“I’ll walk you out,” my father said, jogging to keep up.
Great. I pressed the elevator button and prayed for deliverance. Graham squeezed my wrist. Then his hand came to the small of my back, where he rubbed a reassuring circle. It was both sweet and devious at the same time, because my father would not appreciate the PDA, no matter how mild.
“You look good, John,” my father said.
I said nothing.
“I want you to come home this summer,” he added.
“What, did she threaten to cut you out of the will?” I tapped a rhythm on the elevator button like an impatient fool.
“John,” my father sighed. “I do love you.”
“Got a weird way of showing it,” I said. “Although the tuition checks are always on time. So I suppose Mom wants me to be grateful.”
“Your mother thinks…” he sighed.
“That is debatable,” I argued.
“She believes in tough love.”
“…Which worked so well.” I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “You are never going to change me, okay? Not about this. So you can take me or leave me.”
“I’ll take you, then.” The elevator doors opened, finally, revealing four other people. I stepped in, and Graham and my father followed. “Will you please come home this summer?” my father asked.
Ugh. I could just picture it. Tense silences at the dinner table, or worse. If my mother campaigned for me to attend a Healing Camp, I was not going to be nice about it. “I will visit,” I said. “Because Gran wants me to. But not right away. I need to be around for her.”
The doors opened, and we all got out. I plowed forward toward freedom. The automatic doors parted, and then I was sucking down the fresh Vermont air. That helped.
“John?”
God, he was like a dog with a bone. “Yeah?”
“You’re a good grandson.”
“I know that already.” I patted my pockets. “Car keys?” I asked Graham. He held them up. Because I couldn’t avoid it any longer, I finally met my father’s eyes. He looked a lot like me, actually. And I spent a long second wondering if someday I’d have worry lines on my forehead, like him. “I’ll see you. Maybe in August.”
“I hope so, son.”
It shouldn’t have made a difference to me that he called me “son.” But somehow, it did. “Okay,” I said, my voice gruff.
“I look forward to it,” he said.
* * *
I drove us out of town and onto the highway. We didn’t speak, probably because I was thinking too hard. And when I checked Graham’s face, I found him dozing in the passenger seat. Eventually I pulled off the highway, and up to the drive-through window of a fast food restaurant.
When it was almost our turn to order, I put a hand on Graham’s knee to wake him, because I didn’t know what he’d want. “Lunch time, baby. What do you like from Wendy’s?”
He shook himself into consciousness. “Um, taco salad?”
I just stared at him. “Really? A salad?”
Graham gave me a sleepy grin. “I have a lot of salads for lunch. But never for dinner.”
“I didn’t know that. We never eat lunch together.”
A sad expression passed through his eyes, but then he smiled again. “Some idiot thought we shouldn’t. Can’t remember why.”
