Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(56)

She’s staring out the window.

She’s oblivious again.

I sigh.

I return to the kitchen.

I eat my banana–chocolate chip pancakes.

They are delicious.

Fuck Linda.

She’s missing out.

She could have had delicious pancakes for breakfast.

I would have forgiven her.

But instead, I use the garbage disposal to grind up all the leftover pancakes.

A few mirror shards fall in.

I let the machine crunch away until it finally jams and I can once again hear Linda cursing at her employees.

She doesn’t come out of her office—not even when I take off and slam the front door behind me so that the whole house shakes.





THIRTY-EIGHT


LETTER FROM THE FUTURE NUMBER 4


Dad,

It’s S, your daughter.

I’m writing you on my eighteenth birthday—well, technically, it’s the day after; it’s past midnight. I’m manning the great light because you fell asleep in your chair again and old habits die hard. I’m going to give you this letter tomorrow when I leave Outpost 37 for the first time so you won’t ever forget what a great day we had together.

(Side note: The stars are amazing tonight—like we could swim in them. Cassiopeia is shining brightly.) I have this suspicion: I think you’re mad at me because I want to leave, although you’ve never said as much. You think I’m leaving just so I can find a boyfriend, or at least that’s what you tease me about. (And I swear—if you use the word hormones one more time, I might kill you!) And while I would like to have a boyfriend (BECAUSE THAT IS NORMAL!) and meet people my own age in the horrid “tube city,” there are many other things I’d like to do as well.

I’d like to see dry land.

I’ve never seen it.

I want to stand on earth.

That’s a simple but profound thought for a girl who has lived her whole life on water.

You can surely understand that on some level, even if dry land is “overrated.”

I’m looking forward to attending classes with other people my age, even though you’ve told me so many times that people aren’t always kind or considerate like Papa was and you and Mom are. Still, I’d like to see for myself—have conversations with so many different people! I’d like to find someone who kisses me every time he sees a shooting star, like you kiss Mom. And I think that maybe I can excel in postschool, especially since I did so well on the entrance exams, and afterward I can make you proud by putting good into the new world somehow.

Thank you for making me “pancakes” on my birthday.

Even though you had to use bread mix and you said it wasn’t as good as pancakes back when you were a kid, especially since we had no “syrup” because there are so few “maple trees” left. I appreciated the effort, especially after hearing the story of how your mom and you made them when you were little—with “chocolate chips” and yellow fruits called “bananas.” I hope to see and taste a banana one day. I choose to believe that they still exist in tube city, where all sorts of things exist—things that I have only dreamed about, like stores and restaurants and dogs and cats and movie theaters and sky walks and so many other nouns we’ve seen on the visualizer beam whenever the signal is strong enough.

And your birthday present to me was also… beautiful.

When you said we were going to use the last two oxygen tanks, I didn’t want to do it, because it meant that you’d never be able to go scuba diving again, unless the North American Land Collective sends you more bottles, which isn’t likely to happen, now that they’ve declared world order and Outpost 37, Lighthouse 1 is no longer technically operational.

But I’m glad that I went scuba diving with you down into “Philadelphia” one last time with old Horatio the dolphin following.

I didn’t believe you when you said there was a red statue that read “LOVE,” with the LO stacked on top of the VE.

LO

VE

It sounded like something out of one of the old fairy tales you used to tell me when I was a little girl. I thought you were kidding when you said people in the past believed in love so much that they made statues to celebrate it, so they wouldn’t forget to LOVE… well, that seemed kind of ridiculous—but when we dove down and you shined the thermal lantern, and it turned out to be true, I felt like there were so many possibilities in the world—like I’m only beginning to discover what’s achievable. Maybe I will find a pure love—like what you and Mom have.

Mom told me that you and Horatio searched for the statue for weeks and then cleaned all the seaweed off, using up most of your oxygen supply, and so I wanted to say it was the best birthday present I have ever received. How many fathers would go to so much work just for their daughter’s eighteenth birthday?

Not many.

You told me you spent the day after your eighteenth birthday sitting on a bench in LOVE Park in Philadelphia writing in your notebook.

From what you’ve told me of your past and dry land—and what I’ve pieced together too—I realize that your childhood was pretty terrible.

That you had to endure a lot to get to Outpost 37 and become my father.

I want to say thank you.

You are a good man, Dad.