‘TRAUMA BOND’

Juan Sebastian Restrepo(zeb) is a Florida-based artist known for his paintings and drawings that explore the interplay between memory and storytelling. He holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a BFA from Pratt Institute. His recent exhibitions include “intersections” at New World Gallery (2023) and “Hybridity” at the Edwardsville Arts Center (2018). Upcoming solo shows include “No Further Expectations Beyond this Night” at The Art and Culture Center/Hollywood (2024) and “multitasking” at [NAME] Publications in Miami, FL (2024). Restrepo also teaches as an Adjunct Faculty member at Florida International University and Miami Dade College.

     TRAUMA BOND                      

     First off, Candy was not old enough to be a grandmother. She had just turned forty-eight and did yoga at the YMCA twice a week. Real grandmothers had to be at least sixty with white hair and glaucoma and wearing three pairs of glasses. Like her Grammy Barnes, once upon a time, doling out gardening advice and oatmeal with blackstrap molasses. That was an earlier era, before opioids and Suboxene. Before teenagers covered themselves with tattoos and got pregnant without knowing it and lost their parental rights by leaving their toddler wandering the neighborhood in diapers. Repeatedly.

     “It’s all my fault,” Candy said. “I must have done something wrong.” She and her neighbor, Sheila, were sitting on the back porch, drinking ‘sun’ tea. Candy brewed it in a big jar on summer weekends. Sometimes they added a touch of vodka.

     “No, you were great. I saw it all. The neighborhood crew loved it when you’d load them in your van and drive them through the carwash. Anymore, it’s the luck of the draw, having kids,” Sheila said. 

     “Your daughter seems to be doing okay,” Candy said.

     “I hope so,” Sheila said. “She only calls home once a month now.”

     The toddler’s name was Max. A puffball rascal who pulled the cat’s tail. Named for Mad Max, his absent mother’s favorite movie. After several 911 calls from neighbors in the trailer court, Child Protection Services got involved. They placed Max in foster care with Candy. The unrepentant daughter also lost her right to a name in Candy’s house. Candy tried to not even think her name.

     “It’s a shock, but eventually you’ll forgive her, just like when our girls got expelled together,” said Sheila, who had just lugged over a dusty Pack-N-Play crib from her attic. 

     “Remind me what they did,” Candy said.

     “Called in a bomb scare to avoid taking a final exam.”

     “I never forgave her for that. I just forgot,” Candy said.

     “This time, she’s inpatient and receiving a medical detox. She’ll get clean,” Sheila said, “and, honey, your little houseguest is a champ.”

     Sheila waved both hands at Max and scrunched a funny face, and the toddler stared back impassively. 

     “When his dad comes for the supervised visits, Max looks up at him like, hey, who’s the grown-up here?” Candy said.

     Max’s father, Gator, was a scrawny, wannabe rapper who freelanced as a plumber’s assistant. He rarely showed up on schedule at Candy’s house and when he did, played with Max as if he himself were a two-year old. Gator was so skinny that the local plumbers hired him to slide into narrow crawl spaces that nobody else could enter.

     “No worry of Gator ever trying to get custody,” Sheila said.

     “I kind of wish he would,” Candy said. “No, I don’t really mean that.”

     “Relax. I won’t tell CPS.”

     Caseworkers came and went with clipboards and cameras. They studied everything in Candy’s bungalow on Bridge Street. They told her to address her ant problem. Everything was under observation. Everything was being supervised and noted. And everything was getting more tenuous, as Candy second-guessed all her choices. How much screen time is healthy for a toddler? And, of course, the sugar thing. 

     To provide the required level of care for her grandson, Candy would either have to quit her job at the mall optician, or hire a nanny, or put him in a certified daycare. This was according to the red-bearded caseworker who came to inspect Max’s bedroom.

     “What if I took him to work with me?” Candy said, “They have child-care for the retail employees at the mall.”

     “We’d have to inspect those premises too,” the red beard said.

     Silence, while Candy rubbed her eyes with her fists.

     “Are you all right, ma’am?” the caseworker asked.

     “I’m remembering something from high school science class about the act of observation changing the thing observed,” Candy said.

     “You’re feeling… changed how?” the caseworker asked.

     “Way more paranoid,” Candy said and shrugged and pulled her glasses down to the tip of her nose. “They should sell insurance for my predicament. Parental Screw-up Insurance. God, I never expected this to happen to me.”

