by Sara Zarr
“We are. ‘Pretty good’ is . . . pretty accurate.”
“But I thought we were better.”
She was quiet, then said, “It’s hard to let go of the idea of something. Especially when the idea is important to you. But if you don’t let go of the idea, you can’t actually live in reality.”
He propped himself on his elbow so he could watch her face. “How are you so smart at this stuff, while I’m so far behind?”
“My dad being a psychologist helps.” She kept staring into the sky, which was getting more and more darkly blue, more and more quiet. “But also, like, I grew up the way we all do, with people talking all the time about crushes and romance and who you like, and you’re supposed to want that. To be part of some romantic couple or whatever. Every song and every movie and TV show and book . . . every old musical that me and you love watching.” She turned her head to him. “I had this idea that I should want that too. And I know I seem like a confident, badass aro ace now—and I am—but it was hard to let go of the idea of what I was supposed to be. So that I could just be who I am.”
Kyle kept his mouth shut, in hopes she’d keep talking and talking. She didn’t, so he said what he felt. “Who you are is awesome, Emily.”
She smiled, then propped herself up on her elbow too, a mirror image of him.
“And maybe you need to do that with your mom, your dad, the whole family,” she said. “Let go. Let go of what you thought it should be. And see what it is.”
“What is it?” he asked, only half joking.
“A bunch of flawed people trying to love each other?”
“A bunch of flawed people trying to love each other and also just survive life,” he said.
“A bunch of flawed people trying to love each other, survive life, and maybe be happy sometimes.” Emily continued, “Anyway, I think letting go of what you thought things should be happens whether you want it to or not.”
Like it had with Nadia, how avoiding her when he didn’t know the right thing to say didn’t make anything better. At all. How skipping baseball when he could have been relying on a group of friends only left him lonely. How wishing as hard as he could that his mom wouldn’t do what she was doing hadn’t made her stop. Him or his mom or anyone else trying to make a perfect last farm week wasn’t going to change the fact they were losing that too.
All this loss, all this change. Hiding and avoiding and resisting it had been like twisting against a knife that was going to cut him no matter what.
And face-to-face in real time with Emily like this, he felt he was actually seeing her. Seeing her. And he understood he’d had an idea of Emily, too, that he needed to let go of so that he could keep seeing her like he was right now. He wanted to be in reality with her, not in a fantasy in his head of her always being there for him the second he needed her and never being mad and never disagreeing, him wanting her to swear to be best friends forever no matter what and trying to get her to promise nothing would ever change.
He knew, in that moment, he could survive the reality of being flawed people trying to love each other. With Emily, with his parents, with himself.
“Emily,” he said, “I’m glad you’re my cousin. I’m glad you’re my friend. I think you’re smart and nice and interesting and a good person.”
She reached her hand across the gap between their bunks; he grasped her fingers.
When she let go, she turned over on her back again. “I kind of like having no roof.”
“Me too.” The light above them had turned deepest blue. Once in a while there was a final goodnight song from a robin. The chirp of crickets. And the hum of a mosquito nearby. “We actually are going to need bug spray.”
“I know.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Alex!”
He laughed. “I . . . don’t think she’ll be back. Are we still going to sleep out here?”
“Yes!” She sang a line from West Side Story. “Tonight, tonight, the world is full of light, with suns and moons all over the place!”
He continued it in his head: Tonight, tonight, the world is wild and bright . . .
“I might actually be drowsy,” she said.
“Not me.”
“You can keep talking if you want. I’m going to close my eyes.”
He kept his open until the crickets and the sound of Emily finally soothed him to sleep.
7
APPARENTLY BIRDS thought four a.m. counted as dawn, and Kyle woke up to the song of a robin. Pretty, but loud.
“I think that bird only got like three hours of sleep,” Emily muttered. “I have to pee.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t really want to pee in the woods. Let’s go down to the house.”
