Mom tells us during breakfast. She waits till we both have our mouths full of cereal, and says, “Guess what? Your dad’s coming home for the day.” I look at Karen and see that, like me, she’s frozen midchew. Dad hasn’t been home since what Karen and I secretly refer to as the Family Fun Night Massacre. We just turned to the November page on the calendar. But we’ve been talking to him on the phone every few days since it happened. Karen’s started to refer to him as Phone-Dad and keeps her conversations with him short and snappy, until the end when I can tell he’s said he loves her, and Karen goes silent and then mumbles, “I know you do. Me too,” and holds the phone out toward me saying, “It’s Phone-Dad.” I don’t care if our conversations are short or if he asks different combinations of the same five questions every time, I’m just glad he calls at all.
Karen manages to swallow her mouthful of sugar-free, fat-free, taste-free cereal and asks, “He said that? He said he’s coming today?”
Mom gives an overly enthusiastic nod in response and starts to clear the table.
“Interesting,” Karen says, raising her eyebrows at me. I look at her and think, Shut up shut up shut up. She won’t ever give him a chance. He’s been gone so long, and she’s going to ruin it before he even gets here.
“So, Mom,” Karen continues in the voice she uses when she wants to sound like a really mature, really reasonable person, “why is he coming home?”
Mom gives what’s meant to be a happy shrug in response, but I can tell she’s stopped breathing.
“I mean,”—shut up shut up shut up—“do you really want him to come over? Can’t we just keep Phone-Dad instead?” Karen’s starting to laugh out loud. “That way we can just hang up on him when—”
Mom’s hand shoots out over the table. For a second I think she is going slap Karen, but instead she cups Karen’s chin in her hand and stares hard into her face. It actually shuts Karen up for a second.
“Karen,” Mom says, “this is the part where we all try really, really hard to keep our family together.”
Karen pulls her face away from Mom’s hand and gives a fake laugh.
“God, Mom. I know that. I was just joking.”
“Well, your jokes hurt. He’s still your dad.”
“If you say so,” Karen mumbles, trying to give me a conspiratorial smile.
I ignore her and watch as Mom bursts into tears. Karen goes pale and rushes to where Mom is standing with her arms straight by her sides, her head down and her hair hanging over her face. Karen crouches down a little so she is looking up into Mom’s face, saying, “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean it. Mom, I’m really sorry.”
Mom just keeps shaking her head, looking at the ground. Karen pleads what I am thinking, “Oh God, Mom, please look up. Look at me, Mom.” Karen carefully lifts Mom’s chin with her fingers till Mom’s red face is staring at us both. I don’t realize I was holding my breath till I exhale. I’m so relieved that it’s still her face. I was terrified that it had turned into something else. I wish I could get up from the table. I wish I could . . . participate. I’m rigid, my joints are soldered in this position. I manage to wrench open my jaw and say, “You made her cry.”
Karen scowls at me.
“You’re going to ruin—” My voice is a growl, but before I can finish my sentence, Mom says in a shaky voice, “You kids . . .” Mom sputters, “You need to know that just because your Dad and I are taking a break from each other, doesn’t mean we’re taking a break from loving you.”
That’s it. I’m done. I get up and leave them in the kitchen. I don’t need to sit here and listen to them making things real.
When Dad gets here, Mom has us sit in the living room. I understand. We can’t be in the den because then we could watch TV and ignore each other until we found something to fight about. We can’t be in the kitchen because either Karen would start complaining that all we ever eat is “fat food” or Dad would start rifling through the fridge, and we’d have the Family Fun Night Massacre, Part 2: I Thought You Bought Cheese Dip. So we sit in the living room because it’s the only room in the house our family hasn’t broken up in. Yet.
It’s not going well. Dad’s sitting in an armchair facing the couch where I sit wedged between Mom and Karen. Dad’s asking Karen and me careful questions, and we keep our answers short and smooth—with nothing to snag there’s less chance of a fight. Dad’s running out of ways to ask us how school is, and since he already told us work was “too busy,” and since it’d be too weird to ask him about his apartment or what he does at night or if he has cable or eats pizza Friday nights like we used to together, we don’t ask anything. The silences between his questions get longer and longer, and Mom hasn’t said a word because I think this visit is supposed to be about Karen and me and Dad. I can feel that everyone is about to scatter and I know it’s up to me to stop them from bolting from the living room. We are standing on the edge of a cliff, looking at swirling, rolling water below. Behind us is a fire that will soon engulf us, and in front of us is a long drop that we may not survive. I know the fire will kill us, but there’s a chance we could survive the fall. I look at Dad, who is starting to get up from the armchair with his eyes on the door, and I say to myself, I’m going in.
