By the time I get home from Helen’s Crest, after my detention, it’s almost dinnertime. I run into Marcellus on the way out the door—Nathan never likes to expose his friend to our family’s unique eating environment. Marcellus stops in front of the door, looks me over, and nods. Then he’s on his way. I wonder what goes on in his mind sometimes, what he does when he isn’t taking orders from Nathan.
I need to ask Mom about the parent-teacher conference, but I ran late with Madison and I didn’t have time to shower at the club, so if I don’t hop in the shower right now, Dad will smell the chlorine, and I’ll be up dirt creek without any stain remover. So I take the world’s fastest shower, but it’s still not fast enough—Dad’s already at the table when I get out, and Mom’s serving up dinner.
Dad’s eyes study me for a bit as I sit down, but he digs right into his food.
Okay, not a problem. I can ask Mom after dinner, when Dad’s not around, so he won’t know about it. Problem solved.
“Hey, Al,” Nathan says at the table, spitting bits of food over his plate, “who’s going to your parent-teacher conference tomorrow?”
It’s like someone hurls a kickball into my gut at ninety miles an hour. I’m grateful I’m not swallowing anything right now, because otherwise our tablecloth would be decorated with half-digested fried chicken.
“Parent-teacher conference?” Dad asks.
“Oh, uh,” I stammer. Think fast, think fast, think fast. “Mom’s going.”
Mom blinks a few times, then looks up.
“You’re going?” Dad asks Mom. “You’ve got a church fund-raiser tomorrow.”
She looks at me. Whatever my face looks like, it makes her blink a few more times. “I can’t,” she mumbles, tearing herself back to her plate. “I’ve got the fund-raiser.”
Dad chuckles. Not the normal kind of chuckling you do when you’re actually happy, because Dad’s never happy. The kind you do when you’re a hawk, and you’re about to bite into a nice, juicy piece of prey. “What time is this conference?”
Lie to him lie to him come up with some excuse don’t don’t don’t don’t—
“Six at night,” I say.
“I expect a good report from your teacher,” Dad says. “Don’t disappoint me again.”
The flames dance behind Dad, licking everything nearby.
It’s not easy painting when you’ve got a lot on your mind.
It’s not easy painting when you’re busy worrying about what Dad’s going to hear tomorrow, and what Dad’s going to do tomorrow.
It’s not easy painting when you’re wondering about introverts, and if you could really be a hero when you can’t even stand up for yourself.
It’s not easy painting when you don’t know what your brother is doing, whose side he’s on, what he’s plotting next.
You guess you could ask him yourself. It’d be easy, since he just walked into your room. “Nice sketchbook,” he says.
You—I mean, I—stash it under my desk, but he shakes his head. “I’m not the one you should hide that from,” he says.
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you—”
“Don’t get the wrong idea, Al,” Nathan says. “We’re not bosom buddies or anything like that. I chose you over Dad, that’s all. Tonight was a little reminder we’re still opponents. What happened with that girl at the dinner anyway?”
I give Nathan a curious look. Is he actually . . . reaching out? “She was fine when she started talking—”
“Oh wait,” Nathan says. “I don’t care anymore. Whatever she did to you, you deserved it. You made Dad worse, so you probably made her worse too. How’s the ol’ CvC coming? Done anything new?”
I sigh. Guess not. “I’m working on stuff,” I say.
Nathan hops onto my bed and bounces up and down; the springs creak with the impact of his feet. He takes my blanket and ties it around his neck like a cape. “I had my first swim team practice today. I’ll ace that test in no time. And that’ll be all I’ll need to do, since you won’t get anything else done. I was thinking: who’s this friend of yours Dad mentioned?”
Oh crap. “He’s nobody,” I say fast, too fast. “Just a kid I know from class.”
“You must be on pretty good terms with him if he’s letting you share some fancy health club,” Nathan says. “What are you really doing there, I wonder? You don’t care about exercise. Is this friend named . . . Vic?” He waggles his eyebrows.
This isn’t where I expected this to go. Evergreen is so big, and Nathan goes so far out of his way to avoid being seen with me unless he needs something, that he’s never seen me with Madison or Zack. If he thinks I’m going to the club with “Vic Valentino,” then he won’t know Madison actually exists, unless he sees me with Madison and assumes Madison is Vic, but if he doesn’t think I’m going there with Vic I’ll have to tell him why I’m going—think fast, Alan—
“None of your business,” I say to buy some time.
The hyena laughs. “I knew it. You’re working out with your little boyfriend. That’s cute. I wonder what he’d think if he knew how you really felt? How you pine for him. How you yearn for him. How you can’t live without him. You’re madly in love. We should call this CvV, since you’ll change your last name to Valentino soon enough, right?”
I gulp. “Y-Yeah. I’m going with Vic. We’ve been biking there every day.”
“Ha!” Nathan laughs. He hops off my bed and tosses the blanket from his neck and lets it fall clumsily over my head. “You can’t hide anything from me, Boy Blunder. If you don’t want to scare Vickie away, better up your game. We’re so close to the finish line—let’s not ruin the ending, right?”
“Right,” I say, trying to keep the relief from my voice.
As he leaves my room, Nathan looks back and—and doesn’t smirk. “Good luck tomorrow,” he says in a low voice.
