“He’s not my dad.” I bite my cheek, not wanting to cry in front of her. “Everything is different now. You took down all of our family pictures, and our house smells different. We eat different food and we watch different shows.” Biting my cheek doesn’t stop the tears.
I notice her face switch from annoyance and disappointment to concern and sadness.
“I feel lost in my own home. Baseball is the only thing I have left of Dad, and then you tried to take that away too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
My fingers grow numb at my side. “Because you’re happy now.”
But she doesn’t look like it right now. “I want us all to be happy.”
“How can I be happy when I hear you laughing and talking in the hallway”—my voice catches, cracking in midair—“and I have to remind myself it’s you and Adam, not you and Dad?”
I know it shouldn’t bother me when Dad’s been gone for so long, but seeing Adam fill my dad’s shoes ripped the wound wide open again. No one told me how it would be to see someone kiss my mom and hold her hand like my dad used to.
And no one told me how guilty I’d feel for hating it. For wishing Adam wasn’t around even though it would mean she’d be lonely.
I’m ashamed of how I feel because it’s not like I expect her to do anything. Dad is gone and Adam isn’t going anywhere. This is our life now. I know I have to accept it.
Mom stands up, stepping closer.
I’m scared to look at her and see how disappointed she is in me. I’m afraid to see her cry. I won’t forgive myself.
I push past her, trying to run to my room because the guilt is already eating away at me.
“Myles, wait.” She grabs my arm. “Let’s figure this out.”
I shake my head. “Please let me go.”
She does.
38
MYLES
I wake up to a knock at my door. The sun is too bright and I squint. My head pounds from my lack of sleep. How was I supposed to sleep when I knew my mom was crying in her bedroom?
“Can I come in?” Mom asks.
“Yes,” I say a little too quietly.
She steps in and sits on the corner of my bed. She smooths out the sheet like she’s trying to keep her hands busy. Then she leans over and picks up the picture of Dad and me from my bedside table. “Your father was an amazing person.”
Her eyes are puffy, but she isn’t crying right now. She looks at the picture with a smile. “I remember when we took this photo. He was so proud of you.”
It was at one of my first Little League games. When I close my eyes, I can still see my parents sitting on the bleachers, cheering. Their smiling faces. Their hands waving as I stood, ready to bat. I hit the ball and ran as hard as I possibly could. I made it all the way around, diving forwardto slide through the dirt as my fingers managed to touch home plate just in time.
After the game Dad hugged me and his smile was so big it almost touched his ears. “That’s my boy,” he’d said. He lifted me onto his shoulders and I touched the sky. My heart was full and in that moment I had everything I could ever want.
Mom stands back up. “I want you to get dressed and meet me in the car. There’s somewhere I want to take you.”
“What about school?”
“This is more important.”
That’s it. She doesn’t say anything else. There’s no explanation, not even a hint as to where she’s taking me. She ruffles the curls on my head and walks out of the room.
I’m left stunned. I don’t know what I expected after last night, but it wasn’t this. I thought maybe she’d avoid me or yell, but she’s calm.
