about it. Nothing’s definite.”
“Is that why you’ve been sending care packages? To get my stuff out of there?”
“I sent you those things because I thought you might want them.”
“Well, I don’t care what you do with the rest of it. Light a match and burn it all to the ground if you want.” As I say it, I immediately want to take it back. My things are not to blame here. They shouldn’t be the victims.
And suddenly I’m adding it all up—kicking us out, selling the house. He probably knew he’d do this all along. That’s why I couldn’t find his Nirvana shirt. It was already at her place, folded in some drawer or sitting on some closet shelf. And this woman will be using my mother’s things and my parents’ things and our things, and living our life, only in some new and improved version that doesn’t include my mom or me.
Before I can say anything else, he says, “I know I’m going to see you soon and we can talk more then, but there are some things I need you to know right now. First, I don’t want you to ever doubt how I feel about you. While I haven’t always been the dad you might create on paper, I love you very much. Second, I won’t always meet your expectations in the future, but it won’t be for lack of trying.”
As he talks, I start to pinch the flesh of my arm. But then I just let it go.
“It takes a while to get to know your parents. You’re lucky enough to have a really special mother. I’m not sure that even you can fully appreciate the truth in that, but you’ll discover it as you get older. I’m not quite as special—you know that and I know that—but I hope the years ahead will also show you just how much I care about you and how important you are to me, no matter how much I fuck things up.”
And even though I’m used to hearing my dad swear, I don’t want him to do this—tell me he loves me and be all sensitive and real. I want to hate him. I sit there trying to hate him.
“I don’t want to see her. Michelle.” I can barely say her name.
“You don’t have to. Not right now.”
I don’t want to see her ever.
I say nothing. He waits.
Finally he lets out this sad little sigh. “We can talk more when you get home. We’ll go to the bakery and buy their entire stock of thumbprint cookies. We’ll buy as many as it takes. We’ll buy the whole fucking bakery.”
“We can’t just go to Joy Ann like normal, like all of this didn’t happen. Like all of this isn’t happening. Things like you and me and Joy Ann died when you sent us away.”
“They don’t have to, Clew. Not even when you’re in college. Not even when you’re in California being a famous writer.” Then he says, “I love you more than Beethoven and the Joy Ann Cake Shop and my Nirvana shirt you’re always stealing. I love you more than anything.”
And now he’s taking the thing I do with Saz and using it to try to win me over, and this is the last straw. I hang up without telling him I love him too.
* * *
—
I find Miah outside his house, shirtless, bent over a pile of bones and a bucket of bleach water that makes my eyes sting from the smell. Music blasts from this ancient-looking radio and at first he doesn’t see me.
I stand watching him and he looks lost and happy in the work, the way he was that day with the Outward Bounders, only this time I need to bring him out of it.
“Doesn’t that ever feel morbid? All these bones?” It comes out angry, like I’m accusing him of something. I reach over and turn the music down.
He’s dunking each one in the bucket. “Think of it as that junkyard you’re always talking about, where love goes to die. Think of these as survivors. The things that remain. Like the love that lives to see another day.”
I say, “What happens to us in a week?”
He stands, shaking the hair out of his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“What happens to us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you even thought about it?”
“Yeah, I’ve thought about it. Of course I’ve thought about it. I’m not just like, ‘Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Thanks for a great