What Goes Up

Hi, Kate. I’m writing this in a campground as the sun sets on a mountain, Tucumcari Mountain. It’s purple! Kevin said it got its name from a Comanche word that means to wait for something to come to you. I’m waiting for Charlie and Kevin to come back from town with pizza!

Kevin gave me this iPad the night before we left Nashville. He bought it with the money he made by . . . well, that’s the reason I’m writing this. If I just tell you, I might leave something out. I know you know bits and pieces, but it’s important that you know how they fit. That way, you can help me make my decision. I think sometimes doing the right thing can be wrong. Which means doing the wrong thing can be right. Right?

We’ll be at your house tomorrow night. I’ll have all day to write on the way. I can’t wait to see you! We can’t wait to see you. A mother and father should never let ten years go by without seeing their daughter. And to think you’ve never met Kevin. He turned fourteen this year!

Ramblin’ Man, our motor home, is turning in to the campground now. Gotta go.

New day. Charlie is driving. Coffee in one hand, wheel in the other. Kevin is on his computer in back. Time to start fitting those pieces.

You had just moved to Flagstaff when Charlie’s brother, your uncle Ed, met Kevin’s mother on Sugar ❤️ Baddies. Ed was sixty-two. Truth be told, Ed was short on sugar. Andi was twenty-seven. As for her being bad, I wouldn’t know.

A year later, Ed and Andi drove from Nashville to Wichita for their honeymoon. An old army buddy of Ed’s owned a hot-air balloon. The newlyweds planned to go up in it. First, they dropped Kevin off at our house for the weekend.

We’d only been with Kevin a few times. He was a shy six-year-old. The most we’d heard him talk was when he talked to his Sponge Bob doll. Charlie said there was something wrong about a boy who had a sponge for a doll. But that honeymoon weekend, Kevin came to our house with a laptop computer. No Sponge Bob. When Charlie asked Kevin what had happened to Sponge Bob, Kevin said their neighbor’s dog ate him. Who knows? But that computer changed everything!

As soon as Ed and Andi drove off to go ballooning, Kevin went into our den with his computer. He said he liked to play a game called Scratch. I asked him what he scratched. In his little-boy voice, he said, “Aminals.” So cute.

Barks, snorts, quacks, whinnies. Both nights, as I walked down the upstairs hall past your old room, I heard animals when Kevin should have been sleeping.

After the honeymoon landed, Ed came to pick up Kevin. He was upstairs. I was in the kitchen, eavesdropping on Ed and Charlie in the den, when Ed said his buddy usually charged three hundred dollars for a one-hour ride in his glass-bottomed balloon, the Air Male. Ed said he and Andi flew for free, but he paid two hundred dollars extra so they could have sex while they were up there. Ed thought Charlie and I should try it. He said the Air Male’s basket was big enough for a futon, and it had a screen so Ed’s buddy–the pilot–couldn’t watch. Whoever was on top could look out the glass bottom. Ed said he and Andi took turns. He called it a “twice in a lifetime experience.” Ed told Charlie he planned to take out a second mortgage and buy his own balloon.

“You’re the one who’s full of hot-air,” Charlie told Ed.

Ed was not. After flying just that once, he borrowed the money and bought a used balloon, the Rise and Shine. Six months later, he had a license to fly it. Ed told Charlie it had just enough room for a futon. No need for a screen. He hoped to install a glass bottom one day.

Charlie thought plexiglass would be cheaper.

Before his first solo (plus Andi) flight, Ed told Charlie he thought he could leave the balloon to the wind for the length of time it would take him to make love to Andi. Andi was a looker, no question. But on Ed and Andi’s first flight, the Rise and Shine hit a TVA powerline and crashed and burned in a Tennessee cornfield.

Ed and Andi had dropped Kevin off at our house. When we told him what happened, he asked where his mother was now. I said she was in Heaven. Kevin said his grandparents—Andi’s parents—were there too. We asked Kevin if his mother had any brothers or sisters. He shook his head no. Speaking of wind, Kevin’s father had vanished into it.

“Are you my grandma and grandpa now?” Kevin asked between whimpers.

“Not exactly,” said Charlie.

Kate, coffee goes through your father as fast as water drips through coffee beans. We’re pulling into a rest stop now.

Charlie has rested. Now we’re passing by the biggest mesa yet. It looks like a giant tabletop. When you were three, you were already helping me clear ours. Lucky for us it wasn’t this big! I hope you have some happy memories from when you were young. I sure do.

Eight years ago, in January, Charlie and I retired. Charlie from the post office. Me from elder-care nursing. Now that we were elders, we decided to do some traveling before we needed care. That spring, we bought Ramblin’ Man for a song (ha, ha), due to his air conditioner not working. We were planning a fall trip to visit you. Remember?

