Chapter Twenty-One
Fourteen years ago
My fingertips graze over smooth leather, the football feeling clumsy in my grip. I can’t comprehend how a fourteen-year-old is supposed to have hands big enough to do anything skillful with this, but Parker makes it look effortless.
“You don’t need to be rough with it. Pretend it’s an egg: Be firm, but careful not to crush it.” Parker looks up from his spot on the carpet over to where I’m seated at the foot of my bed. “Okay, for starters, you’re holding it all wrong.”
I slide off the bed and sit cross-legged next to him. With patient focus, he places my hand over the ball so that my fingers rest across the laces and my thumb anchors underneath in an L shape. “Here you go. Don’t squeeze it flat against your hand either, leave some space.”
I can only hold on a few seconds before I feel my hand cramping. Letting the ball fall into my lap, I sigh, “I’ll never throw a spiral.”
“Not here, you won’t.” His eyes sweep over the academic awards on the dresser to the desk cluttered with schoolwork. “Let’s try in the backyard after.”
Returning to the pile of VHS tapes by his side, Parker lifts each one to inspect the faded covers. The bottom drawer of my dresser has been pulled open to its full length, with half its contents displaced onto the carpet.
“We have DVDs downstairs,” I remind him. “We don’t have to watch something from my mom’s collection.”
“Why not? This is cool. My house doesn’t even have a working VHS player anymore.” He picks up a battered copy of Moonstruck and shows it to me. “What’s this about?”
“It’s an old rom-com. A woman from Brooklyn falls in love with her fiancé’s brother, and he’s this super intense guy with a wooden hand. Chaos ensues, there’s lots of yelling. Cher is amazing.”
“Want to watch it?”
“I save it for Christmas. One of my last memories with my mom before she went back to Taiwan is the two of us watching Moonstruck on Christmas Eve. It’s her favorite movie,” I tell him.
Whenever the holidays came around and I knew Mom wouldn’t be coming to celebrate, I’d put on Moonstruck in lieu of her company.
Over the years, it’s become something of a tradition.
Parker sets the tape aside for another one. He grins. “Remember the Titans. Your mom has good taste.”
“That one might actually be my dad’s.” I reach over him to grab West Side Story and the copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s underneath. “These are more my mom’s tempo. I remember her watching them religiously.”
“Everything she likes is set in New York.” He reads the covers over my shoulder. “Is that why you want to go to school there?”
“Two of the best English programs are at Columbia and NYU,” I say pointedly. “It’s just a coincidence.”
His brow lifts in that familiar way that I’ve come to recognize as skepticism. Before he can dig any deeper, I catch the sound of tires against pavement and rush to the window. From my view of the driveway, I see Dad’s Honda Civic rolling up to the house.
“My dad is home early,” I mutter, kneeling by the dresser so I can load everything back in. “Let’s put these away before he sees them.”
“I don’t get why you have to hide her stuff,” Parker says as he hands me a stack of tapes. “He knows you kept these.”
“Yeah, but I’d rather avoid the awkwardness. He doesn’t like to be reminded of my mom.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because we never talk about her,” I reply.
“Ever? That can’t be healthy.”
“It’s just the way things have always been.” When I hear the front door open downstairs, I jump to my feet and crack my door an inch, rolling my eyes as Parker looks at me curiously. “‘Doors open’ rule.”
He frowns at me as he shuts the drawer. “So, they still haven’t told you why they split?”
Leaning against the bed, I pull my legs close to my chest. “I remember them fighting a lot. Dad would skip meals and hole up in his office. I didn’t understand what was happening.
When I was older, I overheard him talking to my aunt about it.
Apparently, Mom’s art wasn’t selling, and it made things really tense when Dad tried to push her into finding other work. ”
Parker’s sweater brushes against my arm as he shifts to get a little closer to me. “Have you ever tried to ask your mom about it?”
“I wouldn’t know how. Our Skype calls are really just small talk now. Mom’s forgotten a lot of her English, and my Mandarin isn’t fluent. We always reach this awkward point where there’s nothing left to say.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Can I ask you something? Why do you still hold onto her stuff?”
I stare at the closed drawer for a long moment before saying, “I guess I don’t want to forget that there was a time when it was the three of us and we were happy. As long as I have those tapes, they’re like a record of my life before the divorce.”
My hand is suddenly wrapped in warmth, and it takes me by surprise when I see Parker’s long fingers over it.
“You’re allowed to talk about her,” he says. “You don’t have to keep it all to yourself.”
“My dad doesn’t want to hear it.”
“Then talk to me.” He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “Whenever you’re upset, or if you just want to vent about your parents, come and find me. Or you can just say, ‘Parker, get your ass over here,’ and I’ll come running.”
I laugh, but at the same time, pressure builds behind my eyes. When I glance over at him, there’s an ache in my ribs, as if they can’t contain the emotion within. Like I’m filled with something that has nowhere to go.
If I were to mark my life as before and after Mom left, I could also see it as before and after I met Parker.
I can’t say this to him, but that record is just as important to me.
In my mind, they are both solid, for me to hold in my hands forever.
I collect every football game, sleepover, and inside joke like sacred mementos.
Before him, I didn’t know I could carve a conversation into my memory, or that all the little things I learned about him would stay with me like engravings: He doesn’t like green bell peppers, but red and yellow are fine.
His ears turn red when he’s embarrassed.
Don’t bring up the time Nathan beat him in Mario Party; he can be a sore loser sometimes.
He turns my palm over and folds his fingers into mine. We used to do this when we were kids. It’s different now, but it also feels like the most natural thing, holding Parker’s hand.
He told me once that I was his favorite person. He’s mine too.