I live in a world of black and white, with spatters of red from the blood of men, and the sight of a burgundy coat on a seductive woman. Black and white, a dot of color, shades of red, love and death.
“Dylan, you’re never this quiet,” Sean says. “What’s up, man? You still alive in there?”
I pull into my parents’ driveway and park behind my dad’s black Cadillac, the white carnations I bought my mom at my side.
White house.
Black shutters.
Gray clouds overhead.
“I’m alive,” I reply. “Barely.”
A red Buffalo Bills sign on their front door is the only touch of color. Up year-round, it’s a giant pimple on the nose of the house—an eyesore waiting to be popped.
“Can I give your mom half of these?” Sean picks up the bundle of flowers.
“Yeah. Take them out of the cellophane so she doesn’t see the clearance sticker. And only take six this time, not eight. You’ll make me look bad if you give her more than me.” I flick my smoke out the window and kill the engine. “They cost five bucks.”
“You’re a frugal bastard sometimes.”
“I’m not ashamed of that.”
“Then why hide the price from her?”
“Because she’ll say I spent too much.”
He cracks out a laugh, dropping half the carnations in my lap. “I left you the ones with the brown tips since I didn’t get any beer from you the other night.”
“Sean, you get free beer every night.”
I snatch the flowers and step out of the truck. My nostril hairs prick like thorns from the cold. I breathe into my hoodie sleeve to keep my face warm, sliding my feet on the icy walk toward the door. My mom waves from the front window for us to hurry inside, the same spot she used to watch Jake and me ride our Big Wheels in the driveway, the spot where she’d knock on the glass and raise a finger, warning us when we got too close to the street.
The storm door swings open. “Don’t let the heat out. Get inside, quick.” She tugs us through the door, her wavy dark hair the longest I’ve seen it, past her shoulders. Dressed in a predictable oversized sweater, skinny jeans, and fuzzy slippers, she claps her hands like an excited child. “I’m so happy!” She smothers us in her arms, smelling of hard liquor. “You hungry? How about a drink? Is wine okay? I can open the box Sean gave me.” Her tall frame feels bonier each week, her face thinner, skeletal and pale. “I have ginger ale, the expensive kind. It was on sale, two for three dollars. Aw, look at the flowers!” She takes the two bundles, counting the number of heads in each one. “One dozen. How sweet. You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s a late Valentine’s gift for dropping off the heart cookies,” Sean says.
“Thanks, guys. I have an extra Mason jar I can use as a vase.” She plants her nose in the bouquets on her way to the kitchen. “Don’t get the carpet wet. Peter, the boys are here!” she calls to my dad.
We slip off our boots, making sure to place them on the plastic doormat.
“Pete! Did you hear me?”
Once we soak up the snow clumps on the carpet with our socks, we toss our coats over the back of a chair and follow her into the kitchen.
“I think your dad’s on the phone with Ed,” she says. “Have you seen him lately? He’s grown quite a bit, hasn’t he? I told him he couldn’t have any more of my cookies until he loses some weight. Aren’t the police supposed to stay in shape? I think they are. Anyway, how are you?” She pinches my cheek and gives the two of us another hug. It’s my mom’s nature to talk until she runs out of breath. Only now, the drugs she’s on for depression have intensified the blabber. “I get so worried about you, Dylan. Come to the table, both of you, sit and talk to me. The food’s just about done. Do you want a cold drink or some wine? Oh, make sure you buy ginger ale this week. It’s on sale.” She gleams, clapping her hands.
The drugs have turned her into a ditz. She laughs at everything, even when talking about Jake. It’s not easy to watch. I’ve told my dad she needs to cut back, but he says she’s all right, that it’s no different from how I drink every night to deal with the loss. I disagree. It’s different because she’s my mom and she deserves better. Like to be free of heartache, or to have a better son who doesn’t snort coke and kill people.
