Chapter 15
The Barbecue
ZOE
I’m definitely, most definitely not thinking about the thing that happened in the gym on Wednesday. The thing that altered my entire brainwave pattern because I haven’t been able to think right since.
Today, I have to think right because the grandparents finally get to meet Eli, and Jonah and I are hosting a Sunday barbecue. It’s unseasonably warm, and in Idaho, you don’t miss the chance to be outdoors when that happens.
Jonah and I agreed: there is zero talk or thoughts of Gwen today because nobody else needs to shoulder that burden.
And no, I still haven’t told him about Seattle. It’s coming—but I still have another week and a half before I hit the two weeks notice mark, so I’m using that as my deadline.
The Holts pull up in the same Subaru they’ve been driving since Syd and I were in high school, and I swear the car has more personality than most humans.
It’s the kind of dusty forest green that says we vacation in national parks and will absolutely give you our last granola bar, and the bumper has a faded sticker that says GO TROUT in a font no graphic designer ever endorsed.
Claire is out the passenger door before Tom has it in park, arms loaded with a casserole dish, two grocery bags, a wrapped present the size and shape of a small dog, and what looks like an entire tray of brownies balanced on top.
“Help her,” I tell Jonah, because the man stands in the doorway like a statue.
“She’s got it.”
“Jonah.”
“She’ll yell at me if I take the brownies.”
“Go.”
He goes. Claire kisses both his cheeks and then his forehead and then sort of pats him all over like she’s checking him for ticks, and Tom unfolds himself from the driver’s seat in the careful way of a man whose knees gave forty-five years to youth hockey.
Salt-and-pepper hair, Trout cap, a flannel that is too warm and exactly right for Tom Holt.
He spots me on the porch, and his whole face curves into a grin. “There’s my girl.”
“Hi, Tom.”
He gets to me and wraps me up in a bear hug that smells like Old Spice and engine oil, and for one embarrassing second, I think I might cry.
Tom Holt has hugged me like this since I showed up on the Holts’ doorstep in tears because Sydney was out of town and I’d had a blowout with my parents.
I sat on the Holts’ couch and lost three rounds of Yahtzee to Tom while Claire fed me leftover lasagna and pretended not to notice me ugly-crying into the parmesan.
Some things you don’t forget. Tom Holt’s hugs are one of them.
“You’re skinny.” He releases me. “She’s skinny, Claire.”
“She’s always skinny, Tom, leave her alone.”
“She’s skinnier.”
“I’m fine,” I tell them, and accept the casserole dish Claire shoves at me without breaking stride. “Welcome to the chaos. You ready?”
Claire’s eyes go a little glassy. “Where is he?”
“His room. Hiding.”
“Oh, that poor, sweet baby.”
“He’s just adjusting. He hid from a UPS man yesterday.” Eli met with his therapist for the first time on Thursday, and the therapist says this is normal behavior after what he’s been through, so if she’s not worried, I’m not worried.
Claire laughs, but it’s wobbly. Tom puts a hand on the small of her back, and the two of them stand there looking at the front door of their son’s house like it’s the gate to a place they’ve been waiting nine years to visit. Which, I realize, it is.
“Seventy-two degrees at the end of March,” Tom announces, like we needed weather reporting. “Idaho. March. You believe that?”
“It’s the apocalypse,” I agree. “Let’s grill on it.”
Jonah has, predictably, over-prepared.
The backyard looks like a Williams Sonoma catalog had a baby with a sporting goods store.
Three different kinds of meat marinating in three different bowls.
A side table covered in a cloth he definitely bought yesterday.
Cushions on every chair. A pitcher of lemonade that has actual lemons floating in it.
He’s wearing an apron. I’m sorry, he’s wearing an apron that says GRILL SERGEANT, and I’m physically restraining myself from photographing it for The Zoe Show.
“You used to char hot dogs in the driveway with a Bic lighter,” Tom says, surveying the grill. “Now look at this. What is this?”
“It’s a grill, Dad.”
“It’s a starship. Move over, son.”
Tom takes command, and Jonah, to his credit, hands his father the tongs and goes to find Eli.
I follow Claire into the kitchen because Claire has produced six Tupperwares from somewhere and is unloading them onto the counter with the muscle memory of a woman who’s fed every hockey team in the greater Dickens metro area.
“Macaroni salad,” she says. “Coleslaw, the good kind, not the white kind. Three-bean. Brownies, two pans, one with nuts and one without because we don’t know yet about the nut situation. Cornbread. Sweet tea. I brought a watermelon, but it’s in the car because I forgot it.”
“Claire.”
“I’ll get it in a minute.”