     “Don’t blame yourself. It happens a lot. I’ve got a twenty-five year old living in my basement, playing video games all night,” the caseworker said.

     Candy appreciated the sentiment. “My grandmother used to listen to a radio show, Queen for a Day, and when it got toward the end and the prizes were being dangled in front of the contestants, she’d say, ‘Just try and get it, sweetie. Just try and get it.’”

     “I’m not sure what that means,” the caseworker said.

     “Most everything in life is too good to be true,” Candy said.

     After her husband bolted when she was six months pregnant (life lesson: never fall in love with a carpet salesman), Candy went back to Central Tech to become an optician’s assistant. She had to pay the bills somehow and, what the heck, she’d always loved eyeglasses. In her will, Grammy Barnes bequeathed an entire collection to Candy. Horn rims, rhinestone cat-eyes, polarized aviators. Candy wore them for fun, for dress-up, and when she needed to feel serious. She wore the serious glasses a lot now. Would Grammy Barnes approve of her decisions about Max? 

     At work, Candy displayed a soft touch with her customers, literally and linguistically. A purchase of eyeglasses is an intimate experience. When gently placing the product on the customer’s head, Candy always added a slight stroke at the temples. And a warm word.

     “You look ready for the beach at St. Tropez.”

     “Is that in Florida?”

     “Somewhere around there.”

     “Do the bifocals make me seem fuddy-duddy? Maybe I should get the progressives.”

     “No, on the contrary. I was thinking the traditional bifocal line adds some gravitas.”

     Candy decided to put little Max in the daycare at the mall. No choice really. She couldn’t afford anything else and Social Security was years away. She was afraid that Max would get expelled for biting or throwing toys. He liked to throw stuff out of his crib. And he never spoke. Age two and a half and Max hadn’t uttered a single word to Candy or the bearded caseworker, whose name was ‘Bill’. 

     “Should I be worried about that?” Candy asked.

     “Let’s give it a while longer,” Bill said.

     “Would you like something to drink, a glass of sun tea?”

     “Yes, thank you, ma’am. I’m parched.”

      They sat out on the porch and shared a cold drink. It became a habit. Bill had come by the house several times now. Max crawled around and eyed him, turning slowly left and right, as if the toddler had the world under observation too, and felt speechless at the sorry state of affairs. Or rather, Max spoke out with his eyes, big blue discs, astonished and perplexed. Twice, Max reached up and yanked at Bill’s red beard. Ouch. Somehow he took it in stride.

     “I hung a photo of his mother on the wall beside the changing table,” Candy said, “but he doesn’t seem to recognize her.”

     Bill said, “I notice that you never use his mother’s name.”

     “I’m trying to forget her. It’s awful, but otherwise I just couldn’t cope.”

     Bill murmured something far down in his throat and thumped his chest.

     Candy added, “The truth is, I’m really mad at myself.”

     Bill nodded and said, “Been there, done that. Try hanging a photo of yourself with Max’s mother. And also one of his young dad.”

     “That’s a good idea, thanks,” she said, “How’s it going with the gamer in your basement?”

     “Obsessed with Grand Theft Auto and a webcam site that streams the daily existence of a guy crossing the Atlantic ocean in a barrel.”

     “Say what?” Candy asked.

     “You heard it right,” Bill said.

     “My Grammy Barnes used to complain that the world was passing her by. And I never really understood that until now.”

     “I’ve been feeling some compassion for the dinosaurs too,” Bill agreed.

     Bless his heart, little Max did okay in the daycare. He was content to sit in the corner and watch the other kids play, occasionally lobbing a stuffed animal at them. 

     “Somehow he knows this has to work out, or else we’re in big trouble,” Candy said to Bill, when he came to inspect the daycare. “He still isn’t talking, by the way.”

     Bill shrugged and said, “Nature gives us the first couple years of life to experience basic human connection, before language comes along and screws everything up.”

     “So… he’s enjoying it while he can,” Candy said.

     “Exactly, while he’s got someone who really cares for him,” Bill said.

    “Hey, you’re sweet,” Candy said. And Bill was sweet, sort of, in an affable lunkhead manner that hinted at scar tissue not far underneath and that Candy had been assiduously avoiding ever since her lunkhead husband abandoned her. In the minus column, Bill sported pathetic, drugstore readers. 

     He surprised her with a come-on. He turned to Max and said, “Kid, your grandma is hot.”

     Max blinked his blue eyes. Candy blushed and said, “Bill, I know you mean that as a compliment, but I’m not sure it’s really appropriate, you know, given the situation with your agency.”

