Puddles and Pieces
The rain has finally let up, and Remus has ventured out of his flat with his four-year-old for the first time of the day. Teddy’s wearing bright red wellies and a yellow rain coat, looking very British and very young, though he’s always looked young; he’s been small and skinny all of his life, born on time at six pounds, gaining weight slow, slow, slowly.
It’s not a busy street, so Remus lets Teddy run about, jumping in puddles, making a manual splash sound that varies every time he does so. Chhhh! Spouchhhhhh! Splash! Pshpshpshps! Remus walks behind him, keeping a close eye, smiling, heart beating so hard it’ll fall out of his body into a puddle and Swikchkch!
“Daddy, watch this!” Teddy shouts, running up to a puddle. He slows just before he gets there to wind up for his jump, then jumps and lands with a loud, “SLAKCH!”
“Wow, good job, Sheyfele!” Remus gives him a round of applause. “Big jump!”
“Daddy, jump!” Teddy beckons Remus to the puddle he just jumped in. The sun is poking through the clouds in patches, and it falls right on Teddy’s hooded head, on his brown eyes as he looks up and smiles his tiny-toothed grin.
“You want me to jump?” Remus says, catching up. Twenty-nine and his kid is already outrunning him. “Are you sure?”
Teddy nods eagerly, smiling his tiny-toothed smile, giggling.
Remus takes off in a run, feet unsteady in his beat up trainers, and jumps in the puddle, slamming into the ground. It’s really only a tiny splash, but Teddy is standing so close that he gets pelted with the disgusting puddle water. It goes on his wellies and his yellow rain jacket, and Remus is kind of scared because this type of thing can go either way with a kid his age, especially one like Teddy, but then he breaks out in bright laughter, and Remus scoops him up to give him a little kiss on his cheek.
“You got me all wet!” Teddy says, laughing uncontrollably. Remus has him in a rugby-hold, one armed. “Wet! Wet! Wet!”
Remus swings him up, onto his hip, and Teddy puts his grubby little hands all over Remus’ face, the hands that were just touching the bottoms of puddles and the insides of his shoes.
“Ew, gross,” Remus says, swinging Teddy back down into a rugby-hold. “Let’s go see Mummy.”
“Mummy!” Teddy says. “Mummy!”
“Almost there, Sheyfele.”
Teddy gets squirmy, so Remus puts him down, but makes him hold his hand as they get closer to the busy street. It’s a Sunday in fucking Chester, so there’s not much even going on, shops closed and residents tucked in their homes for Sunday dinner, but Remus has been on his best behavior since earning weekends with Teddy, so he’s very well going to hold his son’s hand. It’s a mix of trying to be a good parent and not knowing how long it’ll last.
The sun hides itself once again, but the skies don’t open, holding off for at least a while. The Tudor-style buildings are covered in water, the centers of the streets are running downstream, the trees are dripping.
“What do we do before we cross the street?” Remus prompts at a crosswalk.
“Look bolf ways,” Teddy replies. He dramatically turns his head right, then left, then they cross.
Halfway through, the bus station comes into view. At it, under the canopy, stands Teddy’s mother. She has brown hair and wears a vibrantly pattern dress that hangs down to her feet. It’s different from the purple hair and leather that Remus used to associate her with, this bombshell of a woman, but he supposes they’ve both ditched that rockstar look.
Teddy tries to take off, but Remus keeps his hand held tight until they’re across.
“Mummy!” He cries, releasing Remus’ hand and running to his mother.
Dora scoops him up in her arms and swings him around. “There’s my sweet boy! I missed you, love.”
He smacks a big kiss onto her lips, and she hugs him tight.
Over Teddy’s shoulder, she makes eye contact with Remus, only slightly sweet, but it barely lasts a moment. She kisses Teddy’s cheek. “Were you good for Daddy?”
He nods earnestly. “We ate hamburgers and he playded his guitar for me.”
“Fun!” Dora’s eyes narrow. She pulls back and looks at her son, pushing his hood off his head and brushing her fingers through his hair. “Remus, 6pm next Friday?”