I open my mouth and I talk nonstop for seventy-one minutes. It’s a little sloppy at first, but at least Dad sits back down. I’m aware that I’m telling four stories at the same time, and that Mom and Karen and Dad are all starting to look at each other and laugh because this is how I used to be when I was kid—the second anyone gave me any sort of attention, I’d start in on a story about my pet elephant or how I captured the tooth fairy in my clothes hamper, and I’d talk till I ran out of things to say or Karen put her hand over my mouth. It’s the same thing now—if I can keep talking, they’ll keep listening. They’ll stay. I narrow in on one story at a time, and for over an hour they hear about secret service agents lost in the woods, about tightrope walking champions, about kung fu masters and specialized firefighters that dash in and out of burning buildings rescuing kids. As I talk, I watch it get dark outside, and see a light early-November snow turn into a freak early-November blizzard. I watch Dad lean back in the chair and relax. I watch his eyes saying things to Mom, and her eyes answering. I watch Karen as she tucks her feet under her and curls against the arm of the couch, her arms folded in front of her and a happy look on her face. I watch my reflection in the window, and know that I am looking at a hero. I’m the one that’s saving us all.
At seven thirty P.M. Karen exchanges a glance with Mom and sits up, saying, “Mom, I’m starved. Can we eat?” I’m grateful. My throat is sore, my stomach is growling, and I’m not even sure what I’m saying anymore. I’ve kept Dad here so long that the snow has piled too deep for him to leave, and he’ll have to stay overnight for the first time since before we left for the lake house last summer. The rest of the night passes quietly. We eat together, watch TV together, and I go to sleep feeling like a final puzzle piece has been clicked into place. In the middle of the night I get up and look over the upstairs railing into the den below. Karen tiptoes out of her room and stands next to me. We are looking for the same thing, but I know we are wishing for opposites. Karen looks down into the den and gives a triumphant look in response to my frown. Dad is sleeping on the couch. Mom is still sleeping alone. I raise my chin. I don’t care. I still saved us, even if for just a little while.
The next morning Karen and Amanda are under blankets in the den watching talk shows, which means I’m in the den watching Amanda watch talk shows. As soon as the TV announced that school was canceled this morning, Amanda crossed the street through two feet of snow, wearing her pajamas and slippers under her snowboots and winter coat. She and Karen have plans for an all-day UnSlumber Party, and since it’s daytime, they can’t kick me out of the den. I’m ready to tell them, “It’s my den too!”
Dad’s been up since before it was even light out, swearing at the snowblower in the driveway. Mom’s in the kitchen talking on the phone to either Aunt Janice or Maddie from the lake, saying, “I told him he should have come home sometime this fall and gotten that stupid snowblower ready for the winter.”
A commercial comes on, and Karen gets up and stretches, glancing out the window.
“Oh, my God!” She runs over to the window. “Amanda, come look at this!”
“God, it’s so weird,” Amanda says, standing next to Karen.
“What?” I ask, and look between them out the window. Our dads are crouched over our snowblower. Amanda’s dad’s explaining something involving a wrench.
“Amanda,” Karen says in an awed voice, “you realize this is really the first time they’ve even talked? I can tell by the way he’s holding that wrench that your dad, like, loves my dad.”
Amanda nods in agreement. “Your dad’s like the son he never had.”
“Maybe they’ll start going on man dates,” Karen says, “like ice fishing. Your dad can show mine how to shoot bears or chew tobacco.”
Amanda laughs. “My dad doesn’t shoot bears. He hasn’t been hunting since we moved here. I bet they’ll just talk about carburetors and hot-water heaters.”
“Man dates are next,” Karen says, shaking her head.
“When you think about it, it’d be kind of sweet.”
“What?” Karen laughs. “For our dads to be platonic lovers? If they got married we could be sisters.”
“Well, I mean, your dad didn’t have a dad, right? And my dad didn’t have a son, so there.” Amanda gives a satisfied smile. “They’ll fill up holes in each other’s lives.”
“I guess.” Karen looks at me. “Maybe Dad will teach you some of that manly-man stuff, Donnie.”
I shrug. Part of me hopes he’ll start getting Amanda’s dad to teach him stuff so he can teach me and not feel like such a failure. And part of me thinks he’d rather just have a dad than be one. Great, this means I have to grow up and find some burly dude to be my pseudofather and teach me how to change oil and grill steak. I shake my head and feel Karen’s and Amanda’s eyes on me.
“Let’s go pajama sledding!” Karen says. “Donnie, get your pj’s on, you’re coming too.”
Sometimes, it’s like it was at the lake.