2. Anthony
two
anthony
I wipe my brow as the blistering Massachusetts sun starts to peek over the horizon. I secure my tattered Sox hat—the one that has certainly seen better days—back onto my head with the bill facing backwards. Before I can get the next drill bit into place, clodding footsteps and the scent of fresh coffee perks up my senses.
“Gonna get started before the sun’s fully awake?”
My lips turn up and I push up from my catcher’s squat, leaving the drill on the grass as I stand and face my dad.
He’s ready to retire from the construction business within the next year, and it shows. His hair is more white than gray lately, his belly a little softer, the lines in his forehead a little deeper.
“Figured I’d beat the heat.” I take the cup he’s offered and grin at both the warmth, and the fact that he hasn’t forgotten my eclectic order: caramel creamer, vanilla syrup, whipped cream on top.
“It’s gonna be a hot one today, that’s for sure. Maybe we get some work done in the shop instead?”
I gesture to the bare bones of my dream house. My next chapter. My fresh start.
“The walls ain’t gonna build themselves,” I answer. “And besides, we’ll have all winter to work inside. I want the framework finished before school, if it’s possible.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
We stare at the foundation on the plot of land. There isn’t much yet but the massive basement I decided to include after late nights of no sleep left me deep-diving on entertainment dungeons. If I have to dig for the frost line, I might as well go deep enough for my man cave. Once the build is finished, I’ll have two stories, enough yard for a few dogs and a playground set, enough room for a few kids.
The kids my ex didn’t want. The main contention point of our relationship. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
I sigh, scratching the back of my neck. The thought of Avery always makes my skin crawl with an uneasiness that still unsettles me. Once upon a time, this was the house we were supposed to build together. Now, the walls will echo with emptiness.
“Well,” Dad exhales. “The house ain’t gonna frame itself.”
My palms itch, ready to have a drill in hand, to let out some of this uneasiness on manual labor. I nod. My dad claps me on the back, and heads toward the bench where our tools are laid out in a mismatched order that only he and I understand.
It’s just us today. Later in the week, a few of my friends, as well as some of Dad’s crew, will be here to help us finish the framework. If we stay on track, the framework and roofing will be done by the end of the month; electrical, plumbing, and HVAC by the time school starts; leaving me the fall months to tackle insulation, drywall, and jazzing up the inside with custom builds of cabinetry and furniture by the time winter break rolls around.
If I can stick to my schedule. Which is both a real possibility and a pipe dream. My ADHD brain will either hyper-fixate on this project until it is done to my standard of perfection in a record breaking amount of time, or I will find something else to distract me and live for the next four years in my parents’ basement, where all of my shit currently resides, since Avery got our place in the split.
It’s a fifty-fifty shot.
But for today, my dad and I work our asses off in the brutal Mass sun, and by the time my sweat soaked shirt has hit the grass, and Mama’s calling my cell from five miles down the road that dinner will be ready soon, we have finished half a wall. Good progress for a carpenter and his apprentice.
“You’d better take off those shoes before you step foot in my house, Anthony James!” she says with a stern wave of her finger from the front porch after I pull my truck into the driveway of their lavish home.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say with a two finger salute, lofting myself out of the cab.
“And wash your hands before you come to the table.”
I chuckle, bending to kiss her on the forehead. “Always, Mama.”
I do as I’m told, taking a quick shower before heading upstairs. In a fresh Red Sox T-shirt and my backwards hat, I slide easily into the kitchen, scooting around my mom to gather the necessary cutlery to set the table. After we say grace, I dig into her roast beef sandwiches ravenously. My mom’s home cooking is one of the main reasons I’m glad I decided to stick it out in my childhood home while building mine.
After the dishes are done, we head to the living room to settle into our evening routine: The Sox game on the television, Dad and I splitting a six pack, Mom with her knitting in her lap. Lounging on the leather couch in their massive living room, one hand on a beer, the other laying comfortably between my spread thighs, I feel at home.
“What time do you think you’ll be out there tomorrow?” Mom asks.
“Crack of dawn,” I say, adjusting the bill of my hat when it digs into the couch so that it’s forward facing.
“ After the sun is up,” my dad counters with a chuckle.
“I’ll meet the crew to go over things, and we’ll probably have that second wall finished before you get there.”
“Watch that cockiness,” he chuckles, pointing the index finger of his beer holding hand at me. “I taught you everything I know.”