“That works for me,” he says, feeling as patronized as a child. “Meet here?”
“Yes.” She won’t take her eyes off Teddy. Won’t look at Remus. “Say goodbye to Daddy, Ted.”
“Bye bye, Daddy!” Teddy waves.
Remus waves. When it’s the inverse, when Dora is leaving, there’s tears and misunderstandings and tantrums, but when Remus leaves, it’s like a playmate is going home for supper. He is a blip in Teddy’s life. He is the weekends.
“See you soon, Sheyfele.”
And then they’re gone, and Remus is walking home. It’s poetic how it starts to rain, it really is. He doesn’t have a hood, he didn’t think he’d need it. The rain is light but it gets in his hair and drenches him because he’s walking slow.
He stops at a crosswalk that is busy for a Sunday and notices of a flyer pasted to the big metal pole. The big, bold lettering catches his eye, as does the shittily drawn guitar.
BASSIST WANTED, it reads.
Remus rips it down just as the light turns green.
~
It’s Sunday evenings that suck the most. He’s alone once again. He’s living in the reminder that he Fucked Up and the reminder isn’t even a meter tall and struggles to formulate sentences that aren’t riddled with grammatical errors and a breathy stutter. The reminder is the best thing that has happened to him. Point blank. Period.
Then, the reminder leaves, and something sinister lingers. An empty flat. Guitars on the walls. Albums in the corner. His third phone in a month because his old band keeps managing to find his phone number and he doesn’t know how.
He makes himself dinner. That’s what the people at his recovering addicts group tell him to do. Get in a routine. Keep yourself busy. When you start itching, when you start thinking, do something positive.
It’s ramen with an egg cracked on top; it’s barely a meal. He turns on the TV and drinks his diet soda and slurps up his ramen and imagines his boy all the way across down in his mummy’s bed. He wonders if Teddy thinks of him when he’s not there. He wonders if he tells his friends about his Daddy the way he tells his Daddy about Mummy.
Remus was barely there when Teddy was born. He wasn’t there when Teddy crawled. He wasn’t there for when he took his first steps. He wasn’t there for most things.
He was getting high, he was on stage, he was holed up in hotel rooms with whoever he wanted. He forgot about his son.
And he’s paying for that.
~
“Sometimes, I do wish that it was easier,” Lacey says. She’s a short blonde girl, young, young enough to get her shit together and still have a life ahead of her. It feels cruel, her wishing for it to be easier when she’s barely lost anything. “It’s always there, you know? Under my skin. Like… like pins and needles. I don’t know.”
“I know how you feel, darling,” Mrs. Percy says. She’s been here forever, leading the group even more than the specified ‘leader’. Over fifty, struggling with addiction since her twins were born when she was in her twenties. Pills, pills, pills. “It’s not easy, but it’s good. It’s so good.”
Remus keeps himself from rolling his eyes. His tailbone hurts on the metal chair, legs stretched out over the hardwood floors of the ancient church basement. He’s fasting today so his temper is riding high. It smells like dust and mold and faintly of weed, and he knows that everyone here can smell it too, but they’re dutifully ignoring it. Recovering addicts, recovering everything that goes hand in hand with that.
He makes eye contact with Sirius Black, the only other young guy in the group. Sirius actually rolls his eyes, and Remus snorts. He passes it off as a cough before anyone can give him the side-eye. Subtly, he scratches his jaw with his middle finger, hoping that Sirius is still watching.
Neither of them talk very much. Remus is there because it’s court-mandated to regain custody of his son, Sirius is there for an unspecified reason. Whatever the reason is, he doesn’t seem to be into the usual soppy shit that goes on in the group. He’s been there since before Remus was.
Tattooed, long hair, leather jacket, he is the exact type to get addicted. He’s got the weirdest accent. It’s not posh; it’s too fucked for that. It’s not made of the typical middle-class mumbling either. It’s something in between. Something imperfect. Something that grates and sings at the same time. Made of someone born to Tories who rejects that shit.
“Here’s a challenge for the next week,” Mrs. Percy says. “Every time you feel yourself getting negative, try to replace that thought with a positive one. I’m a big fan of ‘at least’ statements, and I recommend trying that if you get stuck.”
