Wish You Were Here

by Barbara Shoup

“Well, we did. It was me, nagging. It doesn’t matter over what. Just the usual: me wanting him to be what I wanted.” She blinks back tears. “When Tom called, I thought oh, my God, he was upset. He wasn’t—”

  “The truss slipped,” I say.

  “I know, I know. But if he hadn’t been distracted, he might’ve felt it sooner. He might’ve caught himself.”

  “Kim,” I say, “you ought to know Dad well enough by now to know that whatever happened between the two of you that evening was probably the last thing on his mind.”

  She smiles for the first time. “Maybe,” she says. “Yeah. It’s part of what I’m hung up about, you know? I want a guy to think about me all the time. I used to believe Oz could do that if he wanted to.”

  “Forget it,” I say. “When Dad’s working, he’s in another world.”

  “His own. No girls allowed. Well, I’ve been thinking,” she says. “That day I walked away from the hospital, I thought I’d never go back. I thought I never wanted to see Oz again. I went back to the house. I was going to take all my things and just go somewhere, anywhere. But I was just too tired; I couldn’t face it that night. I said to myself, tomorrow I’m getting out of here. Then when tomorrow came, I said ‘tomorrow’ again. Now a week’s passed, and what I know is I can’t leave. Whether I like it or not, Jackson—whether anybody likes it—I love Oz, and I guess I’m going to have to figure out how I can live with him. Why would I want him to change, anyway? It was him I fell in love with, not some idea of what I thought he ought to be. Jackson, what do you think?”

  What I think is that there’s a place in the world for a new kind of advice column, highly specialized—a kid who knows the ins and outs of parents in love. You’d think up some yuppie pen name—Tucker, say. Or maybe something biblical, reassuring. You’d get a word processor, save certain all-purpose paragraphs on disks, handy and available for when the parents and their various significant others wrote in and asked you the same dumb questions again and again.

  “I think you should go see him,” I tell Kim.

  “You’re right, Jackson,” she says. “I knew I could count on you.”

  Exactly what my mom’s always saying to me. And Dad. And Ted. You guys are in deep shit, I think—all of you, if it’s me you’re counting on. But Kim’s smiling again, really smiling this time, and I don’t have the heart to remind her that I’m seventeen, that I’m still in high school, which in a normal world would allow me to be the one counting on everybody else.

  thirty–one

  Saturday is like a gift. For the last week or so, I’ve been getting up at five on school days to work out. I go through my routine with the weights half asleep, shower, dress, grab breakfast at the Hardee’s drive-through on my way to school. There, I march in lockstep through my classes, taking advantage of every spare moment to keep up with my homework. I go home and eat whatever Mom’s left in the refrigerator for me before I leave for the hospital to see Dad.

  Today I sleep till ten. Mom fixes me waffles and bacon for breakfast, then sits across from me at the table, drinking her coffee while I eat. The little TV from our old house is on the kitchen counter, tuned to our cartoons.

  “I noticed you had a postcard from Brady,” she says, trying to be casual. Damn, I think. I usually get to the mail first, but I’d gone straight to the hospital yesterday. I got home and found the postcard in a clutter of bills on the hall table. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed it.

  At least she didn’t say “another postcard,” which tells me she probably doesn’t really realize this is the second time I’ve heard from him. The day she handed me the first postcard, we were both so distracted and upset that I guess she didn’t notice who it was from.

  “I didn’t read it,” she assures me. “I saw it was from somewhere out West, though. The picture on front. The Indian. Is he all right?” she asks. “Brady?”

  “Beats me,” I say. “He’s alive. It’s his lousy handwriting on the postcard, that’s for sure. No one else writes that bad. And he’s his usual obnoxious self. He says he met some old couple in a McDonald’s and told them he was a graduate student researching Native Americans. Convinced them the McDonald’s sat on an ancient tribal crossroads, whatever that means. Of course, he was always reading about Indians, talking about how they’d been screwed over, you know. So he was probably pretty believable.”

  Mom smiles. “Layla will be relieved,” she says. “I know she’s been sick with worry.”

