Every Other Weekend

by Abigail Johnson

  She shrugged.

  I slowed my steps as we reached the entrance to the apartment. “Is this about what I said? Our future? ’Cause I was just talking, you know.”

  “I know. It was just...” She chewed on the inside of one cheek. “Do you really think we’ll have any of that?”

  My response was automatic. “I think we can have as much as we want.”

  Her features went a little slack as she looked at me. I could almost swear she was going to cry, and my heart twisted, but then she looked away and muttered something about needing to go lie down because she had a headache.

  “In your apartment?” Incredulity colored my voice. Jolene never voluntarily sought out her apartment. Her head would have to be literally splitting in two before I’d expect her to choose to go there. “We could go sit down somewhere, or—”

  “I’ll find you later if it goes away, okay?” She didn’t look back as she started up the stairs.

  * * *

  I didn’t have the same dread for my apartment that Jolene usually had for hers. We’d been doing this every-other-weekend thing for nearly half a year now. Dad didn’t hassle me too much about being with Jolene most of the time and behind my closed bedroom door the rest. Having to be here at all was far from ideal, but I’d figured out a way to interact with him as little as possible.

  It was working.

  And usually Dad was, too.

  When I closed the apartment door behind me, Dad and Jeremy looked up from the mountain of old metal light switch covers they were stripping on the coffee table. Frowning more over Jolene’s hasty departure than anything else, I gave Dad a one-word greeting and tried to slip off to my room.

  “Adam, hold up,” Dad said. “Why don’t you lend us a hand today?”

  Even though the question was rhetorical, I answered like it wasn’t. “What, like you want a list?”

  Jeremy’s eyebrows lifted. The disrespectful tone of my voice coupled with my insult-laden words was asking for trouble. I got to see Jolene so infrequently as it was. If I got myself grounded, the level of suckage would be unprecedented.

  But the volatile, hotheaded part of me had been spoiling for this fight since the conversation with Mom and her faulty explanation for why they lived apart. That and my frustration over Jolene’s cryptic behavior told my brain to shove it.

  So instead of lowering my head and mumbling an apology, I stared my father down. “We shouldn’t be here—you shouldn’t be here. And if Greg were here, he’d have said it to your face the second you started packing your bags.” I heard Jeremy’s intake of breath. “I’m just so sick of this.” I shook my head, my sudden burst of anger fizzling out as I listened to my own words. “How can you expect me to just sit on the couch and pretend that Mom isn’t at home getting ready to go visit Greg?” She went every Saturday at sunset without fail. “And you...” I slid my gaze to Jeremy. “Is this where you want to be right now? Do you even think about what it’s like for her at the cemetery without us, huh?”

  For once Jeremy lowered his head rather than shout back at me. Mom going to Greg’s grave alone was something that even he could agree was wrong. We used to visit Greg together as a family, but it had just been the three of us since Dad moved out. I know Dad went on his own, because we always found the sunflowers he left when Mom and Jeremy and I went, but thinking of her going to his grave by herself the way she’d been for months... I lost the strength to stand and sank into the nearest chair, my gaze unfocused on the floor. I didn’t have enough goodwill left with Dad after the way I’d just spoken to him to ask if he’d let me go with Mom for a few hours, but maybe Jeremy did. I’d swallow any amount of pride I had to make that happen. It wouldn’t be nearly enough, but it was something. I dragged in a breath.

  “Dad, would you—”

  “Sarah,” Dad said and my gaze shot to him to see the phone to his ear. “No, we’re fine. We just thought—I thought we’d visit Greg with you this afternoon. Would that be all right? You’re sure? Okay, we’ll leave right now. Should take us about forty-five minutes. Thanks, Sarah.” He stood up and, without looking at Jeremy or me, said, “Get your coats.”