Remus hums with everyone else. He’ll try it. He will. His entire life feels like an ‘at least’ statement at this point.
The meeting is adjourned, and there’s a general clanging of chairs and chatter as everyone gets ready to leave. Remus pulls on his brown leather jacket and zips it up. He’s usually in and out of the meetings, not wanting to stop and chat. From his first day in the group, it was evident that everyone knew who he was. He was all over the tabloids, the news, especially in his little hometown of Chester. Overall, his wish is respected.
Sirius comes over to him, which is rare. They’re not the talking type. Their main form of communication is making eye contact across the room when someone says something fucked.
“Happy Purim,” he says.
Remus’ eyebrows raise in shock. “Excuse me?”
“You’re Jewish, aren’t you?”
Remus’ hand instinctively goes to where his Star of David necklace rests under his coat. “Yeah, I am. Are you?”
“No, but one of my mates is,” he says. “She told me that’s what I’m supposed to say.”
“It is. Thanks.”
“‘Course.” Sirius slaps Remus on the arm. “See you around, yeah? Have a good holiday.”
“Yeah, uh…”
Sirius has turned around, walking into the light, climbing up the stairs that lead down to the church basement. His jeans are so tight that they’ve gotta be women’s. He is not Jewish, yet he managed to know a holiday that isn’t Hanukkah.
It’s a weird feeling, to be known.
~
Purim of 1979 occurs on a Tuesday. Remus drives to his parents’ house in the countryside all alone. In the backseat of his car, there is an empty car seat. He does not get his son during the week, even if it is Purim.
So, he shows up alone. Most of his family is there: no siblings or nieces or nephews, but cousins and aunts and uncles and more children than there has ever been, all dressed up in little costumes.
“Hi, Mum,” Remus says, all too quiet for the joyous occasion. It’s his first time being home for Purim since he was a teenager. He doesn’t know how this works anymore.
“Hi, love,” she says, pulling him into her arms. Their relationship has been delicate, broken glass, a dried flower. It’s always been like that. A baby’s ashes on the mantle, a stillborn son that Remus will never be. ”Chag Purim Sameach.”
Careful. Careful. Careful.
“Chag Purim Sameach,” Remus replies. “Am I late?”
“Oh, not at all!” His mother ushers him in the house cheerily. She’s graying, but it’s only visible in her roots, hair dyed its usual blonde that makes her look younger than she really is. “A few of us went to services this morning in town. No Teddy tonight?”
“No.” Remus puts his coat on the specified ‘coat sofa’ and inhales deeply. It’s not a childhood scent; his mum bought this home recently, but it’s something warm nonetheless. “Dora didn’t want to mess with the court dates. I’ll have him next year, I’m sure, though.”
“Of course.” She turns around just before they enter the room that holds their extended family. A smile pulls at the corners of her face, causing her eyes to wrinkle and nose to scrunch. “I’ve made up a little something for Teddy anyway, and you can give it to him this weekend, yes?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “Maybe you can even come visit and give it to him yourself.”
“I’d love that.” She reaches up and touches his face, so much shorter than she used to be, so much smaller.
Remus nods, sucks in a deep breath, then ducks into the next room to face the wolves. The kids don’t know him. They regard him as someone new and scary. His aunts and uncles and cousins remember him as a teenager and the man as portrayed through media.
He is no longer Remus Lupin, bassist of Wolf. He is just Remus Lupin, and he’s trying to figure out who that is.
He greets his family members, is introduced to the children, is given updates. Within the first five minutes, he is sick of being asked about his son, he is sick of being asked if he wants a glass of wine. Teddy is with his mum on weekdays. No, I don’t drink anymore.
His mother is in perfect condition. There have been more ashes added to the mantle; his father, a few years ago. Remus didn’t attend the funeral, wasn’t at the Shiva. He pumped himself full of drugs, not because he was sad but because he wasn’t.
Sometimes he forgets that his father isn’t here anymore. Sometimes he forgets he ever was.
