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Authors: Sarah Dessen

What Happens to Goodbye (32 page)

BOOK: What Happens to Goodbye
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“I told her the divorce was her fault, and, therefore, so was the fact that I’m upset with her about it. That’s not exactly breaking news.”
My dad just looked at me for another moment. Finally he said, “Your mother is prepared to tell the court that we are not upholding our part of the visitation arrangement right now.”
“Meaning what?”
“Well,” he said, “you’ve only seen her twice in the last six months. And you didn’t come for the full summer last year.”
“I was there for three weeks. And I just saw her!” I shook my head, looking out the window. “This is crazy. Just because I won’t go visit her this weekend, or go on a stupid beach trip, she’s ready to drag us all back to court?”
“Mclean.”
“Don’t I have a say in this at all? She can’t
force
me to see her against my will. Can she?”
He sat back, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t think she wants to force you to do anything. In a perfect world, you’d want to do it all on your own.”
“This world isn’t perfect.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.” He sighed. “Look, Mclean, you turn eighteen in eight months. You go off to college even before that. Maybe it’s worth just considering making a few trips—”
“No,” I said flatly. He raised his eyebrows, surprised by my tone, and I checked myself. Fast. “Sorry. Look, we just got here. I’m in school, I have friends. I don’t want to just pick up and start leaving every single weekend.”
“I understand that.” I watched him take in breath, then let it out. “But I also don’t think you want to spend your last senior semester enmeshed in a court battle.”
“Why can’t she just leave me alone?” My voice was breaking now, the tears audible if not visible yet. “Jesus. Hasn’t she gotten enough?”
“She’s your mother,” he said. “She loves you.”
“If she loved me, she’d let me stay here and live my life.” I pushed back my chair, the legs scraping hard against the linoleum. “Why don’t I get to decide what I need? How come it’s always up to Mom? Or you? Or the freaking courts?”
“Hey. Mclean.” He was quiet, just looking at me. My dad was not one for outbursts, and this kind of conversation between us, rife with emotion, was rare if not a first. “You don’t have to make a decision right this second. I’m just asking you to think about it. Okay?”
I knew this was not an unreasonable request. I forced myself to nod. “Okay,” I managed.
He stood, then came over, wrapping his arms around me. I hugged him back, all the while looking over his shoulder to the flat green of the yard beyond. Then when he let go and went down the hallway to his room, I pushed out the door and went there. I wanted to break something, or scream, but none of these was really an option in this neighborhood at four on a Wednesday. Then I looked over to the empty building behind mine.
I walked across my yard, stepping over the low brick wall so I was standing over the doors that led down to the storm cellar. They were shut, but there was no lock. I bent down, pulling up on both handles, which opened with a creak, revealing that narrow set of stairs. A flashlight sat on the top step.
I took another look around me. Just another afternoon, the traffic picking up as rush hour approached. Nearby, a dog was barking. My partying neighbors had the TV on too loud. And somewhere, four hours north, my mom was reaching out for me, extending her grasp further, further, to pull me to her. I’d run and dodged, zigged and zagged, and none of it had worked. I knew this wasn’t a real solution either. But for the moment, all I could think to do was pick up that flashlight, turning it on. Then I pointed the beam at the stairs and followed it down, into the dark.
I probably should have been creeped out, sitting in a cellar beneath an empty house, alone. But after a moment or two to adjust my eyes and my nerves, I realized Dave was on to something. Sitting on the bottom step, the flashlight in my lap, I got the same sense I had that first night, when he’d pulled me down there with him. Like I’d literally ducked below the world, out of harm’s way, at least for a little while.
What a mess,
I thought, looking up at the sky, now darkening above me. And all because I’d done the one thing I hadn’t been able to for all this time: speak the truth. If my mother loved me enough to fight for me, even against my will, why couldn’t she accept that I was angry at her?
Up above, I heard a whirring noise, followed by an engine starting, running briefly, and then cutting off again. I pushed myself to my feet, then climbed the stairs to see what was going on. I was just about to poke my head out when Dave stuck his in.
“Holy crap,” he said, jumping back, one hand to his chest. “You scared the bejesus out of me!”
I was equally startled, and for a moment we both stayed where we were, catching our collective breath. Then I said, “Bejesus? ”
He gave me a flat look. “You startled me.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just needed to escape for a little while.” I stood up, stepping out onto the snowy ground, and waved my hand at the stairs. “It’s all yours.”
He nodded at the flashlight, still in my hand. “I actually just came for that. We’re about to bond and need some illumination.”
“What?”
Before he could answer, I heard a scraping noise from the garage behind him. The Volvo was parked outside, and looking in, I saw Mr. Wade, moving some metal bookshelves that lined one wall.
“Garage cleanup,” he explained as his dad picked up a cardboard box. “It’s a chore and a father-son activity, all rolled into one.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Oh, it is. You have no idea.”
“Dave?” Mr. Wade said, peering out at us. “How’s that light coming?”
