Yesterday was a lot. Between the Celia stuff and the Alex stuff and generally coming down off the high of me and Matt. My bed is comfortable, my limbs weighty, my stomach a leaden mass, my brain happy to escape into oblivion again and again. To open my eyes is to close them again. Getting up just isn’t an option.
I wonder if this is what it’s like to feel hungover.
“Up and at ’em,” Dad says.
“Not gonna happen,” I mutter.
“Oh, yes, sir. We leave in half an hour.”
There’s nothing to say that can’t be said by pulling the blanket over my head.
“Kermit, please,” Dad says. “I don’t want to do this every week.”
“Then there’s a simple solution, Dad.” Leave me the fuck alone.
He sighs. “You and your mother.” The words are so soft I might have misheard him. But it intrigues me enough to pull down the covers. What about Mom?
Dad’s standing in the doorway in his khakis, shirt, and loosened tie. “It’s advent.”
“I’ll go on Christmas,” I mumble, not sure if that’s true. Better to kick the can down the road than cut myself open on it now.
“In this house we have certain obligations,” he intones.
“I’m not four. What are you gonna do, drag me kicking and screaming into the sanctuary?”
“Maybe,” Dad snaps.
“Hell of a way to make an entrance.” I land hard on hell.
Dad pounds his fist lightly on the doorframe. Over and over and over, like he’s trying to hammer something home, and then his face cracks. He starts crying. “I can’t do this,” he says. “I don’t have the energy,”
“Everyone misses you,” Mom tries, rolling up behind Dad, wrapped in her bathrobe. She puts an arm around his waist and rests her cheek on his shoulder. Her hair is mussed and she’s been crying, too. We’re quite a trio.
“Don’t you guys ever want to take a week off?”
“That’s not what faith is,” Dad manages to say. “It’s showing up every week.” He clings to the doorframe with the hand that was pounding. Just let go, I think. Float into the atmosphere, where you’ll suffocate and die. Like the rest of us.
Mom says, “I know Pastor Carle would be happy to talk to you about what you’re feeling.”
What I’m feeling? Please.
I don’t want to feel. I don’t have to feel. I’m like Teflon, untouchable.
“You’re not going to change my mind. You’re just going to be late.” The pillow conforms to my head the way it’s been practicing for years. Comforter overhead, and it’s a cocoon, as best I can make one.
There’s no sound. No further discussion. They’re standing there staring at me, out of sight, for so long it’s confusing. I flip over to offer one final retort, but it dies on my tongue.
They’ve gone.
How long ago? No telling. I didn’t hear it.