by Meg Haston
“Minna. God.” I reach for popcorn. “I was never a juvenile delinquent.”
“I seem to recall an arrest warrant that begs to differ.” Minna slides too many tiles onto the board. “JOHNSON.”
Wil laughs and Minna smiles big enough that her face breaks like dried Earth.
“I can’t argue with that.” Wil fist-bumps Minna. She goes along with it.
“No! That—no.” I shake my head. Wil records the points anyway. “Whatever. I forfeit.”
“So I guess you’re retired now?” Wil says to Minna, shuffling his tiles.
She nods.
“What did you do before?”
“Oh, lots of things. Receptionist work, mostly.”
“My mom does that. At a dentist’s office. Did you like it?”
She nods. “You know something, I did. And people liked me, because I could make them laugh over the phone.”
“I’ll bet.” Wil slides his hand across the settee and takes mine.
“And you. You go to high school and build boats,” Minna says. I should have known better: she would never pretend to know nothing about him. Unlike Henney, Minna says exactly what she’s thinking, exactly when she’s thinking it.
“We—I—do repairs, mostly. But I want to get into building. My dad owned the business and he was more into the repair side of things. Small-scale projects. But I like the idea of making something brand-new, instead of spending all my time fixing what’s broken.”
“I was on a sailboat once,” Minna says. “A Catalina 52. A friend and I sailed up the California coast for a few days after my husband and I split.”
“A Catalina.” Wil’s voice catches. “I’ve always wanted to work on one of those.”
“Hm.” Minna pauses. “I suppose the past few weeks have been hell for you.”
Wil pulls back a little, surprised. “Ah—”
“Minna.” I squeeze his hand. It’s damp. “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Minna shrugs. “He doesn’t have to. But I won’t pretend.”
“It’s okay,” Wil assures me. “It’s actually kind of nice . . . People always ask, You doing okay? which feels like it only has one right answer. Or they say, How are you feeling? Which is just stupid.”
Wait. Have I asked those things? I wonder.
“How are you feeling? You’re feeling like shit,” Minna volunteers.
“Yes! Exactly. Most of the time, I’m feeling like shit.”
I look at Wil, at the storm brewing in his eyes.
“Actually, I’m feeling . . . complicated these days.” Wil stacks his Scrabble tiles in a tiny high-rise, then breaks them down again. “I only just told Bridge, but it turns out my dad was kind of an asshole.”
My brain wrestles with his words. Wilson and asshole have never belonged in the same sentence before.
“But, like, I didn’t know it for a long time. I really loved him for almost all his life.”
“You could even love him, still,” Minna says gently.
“I do.” Wil’s face twists into an unreadable mosaic. “Most of the time, I’m wrecked about what happened to him and I’m pissed and at the same time I love him, you know? He is—was—my dad, and he was a complicated guy.”
“Of course.” Minna glances at me. “The people we love are never just one thing.”
“And he was trying to do better. He was doing better, for a while. He just—”
Watching Wil is like watching the face of someone who is dreaming. His colors and lines shift slowly. If you didn’t look closely enough, you would miss it.
Minna is saying: “My husband was, like you say, an asshole. And I left. That was years ago, and it saved my life, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I miss having him there next to me. But only with my heart, and only for a second. Then I remember that—” Her voice breaks.
Wil’s breathing gets loud.
I say nothing, because something is happening between them, something Wil needs.
“I remember that I loved the man I wanted him to be.”
“Did you ever think that if you wanted him to be that way, if you wanted it enough, you could make it happen?” Wil’s bangs cling to his forehead. It glints in the lamp light, damp with sweat.
“Oh, for years.” Minna’s sigh is a single note, never ending. “But turning someone into what you want them to be is no more possible than willing someone back from the dead. We don’t have that power. We are not that kind of magic.”