“Got it. Be right there,” he replied. His dad nodded, waving at me, and I waved back, watching as he carried the box out of the garage, placing it beneath the basketball goal, then doubled back. Dave said, “To my dad, heaven is a big mess and an endless supply of Rubbermaid bins.”
I smiled, then looked up at the building in front of us. “Hey, did you ever go in here? You know, beyond the cellar?”
“A couple of times, when I was a kid,” he replied. “Before they boarded up the windows.”
“Is it a house?”
“If it was, it was a big one. It’s huge inside. Why?”
I shrugged. “Just wondered. It seems so out of place here, with everything else grown up around it.”
“Yeah? ” He looked back at the building. “Never really thought about it like that. It’s been here for as long as I can remember, though. I guess I’m just used to it.”
We started walking across the yard, toward our driveways, where Mr. Wade had piled a few more boxes under the basketball goal, along with several Rubbermaid plastic bins. “See?” Dave said. “Welcome to paradise.”
I scanned the boxes. Some were open, some taped shut, and hardly any were labeled. “What is all this stuff anyway?”
“You name it.” He clicked the flashlight on, moving it across them. “Old chemistry-set parts, rat cages—”
“Rat cages?”
“My mother is allergic to all dander,” he explained. “Except rat.”
“Ah.”
“And then, of course, my model trains.” He leaned over, lifting the flaps on a box and pulling out something. When he held it out to me, I saw it was a toy soldier, small and green, holding a gun. Bang.
“Wow,” I said. “How much of this stuff do you have?”
“More than you would believe. If you and your dad are minimalists, then we’re . . . maximumalists. Or something.” I looked at the soldier again. “We don’t throw much away. You never know what you might need.”
“That’s what stores are for.”
“Says the girl with no thyme,” he replied. There was a loud scraping noise from the garage, and we both looked over to see Mr. Wade, red-faced, his skinny arms straining as he tried to push the shelves out from the wall. “I think I’m being paged.”
“Right,” I said. “Have fun.”
“You know it,” he said, then walked over to the garage, sliding the flashlight into his back pocket, taking his place on the other side of the shelves.
As they started pushing again, I walked over to the boxes, peering into the one Dave had taken the soldier from. Inside, there were more figures, as well as horses and wagons. The box beside it, identical in size and shape, held yet another collection, this time of weapons: miniature cannons, rifles, muskets, plus more modern things—revolvers, machine guns—clearly from other soldier sets. As I dropped my single soldier back in, I looked at Dave and his dad again and thought of all of those battles he must have created, each detail perfect and accurate. The most controlled kind of conflict, all within your doing, the outcome and every consequence carefully manipulated. Maybe it was geeky, or even embarrassing. But now, especially, I understood the appeal.
The next morning, I got up early, slipping out the front door before it was even fully light. My dad had gotten home later than usual the night before, which I knew because I was up, and remained so, listening to his familiar late-night noises: the radio on low as he had a beer in the kitchen, his routine after-work shower, and finally the sound of him snoring about two seconds after he turned off his light.
The entire evening I’d been avoiding thinking about my mother as I made myself dinner, checked e-mail, folded laundry, and ran the dishwasher. I focused on normal things, routines, as if by doing so I could keep the strangeness that was this whole custody issue at bay. Once I was in bed, though, I could think of nothing else.
Now, out in the semidarkness, my jacket wrapped tight around me, I started walking toward downtown, my breath puffing out in front of me. No one was out, save for a few bundled-up runners and some policemen, driving slowly, the entire roads to themselves. I walked down block after block, retracing my steps to that bright neon OPEN sign.
“Welcome to Frazier Bakery!”
I nodded, walking over to the counter, where this time an older guy with curly hair and glasses was standing behind the register. “Hi,” he said. He looked kind of sleepy. “What can I get you to make you feel at home today?”
“Procrastinator’s Special,” I said.
He didn’t even blink. “Coming right up.”
Five minutes later, I was back in that same squishy leather chair, facing the fake fireplace. The only other people in the entire place were a group of senior citizens, having a spirited conversation about tics at a round table by the front door. I thought of my dad, asleep back at the house, not even knowing where I was or what I was about to do.
Once I’d calmed down the night before—and it took a while—I could understand why he’d said what he did about just giving in to my mom’s demands. We’d been fighting for so long, and now, with only half a year left that any of this mattered, I didn’t know if I wanted to be the one to put us through it all again. What was six months, in the scheme of things, when I knew I’d be leaving here by the end of the summer anyway?
But really, it wasn’t about six months, or a summer. It wasn’t about the divorce, or all these moves, and all the girls I’d chosen to be. This time, more than any before, it was about me. About a life I’d built in not much more than a month, a town where I felt finally somewhat at home, and the friends I’d made there. It was just my luck that at the precise moment I most needed to be able to cut and run, I’d finally found a place—and maybe even some people—worth holding on to.
BOOK: What Happens to Goodbye
6.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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