  Of course, she assumes I’m going to tell Layla about the postcard. Any decent person would. But I didn’t tell her about the first one and I don’t plan to tell her about this one, either. Maybe she’s heard from him herself; maybe she hasn’t. But I can’t afford to get sucked into Brady Burton’s drama right now. I’m putting him on hold.

  “Any more waffles?” I ask, knowing Mom will forget about Layla and go get them for me. When she returns, I tell her that Dad and Kim have made up. She plans to stay at his house and take care of him when he’s released from the hospital.

  “He will need someone to help him,” Mom says. “But, Jackson, do you really think that things will work out between them? You know, honey, you were right about Kim. Flaky as she is, there’s something solid about her, something just—I don’t know—nice. I’ve gotten to like her.”

  “And you know he’s probably going to dump her in the end,” I say.

  Mom presses her lips together.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I’m no idiot. I see how he operates. All I know is this is what they’re doing now.”

  Mom sighs. “Well, it’s not my business, in any case,” she says. “Except in how it affects you.”

  On the television, a bunch of cute little kids sing about their favorite cereal. Animated characters burst from the bowls. As casually as I can, I say, “I’m going to move over to Dad’s for a while when he gets out. Help Kim take care of him.”

  Mom looks stricken. “Jackson—”

  “For a while, Mom. Kim can arrange her schedule to be there all day, but she works evenings. At least at first, he won’t be able to get around very well on his own. He needs me.”

  “But move? Honey, can’t you just spend the evenings there with him? I hate for you to move over there, really move. Oh, I don’t know. I’m being selfish, maybe. But everything’s changed so drastically these past few months—I can’t seem to get the hang of my own life. If you move out—”

  “What?” I say.

  “I suppose I think you’ll never come back. I know that’s paranoid.” She puts her head in her hands and starts to cry. She doesn’t make a sound, but her tears seem unending. They drip through her fingers onto the woven place mat, which soaks them up.

  “Mom,” I say.

  She waves one hand as if to say, don’t talk. So I just sit there and watch the butter congeal on the waffle I was once hungry for. I dot my index finger along the sticky line where syrup dripped on the table.

  When the phone rings, I answer it. Grandma. She launches into some song and dance about how I have to keep my strength up: what have I been eating, what time have I been getting to bed at night, why in the world do I have to get up at that ungodly hour and go lift weights? She can’t imagine anyone lifting weights under the best of circumstances—there are a million ways to hurt yourself. But to do it at six o’clock in the morning …

  “I like working out. And, hey, you’re the one who’s always telling me I’m too skinny, I should fill out.”

  “You should eat is what I said. That’s how you fill out.”

  “I am eating. Waffles, bacon, orange juice. I’d be eating right this second if I hadn’t had to answer the phone.”

  “Very funny, Jackson,” she says. “You know what I mean. Now tell me about your father.”

  “He’s getting better,” I say. I give her the lowdown on how he’s started
exercising his right arm using the barbell I brought him. He’s already starting to get some strength back.

  “Well,” Grandma says. “Overdoing it. Wouldn’t you know?” And I feel, suddenly, supremely happy. He must really be better, I think. He must be every bit as okay as I keep telling everyone he is if Grandma’s back to hating his guts.

  “What are you grinning at, Jackson?” Mom says when I hang up.

  “The usual,” I say, and excuse myself to go up to my room.

  I am determined to write a letter to Amanda—right after I read the one I got from her. When I got home from school Wednesday and saw it on the floor in the foyer with the other mail that had been pushed in through the chute, my whole body felt like my crazy bone does when it’s hit hard. I carried the letter up to my bedroom, closed the door, and locked it, even though I was the only one in the house. For a long time, I just sat at my desk holding the letter in both hands, staring out at the tops of the trees. “Face it, chickenshit,” I said out loud. “You’re afraid to open it.

  “Okay,” I answered myself. “I am. So what?” I put the letter in the top drawer of my desk, the one that has a lock. I told myself, “Saturday you can open it. When you have time to think.”