At the time, our marriage needed some air, too, you could say. I hoped travel would help. I think Charlie felt the same. We planned to see as many states as we could. If our marriage had been a state, it was South Dakota. My parents took me there when I was twelve. Plains as far as you could see—until we reached the Badlands. At sunset, they’re beautiful! Charlie and I just needed to get there, so to speak. But that summer, the Air Male went down and Kevin turned up.

Your father’s feet get a terrible heat rash from his years of delivering mail. With no air-conditioning in Ramblin’ Man, traveling in summer was out. A new air conditioner cost four thousand dollars. Now that we had Kevin, we thought we should save up for his college first. Kevin was in school the rest of the year, so we couldn’t travel those months. Charlie drove Ramblin’ Man around the block once a week to keep him running. Three years ago, we camped at Mammoth Cave for the weekend. We saw some fish without eyes.

Kevin did well enough in school. He was captain of his middle school chess team. You could fit what I know about chess into one square, but I think a good chess player would have to be good at tricking their opponent into making bad moves. No wonder Kevin was captain!

Aside from one teammate, Shankar Sharma, Kevin didn’t seem to have friends. Maybe losing his mother when he was so young had something to do with that. Like he was afraid to get close to someone. Charlie and me included.

Kevin and Shankar would kick a soccer ball around our backyard some, but mostly they stayed upstairs with their computers. Shankar’s father was a visiting professor at Vanderbilt. He taught computer science. The Sharmas returned to Delhi after one year, but Shankar and Kevin stayed long distance friends. We wouldn’t be on our way to see you if they hadn’t. I wouldn’t have this iPad!

After supper, Charlie, Kevin, and I would watch TV. Those first few years, we saw our share of animated movies. Charlie slept through those. As Kevin got older, we mostly watched those crime shows. Charlie and Kevin couldn’t get enough of them. Makes you wonder. Anyway, when the shows were over, Kevin went to his room (your old room), Charlie went to his room (the guest room), and I went to my room (Charlie’s and my old bedroom).

Your father has sleep apnea. If I was to get any sleep, well, our guest room became Charlie’s room years ago. If Charlie and I had gone up in the Air Male, there would have been no need for a futon or a screen.

Last year, for Kevin’s thirteenth birthday, we gave him a desktop computer. He had wanted a bigger screen than the one on his laptop. We bought a used iMac. He was so happy. “Thank you, Aunt Deb!” he said. “Thank you, Uncle Charlie!” Then he took his computer upstairs and stayed in his room the rest of the evening. Like you used to do when you were upset with us.

When you were young, you brought so much life into our house. Birthday parties. Sleepovers. Remember the time you and Amy Anderson burnt those brownies? Charlie, he just laughed and said we should sell them to the Predators for hockey pucks. But when you turned sixteen, at times the life became more than Charlie could handle. Arguments when you couldn’t take the car. Arguments when you missed your curfew. Arguments about you getting your rainbow tattoo.

“Not on my dead body,” said Charlie.

Then you told him that when that day came, you’d have an on-off switch tattooed on his body. “Switched off,” you said. Remember? If only he had switched off those arguments.

Ed told Charlie that when a balloon’s burners weren’t burning, everything went quiet up there. With you gone and Kevin upstairs, our house was quieter than a balloon above a cornfield. There we were, retired, with Ramblin’ Man in the driveway and our marriage in park, when depression hit Charlie like a five-hundred-thousand-volt power line. Here was a man who used to walk eight miles a day on his mail route who suddenly couldn’t walk down the stairs for breakfast. Charlie says he felt like he was carrying a hundred-pound mailbag. Some days, I felt like I was carrying one too.

Charlie just said there’s an Albuquerque Cracker Barrel in two miles. He likes their chicken pot pies. I like their scrambled eggs. Kevin can choose his vegetables. Thanks to Sharma, Kevin quit eating meat last year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts worshipping all those gods!

After we left Cracker Barrel, we stopped for gas at a Love’s. Kevin and I stayed in Ramblin’ Man while Charlie pumped, but he hadn’t pumped but a few gallons when he shouted for us to get out and look up.

There it was, a yellow and green-striped hot air balloon passing through blue sky. We must have stood there looking up for fifteen minutes. No one said a word.

What goes up, must come down, they say. It did for Ed and Andi, that’s for sure. It does for everyone. You’re flying high, and then you aren’t. You’re alive, and then you’re not. When I was young, there was a song about a balloon. It went up, up and away. I don’t think it ever came down. I wish things worked that way.