I lean into Wil, rest my head on his shoulder. We want the same thing: for Minna to be wrong. I want to take every last bit of my strength, every molecule of energy, and I want to transform the person Wilson was into someone entirely different. I would trade all my childhood wishes about my own dad for this one wish. I would do that for him—use everything I have to change the shadows in Wil’s life.
WIL
Winter, Senior Year
FOR months now, he’s been trying to convince me that he’s changed. That he is someone other than the man he is. But people don’t change. He said it himself, last year. We are who we are, down deep.
I’ve accepted it: He is part of me. But there are plenty of pieces of me, the Real Me, that have nothing to do with him. This morning, I stare into the bathroom mirror and count the ways we aren’t the same. My eyes have more gray in them. My hair is just a little bit lighter, or maybe that’s the light in here. There are these grainy freckles on my shoulders, where the sun stays all summer. I am not him.
“Wil? You in there?” Dad’s fist slams against the door, and I jump.
“Just give me a second to shower,” I yell back. I turn on the shower and sit on the tile floor, a rolling wave of nausea overtaking me. Maybe it’s the godawful smell of the candle my mom put on the back of a doily on the toilet tank. Lavender Serenity. More likely it’s the fact that my dad is six foot three inches of rage, and I’m not immune.
By the time I lurch into the shower, the water’s only lukewarm. I wash my hair with the same shampoo he uses. I scrub my chest extra hard, the spot where he put his jackass hands on me months ago. I want to slide dripping wet between my cool sheets and sleep until the world is upright again. But I can’t, because it’s a school day and a person shows up to play, no matter what.
I’ve barely finished getting dressed when Dad comes into my bedroom without knocking. I brace myself for I don’t know what.
“You sleep okay?” he asks, which is not what I expected. I still can’t look at him. But the little boy part of me senses him sitting on my bed, fingers laced together like he’s a reasonable man and we’re about to have a father-son talk about sailing or something embarrassing like sex. And I’m so pathetic that it takes everything I have not to bury my face in his chest and make him swear that he didn’t mean it, any of it. He’ll never do it again to me or to my mom. Swear, Dad. And then let’s go out to the workshop and listen to some Steely Dan.
“Haven’t slept well lately, that’s all,” I say.
From the corner of my eye, I think I see his head dip. “Listen.” He clears his throat. “I know you’ve got to get to school, but I want to have breakfast together first. Out. Nina’s.”
“I, ah—” I check the clock radio next to my bed. “It’s getting late, you know? I’ve got Econ.”
“I know, son. I’m asking.” His voice is a soft I’ve never heard. I don’t ever remember him asking instead of telling. I let myself hope a little.
“Fine. Meet you at the truck,” I say. A guy’s gotta eat, I think. I hate myself for giving in so easy. I wish I could cut the ties between us, a single swift slice of a knife. But it’s harder than it should be. He is my dad, after all. And that means more than it should at a time like this.
At Nina’s, everyone is staring. Ned Reilly from school is there with his Bible study group, plus Leonard who runs the place, and I swear each and every one of them can look over and tell that man is a wife abuser, and the son’s probably messed up, too. We are transpare
nt. Anyone who wants to can see through our reptile skins to our ugly insides.
Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He just walks in and orders two coffees, even though you’re supposed to wait for menus. We find a booth with empty booths around it.
We eat for a while before anyone says anything. I won’t be the first to speak, that’s for sure. I could sit here for years without saying anything. I sip my coffee between bites, soak my pancakes in broken yolks. I stuff syrupy bite after syrupy bite, and dissolve it all with black coffee.
“I have something to say to you,” Dad says finally. “And I need you to look at me”—he takes a flimsy breath, which surprises me enough to look up—“while I say it.”
I look at him for the first time in months. I expect him to look broken or angry or even ashamed. I expect him to look like someone else. But he just looks like my dad. It’s like my brain won’t let me think too long about the terrible things he’s done. Instead, I see the guy who taught me to bodysurf, who carried me on his shoulders on the beach at night. I want to hate him. He deserves that.
