The Sunflower Forest. Torey Hayden

long have they been gone?’

      ‘Since about one.’

      My father sighed. ‘She’s been inside all winter. She should have waited.’ Letting the curtain fall back into place, he went over and picked up the bag of groceries from the bed. ‘Well, I’ll give them until five. If they’re not back by then, I’ll take the car out and look for them.’

      There was no need to worry. At 4.30 the storm door slammed, and I heard the sound of Mama’s voice calling for my father. When I came downstairs, I found them embracing, involved in one of those chaste but terribly long, complete-with-droning-bees-sound-effects kisses that they got into. Dad never said anything to her about being gone without telling him. Instead, he told her that Mr Hughson from the garage had paid him double overtime for working Saturday afternoon and that he’d bought us steaks for supper.

      When it became obvious that I’d get stuck helping with the meal if I stayed downstairs, I returned to my room to study. Megan had gone thundering up the stairs past me when I’d first come down, so on my way back to my room, I stopped at her door. It was shut.

      ‘Can I come in, Megs?’ I asked and opened the door without waiting for an answer. ‘How was it? Did you and Mama find any sunflowers being planted?’

      Megan was crying. She was sitting on the edge of her bed and had her stuffed tiger cat shoved against her mouth to block the noise.

      ‘Whatever’s wrong with you?’ I asked in surprise.

      ‘Nothing,’ she said and furiously mopped her face. I came over and sat down on the bed beside her. That immediately caused her to throw the stuffed animal down and get up. She crossed to the window. Reaching for a rubber band on the window ledge, she lifted her hair up and put the band around it. I remained on the bed.

      ‘Megs?’

      Another prolonged effort to stop the tears. I waited.

      ‘Lesley, who’s Klaus?’ She turned to look at me.

      ‘Klaus who?’

      Tears flooded her eyes again. ‘That’s what I’m asking you, dummy.’

      We stared at one another in silence. She had snot running over her upper lip.

      ‘What are you talking about, Megan?’

      ‘Well, you know we went out? We were walking on this road by the creek. By those fields where you and me got the fireflies last summer, remember? Anyway, there was this little boy there. He was playing in the underbrush.’

      Megan paused. She came over to the bed and picked up the tiger cat again. Taking its two forelegs, one in each of her hands, she held it out in front of her and gazed at it. ‘All of a sudden,’ she said pensively to the cat, ‘Mama looks at this kid and she says to me in this really excited voice, “There’s Klaus!” You could just tell from the way she said it, she was super excited.’ Megan looked above the stuffed animal’s head to me. ‘I mean, really, really super excited, Les. She shouted, “Klaus, Klaus, come here!” And this little kid looks up and he sees her and of course, ’cause he hears this lady yelling at him, he gets this scared look and he takes off down into the underbrush. And Mama’s hollering “Klaus! Klaus!” after him.’

      ‘What did he look like? Did you know him?’

      The tears reappeared and Megan paused a moment to quell them. Pressing the tiger cat to her chest, she sat down on the bed beside me. ‘He was just some little kid. I don’t know who. He was just little. Maybe five or something. He was wearing overalls and one of those brown jackets that’s got the flannel lining inside. And he had this really white hair.’

      ‘What did Mama do then?’ I asked. ‘After he ran away?’

      ‘We were on the road. So she ran down the road a little way, and I ran after her. Then she turned to me and said, “Maybe he doesn’t understand German.” See, she had shouted at him in German. So then she shouts at this kid in English. Same thing. “Klaus, come back here.” But the little boy was on the other side of the fence by then and he was still running. She stopped when she got to the fence. But she kept yelling for him to come back.’

      I shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Megs. Really, I wouldn’t. It’s not worth getting so upset about. It’s probably just one of Mama’s funny things.’

      ‘But she kept saying to me, “He must not speak German. They must have raised him here.”’

      ‘Look, don’t worry about it. You know how Mama is sometimes.’

      ‘But who is Klaus?’

      ‘I don’t know, kiddo.’

      ‘Where would Mama know him from?’

      ‘Like I said, it’s probably nothing at all. Just a funny idea of hers. Maybe somebody she remembers from before. You know. From Germany or somewhere. I wouldn’t get all upset about it.’

      ‘You weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like.’

      ‘Just the same, I wouldn’t worry about it.’

      ‘But who is he?’

      ‘Megan, I said I don’t know. I don’t. I’ve never even heard of anyone around here named Klaus. So don’t cry about it anymore, OK? It’s probably nothing.’

      ‘You know what she said, though? She said to him, “Klaus, come back here. It’s Mama. Come back, it’s me, Mama.”’

      Megan remained upset. I was unable to talk her out of it, and she was unable to forget it. She stayed up in her room and told my father that she was sick in her stomach when he came up to see why she hadn’t come to supper. She put on her pyjamas and crawled under the covers and stayed there. I didn’t bother her. Nor did I tell Dad what had happened. If it was one of Mama’s imaginings, there was not much to be done about it, and I saw no point in upsetting him too. And I couldn’t fathom what else it could be.

      All through supper and into the evening, I watched Mama closely and wondered. That was a strange thing for her to do. Even by Mama’s standards, it was weird. I wondered what she could have been thinking of.

      If anything, my mother was more buoyant that evening than she had been in months. The wind had burned the skin along her cheekbones, giving her a ruddy, healthy look. She had removed the yarn tie, and her hair lay thick and pale over her shoulders, catching the glow of the kitchen light as she moved. She and my father joked around. While he was drying the dishes, he flicked her playfully with the dish towel, and she squealed like a schoolgirl. Later, they went upstairs, hand in hand, and left me to watch television by myself.

      

      Mama was pacing. I woke slowly to the sound, not quite realizing it wasn’t part of my dream until I was fully awake. I turned to look at the alarm clock. Four-fourteen. Putting the pillow over my head, I tried to shut out the sound.

      Mama had always had trouble sleeping. Her insomnia was periodic. Sometimes she’d go seven or eight months without difficulties, then she’d start waking up in the night and be unable to go back to sleep. She said it was her back. Her back would ache, and she couldn’t sleep because of the pain. Then she’d go to the doctor for a prescription, sometimes for her back, sometimes for the insomnia. Nothing worked for long. If she was in the midst of one of her wakeful periods, she woke up, pills or no pills.

      ‘Mama, what’s the matter?’ I stood at the bottom of the stairs. She was by the living-room window. In her long cotton nightgown, she looked like a ghost in the darkness. The only light came from the glowing end of her cigarette.

      When I spoke, she started and turned. I came farther into the room and bent down to switch on one of the table lamps. She squinted in the sudden brightness.

      ‘Can’t you sleep?’ I asked.

      She shook her head.

      ‘What’s wrong?’