Emmy & Oliver

by Robin Benway

  Not quite sure what to do with myself, I followed Oliver into the kitchen while Rick came in with a beer for my dad and our moms disappeared around the corner. “Hey,” I said to his back, since he was making room in the refrigerator for my mom’s (unnecessarily enormous) salad bowl. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” he said, but his face was as smooth as Maureen’s had been pinched. He wasn’t quite looking at me, either, his eyes going over my head or past my arm.

  “Hey,” I said again, this time softer, and I reached out to grab his hand. “What’s wrong? You’re being weird.”

  “You are,” he said, trying to duck away from the question, but just as I was about to press the subject, the twins came bounding into the room, a hyper duo of wet hair and The Little Mermaid pajamas.

  “Emmy! Emmy!” they cried, and I dropped Oliver’s hand just as he turned away. “Emmy! We got a new Barbie!”

  “She has brown hair like us!”

  “Emmy Emmy Emmy!” Nora pulled at my shirt. “Play Barbies with us, ’kay? You can have the new one.”

  “I can’t, twinsies,” I said. “I have to eat dinner and hang out with Oliver. I’m off the clock tonight.”

  “You not s’posed to call us ‘twins’ anymore,” Molly informed me, even as she wrapped her skinny arms around my waist and tilted her head back to look up at me. “We’re not twins, Mommy said. We’re invididuals.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Oliver hide a smile, which made me feel a little better. “Oh, really?” I said. “Invididuals, huh? You sure about that?”

  “Mommy said,” Nora repeated.

  “Nora, Molly.” Maureen came bustling into the kitchen. “Come on now, it’s bedtime.”

  A chorus of protests rose up, but Maureen just flapped her hands at them, like they were baby birds in a nest. “No, no, you know the rules.”

  “But our friend is visiting!” Nora cried, pointing at me.

  “Don’t point,” Maureen said. “It’s rude. And you can see Emmy tomorrow.”

  I nodded at them. “Totally. Besides, you two see me all the time. I’m boring.”

  Molly and Nora both glared at me as they started to slink away, a betrayer to their cause. “But Oliver has to read the story!” Molly suddenly said, turning around and pointing at him.

  “Don’t point!” Maureen cried. “Does anybody listen to anything I say anymore?”

  “Kind of hard not to,” Oliver muttered, but Maureen was too far away to hear him.

  “Oliver! You do the story tonight!” The twins (excuse me, the “invididuals”) had let go of me and were now hanging on to him, and over their heads, Maureen gave him a pleading, tired look.

  “You do the voices!” Nora said to him, and Oliver gave the same look right back to his mother. It startled me a little to see how similar their reactions could be. I don’t think either one of them realized it, though.

  “Oliver, do you mind?” Maureen murmured. “Please?”

  Oliver looked at me. “Mom, what’s Emmy going to do while I’m up there?” he asked, even as Nora started to climb him like a tree.

  “Set the table,” Maureen replied. “See? A solution for everything.”

  Oliver sighed and rolled his eyes, then shot me an apologetic look. “Okay, monsters,” he said, and they cheered. “First one upstairs gets to pick the book.” The girls took off, their feet making thunder-like noises on the stairs as they raced to their room.

  “You do the voices?” I asked him, not even bothering to hide my smile. “Are you just a big mush?”

  Oliver blushed. “This isn’t the sort of detail that I wanted to be made public,” he said.

  “I might die of adorableness,” I said. Maureen had followed the girls upstairs, yelling about brushing teeth and washing hands, and now it was just Oliver and me in the kitchen. I tangled my fingers together with his, pulling him a little closer. “Do a voice for me,” I said. “Go on.”

  “No way in hell.” He laughed and started to pull away when I leaned in. “Forget it. Nope.”

  “Come on!” I teased. “Is it cute? I bet it’s really cute. Do you do Olivia’s voice? Angelina Ballerina’s? Oh my God, you do Angelina?” I said when he blushed. “This is too cute! I’m dying. No, wait. I have to text Caro and then I’ll die.”