“Ginger ale,” Sean says. He elbows me and takes a seat at the kitchen table.
“Yeah, ginger ale is fine.” I sit across from him.
Framed photographs of Jake hang on the wall next to us, the peeling wallpaper around them showing the home’s age. Popcorn ceilings, dented white appliances, chipped laminate countertops, and dingy gray carpeting throughout every room. Small changes would bring me around more, something new, something different.
My mom pours the ginger ale into plastic Batman cups and sets them in front of us. “Sean, how’s Riley? Do you still see her?”
I place the hood of my sweatshirt over my head, pulling the strings tight until my eyes are covered, blocking out the dismal room.
I used to sit across from Jake at this table. In the mornings, he’d have his nose stuck in a book, scrambling to finish his homework before the bus arrived. From this seat, there’s a view through the sliding glass doors of the tree fort we built together, and his bike is leaning against the shed, buried in snow. We’d play baseball and football out there after school, and talk about girls on the back steps.
I tug the strings tighter, suffocating whenever I’m here. Like now, I have a sudden pressure in my chest. I swear, I swear I’m having a heart attack.
“I’m a pitiful mess,” I whisper.
Sean uncovers my eyes, slaps my cheek. “Kathy, we’ll have a beer with the ginger ale,” he says to my mom, then turns to me. “I’ll drive home. Go ’head and get drunk.”
“Peter!” my mom shouts, ignoring Sean’s request for beer. “Dylan, go get your dad. He’s downstairs in his man cave.”
I throw off my hood. “Dad!”
“Don’t shout, silly. Go down in the basement and get him.”
The scent of cabbage rolls follows me into the basement. I feel like a stranger in this house, no longer comfortable, the warmth stolen by death. I stand on the bottom step and whistle for my dad to come up. He raises a finger that he’ll be a minute.
“Ed, I’ll have it for you on Tuesday. Stop by the bar.” My dad snaps his fingers and points at the fridge for me to bring him a beer.
“The fridge is like, five feet away from your lazy-ass,” I complain, dragging my feet across the room.
I hand him a beer and flop in one of the four leather recliners in front of the flat-screen, next to a bookcase crammed with items from Jake’s high school memorial. The week he died, students left letters, teddy bears, and mounds of flowers outside his locker. I read about it in the paper and was a total wreck when my mom sent me to pick it all up. I kept it together inside the school but lost it after I got the stuff inside my truck—completely lost it. I cried for hours in the parking lot. The memorial was proof of how many friends he had, how much he was loved and would be missed, and what a terrible mistake I’d made.
“Tell me sooner next time,” he says to Ed. “No, I don’t blame him. We would’ve done the same.”
Jake was popular and charismatic. When he was a freshman in high school, he hung out with the seniors, my group—the in-crowd. By the time he was a junior, he was hanging with me on campus and at college parties. His high school friends thought he was a god, always a step ahead of them, a born leader.
We’ve never read any of the letters, still folded and sealed, stacked in the bookcase. They’re for Jake, not us.
“Dad, dinner’s ready. Can you hurry it up?” I rock my legs back and forth.
I miss this home when I could call it home. A time when my mom read me to sleep, and my dad paid attention. Now we all have coping mechanisms, from drinking and living at the bar, to popping pills and baking sweets, to hiding out in this room, eyes glaz
ed over in front of the TV.
“Dad, let’s eat.”
“Tell your mom to bring the food down here.”
“Mom!”
“Don’t shout, Dylan. Go upstairs and get her.”
I sigh. “I just did the same for her.”
“Ed, I appreciate it.” He drops a scolding look in my direction. “Thanks for being there. I’ll talk to him about it, catch you on Tuesday.”
“What?” I shrug.
“Go upstairs and get the food. I need a second to cool off and figure out how I’m gonna ground my twenty-two-year-old son.”