I take a nice, long breath. Whatever’s up with Nathan, he still doesn’t think I’m clever enough to lie to his face. I just hope he doesn’t see me talking to Madison or Zack and make some nasty assumptions about them.
Or hurt them.
I almost grab my sketchbook from under my desk and get back to painting Connor’s hair, but there’s a knock at my door.
Nobody knocks at my door.
“Come in?” I say.
And in walks Mom, holding a plastic bag. Her eyes move about my room like she’s exploring a dusty tomb, untouched by man for centuries. She shuts the door behind her.
“I’m sorry,” Mom says.
“It’s okay,” I reply. “You’ve got something at church tomorrow anyway.”
“No,” she says. “Your book.”
Oh.
Mom hands me the plastic bag. Slowly, fingers quavering, I reach inside to find a new sketchbook. It’s not quite the same as the one she bought me before the school year started, but it’s still a brand-new sketchbook, full of potential.
“He shouldn’t have done that. And I shouldn’t have . . .” She clucks her tongue and turns to leave. “Be careful with it.”
“Wait,” I say, but I don’t know what I want to ask. There’s so much to say, so much that’s gone unsaid.
She stops, hand on my doorknob, and sighs. “Your grandparents never wanted this.”
“What?” I ask, rolling my chair forward.
Mom sighs. “Family’s supposed to be everything. But your grandparents didn’t treat your father right.”
I lean in. I’ve never heard anything about my grandparents before. Heck, I’ve never even heard anything about Mom and Dad’s life before they had Nathan and me.
“We shouldn’t talk about them like this,” Mom continues. “But your father felt unloved. They were teachers, and he wasn’t a strong student. His best was never enough, no matter how hard he tried. They pushed and pushed him, and eventually they pushed him away. As soon as he could, he left them behind to make a name for himself. We left. We were happy. Until your grandparents—they—”
My mother raises her head to the ceiling, still facing away from me. “They died. You had just started kindergarten. Their old family motto was ‘Today, do your best,’ but no one wished him that growing up, and they certainly weren’t going to wish him that now. He turned his back on that motto. He swore to always put himself first, no matter what.”
Whenever Dad’s told me to do my best, it was always to make him look good. My voice comes out very thin. “Why don’t you ever talk about this?”
“Dad has so much pain in his heart,” Mom says. “He thought everyone in his family was so much smarter than him. He knew he could never compete with his parents, or with you or Nathan, even though you’re only kids.”
She finally turns to face me. She looks me up and down, then shuts her eyes. No tears. “You look just like him.”
I swear, even from up here, I can hear the ticking of the wooden clock. I clutch the new sketchbook to my chest.
“That’s his story,” Mom says.
“What about you?” I ask. I want to find out everything I can before she retreats into her shell. “What’s your story, Mom?”
She smiles. A sad, humorless smile. “This is my story,” she says, gesturing around her. “You and Nathan are my story. Your father is my story.” She falls silent.
Not every story has a happy ending.
“But what about your parents?” I ask, remembering the special cross Mom wore to the dinner. “Why don’t you ever talk about them?”
“Your dad wants me to focus on happier times,” she says softly.
I have to pick my jaw up off the floor. How can Dad force her to break off contact with her own family? Then I remember the phone call Mom was having the other night, when I thought she was talking to Denise, when she got paranoid after she thought I was listening in. I wonder what else my mother is hiding.
“Maybe now you understand him more,” Mom continues.
“I understand him more, yeah,” I say, unable to stop myself. “But I don’t think that’s an excuse.”
“You should show Dad respect—”
“He burned it.”
Mom wrings her hands together.
“Mom,” I say. “Don’t—” I swallow.
Her hands are squeezed together so firmly they turn shock-white. “Before Dad left home, your grandmother tried to make amends. She told him, ‘Today, do your best.’ It was too late though, and he left without saying good-bye. They always invited him up to their lakeside cabin every summer. But one year there was an awful accident, and they drowned.”
“. . . what?”
I don’t have time to teach you.
We’re never going to the ocean anyway, so why even bother?
No more swimming. It’s bad enough you’re doing it in school, but now you’re doing it for fun too? No more swimming!
“I—” I open my mouth. “I never—he never—”
“I never told you,” Mom whispers. “That was when everything changed. We were supposed to finally go up to the lake to visit, but you had gotten sick after you kept the window open all night painting that picture of a sunset. Dad got sick too. He thought maybe if he’d been there, he could’ve . . .” She closes her eyes. “I think he still blames you.”
My earliest memory comes rushing back. Me sick in bed, Dad screaming at me, “This is all your fault”—is that really it? Is that when everything fell apart?
Mom inches the door open. “Be careful, Alan.” And she’s gone.
He could have had different reasons for not wanting to teach us. Maybe it brought up too many bad memories. Maybe he didn’t want to go near the water himself, that’s how traumatized he was. Maybe he didn’t want to teach us a valuable life skill out of spite.
Maybe he was trying to protect us.
Maybe sometimes people act like they’re doing things for selfish reasons, like not teaching their kids how to swim, or maybe they try to downplay the good things they do, like protecting a sketchbook, but they’re really looking out for you.
Maybe sometimes people retreat from their families because they’re scared of the world, so they hold their love in a tight ball and bury it deep inside. Maybe there’s hope for even those people too.
Maybe.