So there we were, Charlie and I were carrying our mailbags, and Kevin was on his computer. Then this past February, I was cutting up vegetables in the kitchen when I felt a hand on either side of my waist. “What’s all this?” I asked.

“Can’t a man hold his wife?” Charlie asked from behind.

“He can,” I said, “but he usually has a reason.”

Charlie had refused to see anyone about his depression. All he’d say was that he would snap out of it one day. Had he snapped?

Charlie had been skipping as many meals as he ate. Now here he was, bending to my ear, asking how the Olive Garden sounded for dinner that night. The Olive Garden is no Catbird Seat. We celebrated our retirement there. But with Charlie’s breath in my ear, the Olive Garden sounded wonderful.

It was wonderful! While we were waiting on our meals, Kevin said they were studying the Big Bang in school. Kevin’s voice had changed overnight. More of a man voice now.

Kevin said the Big Bang was discovered by accident. At first, scientists thought the signal in their antenna was from pigeons. Charlie dipped his breadstick into the marinara sauce and said, “Prehistoric pigeons.”

“No, Uncle Charlie,” said Kevin, “they thought the signal was from pigeon poop in the antenna.”

I’d all but forgotten what Charlie’s smile looked like. But there it was. One side higher than the other. “I was kidding,” he said. Charlie was kidding!

Then while we were eating, Kevin almost lost his noodles when Charlie told him the joke about the doctor calling the post office because he needed help delivering a baby. With his left hand, Kevin fist-bumped Charlie. Charlie fist-bumped!

Something had sent Charlie’s balloon flying.

Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then. One night, before the smile and fist bump, Charlie was walking down the upstairs hall when he heard Kevin, behind his bedroom door, say, “I made a killing today.”

Charlie guessed that Kevin was talking to Shankar about a computer game. Kevin was talking to Shankar all right. But there was something about the way Kevin said killing that stopped Charlie in his tracks. Then, as Charlie put his ear to Kevin’s door, Kevin said, “I made three hundred dollars in an hour!”

It took Charlie months to ask me out. Two years before he asked me to marry him. For three years, he went back and forth about retiring. But Kevin making that kind of money in an hour? Without knocking, Charlie walked in and, like those scientists, made a discovery.

Kevin just saw a sign for a Dunkin’ Donuts. He likes their glazed jelly sticks. Charlie likes their coffee. We’re pulling into Gallup now.

Kevin ate two jelly sticks before we’d gone five miles! Should I tell him they might contain animal fat? One decision at a time.

The last sign we passed said 180 miles to Flagstaff. Only 180 miles to see you! After we visit you and Marla, we’re going to the Grand Canyon. Then we’ll go to Zion, Bryce, Capital Reef, and Arches National Parks before heading home for Kevin’s first year in high school.

Some nights, now, Charlie comes to my room, our old room. Some nights, I go to his—for a half hour or so 😊. When Charlie starts to snore, I either leave his room or wake him up in ours and make him go to his. Except for Charlie’s snoring, things have changed!

A few days after our dinner at Olive Garden, I was downstairs when I heard Charlie laughing in Kevin’s room. Smiles, fist bumps, now laughing? Later that night, Charlie and I were watching the weather news in the den when I asked him what he’d been doing in Kevin’s room. Charlie said Kevin was showing him things on the computer. I asked Charlie what kind of things. Charlie looked up at the ceiling, like Kevin might send down an answer. When he didn’t, Charlie said Kevin was showing him how to fix things. When I asked Charlie what he was fixing, he said, “Computer things, mostly.” There was that crooked smile again, only crookeder.

Computer things? I could have pressed him, but he seemed so happy. I might not have ever pressed if he hadn’t been upstairs a week later when his phone rang in the den. It was Helen Forsythe, our branch bank’s manager. When she asked for Charlie, I said he wasn’t near his phone, but I reminded her that my name was on the account. She said her question didn’t “pertain” to that account. As far as I knew, we only had one account. When I asked what account her question “pertained to,” she said she wasn’t “at liberty” to say. I said I wasn’t “at liberty” to get Charlie, but I would anyway.

Kate, remember how you used to sneak up the stairs after your curfew? The stairs are still carpeted, so neither Charlie nor Kevin heard me walk up. Just as I reached the top, I heard Charlie, behind Kevin’s closed door, say, “What kind of virus did you tell him?”

“A Storm Worm,” said Kevin.

Virus? A Storm Worm? This time I walked in.

About ten miles ago, Charlie said it was time to “recycle” his coffee. Less than a mile to a rest stop.

