about my dad when I don’t want to be thinking about my dad. At all.
I look at Miah and his eyes return to the symphony overhead. “Captain, not talking with you when both of us are here, under this sky, is better than talking with anyone else about anything.”
* * *
—
By midnight, the clouds have moved in. We drive through the dark to Rosecroft, which is shrouded in fog. The moon is blurry and out of reach but the sky is bright from the glow. When we get to the ruins, Miah parks the truck but leaves the engine running.
I say, “I would hate to disappear without writing my story first.” I’m thinking of Tillie Blackwood but I’m also thinking of myself, the way I disappeared from Ohio and who I used to be, out of my life and into my parents’ secret.
“That’s why stories are important, Captain. Maybe you can write about these people someday.”
“Maybe.” And for the first time in a while, I feel it, the old itch to work on my novel, or maybe write something new. Not just scenes and thoughts and feelings, but something whole, start to finish, about where I come from and where I’m going and the fact that I was here.
Miah fiddles with the radio and suddenly there’s music: “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night. He turns it up and gets out of the truck, leaving the doors open. The song sweeps out, surrounding us here, surrounding the ruins, charging the air. And then he starts dancing, and the boy can move—something I already know. I start to move too and the music fills me until I am the music and the music is me.
The two of us dance through the ruins, under the fog, under this weird glowing moon. I half expect Rosecroft to dissolve in front of our eyes, beneath our feet, absorbed by the mist.
He’s playing air guitar and I’m playing drums, and now his flashlight is a microphone and we are singing into it even though I don’t really know the words.
We leap and shake, and we are the earth tremors. I am freer than I’ve ever been, and in this moment it’s the greatest song I’ve ever heard. And then Miah sweeps me into him and against him and we sway together. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him, and we are all this possibility and almostness and maybe.
* * *
—
Afterward we sit on the tailgate of the truck, legs swinging, music playing low. The fog has lifted and the moon is back.
I say, “What about you?”
“What about me, Captain?”
“Don’t you want to write your story?”
“You mean besides leaving behind a criminal record?”
“I’m serious. What about your photographs?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. I mean really thought about it. I’ve spent most of my life trying not to dream too big.”
The moonlight on his face casts him in shadow, and for a second I feel like I’m seeing into him.
Before I can ask why he never let himself dream big, he says, “But when I’m with you, everything is quiet; everything just seems right, like my skin fits. And I don’t mean just when I’m with you with you.”
He delivers this last line in a sexy way, but the look on his face is hard to describe. It’s a mix of sadness and light. My own face must look similar because I’m thinking about the girl I used to be in Mary Grove, Ohio, who sometimes felt wrong in her own skin.
Everything just seems right.
Yes it does, I think, and I look down at my skin, which—at least on this night—fits perfectly.
DAY 11
(PART THREE)
The inn is still and dark. We sail by it on the way back from the ruins, and the thing I know is that I’m not going home yet because the night is magical and so are we. Without a word, we drive to Miah’s house.
We pull up out front, truck engine idling.
He says, “I can take you home.”
“Or I could come inside.”
He cocks his head, studying my face. He’s wearing this smile that’s more like the ghost of a smile, as if it’s only an echo. He’s reading me. And he can. So I let him. I don’t look away. I don’t fidget. I look right back at him. An electric current passes between us, charging the air and the night and the moon.
Finally he says, “I like your idea better.” Very soft.