I’m angry.
“It’s getting late,” he says, because he knows.
“Thanks for the fries.”
“It was nothing.”
We leave. He drives back the way we came.
“Do you want to know where I was going?” I ask. “Where I was sneaking off to?”
“Of course I do.” He glances at me and forces a smile. “I hate the idea of you sneaking off anywhere without me.”
“I’ll show you,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Okay, just, uhm … turn left before my street and keep going. Then take Ramos Street out to the highway, drive until you reach the second intersection, and then go…” I watch his grip tighten on the steering wheel and I should stop, but I can’t stop. “Two miles. Turn right on a dirt road, go down it for a while until you see a ware—”
“Stop it,” he says. “That’s not—” He shakes his head. He doesn’t turn left before my street. He drives down it and pulls up to my house. “You were going to Tarver’s.”
“Take me there.”
“No.”
“Why? Have you even been back there since—”
“No,” he snaps. He looks at me and his expression takes me aback. He’s angry. “But you have, I take it. So how often do you go back there? You walk?”
“I bike.”
“How often?”
I shrug.
“In the middle of the night?”
“Sometimes in the day.” I turn to him. I want him to understand, but I already know I’ve lost this, that I should have never opened my mouth. But something important happened and I need to share it with him. “But, look, Milo, you won’t believe this—but inside, I found this spot where my dad carved his initials into a door—he must’ve etched it right in there and—”
“So?” Milo asks.
“So—he was there!”
“For Christ’s sake, Eddie, we know he was there—he jumped off the fucking roof!” I flinch and he sees it. His face softens and he reaches for me, but I jerk away from him. “Sorry—I’m sorry—I just—I don’t know why you’d want to do something so morbid—”
“It’s not morbid!”
“Yes, it is.” He rubs his face. “And even if it wasn’t, why the fuck would you do something like that to yourself—”
“Oh, fuck off, Milo.” I unbuckle my seat belt. “Why does anyone do anything? Why do they jump off the top of buildings? I’m just trying to understand—”
“How will that help you understand?”
I open the door and move to get out when Milo grabs my arm and pulls me back. I sigh and sit back, staring determinedly at the roof. There’s a little burn mark directly overhead, like someone put out a cigarette there a long time ago. I was with Milo the day he bought this car. Secondhand. He’d been saving for it forever, and when he got the keys, he told me he’d take me anywhere. Just say the word.
I know some friendships can’t withstand horrible things happening, no matter how strong you think they are. People will never lose the ability to surprise you. I read it on some Web site about how other people will react to your grief and these four words stuck with me:
Your constants may falter.
“Please tell me about that night,” I blurt out, just in case he falters even more and I never have the chance to ask him this again and again and again until he answers.
“No,” he says.
“Why?”
“Why do you need me to tell you?”
I can’t explain to Milo why I want to hear it from him. Some pieces are missing, and I know he has them. He knows I can fill in the blanks without him, but I also just want to hear him say it, like how I needed to be in the room with my mom when she called each one of our family members and friends to tell them what happened. That was when she could still talk easy, before the weight of it hit her, and I sat with her, holding her hand, pretending to be supportive when really I was waiting for her to say that one thing that would help me understand, even something as weak and incomplete as, well, I knew Seth had been sad for a while …
But that never happened.
With Milo, his refusal to talk about it makes me want to hear it from him more. Every time he doesn’t, it’s like I feel him going away from me, and that is more scary than I have words for. Losing someone who’s not even dead.
And I want to say it, but I get out of the car and say, “I’ll see you later,” instead.
“Eddie.” I turn. He leans across the seat and the look on his face—my heart stops. He looks like he’ll say it—he’ll tell me. But then his face changes. “It’s not safe at Tarver’s. The place is falling apart.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I haven’t gone up on the roof. Yet.”
I slam the door shut and he just gives me this look and drives away.
That was probably the wrong thing to say.
I go to Tarver’s like I planned because nothing will stop me once I get it in my head.