  “Do not text Caro!” he said, diving for my hand as I reached for my phone. “Come on, Em. I need some dignity. Please.”

  “Oli-ver!” one of the twins yelled from upstairs. “We’re waiting!”

  “My audience is really demanding,” he said, pulling away from me even as I continued to giggle. “You’re not really going to text Caro, are you? Tell me you’re not.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I promise. Your Angelina Ballerina secrets are safe with me.”

  He hesitated just before leaving the kitchen, then ran back to me and kissed me fast. “Hi,” he whispered. “Didn’t have a chance to do that yet.” Then he disappeared, yelling, “I hope you invididuals are happy now!” as he took the stairs two at a time. I pressed my hand to my mouth, waiting for a moment in the now-quiet kitchen, and then went to find some place mats.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Oliver and I ended up not sitting next to each other at dinner. “Sit at the head of the table,” Rick said to Oliver. It was pretty obvious that Rick was trying to be nice to Oliver, being generous and treating him as “man of the house” or whatever, but Oliver just sat down and didn’t respond. Rick looked like he expected Oliver to say something, but when he didn’t, Rick’s face fell a little and he turned away. Maureen sat down at the opposite end, closest to the kitchen, and my mom and I sat on one side while Rick and my dad sat on the other.

  I have to say this about the twins: they may be small, little, and noisy, but when they’re around, there are rarely any awkward silences, and suddenly I found myself wishing that they were at the table with us.

  “I hope you all like chicken,” Maureen said, reaching for the salad bowl as my mom started to pass the main course. “I know, it can be so blah. I really should have just let Elizabeth cater this one,” she added, nodding at my mom.

  “It’s nice to have a night off!” my mom said.

  Oliver and I shared a quick, desperate look. Adults making small talk for the next two hours. Joy. I’d rather be doing homework.

  We made it through most of the chicken and salad. Oliver ate silently, nodding his thanks when my dad passed him the basket of rolls, and glancing at me every so often. I did the same on my end. “So, Emmy,” Rick said, “how are college applications going?”

  I looked up mid-chew. So did Oliver.

  No one else seemed to notice, though. “Rick,” Maureen laughed. “Honey, most kids are starting to hear from the schools they applied to. The application process was a while ago.”

  “And Emmy’s going to community college for at least the first year,” my mom added. “I’m not sure I’m ready for an empty nest, to be honest!” Everyone laughed at that, even as her words made the chicken start to rise back up in my throat. Another year with a nine o’clock curfew, another year of lying to my parents about surfing, about sneaking out and staying at Caro’s. Even though I was already living that life, another year of it felt unimaginable.

  Maureen said something about Oliver starting to get college information already (“I guess the publicity is good for something, right?”), but Oliver’s eyes were locked on me. He raised an eyebrow and gestured a little with his fork, and when I just shook my head in an “I’m fine” gesture, he paused for a minute, then spoke up.

  “I think Emmy should go away to college.”

  My fork fell to my plate.

  “Well, it’s a little late now,” my mom said, laughing.

  Oliver just shrugged. “I dunno. I just mean, she’s smart, you know? Like, really smart. And she’s responsible. She could go away to school. And you know, maybe she should.”

  I sat frozen. If he said anything about UCSD, I would kill him and then the whole discuss
ion would be a moot point because I’d be going to prison, not college.

  “Oliver.” Maureen didn’t even try to hide the edge in her voice. “You don’t tell people how to raise their kids.” She smiled at my parents. “Sorry, you two.”

  “I’m not,” he said, and Oliver wasn’t hiding the edge in his voice, either.

  Maureen just gasped. I hadn’t realized that the two of them shared the same stubborn streak, but now, sitting across the table from each other, it was like an invisible current connected them. For the first time since Oliver had come home, ironically, they seemed just like mother and son.

  “I’m not,” Oliver said again. “I just think Emmy doesn’t need to be so protected, that’s all.”

  The conversation was taking a dangerous turn and I instinctively gripped the edge of the table, hanging on for the ride.

