindi g”—because the last n was so worn out.

  The van glided toward us. I didn’t know how he made any money. I never saw a single person stop him and rush out with their kitchen knives. Last month, before the baby was born, Dad had flagged him down. I think it was just to give Nicole a thrill.

  Nicole had stood with us at the curb as the van pulled over, and the knife guy stepped out in his coveralls. Before, I’d just glimpsed him in passing. He was an older guy, surprisingly tall, a bit stooped. His cheeks were hollowed out, and he had gray stubble for hair. He looked like his bones were meant for an even bigger body.

  Dad had dragged his rotary lawn mower out from the garage—the blades were getting pretty dull, he’d said—and asked the knife guy if he could sharpen them. The guy gave a shrug, pursed his lips, and made a sound like, “Ehhhhhh,” so we didn’t know if he was saying yes or no. But then he went into the back of his van and came out with a screwdriver and removed the mower blades one by one.

  Nicole watched everything, enthralled. The knife guy smiled at her as he took out the blades from the lawn mower, and then let her watch from the open back of the van as he sharpened them on his grindstone.

  It wasn’t until the end, when he was putting the blades back into the mower, that I noticed his hands. They were very large with big knuckles, but he had only four fingers on each hand, and they were weirdly shaped, and splayed so that they looked more like pincers.

  Afterward Nicole said to Dad, “I guess he’s not very good at h
is job.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad asked.

  “He cut off his own fingers!”

  Dad laughed. “He didn’t cut them off, sweetie. He was born like that. I knew someone once who had the same condition.”

  “Oh,” said Nicole.

  “Anyway, didn’t seem to slow him down any, did it?”

  Dad ran the mower over a patch of the lawn, and grass clippings flew up, leaving a clean wake.

  “Much better,” Dad said.

  Now, as Vanessa and I watched the van approach, Nicole looked up at us imploringly. “Can we bring him some knives?”

  “I’m not sure your parents would want that, Nicole,” Vanessa said. “We’d have to ask them first.”

  She sagged. “Okay.”

  As the van crawled alongside our house, the knife guy leaned down over his steering wheel so he could peer out.

  Nicole waved. The knife guy waved back, gave a big smile, and stopped. Maybe he didn’t understand we had nothing for him today. I don’t think his English was too good. He seemed familiar to me somehow, but not in a good way.

  “We’re okay!” I said. “Thank you!”

  “Okay! Thanks you. Okay!” he said, and then he rang the bell again and kept moving on down the street.

  When he turned the corner, I realized I’d been holding my breath.

  That night at dinner Mom and Dad weren’t talking much. When they’d come back from the hospital, they looked pretty serious, and I was afraid to ask them what had happened. Nicole didn’t notice. Between mouthfuls of mashed potato and fish sticks she talked about castles and metal and her favorite knight and all its special skills. Her phone was under her chair, like she was expecting an important call at any moment.

  “Did Mr. Nobody have any good jokes today?” Dad asked her.

  Nicole frowned, then shook her head. “He wasn’t in the joking mood.”

  “Ah,” said Dad.

  “There’s a wasps’ nest on our house,” I said. “Way up high, under the roof.”

  “Really?” Mom said.

  “Vanessa and I saw it. Shouldn’t we get an exterminator or something?”

  Dad nodded. “Yeah. I’ll call someone.”

  Mom asked, “Did you make the appointment with the allergist for Steve?”

  “I’ll do it tomorrow,” Dad said.

  “How’s the baby?” I asked finally.

  “We’ve got an appointment with a specialist. She’s supposed to be very good. One of the few people who know about these things.”

  Nicole said, “And after that the baby’ll be all better.”

  Dad smiled. “Don’t know about that, Nic. But we’ll know more anyway.”

  “I was sick when I was born too,” she said.

  “No you weren’t,” Dad replied.

  Indignantly Nicole said, “Yes I was. I was yellow.”

  Dad sniffed out a laugh. “Oh, that was just jaundice. Postnatal jaundice. Lots of babies have it. It clears up in a couple of weeks.”

  Mom looked at Dad. “We were worried, though, remember? It seemed worrying. At the time.”

  I hated it when her eyes got wet. It made me scared. Like she wasn’t my mom anymore but something fragile that might break.

  After dinner, when Mom was giving Nicole her bath and I was helping Dad clean up the dishes, he said to me, “How are you doing, buddy?”

  I shrugged. “Fine.”

  “A bit crazy around here.”

  “Is the baby going to die?” I asked.

  He was doing a pretty lousy job arranging the plates in the dishwasher. Usually he was very particular.

  “No, I don’t think so. It’s not like that, really. There’s a lot that’s . . .” He searched. “Not working like it should. And some of that they can treat. But a lot of it has to do with his level of ability and how he might develop in the future. Whether he’ll be low-functioning or high-functioning.”

  “Low-functioning,” I said. It sounded like something you’d say about a machine, not a person.

  “I know, it’s an awful term.”