I don’t care what Milo says.
I stand in front of the door my father carved his name into, dizzy and sick, and I try so hard to get past it, but I can’t move. I feel the weight of the building on me and imagine myself on the roof.
I imagine he’s waiting for me.
I told Culler to pick me up at Fuller’s.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I’d ask him to do that.
But before that moment where Milo watches me get into a grimy-looking station wagon with Culler Evans, I have to get ready for that moment and I tear apart my closet looking for something nice to wear before I realize I’m trying to turn collecting the last vestiges of my dead father’s post-career-career into a fake date just to provoke Milo into … I don’t know.
I change into jeans and a tank top.
Mom and Beth are in the backyard. Beth wants to make sure she and Mom get fifteen minutes of sun a day, because that’s healthy. She wanted to go to the park and have a picnic, but she still hasn’t managed to get Mom out of her housecoat, so they’re out in the backyard, in lawn chairs instead. A compromise.
I don’t think Mom knows what I’m doing today, which is how it has to be, but I can’t leave without telling them I’m going somewhere.
When I reach the backyard, Mom and Beth are sun-soaking statues. They’re wearing sunglasses and hats, which I think must defeat the purpose, but they’re still and their faces are pointed up. It’s very quiet. Mom almost looks normal, if I ignore the fact that the corners of her mouth are pulled down. I clear my throat. They both turn their faces to me.
I’m the sun.
“I’m going out for a while,” I say. “With Milo. I might not be back until later tonight.”
“Where—” Beth starts, but I give her a pointed look and she gets it. “Oh.”
“That’s too bad,” Mom says, and my stomach twists. Her voice is always a shock to me. Sometimes I think I forget it, even though I know I must hear it more than I think I do. “I was going to ask you to join us out here…”
Sometimes I have dreams about my mom holding me. It’s really dumb and I wake up so angry because I don’t dream about my dad and I want to.
“Maybe some other time,” I say, and Beth gives Mom a knowing look like, teenagers. I hate her so much sometimes—I’m so full of it—that I’m amazed my brain can send any other kinds of messages to my body, like move, like walk away. Like breathe.
“Have a good time with Milo,” Mom says.
I nod and then I walk around the side of the house and make my way to Fuller’s and by the time I get there, I feel a little sick about it. I don’t think I want to do this to Milo.
I mean, I do.
But I don’t.
So I sit on the curb a little ways away. Far enough away not to get hit by people who need to fill their tanks and close enough that I won’t have to run a mile to reach Culler’s car when he finally pulls up. I check my watch. I’m a little early. I rest my chin in my hands.
He should be here soon.
“Eddie?”
I look up at my name. Missy stands over me. I didn’t even hear her come up. She seems big from this angle. Really curvy. It’s crazy. It’s not fair she’s this curvy and I’m totally flat. I glance down the road. I hope Culler doesn’t come while she’s still out here.
“Hi, Missy,” I say.
“What are you sitting out here for? Are you going to see Milo?”
“Nope.”
She bends down so we’re eye level.
“Why? That’s where I’m headed. Come with me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got plans.”
“With who?”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re my plans, not yours.” That was unnecessarily bitchy, despite the part of me that enjoyed it. I turn to her and try to look as earnest as possible. “I’m in a fight with Milo, so it’s probably best if I keep my distance right now. Go without me.”
“What did you fight about?” She sounds genuinely surprised.
“It’s between me and Milo.” I force a smile at her. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. Just go, Missy.”
“Okay,” she says uncertainly. She straightens and makes her way to Fuller’s. Her heels are clacking against the pavement as she goes. That’s ridiculous. I stare at the tennis shoes on my feet. Who wears heels when they don’t have to? And then the clacking stops and she turns back to me. “It’s too bad, though. I like it when you hang around with us.”
When I hang around with them.
I wave my hand and say really loudly, “Bye, Missy!”
She goes. Finally. About ten more minutes pass. When I spot the station wagon making its way up the street, I hear my name again.