Spoiler alert: Hunter’s not dead—he’s not even injured—but the car is totaled.
A police officer brings Hunter home in her squad car, something that would have thrilled him to pieces when he was ten but is not thrilling him one tiny bit now. I’m not in the family room when the officer comes in with him; I’m within hearing distance but out of sight in the kitchen.
It does feel like I somehow made this happen, like I have this magical wishing ability, except that it’s powerful enough to get me part of what I wish for but not all of it. Like in this terrific book Half Magic I read as a kid, where the children find a magical coin that will grant them half, but only half, of anything they wish for. I wished Cameron would ask me to dance during “his” song, and he did, only it turned out not to be his song, and he didn’t dance with me, just near me. I wished Hunter would die—well, I didn’t really wish it, but I said it and at the time it felt like I was wishing it because I was so hurt and furious. And Hunter did have an accident that might have killed him, and he did totally wreck the car. Of course, none of my wishing for publication came true at all; all that wishing did was just make me give up on my writing dreams forever.
The moral is: I need to be careful what I wish for.
But I also need to be careful never again to say anything as hateful as what I said to Hunter that afternoon, because if he had died, I would have had to live with it for the rest of my days.
The officer, who introduces herself as Officer Williamson, explains to our parents—Mom called Dad, and he’s home now, too—that it was a single-car accident. Hunter took a corner too fast, lost control of the car, and hit a tree. It’s kind of miraculous—or maybe magical?—that he wasn’t hurt. He has a court date where the judge will decide what will happen to him.
I can’t see Hunter’s face as Officer Williamson is saying all this, but I can imagine it: trying to look like he doesn’t care in front of my parents, but to look like he does care in front of the police officer, in case she has to write a report that might determine his fate. She asks him some direct question I can’t catch, but I hear him answer, “Yes, ma’am.” So he’s definitely trying to act like a kid who deserves a second chance rather than a kid who should be sent away to reform school or wherever they send incorrigible kids these days.
“I’m sorry this happened, Officer,” Dad says. “I know my son is sorry, too.”
“Thanks for bringing him home,” Mom adds.
The officer says, “Well, we were all young once,” as if all young people break the law and smash up automobiles. Then she says good night and leaves.
I can’t miss out on what’s going to happen next, so I take my chances and creep into the living room and do my trademark small-little-ball thing on a corner of the couch. My parents and Hunter don’t even seem to notice. I’ve heard people say, when they can’t stop looking at something, “It’s like the way you can’t stop looking at a car wreck.” I’ve never had any desire to look at a car wreck. But I can’t stop looking at what’s happening after this car wreck, to my family.
“Hunter,” Dad finally says, “I’m too upset to talk to you right now. As long as I live, I pray I never have to go through another night like this, wondering if my son is alive or dead. I hope that by morning you’ll come up with something to say that will make us understand why on earth you thought you had a right to defy our rules, wreck our car, and break our hearts.”
With that he turns and walks heavily up the stairs to bed. Dad knows how to make an exit.
Now it’s just Mom and Hunter. And me, but I don’t count. I’m still wearing my cloak of invisibility.
“Hunter,” she says in a low, wobbly voice, “how could you?”
Hunter’s ears flame scarlet. “Dad had no right to make me miss my gig just because he doesn’t like my grades. I didn’t even fail anything. I only got two D’s. Two!”
“Of course he had a right!” Mom says. Gone is the mother who was trying to take Hunter’s part yesterday, suggesting he shouldn’t be “grounded,” he should just “limit his activities” so he could concentrate better on school. “He’s your father! He cares about you! He wants to help you make the right choices in life to give you the best chance at realizing your dreams!”
Hunter laughs then, as if what Mom said is the most hilarious thing he’s ever heard.
I hear myself opening my mouth. “That’s true,” I chime in, like a little echoing parrot. “That’s exactly what he said.”
Both Mom and Hunter ignore me.
“He loves you,” Mom insists.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Of course he does! Just because parents have rules and try to enforce them, it doesn’t mean they don’t love their children. It means the exact opposite.”
“Well, I know the things he says when he thinks I’m not listening,” Hunter retorts. “And the things you say, too.”
“Like what?” Mom’s tone is challenging, trying to call Hunter’s bluff.
“This past summer?” Hunter prompts her. “The night before school started? I came downstairs after you guys thought I was asleep, to ask you something. I forget what it was, something stupid, probably, because you both think anything I really care about is stupid.”
“Hunter,” Mom tries to interrupt, but he doesn’t stop.
“I was still on the stairs, and I could hear you talking, and I heard what Dad said, what both of you said.”
I pull in a deep breath. Whatever Hunter is going to say next, it can’t be good.
“What did we say?” She looks uneasy now, as if she’s trying to remember that overheard conversation and can’t come up with anything but knows there might well be something he heard that she and Dad hadn’t meant for him to hear.
“You said you hoped I’d have a better year in school this time.”
“Well, that’s not so terrible,” I say, even though my previous comment wasn’t appreciated. I so much want whatever Hunter overheard to turn out to be not as bad as he’s making it out to be.
“And Dad said…” Hunter pauses, and the muscles in his jaw tighten in that exact same way Dad’s do when he’s upset and trying unsuccessfully to get his face back under control. “Dad said, ‘With his dropping out of cross-country, it sure isn’t looking like it so far.’ And then he said, ‘The biggest disappointment of my life has been Hunter.’”
For a moment nobody speaks. I swear, even the refrigerator stops its humming. Even the clock on the kitchen wall stops its ticking.
“Oh, Hunter, sweetie, oh, Hunter, he didn’t mean it—”
“And then you said, ‘I know.’ That’s what you said, Mom. You said, ‘I know,’ like you were agreeing with him. Like I was the biggest disappointment of your life, too.”
I try one more time. I’m supposed to be good at words, though lately words haven’t worked out for me the way I spent my whole life dreaming they would. But if I ever needed a reminder of how powerful words can be, this is it.
“Hunter,” I say, “Mom didn’t mean it that way. And Dad didn’t mean what he said either. People say things they don’t really mean all the time.”
Things like: I wish you were dead.
Mom is crying now in this wordless way, with her face all contorted and no sound coming out. I’m not crying. I want too badly to find words to say that could somehow make this be all right. But that’s the thing about words. They can’t ever really erase other words. They can scribble over them, but they can never make them totally go away.
Hunter juts up his chin, as if daring us to say another syllable. Then he stands and walks away, clomping up the stairs to his room, while we listen to the silence.