He finds himself in the powder room, pulling at his hair with his forehead pressed to the cold mirror. It’s awfully reminiscent of last year, near the end of it all, coming down, banging his head against the wall and laughing while he bled, bled, bled down his forehead and nose and into his mouth.
The lights are bright. The muffled laughter is cheerful. The room reeks of wine so badly that Remus can hardly choke down the appetizers that are being passed around. He removes his forehead from the mirror and feels like crying.
“Shit,” he whispers. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
There’s a knock on the door, and Remus closes his eyes. Turns on the tap. Says, “Just a second!”
Turns the tap off. Pinches himself in the arm to feel something that isn’t only in his head. Opens the door, and there’s his mum. Her eyes are big and brown, the same as Remus’, the same as Teddy’s.
“Are you feeling okay?” she says in Yiddish. “You look pale.”
“I’m fine, Mum,” he replies in English. It’s been so long since he spoke Yiddish, so long since he cared enough to try. All he can do is call his son ‘Sheyfele’ and hope that it’s enough, but it’s not. It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.
“I told them to stop asking you about Teddy.” She switches back to English. “And to stop offering you wine.”
“Thanks.” His hands are shaking. He puts them in his pockets. “I, um, it’s just kind of hard.”
“That’s okay.” She cups his face in her hands and strokes his cheek. “You take your time, yeah?”
Remus nods. Sniffs.
His mum lets go of his face with a pat, then goes back to her party. Remus chugs a glass of water before reentering the living room. He sits by one of his cousins and pretends to listen to the conversation.
He watches his mother stare at the photograph of her stillborn son.
~
Under the table, there are children, snickering and eating cakes, the older ones drinking leftover wine and whiskey. At the table, are the adults, drinking their new glasses of wine and smoking cigarettes. Outside, on the stoop, are the in-betweens.
Remus smokes a cigarette, the one habit he’ll never kick: the habit that’ll kill him. He’s with the cousins he was closer with as a child and their husbands, the only ones who came to see his shows. Young kids inside, across town, they’re the leftovers.
“What’s going on with the band, Remus?” Alice asks, not unkindly, exhaling smoke. It’s her first cigarette in months. Bad decisions, they’re all that Remus is good for.
“I dunno.” He flicks cigarette ash onto the ground. “I don’t talk to them anymore.”
“Are you at least still playing?” Jim says. “It’s really a shame, you’re so talented.”
Remus takes a drag. One of the streetlights is flickering, orange-ish yellow. It reminds him of the color of Teddy’s raincoat, of the there-and-not aspect of him. “I play.”
“Good, I’m glad,” Jim says.
The moon’s out tonight. It illuminates the car windows and the dew on the grass-blades. It’s taunting. It’s the very same moon that watched Remus dig himself all the way to bedrock, and it’s still shining.
Remus smokes the last of his cigarette and puts it out on the side of the stairs. “I’m gonna get home before it gets too late.”
He stands up to turn back into the house, grab his keys and his coat, try to find his dignity somewhere swept under the carpet, when his mother grabs him by the wrist and says, “Hey, being a stranger does you no good.”
“Right.” Remus gives a nod. “Bye, all.”
~
At home, in front of his dingy townhouse, dingy not in that he can’t afford it, dingy in that nothing in this town is new, there is a flyer for a band on a streetlight. The very same badly drawn guitar, the same local phone number. BASSIST WANTED.
It’s a joke, putting this in front of his home. He rips it down and contemplates punching the pole. Knows that it would do him no good.
He sleeps in his empty bed.
~
It’s once again Friday night. Remus has started to think that, one of these days, Fridays won’t come anymore. He’ll be waiting on a Thursday for the rest of his life.
But Friday does come, and it’s joined by a tantrum and tears that don’t calm for nearly an hour, and Remus is exhausted and Done but he feels like a man again because he finally has his son in his arms.
They have a makeshift Purim. They eat Remus’ attempt at Hamantaschen and filled doughnuts from the store and Teddy does his best to listen to Remus’ short retelling of the book of Esther. They’re more culturally Jewish than religiously, but Teddy will know his culture, he will celebrate his holidays.