  Now I take Amanda’s letter from the desk drawer, go into the bathroom, and lock myself inside. I turn the shower on so that if Mom comes up, she’ll figure I’m in there. I rip open the envelope immediately. If I wait, I’m likely to chicken out again. Inside there is a photograph of me and Kristin and Amy and one piece of pink paper, covered on both sides with pretty, straight-up-and-down handwriting.

  Dear Jackson,

  Hi. I thought I might have heard from you by now, but I know how hectic things get when you come home from a vacation and try to get organized. We stayed on in Ocho Rios another week, but it wasn’t any fun without you and Kristin and Amy. Mother and Daddy decided to teach me how to play bridge, but it was boring, boring. I knew it wasn’t the game for me when I realized that the only time I liked it was when it was my turn to be the dummy and I didn’t have to pay attention. They gave up eventually. The rest of the time I sat in the sun, reading.

  I was at home just a day before flying back to school. The minute I got here, I realized I should have been a bit more conscientious during break. Finals are looming, and I’m not ready. In fact, I should be studying right now, but I’ve been thinking about you and I wanted to write and tell you again how much I liked being with you. I meant what I said that night on the beach—that I felt different with you. Like I could be my real self. I know we won’t be able to see each other very often, but I’d like for us to keep in touch. I hope you’ll write back. That is, if you want to, if you have the time. Now I really do have to study.

  Give my love to your little sisters. I thought you might like to have this picture of the three of you. See, I told you Kristin adores you. All you have to do is look at her face.

  Love,

  Amanda

  I read the letter through three times, hearing her voice. I stare at the photograph she sent, seeing her just outside the frame. Her hair keeps blowing in front of the lens, and she has to use one hand to hold it back. She holds the camera in her other hand, a little crooked—which is probably why, in the photo, Kristin and Amy and I seem to be standing at a slant. “Smile,” she says. We were all smiling that day.

  I close my eyes and try to bring it all back, but I can’t. That’s when I finally get into the shower, mainly to calm myself. But it doesn’t calm me. I remember that night on the beach: the feel of Amanda pressing against me, the feel of my fingers moving along her. God, whacked out like I am, I can’t handle this.

  Just take your goddamn shower, I tell myself. Don’t start this shit now.

  I turn the faucet until the needles of hot water burn my skin, and scrub myself all over hard with the loofah mitt. I step out into the steamy room, look at myself in the mirror, but I’m blurred at the edges, just the way I feel. I towel down, throw on my ratty terry-cloth robe. I go directly to my desk, sit down, and take out a piece of paper.

  Dear Amanda, I begin.

  First I need to tell her about what happened to Dad so she’ll know why I haven’t written. It would be easy enough to write down the basics, I suppose: that night when I was on the beach with you, my Dad fell—he nearly died. But the basics say nothing about how I feel, and I want to tell her how I feel because I have the idea that, if I can say it just right, she’ll understand what it means and write back and explain it to me. If I don’t tell her about Dad, if I write as if everything is just the same as it was the day we parted, it would be like writing a lie.

  “Jackson?” Mom yells up the staircase.

  Startled, I glance down and realize I’ve covered the page I meant to write to Amanda on with ridiculous doodles. Her name over and over. My name. Her name and my name together, just like junior high. I see, also, that well over an hour has passed. My time for thinking is gone, and I haven’t even started the letter.

  “Honey, are you awake?” I hear Mom’s foot on the first stair.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I stick my head out the door to prove it, to keep her at bay.

  “Didn’t you tell your dad you’d be there around noon? Can I do anything to help you get ready?”

  “No!”

  She looks at me oddly.

  “I mean, I’m ready. I’ll be right down, okay?”

