Afterward (25 page)

“What the hell,” my dad answers, which is so unlike my dad. To swear, even a little, and to not care about the rules.

So before I can really realize it's happening, we are switching seats and my dad is showing me how to adjust the mirrors and the seat positioning. It feels so weird to be in the driver's seat.

“Okay, you want to ease on the gas very lightly,” my dad says, and before I know it the car is moving, and I'm the one who's moving it.

“Hey!” I shout.

“Okay, okay, why don't you turn up there, over by the Dollar Tree.”

I give the steering wheel a turn but it's too much, and we start heading toward the Payless instead.

“That's fine, I wanted a new pair of very cheap shoes anyway,” my dad says, and we both crack up a little. I maneuver the Volvo around for a good ten minutes until my dad says that's probably a decent amount of practice time. As I put the car in park, it hits me that my desire to learn how to drive is a lot stronger than my interest in going back to school. If I enroll as a high school junior next fall, I hope I can still keep getting behind the wheel of a car.

“That was so cool,” I say, and I look at my dad and he is grinning so wide. A real grin, not one of his fake ones.

“That was cool,” he tells me. And we sit there for a minute, me and my dad, and the rims of his eyes get a little red. “I never thought,” he says, and his voice cracks, but only for a second, and he catches it. “I'd
hoped
for it, of course, but I never thought … I mean, I wasn't sure, that I would ever get to teach you to drive.”

“Yeah, I bet,” I say, not sure what to say. I reach out and pat my dad on the shoulder. Two quick pats. He looks at me and smiles and nods. We sit there for a while, the Volvo's engine humming. I think my dad has been trying to have Moments with me ever since I got back, but the thing about Moments is that when you try to have them, you can't. They only sneak up on you when you don't expect them.

“Okay, let's switch,” my dad says, and when he gets back in the driver's seat and we start heading for home, he says, “Maybe let's not tell your mom about this yet. I mean, I'll tell her. I'm just trying to think of how to phrase it.” He gives me a little wink.

“Okay,” I say. “I won't tell her.” I grin a little.

We drive the rest of the way home in a comfortable silence. When we pull into the driveway of our house, my dad says, “Ethan, I'm so glad you're home.” As easy as anything. I mean, he's said it lots of times since I got back. But this time, it sounds different.

“Me, too, Dad,” I say.

We get out of the car and I find my hand slipping into my pocket, checking to make sure my phone is there. I take it out and glance at it. No messages. I imagine texting Caroline and telling her all about getting to drive the Volvo and how cool it was. Maybe later I could even tell her that it actually felt good to hang out with my dad, just the two of us. I imagine how she would respond (
okay, mister volvo, does this mean you can come pick me up for practice so I don't have to lug my guitar to your house on my bike?
). Imagining this makes me smile a little.

But of course, there's no Caroline to tell anything to, so I let the smile fade from my face, and I follow my dad inside the house.

 

CAROLINE—312 DAYS AFTERWARD

As I glance outside the front window, I can see my dad is pushing the last box of his stuff into the back of his work van. I'm not sure what's inside, but it's one of five boxes he's taking from our house. My mom actually helped him pack everything up, and they're being, like, weirdly civil about everything. She just stands there, barefoot in jean shorts, her hands on her hips. Like my dad is just a houseguest who's lived with us for a while, and now it's time for him to move on.

I turn back toward the kitchen to check on Dylan when I hear my mother's voice calling me from the driveway.

“Caroline, do you know where I put the duct tape? We need to make sure this box is really closed.”

Dylan is watching television. I grab the tape off the kitchen counter and head outside, anxious to go back in as soon as possible so I can keep an eye on my little brother.

“Here,” I say as I come to the front door. I toss the tape, and my mother catches it. My dad doesn't look up.

I go back into the kitchen and start making grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. It's been a few weeks since my dad moved out, and today is just about him coming back to get all his stuff. It's been a few weeks, too, since I last spoke to or hung out with Ethan. It's weird how only one of those things makes me sad, and it's not the one most people would assume.

