"I'm not scared of squirrels any more," he says.
"Yeah?"
"I'm doing my science project on them. They bury their nuts in the fall, and then they find them later because they rub their feet on them and make them smell."
"Is that how it works?"
"Yep. People think they remember where they put them, but they don't. It's just the smell of their stinky feet." Pico starts giggling.
"Isn't that something else."
"You never showed me that card trick again."
"Help me bag these leaves, then we'll go in and I'll do it. But this is the last time."
In a drawer in the kitchen I find a pack of cards, and I deal them out on the table. Pico, eyes narrowed to slits, scrupulously watches my hands. Then I do my big theatrical bit at the end where the cards get tossed all over the room. I walk around for a few seconds in feigned indecision before snatching Pico's queen of spades off the floor.
"I saw you counting."
"No, way! This is a magic trick, it's all — "
"You counted the cards, Les, and mine was number eleven."
Pico gets down off his chair and silently collects all the cards scattered around the kitchen. I follow his lead and start to clear the table. "Well, now you know the trick at least."
Pico picks up the last card and hands me the deck, his face solemn. "Thanks, Les," he says. "I have to go home now."
And that's it. Pico abandons me in the kitchen. The front door wheezes open and a cool breeze floods into the kitchen, briefly, before the door slams closed. The house is silent. I look out through the kitchen window at the dining table sitting half refinished in the backyard.
I head back there intending to do some work, but I can't figure out where to start. After hovering around the table for a while, I rearrange my tools, then head inside my cabin, and, leaving the light off, lie down on the bed. I look over at the fish, their aquarium glowing blue in the darkened room. Five seconds of memory. A lifetime composed of these five-second instalments, just flashes of existence, only to have them vanish, recede mercifully from you like an accident you'd drive by at night on a highway.
TWO WEEKS LATER, autumn is in full swing. Every morning I wake up to a backyard buried in leaves, which I dutifully clear away before starting my day's work. By the end of the afternoon the grass is already disappearing again, the lawn just green scraps under a patchy brown cover. I've finished the dining table with one last coat of mahogany stain; I'm keeping it under a tarp out back until I find a buyer. It looks about a hundred years older than it actually is.
Judy has convinced me to go to this thing with her this afternoon — that weird hippie couple intent on burying their baby's placenta. Judy, the deliverer of the baby, is the honorary guest. Last weekend we were down at the creek with the dogs and she told me all about it.
"I'd really like you to be there," Judy said. She sat down on an old mossy log and looked up at me. Nearby, the dogs were chasing each other through the trees, the patter of paws on fallen leaves fading as they ran farther and farther away.
"Who are these people?"
"Les, come on. You used to deal with parents like this all the time — you know, the kind that think they're bringing up their kids creatively but are just breeding weirdos? They're fun."
"Jude, I don't know."
"Think about it," she said.
When we got home I went right out into the backyard and sat down at the head of the dining table, the tarp ruffling in the wind. Judy stood at the kitchen window watching me. For a moment we locked eyes, and then she pulled away.
I'VE DECIDED TO wear a suit, a starchy navy thing I used to pull out for meetings or home visits back in my days of social work. In the cabin, I struggle to knot my tie, then head out to the front of the house to wait for my sister. A chill in the air hints at winter; the street is quiet, and still. The neighbours have their Halloween decorations up: front porches are framed with orange and black streamers, cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts perch on lawns. Daylight is just starting to drain from the sky.
Some kid is weaving down the street on a bicycle, tracing these slow, arching parabolas from one curb to the other. The kid comes closer, closer — and then I recognize the bike, that retro frame, those tasselled handlebars, the banana seat. The pink jacket. And a gorilla mask.
"Hey!" I yell.
The kid slams on the brakes and looks over at me. The mask comes off, and underneath is the face of a girl. She's probably twelve, and Asian — maybe Vietnamese, maybe Cambodian.
"Hi," she says.
I walk over to her. My tie is choking me.
"Cool bike."
"It's from the centre," says the girl. "It's old. It's only a onespeed."
"The centre? You mean the Laughlin Centre?"
"It's the only bike they have."
"They got a bike."
"Yeah."
I point up to the sign in the window of Judy's house. "We're Block Parents, so if you ever get into any trouble…"
The girl is giving me a look that says, Can I go now?
I tell her to ride safe.
IN JUDY'S CAR we listen to one of her French-language tapes. She practises her verbs along with the voice on the tape while she drives.
"J'ai eu, to as eu, it a eu, elle a eu," says Judy, and so forth. I sit staring out the window, playing absently with the power lock. "Try it, Les," Judy encourages me.
"J'ai! Eu!"
Judy grins. "Bravo, monsieur."
The woman on the tape continues to chatter away, but Judy seems to have lost interest. We pull up to a red light and sit idling while cars stream by in front of us. Out of nowhere, Judy does one of her snort-laughs. She covers her mouth with her hand, eyes twinkling.
"What's up?"
"I just remembered how when you were a kid, you used to tell Mom's friends that you could remember being born."
"What? Never."
"Yeah, always. You'd describe it to them and everything."
"Shut up." I'm laughing now too.
"Christ, Les. You were such an odd little guy."
We drive for a while in silence, then pull up in front of a grand old house, the front yard full of people. Judy cuts the engine and pats my knee. "Ready to bury some placenta?"
"Yep," I say, and we high-five.
Judy straightens her skirt. "Seriously, though — make me laugh and I'll kill you."
Not only am I the only guest wearing a suit, but there is a couple in matching muumuus and a woman with an owl perched on her shoulder. Music starts up, and everyone shuffles around until they've formed a delta with an open space in the middle. Judy and I retreat behind a tree. I look up through branches scrawling black and empty into the grey October sky.
The mother and father appear from somewhere, the mother carrying her newborn, the father toting a platter with what looks like a lump of meat heaped onto it. The placenta.
"Holy shit," I whisper, nudging my sister. "That thing's enormous."
Judy, the corners of her mouth twitching, does her best to ignore me.
The parents move into the empty space in the middle of everyone, where a sort of grave has been dug in the garden. Dirt lies heaped up around the hole in brown piles.
The mother steps forward and begins talking. I don't hear what she says. I am thinking, suddenly, of Pico, and considering what the three of us — me, Judy, and Pico — would look like together in this context. Maybe people would mistake us for a family. Sure: a father and mother, friends of the happy couple, and little Pico, who we might have brought on the way to his soccer game. We'd drive him there in our minivan, go sit with the other happy, proud parents along the sideline. Afterwards everyone would go out for ice cream; plans would be made for sleepovers and birthday parties and summer camps.