Glue

Diorama

The driver’s seat made an ugly noise.

She realized she had never reclined the seat prior to just now, and recline probably didn’t accurately describe the situation.

Carrie Fenwick’s car was parked in an alley in a neighborhood she wasn’t really familiar with, her head in a state she had rarely, if ever, visited.

The nail on her right ring finger was cracked.

She realized, with an odd mix of regret and pride, that she had done it making a fist.

Carrie looked up at the dome light.

She looked through it, really, until she noticed a dead bug, some flying insect, that had somehow gotten inside the cover over the bulb.

Gar.

She realized, with a brief flash of panic, that Gar could press charges.

Would he?

Probably not.

The panic simmered into a warm satisfaction that it would be interesting to tell her side of the story in public.

“And why did you punch Mr….”

Carrie blanked on Gar’s last name.

Gar was short for Edgar. And his name was an alliteration.

Carrie sat forward and punched the dash three times, shouting her frustration and rage in an unintelligible garble of noises that didn’t have enough structure to be syllables, much less words.

The noises were temporarily cathartic.

Had Gar seen the look on Darren’s face?

Carrie felt like she would see that look on her son’s face forever.

Introducing Darren to Gar this early in the relationship hadn’t been the plan.

But they were in her neighborhood, and she wanted to change shoes, and what could it hurt, right? This is mommy’s friend Gar.

It’s not like there was a parade of Gars. 

She had mentioned that her son was shy, not very gregarious, but creative and joyous and…would he still be those things?

Darren had taken the box his cousin’s hockey sticks had come in and decided to “make a thing”.

It was a diorama, though Darren was too young to know the word and did it matter anyway?

It was a thing, and Carrie asked just once if it was done, and Darren looked at her as though he didn’t know the concept of done, the concept of finished.

Carrie had taken some comfort in that: That maybe her child would have something to occupy his mind that would never be done, as long as she could provide clay, and glue and glitter, and Darren’s cousins could provide toy cars and plastic dinosaurs they didn’t play with anymore.

She had brought Gar to the house just so she could change shoes, and Darren seemed instantly at ease with Gar, maybe attracted to the same qualities she had seen, and whatever it was, Darren happily led Gar out to the garage to see his “thing”.

There were humanoid figures he had made of clay, and something that was a sheep or a bear depending on Darren’s mood and…

Carrie punched the dash three more times.

A kid was skating by and looked at Carrie, flipped his board into his hand and seemed like he was going to ask Carrie if she was okay, so she started the car, not caring that the seat was still reclined, and pulled off into Gorman Avenue, going the wrong way until she spun the steering wheel, hopped the curb a little and headed toward home.

There were the dinosaurs, and Darren knew the correct names of each one of them, pronouncing them correctly even though he struggled with spaghetti and cantaloupe and the bright red Matchbox GTO, and the little ambulance… 

Carrie almost spun the wheel around to drive back to Gar’s and punch him again.

Darren was so proud of his thing that he tilted the box back, standing on his tiptoes so Gar could see it better.

Carrie didn’t know, couldn’t know, what reaction her son expected from the guy who looked like he stepped out of a luxury watch ad. But there was expectation in his eyes, if little six-year-old green eyes could say “Do you like it?”, Darren’s eyes were screaming it, and Gar, he bent down a little, almost as though he cared.

Still driving down Gorman, moving, probably doing ten over, Carrie looked up at the white plastic cover on the ceiling of the car, at the dead bug.

It had just been searching for a little light.

Gar had looked at Darren and said “Dinosaurs and cars, huh? That’s quite a mishmash. And you shouldn’t glue your toys to a box. You’ll ruin them.”

Darren’s face.

Was there a word for it?

Disappointment, yeah, sure, but…

Carrie thought about punching Gar right then.

She had never punched anyone.

And she was too shocked.

She canceled the rest of the afternoon.

Told her sister, watching Darren, she’d be back in a minute.

“I thought…” Donna said, then saw the expression on Carrie’s face, saw the crimson cauldron her polished porcelain skin had become and she just nodded.

There was nothing Gar could have said to make it up to her.

Not even silence could have bought another date.

As she had pulled into Gar’s driveway, foot on the brake, car not in park, Gar smiled like he had solved a puzzle and said “All that kid needs is a father figure.”

Carrie pulled the cracked nail from her finger and threw it on the passenger side floor. 

I don’t need nails to help my kid make a thing.

***

Talk to me. Make me a diorama of your thoughts.

Two full years of daily content. It’s like giving someone their own bookstore.

***

Photo Courtesy of Getty Images