Garrett pauses, then knocks on a door. We hear a “Come in,” and Garrett opens the door. I’m afraid to follow him. I’m fucking frozen again. I wait until I hear Garrett speak. And then I only go in because of what he says:
“Tom? Are you leaving already?”
In the room, my dad is packing stuff into a plastic bag. He’s wearing normal clothes, but he’s got a hospital wristlet on and he looks like he hasn’t showered in a while.
“I’m just heading out,” he says. He looks at me, doesn’t smile. “Hey, kid.”
“But it’s not even been the whole stay . . .” Garrett stops.
“The whole thing is voluntary,” my dad says. “And I’m done volunteering.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal.
Garrett looks at me quick, then back to my dad.
“I don’t know about this, Tom,” he says. “Have you talked to the doctors?”
“I’ve talked to everyone here, trust me,” he says, laughing a little. “The doctors. The nurses. Everyone, including the janitors and the lady who brings me Jell-O, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m done. They’ve done their tests, we’ve talked it all out, and I know what I need to do.”
“What’s that, then?” Garrett says.
“I need to get back to work,” he says. “I’ve got things to finish and things to take care of and I don’t have time to sit here any longer, letting it pile up.”
I’m sweating, standing there in my coat. No one says anything for a couple of minutes.
My dad puts on a hoodie I’ve never seen before. I wonder if the hospital gave it to him. I wonder how he’s getting home.
I wonder if I will ever say anything. It doesn’t seem like a conversation I am old enough to have yet.
“You know this better than anyone, Garrett,” my dad says, zipping up the hoodie and pulling the little cinch-rope on the plastic sack. “Or you should.”
“I talked to Roy, though, and he said he’d be able to—”
“Not the same,” my dad cuts him off.
“It’s Christmastime,” Garrett says. “I’m sure you could just wait another—”
“Holidays don’t count for you and me,” my dad says. “Jesus, Garrett. You know this shit, man. I would have thought of all people, you’d get it.” He stops, like he wants to say more. Then he looks at me. Points at me. Grabs his plastic bag by the rope cord.
“And you?” he says. Shakes his head. Stops, like he’s trying to bite back words. “I’ve never been anything but honest with you, Will. That was our deal. Telling each other the truth. Being good to each other. And then you go and tell lies to me, and your mom, and who knows who else. You’re responsible for that.” His voice sounds off. I can see his hands are shaking a little too.
I just stand there. Take it. Don’t say anything.
His voice gets louder: “I put that on you, even if your mother won’t. She’ll just blame me, since it’s easier. But you’ve not been straight with people. And I don’t want you to forget about it.”
“Tom, I don’t think—”
“No.” My dad cuts Garrett off again. “Don’t tell me about how to deal with my kid. You have your own kids? Then you deal with them in your own way. But you don’t have any and you don’t have any idea what this is like, either.”
Garrett looks down at the white bedsheet. He’s gnawing on his thumbnail like that’s the only way to keep quiet.
My dad starts pulling at his hospital bracelet to rip it off, finally chewing on the snap at the end of it. He looks crazy but I don’t say anything until he tosses the bracelet on the bed.
“Dad, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I’m not interested right now, Will,” he says. “And I’m not interested in you staying with me any longer. You say one thing, you do another, you get Tess all up in my business, the fucking county is on my ass, again, which I can only guess is your mother’s doing as well.”
I take off my glasses, wipe them on my shirt. My eyes are watering. I can’t look at him.
“You know, I’m doing all this stuff because it’s our house, Will. You and me. I just want to make it nice for you. I want it to be better. For you always to live in, to be comfortable in. I wanted to always welcome you, for you to come back to live here, for you to bring your friends over and one day, maybe your own wife and kids. Your own family. But now I see that you’re a self-absorbed teenager, just like any other. You don’t give a shit about me or what I’m doing. You have no respect, no skin in the game. You can always go live out in Oak Prairie, in that big bland beige monstrosity of your mother’s, that lifeless neighborhood where everything looks the same. God forbid you drink too much and end up in someone else’s garage, someone else’s bed. I could see that happening, no question. So. You go soak all that up, son. When you’re ready to be your own man, and take some responsibility, you come see me. Then we can talk.”
