“It’s me,” says a gruff, raspy voice, a voice I haven’t heard in what feels like months.
Oh, Jesus,I think, sick with dread. “Has something happened to Mom?”
“No. I was calling to—ah, well. To ask if you remembered something.”
I sit heavily on the too-small chair, hearing it creak beneath me. Hell, my knees felt weak there for a minute, thinking of what news I was about to get. I’m relieved, but not overly so—it’s still too strange that it’s my dad calling, not my mom, who initiates all our family conversation these days.
“Sure, Pop,” I say.
“You remember when your mother and I took you kids toDisney World?”
I smile with the memory: the worst family vacation ever. Aaron and I had been nine, had been begging to go for at least the previous two years. We’d driven down in Pop’s old station wagon, loud with various rattles and whirs, the air conditioner broken and the gas tank guzzling up so much fuel that we had to stop all the time. My dad had been grouchy, my mom had been falsely cheerful, and pretty much the second we’d crossed into the state of Florida we seemed to encounter all manner of new allergic triggers for Aaron. He had terrible hives, his breathing was raspy and uneven, and his eyes were so watery and swollen that he could barely see, which mattered less once Mom had upped his dose of Benadryl and he’d fall asleep for hours. He’d been too sick to go to the park for the first two days, and so we’d holed up in our dingy hotel room, playing cards and watching cable. And when we finally got to the park? I don’t think any one of us had ever felt that kind of heat in our lives, rising up from the pavement like something directly from hell, the lines long and the people loud and rude, all the souvenirs costing more than we could afford. We made it through three hours, all of us trying so hard to enjoy ourselves, until Aaron had stood, a melted Dole Whip in his small hand, and said, “This is awful. I hate everything about this place,” and all four of us had laughed and laughed.
“I remember.” I’ve set one elbow on my thigh, have lowered my head to cradle it in my hand. It hurts to think about this—it physically hurts, those aches in my joints returning with a vengeance.
“There’s this one picture I found,” he says, and I can hear from his voice he’s been crying, again. Before Aaron died, I’d never seen my dad cry, not ever. He’d been almost comically stoic, even when Aaron was having his lowest times, when he was in and out of rehab, jail. But now he cries a lot, as though he was saving his whole lifetime supply of tears for this. “It’s you and your brother coming off Space Mountain. I think your mother took it.”
“Don’t know if I’ve ever seen it.” I’m so conscious of Zoe in the room. Shehas not moved.
“You’re holding his hand,” Pop says, and holy fuck. I have to clench my hand into a fist now, keeping it pressed against my forehead. I can feel Aaron’s small hand in mine, hot and clammy. I couldn’t speak if I tried.
“That’s all, really,” he says. “Just foundthis picture.”
“Okay, Pop.” I listen close to hear if my mother’s there, rustling around in the background, but it’s quiet. “Where’d you come by the pictures?” I ask, frustrated, angry. If he’s this low, this raw all the time, my mother should be keeping this shit away from him. Packing it away so he can never see it, not until he’s ready.
It’s not fair that I’m thinking that, that I’m putting it on her. She’s the one reading all the books, going to all the support groups, after all. She’d know better than me what’s right for my dad. But I can’t see sense about this, and I know it. I only want him to stop hurting.
Across the room, Zoe sits up, picks up her discarded pajamas and pulls them on, her head bowed as she stands and wanders into the bathroom.
“Just thought I’d have a look today,” he says. “Wishing you good luck,and all that.”
“Thanks, Pop. Maybe you ought to put Mom on.” Probably it was her idea for him to call me, anyways. No way has he been keeping track of when I’d be giving this presentation.
“She’s out.”
If it’s possible, my stress level rises another notch. I hate to think of him there, alone, probably surrounded by a photo album that’s page after page of gut punches. What makes it worse, I guess, is that I can’t even really picture it. I’ve never been to the condo, don’t have a sense of its layout from the pictures my mom sometimes sends. I’ve never sat on the new furniture they have down there, have never taken in their new view. I can’t picture what my dad’s looking at, other than at this three-by-five memory of his two sons, back when we were all right. When we were whole. “She coming home soon?”
He clears his throat. “I’m sure she’ll call you. Give you herown pep talk.”
The chair beneath me squeaks out its indignation at my size, at my shifting in discomfort. I don’t have a good feeling about this, him there alone.“Sure,” I say.
“You always helped your brother. Like in this picture. You were so important to him.”
I stand then, face the window, my back toward the room. So if Zoe comes in, she can’t see the way my chin tightens up in suppressed anguish. He means something good with this—he means to remind me I’d been good to Aaron and that what happened to him later wasn’t because of me. But I can’t hear that. Can’t hear anything but the ways I didn’t help him, the ways I wasn’t important enough. I wasn’t important enough for him to save himself.
“All right, Pop. I’d betterget out there.”
We hang up and I take a deep breath, steady myself against the tremor of grief he’s just set off with nothing more than a few quiet words of well-wishing. In my mind, I start rattling off the opening lines of my presentation, something concrete to grab onto. The day stretches out in front of me like a huge, yawning void. If I get this right today, my whole future changes. Everything about my life will be different.
Again.
“Are yourparents okay?”
When I turn to face her, she’s leaning in the wide doorway into the bathroom, her hairline wet from washing her face, her skin scrubbed pink and clean. Her voice is quieter than usual, and I know it’s because of what she’s asking. She’s tiptoed around the subject of my parents since that first day we met, and I guess that’s smart of her. The question is innocent, but it’s the same thing she asked that day, pressing her way into my life on her quest for forgiveness, and I’m so keyed up from that exchange with my dad, from my nerves about the presentation, that I can only hear her guilt. Ten minutes ago I could barely think of anything but how I might manage to keep her, but right now, in this moment, she feels like part of the problem, not the solution.
“They’re fine. I ought to get ready.” I move toward the dresser, start pulling out clothes for the day.
“Aiden,” she says, a statement all on its own, and I still, briefly. “You don’thave to do it.”