“I didn’t bring a flashlight,” Kyle said.
“I did.”
They walked on the path, surrounded by the rustling of birds and squirrels waking up. “Is that Megan’s car?” Emily shone her flashlight at the mass of vehicles parked wherever they could fit.
Kyle’s stomach clutched slightly. “I hope she’s not here to stir shit up,” he said. It was one thing to talk under the stars about letting go and living in reality and accepting that they were a flawed bunch of people, and another to actually be in that reality.
“Well, it is Megan. . . .”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
They paused at the outer edge of the patio. The house looked so peaceful. The glow of hall lights, everything quiet. The margarita machine and a bunch of glasses from last night still on the big picnic table, Grandma’s book on the patio chair.
“Okay,” Emily said. “I really gotta pee. And then probably sleep a few hours.”
“Good idea.”
He headed to his room to get a little more sleep too, then woke to the smells of cooking. Four breakfasts left at the farm, including today. When he got up and headed down for food, he ran into his mom in the hallway, holding a pillow.
“Kyle,” she said. “Hi.”
“Been sleeping in the basement?” Kyle could hear that his voice had lost the edge of judgment that had been in his conversations with her for months.
“No, actually. On the second-floor balcony.”
“Really?”
“It’s not bad. A little damp in the mornings.” She smiled nervously. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I didn’t know I was looking at you any kind of way.”
“Like you want to say something.”
Maybe he did. Tired of secrets, tired of withholding, tired of being enemies. “Mom . . .” He brought his voice as low as it would go. “We looked at your phone.”
“Excuse me?”
“Me and Taylor saw your phone. We saw the messages and stuff. With Troy.” He meant it as a confession and maybe a warning, not an accusation.
She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. “Shit.” She opened her eyes. “Taylor knows?”
“I told her the night she came home. Um, also Megan knows.”
A loaded pause. “I see.”
“Do you think maybe . . .” He stopped, because they heard footsteps on the stairs above. Then Uncle Dale appeared.
“Is this the line for the bathroom?”
“Yup,” Kyle said.
His mom waved her hand. “Go ahead.” And she turned and went to her room.
He wondered what she thought he was going to say. Something harsh, probably, like “Do you think maybe you could get your shit together? Do you think maybe you should just leave?” What he’d planned to say was: “Maybe don’t see Troy while you’re here, for your own sake, so you can enjoy the last few days here after so many years of the farm? Leave feeling strong, leave maybe even feeling loved by this family?”
Downstairs, there was a crowd around the food, but he didn’t see Megan. Taylor sat outside in a lawn chair, eating a slab of sausage-and-egg casserole. Kyle’s stomach growled.
“Where’s Megan?”
“Sleeping in the basement. She got in at li
ke two.”
“I’m going to wake her up.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“She can’t miss breakfast,” Kyle said. “That will only make her madder.”
He went in and down the basement stairs. Megan lay on the sectional, still dressed and sleeping with one arm over her face like she always had.
“Megan,” he said. No movement. Then, louder, “Megan?”
“Hmph.”
“Get up or you’ll miss farm breakfast.”
She bolted up. “What time is it? Why didn’t you guys wake me sooner?”
“Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of food. I should have let you miss it, though, since you never responded to any of my texts. Thanks for that.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, stretched her arms overhead. “Sorry. I was still deciding.”
“You could have said that, I mean—” He stopped himself. Silence with no explanation was exactly what he’d done to Nadia. He laughed a little.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing.”
“Let’s go eat.”
“Wait, I just saw Mom,” he said. “I told her me and Taylor saw her phone. And you know everything. So I mean, she knows you know, you don’t need to ambush her or anything.”
“I wasn’t going to do that, Kyle. What did she say?”
“Not a lot. Uncle Dale interrupted us.” He watched her face. “So, what are you going to do?”