     “Sorry, you’re absolutely right,” Bill said. “Please don’t tell my supervisor.”

     “Is he the one who called to tell me that my daughter has run away from the recovery center?”

     “Yeah, that’s one. I couldn’t bear to tell you myself. Have you heard anything from her?”

     Candy shook her head. “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the next thing I’ll hear is that she’s overdosed.”

     Her daughter had been missing for over a week. Nothing, no requests for money. Even Gator claimed to know nothing. It was scary. Candy lit votive candles on the dresser at night and grew clingy with Max, allowing him to sleep in her bed. She did not tell Bill about that. At the store, she experienced some unsettling, hallucinatory encounters with former selves. Weirdly personal. She’d be sitting with a young customer and suddenly see herself in the person’s face. A mirror reflection at an earlier age, all hyped up about a band, weekends in roadie mode, hitching a ride to the casino bar in the equipment van. It got worse when sparkly floaters started to appear at the edge of her vision. She offered unsolicited advice to her customers.

     “Can I make a recommendation?’ Candy said.

     “Sure, go ahead,” the customer said, thinking it was about eyeglasses.

     “Don’t ever gamble with the rent money.”

     “What do you mean?”

     Someone filed a complaint with her office manager, who knew the situation with Max and was tolerant enough to give Candy the rest of the week off. News of the overdose came two days later, after a night of hailstorms. Her daughter’s body was found in a dumpster where she had taken shelter. The news cracked Candy’s armor of anger, and she cried for hours, while Max stared quizzically at her from his crib. His blue eyes pleading, “What’s going on? I’m the one who’s supposed to cry, not you.” 

     Candy’s friends rallied and brought food. Sheila, in her frayed, flowery bathrobe, came over and kept the coffee on and helped write an obituary and organized a memorial at the funeral home. 

     “Do you want to include the story of our girls building the chicken coop in your backyard?” Sheila asked.

     “Yes, that’s a good one,” Candy said.

     “How about playing on the high school softball team?”

     “They won the sectional championship her junior year, before she dropped out,” Candy said.

     “Who should we list as survivors, do you want to mention her biological dad?” Sheila asked.

     “Her sperm donor, you mean. No, please, no mention of him,” Candy said, “I don’t want him to read the obit and show up at the funeral home.”

     The chances were slight, but it was hard not to stress about that ghost re-appearing. What if the sperm donor wanted to claim grandparent rights? Or get back together with Candy? Or even worse, what if Candy felt so overwhelmed at the prospect of raising Max alone that she would actually entertain the idea? Bad form. A violation of her pact with Sheila not to date handymen just to get the grass cut. 

     The gathering at the funeral parlor was sparse. Sheila and Gator and two people from Candy’s yoga class and a staff person from the recovery center. The officiant was a pastor who had known the deceased during her brief forays to the local church. Gator performed a memorial rap. And there was a mystery man at the back, in a trench coat and cheap sunglasses. It was Bill. The mystery being, why had he come?

     “I’m not here as a caseworker,” he said, grasping Candy’s hand in the receiving line. “I’m here as a friend. I’m here as another single parent with an only child. I’m here because I understand what you’re suffering.”

     Sheila elbowed Candy and whispered, “For chrissakes, invite him to the reception.”

     The reception being a box of Krispy Kremes and coffee in Candy’s kitchen. She also prepared a bowl of Grammy Barnes’ sweet-carrot salad, featuring mandarin oranges and tiny marshmallows. Gator goofed around with Max in the corner playpen. Max distracted them with a rolling happy-baby pose and silly-guy Gator copied it.  

     “What’s the latest on your son and the webcam barrel traveler in the ocean?” Candy asked.

     Bill said, “It’s taking him longer than expected. The currents shifted and the man is running out of food and the livefeed followers are taking up a collection for him.”

     Sheila said, “Webcams are a popular thing. We should set one up here. A ‘Raising Max’ webcam. I bet we could get a lot of followers.” 

     “People watching every day to see when Max speaks his first word.”

     “And shows off another happy-baby pose.” 

     Candy laughed. It sort of hurt to laugh, but in a good way.

    They chatted about devising a method for Max’s site to provide remote babysitting. What started as a light-hearted fantasy slowly shifted to a serious discussion. Perhaps advertising dollars could be invested in a college fund.

     “Whadya think, Max?” Candy said.

     “Do you want to grow up as a reality TV star?” Sheila asked.