The rest stop had pictures of 1950s motels that were on this highway when it was Route 66. Their welcome signs reminded me of the big-finned Cadillac my granddad drove. An Eldorado. It looked like two sharks going down the road. Get your kicks on Route 66, the song went. Oh, how my mother loved Nat King Cole. Now there was a man voice!

So, I walked in on Charlie and Kevin. There they were, sitting side by side in front of Kevin’s computer under your old poster of The Police. Sting was playing his guitar and wearing a black T-shirt. Kevin was working his computer and wearing a headset. Charlie was looking at me and wearing his frightened look. I hadn’t seen his eyes opened so wide since the night you told us you were gay.

“You forgot to lock the door!” Kevin said to Charlie.

“Time for supper already?” Charlie said to me.

I told him no, it was not time for supper. But it was time for him to tell me what was going on, starting with what was a Storm Worm and who did Kevin tell about it. “Charlie will call you back when I give him the liberty to do so,” I told Helen Forsythe on the phone.

By this time, Homer Simpson was eating a donut on Kevin’s computer screen. After a quick look at Homer, Kevin said he and Charlie had been playing a game called The Simpsons. Kevin said he’d told Homer that he, Homer, had a Storm Worm virus. The object of the game was to see how long it took to remove Homer’s viruses.

“He beats me every time,” said Charlie.

Homer looked like a screen saver to me, but maybe Charlie had been playing computer games and didn’t want to admit it. If games had brought Charlie out of his depression, so be it. But just then Kevin’s phone rang, and Charlie said, “Let it go!” in a way that would have made anyone suspicious. Me, for one.

I told Kevin to answer it, take his headset off, and put his phone on speaker.

Kevin turned to Charlie. Charlie turned to me, turned back to Kevin, and said, “Answer like you always do.”

“Are you sure?” said Kevin.

“No,” said Charlie, “but do it anyway.”

Kevin took off his headset, pressed a button on his phone, and answered with the name of a computer printer company. Then he said, “I’m Bart. How can I help you today?” The caller sounded like an older man. He said he needed help installing a driver.

Kevin said it should only take a few minutes, but first he needed the man’s email address. Then he would send the man a link. The man should open it so Kevin could work the man’s computer. The man gave Kevin his address. Kevin sent a link. The man opened it and Kevin took over, punching keys and moving his curser around like he meant business. A few minutes later, Kevin silenced his phone and asked Charlie, “Did I find something?”

Charlie nodded yes. “It was bound to come out sooner or later,” he said. Then he stood, offered his chair to me, and started pacing on your braided rug. You picked it out, Kate. Remember?

After I sat, Kevin turned his speaker on and told the man it was a good thing he called. Kevin said he’d installed the driver, but as he was installing it, he found a virus on the man’s computer. A “Want to Cry” virus, Kevin called it. He said he could remove it for ninety-nine dollars if the man had an account at a certain online payment company. That was the only way the printer company could accept payment. The man said he had an account at the payment company and to go ahead and remove the virus.

The last thing I want to happen is to get you into trouble, Kate. I want you to understand everything, but since you won’t know any company names, you can say you don’t know anything.

Kevin told the man it would take about fifteen minutes to remove the virus. Kevin said he was going to silence the phone as he worked, but he told the man to stay on the line. After Kevin silenced his phone, he started moving the curser around again. But this time, it didn’t look to me like he cared where it went.

As Charlie kept pacing, he said he’d been wanting to tell me what he and Kevin had been doing, but he was afraid I’d jump to the wrong conclusion. I asked him what conclusion did he think I’d jump to.

“That maybe we haven’t been giving people something for their money,” he said.

“Isn’t that called stealing?” I asked.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that people can rationalize anything. They can even rationalize that by installing a driver for free, they can remove a virus for ninety-nine dollars.

“Did you find a virus?” I asked Kevin.

“Not this time.”

“Do you ever find a virus?”

“Sometimes.”

“So sometimes they get their money’s worth and other times they don’t?”

Charlie said I could look at it that way, but he’d rather think of it as though some people get their driver installed for free and their virus removed for ninety-nine dollars. Other people pay ninety-nine dollars to have their driver installed.

I asked Charlie what the printer company charges to install their driver.

Charlie looked at Kevin. Kevin looked at Charlie. Their silence told me all I needed to know.

When Kevin finished moving his curser, he turned his speaker on and told the man the virus was gone. Kevin said the man should send ninety-nine dollars to the payment company. Kevin told the man he would find the correct email address and phone number on the email he’d received with the link—to use those to direct the payment. Kevin had two phone numbers on his phone. One for personal, one for business. Funny business.

The man said he would pay as soon as he hung up. Kevin thanked him and wished him a “blessed day.”

