6
The next day, mid-morning, Tean drove south.
He’d grown up in South Jordan, but today, he headed for Midvale—a suburban city that was located between South Jordan and Salt Lake.
Tean didn’t know much about Midvale. When he’d been growing up, the city had been considered—at least, by teenagers in South Jordan—to be lower class and, therefore, deserving to be made fun of.
But in the years since, almost everywhere in Utah had experienced a real estate boom.
The pressure of a growing population, and rising housing prices, had made almost everywhere in the valley expensive.
Although, Tean discovered as he pulled into the apartment complex, run-down pockets remained here and there.
Apparently.
Meadow Valley Park consisted of a cluster of white-sided buildings with aluminum-frame windows and the kind of minimalist landscaping that suggested the property owners, whoever they were, didn’t want to spend more than one penny necessary.
The gutters didn’t droop or hang. The stairs weren’t rotted through.
Tarps didn’t cover missing patches on the roof.
But you didn’t have to take more than one look at the buildings, the grounds, and the parking lot full of rusted-out cars to know that nobody ended up here voluntarily.
When Tean’s parents had begun the process of getting a divorce in December, Tean hadn’t been able to talk about it—with either parent.
His parents had sustained a fiasco of a relationship for over thirty years, mostly by ignoring their problems, displacing their frustrations, and soothing themselves with messages from church about the sanctity of family and the covenants they’d made to each other.
After meeting Jem, and even more so after beginning to build a life together, Tean had wondered if his parents would ever understand how much more problematic it was to model a dysfunctional relationship as an example of a happy family than to just get a divorce and move on with their lives.
At first, or so Tean had gathered from his siblings, the divorce had seemed like it would proceed more or less amicably.
Their mother had initiated it. Their father, after a short attempt to convince her to change her mind, would go along with it.
He wanted her to be happy; that had been his refrain.
When Tean had finally reached a place in his own life where he was ready to deal with his parents, one of his father’s first comments had been, I want her to be happy, and if I’m not making her happy, then I need to get out of her life.
The divorce had become less amicable when it came to dividing up assets.
That wasn’t particularly a surprise; many divorces followed similar trajectories.
By then, Tean was involved, if for no other reason than because his other siblings were, in their usual way, absent when it came to actually handling problems. And so Tean had a front-row seat as he watched the masks fall off and his parents’ bitterness and resentment come out into the light.
The house had been the worst of it.
And so, now, Tean’s father lived in Meadow Valley Park.
His phone buzzed when he got out of the truck. The message was from Nasha: He’s not going to press charges.
Followed immediately by another: Jem isn’t allowed back at Rainbow House.
Tean hesitated and then wrote: Thank you for letting us know. And I’m so sorry.
Nasha didn’t reply.
After forwarding Nasha’s messages to Jem, Tean crossed the parking lot.
The apartment was on the third floor of a walk-up—exposed stairwells, iron railings pitted with rust, the wind howling down the exterior corridor.
Tean hadn’t visited before, so when he saw the picture of Jesus cut out of an Ensign and taped to the door, he had to take a moment to remind himself that he could do this.
He knocked. And then his phone buzzed.
When Tean checked it, a message from Amy said, Sorry, overslept. Here are the notes. And then there was an attachment.
Before Tean could look at the document, Seth answered the door.
He squeezed Tean’s shoulder and drew him into the apartment.
Several people were speaking softly, their voices overlapping.
He stood in a small living room with carpet the color of recycled tires, a sagging sofa with ribbed upholstery, and an armchair with a polka-dot pattern.
The faint hint of DI—musty, secondhand—hung in the air.
An opening connected to the kitchen, where two of Tean’s brothers stood: Corom and Tim. Buzzed hair. Stocky builds. Jem had once pointed out that Seth looked the most like Tean, which meant Seth was thinner than the others. Smaller. Jem had also pointed out the shared eyebrows.
“Where are Sara and Miriam?” Tean asked.
Seth rolled his eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tean said.
As Seth shut the door, he shrugged. “Everyone says they’re not taking sides, but…”
“Why would you want to be on either side?” Tean muttered.
