The moment I hear their unified voices, I regret answering. I’ve managed to dodge interactions when I need space or slap on a smile when I can’t avoid people. Today, unfortunately, is the latter, and I need a minute more to get there. I tilt the camera toward Quinn.
“Damma?” Quinn’s face lights up as two floating heads launch into an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” She bounds around the kitchen in a series of skips and twirls. Not much I do these days makes her happy, so the sight elevates my mood. Add it to the long list of reasons why I’m grateful for my parents.
They finish with their disappointment over missing her party and reveal where they left her present. Quinn flees my side for the storage ottoman in the living room as I flip the camera and stand.
“You two want to throw this party? You’re already better at it.”
My parents are the only people I reserve honesty for. With unconditional love at the heart of our relationship, there’s no reason to keep anything from them. But only at this moment do I wish I would have held back from verbalizing it.
“Oh, stop. Let me see that cake you made,” Mom demands. Her glasses magnify and her usual white button-up shirt with abelt around her waist disappears with her proximity to the camera.
Tin foil and frosting peel back at the same time I reveal my attempt at aBluey-themed cake. It’s more of a lopsided tower with a plastic character stuffed on top.
“It looks great, son!” Dad says.
Unconditional love right there.I cover it back up.
“How’s the Amalfi Coast?”
The two of them left on a kick-off retirement trip to Europe last week. After raising two kids of their own and then stepping in to help take care of Quinn over the last six months, they deserve to be carefree, not countries away fretting over how their son is doing as a single father with a blown-up music career. My mother proves it was the right thing to ask when her mouth melts into a smile.
“Oh, it’s dreamy. You should see your father. He got a massage yesterday.” She giggles.
Just talking about Adam Dawson, my feet instinctively carry me to the den where he worked long hours as a financial advisor growing up. Years of monitoring the rollercoaster that is the stock market has to create some lasting muscle tension.
This room now feels stuffy and dark without his cardigan-wearing presence in it, offering me wise advice from his rolling desk chair.
“Wow, pops. Feeling relaxed?”
“Am I ever!” He winks at Mom, and I manage to crack a smile.
Leave it to my parents to make me think about sex. With everything going on around me, I’ve had very little time to consider how long it’s been. But now that I am, I admit to myself that I miss it. Not just the stress relief, but the deep connection it creates with someone else. My world with El feels like alifetime ago, and the one without her in it has left me detached from everything.
“How’s the house?” Dad asks next.
I lift the flap on the office blinds to reveal the lurking shadow of my former life: reporters, everywhere I look. Privacy is not something a house on Harrison Boulevard affords you. With its long-standing history—named in honor of President Harrison after he signed Idaho’s statehood act—and the decades it’s hosted the city’s most iconic Halloween experience, I’ve always known what living in this house meant.
But now the driveway is no longer the place I park my car as a teenager and make out with a pretty girl inside of it. The front steps are no longer safe to prop my guitar on my bent knee and write music. And the lamppost sign buried in the long boulevard median with mature trees sure as hell is not a place I’d even approach right now with a mob circling it.
No. “Boise’s Historic District” is no longer home. It’s the latest news headline for Rhett Dawson’s fall from grace. And it’s the last place I want to be.
“It’s fine.” I drop my hand, and the blinds slap closed.
The old oak floors groan beneath my footsteps as I clear the glass-pane pocket doors that lead from the study to the kitchen. I shuffle through the Albertson’s sack on the countertop, taking inventory of everything I bought this morning—paper plates, napkins, forks.
“And how areyou?” Mom asks.
“I’m fine too.” I’m a little too tired to make it sound all that convincing.
“Our trip is still booked through the summer, but we can come?—”
“We’re here!” my least favorite voice trills from the foyer.
Of course my mother-in-law is the first person to arriveat this party.
“To-To!” I hear Quinn squeal, clomping in her glossy pink rain boots.
“Mom, Dad, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you in a few days.”