She let out a big sigh. “I don’t even know. I was all mad when I got in the car, but it’s a long drive and I got to think a lot and I don’t know what the point of any of it is. She’s fucking up and part of me wants to put her on blast. I still might. But I came here for you and Taylor. And the farm and I guess everyone.”
“Realllly?”
“I’m not dead inside, Kyle.”
“I love you,” he said.
“Shut up. I haven’t had coffee yet.”
When they went up to the kitchen, their dad was in there getting seconds, it looked like. He put down his plate when he saw Megan and said, “If I hug you, are you going to bolt?”
“Probably not.” She actually went to him, and Kyle watched as he gave her a bear hug, lifting her slightly off her feet. “Okay, Dad. That’s . . .” He put her down and turned his head away, cleared his throat a couple of times. “Bigfoot cry?” Megan said.
Kyle laughed. God, he missed his family. Even right now, when it was in front of his face, he missed it.
“I hope everyone doesn’t make a big deal about me being here.” Megan peered over their dad’s shoulder to the patio. “Where’s Mom?”
“Haven’t seen her this morning.”
Kyle handed Megan a plate. “Let’s eat.”
They got their plates of food and went out, and Megan waved her hands around and said, “Yes, I’m here, it’s very exciting, let’s move on.”
Aunt Brenda raised her mimosa. “To Megan, still being Megan!”
Everyone else lifted their classes and mugs, laughing. Kyle and Megan sat with Emily and Martie and Taylor at the smaller table. Alex was over on her dad’s lap at the big table.
Martie hugged Megan, then extended her fist to Kyle. He bumped it with his; she nodded. Then she said, “I used to imagine how we’d be over at the big table someday and all our kids would be at this one.”
“We can still do this,” Taylor said. “Like, even though it won’t be here we can get together, all of us. I mean, our house is almost big enough for everyone. We could fit a couple of tables in the backyard.”
“If our house is still a thing at this time next year,” Kyle said.
“What do you mean?” Martie asked. “Are you guys selling or something?”
Taylor said no at the exact same time that Megan said, “Probably.”
“We don’t actually know,” Kyle said.
“Okay, everyone stop talking like this is the last time we’re going to be together,” Emily said. “We have options!”
Voices at the adult table got louder, and the cousins leaned in to listen.
“This isn’t one of those farms that’s been in the family for generations,” Grandpa was saying. “It was our dream and our project and we did it, and now it’s over.”
Aunt Jenny said, “You’re going to shrug it off like that? ‘It was our dream and it’s over’? As if it didn’t affect anyone else?”
Grandpa Navarro clucked, waved his hand. “Jenny. I am ready to retire. I was ready ten years ago.”
“I know, but—”
“Ahora no, Jenny.”
“Hablemos de esto más tarde,” she muttered.
“Ya veremos.”
Martie cupped her hands and shouted over to Grandpa Navarro, “¡Usted siempre dice eso!”
“None of you kids wants to run a farm,” Grandma said. “Correct me if I’m wrong?”
“Not I,” Aunt Brenda said, and Kyle noticed she and Uncle Dale were holding hands under the table.
Kyle’s dad said, “But Mom, you guys didn’t raise us to run it. We weren’t in on the business and you didn’t teach us how to do it.” He pointed in Kyle’s direction. “Kyle’s been working summers with me since he was about ten. He could build a house if he had to. I wouldn’t know what to do with the farm, because Dad treated us like we were in the way.”
“That’s not true,” Grandpa said.
“Yeah, it is, Dad,” Uncle Mike said.
“Um, I could not build a house,” Kyle said to the cousin table.
Taylor laughed. “If you had to, though.” Then her eyes shifted. “There’s Mom.”
The patio slider opened, and Kyle’s mom came out with a cup of coffee. She seemed to scan the patio until she saw what she was looking for: Megan.
Megan put her fork down. “I’m just gonna go say hi real quick to get it over with.”
Kyle watched Megan go to their mom, and it was so weird knowing this big drama was going on—right here, right now—while at the other table they were still arguing about the past.