“Claire.”
She turns, and her face is doing the Claire Wobble.
I cross the kitchen and put my arms around her, because that’s the rule with Claire—when her face wobbles, you hug. She holds on for a long second. She smells like vanilla and the same drugstore lotion she’s used for as long as I’ve known her.
“What if he doesn’t like us?” she whispers.
“He’s going to love you. Everyone loves you. I love you, and I’m infamously picky.”
She laughs into my shoulder. “Sydney warned us. She said don’t expect anything. She said he might not even talk to us today, and that’s okay, and we just have to keep showing up.”
“Sydney is correct, as usual.”
“Sydney got it from her father.”
“Sydney got it from you.”
She squeezes me tighter before letting go.
Eli emerges from his room with Jonah like he’s being walked to the gallows.
He’s clutching the Flash action figure in one hand and the hem of his T-shirt in the other, and the second he sees Tom and Claire, he locates me and parks himself behind my left elbow.
“Eli,” Claire says, and to her enormous credit, she does not lunge, does not coo, does not pinch a cheek.
She crouches down a little, which is itself a feat for a woman with two surgical knees, and she just sort of beams at him from a respectful distance.
“I’ve been wanting to meet you for a really long time. ”
He doesn’t answer. He shifts another inch behind me.
“We brought you some stuff,” Tom calls from the grill, easy, like he’s talking about the weather. “Some Trout gear. Some books. A really dreadful puzzle your grandma picked out that has like ten thousand pieces and is all one color.”
Claire huffs. “It’s a sunset.”
“It’s a mess.”
Eli lets out a little snort, a laugh trying to escape.
“Hey, Eli.” I twist to look at him. “You want to show Tom your throw? You’ve got a good arm. He used to coach. Bet he could give you tips.”
Eli shakes his head against my hip.
Tom’s face flickers a wince, just a shadow at the corner of his mouth, but I catch it, and my chest goes tight. He recovers fast.
“Maybe later,” he says, easy as anything. “I’ve got to get these so they don’t moo.”
The barbecue itself is good. Tom tells three of his terrible jokes and Claire laughs at all three, even though she’s heard them for thirty-plus years, and Jonah keeps refilling Eli’s lemonade. I keep up enough chatter for the entire table because chatter is my job, my calling, my one true skill.
We eat. Eli eats two whole pieces of cornbread, which Claire notices without comment, but I see the way her eyes light up. Tom tells a story about Jonah at twelve years old getting his stick stuck in the rafters of the garage, and Eli almost laughs, the second almost-laugh of the day.
Jonah catches my eye across the table with a look that says it counted. I give him the smallest nod, and he sits up about an inch taller.
Then Tom says, “What about the hot tub, Eli? We could all squeeze in.”
Eli goes white.
It’s not a flinch. It’s a full-body system shutdown. His fork freezes halfway to his mouth. The blood drains out of his cheeks in a way I’ve only ever seen on people about to faint.
“Or the pool.” Claire reaches for the pitcher. “Although it’s still a little too cold for the pool.”
“That’s okay, he’s not really a pool guy yet,” I cut in, smooth as I can make it. “Right, Eli? We’ve been doing land sports.”
Eli nods so hard his hair flops.
Jonah catches it. I see the question lift in his face, and he looks at me with his eyebrows up, and I give the smallest shake of my head—I don’t know the reason, but I’m sure it’s a good one. Eli always has reasons when he’s skittish.
“Game room?” I chirp. “After cake? Tom, did you know Jonah has every video game system invented by humans? It’s offensive.”
“It’s not offensive.”
Tom pushes his chair back. “I’ll destroy them all. Show me the controller. I have hands like a surgeon.”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t let you operate on me.” Claire’s eyes go huge. “He can’t text without hitting the wrong letters.”
“My thumbs are large.”
“Your thumbs are sausages.”
Eli shoots me a quick glance, but his color is coming back. I bump his shoulder with my elbow.
“Go take them down,” I whisper.
He nods.
Watching Tom Holt play Mario Kart is a religious experience.
He drives like a man who’s never seen a road in his life.
He goes the wrong way on Rainbow Road. He launches himself off the side of the track with such consistency that Eli starts giggling by the third lap.
Claire is somehow worse. She holds the controller upside down for the first ninety seconds and refuses to be corrected because, and I quote, “this is how it feels right.” Her character drives directly into a wall and stays there for the duration of the race.
Eli laps them both. Twice.
“He’s a prodigy,” Claire says, dignified, while her car continues to ram the same wall.
Eli ducks his head, smiling at the screen. Smiling. With teeth. I have not seen this child smile with teeth.