He grabs his bag, then, and brushes past me. He smells a little gross, even in passing. Unshowered. Garrett rushes behind him, but I just stand in the empty room like a fucking idiot. Listening to them in the hallway.
“Jesus Christ, Tom—”
“Hands off me, Garrett. I mean it.”
“How are you going to get home, even? Have you thought about this at all?”
“I’ve already called a cab,” he says.
Another voice. “Is there a problem here?”
I hear Garrett sigh. My dad says no, that he’s signing out, and then I hear the nurse say, “You need to come with me, then, Mr. Caynes,” and then Garrett’s standing behind me, his hand on my shoulder.
“Time to go, Will,” he says.
By the time Garrett drops me off, I’m sick of talking about it. I feel like I might throw up. Garrett’s said it a dozen different ways: I’m sorry. Your dad’s sick. He’ll come around. This isn’t easy. Things like this take time. He didn’t mean what he said. He’s angry, that’s all.
He’s trying to be nice. But I don’t want to deal with it anymore.
I go inside, brush past my sisters, past Jay, past the hot pretzels on the dining-room table, past my mom, who Garrett intercepts and says, “Can we talk for a minute?”
In my bedroom, I take off my boots, They’re wet and muddy from the snow. I’ve probably tracked up the carpets but I don’t care. I take off my coat and hoodie and toss them on the floor. Pull my phone out of my pocket, and because it’s almost dead, plug it into the charger.
I can hear Garrett saying to my mom (and probably Jay too, who tells the girls to get their pajamas on, in a stricter voice than normal) all the crap he told me on the way home: “He’s hurting; he doesn’t mean it; he’s leaving treatment; he’s stubborn.”
My mom says stuff back but I can’t hear it. Her knowing this is just fuel on the fire, really. Lighting her up even more about how my dad sucks.
“So, you’re not pressing charges?” Jay asks. His voice is louder than my mom’s.
Charges? I sit up, stand by my door to hear better, but then the TV goes on in the living room—a cartoon for Kinney and Taylor—and I can’t hear shit.
I take off my clothes, turn off the light, get in bed. I want to be asleep if my mom comes in here. Garrett hasn’t left; I’d feel the front door close. I go to take off my glasses but then my phone beeps that I’ve got a text.
In the dark, I check it. Brandy. Wondering why I didn’t call earlier.
I call her; it’s easier than texting. I tell her a little bit of the story; I can’t say much because I’m trying not to cry. And I’m trying to be quiet so they won’t come in here. I want them to think I’m asleep and not bother me.
Brandy’s got it together, for someone who’s had the fucked-up shit happen to her that she has. She tells me nice things. She tells me it’s not about me, it’s his deal. That I need to block it out and remember the people who love me and care about me. Remember that he doesn’t mean it, anyway. A lot of it what Garrett said. It’s like I get it, in my brain, but I still feel broken. S
hitty. And like I’ve aged again. Like, another ten years, at least. At this rate, I’ll be an older old man than my dad.
I feel the door thud closed from the other room; I don’t know if Garrett slams it or if it’s just this house, looking like a mansion but built from shit materials, like my dad always says about new houses.
Now Brandy’s telling me about her day; they’re not going anywhere for Christmas. Her uncle’s coming to town, her dad’s other brother. It’s like her dad’s the shitty one of Brandy’s family. Megan and her uncle are very cool.
I tell her I miss her. I can’t wait to see her. She says she’s got something for me. She says she’s going to hang up and send it.
