by Sara Zarr
“Neither is my mom.”
Anna stared at him.
“It’s my mom,” Kyle continued. “My mom is the girlfriend.”
He gave her time to catch up. Then she said, “You knew? When I met you that time? Did you know?”
“Yeah.”
Anna put her hands to her temples. “Is that why you started working with the team? Were you trying to get close to my family? Why is your family trying to hurt us? I’m sorry . . . I’m so confused.”
“I know. I’m—”
“I followed the dot. I woke up at four and drove six hours to get to the dot, and now the dot is way up here with someone else from Santa Barbara? They couldn’t stay there and screw around so I didn’t have to drive my child six hours for this?”
Everything he’d imagined about how it would feel for her to realize all these people knew, but not her, was even worse than Kyle had imagined it. Maybe because he hadn’t imagined it happening at the farm, with the kid and the dog.
“Did you tell Jacob?” he asked.
“I may have said some stuff. In a vague way.” She craned her neck to get a better view of the patio. “Which one is she?”
Kyle checked over his shoulder. “My mom is the one in the blue skirt.”
She paused, studying Kyle’s mom, then asked in a pained voice, “Why are they all looking? Do they all know? Does literally everyone know but me?” She leaned out the window and waved Jacob back to the car. “Let’s go, hon.”
Chase and Pico tumbled around and played in front of Emily and Jacob like this was the most fun day they’d ever had.
“They don’t all know. Me and my sisters and my dad.” No need to mention Emily.
“Your father? Your father knows and I didn’t?” She put her sunglasses back on. “Jacob! In the car, now.” She looked at Kyle. “I have to get us out of here. Pretend this didn’t happen.”
Kyle got out of the car. The dogs were going crazy. Jacob opened the back door of the car and both dogs jumped in, and Kyle tried to get Pico out and then a smaller blue car appeared at the top of the drive.
“I think . . . Dad’s here,” Jacob said.
“Shit,” Anna said. “What are you doing, Troy?” She looked at Kyle, frantic. “What’s happening?”
The blue car came to a stop. The Bakers and Navarros all watched as Troy got out.
Pico jumped back into the Subaru, in and out, like it was a game.
“Everything,” Kyle said to Anna. “Everything is happening. What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know! If you could get that goddamn dog out of my car . . .”
Kyle got hold of Pico’s collar, but it was all too late. None of them were going to be able to escape this.
“Jacob,” he said, “lemme show you this cool demolition we’re doing on a building down that path?” He pointed, made eye contact with Anna, hoping she’d get the hint. Down that path. Far away from the shit show about to go down. “We’ll take the dogs.”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Yeah. Jacob, go with Kyle.”
8
IF THIS had happened two months ago, Kyle might have relished it, might have thought his mom was getting what she deserved and that she had brought this on herself. Now, all he felt was sad. Now, he wished she didn’t have to go through it. But she did, and everything was out of his hands, except that Anna had trusted him with Jacob and he wanted to come through.
Kyle walked with Jacob toward the bunkhouse, the dogs up ahead of them.
“How does your mom know my dad again?” Jacob asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“Um, I don’t actually know how they met.” He pointed ahead. “The bunkhouse is down here.”
“My mom told me we were going to Great America.”
How much do you tell a fifth grader? Almost sixth?
“Yeah, I think she intended to take you there. She said she talked to you some in the car? About why she was coming up here?”
“She told me my dad was supposed to be in Portland for a conference, but he wasn’t. And that he lied to her and she was trying to find out the truth because he kept lying.”
“Uh-huh.” Kyle thought he probably shouldn’t fish. He pointed out the orchard, named all the things that grew on the farm. “We come here every summer. The whole family. Well, we did. This is the last time.”
“Because of my dad?”
Kyle looked at him. “No no no. My grandparents are selling it so they can retire.”
“I hate my dad.”
Aw, man. Had he hated him before, or only now, after seeing him scramble out of a car in Northern California when he was supposed to be in Portland?