“What’d I do?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” He finger-combs his old-school Caesar haircut, wearing a tight black tee that shows off his muscular arms. He’s in remarkable shape for a middle-aged man who drinks like a fish and eats truckloads of my mom’s sweets. Although the dark circles under his eyes and stubble on his face are telltale that he’s had a rough weekend, like me. “Get the food.”
“Ease up, Dad. I’m going.”
I pass Jake’s sneakers on the stairs, left out like the items at Heather’s parents’ house. Jake’s stick and skates in my bedroom were a significant part of his life. He lived for hockey, but this other stuff? There has to be a point when it’s okay to donate or pack away a pair of sneakers.
“Dylan?” My mom sees me staring into space at the top of the stairs.
“Dad wants to eat in the basement,” I mumble. “The hockey game is on.”
Steaming cabbage rolls and mashed potatoes are on the table, a two-liter bottle of ginger ale the centerpiece. I call downstairs, the intermediary, thinking my dad should eat at the table since my mom went through all this trouble.
“Dad, come up and eat.”
“Bring it down here!” he yells.
My mom flaps her hand not to worry and fixes him a plate. “I’ll be right there,” she says. “It’ll be fun to watch the game with the three of you.” She compromises, as always.
Sean and I grab our plates and head downstairs, passing family portraits and school photos on the walls. My brother and I look wholesome in our dinosaur T-shirts, sporting Frankie Muniz haircuts from when our favorite show was Malcolm in the Middle. Jake’s crooked bottom tooth and the small gap between my top front teeth show in every photo.
“Why didn’t I get braces?” I ask my dad, setting my plate and Batman cup on a tray next to the recliner. I feel like I’m twelve again, asking why we don’t have a pool.
“You want braces? I’ll get you braces,” he says.
“No. Why didn’t I get them when I was a kid?” I scoop a forkful of mashed potatoes into my mouth. They’re perfect: lumpy, with a touch of garlic and overloaded with salt.
“Get what?” My mom places my dad’s plate on his lap and kisses the top of his head.
“Braces,” I say.
“You have beautiful teeth. Why do you want braces?” She sits in the chair next to me.
“I’ll get you braces if you want them,” my dad says.
“I’m not getting braces when I’m twenty-two. It was just a question.” I sound like a child, rambling about braces because I’m mad about Jake’s death. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just tired.”
My mom gives my hand a loving squeeze. “Why don’t you come over more often? Let’s do this again next Sunday. And we should go to lunch this week. I want to make sure you’re eating.”
“You’re the one who needs to eat.” I nod at her bony hand.
“Hey”—my dad hits my leg—“don’t start.”
My mom hides her hands in her lap and changes the subject. “I heard about the poem. Did you ever call that girl?”
I’m in no mood for a lengthy conversation about Autumn. Questions about what she looks like, or ones I can’t answer, like about her job, education, where she lives, or worse—questions about her family. I’m still reeling over that surprise blow about her dad.
“Yeah, I left her a message and a text yesterday,” is all I say, which is true. I did. I wanted to know if she was setting me up. Her one-word text response was no, and that’s all I’ve heard.
“Now that we’re all here…” My dad wipes his fingers on his napkin and mutes the TV. Whatever he’s about to say is big. Muting the TV is always big.
He turns to me and points a finger.
Here it comes.
“Dylan… what the hell’s wrong with you?”
“What?”
“Did you break into the Andersons’ house last weekend?”
“Shit.” I slam my fork on the TV tray. “Why’d Ed tell you that?”
“Because he’s my best friend and he wants to keep you out of trouble!” My dad jumps down my throat. “You’re lucky Sean had second thoughts and called him for help.”
Sean shrinks in his recliner.
“It wasn’t a break-in. I had a key.” That rationalization is a stretch. “I’m not giving up on Heather’s note. She wrote it for me, why the hell can’t I read it?”
My mom rubs my arm. “We don’t blame you for being upset, but you have to get Heather’s note in another way.”