Ain’t that the truth?
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and as I stare at the slew of notifications I’ve missed from today, I sigh. Friends, old and new, are blowing up my phone to hang out before the school year starts back up again. And yet, I’m hesitant to reach out.
Mainly because, as I sit in my parent’s living room at age thirty-three, I kind of feel like I’m back in high school again. While I’m building my dream house, I’m basically back on house arrest. Late nights out mean early morning interrogations, and while I know they’re never going to say a damn thing about it, I’m tired of feeling like I’m imposing on my friends and their homes— and , going out to the bar every night kind of destroys my middle-school-teacher-on-summer-vacation salary.
“Who’s that?” dad asks.
“Oooo! Is it a lady?”
“You didn’t tell me you were going on dates.”
“What’s her name?”
“Woah!” I interject, sitting up. I extend a hand toward them that says Chill the fuck out . “No lady. Just the guys wanting to hang out.”
“Well, invite them over!” Mom says, standing already, abandoning her project in the arm chair. “I’ll throw in a batch of cookies.”
“Do we have enough beer? We could make a run. Although you boys always found a way to get into my stash back in the day.”
I shake my head, chuckling awkwardly.
When I moved back into my parents’ house, and slunk back into that high-school-feeling, I made it a point to distance myself from this : from the Ant in high school who stole liquor from his parents’ cabinet, and took his dad’s Firebird out for a joyride in the middle of the night. The guy who almost didn’t walk at graduation because his senior prank got the cops called. I don’t want to be that guy anymore.
“No. Guys. They’re not…”
Mom sits back down, but shifts her knitting project to the end table. Dad slides his beer to a coaster. They eye each other, then me. I forget so often that they lost each other once. Looking at how well they fit together like cogs in a machine or pieces in a puzzle, you’d never know.
“You need your own space.”
“I forget sometimes that you aren’t our little boy anymore.”
Mom reaches over and cups my cheek as she says this, and it breaks my heart all over again. After spending my undergrad and Masters’ out of state, and then moving in with Avery for the past several years, it feels like there has been a wedge between us that living with them again has begun to repair.
“But I just got back.” I try to fight the inevitable, and like I predicted, they don’t buy it.
“The door is always open. You know that,” Dad nods, smiling.
“Where would I even go? The house will be finished enough for me to stay there in a couple of months. Renting wouldn’t make sense.”
I shake my head, pulling my hat off to comb my fingers through the dirty blonde hair that’s becoming a bit shaggy and unruly, even for my standard.
“There’s always my old place with Margie.”
Margie . Even her mother’s name makes my chest ache. My mom’s best friend since childhood. The one who was pregnant with her wild, red-headed girl at the same time that Mom found out she was pregnant with me. They lived together for those first couple of years. We lived together. Until we were two. Until my dad came to his senses and wooed my mom back.
Until Margie couldn’t afford it anymore and moved down the coast for a while.
“You guys still have that house?” I ask, voice shaking, even though I know the answer.
“I started renting it after we moved out. I send her half the commission. We have a break in rentals right now, with summer winding down. I’ll just block out the dates indefinitely, until your place is ready. Don’t worry. I won’t tell her you’re staying there until you get back on your feet.”
Mom winks, not realizing that the cogs inside my chest are currently grating against one another.
I can’t live in that house. Not when I know its history. Certainly not when I know that there’s a picture of us sitting on the mantle. Two years old. Her wild, untamed mane of red hair blowing in the wind, tongue stuck out, my pudgy lips pressed to her cheek.
Even through the ache in my chest, that thought still warms me. We haven’t changed a bit.
“Think about it, at least. It’s your best bet. Plenty of space to spread out, and only a fifteen minute drive from here. You can keep some of your boxes here, if that helps. And, more importantly, you can come for dinner every night if you want.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I chuckle. “I’ll think about it.”
We finish watching the game mostly in silence, aside from the Sox announcers and the buzzing of my cell, a mixture of old and new friends alike. When I retire to bed, the unread texts tell me two things—One: that I need to get out of my parents’ basement and get myself a life.
And secondly?
She still hasn’t reached out.
I mean, she blocked my number. I could have guessed that none of the messages were from her.
Why, then, am I still holding onto hope that she’s decided to give me some grace, accept my apology, and fill this aching hole in my heart that’s carved out in the shape of Penelope Barker?