“Now,” Grandpa said, “if we’d lived farther south and gotten into almonds. Well.” He shook his head. “Who knew? Almond milk, almond flour, almond butter, almond cheese . . .”
“Notice how Grandpa just kind of mowed over whatever my dad and Uncle Jeff were trying to say about their childhood,” Martie said.
Taylor’s eyes were on Megan and their mom, too, sitting in a couple of lawn chairs off to the side of the patio. “I can’t handle this,” she said. “I’m going to start clean-up.”
Emily stood too, and she and Taylor collected empty glasses, plates, handfuls of silverware.
“What’s going on?” Martie asked Kyle.
“This is the first time Megan and my mom have talked in a long time.” Also: everything.
He didn’t feel nervous watching them, though, like Taylor had. It didn’t look like Megan was ripping into her. More like they were making awkward small talk.
“Well now, who’s that?” Grandma asked, looking toward the sound of tires on gravel.
Kyle turned to see.
A gold Subaru came into view.
His whole body clenched.
There were a lot of Subarus in California. There were even a fair number of gold ones. But only one that belonged to the wife of his mom’s boyfriend.
Kyle heard a faint “Oh, Jesus,” from his mom, and he looked at her and saw pure terror in her eyes. Kyle’s dad saw it too, and asked, “Who is it?”
His mom wasn’t moving, and neither was his dad. All the aunts and uncles were looking at his parents, and exchanging glances, but also not moving or speaking. Taylor stood holding the stack of plates. Emily looked at Kyle, a question in her face, and he looked back with the answer: Yep.
The only one doing anything was Pico, who ran barking toward the car.
“I’ll go,” said Kyle.
It felt like his moment. He knew all the players, every domino that was about to fall.
He met the car where
it stopped along the side of the house. Anna Partel rolled down her window and took off her sunglasses. There were those bright eyes. “Why do I know you?” she asked.
Kyle saw Jacob was with her. “You brought him?” he asked Anna, incredulous.
“It’s Kyle,” Jacob said, sounding equally confused. “From baseball.”
In the back, a golden retriever bounced around, trying to get a look at Pico, who wouldn’t shut up.
“Baseball?”
“We met one time when you were picking Jacob up,” Kyle said.
“I’m sorry. I’m . . . what are you doing here?”
He looked past her at Jacob, then back to Anna. “Maybe we could talk alone?” he said, and hoped she heard the do-you-really-want-to-do-this-in-front-of-your-kid? question.
She turned off the engine. Unhooked her seat belt. “Stay here,” she said to Jacob.
“I think Chase has to go to the bathroom.”
Anna swore under her breath. Kyle looked behind him, where the whole family was watching. For all most of them knew, he was giving directions to someone who’d gotten lost or thought the farm was open for fruit picking. He really did not want Anna getting out of the car. It looked like Jacob and the dog were going to have to.
He made a come-over-here waving motion toward Emily and Taylor, hoping one of them would get it. They both did, putting down their dirty dishes and coming over. Then Taylor said something to Emily and stayed behind, moving to be by their dad while Emily came to the car.
“This is my cousin Emily,” he said to Jacob. “If you want to come out with the dog, she’ll hang with you a minute.”
Jacob looked at Emily, at Kyle, at his mom. “Can we just go?” he said quietly. His grip around Chase’s neck tightened.
“Take Chase out to pee, sweetie,” Anna said. “I’ll be right here. Two minutes.”
Two minutes. Plenty of time to solve months’ worth of lies and deception.
Jacob got out, and Kyle slid into the passenger seat.
“My childcare fell through,” Anna said. “I told him we were going to go to Great America. I planned to go to Great America and just forget this whole thing, but then I kept driving. Just kept heading for Troy’s dot on the phone. He’s a software developer, you know. And he left his ‘find my phone’ on. He’s not very good at adultery.”