Take Me With You When You Go

by David Levithan

  Before London can give me the whole tour, a woman appears. She is smiling and pretty. Big dark eyes, red lips, auburn hair that waves around her forehead and cheeks. She shakes it out of the way. It hits exactly at her shoulders. She says, “I’m London’s mom. Amelia. You must be Bea.” She’s Southern, which somehow seals the deal. At first glance, she is perfect and the complete opposite of our mother.

  And then she hugs me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Hugs. Me. The oldest child of her dead husband. A complete stranger who’s bound to be a disruption in her life. She wraps her arms around me, slim yet strong, and gives the kind of mom hug I’ve only seen on television or in the movies. She smells like honey and flowers—roses, maybe—and I breathe her in.

  She pulls away too soon and offers me something to drink, and London and I finish the tour, which ends in his room. It’s no bigger than yours or mine. Maybe even a little smaller. But it’s filled with all his favorite things. He shows them to me one by one—the pillow he once used for the tooth fairy, the one with the little pocket sewn in front; his Avengers action figures; the Spider-Man costume he wore for Halloween when he was ten; his old Nerf guns; his books; the last photo Dad took of him. On and on and on until I feel the walls closing in.

  I have to get out of that small, happy room. He’s in the middle of a sentence, of showing me something, when I turn and walk back toward the stairs. Our brother follows me, book in his hand, and we go back to the living room, where Amelia has set two glasses of what looks like iced tea on the glass coffee table. I drink mine down even though my mouth puckers from all the lemon and sugar, and sit on the long, sunken couch, a dark green, and stare out at the view. There is a lake or a pond, some sort of body of water. London drops down next to me and says, “That old creek. Dad used to joke that we had waterfront property.”

  Amelia comes in then and sits, and there we are. The three of us, four counting Mustache the dog. London says to her, “Remember that? How Dad used to say we lived on the water?”

  “I do.”

  She sees my empty glass, hops up again, and rushes out to fill it. My mouth is coated with the syrupy, too-sweet taste of it, but I don’t stop her because she’s being so nice.

  I say to London, “Is she always like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Nice like that?”

  He shrugs. “Pretty much.”

  London stares at me. I stare at him. I say, “I’m sorry about the other day.”

  “It’s okay. It’s my fault. I tricked you. I shouldn’t have pretended to be Dad. I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known you would leave home and school and Ezra to come here.”

  “Yeah, you shouldn’t have done that.” And I can see myself—shaggy bleached hair, clean but rumpled T-shirt and jeans, frown on my face. What a disappointment I must be as a long-lost sister. I add, “But I’m glad I know about Dad.” And I don’t just say it because I feel I owe him some speck of kindness. I say it because it’s true.

  He smiles and I let myself smile too. See? Not so hard. You just let your face relax and out it comes.

  Amelia appears, setting a full glass of tea down in front of me, then sits across from me on the edge of a chair, leaning forward, arms on knees.

  I don’t know what to say, so I wave my hand at the books stacked on a nearby shelf. Shiny collector’s editions of James Joyce, Herman Wouk, Zora Neale Hurston. “I’ve read all of those,” I say. Which is true.

  Amelia’s eyebrows shoot up and she follows my gaze to the books. “I didn’t think anyone anywhere had ever made it through Joyce.” She laughs.

  “I have.” It sounds flat and humorless, which is exactly the way I feel, like some sort of Bea paper doll, propped on this couch, hoping a strong wind doesn’t come through and blow me away.

  “Well, isn’t that something?” she says, all Southern good manners. She nods at London. “Has he apologized yet?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She’s smiling. Her tone is friendly but mom-ish. “My turn. I want to say I’m sorry on his behalf.” And I’m not sure if she means London or our father. “My son understands what he’s done.” Oh, okay. London, not our dad.

  And then we sit and talk, like old friends. Amelia Wooster is warm and lovely with her singsong voice. We make polite chitchat, something I’ve never been good at, and finally she says, “I’m sure you have questions.” And then sits there waiting for me to ask them.

  I completely forget my list of Dad questions, the one I’ve been keeping all my life. Instead I ask the first thing that pops into my mind. “Is it true he cheated on our mom with you?”

  She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t hesitate, as if she knew I was going to ask it. “Yes. Technically.”

  “Can I ask—I mean—what happened exactly? Not details, of course, but…” I trail off.

  “Well.” She glances at London, and I wonder if I should be asking her this in private, not in front of her child.

  “Sorry—”

  “It’s okay. So, Bea. No excuses, but toward the end it wasn’t a happy marriage. And your dad and I met, and…well. We just knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That we were meant to be together.” She gives a helpless little laugh like Oh, fate. What can you do?

  And I can tell she believes these words, but in my opinion this is not something you say to your dead husband’s estranged daughter, especially when you’re responsible for breaking up his marriage to said estranged daughter’s mother, horrible though she may be.

  “It takes two, of course. I know that. He knew that. So I owe you an apology as well, Bea. I’m sorry for my part in this. Truly. Deeply. Sorry.”