  Thank God she steps down, turns, and leaves, closing the door behind her. I yank on my jeans and a sweatshirt. I stuff Amanda’s letter and the photograph back into the top drawer, lock it. I tear the page I’ve doodled on into tiny pieces, making sure that there’s nothing on any one piece that could possibly be deciphered. They float into the trash can like confetti.

  thirty–two

  Dad has become pals with his roommate, an old farmer from Knightstown. Today the two of them decided to order every single thing on the lunch menu just to see what would happen. When I get there, their narrow bed tables are covered with plates of food: club sandwiches, beef manhattans, Waldorf salad, Jell-O with pineapple, chocolate cake. There are plates of food on the chairs, the nightstands, the windowsill. The food servers had to roll in an extra table for the beverages alone: soft drinks, juices, coffee, and tea—hot and iced.

  “Hungry, son?” Mr. Belcher asks me. Both of them crack up.

  Nurses from all over the ward stop by, laughing. They nibble on french fries; occasionally one of them will sit down long enough to polish off a bowl of pudding or a piece of cake.

  Mrs. Belcher looks mortified. “I don’t know what made Daddy do such a thing,” she says to her daughter.

  “Because he could,” Mr. Belcher says, winking at Dad.

  But the way Mrs. Belcher frowns at Mr. Belcher’s act of liberation is nothing compared to the look she gives Layla when she comes waltzing in the door carrying a bunch of balloons and a Playboy. Layla looks great. She’s wearing jeans and a big purple sweater. Her hair is wilder than usual. She’s thinner than she was when I saw her the day after Thanksgiving.

  “Jackson Watt,” she says. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  I think, shit, she knows about the postcards, and frantically I try to come up with an excuse.

  But then she throws her arms around me and says, “I came as soon as I found out. Jesus Christ, what in the world are we going to do with him in this state?” She turns and grins at Dad, who grins back. “I knew you’d hate flowers,” she says. She tosses him the magazine and ties the balloons on the bed rail. “And in case the balloons were a bad idea, too, I brought these.” She digs in her purse and pulls out a package of darts.

  She grabs me again, takes my chin in her hand. “How are you, honey?”

  “Let go of me or I’ll tell you the truth,” I say. My voice sounds weird with my jaw immobilized.

  “Okay, okay.” Layla laughs,
smacking me lightly on the arm. “I see you’re fine.”

  “He’s great,” Dad says. “Hell, I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  Layla proceeds to entertain both of us, telling us about her new boyfriend, Mike, who’s a biker. A real sixties kind of guy. Just last week, she went over to his house to watch Woodstock on his VCR. He’d spread a blanket on the floor. He had a cooler full of beer and enough pot to stoke a whole party.

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” she says, lowering her voice so the Belchers won’t hear. “But Mike said we had to watch it naked, you know, to get the whole effect.”

  “Jesus, Layla,” Dad says.

  “I know, I know, grow up, right?” Layla shrugs, picks up a piece of chocolate cake, and takes a big bite of it. “But what for? I mean, I tried that. Where did it get me?”

  “Highly overrated,” Dad says. “Adulthood. You’re right about that.”

  About then, Stephanie appears. She could be Layla twenty years ago, the ghost of Woodstock past. She’s dressed head-to-toe in rainbow tie-dye: tight leggings, a gargantuan shirt that comes almost to her knees. Even her socks are tie-dyed. Her long hair is caught up with pink shoelaces the same color as her Chuck Taylors. Her earrings are peace symbols, each one a different size. Even Dad seems stunned at the sight of her.

  “I called your house, Jax,” she announces. “Your mom said you were here.”

  “Stephanie!” Layla says. “Well, I’ll be. Here’s another person I haven’t seen in a while. How are you, honey?”

  “Okay,” Steph says, “I guess. I miss Brady, though … ”

  Please, I think. Not the psychic, not the dreams.

  “You haven’t heard from him, have you, Mrs. Burton?”

  Layla shakes her head no.

  I keep quiet, but I get hot suddenly, and my heart starts pounding. Say it, I tell myself. Say you got the postcards. I know I should. But if I say it, I won’t stop. I’ll say, “Screw Brady. That asshole, sending me postcards from nowhere. What’s that supposed to mean?” If I say it, Layla will think I’m more important to him than she is, and she’ll feel worse than she already does. I let myself believe it’s better not to upset her.