With a quiet laugh, Seth shook his head.
Their father’s deeper voice mingled with the others for a moment and then fell silent again. Tean cocked his head, trying to make out the tone. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s all right. About how you’d expect.”
Tean nodded. He waited a moment, but Seth didn’t say anything else—no stay of execution, apparently—so Tean went into the kitchen.
It was bright, full of light. That was a nice thing.
There was a white refrigerator and a white enamel range.
A breakfast bar. A gate-leg table that was currently open.
It wasn’t dirty, and nothing was in obvious disrepair.
It took Tean a moment to notice what felt off about the room.
Nothing hung on the walls. No knickknacks or decorations cluttered the counters. There wasn’t even any food in sight.
Tean’s father sat at the table with Amos. Corom and Tim stood—Corom had one hand on their father’s shoulder.
Amos was saying, “—don’t make them like that anymore.”
Corom laughed. “They sure don’t.”
Their father nodded and tried to smile. There was more gray in his buzz cut than Tean remembered.
His cheeks looked sunken, and the skin sagged.
It wasn’t that Tean had never seen his father with stubble before, but rarely this thick.
He wore an old Ralph Lauren long-sleeved tee that their mother had gotten at the outlet mall, with a pair of dark jeans and, of course, boots.
The clothes were all at least fifteen years old, and Tean realized with something like surprise that he wouldn’t have thought about their age if not for Jem.
“Teancum,” their father said when he saw Tean. He got to his feet, and his movements were slow and stiff. “I’m so happy you could make it.”
“He was busy with work, Dad,” Amos said and looked around to see if everyone had heard him.
Corom insisted on shaking Tean’s hand. Tim patted his arm.
And then their father was shuffling around the table like he was eighty instead of sixty, arms outstretched for a hug.
Tean wasn’t sure the last time he’d hugged his father. He felt thinner. Frailer. He smelled like cologne from CVS and, under the scent, like he needed to brush his teeth.
“I love you so much,” he whispered as he tightened his arms around Tean. “Thank you for coming.”
Tean endured it as long as he could. Then he stepped back, breaking the embrace.
His dad held his arms out for another moment, as though maybe there had been a miscommunication, and the hug was supposed to go longer.
He had tears in his eyes, and as Tean watched, they spilled down his cheeks.
His dad wiped them away with one hand. With the other, he grabbed Tean’s hand—not in a handshake, but like a man grabbing as he fell off a cliff.
He squeezed Tean’s fingers and shook his hand back and forth.
“This is such a blessing,” he said. “All my boys are here. This is what heaven has to be like.”
Corom nodded.
Tim said, “That’s a great point, Dad.”
“Come sit down,” Tean’s dad said, giving his hand another shake. “Amos, let him sit down.”
Amos’s mouth opened—shock or protest, Tean wasn’t sure.
“I’m fine,” Tean said.
“Come stand over here, then.”
Before Tean could protest, his dad tugged him across the kitchen. This meant Corom and Tim had to move. Tean’s dad sat, but he kept his hold on Tean’s hand. After a moment, he pulled Tean a step closer, until Tean’s leg brushed the chair.
Across the room, Seth gave him a commiserating look.
“Remember when he took us turkey hunting?” Tim said.
Corom laughed. “Oh my gosh, he was so mad. ‘You boys be quiet!’”
“It’s funny for you! He didn’t spank you!”
“Spanking’s nothing. Remember when he caught Amos with one of his cigarillos?”
A hint of color rose in Amos’s cheeks.
“I thought you were going to puke up your toenails,” Seth said.
“He was teaching me a lesson,” Amos said. “I’m glad he made me smoke it. He made sure I never wanted to try one again.”
“Remember when he threw your shirt in the fire?” Corom said.
“He was so hardcore,” Tim said, and now he was the one who laughed. “He said he was going to make me go to school without a shirt, if that’s the kind of thing I wanted to wear.”
It had been a Simpsons T-shirt, Tean remembered. And The Simpsons were destroying the traditional family. The Simpsons were part of a liberal agenda to destroy the image of the father as the head of the family.