“She didn’t come in?”
Obviously not. “She had to go.”
He nods slowly. “Guess she didn’t want to get us sick, huh?”
That’s what I told him to explain her absence for the last few days, but I knew he didn’t buy it. I wheel fully into the kitchen. “She’s not sick, which you clearly know.”
“I know something’s wrong,” he shrugs, “but I don’t think it’s the flu. A lot of people who are usually like salt in the sea with you are suddenly nowhere to be seen. The new girl’s cutting her shifts, Tate won’t leave the janitor’s room, and now Eryn shows up crying. It’s not looking too good.”
“It’s not feeling too good either, but I don’t really feel like getting into it right now.”
He doesn’t move. “I have two theories. Wanna hear them?”
“No,” I groan.
He holds up one finger. “Something happened with Eryn andTate, maybe he told you about it, and now nobody’s talking. Doesn’t exactly explain the new girl’s absence, though.”
I lift my head wearily. “Lili. Her name is Lili.”
He sighs. “So it’s the second theory then.”
I don’t say anything.
“Oh, son.” Two syllables, yet they pack so much sympathy and disappointment together. “Did something happen?”
I shake my head. “But I wanted it to, and Eryn knows.” It sounds bad when I say it out loud, somehow worse than when it was happening.
He rests his forearms on the table and drops his head, not saying anything. He’s not looking at me either, although it’s a different kind of not looking than Eryn was doing outside. His silence isn’t a shield; he’s listening, and he’s thinking.
“I never thought I’d be capable of hurting someone who loved me. I never wanted to be likeher,” I murmur. Even though we haven’t talked about my mom in years, I don’t need to elaborate. He knows exactly who I’m referring to.
Dad pushes the precious specimen to the side with one arm like it means nothing as he reaches back into the fridge with the other, grabs two beers, and sets them on the table. I don’t drink often, and I’ve never shared a beer with him before, but I guess we’re cutting through a lot of tape tonight.
I take the bottle, feel the cold condensation against my palm, and he takes his, opening it with a dull pop that echoes in the quiet kitchen.
“One time only, you understand? There’s a reason I don’t like talking about the past.”
I nod quickly, but I’m not sure what I’m about to hear.
He takes a long swig, draining half the bottle before he speaks again. “You know the fields down by the Hawthorn’s place, the hills heading toward the Wyer’s Valley?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “This time of year, they light up with fireflies, so many it’s like walking through stardust. As kids, we’d go chasing after them, trying to catch them in jars or our hands to watch them glow. I never caught one... until Kerry.”
Even now there’s a light in his eyes when he talks about her, a tenderness that both hurts and captivates me. I want to not understand, but I have those memories with her too. Instead of shoving them away like I have in the past, this time I let one sweep over me.
I feel my tiny legs struggling to toddle up that hill, stubby hands reaching, my little fists clenching. I can almost feel the softness of the fireflies’ wings between my fingers now as the cool summer night wraps around me. And I remember my mom—her hands, larger than mine but delicate, gently coaxing my hands open.
Her face is clear in my mind, lit up with awe as she watches the glow of the fireflies disappear into the night sky. “Some things can’t be caught,” she said to me, and even in that perfect moment, I remember her sadness and my own as she dropped my hand.
“She was happy at first, I know she was,” he continues. “We’d go swimming in the ocean every night and she’d let me chase her through the tall grasses that sprung up along the shores. And when I caught her—” His smile turns softer now, private. “Well, that’s how we got you.”
My bottle is dotted with condensation, but I haven’t taken so much as a sip, and I don’t now, no matter how much I’d like to numb myself.
“I knew, even then, what kind of life she wanted, just like I knew I could never give it to her. I tried to pretend I didn’t see her fading, and she let me. Until she couldn’t anymore. Because just like those fireflies, the ones in jars or trapped inside hands, if you didn’t let them go, they’d die.”
“And you let her go.” I can’t stop the bitterness that seeps into my voice or the way my fingers tighten almost painfully around the neck of the glass bottle. I’m about to push away from the table when he says something I never expected to hear.
“I didn’t let her go, Wren. I just opened my hand.”
It’s the closest he’s ever come to condemning what she did, and I’m struck silent hearing the vulnerability in his voice, the quiet regret.