So I hang up. I hear my mom and Jay getting Taylor and Kinney to bed, turning off the TV, my sisters yelling in protest. Hear them going upstairs, the toilet flushing, the sink going, lots of stomping around. Usual Kinney-and-Taylor shit. I’m glad I’ve always been here, on the main floor. Apart from the rest of them.
Then my phone dings with a text. A photo. Brandy’s naked tits, her hand going down her panties. I can’t see her head but I can tell she’s in her room from the wallpaper. Instantly, I’m hard.
do you like she texts next.
fuck yeah I text back.
lol thought you might
god yr awesome
just took it bc i miss u so much!!!
me too
send me one back
srsly?
yeah
I’ve never done a dick pic before. Is that what she wants? Or just me in no shirt?
I can barely figure it out, the phone and my dick and only one hand and do I turn on the lights? Yes, I have to, the flash makes everything look terrible. I send her the same thing she’s sent me; my chest, my hand down my boxers, where I hope she can see what’s going on there.
nice she texts.
Is she playing with herself? Do real girls do that or just older women? Or women in porn? I’m full on jerking it; I can’t help it. I can’t stop. I’ve got the phone in one hand, my dick in the other. I can practically see it, her in her room, the flower-candle smell, everything.
pretend im there she texts.
I don’t text back. I don’t have to pretend.
cuz im pretending yr here she adds.
One second after that text beeps, I come all over my stomach, my head twisting into the pillow so I don’t make any noise. My glasses get crooked. I never jerk it with my glasses on, really. I’m glad she can’t see me.
I wipe my hands off on a towel hanging over my desk chair and then she texts back.
got yr present today she texts. THANK YOU!!!!!!
do you like it
yeah but wish I sent you something im so broke its not even funny
don’t care I text back. don’t need anything but you
8 more days b4 im off house arrest!!!
8 more LONG days I add.
shit megans home gtg merry xmas baby!! have sexy dreams abt me!!!
always do, I text.
I turn off the light. The house is quiet now; I can hear some footsteps back and forth upstairs but it sounds just like Jay and my mom, probably brushing their teeth or whatever. There’s nothing left in me. It’s the season of giving and I’ve spent everything and I want everything and tomorrow we’ll have Christmas Eve dinner. Go to the church by our house that we never attend except on holidays. Kinney and Taylor will open a few gifts and then rush off to bed like angels, the only night of the year there’s no stomping and whining and bullshit. We’ll wake up and open presents. My mom will make coffee cake or cinnamon pull-aparts. I’ll eat a ton of that, get all sorts of things. Clothes. Gadgets. Maybe a snowboard—Taylor all but told me that’s my big present, since she loves snowboarding and can barely keep in big secrets like that. It’ll all be nice stuff. Good stuff.
And my dad? Who knows what he’ll be doing. Alone in the cold, ruined, dirty-smelling house. Our house, he says. Makes me sick to think of, makes me sad. It’s just like he said: I am selfish. I don’t want to be with him. Not in that house. Maybe not in any house.
What I want for Christmas is what Brandy just gave me. Something I didn’t even know I wanted until she gave it. Something that disappeared when I turned off the phone but still have inside me. The feeling. That flash of happiness. She can’t ask for it back or hem it in to fit some rules or take it away like other people can. I can have it once the flash is over too; remembering it, how good it felt, how surprised I was, how easy she made it. How it costs nothing. Is worth everything.
EIGHTEEN
THE WORST DAY of school is not the first day in September. Or any of the days you have big tests. The worst day of school is after Christmas break. It’s cold. It’s fucking January. There’s only maybe one day off in January. Even if sitting around the house being snowed in is boring, which it was, since it blizzarded like twelve times after actual Christmas, the idea of another half a year of school sounds like a death sentence.
After the first few weeks, the drive from Oak Prairie to Minneapolis was killing me. Not just in terms of gas, which my mom and Jay agreed to help with. But the roads would suck and I’d end up leaving at six thirty only to barely make it to class on time.
