and when I saw my dad’s panel van on our street, I even smiled.
Things had actually been okay for everyone lately. Steve, my other brother. Sarah, my sister.
Mrs. Wolfe — the resilient Mrs. Wolfe, my mother, who cleans houses and at the hospital for a living. Rube. Dad. And me.
For some reason that night when I walked home, I felt peaceful. I felt happy for all of my family, because things really did seem to be going okay for them. All of them.
A train rushed past, and I felt like I could hear the whole city in it.
It came at me and then glided away.
Things always seem to glide away.
They come to you, stay a moment, then leave again.
That train seemed like a friend that day, and when it was gone, I felt like something in me tripped. I was alone on the street, and although I was still peaceful, the brief happiness left and a sadness tore me open very slowly and deliberately. City lights shone across the air, reaching their arms out to me, but I knew they’d never quite make it.
I composed myself and made my way onto the front porch. Inside they were talking about the ice blocks and the missing beer. I was actually looking forward to eating my share of it, even though I can never finish a full can or bottle of beer. (I just stop being thirsty, to which Rube once said, “So do I, mate, but I still keep drinkin’ it.”) In this case, the ice block idea was at least halfway interesting, so I was ready to go in and give it a shot.
“I was planning on drinking that beer when we got home.”
I could hear my father talking just before I went inside. There was an element of bastardry in his voice as he continued. “And whose brilliant idea was it to make ice blocks out of my beer, sorry, my last beer, anyway? Who was it?”
There was a pause. A long one. Silent.
Then, finally, “Mine,” came the answer, just as I walked into the house.
The only question is, who said
Was it Rube?
Octavia?
No.
It was me.
Don’t ask me why, but I just didn’t want Octavia to cop a bit of a battering (verbally, of course) from Clifford Wolfe, my father. The odds were that he’d be all nice to her about it, but still, it wasn’t worth the risk. Much better for him to think it was me. He was used to me doing ridiculous things.
“Why aren’t I surprised?” he asked, turning to face me. He was holding the ice blocks in question in his hands.
He smiled.
A good thing, trust me.
Then he laughed and said, “Well, Cameron, you won’t mind if I eat yours then, will y’?”
“Of course not.” You always say “of course not” in that situation because you figure out pretty quick that your old man’s really asking, “Will I take the ice block or will I make you suffer in a hundred different other ways?” Naturally, you play it safe.
The ice blocks were handed out, and a small smile was exchanged between Octavia and me, then Rube and me.
Rube held his ice block out to me. “Bite?” he asked, but I declined.
I left the room, hearing my father say, “Pretty good, actually.”
The bastard.
“Where’d y’ go before?” Rube asked me later in our room, after Octavia had left. Each of us lay on our bed, talking across the room.
“Just around a bit.”
“Down Glebe way?”
I looked over. “What’s that mean?”
“It means,” Rube sighed, “that Octavia and I followed you once, just out of interest. We saw y’ outside a house, starin’ into the window. You’re a bit of a lonely bastard aren’t y’?”
Moments twisted and curled then, and off in the distance I could hear traffic, roaring almost silently. Far from all this. Far from Cameron and Ruben Wolfe discussing what in the hell I was doing outside the house of a girl who cared nothing for me.
I swallowed, breathed in, and answered my brother.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I am.”
There was nothing else I could say. Nothing to cover it up. There was only a slight moment of waiting, truth and feeling, then a crack, and I said more. “It’s that Stephanie girl.”
“The bitch Rube spat.
“I know, but —”
“I know,” Rube interrupted. “It makes no difference if she said she hated you or called you a loser. Y’ feel what y’ feel.”
Y’ feel what y’ feel.
It was one of the truest things Rube had ever said, just before