And Teddy starts asking for the guitar when he gets sleepy, as he usually does, so Remus takes Teddy to the music room, which is really just the guitar room, and sets him on his lap. He plays Here Comes the Sun and Cosmic Dancer. Teddy puts his fingers right on Remus’ throat because he likes to feel the rumbling and drifts off to sleep, hand falling down his chest and resting on the body of the acoustic guitar.
It’s Remus’ oldest guitar, the only one he plays around Teddy. From when he was thirteen, begging his Mum for a guitar, not knowing what music would do to him. He wanted to be Mark Bolan. Wanted to be Robert Plant. It’s a shitty guitar, but it’s been fixed up throughout the years. New strings, better tuning, a new bridge, a better player behind it.
“Up we go,” Remus whispers, carefully moving the guitar to the side, lifting Teddy up, sleepy boy. He’s so small, barely a wisp of a human. It’s incredible how something this small can take up so much space in Remus’ heart.
Teddy is laying in his twin bed, in his dinosaur sheets, sleeping. Remus is standing in the dark hallway, in the doorway, and he is watching. This piece of him, this limb of his limbs, this boy who saved him.
He closes the door softly.
~
On Saturday, his mum comes into Chester for the day to shower Teddy with gifts. He’s unsure around her, still learning who she is, what she means to him, but he’s finally begun to call her Bubbeh. The language is harsh on his tongue, but he’ll learn, Remus will make sure of it.
They have another little Purim that is held between Remus’ flat and a restaurant down the street. Teddy latches onto Remus, shy, and he puts his whole effort into proving family, into showing his son that his Bubbeh is just as family as his Nan and Grandad.
“Now,” his mother says, opening the door to her car to get ready to go home. “Remus. You’ve everything you need?”
“Yes, Mum.” he rolls his eyes, feeling quite patronized for someone who’s been living on their own for over a decade. “You’ll get home safe?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll be a good driver yet.” She blows a kiss to Teddy, then kneels down in front of Teddy. “Now, sweet boy. You be a good boy for your Daddy.”
He nods, holding onto the leg of Remus’ trousers.
“Thank you for letting me come see you today.”
Remus gives him a nudge, and Teddy looks up at him with big brown eyes. Remus whispers, “What do you say, Sheyfele?”
Teddy puckers his lips. He looks back at his Bubbeh and says, impossibly small, “Thank you for the gifts.”
“You’re very welcome, sweet boy.” She gives him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”
“‘Bye, Mum,” Remus says, kissing her on the cheek, still holding on tightly to Teddy. It's the end of Saturday night; they don’t have much time left. Remus is contemplating keeping him up late just so they can spend more time together, but he won’t, he swears it to himself.
Then his mum is driving off, and Remus picks up Teddy, once again just the two of them.
“Sleepy, kid?” Remus asks, wiping leftover food off one of Teddy’s chubby cheeks.
He shakes his head, but it’s a tell, the way his eyes droop, the way he says nothing.
“How about I put on a show, yeah?”
Teddy nods at this.
“Alright.”
Remus walks closer to his building, catches sight of that dumb poster on yet another street lamp. His first thought is that these people must be really fucking desperate if they’re advertising this much. His second thought is that it might be a sign. It just might be.
He rips the poster off the pole and brings it inside with him.
~
It’s a stupid idea, it really is. But stupidity typically guides Remus in his life, leading him to sit at the kitchen table after nine pm, phone and poster in front of him. His hands are crossed in some type of prayer. His son is asleep in his bedroom. He is supposed to be rebuilding his life, and here he is, possibly tearing it down again.
One phone call. What pain can one phone call cause?
“Fuck it,” he whispers, and dials the number.
It rings once, twice, three times. If it sounds like some dumb kids, he’ll hang up. He’s twenty-eight, he’s a man with a son. He’s too old for this stuff. It’s too…
“Hello. James Potter speaking.”
At the end of the day, he’s not a rockstar anymore.
“Hi,” Remus says, glancing down the hallway. “I saw your ad for a bassist?”