a lot. Once, my father started crying in a line at the movie theater, putting his face in his hands and shaking. My mother made him go around the corner to an alley because everyone was staring at us, wondering what was wrong. I thought I should go after him, but my mother grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘He’ll be fine.’
‘What’s he crying about?’ I asked.
My mother just shrugged and rolled her eyes. ‘It’s so embarrassing,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t know why he can’t just pull himself together. But it’s like he can’t help it.’
I wanted her to explain. What was so embarrassing? Crying? Feeling? Should I be angry at him, too? The movie posters blurred in front of my eyes. When it was our turn to buy tickets, we bought three, one for me, one for my mother, and one for my father. We waited for him to return from the alley, and then we went in the theater together.
Last Friday, when I came home from school, I found my father sitting at the kitchen table, looking at an envelope. His name was written on the front in my mother’s handwriting. She’d made the R in Richard very big, but the letters got smaller and smaller, descending into almost nothing. The d at the end wasn’t much bigger than a pencil point.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’ He covered it up with his hand.
We went to the ice cream parlor on the Promenade despite it being early December and cold. My father, well over six feet tall, towered over everyone else in the little shop. He was wearing the black wool overcoat my mother had bought for him. His face was clean-shaven, his thick, light brown hair combed off his forehead. He bought me an espresso milkshake, which I loved, even though they made me twitch. We sat in a little booth in the back, and he ate a whole scoop of butter pecan before he told me that Mom had gone on a work trip. She’d probably be back in a week or so; in the meantime, could I help him keep the house clean?
I said sure, no problem. I’d been helping keep the house clean for the past few months anyway, ever since my mother’s job had become more demanding. But I could tell there was something more. It was so easy to tell when my father was lying-his cheeks got very pink, and it looked like he was literally holding something in, like a sneeze. ‘Okay, okay, Mom isn’t on a trip,’ he blurted out, as if I’d harshly interrogated him. ‘She’s gone.’
His facial features seemed scrambled, like those tile puzzles where you have to move the pieces around to make a coherent picture. ‘What do you mean, gone?’ I asked.
He blotted his eyes with his sticky ice cream cone napkin. ‘She wrote a letter. But it wasn’t very clear.’
I felt an uneasy stab and let out a whimper. ‘No, Summer, please don’t cry,’ he said desperately. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
He bent over until his head touched the top of the table. His shoulders shook up and down. A few minutes went by, and he didn’t stop. ‘Dad?’ I touched his shoulder. ‘Come on.’
‘I just don’t know why this happened,’ he blubbered.
By this time, a horrible feeling was sloshing through me. I thought of the things I’d done wrong, all my shortcomings. This could be because of me. Because of something I wasn’t.
But I couldn’t have my father sitting in the ice cream shop, bawling. ‘Dad.’ I took him underneath the arm and pulled him up. ‘She’s probably just…overworked. I saw it on Oprah. People in this country get only ten days of vacation, but people in Europe get thirty. She probably went somewhere where there aren’t any ringing phones.’ It poured from inside me. When I finished, I reviewed what I’d just said, not sure if it made any sense.
He raised his chin. Some old ladies in the next booth over were staring. ‘Do you think?’ my father asked, his face red and wet.
‘Yes.’ I said it so confidently, I almost convinced myself.
My father ran his hand over his hair. ‘Jesus, Summer.’ He bumped into me, hugging my head to his. ‘I’m sorry I just did that. That’s the last thing you want to see, huh? Your crazy old dad, losing it in the ice cream parlor?’
‘It’s fine,’ I said.
He looked at me, nodding. ‘You’re right. She’s on a trip.’
‘She’s on a trip,’ I whispered back.
It wasn’t much to hold onto, but I held onto it anyway.
Another weekend passed. Another Monday, another Tuesday. Her mail, a week and a half’s worth by now, teetered unopened on the hall table. None of us dared to move it. Moving it might mean one of us had come to a conclusion, a decision. So the pile continued to grow unabated, her name on every credit card offer, every magazine, every catalogue for shoes or clothes or home decor.
Tuesday night, I woke up to the moon gawking at me through the window. It was so large and round and perfectly centered in my windowpane, for a moment it felt like the moon was all mine.
When I went downstairs to get a glass of juice, the boxes of Christmas cards my mother had bought right after Halloween were on the table, as was my mother’s Kelly-green address book. The cards were on heavy card stock, and the envelopes were foil lined.
Earlier today, Claire had come over for biology tutoring. A week had passed since Claire had returned from France, but I hadn’t seen her at school except for that first day. I wanted to ask her about it, but it didn’t seem like something I should bring up in front of my dad, who sat at the kitchen table with us, staring at this very same box of Christmas cards.
‘How does one write a Christmas card?’ he muttered. ‘And there are two hundred and fifty people on this list. I don’t even know two hundred and fifty people.’
Finally, he threw down his pen and stood up. ‘What about the cards?’ I called.
‘I have no idea what to say,’ he answered flatly. His bedroom door slammed.
I straightened my biology notes and looked at Claire, hoping my cheeks weren’t burning. ‘I’m sure my mother will do them when she gets back.’
Claire’s eyes bulged. A clear, obvious thought slid across her face.
‘What?’ I snapped. Claire looked down.
When I shifted my books, Claire cleared her throat. ‘I saw you getting coffee for all those girls last week.’
I bristled. ‘So?’
Claire traced over a star on her notebook, not following the lines. It devolved from a star to a scribble. ‘It shouldn’t be your job to get coffee for everyone. You shouldn’t be their errand girl.’
I clicked my pen on and off, gripped with anger. The girls I got coffee for were the same girls Claire used to be friends with-the girls, in fact, from the back of the bus. I volunteered to get coffee for them. It was not like they were holding me at gunpoint.
Claire looked up at me, her gaze unwavering.
