“Oh, no thanks, Mr. Green. I’m pretty f—” Ryan stops when my dad leans across the table and plunks down three more ribs onto his empty plate anyway.
“John, don’t force him,” my mom says to my dad before directing her attention back to Ryan. “So Ryan, you graduated this year too, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replies, faking a bite before wiping his mouth with a napkin from my mom’s rooster-shaped napkin holder.
“What are your plans for next year?” she asks.
“I’m actually heading to Italy at the end of the month for a year abroad,” he replies.
“Oh, wow! That’s so neat,” she tells him, an excited smile spreading across her face.
“I’ll tell you, kid. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side,” my dad says, his expression changing.
Ryan cocks his head. “How so?”
“Well, all you kids today think you have to go halfway across the world. I don’t know. Maybe you think you’ve got something to prove. But you’re not going to find anything better than you could find right here in Wyatt, with your family,” Dad says, almost smug. “Like Stevie. She knows what’s good for her. She understands family values and she knows that the best place for her is right here.”
I’ve always known my dad had no interest in leaving Wyatt, even for vacation. But I didn’t know he had such strongopinions aboutmeleaving. In the hospital, he told me he wanted me close by so he could support me after my accident, but come to think of it… he hasn’t actually done any supporting at all. Kind of hard to support someone when you’re literally never around.
I’m the one who’striedto connect with him again. I’ve tried to hang out. I’ve tried to mend whatever broke down in our relationship… but it’s like he doesn’t evenwantto try to get back to how things were. He just wants to be… angry.
He goes back to his ribs, like the conversation is over.
I pick my fork back up to push some food around on my plate. I steal a quick glance at my mom, but she’s doing the same.
“Well”—Ryan looks at me and then back to my dad—“respectfully, sir, not everyone is suited to live in a town like this.”
Our eyes meet and I think he’s talking about me as much as he’s talking about himself.
“Well, I got a lot of years on you. You’re young and young folks think they know everything, but I guess everyone has to figure out the truth on their own,” Dad says dismissively.
“I guess so,” Ryan replies, and my dad gets up to take his plate to the sink. Then he just keeps walking through the mudroom and out into the garage, pulling the door shut behind him.
After a few awkward moments of quiet, my mom speaks.
“Sorry about him. He thinks this place is the be-all and end-all.” She fakes a laugh, shaking her head. “I think it’s really admirable that you’re going. Takes a lot of guts to move that far from home. I always thought I might like to do something like that, but I never had it in me.”
“Really? You wanted to get out of Wyatt?” I ask, shocked. She’snevertold me anything like that before.
“When I was young I did, yeah, but then I met your dad, and then you came along and I don’t know… Time just kind of got away from me,” she says, with an almost faraway look in her eyes.
Huh.
My mom wanted to get out just like I do now. I wonder what she would’ve thought if I’d told her I wanted to go out to California or something. I wonder if she would’ve been supportive of that.
“Not that I regret any of it,” she follows up quickly. “I love my life here, with you. And your grumpy old dad.” She laughs. That statement may be true, but it doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have loved a different sort of life too. Maybe even a little more than this one. Now she’ll never know. And something about that makes me really sad.
Maybe it wasn’t fair of me before to justdecidethat she would react badly to me being with Nora. Maybe she deserves a chance. Maybe I deserve one too.
After dinner I follow Ryan out to his car.
“Hey, thanks for saying that stuff to my dad,” I tell him.
“It’s true.” He nods and climbs into the car. I lean into his rolled-down front window and he looks right and left, and then back at me.
“So do you think you’re going to try with Nora?” he whispers.
Nora.