“Look at me,” he says again. “I want you to know that no kind of man should do what I—it wasn’t right to do what I did to you. I haven’t been acting right for a while, especially toward your mom. I want you to know that I know that. I know that it doesn’t matter how mad she makes me or how much damn pressure I feel sometimes.”
“Okay.”
“Your mom and me—” He closes his eyes. “You know. We don’t get along sometimes. We get upset. We fight. She’s—marriage is hard, son. I think you’ll understand that when you’re older.”
“I understand now, Dad.” I squeeze my coffee mug. “I understand that plenty of people have hard marriages and don’t punch their—”
He almost yells, “I never—” People are staring now, actually staring, and Dad must see it, too. He leans in and lowers his voice. “I have never punched her, Wil.”
“Right. Hit,” I say under my breath. “Or whatever. That’s better.” I’ve never talked to him this way. The fact that I’m getting away with it tells me: something is very wrong. I check the clock over the counter. I’m late. I’m going to miss Econ. Econ is now the most important thing in the world.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. This isn’t how I—” He tilts his head from side to side, and I wince at the cracking sound. “What I’m trying to say is that nobody’s perfect. Not your mom and not me.”
“Okay. Nobody’s perfect. Got it.” I slide out of the booth.
“Wil. Please. Please, boy, sit down.”
When I look down at him, his eyes are like mirrors. A fat tear worms its way to the edge of his nose and hangs there, suspended. It’s the first one I’ve seen from him. I want to wipe it away and I want to leave it there. I want to shove him and I want to pull him into me. I sit. People are looking.
“I’m not saying what I need to say.” The tear slips into a pool of syrup and disappears. “What I mean. I’m saying the exact same things my old man said to me.”
“What?” I go cold. “What?”
“My dad, ah . . .” He looks up at the water-stained ceiling. “You never met him, of course, but he wasn’t very nice to my mom and me. And that’s not an excuse. It’s just the way it was. He drank, and . . .” He works hard to straighten out his face. “He got pissed off a lot, and he didn’t know what to do with it. So.” He interlaces his fingers together on the table so tightly they go white. “So,” he almost whispers.
“Dad,” I say, my face hot and twisty.
“Anyway.” He clears his throat once. Twice. “It’s not an excuse, like I said.”
I don’t know what it is, but it’s something. Why didn’t he tell me?
“When your mom and I were younger, before you were around”—he smiles a little when he says you, and it makes me feel good—“we had a couple of bad fights, and we decided to stop drinking. Both of us. So we did, cold turkey. And things haven’t been perfect, of course, but I haven’t—I haven’t messed up in a long time.” He slides his hands across the table and grips my arms so hard I wince. His fingers are sticky with syrup. “I’m going to fix this, son. I swear to God. I want a clean slate for all of us. I’m going to be better, for you and for your mom.”
He looks at me like the rest of his life depends on what I say in the next three seconds.
“What do you want me to say, Dad?” I take shallow breaths, feeling like I might throw up everything I just ate.
“I want you to say you’ll forgive me,” he says, still holding on. “Or that you’ll think about it. Your mother will come around. I know her. But I need you on board, son. I need your support.”
I close my eyes. My head is hurricaning with things I didn’t know before: This is not new, he’s done this before, and I am third in a line of pissed-off men. Maybe even fourth or tenth. Violence is imprinted in me. In my father. In his father.
I say, “Tell me it won’t happen again.”
“I won’t hurt you again, son. You have my word.”
I keep my eyes closed, through the cash register ringing in the background and plates being slid onto tables and change being released into the tip jar.
“I don’t care about me.” I open my eyes. “But don’t you hurt her again.”
Dad’s face is solemn. “Never.” We slide out of the booth, and I stick out my hand. The air whooshes out of our lungs when he hugs me instead. Finally, I say, “I have to get to class,” and he releases me. He says, “Good man,” and I jog to school, because if I don’t burn off these feelings, who knows what I’ll do. I am genetically capable of despicable things.