  “Are you doing this because I grounded you?” Maureen finally exploded. “Is that what this is? You want to embarrass me in front of our friends because you think I embarrassed you?”

  “That’s right, Mom,” he said. “It’s all about you. I forgot.”

  “You were late!” Maureen cried. “You were late coming home, and Keith is still out there somewhere and—”

  My mom started to stand up. “Maybe we should go,” she started to say.

  “No, Elizabeth.” Maureen gestured to my mom to sit down. “Please, stay. Sit down. This conversation is over.”

  But now Oliver was standing, too, his napkin balled up in his hand. “Do you really think he’s gonna kidnap me again? Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know!” Maureen yelled, and now she was standing, too. My mom sat back down reluctantly, then reached for my hand under the table. “I didn’t think he would take you the first time, but guess what? He did!”

  “I’m almost eighteen!” Oliver said. “What, do you think he’s just going to drag me away somewhere? I’m five inches taller than him!”

  “You are?” Maureen blinked. She seemed to sag a little and her lower lip trembled for a second, but then she regained her composure. “Oliver, listen to me. Keith committed a crime, a big one. He is a criminal. He is not to be trusted. You need to accept that.”

  “Stop talking about him like that’s all he did!” Oliver shouted. “He raised me, okay? He taught me how to ride a bike, he took care of me when I was sick!”

  “He was an alcoholic!” Maureen cried. “I had no idea if you were hungry, if you were starving . . .”

  “Dad never drank!” Oliver said. “You think you know everything and you don’t! I was fine!”

  “What if you got sick? Do you think he would have taken you to an emergency room or a hospital? He didn’t even take you to the goddamn dentist!”

  “He and I were there, Mom. You weren’t!”

  “I looked for you!” Maureen screamed, and now she was crying. My dad’s face was pale and Rick was standing up now, too, a reluctant referee. My mom’s grip on my hand was iron tight, and I was pretty sure I was hanging on to hers the same way.

  “I spent every day looking for you!” she continued. “All of my money! All of my time! I tried to find you!”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t.”

  “Hey!” Rick said sharply. “That’s enough, Oliver. You’re putting your mom through hell, you know that?”

  “Why is this always about her?” Oliver yelled back. “Everyone acts like it was my idea to disappear but actually, I’m the one who decided to come home!”

  Maureen froze. So did the rest of us.

  “Every time I asked Dad about you, he would just say he didn’t want to talk about it!” Oliver yelled, his face flushed. “And then one day, I went to the library, the big one with the lions, and I tried Googling you, and there were all of these articles about me and I saw your picture for the first time in ten years, Mom, okay? Ten years! And I knew then what Dad had done so when they asked for fingerprint volunteers on that stupid field trip, I said yes. And now sometimes I wish I hadn’t because I just fucked everything up for you, didn’t I?” Oliver’s eyes started to fill with tears. “You had this perfect life with the twins and Rick and I just messed it all up.”

  “Oliver, no, honey—” Maureen said as she started to cross the room to him. I was still in my chair, and my mom’s hand felt clammy in mine.

  “No!” Oliver yelled, and Maureen stopped in her tracks. “Just don’t, okay? You still love the kid that left, but I don’t think you like the one that came back! I don’t think you—”

  But he stopped talking when we all heard the tiny sobs coming from the corner. Molly and Nora were standing in the doorway, huddled together, both of them crying as they watched the fight.

  That current between Maureen and Oliver suddenly severed, and Maureen seemed to crumple as she buried her face in her hands. “Shit,” I heard her whisper.

  Oliver, for his part, looked sick, like he wanted to throw up, and he closed his eyes and said something to himself that I couldn’t make out. Then he opened his eyes and stalked away from the table, coming back a few seconds later with his hoodie in his hand, the same one he had been wearing in the gazebo the night we kissed. Had that really been just last week?

  “I’m sorry,” Oliver said, and I wasn’t sure who he was talking to until he knelt down in front of the twins and hugged them both, their small arms reaching up to wrap around his neck. “I’m sorry, okay?” I heard him say again. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.” Then he was kissing their heads and standing up, heading toward the door and almost running out.

