“That was amazing,” Mom says. “You were amazing.”
Mom is so excited, she’s driving almost thirty miles per hour instead of her usual twenty. We pass Enzo’s then turn the corner towards home.
“I didn’t do that much. I was backstage most of the time,” I say.
“The lights,” Mom says. “All those beautiful ideas. You were everywhere up there.”
“They were Mr. Apple’s ideas, too. We were working together.”
“That’s the best way. A collaboration.”
I look at the headlights on the pavement, the way they reflect off a bank of trees, then disappear into the dark again.
“Do you think about Dad?” I say.
Mom’s eyes flit towards me then back to the road.
“What kind of question is that?” she says.
“We never talk about it,” I say. “We almost talk about it, but we never do.”
Mom stares at the road. I’m waiting for her to ignore my question or change the subject. That’s how we usually do it.
“I think of him every day,” she says.
“Me, too.”
“I know you do.”
“I’ve been afraid to tell you,” I say.
“Why afraid?”
“I don’t want to make you sad.”
“I’m already sad, Adam. We both are. It’s a sad thing that happened.”
I remember waking up one particular morning after it happened. Not the morning when the police were at the house. And not the morning of the funeral.
Those mornings were terrible, but they were easy in comparison.
This morning was three weeks later.
I slept all night with a flashlight in the crook of my arm. That started right after Dad died, bringing the flashlight to bed with me. I’d been having nightmares for weeks, but this night was different. When I woke up, I felt peaceful for the first time in weeks.
Then I opened my eyes.
It was Monday. The first day of high school. Time for meto start again.
A new school.
A new life.
I opened the blinds in my bedroom, and the morning light burned my eyes.
The universe seemed cruel to me then, the way it can turn out the lights and turn them on again with the flip of a switch. It can turn off the sun. Or a person. Whatever it chooses to do. And you’re just supposed to go on as if nothing happened.
I hated everyone that day. Dad for dying. Me for living.
And Josh.
“I’m so angry at Josh,” I say out loud.
“Why, honey?”
“Dad died and he took off. Now he’s having a great life at Cornell.”
Mom thinks about that for a second.
“Everyone deals with things in their own way,” she says.
“He wasn’t even sad. He had a new girlfriend like a week later.”
First I lost Dad. Then I lost Josh. That’s what it felt like.
Mom bites at her thumbnail.
“I made a lot of mistakes, too,” she says.
“No, you didn’t.”
I think about Mom after it happened. Sleeping until noon, then disappearing into the bathroom for half the day.
“I couldn’t handle it,” Mom says. “I tried to be there for you, but I drifted into my own world.”
“I went backstage,” I say.
I started tech in the fall right after Dad died. It seemed like a great thing at the time. New friends, new interests. That’s what everyone said I needed to do. That’s what Reach said, too, and I didn’t disagree.
The theater became my whole life. And then it kind of replaced my life.
Who was I before that?
I try to think back to that time, back when I was thirteen.
What did I like? Who did I want to be?
It seems like it was so long ago.
Then I remember—the cardboard box on the top shelf of my closet. It’s been up there for two years, untouched. Forgotten about.
Not completely forgotten.
It’s Dad’s box, filled with tubes of acrylic paint, palette knives, brushes—
“I wanted to be a painter,” I say to Mom.
“That was a long time ago,” she says.
“I wanted to be a painter like Dad. After he died, I couldn’t deal with it. I gave up. I got into tech so I wouldn’t have to think about it.”
“But, honey—you are a painter.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Tonight on that stage. You made a painting with light.”
I think about the images from tonight’s production. Flashlight beams crisscrossing the woods. Fairies speckled and glowing in the dark. A slow procession of candles.
Mom’s right.
My phone vibrates. Right away I think of Josh. What if it’s him calling? That would be the perfect ending. He calls to say he’s coming home. Tomorrow we’ll sit down and talk things out. It’s like the scene in the musical where the family hugs at the end, reunited and singing in perfect harmony.
The phone is still vibrating.
I look at the screen.
It’s Reach.
I consider not answering, but then I change my mind.
“Are you coming to the cast party?” he says when I answer.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I say.
“Well, plan.”
I don’t say anything.
“Let me rephrase that,” Reach says. “It would be cool if you came.”
“Why?” I say.
“Giving you the silent treatment sucks,” he says.
I hear singing in the background, a cast party in full swing.
“To tell you the truth, I’m kind of lonely without you,” Reach says.
That’s a good reason. But I don’t tell him that.
“Where is it?” I say.
“Derek’s House. Upper Mountain Ave.”
“Ugh,” I say.
I think of Derek holding court in his dad’s gigantic house.
“Is he gunning for me?” I say.
“I think he’s gunning for other things.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Summer,” Reach says.
“Okay,” I say, and I hang up.
“What was that about?” Mom says.
I look at the road. We’re almost home. It would be so easy to let Mom drive me home, go up to my room, lie in bed, and think about the show. I could hear the applause again in my head. I could hug my pillow and dream of lighting Summer.
“Stop,” I say to Mom.
“Stop what?”
“Stop the car!”
Mom hits the brake a little too hard. “
“I’m not going up to my room,” I say.
“I didn’t tell you to go to your room.”
“I know, I know,” I say.
Mom looks confused.
“Can you take me to the cast party?” I say.