“I can sleep on the couch,” I say.
“Don’t be stupid, Wyatt. It’syourroom.”
“Honestly, that’s part of why I don’t want to sleep in it.” Memories are painted all over the walls in eggshell white. Even a fresh coat hasn’t covered up that depression in the wall where Dadshoved me so hard I dented the drywall. The dresser is still positioned discreetly in front of that spot.
I suppose it’s not like I only have evil memories here. Liam and I would hang out sometimes and play “murder zombies” with his action figures. I’d stolen our mom’s lipstick and would smear it all over their bodies to look like blood.
I kick my duffel where I’ve dumped it on the floor by the dresser. All that’s in there is my funeral suit, pajamas, a change of clothes, and my toiletry kit. I didn’t even bring my camera, which I usually take everywhere. There’s nothing I want to memorialize here.
“Want to go out?” she suggests. “Walk around?”
“Sure. We can if you want.”
Downstairs, my mother is making a racket in the kitchen. I can’t hear him speaking, but I’m sure Liam’s in there with her. Ely and I make it out the front door without being intercepted, which feels like its own special ops mission.
The street heading into town is sand dusted; the wild grasses that grow out on the dunes aren’t quite enough to hold erosion at bay. The sun bakes down on the tops of our heads; I’m glad I brought a hat. Walking around this place with a baseball cap shoved on my head and my hands stuffed in my pockets, I feel like I’m fourteen again. Always playing at being a man. Playing at being Liam, really. Up in New York, I might pass; here, I feel like you could take one look at me and tell. I feel like I’m wearing a cheap and badly sized costume, one that might come apart at the seams any second.
It’s been a long damn time since I’ve felt this insecure. And I hate this place for it, all over again.
“What are you thinking about?” Ely asks eventually, once we’ve turned a few corners and are in sight of downtown. Or what passes for downtown, anyway. Really it’s just a few bars, a coupleB and Bs, and a tourist shop masquerading as a “general store.” Every single restaurant on this street serves seafood.
“Oh, you know. The usual emo teenage nonsense.I gotta get out of this one-horse town,et cetera, et cetera. I guess there are some things you never grow out of.”
“Where did you hang out when you were younger? I’m guessing not here and not at home.”
I snort. “Yeah, hard no on both of those options. You remember that bridge we drove over to get here? The one off the mainland?”
She nods.
“There’s a little access road that cuts beneath it. On one side you’ve got some dinghies tied up, although who knows who they belong to, because I’ve never seen them get used? On the other side there’s this patch of flat grass where me and Liam used to go smoke blunts and listen to the car radio. It was a shitty spot, trashed with all the garbage people threw off the bridge overhead. But it had the best view of the sunset on the whole East Coast.”
Ely gives me a look. “Maybe we should have gone there instead.”
“Maybe. I have no idea if it still exists. If it does, it’s probably even more trashed than it used to be.” And I’m worried that if I go back now, as an adult, it won’t be how I remember. I don’t want to dull one of the few good memories I have from growing up.
We wander along the boardwalk until the road ends—abruptly, as if the town used to exist past here but one night the sound rose up and swallowed the rest of the street in a mouthful of salt water. It’s almost dinnertime, the sunlight taking on that amber quality of late afternoon; we have no choice but to head home.
And like the middle school kid I once was, I’m already dragging my heels.
31
When we get back the house is thick with the spice-syrup aroma of candied yams roasting in the oven, my mother flitting back and forth between stove and kitchen counter. As always, she’s juggling a circus performer’s worth of tricks: the yams but also collard greens, chicken, a pitcher of sweet tea with the sugar still dissolving, a pan of rolls cooling on the island. I have no idea how she got this all done in the time we were out, unless she started before we left.
“Hope it’s not awful,” says Liam, and that’s when I realize—he’s not just in the kitchen watching Mom work. He’s got juice splattered on his apron from stirring the greens; more to the point, he’swearing a dang apron,which means he’s actually helping our mother cook. I wonder if he does that at home with his wife and kids, too, or if it’s just a special occasion since he’s taking care of Mom this weekend.
“It smells amazing,” Ely says, saving me from having to come up with a reaction that isn’t just standing around like a fish gulping air.
Liam salts the greens, and for some reason that’s enough tomake me open my mouth and say, “I didn’t know you knew how to use salt.”
The actual words might pass as a joke, but my tone pushes it over the edge into cruelty. Liam flinches and a split second later the guilt sets in, feeling like a swallowed rock.
“I’m not completely useless,” Liam says.
“I’m surprised to see you cooking, that’s all,” I say.
“Liam’s been very helpful,” my mother says, wringing a dishcloth in her hands. “Ever since your father got sick…”
“Took cancer for my dad to let a man help out in the kitchen, huh?” I say.
