Interdimensional Buzz-Cut Lady chimes in from her book. “Suggest the specific mayhem you prefer. Then fill in the address of where you’d like a visit.”
“Thanks,” says Hanry. “What she said. Petty linen theft is the lowest tier, but it gets all the way up to lawn and sod trampling, persistent plumbing issues, pest infestations, and ‘other.’ Gnomes thrive under creativity.”
“Wow,” I say. “Gnomes are like, the jack-of-all-jacking-up-trades.”
“The MVPs. Especially when it comes to subtle, hard-to-trace chaos. You can’t get any better.” Hanry rubs his one-inch-shy-of-bearded chin. It looks very scruffy and scratchable from here. “The first time I used the gnomes’ services, I was ten. I had some cousins visiting for the first time, and they started bullying me the moment our parents left the room.”
“Ah. Classic. It’s hard to imagineyougetting bullied, though. How badly were you outnumbered?”
“By four,” says Hanry. “They were older and stronger than me. I didn’t know how to get back at them and needed extra help.”
“You could’ve told your parents.” Not that this would’ve worked for me, but I remembered that James’s parents would do anything for him. Same for the parents of my high school friends, who had strongopinions about fighting houselessness in Portland and let me sleep on their springy mid-century sofas.
“My mom knew I was getting bullied,” Hanry says. “She wanted me to toughen up, I think.”
“Yikes,” I say, returning to the present. “That’s brutal.”
“Yeah. My dad might’ve intervened, but he was away on a business trip.”
“Now I see why you moved away. Plus, the head damage from bullying explains your weird hobbies.”
“Touché,” laughs Hanry. “I love my parents, but yeah. Getting away is nice.”
“No kidding. With the way you talk about your family, I’m amazed you turned out so decent. It must’ve come about in spite of their best efforts. Happens sometimes.”
This drops me into unwelcome thoughts of my own parentage—the similarity between Hanry and me doesn’t escape me—and I’m so deep in thoughts of Baja California, I almost miss it when Hanry says, “Well, that’s, uh… the funny thing. I’m adopted.”
I look up from the iPad screen. Hanry is pressing his lips together, like he’s wishing he hadn’t spoken. He’s tensing his jaw too. Maybe setting it against the hurt shadowing his words.
“Really?” I ask. “So on our date, when you told me things were complicated…”
“Yeah,” Hanry says. “My parents—my adopted parents—aren’t perfect. But they do their best. I want to make them proud of me, and happy with me, if I can. It’s the least I can do. They’re better than my, uh, birth parents.”
“You don’t have to tell me about them,” I say, sensing we’re entering private territory. But Hanry keeps going.
“They always kept me inside. They were chronically online, get-groceries-ordered-to-the-door people. We never went anywhere, never did anything. Even when we were together, we weren’t. I’d tell them things, and it would go in one ear and out the other. I mean it. One time I broke this finger. They told me to google how to reset it insteadof taking me to a doctor. You can see how well that ended up.” Hanry lifts his left hand, revealing his subtly crooked index finger. For all the times it’s touched me this past week, I never noticed. “They didn’t seem to even know what I looked like. I’m serious.”
“Damn,” I say uncleverly.
“My adopted parents—I like to think of them as my real parents. My real family. We actually mean something to each other, you know?”
I nod, understanding. I definitely do know what it’s like to have a parent who isn’t present. That’s one thing about Grandma I liked: when she spent time with me, I could tell, in that moment, that I was the center of her zany, black-hole-riddled universe.
Hanry continues, “They already had a son my age named Seb. We’re not close. That’s probably my fault. I think he felt like I was replacing him, and I get that. I was trying so hard to be good enough for my family, I was always trying to match up. It’s stupid, because we’re such different people. I wish I could go back and undo it. Or at least apologize, but at this point it feels like too much. So, I don’t feel like a decent person, but I’m trying to be one.”
I can’t help the tightness in my throat. Shit. I figured Hanry had baggage, like anyone, but I hadn’t realized life dealt him such a difficult hand, or that he blamed himself for it. The sense of understanding I had earlier remains—only now I’m feeling a twinge of gratitude to Mom, who at least never compared me to other children. Who was willing to keep a distance from Grandma when she heard what happened to me on Halloween night. Even now, she makes the effort to call every once in a while, even if she’s drinking tequila more often than not.
I can’t imagine how Hanry must have felt, being forfeited by his parents. Complete abandonment. I want to ask, but more than that, I want him to feel okay. If it were me being vulnerable, I know what I’d want him to do: ignore it. Or make a joke. So in the end, I smile awkwardly at Hanry and say, “If you ever get a lethal injury in my presence, I promise to call an ambulance. And do all the googling for you.”
“Thanks.”
With that settled between us, I tap the iPad screen and reopen thelist of gnomic tomfoolery. “Aha! This, here. Found the ‘gnome detail’ option.”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” says Hanry. He sounds relieved to be back on safer footing.
“Good. I’m going to type in the description, ‘stay vigilant for potential schemes of sabotage, then report back to me.’?”
“Smart,” Hanry says. “Don’t forget to add ‘violent retribution, optional.’?”
