MOM’S BEEN TEXTING AND LEAVING VOICE MAILS, EVEN after my text telling her to leave me alone. Dad’s been trying to talk to me, too. He begged me to join him and Monica for lunch today, and I had to go to make him shut up.
“Isn’t this nice?” he says as we walk down Market Street to the restaurant a few blocks away from Civic Center. “Look at us—two professional men going to lunch downtown.” He is artificially jolly. He pretends not to see the guy passed out on the sidewalk in front of us.
Monica has turned out to be one of those people who makes too much eye contact. She hugs me when we arrive to the restaurant. The huge diamond on her engagement ring sparkles indecently. After a few valiant tries to get me to talk, she finally lets me eat my veggie burger in silence while I read the depressing current events on my phone’s news app. She and Dad spend the meal deep in conversation, but I don’t hear anything they say.
As we wait for the bill and my dad goes to the restroom, she tries one last time. “Marcus,” she says, “your dad says you’ve been a little down lately. I know sometimes it’s hard to talk to your parents about certain things, but maybe it could be easier with someone who isn’t family. At least, not yet.” She winks. “Is there anything you want to talk about? Maybe I can help?”
I don’t speak for a full minute, I’m in so much shock. I’m not sure if I should be angry at her presumptuousness, or if I should burst out laughing.
“No,” I finally say. I don’t have the energy to cop an attitude.
As Dad and I walk back to the office, I listen to the voice mail Mom left during lunch. “Marcus,” she says, her voice tinged with a maternal exasperation she has no right to, “I don’t know why you’re avoiding my calls, but I really need you to call me back. I’m worried about you. Your father called me and told me he’s worried about you, and you know it would take a lot for him to do that—”
I hang up the phone before hearing the end of the message. “Jesus, Dad,” I say, and stop walking. “I can’t believe you.”
“What?” he says. We’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk on Market Street. An old Asian lady with a cart full of soda cans yells at us as she passes.
“Are you telling the whole Bay Area you’re worried about me? Mom’s been stalking me, and Monica tried to have a little heart-to-heart while you were in the bathroom. What the hell?”
He sighs. “I don’t know what to do, Marcus. I’m trying everything.”
“What to do about what? There’s nothing to do. I’m fine.”
“I may be pretty clueless as a father, but I can tell you’re not fine. You stay holed up in your room whenever you’re not at work. You don’t go out. You don’t see anyone.”
“What I do with my free time is none of your business.”
“I’m your father, Marcus. If you’re miserable, it’s my business. If you’re . . . depressed. If you’re in trouble somehow.”
I start walking. “I’m not in trouble.”
“You don’t seem happy.”
“What do you know about happy?”
“I know I wasted a lot of my life not thinking it was important. I know I don’t want you to do that.”
My stomach is churning with feelings I can’t define. I don’t know who I’m talking to. I don’t understand what he’s saying. We walk through the courthouse security and up the marble staircase to where all the offices are located.
“Talk to me,” Dad says in the hallway outside the door to his office suite.
I open the door and walk inside, saying nothing. There’s no way Dad will talk about this stuff in here, in front of his assistant. I know he has an important meeting in five minutes. I’m safe for now.
The next four hours drag. The adrenaline of my anger wears off quickly, and I’m left with an empty, heavy weight that makes it hard to lift my hands to type, to keep my eyes open. All I want to do is curl up in the pool of sunlight in the corner, like a cat. As soon as the clock strikes five, I can’t get out of the building fast enough.
My phone shows another voice mail from Mom, which I don’t listen to.
And then. A text from a number I don’t recognize:
This is Evie. We need to talk. Can we meet at your house at 6?
I text back yes without thinking.
I could swim across the bay to meet her.