My dad leaving isn't the only big change. My mom got a job last week, too, as the attendance clerk at the middle school where Dylan is supposed to go in the fall. She was so excited after she got her district employee badge, she wore it home.

“Check it out!” she said, spinning around in the kitchen, pointing to the laminated tag she had pinned to her collar. It was one of the first times I'd really seen her smile since my dad left.

I take one of Dylan's blue plastic plates and put a grilled cheese sandwich on it and then take it over to the coffee table in front of the television set.

“Here, Dylan, eat your sandwich.”

Dylan shakes his head no and pushes the plate and the sandwich off the table to the floor where it falls with a clatter. He immediately begins sucking his fingers.

“Dylan, no, that's not nice,” I say, and I pick the plate up off the floor and put it back on the coffee table. I brush the dirty sandwich clean and put it back on the plate. When I turn around I hear a clatter again. I look back and the plate is on the floor again.

I roll my eyes, fighting frustration. Just then my dad walks in with my mom behind him.

“Hey, guys,” my dad says. He's wearing one of his shirts from work. It says Bugs-B-Gone and has a picture of a sad cartoon roach on its back kicking its legs in the air. That shirt has always icked me out. I'm glad I won't have to see as much of it anymore.

“Hey,” I say. Dylan eyes him from the couch where he is sitting.

“Can we talk for a sec?” he says.

“I thought we already did the divorce talk,” I say, just to be a snot, and my mom sighs, which is the only reason I give in and go and sit down next to Dylan.

“Listen, I know you understand I'm not going to be living here anymore,” my dad says, and I sort of zone out for a minute as he talks. It's so weird to be sitting here, the four of us, when I've never really felt like we're much of a family to begin with. Maybe when I was little, when Dylan was really tiny, before everything started to totally fall apart. Maybe then. I remember my dad would sometimes barbeque in the backyard and stop to spray me with the garden hose. I was really little, but I remember. So I have that.

“I want you to know we can still see each other, and I'm going to come by each Wednesday to take you out to eat,” he says.

No you won't, I think to myself. But it doesn't matter. I only wonder if Dylan understands anything he's saying.

“The important thing is that your mom and I love you both a lot,” he says, and I swear, he got this speech from the Internet or something it's so scripted.

After he's done he stands up and reaches out to hug me and I hug him back and he smells like sweat and guy deodorant.

“Bye, Dad,” I say, and my throat clenches up for the tiniest moment and I will it to stop and it does. I step back and watch as he rubs Dylan's hair. “Bye, buddy,” he says, and Dylan just nods and sits there.

My mom walks him to the front door, and I hear some low voices and the door shutting. When she comes back to the kitchen her eyes are wet, but she's not hysterical or anything.

“I'm going to pack school lunches for tomorrow,” she says, and I can tell she is anxious to be busy.

“Well don't pack grilled cheese,” I say. “He's not eating it.” I nod my head toward Dylan.

“Okay,” my mom says. I lean back against the kitchen counter and take a bite of my own sandwich and watch as my mom packs our lunches.

“You doing okay, mom?” I ask.

“Oh,” she says, her voice cracking a little. “Yeah, mostly.”

I finish my sandwich in silence and think about what it's going to be like to live here just the three of us. It's already been a little bit better these past few weeks. No fights or screaming. No late night slams of the door that wake up Dylan and make him scream. No beer for my mom, who got rid of all the alcohol in the house. That means no beer for me, either, which is probably a good thing.

I put my dish in the sink and tell my mom I'm going to my room.

“Okay, sweetheart,” she says, and I admit she looks kind of sort of okay. I never really realized it before, but my mom is kind of tough.

In my room, I take out my guitar and pluck away at it. I left my amp at Ethan's, and I've thought about going to get it. But I don't know what I would say if I saw him there. And let's face it. He's almost always there.