My feet pound past KYLIE MITCHELL and a brick that is too bright to be old, IN MEMORY OF OUR PAL ROOSTER, and I think about a fresh start.
There are ties to cut, and things to let go. I picture myself sawing through waterlogged rope. I will release everything that has held our family back. The things I didn’t even know about: my dad’s past and the hurt he caused my mother. The things that are mine to release: anger that he isn’t who I thought he was and so maybe I’m not who I think I am. I hold my breath and I sink beneath the surface. With my next breath, I break above the waterline.
For the first time in months, I can see the shadow of land. The maybe of a new beginning. For the first time, I believe that he wants to make us new. The kind of family we should have been from the start.
BRIDGE
Spring, Senior Year
EVERYTHING in my room glows with the blue-gray light of morning: the shapeless bathrobe draped over my desk chair; the nearly perfect fossilized starfish Wil found in the front yard when he dropped me off last night after Minna’s. He gave it to me like a regular boy gives a flower away. The abstract painting hanging over my dresser, an early graduation present from Leigh.
“Shit.” I sweep my hand over my bedside table, my fingers closing over my phone. I stab the screen until it lights up. There are three texts from Leigh.
6:37 P.M.
Where were you today? Worried. For real.
7:13 P.M.
Sending search party soon.
11:14 P.M.
Micah says you’re out. Thanks for telling me.
I fall back on my pillow, deflated. This is my fault. I don’t want Leigh and I to erode at the same time that Wil and I are rooting into each other.
I text her back.
6:13 A.M.
So sorry I missed these. Phone was off.
6:14 A.M.
No it wasn’t. I’m just an asshole.
When the sun comes up, I drag our enormous cooler from its resting place behind the house and I scrub and rinse it with the garden hose three times. I make a Publix run, and with most of my gas money for the week, I buy the things I never buy: subs loaded with everything, so fat they are spilling open, and the potato chips that taste like Old Bay. I buy a six-pack of Coke in the doll-sized glass bottles because Coke tastes better that way. Dried mango and fresh fruit salad in a plastic container.
I text Leigh and Wil separately. I tell them that we need a sick day in quotes. I tell them to meet me at the First Street access. Beach day. Wil texts back in and Leigh texts history quiz, can’t. I tell her there will be Pub Subs and groveling, and she caves and says fine, the last few weeks of high school don’t count anyway.
I’m making my last trip from the house to the truck when Mom stirs on the fold-out. Her real estate exam study guide is tucked next to her. I cap a pink highlighter that’s peeking out from under the bed.
“Mom,” I say.
“What’re you doing, offspring?” she sleep-asks, without opening her eyes.
“Sorry, maternal unit,” I whisper. “But I need a favor.”
“It’s fine,” she says into her pillow. “What’s up?”
“Can you call me in sick? For a beach day with Wil and Leigh,” I tell her.
This time, she opens her eyes. “Just a beach day? Nothing future-jeopardizing, right?”
“Just a beach day. I—we all need a break.”
Her brow furrows. “Something going on with you and Wil again?” she asks, trying to make her voice even, the way moms do when they’re pretending that something is NO BIG DEAL. “You guys have been hanging out a lot lately.”
“Um, I don’t know,” I say, and then I say, “Yeah. I think so,” because Mom and I don’t lie to each other. That’s important to her. Hawkings are real. Hawkings tell the truth, even when the truth sucks, she always says. When I was a kid, I used to wish that she would lie to me about the adult things. I didn’t want to know about account balances and how she had no idea where my dad was, that asshole.
“Good.” She yawns. “Is he doing okay?”
“I guess,” I say. “As well as you could expect. I think his mom’s having a pretty tough time, so he’s worried about her.”
“We should have the two of them over for dinner.” Mom sits up and hugs one of the couch pillows to her chest. Her hair is a shock of warmth around her face. “We could make a casserole or something.”
“A casserole? Here?” I don’t think Wil could eat another casserole in his lifetime.