Chapter 36
NORA AND I SPEND THE next week getting all of our plans into place. Together, we find and get a deposit down on an apartment we hope is livable, book our plane tickets out of Pittsburgh, and set up our bus passes.
When I told Kendra I needed to talk to her the other day, she thought I was going to ask for more hours permanently. She looked more than a little disappointed when I gave her my notice, but I just told her I wanted to focus on my studies this upcoming year. And she seemed to accept that.
Then I finally got a reply from the UCLA admissions office and they were more than understanding about why I haven’t been in contact all summer.
After they set me up with an advisor, the two of us hopped on a Zoom call to figure out my class schedule.
We decided to take it slow with a semester of the most basic gen-eds in five different areas, since I might need to play some catchup anyway.
And that’s actually perfect, because I still have no idea what I want to major in.
In between, it’s hard for me to interact normally with my mom at first, but every day when I say good night to her, I’m a little less angry. And by the last day before we leave, the only thing I really feel when I look at her is, well… sad. When I look at both of my parents, really.
“Hey, guys,” I say to them early that evening. My dad is actually home before it’s pitch-black out for once. He’s sitting on the couch watching Fox News and flipping through a hunting magazine, and my mom is emptying the dishwasher in the kitchen.
“Hey, kid, what’s up?” Dad asks, sitting up a little.
“You two want to go out to eat tonight? My treat,” I offer.
“Oh, you don’t have to pay, sweetie. You thinking Lola’s or…?”
“I want to. Actually, I was thinking we could go to Valley Grille over in Tipton,” I suggest.
“What’s the occasion?” my mom asks, holding a stack of clean plates.
I shrug. “Just thought it’d be nice to go somewhere different, spend some time together.”
… Before I leave forever.
The Valley Grille is packed to the gills tonight, every table full.
We haven’t been over here since we celebrated my mom’s fortieth birthday when I was in fifth grade.
It’s nothing fancy. I mean, it’s not earning any Michelin stars in its lifetime, but I think it’s the nicest place we have within thirty miles and that feels right for tonight.
The host walks us through the tables and seats us at a booth against the wall.
The only thing louder than the group of men watching the Pirates game at the bar is the group of old ladies in the corner playing cards for nickels.
On top of that, one of the kids from the family of six next to us has spilled his milk not once, not twice, but three times, and his mom is still insisting that he’s too old for a sippy cup.
Okay. Maybe it’s not quite as nice as I remember, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still going to make the most of it.
The waitress brings the little boy another glass of milk and then plasters on a smile to introduce herself to us and take our orders.
“My daughter’s paying so I’ll take the biggest steak you’ve got,” my dad says, with a mischievous grin that I haven’t seen much of all summer.
I laugh and shake my head at him, because I know he’s waiting to get a rise out of me, and this poor waitress is just trying to get through her shift.
“Just kidding. Give me a Bud and the house burger, medium rare, with fries,” he says, closing his menu.
“You’re in a good mood,” my mom says to him after the waitress leaves to put our orders in.
He sits back in his chair and lets out a breath of relief. “It’s nice to be done at the garage a little earlier today, and out to eat with my family.”
I agree. I’m glad to be hanging out with Dad from before, the one who isn’t constantly saying something offensive or thoughtless.
But it also frustrates the hell out of me too.
He really couldn’t have been home earlier any other days this summer?
He waits until now, the night before I leave, to find some time in his busy schedule to spend a couple of good hours with me?
My mom looks at him pointedly, like she wants him to say something, and he seems to take the hint.
“Stevie, I—well…,” he starts, his face turning down toward the table. “I just want to say that I’m sorry I haven’t been around more all summer with you and your mom.” He looks right at me. “I’ve, umm… just been trying to get ahead of all these medical bills we’ve been getting.”
Oh.
“Is it really bad?” I ask, cringing. Guilt bubbles up inside of me, thinking about the envelope from early summer I’d forgotten about.
The reason he isn’t around more is because of me, but not because he didn’t want to be spending time with me.
I wish he’d told me sooner, instead of it being another secret getting between us.
“Ah.” He waves his hand away like it’s nothing.
“That’s not for you to worry about, kiddo.
Your dad’s got it covered.” He winks and puts on a face that makes me feel like everything is genuinely okay, even though it really might not be.
But I also have to remind myself that he’s said some pretty awful things this summer that have driven a wedge between us.
So it isn’t all my fault, and it isn’t just because of the bills.
My mom must’ve never told him that I tried to come out to her. He wouldn’t be able to hide his feelings about it as well as she does.
I wonder what would happen if I did tell him. If I told him right now.
Each time I play through the scenario in my head, the outcome just gets worse as my brain comes up with new and terrible ways he could react. The last one I let myself imagine is him flipping the table over, the Sierra Mist and chicken sandwich I ordered flying across the milk-saturated carpet.