  * * *

  Dad tried to start a few conversations while we drove, but I didn’t give him a lot to work with. And for once it wasn’t because I was trying to make a point. Jeremy at least recognized that, so after the first time he caught my eye in the rearview mirror, he didn’t give me crap about it.

  Greg had always been the family mediator. He could still do it without even having to be in the car.

  This was the first time that we were going to visit Greg via separate vehicles, as separate families. I wondered if anyone else felt as ashamed by that fact as I did, like we were letting him down. Not that it mattered or that Greg would even know, but I almost suggested we pick up Mom so that we could at least arrive together.

  Thoughts of my older brother swirled in my head like the snow parting around the car. I looked at each with the same sense of wonder. I hadn’t always been able to do that, think about Greg and not hurt down to the marrow of my bones. Talking about him with Jolene had helped, but I still felt the twinge of pain when a memory caught me unaware, like getting the air knocked out of me. I liked to keep those memories near me now that I’d discovered I could.

  On the days that we visited, it was harder to hold on to the happy memories. Not because of Greg himself, but because my family pooled our collective sorrow, and it overwhelmed us as we sank under not just our own sadness but each other’s, too.

  I noticed Dad’s shoulders tense before I saw the sign or felt the car turn into the parking lot. We kept silent as we piled out and hunkered deeper into our coats. Mom was already there. She withdrew a gloved hand from her pocket and held it up in greeting. We were too far away for me to see whose face she was staring at, but Dad’s gaze was locked on her.

  She kissed both Jeremy and me on our cheeks with lips cold enough to make me jump, then she took the hand Dad offered her, and we walked through the arched wrought iron gate of Montgomery Cemetery.

  Greg’s headstone was indistinguishable from those around it, but all of us picked out the well-worn path to it without hesitation. Mom was first to approach and bend down to remove twigs and leaves that stabbed through the freshly fallen snow. The bouquet of flowers resting against the headstone was barely withered, but Mom knelt and replaced them with the fresh ones she’d brought. After she removed one glove, her fingers drifted over the engraved letters.

  Dad moved to kneel next to her, and she leaned into him. As they spoke to Greg, murmurs reached Jeremy and me, but not the words themselves.

  Long minutes passed. Mom cried. At one point Dad took her hand in his and said something to her. She shook her head and tried to pull her hand away while Dad spoke again. I could tell he was asking her something, pleading with her by the look on his face, but she went still until he released her hand. When she finally turned back to Dad, she cupped his face with her hand but said nothing.

  Eventually, she looked over her shoulder to beckon Jeremy and me to join them.

  * * *

  Dad and I walked ahead as we left the cemetery, Mom, with her arm around Jeremy, following several paces behind. I kept casting looks back at them until Dad stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

  “She’s fine. Jeremy’s with her.”

  I wasn’t going to say anything. I’d determined not to for Greg’s sake, but the words came out before I could stop them. “What did you say to her?” Somehow I knew he hadn’t been asking to come back home.

  Dad didn’t answer me for several steps. “I love her” was what he finally said. “Despite what you think, I want our family to be together again, but it can’t be like it was before. We have to let go, and your mom isn’t ready to do that yet.”

  No, she wasn’t. She clung to Greg more tightly every day.

  Letting go
didn’t mean forgetting. Angry as I was at Dad, I couldn’t pretend he was saying that. He meant the rest. She had to stop living as though Greg would come home again at any moment. She spoke about him like he was gone, but that wasn’t how she lived, and because of that, none us had been able to fully let go either.

  That didn’t mean I agreed with Dad moving out. If anything, I thought that had made her cling even tighter than before. It certainly hadn’t helped her let go.

  We needed to be together to do that.

  “We should all be with her tonight,” I said. “All of us.”

  Instead of tightening his jaw or increasing his pace like I expected, he said, “I know.”

  Those words revealed more about his leaving than anything he’d said since the night Mom had helped him pack.