“I’ve asked. I’ve been polite. Lona and Joel won’t budge. Ed’s read it, and he won’t budge either. He won’t even tell Dad what it said.”
“We’re talking about you, not Ed.” He smacks me upside the back of my head. “I don’t even know what to say about this. What’s your mom and I supposed to do? Either let us help you, or go talk to a shrink.”
“I don’t need a shrink. I need her note!”
“Enough!” He slams his fist on the arm of the recliner. “Never again, Dylan. Get it out of your head.”
“I can’t.” I lower my chin to my chest and stare at the floor. “How can anyone expect me to survive this?”
“Pete, Ed shouldn’t have mentioned this to us.” My mom comes to my defense. “Dylan’s an adult and can handle this on his own.”
“Wrong,” my dad says. “Ed put his job on the line for him. He was supposed to file a report. Dylan should’ve been arrested.”
Sean shrinks lower into the chair.
“The Andersons will press charges next time,” he adds.
“There won’t be a next time.” I sound crushed as I lie. “I was drunk. It won’t happen again.” The light from the TV stretches along the floor, stopping at my feet. “Sorry.”
“Me too,” Sean says, his voice muffled through the Batman cup.
I crack a smile at how young he looks with that goofy cup up to his boyish face, the top of his round cheeks and brown eyes peeping over the rim.
“Was that the first time you went in there?” my mom asks.
I pretend not to hear her, rubbing the back of my neck, stressed out, spitting venom about the Andersons. My last option to find out what Heather wrote is through Ed, and he’ll never tell me.
“What’s stuck up Ed’s ass?” I push my plate away and take out a cigarette, bouncing it up and down in my mouth. I’m impatient for answers, talking under my breath about breaking back into the Andersons’ house. I might even do it tonight.
“Dylan,” my mom takes my hand, “focus on what you do best and you’ll be fine. I promise.”
“I don’t know what that is anymore.”
“The bar,” she says. “Running the bar.”
“I can run the damn bar with my eyes closed, but Dad won’t let me.”
“Pardon?” He shifts in the recliner. “What did you say?”
“I can run the bar.” I bob the cigarette. “I can take over any day.”
“Fine, big shot. Let’s go. Take that cigarette outside and let’s talk this out.” He picks up his plate. “Kathy, you want seconds while I’m up? Sean?”
My mom has barely touched her food. “No, but bring the ginger ale when you come back down.”
She doesn’t pass up the chance to put on the weather channel now that my dad is leaving. Sean takes the seat next to
her, handing me his plate for more.
“Sean, don’t put any moves on my mom while I’m gone.”
“Can’t make any promises.” He puts his arm around her. “Have fun getting your butt kicked by your dad.”
• • •
Tactfully, my dad spares my mom from the argument. “Let’s go outside and talk this out” is what he’s been saying to me since I was a kid.
I follow him upstairs and slide into his boots next to the back door, then head outside. The sound of traffic and the smell of car exhaust are dense in the night air. I light my cigarette, making him wait until I take a couple of drags before I share.
“What the hell is wrong with you lately? What’s with the piss-poor attitude? Ed said Joel Anderson’s office was demolished like a goddamn bomb went off inside. What happened in there?”
“I got angry, all right?”
“No. It’s not all right. You’re going to ruin your life. And what’s this bullshit about running the bar with your eyes closed? Show me some respect.”
“I respect you.”
“No, you don’t. You’re acting like a smart-ass, an arrogant smart-ass. We raised you better than this. Since when are you the big-shot bar owner who thinks he can get away with murder? Seriously, you have no clue what you’re getting yourself into, running a business by yourself. No clue!”
“I went to school. I know what I’m doing.” I tap my chest.
“College?” He laughs. “My education came from listening to my dad and getting my hands dirty. You need to do the same. I’m warning you. You’d better listen to me. You hear?”
I look down at my feet, cursing a few times before I nod.
The Lost Night Page 11