  I rearranged a baking dish so it wasn’t taking up half the rack. “So . . . we’re high-functioning?”

  He gave a small chuckle. “Supposedly. Though, some days it doesn’t feel like that, does it?”

  I was wondering if he was thinking of me. I definitely felt low-functioning sometimes.

  “It’s something to do with his DNA, isn’t it?” I said.

  He looked at me. “That’s right.”

  “Congenital,” I added. It made me feel better to have the words. As if knowing the names of things meant I had some power over them.

  “Right. He was born with it. It’s very rare, apparently. There aren’t a lot of recorded cases yet. It only got named a couple years ago.”

  I was about to ask what the name was, but didn’t. I wasn’t sure why. This was a word I didn’t want to know.

  Later, when I was going to bed, Mom hugged me and thanked me for being so brave.

  “I’m not brave,” I said.

  “I’m sorry we’ve been away so much. It won’t be like this for always. . . .”

  I didn’t want her getting teary again, so I said, “We should do something about that wasp nest. I don’t want to get stung again. And it’s pretty close to the baby’s room,” I added, hoping that would make her take it more seriously.

  “We’ll take care of it.”

  “Did you ever believe in angels?” I asked. She smiled. “When I was little, I think I might have.”

  “Not now?”

  “I don’t know that I do, Steve. It’s a nice idea. But I don’t think so.”

  Before I turned out my bedside light, I went through my two lists. First I read all the things there were to be grateful for. A lot of the time I felt pretty low, and I didn’t know why really, and I thought this was a good way of reminding myself of all the good things in my life. The list was pretty long by now, about four pages torn from a notebook. Sometimes I added new things. The last thing was: Our baby.

  Next was the list of people I wanted to keep safe. I didn’t really know who I was asking. Maybe it was God, but I didn’t really believe in God, so this wasn’t praying exactly. It was a bit like how Nicole blessed people at night. This was me wanting to make sure that all the people I knew wouldn’t get hurt. I started with Mom and Dad and Nicole and the baby and then went through my grandparents and my uncles and aunts and cousins and my friends Brendan and Sanjay. If I lost my place, or started worrying I’d skipped someone, I began at the beginning again, just to make sure. I always ended with the baby, to make doubly sure I hadn’t forgotten him.

  Then I turned off the light, pulled the covers over my head, adjusted my breathing hole, and slept.

  I DIDN’T THINK I’D SEE THEM AGAIN, BUT that night I did. I was in the beautiful lighted cave, and my focus was a bit clearer this time. The walls reminded me of those rice paper blinds Brendan had in his bedroom. The cave’s curved walls soared all around me. It felt good to be inside, like feeling the sun warm on your face through the car window even though it’s winter outside.

  And I was aware of the angels, moving about overhead, on the walls, on the high domed ceiling, wings aflutter, a pleasant thrum filling the air. And then, suddenly, one was much closer to me, and I knew instantly it was the same one I’d talked to before.

  “Hello again,” she said.

  I still couldn’t focus properly on her face. It was like that time the eye doctor dilated my pupils and I couldn’t read anything or see anything close up. The angel seemed so near that she was just a blur of light. She was all black and white. I didn’t feel at all afraid of her. Light radiated from her face. Her dark eyes were very large. No ears that I could make out. Her mouth was somehow sideways. Her face was divided by geometric patterns.

  “How are you?” she asked me.

  With each word I felt like I was being caressed, something very soft brushing my cheek, my throat.

  “F
ine.”

  “And your family. Holding up all right, I hope?” She was very polite.

  “I think so.” It seemed I should say something back. “How are you all doing?”

  “Oh, very busy, as you can see. Very, very busy, as always.”

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “Well, of course you’ll see us again.”

  I liked her an awful lot. She just seemed so easy and friendly—and I’d never been very good at having friends. At school I spent most of my time reading at recess and lunch. I did crosswords. I liked those. I didn’t like the way kids talked to one another. I was not a very popular kid, never had been.

  “We’re here to help, and we’ll stay until our work is done.”

  “Fixing the baby?” I said tentatively. I wanted to make sure I understood properly from last time.

  “Absolutely. That’s what all this is for.”

  There was a brief pause, and I looked around at the beautiful cave, and the light alone made me joyful.

  “When will you fix the baby?”

  “Very soon. Don’t you worry.”

  “What I don’t understand is . . .” I didn’t want to be rude.

  “Go on,” she said gently.

  “Well, how are you going to fix the baby?”

  Would it be some angelic surgery? Did it involve spells or actual medicines or just words of power? Would they touch him with those magical gossamer caresses I was feeling now?

  “Well,” she said, “first of all, ‘fix.’ It’s a rather odd choice of words, isn’t it?”

  I laughed with her. “Yes.”

  “We talk about fixing cars or a dishwasher. This is a human being! The most glorious and complicated creature on the planet! You don’t just go in there and repair him like an engine. It’s incredibly difficult at the best of times.”

  “I’m sure it is.”