  A biting wind stole the breath I needed to respond, and I’d slowed enough by then that Mom and Jeremy were walking abreast with us. None of it made sense to me. Not the way Mom took Dad’s hand again, or the way he tilted his head to rest on hers when more tears spilled onto her cheeks. How could he not see that she needed him so that they could let go together?

  When we reached Mom’s car, Dad confounded me yet again when he opened the back door and told Jeremy and me to go home with her, even though it was his weekend.

  Jolene

  Stupid Adam.

  He texted last night to explain that he wasn’t coming back to the apartment that weekend. He felt bad about ditching me, which was sweet and I got why he did it, but Sunday still sucked for me. Instead of hanging out with him and forgetting that anything else existed, I sat in my room hiding from Shelly and stewed about winter formal.

  I’d agreed to go but I couldn’t just be excited about seeing Adam in a suit or what it would feel like to have his arms wrapped around me—my toes curled a little as I imagined resting my cheek against his chest and hearing his too-fast heartbeat—no, I had to deal with the problems first.

  Of course it wasn’t as easy as the dance not falling on a Dad weekend. For one, I needed a dress. I’d never really gone for pretty around Adam, but I could do it in theory. I had all the parts, and my hair would compensate for the less impressive ones. I’d wear it down. He’d like that. I’d like that he’d like that.

  But I’d need help with the logistics, and that meant a dress. Cherry was out of the question. I’d kept my word and covered for her with her parents so that she could go out with Meneik, but she’d gotten caught trying to sneak back into her house at 3:00 a.m. Then she got caught the next night trying to sneak Meneik into her bedroom. She was massively grounded. Her parents took her phone and wouldn’t even let her hang out in the basement when I was working with Gabe and the band on the music video.

  I probably could have asked one of the other girls from the soccer team, but I’d never been awesome at making friends and I wasn’t super close with anyone besides Cherry.

  So that meant Mom. When Shelly dropped me off that evening after a blissfully silent car ride and I found Mom getting ready to go out with Tom, I knew I wasn’t going to get a better chance.

  She was dragging a black pencil along the inside of her upper eyelid when I stepped into her bathroom. One finger lifting up her eyelid made her eyeball look like it could pop out of the socket at any moment. She glanced at me in the mirror and kept lining.

  “I didn’t hear you get home.”

  “I was quiet.” I stared, hypnotized and slightly grossed out by her eyeball.

  Mom straightened. “Come here.”

  I didn’t want to, but I pried my hands free from the doorframe and moved to the place she gestured in front of her.

  “Tilt your head and don’t blink.”

  “I don’t really—” But she was already lifting my eyelid and bringing the pencil to my exposed eyeball. It tickled more than anything when she ran the pencil back and forth. I blinked furiously as she turned me by the shoulders to face the mirror.

  “See how much thicker your eyelashes look?”

  I looked but I didn’t really see a difference and my eye still felt ticklish. “Wow.” I tried to move away, but her hands tightened on my shoulders.

  “I could teach you. Maybe for special occasions.” She brushed the side of one finger down my check. “You wouldn’t need much.”

  My gaze shifted from my reflection to hers. “Like a school dance?”

  Still stroking my cheek, she said, “I was thinking dinner tonight. I could do your hair and you could smile and tell Tom that you’re going to help me, that you want me to be happy, hmm? Doesn’t that sound nice?”

  I lifted my hand to move hers slowly away from my face, but she only lowered it to rest on my shoulder along with the other. “Mom. Tom isn’t—he’s not—” But then I stopped. Because it didn’t matter. I’d told Tom that there was no money coming Mom’s way, and he’d been pulling away ever since. I saw it; Mom saw it. The truth was, I couldn’t help even if I thought more money would make her happy. Dad wasn’t stupid enough to leave anything around the apartment that could be used against him. I’d told her that so many times, and she never heard me. She never heard anything. And soon, Tom would be gone for good and all her playacting with me would be over.

  So I sucked in a deep breath and took my shot. “I want to go to a dance. With a boy. And I need a dress.”

