Jack at 8

February 13, 1953

"Who is the valentine for?"

Though he hadn't heard his mother come into his room, he didn't jump at the sound of her voice; he was accustomed to her quiet movements. He concentrated on the scissors as he followed the curves he'd drawn on the red construction paper. The surface of his wooden desk was strewn with scraps from failed attempts to cut out a heart.

"We have to make them," he muttered without looking up. One side of the heart always came out bigger. "To give to people. I'm only making one."

Then she was warm at his side, her hand gently ruffling his hair. "Who's the lucky girl?"

He paused in his cutting for a heartbeat. "It's for Eddy. He's my best friend in class."

When his mother said nothing, he looked up at her. Her face wore a frown, but a puzzled rather than an angry one.

"You want to give a valentine to a boy."

It was just a statement of fact, not a question, but his fingers suddenly felt too big for the blunt, little-kid scissors. He understood then that two of those words were not supposed to be in the same sentence when it concerned him. He wrenched the scissors off his thumb and threw down the paper heart..

"There's a trick to making a heart come out even, my love," she said gently, lowering herself down to sit next to him on the bench. She took a new sheet of paper and folded it in half. With a pencil she drew half a heart, starting and ending at the fold, and told him to cut along the line. When he did, and opened it out, the two halves were identical: a perfect valentine.

He stared at it in admiration, and heard the smile in her voice when she said, "Give it to anyone you want, Jack."

But now he knew he couldn't do that. He held up the red paper heart and opened and closed it several times, like butterfly wings.

February 14, 1992

He was in a bathroom, sitting on a toilet seat lid with his hands before his face, his fingers pinching nothing. Straight ahead of him was a transparent curtain with many colorful butterflies printed on it. To his left was a window but he couldn't see through the bottom pane – the glass was a bumpy surface. He looked up at the top half and could see fine snow flakes drifting down. To his right was a square white sink and beyond that was the door, which was closed. If he was lucky, no one on the other side would need to go to the bathroom and he could just wait in here until leaving time came.

He noticed the sink had only one faucet, not two separate ones for hot and cold water, and there was a lever above it. How did that work? He stood up and swiveled the lever back and forth to no effect. But when he lifted it, water gushed out of the faucet in a straight, white column. Instantly he needed to pee very urgently. He quickly pushed the lever down to stop the flow, then turned and lifted the toilet lid and took aim at the water, amusing himself by painting the sides of the bowl with the yellow stream.

Swift, heavy footsteps, a rattle and a rush of air as the the door yanked open. He gasped and jumped, letting go of himself. Piss splattered yellow on the white tiled floor and the beige wall. He shivered with cold and fear and stumbled back, staring in wide-eyed panic at the tall, glaring man in the doorway, his heart racing, waiting for a curse and a slap… or worse. But the man's fierce expression changed as he stared at Jack, softened and melted the longer he looked. He appeared older than Jack's father, but more worn out than just old. Still, he was younger and much healthier than the other time Jack had seen him, when he'd given him a harmonica to play. If the man had been older than this that other time, why did he look at Jack as though he knew him?

"Don't worry 'bout the mess," the man said quickly, raising his hand like an Indian signaling peace. He stepped back into the room, disappearing for a moment, and when he returned he was cradling a blue shirt in both hands. "Let's get you covered up. Too cold to be walkin round naked. C'mere," the man murmured. He held the shirt carefully by the collar, letting it hang down.

His gentle tone was reassuring. Jack stepped over to him and put each arm into a sleeve. The hem came to just above his knees and the cuffs were several inches below his fingertips. The man bent and started to fasten the buttons but Jack brushed his hand away.

"I can do it," he said. He shoved each sleeve to his elbow and then buttoned the shirt from top to bottom. Something went wrong, though, because he used up the holes before he got to the last button. Jack looked up when he heard the man make a gentle snorting sound, and saw he wore a little smile.

"Oughta do up them buttons from the bottom," the man said, adding softly, "I used to love to watch that." All at once the smile fell away and the man put his hand to his mouth, looking at Jack with shining eyes.

"I seen you last winter," Jack said, a little confused. "'Cept it was summer at your place. You were… old."

The man put his hand on Jack's shoulder and gently squeezed it. "Good to know that I'll get old and still be seein you."

Jack craved more of that warm, firm pressure. Wanted to feel it on both shoulders, because he knew it wouldn't lead to a shaking. But the man gave him a little tug and led him through the door into the room, which had an unmade bed in one corner, a little kitchen in another. The carpeted floor felt soft under Jack's feet. A big fat, brown tipped-back chair in one corner faced a box with glass in the front. Under a wide window that had a white curtain screening the bottom half stood a plain pine table and two cane-bottomed chairs. A cigarette was smoldering in a black ashtray on the table, the smoke curling up to the ceiling.

