We end up in my office, which is a much safer place to have this conversation, considering anyone could walk into the darkroom at any time to find their professor having a breakdown by the developer trays.
I maintain the presence of mind to lock the door behind us, and we both end up sitting on the floor behind my desk, legs stretched out on the carpet. Our clasped hands rest between our hips, a part of me continually surprised that she hasn’t yet pulled away.
“You know,” I say after we’ve been silent for a good three minutes. My gaze is fixed on our hands, her thumb rubbing a warm pattern against the backs of my knuckles. “I don’t even care that he’s gone. He was…he was a terrible person. A terrible father. Not just because he didn’t accept me but in general. He was mean and violent and made everyone around him feel like they had to walk on eggshells all the time. The world’s better off without him in it.” I’m sure Ely is horrified by this confession. Who wouldn’t be? Doesn’t matter what my father did or said. I shouldn’t actively be pleased that the man is dead.
But fuck, didn’t I spend most of my childhood wishing he’d swim out too deep into the sound, deep enough that no one would find him before he sank down past the barnacles and algae, all the way down to bedrock?
The sight of my father’s face, red with that unique cocktail of anger and alcohol, is a permanent resident in my memory. And it surges up again today, flashing against the backs of my eyelids every time I blink.
But right now he’s cold in a coffin somewhere, that red skin gone waxy and pale.
“Fuck him, then.” I lift my head. Ely has her mouth set in a thin, hard line, her brows knotted together like she’s bracing for a blow. “Fuck him. I’m sorry you had to put up with that. I’m glad he’s dead too.”
I puff out a heavy breath that almost but doesn’t quite reach the threshold of being a laugh. I’m dizzy all of a sudden, almost giddy with it all. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
I finally draw my hand away from hers and drag those fingers back through my hair. I wish she wasn’t seeing me like this. I’m supposed to be the rational one, the steady presence, ten years sober with all my shit together. But here I am, the truth of me: anxious, chronically irritable, still clawing my way through life day by day. I want to find the key to my own brain and fix it, but I’ve tried that enough times to know wishing myself better isn’t how this works.
“So what are you going to do?” Ely asks at last. “Are you gonna go?”
I told her, on the brief trip from the darkroom to my office, how my mother had asked me to come to the funeral. At the time I’d had to bite my tongue to keep from saying,I think the hell not. Even the sound of her voice took me back to that place: to the smell of salt water, the crunchy feel of ocean grass underfoot, the roar of my father’s voice.
I shudder, tension drawing my shoulders up toward my ears before I can force them back down. “I don’t know. I don’t— I’m not sure I can face him again. Even dead, I don’t…”
My father’s face used to go so damn red when he was angry. Maybe it was the Irish in us. It was like his rage went liquid and pooled beneath his cheeks.
Against my will, one of my hands drifts up to rub at the knob on my collarbone, the only remaining scar from the time my father shattered the bone.
Ely clutches both her knees, gripping so tight her knuckles have become pale mountains straining against her skin. “You don’t have to. You don’t owe them anything.”
I nod, and I’m pretty sure—like 65 percent sure—that I believe her. My dad used to love to say how he gave me life and a roof over my head, so I owed him obedience and whatever else. Being an adult, looking back, I can see that for what it is. But the scars still run deep. I thought I’d healed—thought I’d left that pain in the past—but it’s still there, hidden butthereall this time, like a piece of broken glass still sharp enough to cut.
“Come with me,” I say before I can think better of it. “To North Carolina. I can’t do this alone. Come with me.”
“What?”
My face is wet—I’m crying, right in front of her. I hadn’t even realized. I look at her properly, right in the eyes, so I can’t be tempted to take it back. “I mean it. Come to the funeral with me. Please, Ely.”
A pathetic request, pitiful. I’m like a child who needs his hand held to cross the street.
“Okay,” she says.
“Really? You mean it?”
Ely reaches over and takes my hand again, clasping it between both of her own and gripping tight. “Really. I’ll come with you. I mean it.”
29
ELY
Flying over North Carolina, all I can see outside the airplane window is green.
I have my brow pressed against the glass as I watch the trees grow from moss to little clumps of broccoli, until at last the plane is low enough that I can pick out individual cars on the highway and count the number of people with pools in their backyards—which is not many, at least compared to California.
The wheels hit the runway, and I turn to look at Wyatt, who has been ignoring the view in favor of staring down at his own fists clenched atop his knees.
“Hey,” I say. “You good?”
He presses his lips together and nods. “Yeah. I think so. Just…been a long time since I’ve been back here, you know?”