  As soon as I’d spoken, the dark side flooded thick into the bathroom. I wouldn’t have been the least surprised to hear Darth Vader’s voice come out of Mom. Her hands dropped from my shoulders.

  * * *

  Shelly was painting her toenails when the Uber dropped me off at Dad’s apartment thirty minutes later. She looked up with surprise when I let myself in. “Jolene. Hi. Did you forget something?”

  “Is my dad coming here tonight?”

  “Oh, um.” Shelly started fiddling with the cap of her nail polish. “He has this—”

  “He does it to you, too? Whatever, I don’t care.” I smoothed my face. “I need to ask him something.”

  A wrinkle appeared between her perfectly groomed brows. “Okayyy.”

  I gritted my teeth. She was gonna make me say it. “Can you give him a message? He doesn’t take my calls anymore.”

  I had to think about Adam and his flushing cheeks and the chance to see him in a suit, and not the perfect O Shelly’s mouth made when I admitted that my own father wouldn’t answer my calls. Not that I called him anymore.

  “That can’t be right. I’m sure he would if he knew you—”

  “Can you not be the complete cliché right now? Come on, Shelly. You went to college. I know you had a job before my dad whisked you away to this paradise. He knows. Now, will you give him a message or not?”

  Shelly twisted her nail polish bottle shut. The wrinkle didn’t disappear from her forehead. “What’s the message?”

  “There’s a school dance that I want to go to. With Adam from next door. It’s not one of Dad’s weekends—I know how much he treasures those—but I need a dress. My mom—” I tried really hard to block out my memory of the way she’d screamed at me, the accusations she’d made and finally the way she’d shoved me out of the house with hissed orders to ask Dad for the money I wanted. “She made it clear that I need to ask my dad cover it.” My face was burning. I would have rather licked the scuzzy carpet in the hallway than ask Shelly for help, but at least it was done. I hadn’t looked away the entire time, though she had.

  “I’ll call him right now.” And before I could stop her, she was dialing. Right in front of me.

  I backed up a few steps until I couldn’t hear the ringback through her phone. Until I was sure I wouldn’t be able to hear him either.

  “It’ll be real quick,” she said after he presumably answered. “It’s about Jolene.”

  My mind was an evil thing, and it all too easily invented responses for Dad.

  You deal with h
er. That’s why you’re there.

  “There’s no problem. It’s good actually.”

  What is it?

  Shelly glanced at me. “She needs a dress for a school dance.”

  Her mother can take care of that.

  “Apparently she can’t.”

  There was a rather extended pause and I imagined several unflattering but not untrue things were said about my mother. Possibly a few that weren’t true, too.

  “Well, with the dress and shoes and everything...” Shelly rattled off an amount that sounded extreme until she added in a low voice, “That’s less than half what we spent on dinner the other night. I know you bought her a laptop for Christmas, but...”

  I stopped listening when Shelly started arguing with him, because even my brain decided it wasn’t a good thing to imagine Dad’s objections. And that was what they were.

  I left the apartment without a word. If I’d been smarter, I would have told both my parents that the other wanted to buy me a dress. Then I could have just sat back while one threw money at me to spite the other. But I wasn’t smart. I was something else, and I didn’t care to spend another second thinking about what that was.

  * * *

  I took another Uber to the movie theater and watched something I’d already seen until it was late enough that I thought Mom would be asleep or passed out, assuming her date with Tom had ended as early as all the others lately.

  Someone leaped out at me as I walked up my driveway. I realized it was Shelly within half a second, but that was enough time for all my internal organs to try to evacuate my body. “You’re just determined to star in all the scariest moments of my life, aren’t you?”

  “I was five minutes from calling the police, Jolene. Five minutes.” Shelly held up her open hand, then crossed her arms. “I didn’t know where you went or if something had happened to you. I couldn’t call your mom. What was I supposed to do?”