They made it to the clearing and then the bunkhouse. “Check it out. Me and my cousins used to sleep out here in summers. We actually slept out here last night, some of us.”
“There’s no roof.” Jacob sat on one of the bunks that still had an air mattress on it. “This is cool.”
The dogs came in, panting and circling all around and wagging, and then went out again.
“So, my dad’s girlfriend is your mom?” Jacob asked.
Welp, so much for beating around the bush. “Yeah.”
“Are my parents getting divorced?”
“I don’t know.”
Jacob stood up and looked out the glassless window. “I’ve been practicing my slide. I don’t like baseball that much, though.”
“Really?” Kyle tried to sound surprised. “What happened to wanting to be just like Kyle, man?”
“I didn’t mean I wanted to play baseball like you.”
“Oh.”
Jacob turned to him. “It would be awesome to have cousins.” He looked out the window again. “Mine are all in Illinois. I don’t really see them because my mom usually has to be at the hospital and we can’t travel too much.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry.”
There was a lot else he could say, but Kyle wasn’t about to give a pep talk to someone who’d had the rug yanked out from under his feet. He knew the feeling. All the feelings. Sometimes what you really needed was someone to listen and then say, “That sucks, I’m sorry,” and then shut up. That’s what Emily had done for him, essentially, and he knew how much it could mean.
“I’m kind of really hungry,” Jacob said. “We didn’t stop for food or anything.”
“Oh, you are in the right place for being hungry. Come on.”
When they got back down to the house, the cousins were on the patio, sitting around and talking. Alex jumped up when she saw Kyle and Jacob, and he introduced them, and then everyone went around and said their names. Then they took Jacob into the kitchen and Martie listed off every single food and beverage option available, and ended up making Jacob a sausage biscuit and warming up hash browns. He had a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, but honestly it wasn’t that different from his usual expression at baseball practice.
Alex and Martie entertained him while Kyle and his sisters and Emily went to the laundry room.
“What’s happening now?” he asked. “Where is everyone?”
“I think Jacob’s mom and dad went up to the swings,” Taylor whispered. “Aunt Gina lectured Grandma and Grandpa about minding their own business and forced them to walk around the pond with her.”
“My mom and Uncle Mike went with your dad,” Emily said to Kyle. “I don’t know where, somewhere in Uncle Mike’s truck.”
“Where’s Mom?” Kyle asked Megan. “Is she okay? I hope you guys didn’t leave her all alone out there.”
“Uncle Dale stayed with her,” Megan said. “I offered, but she asked for him.” She shook her head. “This is so awful.”
They went back into the kitchen, and Jacob asked, “Is my mom coming back?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “We’re going to wait here for her to be done talking to your dad.”
“That could be a while,” Taylor said. “What do we do now?”
“Work on the bunkhouse?”
Martie
groaned.
Emily caught Kyle’s eye. “We should watch movies.”
They hauled the big beanbag back from the attic to the basement, bringing along every pillow they could find. Martie stood at the top of the basement stairs and threw down bags of chips and popcorn, which Emily caught while Chase and Pico jumped at them. Kyle was pretty sure Pico’s training had been entirely forgotten. Martie also found homemade cookie dough in the fridge and brought enough spoons for everyone.
“What happens when Grandma goes to make cookies later and there’s no dough?” Alex asked, because she’d gotten in trouble before for eating Grandma’s cookie dough.
“It’s an emergency,” Martie said.
Emily and Kyle found the box of VHS tapes, discussed the programming, and popped in Singin’ in the Rain. Jacob had never seen it, which made Alex extra happy and also extra annoying because she kept saying, “This is my favorite part!” and had about a hundred favorite parts.
When Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds did their big dance scene, Kyle watched Jacob to see if he liked it. Maybe he’d think it was corny and dumb or get tired of Alex going, “Watch, watch.” He seemed okay, though. Quiet and kind of serious.
Kyle’s favorite thing was that Megan was lying on the floor, on her stomach, with her chin in her hands. Light from the TV flickered across her face, and she lazily ate popcorn from a little pile in front of her.