     In the corner, Max blinked and grabbed for a pair of Grammy Barnes’ glasses that Candy had put in the playpen as a toy. He carefully rested the frames on his stubby nose and squinted at the big people, as if that could help bring them into focus.

     Candy went back to work the following week. Slowly, life on Bridge Street returned to some version of time-passes normal. It took a lot of deep breathing and floor twists. It took a lot for Candy to resist blaming herself. With her daughter’s death, Candy and Max were no longer on the caseload at Bill’s agency, so he had no official reason to visit. They texted occasionally. Bill sent links to grief support podcasts. With Gator’s consent, a lawyer took over the formal adoption process. 

     Candy felt lonely and lapsed into thoughts about cutting. A stress-relief method learned from her daughter. It was one of the earliest warning signs, back in junior high. Candy grieved for her misguided daughter and every time someone said, “she’s in a better place,” ouch, Candy wanted to break something. She forced herself to heed Sheila’s advice about not making any big decisions for at least six months after a major loss. 

     Candy enlisted Sheila to explain to Bill, “I’m afraid that includes not starting anything new with a guy, at least for now.”

     “Understood. It’s up to her,” Bill said. They were standing outside on the slushy sidewalk. “I wanted you to know that I quit my job, so there would be no gray area. I’m driving a school bus now.”

     “Guess I’d rather be safe than sorry,” Candy said, from up on the porch, which apparently was not what he wanted to hear. And not what she really wanted to say. “At least for six months,” she added.

     Sheila added, “I think she means that in a positive way.”

     “Right, I get it,” Bill said, ruefully.

     Candy didn’t see him for six months, but she didn’t forget about him either. Sheila did some online, background snooping on Bill, just to know if there were any red flags. Most everything checked out, no gaps in the resume, no priors. There was one puzzling discovery. The kid in the basement did not exist, or rather, yes, Bill did have a gamer son, but the son had died of a fentanyl overdose three years ago. For whatever reason, it seemed Bill still spoke about him in the present tense. Sheila thought this was a red flag. At first, Candy did too, but, gradually, she sort of understood how that could happen.

     Max settled down a bit and stopped yanking the cat’s tail. He occasionally pulled on a baseball cap that Bill had left at the house. The brim slipped down and covered his face and he pulled it up to pay peek-a-boo. In fact, his first spoken word was “peek.” He also frequently pointed to the photo of his late mother with Candy on the shelf by his crib, and one Saturday in mid-November, he spoke his second word, “shoe.” Gator showed up semi-regularly to babysit, while Candy went out grocery shopping and ran errands. 

     Toward the end of December, during a snowstorm, Bill appeared suddenly at the optician store, without any advance notice. It was just before closing time. He sat down on the stool in front of Candy’s counter. He brushed snow off his head and shoulders. She didn’t recognize him at first. He had shaved off his beard. So Max wouldn’t tug on it? For a moment, Candy felt a pang of irrational jealousy that Bill missed Max more than her. 

     Candy sucked in a deep breath and asked, “May I help you?”

     “It’s been six months,” Bill said.

     “Almost to the minute,” she said.

     “I need new glasses. My cheapo readers are terrible,” he said, “and they scratch too easily.”

     “I’m glad you can be the one to say it.”

     “I need a new look,” Bill said, and stared at himself in the oval mirrors.

     “Something… more Elton John?” 

     “I’ve heard that a person’s eyes can be a diagnostic window, you know, like medically,” Bill said.

     “What do you mean?”

     “For diseases and stuff.”

     “Can be, yes.”

     “Can you look into my eyes and diagnose what’s wrong with me?” he asked.

     Candy leaned over and peered into his left eye. She sighed and shifted her position to peer into his right eye.

     “Do you see anything?”

     “Absolutely, the problem is very clear.”

     “What is it?”

     “You can’t get me and Max out of your head.”

     Bill laughed and reached up and they hugged across the counter and knocked some demo gear onto the floor.

     “Let’s go rescue the kid from daycare,” Candy said.

     They cleaned up the stuff on the floor. Candy took Bill’s hand and led him back through the break room and down the narrow hallway to the daycare center. It was noisy, end-of-the-day noisy. They spotted Max in his corner. The toddler stood up, a bit wobbly, and did a quick double-take, but otherwise appeared unfazed. He threw a stuffed tiger at Bill. 

Ian Woollen has recent short fiction at Panorama, Millennial Pulp, OxMag, and forthcoming at Amarillo Bay.