I pick at the strings and let the images from the horror story he told me flicker through my head like I sometimes do—even when I don't want them to. I squeeze my eyes tight and slide my guitar to the side. Then I curl up in bed, my eyes on the wall where I've tacked up pictures of Kathleen Hanna and Poly Styrene that I cut out from magazines my cousin sent me. I think about trying to make peace with Emma just to have someone to talk to, or texting one of the girls who sits at the same table as me at lunch and who does stupid class group projects with me. I even think about texting Jesse, just to feel less lonely.

But the only person I honestly want to talk to is Ethan.

I think about the stuff I would text him if I were texting him right now. About my dad. About my mom's new job. About the level of disgust achieved by this new frozen yogurt flavor at the store called Peanut Butter Shazaam. About songs I want to play with him.

I miss texting Ethan. I miss being around him.

But how could the Ethan I like be the Ethan who did what he did to my brother?

Ever since he told me what happened, I haven't felt less guilty. Just more guilty. More guilty that I wasn't watching Dylan that day. More guilty with the realization that if I had been watching him, he wouldn't have had Ethan put a gun to his head.

I shake my head in frustration. No, that's not right. Not really. If Ethan couldn't even figure out how to run away from that bastard, how could he find a way to help my brother? He couldn't even help himself.

My stomach knots up, and I wish it were hours later and I could just drift off to sleep. But it's three in the afternoon on a Sunday, and my dad just moved out for good. In the kitchen my mom is trying to keep things going, and my little brother won't eat.

My throat freezes up again like it did when I hugged my father goodbye, only this time, all alone in my room, I let the tears snake their way out. I cry until I'm all cried out. Until no tears are left.

 

ETHAN—315 DAYS AFTERWARD

Dr. Greenberg keeps a calendar hanging on the wall behind his messy desk. It has pictures of birds, and I know from what he's told me that he's a “birder.” Sometimes he drives down to High Island on the coast, which is a good spot to see exotic birds. He keeps track of the ones he sees in a notebook.

“Why do you write them down?” I'd asked him once.

“I guess to make it official somehow,” he'd said with a smile. “Of course, that's not a very good answer. But that's the best one I can come up with.”

That was the weird kind of answer that left me sort of unsettled when I'd first started seeing Dr. Greenberg. Made me wonder if he was even qualified to be a therapist. But now it's the kind of answer that makes me think I can trust him more than anyone. Because he doesn't do bullshit.

Dr. Greenberg's calendar is turned to April. A black-and-yellow bird is perched on a tree branch, and its mouth is open in a forever chirp.

April. Almost a year since I came back.

When I say as much to Dr. Greenberg, he nods.

“I was just thinking that the other day,” he says. “I don't know how you feel, but when I think about it, it seems like yesterday. And in the same moment as if it were a very long time ago.”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Exactly. Sometimes I try to picture it and it feels real and sometimes it feels like a dream.”

Dr. Greenberg nods. “I remember the first time I saw you at your house. You looked very different.”

I must frown because Dr. Greenberg smiles. “You did. I remember I walked into your living room and you were sitting on the couch next to your mother, and you looked so small and scared, like you were going in sink into the couch cushions.”

I try to pull back that time. Those first days home. Staring at my parents. Blinking my eyes over and over again like I was trying to wash off some film that made everything feel slightly unreal. Convinced if I fell asleep I would wake up and be back in a nightmare.

“It's been hard,” I say. “Like, exhausting.”

“It has been,” says Dr. Greenberg. “And you've done it with so much grace, Ethan. So much strength.”

I glance down, embarrassed. “Maybe,” I say.

We sit there, and Groovy climbs up onto the couch and nuzzles me under my hand. He's just been groomed, so his fur is super soft.

“You're feeling okay about school in the fall?” Dr. Greenberg asks.

“It's still four months away,” I say. “But mostly, yeah. I mean, I'm curious.”

“About what?”

“About being around a lot of people my age. About what high school is like. I mean, high school is this thing you're supposed to experience, you know?”

Dr. Greenberg grins. “You're right. The prom, senior prank day, things like that.”