  It’s so sincere, it catches me off guard. I feel an unfamiliar burning at the back of my eyelids. At first I think it’s pink eye or some sort of bizarre infection that’s sprung up out of nowhere, maybe due to all the expensive, filtered air. But then I realize it’s the tears I’m holding in.

  “Thank you,” I say. But it’s hard to get the words out because I’m feeling too many things at once. Amelia is genuinely nice. She is a nice person. My mother is not a nice person. My father may or may not have been a nice person. But for the first time in my life I feel protective of my mom. The same mom who hasn’t even phoned the police to tell them I’m missing. The same mom who once told me she never expected anything of Ez or me, but especially me, because we were too difficult and too damaged. Those were the exact words she used. Difficult. Damaged.

  London fidgets. He’s a young almost-fifteen in a lot of ways. An old almost-fifteen in others. A childish little old man. He wants to go play, to show me the creek, to show me the basement family room and the loft on the top floor, but I have more questions. I want to know if Amelia ever met our mother, if our dad and mom tried to work it out or if he was done once he met his nice, so nice, soon-to-be second wife. Did he ever find us? Did he try, like really try? What kind of dad was he? Is it true he didn’t know about Ezra?

  My questions spill out onto the green couch, onto the glass coffee table, onto the magazines splayed out there—Architectural Digest, The New Yorker, Garden & Gun, Vanity Fair—onto the geometric-print rug.

  Amelia says, “I never met her. Anne. No. I’ve spoken to her on the phone, but never met her.”

  “You spoke to her?”

  “Once. She called the house after we were married to tell him you had a new father and to stop looking for you.”

  “Darren. Her husband. He’s an asshole. Not a father.”

  “I’m sorry. Are they still together?”

  “Unfortunately. Although as far as I know he’s in jail now. You know, if there is a God.”

  Her eyes go a little wide. Then she smooths herself back in place, all composure and red lips, and shiny, shiny
hair. “Your mom and dad were married for six years. They both called it a mistake, but said you were not part of that mistake. You were very much wanted.”

  “That’s comforting.” It comes out sarcastic, which it is.

  “He came close to finding you once. He’d hired a detective and he was able to track her down. That was when she called, before the detective even filed a report. She said she would take you away, far away, if he ever tried to find you again. And that she would make sure you never went in search of him. So. Yes. He tried. He lost sleep over it. He never was a good sleeper to begin with. He used to lie awake and toss and turn. He said he never could shut off his brain.”

  Like me, I think.

  “Did he stop looking then? After she called?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She shifts, and she’s uncomfortable, and something about that makes me feel like I’m in charge here. I take a long drink of the too-sweet tea and set the glass down beside the coaster. She frowns at it.

  “Why did he stop looking?”

  At this point I’m on a roll and I can only go forward, not back, toward everything I need to know.

  “I think he just knew he couldn’t win against her…,” she says to the table, to the ring of condensation that’s growing there.

  “But he was our dad. He had just as much right to us as she did.”

  Her eyes are on mine again. “It just…I don’t know how to explain it, except that he felt it would be easier for everyone….”

  “That makes sense. Because my life has been really easy. I mean, I can’t tell you how easy it’s been.”

  Amelia and London are staring at me, and I wonder for a second if they’re afraid of me—this angry stranger coming into their house and losing her shit. I have this urge to throw something just to make them jump. I wonder if I could lift the coffee table and launch it through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “So basically,” I say, “let me get this straight. He gave up looking for his kids because he’d found a new wife.” She opens her mouth. Closes it. “And Ezra?” I say.

  A slight pause. Then: “He didn’t know about Ezra.”

  “He didn’t know?” My voice is too loud in this beautiful, pristine space. It goes smashing into the white walls and the black-and-white framed photos and the simple but tasteful furniture, and I see both Amelia and London flinch.

  “Not at first. Not for a while.”

  “I see.” I imagine throwing the chair, the books, the framed black-and-white photos one by one by one into the creek.

  “What kind of dad was he?” I turn on London now. His owl eyes are wide and staring. He looks scared shitless, cat got his tongue, like he’s just now realizing how real this all is. I repeat the question.

  “He was a good dad…,” Amelia begins.

  “I’m not asking you. I’m asking him.” I stare unblinking at London.

  Those owl eyes turn from her to me. “He was a good dad. He was nice. He listened. He was funny—”

  “In a kind of dry way,” Amelia interjects, leaning over, setting my glass on its coaster and wiping the table with her napkin.

  “Yeah,” London says. They both chuckle, as if remembering something specific, and in that moment I hate them both for every shared moment, every shared memory of our father. “Sometimes I didn’t get it, but Mum says I’m more literal.”

  “Very literal,” she says, but not in a mean way.

  “Mum?” I blink at him.

  “My name is London.” He blinks back at me like it’s all so obvious.

  “Got it.” Even though I don’t.

  London goes on, “Dad made things fun. Math. Reading. Homework. He turned them into adventures sometimes. He hated to be inside. He loved being out in the sun. We rode bikes and we would race each other. He always let me win, even though he was faster. He collected lucky pennies and then whenever we went somewhere, he would carry them in his pocket and leave them for people to find. He was good with animals.”