Jack walked to the window and peeked out through the gap in the curtain, looking down onto a street with other houses on it. The snow was falling thick and downy now. A car rolled slowly through the snowstorm past the house, but it was a completely different shape from the vehicles he knew. Another car following it turned off the street and headed toward the house they were in; he pressed his nose to the pane and watched it disappear below them. He stepped back from the window and gaped down at the floor, listening to the sound of the engine underneath his feet. He looked up when he heard the man chuckle.

"I live over my daughter's garage," the man said. "My own little place here."

"What's a garage?"

The man sat down on one of the chairs and stretched out his long legs. "Like a barn for a car," he explained with a half smile.

"Is she rich?" Jack wished his mother could come here and live with this man in this fancy home where even the car had its own house.

The man picked up the cigarette and dragged on it while looking pensively at Jack, whose attention was now drawn to a familiar red shape on the table.

"You got a valentine," Jack said.

"Yep. From my grandsons. They're younger'n you." The man picked up one of the two the heart-shaped cards; "I love Grandpa" was printed in white script on the front. "It's Valentine's Day today." He looked over at Jack with a wistful expression. "Wish I coulda…"

"You got valentines from boys?"

The man gazed at the card for a moment before nodding.

"So it's alright, then?"

"Alright?"

"We have to make a valentine for somebody and I was making one for my friend but… I think I'm not 'sposed to do that."

The man sat up straight, patted his palm gently on the table. "C'mere," he said, and Jack moved around the table to stand near him. The man tapped the ash off the cigarette, which was almost burned down. He took another drag on it, then stubbed it out in the ashtray. "How old're you?"

Jack watched the smoke stream out of the man's mouth as he spoke. "Eight." He was struck with a sudden desire to try smoking a cigarette, too. "I wanna try one," he declared, pointing at the pack on the table, feeling bold.

"Yer too young."

"I'll be nine in April."

The man chuckled, but stopped abruptly. "Nine years old," he muttered, then added under his breath, "Shit." He opened the card, closed it, put it down, pulled another cigarette from the pack, fished a lighter from his shirt pocket, flicked a flame and touched it to the end. He took a drag, coughed once. "Tell you what…" The man sat up straight and leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs, the card in one hand, cigarette between the fingers of the other.

Jack waited, glancing around the room and wondering if he'd ever come back here again. Someday, he decided, he would live in a house with carpets on the floor and a garage for his car.

"…I'll show you how to make a valentine you can give to your friend. But later, you hear? Don't start smokin now 'cause it's bad for ya and the younger you start the worse it is. I know yer gonna do what you want but wait till yer eighteen at least. You got it?" The rush of words surprised Jack; he nodded solemnly.

"Watch this." The man straightened up and sucked on his cigarette, his cheeks going hollow. He made his mouth big and round and blew out the smoke in a ring. Then he touched his finger to the top of the ring and for a few seconds it took the form of a heart.

"Hey! Let me try."

The man blew a smoke ring toward him and Jack touched it, but it broke up.

"Again."

"Do it gentle." He blew another ring.

Jack slowly drew his finger through it and for a split second it almost looked like a heart.

"Again."

The man crushed the cigarette into the ashtray. "You'll get it right someday," he murmured. He laid on the table the I Love Grandpa card he was still holding, then put his hand on Jack's upper arm. Closing his fingers gently around it, he drew Jack closer to him. Jack stepped forward willingly and leaned against the man, who smelled of horses and hay. Of home. He felt like closing his eyes, but didn't. If he kept them open he'd be able to remember the moment better, because he felt sure it wouldn't last much longer.

"That card you gotta give," the man murmured, "better you give it to a girl that ain't gonna get any."

As Jack straightened up in surprise, the man suddenly wrapped his arm around his shoulder and hugged him tightly to his chest. "I swear to you," he croaked out, "I'm not just some—"

He was standing by his wooden desk, as snow beat against the window and icy air leaked around the frame. Despite the chill he still felt the ghost warmth of the hug on his bare torso. His clothes were folded on the bench and the paper scraps cleared away except for the perfect heart lying on the desktop. He dressed quickly, and as he was buttoning his shirt his mother appeared in the open doorway, relief smoothing her features. Then she was next to him, pulling him to her and bending to rest her cheek on his head.

She sniffed twice. "Jack, have you been smoking?"

He never told her where he went, and she never asked. But this time he couldn't manage to keep it all in. "It was a man," he said. "You'd like him."

Holding his face between her hands, she buried her nose in his hair and inhaled deeply. She whispered something, but he couldn't make out the words.

That night after he was sent up to bed, he first sat at his desk and carefully printed his message on the valentine. The snow had stopped and the sky was clear; the full moon and the blanket of snow covering the land lit up his room.

He crawled into bed and laid the heart on top of his blanket, for her to find.