I wanted to tell him that my dad died, too, but somehow, even back then, I intuitively knew that the love, care, and kindness I received from my mom made my situation different from Oliver’s.
Now I saw Oliver pulling the Lego duck behind him and was about to join him when his dad’s footsteps pounded on the floor, and he showed up in the living room.
I stayed put, peering through the nearly-shut kitchen door.
“Stop that squeaking noise! Why are you playing with this? Are you defective, or what?” Mr. Madden yelled.
Oliver winced back. He dropped the string that was attached to the duck.
“It’s my pet duck,” he said quietly. “Donald.”
“Six-year-old boys don’t play with baby toys. Do you see your friends playing like that?” Mr. Madden continued in a raised voice. “Do you, Ollie?”
“No.”
What friends? I’d never seen anyone there, except me, and I didn’t really count. I only came there once a week with my mom when she had no one to leave me with, and I sat in the kitchen, and ate, and drew, and sometimes did my summer workbooks.
“Now put that thing somewhere. I don’t want to see it again,” Alfred Madden summed up as he walked away.
Through the crack left in the kitchen door, I could see only Oliver now. He bent and picked up the string, turned in the bedroom’s direction, and started pulling the duck behind him. The plastic wheels made their soft squeaks.
They were both out of sight, and I was about to return to the table when, like a gush of wind, something flew by, a whirl of dark gray figure. It was Mr. Madden, crossing the living room, passing by the kitchen door.
A stomp.
A loud crack.
Plastic shattering.
“I said, stop pulling that thing like an imbecile!” Oliver’s dad yelled.
I shivered, glued to the door, unable to walk away. I then peeked my head out.
Mr. Madden’s large, black dress-shoe was still on Donald the duck that lay in broken yellow and red pieces under and around his foot. The end of the string was lifeless, clutched in Oliver’s hand, who cast his eyes down on the shattered toy.
The tall man turned and stalked away, his shoes banging on the floor. A distant door was slammed, and the vast house was pin-drop quiet. Only the muffled whirr of the vacuum my mom was using at the far end of the upper floor was heard.
I tiptoed out of the kitchen, my heart pounding, worried that Mr. Madden would return and stomp on me like he did the duck.
Oliver squatted next to the broken pieces. He reached out and began picking them.
I crouched next to him. “Here, I’ll help.” I wished I had brought something from the kitchen to put the duck in. A plastic bag maybe, a box. We both collected the fragments into our hands until they were full.
Oliver was silent, his smooth, golden-brown hair fell over his forehead, leaving his green eyes in shadows.
When the big pieces were all gathered, we looked at each other, our cupped hands in front of us, full of yellow and red wreckage. “I’ll help you take it to your room,” I said. “I’m sorry, Oliver.”
He just nodded and got to his feet. I followed him to his room. It was larger than the living room in our apartment, and beautiful. I wasn’t old enough to understand that that house was just a beautiful cage.
Oliver stopped next to a colorful wooden chest. He opened his cupped hands over a Lego Duplo square plastic box and dropped the debris into it. Like a little soldier, he took a step to the right and made room for me to approach it. I dropped my pieces, too.
Oliver took the plastic lid and closed the box.
“I can glue it for you,” I said, though I knew that toy was beyond repair.
Oliver gave me a look that said exactly that.
“You know what?” I said cheerfully, though I could feel tears prickling my eyes, “When I get my salary, I’ll buy you a new one.” I didn’t have a salary. I just repeated what my mom used to say when she wanted to cheer me up. I smiled, and Oliver lifted his face and looked at me. “Or I can draw one for you. I’m not very good at drawing, but I can try. We can copy from a book.”