Taylor sat next to him on the sectional with Emily on her other side. He nudged Taylor, like, “Look at Megan,” but her eyes were on the movie and her fingers were pressed to her mouth, concentrating. He turned back to the TV just in time to see Gene Kelly, a huge smile on his face, stand with arms open and face up to the pouring rain.
“This is my favorite part,” Alex said again.
Toward the end of the movie, Aunt Jenny came down the stairs.
“Hey, guys. Can you pause that a minute?” She clicked on a lamp and looked around. “Are you eating cookie dough?”
“Yeah?” Martie said.
“Hey, Jacob, your mom is in the kitchen and wants to talk to you for a minute, okay?”
He put his popcorn aside and ran up the stairs, Chase following after.
“Okay, guys,” Aunt Jenny said. “So, here’s what’s happening right now. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Karen need some time alone. They’re going to head over to our place for tonight.” Aunt Jenny looked at Martie. “And we’ll stay here. Just tonight.”
“I don’t have any of my stuff.”
“It’ll be fine. We’ll camp out down here. We offered Jacob’s parents some time alone, too. They have a room in town, but Jacob is probably going to sleep over here tonight, if he’s okay with it.” Aunt Jenny looked at Kyle. “We’ll put a cot in your room.”
“Did you organize all that, Aunt Jenny?” Megan asked, sounding impressed.
“Pretty much.” She collapsed onto the end of the sectional next to Martie. “Me and Grandma. This family comes together pretty well in a crisis, but this is a new one.” She said to Megan, “I guess you guys knew?”
“We knew,” Taylor said. “Kyle knew since Martie’s birthday.”
“You’re kidding. Oh!” She put a palm to her head. “I was supposed to say that your parents want to talk to you before they head over to our place. When Jacob comes back down, give it like five minutes and then you guys go up. It’s all coordinated.”
Their parents were in the kitchen, waiting. Their dad looked exhausted and puffy. But it was the mortified and broken look on his mom’s face that made her the one Kyle wanted to hug. He went and did it, even though it felt like they should all be on Dad’s side. When he let go and stepped back, his mom seemed like she wanted to say something but couldn’t.
Megan was shaking her head. “This is some real messed-up bananas shit.”
“Yeah,” their dad said. “It is. We messed it up.”
Taylor reached for his arm. “You didn’t do anything, Dad.”
“It takes two to torpedo a relationship, Taylor,” Megan said.
“Your sister is right. I’ve been passive, I’ve been in denial. . . .”
“Are you saying you deserve this, Dad?” Kyle asked. He really wanted to know if his dad thought that.
Taylor said, “No one deserves to be cheated on.”
“My point,” Megan said, “is—”
“Okay.” Their mom raised her hands. “We want you to be able to vent. We want to answer all your questions. We want you to feel free to talk about anything with us. That’s all going to happen, but not right now, not here. We’ll do it when we’re home. Our home.”
Kyle saw his mom and his dad exchange the kind of look that parents do, a kind of we’re-a-team look. Now, in the job of trying to explain how everything had gotten so profoundly devastated, they were a team. Finally.
“Are you going to say you’re sorry?” Taylor asked.
“Yes, Taylor. Of course.” She looked at Kyle, though. Not at Megan and Taylor, but straight at Kyle, like she actually at last understood that these months had been the worst of his life. “I’ll be saying it a lot.”
After his parents had left for Uncle Mike and Aunt Jenny’s house, Kyle went out in search of Emily. He went up toward the swings and saw Alex and Jacob and the dogs there, playing. Alex seemed thrilled to have someone her age there, never mind the reason.
Kyle had a flash of nostalgia about the lifetime of summers. Especially the years when they all played together and weren’t yet separated into high school and non–high school factions. All of them, playing red rover under the trees, playing soccer, playing a version of freeze tag that Grandpa Navarro called encantados. Enchantment. Kyle loved that word, and the way he said it, and also desencanta—unenchantment, when you got tagged and unfrozen.