I didn’t complain about living full time at my mom’s, though.Brandy thought it was bad enough that she couldn’t just hop on a bus to the Vances’ and see me. We got in the habit of comparing schedules in Photography, mine with work and hers with the Vances, plus if her aunt was scheduled to work and whether her nana would be taking her nap or possibly watching her afternoon shows or had a doctor appointment and if the bus would be there or if I could drop her off or what. I almost wanted to put everything in Excel and just map it out, since we were doing all that kind of thing in my Econ class anyway, forecasting and planning inventory for our fake businesses. But that was a little too nerdy for me to do. Even for sex.
When it worked out that I could drop her off or pick her up at the Vances’, then I had an excuse to drive by my dad’s house. She never said anything about it. And I didn’t drive slow or anything. I just wanted to see what he was doing. All the work he said he wanted to get done.
Some things had changed. That was for sure.
My dad no longer just had his truck. He had some creepy rapist van too. White and rusty, with lettering from someone else’s business painted over.
There was snow in five-foot-high drifts up and down the block, which all his neighbors had blown or shoveled into even higher piles. But the last time I’d driven past, my dad’s driveway just had more packed-down snow, two ruts of ice down the center. When I’d go down the alley, I couldn’t see much but snow-covered piles. There’d been a lot of wood back there before. I doubted he’d used it yet, either.
Garrett put me back on the schedule. I mainly work weekends. One Friday after school, I go into work and spend the first half of my shift prepping and filling in for the servers, delivering dish racks, clearing tables, taking out trash. After my dinner break, when I punch back in, I go behind the line where Carl’s setting up a row of burgers. That’s usually a Friday special—burger and fries and a shake for $6.99—because it keeps drunks from ordering complicated crap late at night. Plus it’s cheap enough and easy to fire out for the servers.
“Can you get me some more pepperjack? And pull up those rings?” He nods at the fryer and I pull up the basket.
“You need regular fries?”
“Yep.”
I take care of the next round of fries and go grab another cambro of cheese portions, along with some extra cheddar and lettuce and tomato. As far as I know, Garrett didn’t press any charges against my dad, and it doesn’t seem like Carl holds a grudge about it. I don’t understand why he doesn’t. I mean, what in the hell? I’d be pissed as fuck if I were him. But he’s his same, “making money, fucking bitches” self. Like getting clocked in a dining room full of customers isn’t anything surprising.
Sierra appears at the window.
“Is there no more strawberry ice cream in the walk-in, Will?”
“Dunno.”
“Well, how the fuck can I offer strawberry shakes?” she asks while loading up the burgers Carl just pushed through the window onto her giant tray.
Carl’s not looking at her, just flipping through the order wheel.
“Just add that strawberry syrup for the sundaes to the vanilla,” he says.
“Tastes like shit; people hate that,” Sierra says.
“Then tell ’em we only have the chocolate and vanilla,” he mumbles.
“But the menu says strawberry.” Carl’s turned to get some more eggs out of the reach-in.
“I’ll go check the walk-in again,” I tell her. Which is what Sierra wants, to start with. Carl always acts like he doesn’t like to move from the line. But I know there might be a tub of strawberry ice cream back there; it’s really popular for some reason and I know Garrett always orders extra.
“Need more pickles, while you’re back there,” Carl adds.
I find the strawberry—it’s the last tub—so I carry it up to the beverage station for Sierra and then grab the pickles, and give them to Carl. Then I pull up the fries, salt them, and dunk another load.
“God, veggie burgers are just gross,” Carl says, digging out a pale peach-colored veggie burger from the freezer-burned stack in his reach-in.
“You probably get sick of salad all the time if you’re a vegetarian, though,” I say, portioning out fries to his plated burgers and buffalo chicken breast.
“Whatever,” Carl says. “Those kinda vegetarians? First ones to slobber down french fries. They just avoid meat; they’re not really into eating vegetables.”
“Potatoes are technically a vegetable,” I say, pulling up the next round of fries and sinking another.
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