“Earth to Stevie,” my mom says, and my vision refocuses as she waves her hand in front of my face. I realize I’ve just been staring at the two of them for the past minute or so.
“Sorry, I’m back. I’m here.” I shake the thoughts away as the waitress drops off our drinks.
“I was saying I’m volunteering to work the farmers’ market tomorrow if you want to come with me. I’m sure they could use the extra hands. It goes until four thirty,” she says to me.
“Oh.” Ryan and Nora are picking me up for the airport at 4:15 tomorrow. “I think I’ll stay home, actually, gotta catch up on sleep before school starts,” I reply.
We make some small talk over the next twenty minutes or so, until our food comes.
It’s been so long since we’ve all had a sit-down meal together that I think we all need a little warm-up time.
But after our food comes and we all dig in, everything starts to feel much more natural. Closer to how things used to be.
“You know, this place used to be a real dive,” my dad says, washing his burger down with a swig of beer.
Then he gets on a roll of telling stories from when he was in college and used to come here with his buddies.
I’ve heard most of them before, but he never manages to tell exactly the same story twice and his delivery makes me laugh.
He continues, “… so I get up on that bar, get a running start, and body-slide the whole way down the thirty-foot bar. People’s beers and empty glasses went flying everywhere!”
“Last time you told that story the bar was only twenty-five feet long.”
“Bullshit.” He smiles, shaking his head at Mom.
“No, she’s right, Dad. I think you add a few more feet every time you tell it,” I add.
“Ah, what do you guys know,” he replies. He tries to hide his guilty smile behind his beer as he swallows the last gulp.
“Should we swing through Dairy Queen on the way home like old times?” my mom asks as I take my debit card back out of the check holder. “I know it’s been a while, but—”
“That’d be great,” I reply before she can even finish.
Later we pull out of the Dairy Queen parking lot, my dad digging into his hot fudge sundae stacked miles high in a plastic cup as my mom and I try to keep our twists with rainbow sprinkles from dripping over the sides of our cones.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve done this as a family, hasn’t it?
What, five, six years?” Dad asks. He’s not wrong.
We used to come at least once per week over the summers when I was a kid.
Then we started coming less and less each year, until finally a whole summer had passed and we hadn’t gone a single time.
I’m not even really sure why. I’ve been thinking things changed so much these past two years I can’t remember, but maybe things were changing well before that.
“At least. I miss doing this kind of stuff with both of you. We should make time to do it more often,” my mom says, glancing back at me as she pulls up to a red light.
I smile and nod and try to keep myself right here in the car with them, instead of thinking about what’s changed and what will change tomorrow. My mom swipes my dad’s red spoon out of the side of his sundae and steals a bite out of the bottom.
“ ’Ey!” he says, turning away from her. “Don’t be taking all the good stuff!”
“I want some peanuts!”
“Then you should’ve ordered some,” he replies with a laugh.
I smile, watching them fight over the spoon like kids until my dad gives in and lets her have one more scoop just before the light turns green.
As we drive back toward Wyatt, I open the window and breathe in the grass and the goldenrod, and the occasional whiff of cow manure.
A few minutes later my mom peels the paper off her cone and chucks the rest out the window just like she always used to.
I’ve never been sure if it’s considered littering or not, but I’ve always found it pretty entertaining.
Especially when she doesn’t throw it hard enough and it sticks to the side of her car like a badge of shame.
“Mom, you want to take Methodist Road? Take the long way home?” I ask, like that will make this night last forever.
“Let’s do it.” She turns off the main road and onto a smaller one with no lines and tall grass hanging over the edges, the music quietly humming in the background as the bright-orange sun sets below the pink-and-blue cotton-candy sky.
This is the type of night I was hoping for when my dad was going to rent the boat.
This is what I’ve been longing for all summer.
A day that feels like old times, like things are normal between us.
And finally, finally I get it… right before I’m about to leave forever.
Our last night together. It’s almost unfair.
And on top of it all, “So Far Away” by Carole King starts playing over the radio.
“Hey, it’s our song, guys!” my mom says.
“Gosh, I haven’t heard this in years,” Dad says. The moment he turns up the volume, I’m transported back to my childhood, when I used to make them play it on a loop and we’d all sing along together.
I try to join in with them without my voice cracking, but it’s no use and I resign myself to biting the inside of my cheek for the rest of the ride home, thankful for the cover of darkness setting in.
I close my eyes and listen to the two of them, my mom slightly off-key but giving it her all and my dad jumping back and forth between singing and whistling.
I shouldn’t have to lose all this just for being who I am, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen after they read my letter tomorrow.
Still, if I’m only going to get a few more moments with them… I’m glad they can be exactly like this.