  The rest of us sat at the table in stunned silence. My entire face was hot, but my hands were cold, like I had a fever. My mom let go of my hand and started to go around the table to Maureen, Rick went to the twins, and I sat back in my chair and looked at my dad, who was watching me very, very carefully.

  “Dad?”

  “Go,” he said, answering the question that I didn’t even know how to ask.

  I stood up. My legs were shaking. “I have my phone,” I told him.

  “It’s okay, Emmy. Go.”

  I pushed my chair back and grabbed my coat, then walked out the still-open door and pulled it shut behind me. I had no idea where Oliver had gone, or even where to look, but when I went out to the front yard, I saw a small figure stalking up the street, illuminated by orange streetlights and the ever-present coastal fog. He looked like a ghost, lost and alone, floating away.

  “Oliver!” I called. “Wait!”

  He didn’t acknowledge me, though, and I dashed through the wet grass after him, my sneakers squeaking when I hit the street. Three years of surfing had its benefits, it turned out, including some pretty good cardiovascular skills, and I caught up to him in less than a minute. “Oliver, please!”

  “Emmy,” he said, and he stopped so fast that I went running past him and had to double back. “Emmy, look. I appreciate you coming after me, that’s really nice of you but—”

  “I’m not going back,” I said, and he just looked at me and started walking again. “Wait,” I said. “Stop walking, okay?”

  “Just go back and stay with my sisters, okay? I didn’t mean to upset them.”

  “I know. They know that, too.” His legs were longer than mine and I had to hurry to keep up with him. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know!” he finally cried, coming to another screeching halt. “I have no idea, Emmy, okay? I don’t know where the fuck I am or where the fuck I’m going! I probably couldn’t even find my own house on a map.” He ran his hands through his hair, balled it up between his fingers, then let it go with a huge sigh. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you.”

  “I know,” I said again, because I did. I felt like I knew everything he was about to say, like that electric current that had snapped between his mom and him had snaked over and wrapped itself around me.

  I ignored him, though, and led him to the curb. “Sit,” I said, and he plopped down next to the streetlight and leaned against it. I sat down next
to him, then wrapped myself around his arm, holding him there. He took a deep breath, then let it out and rested his head against the top of mine.

  We sat there in silence for a few minutes, our ribs rising and falling in opposite waves, like we were breathing for each other. His pulse was racing under his skin and I ran my thumb against the veins in his wrist, waiting for him to calm down. “What happened?” I asked after enough time had passed.

  “I think you saw what happened,” he said, but there wasn’t any bite to his words. He sounded deflated, like the fight had sapped his energy.

  “I mean before. Did you and your mom have a fight or something? Because that was . . . sort of out of the blue.”

  “Not really, not if you live in our house. It’s been coming for a while.” Oliver ran his thumb over my knuckles, smoothing the skin. But his eyes looked wild, feral, like the coyotes that sometimes snuck through our backyard in the middle of the night. “I just can’t stand it sometimes, you know? Like, I know my mom suffered a lot. I know that and I don’t mean . . .”

  “Why didn’t you tell her, though?” I asked. We were standing next to each other now and I reached out and took his sleeve in my hand. He just glanced away, looking so defeated under the streetlight.

  “Because how do you tell your mom that you knew your dad took you away from her and you didn’t do anything about it?” He didn’t phrase it as a question. “What kind of kid does that?”

  I pulled him over to the curb, where we sat down together, Oliver falling with a heavy sigh onto the concrete. “Fuck,” he muttered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

  “You didn’t do anything,” I told him, fumbling for the right words. I felt like if I said the wrong thing, he would wither up like a flower, cave in on himself and disintegrate. “You were a kid, Oliver. It’s not up to you to fix what your dad did.”

  “Yeah, but now I have to fix what I did,” Oliver said, then laughed to himself. “I get so mad at my mom for not realizing I’m not that seven-year-old kid anymore, but she’s not the same person she was, either.”