UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Dad taught me about potential energy.
It’s the energy waiting to get used when a still object finally moves. A glass that’s about to slip from a hand, a ball set to roll downhill, a car tipping over the edge of a cliff all have potential energy.
Dad had it on the day he left. He stood in the den with his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels, back and forth, as if he were standing in sand with the tide coming in.
All the tension, resentment, and whatever else made my parents split up sloshed around him like a wave and spilled closer to me, pooled.
The air felt unnaturally still—conditioned and vacuum-sealed to keep June outside. Dust motes hovered in the air as if frozen in time, caught by the afternoon rays angling through the back woods and the den’s big bay windows.
A body in motion remains in motion. That was Dad, going away to do research in physics at the University of Virginia.
A body at rest remains at rest unless something makes it move. That was me, not about to hug Dad good-bye. I didn’t want any part of that bad-feeling wave. That’s when the magic words crept back in: Don’t touch.
Any second, Dad might have tipped forward, crossed the couple of feet between him and me, and taken my hand, wrapped me up in a hug.
But he didn’t.
And I didn’t budge from my seat in the big chaise lounge with its pillows stacked up like sandbags, its high, wide arms two barricades. I felt powerful keeping my distance while Dad hugged Mom good-bye.
She sobbed, but not Dad. Not me. Mom says I’m “emotionally contained” just like him.
My brother, Jordan, on the other hand, exploded. He screamed in Dad’s face, broke a vase, and ran into the woods, not to return until Dad was long gone.
It probably confused Dad that I wasn’t clinging to him, begging him to stay. I thought, Let him be confused. Even if I tried to hold on, he’s stronger than me. And even if he weren’t, a person can’t hold on to another person forever. At some point, their muscles give out, or the authorities get called.
Would he try to kiss me good-bye, squeeze my hand? Better not.
Or what?
Or this pain sloshing back and forth between us will be permanent, suck us all down. Touch another person’s skin, and Dad will never come home. There will never again be enough air. This family will stay broken, drown.
Dad said, “Well, sweetie, this is it,” and patted the chaise a few safe inches away from my feet. Even that felt too close, but I’d built a wall between us that he couldn’t cross.
“Have a good drive,” I said.
Dad looked surprised, maybe even relieved, at my calm. He didn’t force things, didn’t make me stand up and give him a hug. I almost wished he would.
The game might have been over as soon as it started.
But Dad didn’t need a hug from me. He just waved.