  He keeps going, but honestly that’s all I hear, Ez. It’s like my ears have heard all they can for the day, and they’re done. Everything else is just a mumble of words from somewhere far away. I watch London’s lips move, underneath our dad’s nose, and I know he’s talking, but it’s garbled, like it’s being transmitted over a walkie-talkie all the way from Kansas.

  At some point, he finishes, and he and Amelia sit looking at me like it’s my turn. Suddenly I can’t think of what to say. Good for you. He sounds like a helluva guy. He sounds like a great dad. He sounds like a great husband. He sounds like a great human being. I’m so glad you had this life that Ez and I should have had, or at least been part of in some small way.

  They are waiting and I am being rude by not saying anything. I know this much about manners. I search my brain for words that make sense, for words that won’t sound desperate and sad, that won’t make them feel sorrier for me than they already do.

  Finally I hear myself say, “Which Avenger did he relate to most?”

  Amelia and London look at each other. It’s a stupid question and I can feel them thinking how stupid it is—they’re probably like sweet Jesus, where did she come from?—and my cheeks go red-hot.

  But then, at the same exact time, they say, “Bruce Banner.”

  “Not the Hulk,” Amelia adds. “The actual man.”

  And it’s such a little thing, but suddenly I’m crying, not like in the car with Patch. Long, rolling tears, one at a time, the kind that burn your skin.

  All my life, I’ve been furious with our dad. I’ve hated him and cursed him for leaving us with Mom and been so fucking angry that I wanted to kill him if I ever saw him again. And now, sitting in his living room, in the house he designed for his other family, I’m filled with this sick, guilty feeling, like I’d actually murdered someone. As if all this time, I’d betrayed him. Going from the emptiness and anger I’ve carried around with me like extra limbs, as much a part of me as my legs or arms, to a hollowed-out feeling of loss because this man actually wanted me. At least for a while.

  All at once, Amelia is beside me, arms around me, rocking me a little. This woman who was married to our dad for years, who maybe knew him better than anyone. And we’ll never know him, Ez. We will never know him.

  I start crying harder, and then London is on my other side, taking my hand in his, short, stubby fingers with these perfectly smooth, unchewed nails. I stare at his nails thinking how if I’d grown up here with our father and Amelia and London and you, I never would have chewed my nails. I wouldn’t have had any reason to.

  And then I push them both away and stand up, snotty, face soaked, wobbly from crying so much. They want me to stay. Amelia is cooking a roast for dinner and London wants me to meet his friends. He can call them and they can be over here in five minutes because Wormy and The Meg, or whatever their names are, they both live close by.

  “No,” I say.

  Because suddenly I have to get out of there. I could stay, but what would be the point? This isn’t my house and this isn’t my family, no matter how nice and we’re-so-glad-to-have-you-here-Bea they are. It’s too lovely. Too perfect. And it’s not real. At least it’s not real to me. My heart feels like it’s going to shatter into a million pieces. If you’re used to people being shitty, it’s hard to accept niceness. Your instinct is to fuck it up. And run the hell away.

  I don’t even ask if I can call my friend to come get me. I make an excuse about having to meet someone, and thank them for everything, and try to carry the glass into the kitchen, but Amelia takes it from me.

  London follows me to the door. “When are you coming back? My birthday’s next week and I’m having a party. You can meet everyone and they can meet you.”

  Amelia clears her throat. She knows I’m not c
oming back because this is how perceptive and in tune our father’s second wife is. She is a kind, sensitive, nice, nice person who sees people clearly. “We’re just grateful to have this time with you, Bea. You’re always welcome here, isn’t she, Lo? But we know you have places you need to be.”

  Even though I don’t. I don’t have anywhere I need to be. No one is counting on me. No one is waiting for me. No one is looking for me. The only man who ever bothered looking for me is gone.

  I bolt out the door, and Patch is there in his truck, as if he never left. The sight of him makes me start to cry again. Why is everyone being so nice to me?

  I’m halfway across the lawn when I hear my name. It’s Amelia, running after me, carrying a shoe box. She says, “I wanted you to have these.” And hands the box to me. Nike. Men’s. Size 12. Dad’s.

  “What is it?” I say.

  “Letters. Every letter your dad wrote your mom. I thought you should have them. He’d want you to have them.”

  “Thank you.” And then, even though I don’t want to, I hug her, and it doesn’t feel unnatural but like the only thing to do. Then I climb into Patch’s truck, box on my lap, and we drive away. I don’t look back.

  I want to write more, but that’s all I’ve got in me, Ez.

  I feel pretty raw and sad and like I need to crawl into the corner and pull my shirt up over my head.

  I wish you were here. I wish I was there. I want to go home, but not our home.

  When I look at London Wooster and his life, I think no wonder he turned out to be a sweet (though odd) boy. He has the freedom to be weird and funny and wear a red puffer vest in spring because he’s never once had to worry about disappointing anyone. He has that self-assurance that comes with knowing you are loved. We’ve never had that except with each other. I hope you’ve always felt that from me. I’ve always felt it from you.