He went down to the bunkhouse, in case Emily had gone there. It was deserted. The piece of wood over the door with the burned-in words, Grandma’s House: Where Cousins Go to Become Best Friends, was still there. Kyle found a hammer and knocked it loose of the frame to carry to the house and put with his stuff.
The sun was getting low. It would be time to gather for dinner in a minute. With his parents not there, he figured they would be the main topic of conversation. Maybe not at dinner, not in front of Jacob. But later, when Aunt Brenda fired up the margarita machine and Great-Aunt Gina and the grandparents went to bed, the aunts and uncles would definitely sit around the table and discuss. Who had known, who had guessed, would this be a divorce—the first in the family—why that bald guy, how could they be so dumb as to try to meet up right down the road . . . who what when where why how.
He and Emily and the rest of them would sit around talking, too, when they were grown-ups. Remember that summer Aunt Karen’s boyfriend showed up? They’d talk shit about this and about everything that was going to happen in the next five, ten, twenty years. Like they’d said that morning, they’d find a place to go year after year. They’d have some fights. They’d have some stories.
There were footsteps in the brush, and when Kyle turned around, Emily stood, hands in her shorts pockets.
She smiled. “There you are.”
“I wanted to get this.” He held up Uncle Mike’s sign. “Before it got lost in the scrap heap.”
“Gonna hang it in your room back at home?”
“Maybe.”
“So, what a day,” she said, breathing out a laugh. “How are you doing?”
“I . . . have no idea.” He looked at the sign in his hand. “But I’m glad I’m here.”
She flung her arm around his shoulder. “Me too.”
They walked back down to the house like that, toward the lights, toward the flawed bunch of people who would be waiting.
9
BY LUNCH the next day, they’d demolished the bunkhouse all the way to its concrete foundation. Martie had decided to keep working on it after all, finding some satisfaction in tearing it down, and Jacob’s and Megan’s help made it go faster. So did the fact that Alex and
Jacob talked to each other practically nonstop. Well, mostly Alex talked and Jacob listened.
Kyle went to Emily, where she was double-checking that nothing salvageable had wound up in the pile for the dump. They sorted through the hardware and the lumber. “I’m having feelings,” he said.
“Me too.” She gestured to the pile. “Behold, our childhood, may it rest in peace.”
Alex shrieked about something. It turned out she was excited to see Uncle Mike, who walked into the clearing with Aunt Brenda, both carrying open bottles of beer.
“Hole-eeeeee shit,” Aunt Brenda said. “You guys really tore it down!”
“Yeah, that was the point,” Emily said.
Uncle Mike patted Kyle on the back. “Nice work.”
“Hello, Dad, we helped, too,” Martie said.
“This is unsettling.” Aunt Brenda stood in the middle of the bare foundation. “This is . . . okay, I have managed not to cry all week, but I’m going to now.”
Alex ran over and put her arms around Aunt Brenda’s waist. “It’s okay, Mom.”
“We weren’t even allowed here when we were kids,” Uncle Mike said. “Workers lived here and we were supposed to stay away. I always wanted kind of a clubhouse so bad. You guys were lucky.”
“Good riddance to it,” Martie said.
Aunt Brenda stepped off the foundation. “I know. I’m just thinking about you all when you were little. You were so freakin’ cute, every last one of you.”
“And you’re still lucky,” Uncle Mike added. “You all have way cooler parents than we did.”
“Maybe not all of us,” Megan said.
“Yes, you too, Megan.”
“I don’t know, man. What my mom did? And my dad is so passive and boring and materialistic.”
“Hang on,” Uncle Mike said. “You’re talking about my big brother.”
“Okay,” Aunt Benda said. “Everyone but Kyle and Taylor and Megan go . . . help Grandma or whatever.”
“Why?” Alex asked.
“Come on.” Emily pulled her down the path. Jacob and Martie followed.
Kyle sat on the concrete of the foundation, suddenly slammed with exhaustion. He was going to sleep for a hundred years when this was all over. Taylor sat next to him and tilted her head to rest on his shoulder.