The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,136

it was getting harder to remember when things hadn’t been like this, our lives overlapping. It was in the way my dad knew to make sure that the fridge was stocked with Diet Coke, the way I knew his paper-reading hierarchy—national news, sports, business, comics (he was especially invested in the family hijinks of the Grants in Grant Central Station). It was how when he’d been running late to dinner at the Crane last week, he’d called and asked me to order for him, and I’d done it without needing to ask him what he wanted. It was last Sunday, when Clark had come for dinner and then Tom and Palmer had stopped by afterward to hang out and we’d all ended up playing Pictionary, my dad teaming up with Tom and Clark, the three of them strategizing and taking it way too seriously (and winning, not that I was bitter). It was this, now, watching movies on a rainy Sunday and not wanting to be anywhere else.

“So if you didn’t run,” I said slowly, trying this idea out, “you’d be here?”

“I would.” My dad looked across at me. “What do you think?”

I looked down at my hands for a moment, twisting them together, trying to gather my thoughts. The idea that this summer wouldn’t just be over as soon as news came from Washington was something I really hadn’t let myself think about before. I cleared my throat before I spoke. “It would be okay with me. If you were around, I mean.”

“Good,” my dad said, tapping his pencil once on the coffee table.

“After all,” I said, making my tone faux serious, “Palmer might do another scavenger hunt. And we’d need you for backup.”

“Well,” my dad said, matching my tone, “I wouldn’t want to miss that.” He smiled at me, then settled back against the couch and picked up his papers again.

I’d planned to bring the plates to the kitchen, take a shower, and get ready before Clark came over for dinner. But I found myself curling back up in the chair. I just wanted to sit there, in the quiet, with my dad working, letting myself imagine, for the first time, what October or February could look like. No train rides down to D.C., no Peter. Being able to tell someone who was actually interested, and not being paid to listen, how my day had been. And so, even though I knew I should probably get moving, that Clark was on his way over, I stayed there, perfectly still, letting myself picture it, playing it out in my head like a movie—seeing what, just maybe, could be.

• • •

The rain didn’t let up the next day. It just got heavier, which meant all my walks were much shorter than usual, and my car was now covered in muddy paw prints, despite my best efforts to keep the seats covered in towels. Since the shorter walks left me with unexpected time on my hands, Clark and I ended up getting lunch at the diner and then going to the Pearce to hang out with Toby, who was, to put it mildly, not looking forward to her date that night. She’d been sending incredibly long text messages about it, and I was spending most of my time trying to figure out what she was actually trying to say with the emojis. We found ourselves walking through the Renaissance room listening to Toby complain about what a weird name Craig was and wondering why Bri wouldn’t just let her mourn the loss of her Wyatt crush in peace.

When a group came in for the tour that Toby had forgotten she was scheduled to give, she hustled out to the front entrance, leaving me and Clark alone to wander around the museum. Which, I realized, wasn’t actually the worst way to spend a rainy day. We walked around, making up backstories and names for the people in the paintings as we walked.

When we reached the gallery where my mother’s picture was, I knew I could have steered him away, or told him I was museumed out, or something. But I didn’t; I took his hand and led him to where my mom’s painting was. I’d told him about it, here and there, but he’d never seen it before. And even though anyone who paid the Pearce’s entrance fee could see this picture, standing next to Clark as he looked at it, I was feeling somehow exposed—like he was seeing something I usually