Blessed day? That had Charlie’s name written all over it. “Please, Deb,” said Charlie, “we can explain.”

I told him darn right he could, but first he should quit pacing before he unbraided Kate’s rug.

Charlie sat on the bed and told Kevin, “Start at the beginning.”

Kevin said he and Shankar had come up with the idea together. They switched one letter in the printer company’s name, a letter that was easy to mistake, and set up a website that directed the mistaken people to call either Kevin’s or Shankar’s business number for free driver installation. If they didn’t get through to Kevin, they were likely to reach Shankar. Nighttime in Nashville is daytime in Delhi. Both Kevin and Shankar set up accounts at the payment company by saying they were eighteen. They were competing to see who could make the most money. Shankar was winning.

The day Charlie walked in on Kevin, Kevin told him everything, including the fact that until he turned eighteen, he wouldn’t have a banking or checking account to direct his online money into. At the time, Kevin’s account had grown to almost three thousand dollars! I’d heard of many ways to escape depression, in this case, Charlie’s depression, but crime? And when Charlie offered to open a custodial banking account so Kevin could withdraw his online money, Charlie was neck-deep in it.

Helen Forsythe needed Charlie’s email address.

It didn’t take long for them to start their bargaining with me. Charlie said he and Kevin had made enough money to air-condition Ramblin’ Man, and soon they’d have enough to buy a satellite something or other so I could stream my favorite shows on the road. “Please, Aunt Deb, don’t tell anyone,” said Kevin. “I’ll buy you an iPad. A new one.”

In a way, it was like a chess game, only Kevin was trying to trick me into not making a move. Meanwhile, there sat Charlie and his lopsided smile.

We just passed a sign that said we were five miles away from the Petrified Forest. Kevin wants to see it. Bye for now.

We only stayed at the Petrified Forest long enough to take a half mile hike. Kevin won’t admit it, but I think he expected the trees to be standing, not in chunks on the ground. As for Charlie, he said his feet were heating up and starting to itch. He said Ramblin’ Man’s air-conditioning would cool them down quick. “It cools best when we’re going at least 80,” he said after I told him to slow down.

Truth is, your father can’t wait to see you, Kate. It’s hard to get inside that head of his, but I know he regrets how things soured between you two. I think he realizes the souring was his fault. I also think Kevin and Charlie’s funny business has brought them closer, and it makes Charlie see how much he missed out on with you (not that you would have done what Kevin’s doing!). As we stood there staring at those fallen trees turned to stone, Charlie said that in some ways they reminded him of him. As we drove away, he said he was looking forward to meeting Marla. He even called her your wife. Just because trees don’t un-petrify doesn’t mean people can’t.

Oh, and those animal sounds on Kevin’s game? Turns out, they taught kids all about computers. Boy, did those sounds work!

Charlie and Kevin have left it up to me. Misleading, is how I’ve come to think of what they do. I have until the time we get home to decide if they can keep misleading. I’ve looked at it every which way. For instance, Charlie is a Dunkin’ Donuts rewards club member. He gets a free coffee when he buys a donut or jelly stick. But sometimes it’s easier for him to go to Krispy Kreme and pay full price for his coffee and an apple-filled. Just like someone might go to the printer company for free, but instead they go to Kevin, who even finds a virus now and then. Kevin doubts the printer company ever finds one, and computer stores might charge double what Kevin charges to remove them. Also, it makes Charlie happy. With him happy, I’m more apt to be. Which I am, coming to see you!

You could say we’re up in our balloon. Like I said before, one way or another, we’ll come down. But does it have to be soon? Charlie says no one will make a fuss over ninety-nine dollars. If he’s right, maybe we should make the most of things while we’re up here. Ed and Andi did!

Until I make my decision, Kevin is keeping his work phone number off his and Shankar’s website. He says Shankar is the one making a killing now. Even so, Kevin seems happy to be on this trip. He says he want to meet his cousin Kate!

If I give Charlie and Kevin the go-ahead, we could afford more trips. We could buy new mattresses for Ramblin’ Man, remodel his bathroom. We could see you more often, and before you know it, we’ll need to take Kevin college hunting.

Charlie said only one more hour to your house. I told him I’d like to stop in Winslow and stand on that corner first. “You’ll be a fine sight to see, all right,” said Charlie. Charlie said that!

Now that you have all of the pieces, Kate, I hope you can see how they fit. I’d say, See you soon, but if you’re reading this, I’ve already seen you. When we have a chance to talk, just you and me, I hope you can help me do the right thing. Whether it’s the right thing or not.

Up, up and away,

your mother