Noggin

by John Corey Whaley

  “Please explain what this is,” I whispered, afraid of what would come next.

  “We were going to tell you.” He rested his elbows on the tops of his knees and leaned forward.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Everything, Travis. We were going to tell you everything when you woke up, but it didn’t seem right just yet.”

  “If you don’t tell me the thing you won’t tell me, then I’m going to freak out.” I got louder with every word.

  “We’re divorced, Travis. Your mom and I have been divorced for about three years.”

  Now he covered his face completely, like hiding from me would make this easier or make me disappear. I just looked down at the floor and tried to understand what he’d said, tried to figure out how it could even be a possibility.

  “We were going to tell you.”

  “Seems like it.” A cold tear rolled down my cheek.

  “They told us not to,” he said. “Dr. Saranson—he said to keep it a secret for a while, just until you’d adjusted to being back. Your mom almost told you, right when you woke up, but I stopped her. I was so scared to break your heart, Travis. She was too. She knew it would just make it worse to wait.”

  “Three years? Three years, Dad?”

  “We tried, Travis. We tried so hard. Therapy, church, relationship books. We did it all. Nothing seemed to help.”

  “It’s my fault, then? I die and you two can’t stand each other anymore?”

  “It’s not your fault. That’s not how it works.”

  “Then tell me this: Would you still be together if I hadn’t died? Would you?”

  “I can’t answer that, Travis. You know I can’t answer that, and what good would it do if I could?”

  “How could you do this to me?” I stood up, started to pace. I couldn’t look at him. “Damn it!”

  “We did it for you, Travis. Please sit down. Please just calm down and take a seat, okay?”

  “You know what? To hell with both of you!” I stormed toward the door.

  “Don’t leave like this. We can talk about this like adults.”

  “I’m not an adult! I’m a fucking kid! I should be an adult, but I’m not!”

  “Listen to me!” he yelled right back. “Just let me show you something.”

  “Okay. Fine. What? Show me.”

  He led me down the hallway to a closed bedroom door and stopped for a second before opening it. He looked right at me, that kind of look you give someone when they’re about to see something that will change them forever, and then he swung the door open.

  And inside was my entire bedroom. It was exactly the way I’d left it, plaid wallpaper and all, only across town and in this new apartment, in this place where my father secretly lived, where he’d made a new life for himself. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t form words with my lips or move my tongue. I wasn’t certain I was still breathing. I was frozen in place, just looking in at all the stuff. Every poster, every stupid torn-out magazine page that I’d sticky-tacked to the wall. It was all there. The bed was the cherry-wood top bunk only with the bookshelf beneath it filled with the same hardcovers from my childhood—Hardy Boys first editions, Treasure Island, two copies of Tuck Everlasting. The theater seats were in their corner, and my print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa hung right by the windows. There were even the same exact curtains as in my old room, with the same hole torn in the bottom right corner where I once got them caught in the vacuum cleaner. Bedspread, pillowcases, the lamp on the nightstand—they were all mine and they had been placed here with strategy and care, replicating a time before I was sick, before my illness changed the way I lived, before it changed the way we all lived.

  “This was part of the problem.” He walked over and sat on the bed. “I’ve had a hard time letting things go.”

  “I don’t understand, Dad. Why wouldn’t you bring this stuff home? Why am I sleeping in a new bed in a roomful of stuff that isn’t mine?”

  “Because she doesn’t know, Travis.”

  “Oh.” I walked over to the closet, opened it to see all my clothes—my jeans, my shirts, my favorite jacket.

  “I kept it all in storage for a while—when we were still trying to work things out.”

  “Who left who?” I asked quietly.

  “I was a mess, Travis. I can’t say I blame her.”

  “I’m not even sure what to say, Dad. I don’t really know what’s going on right now.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry it happened this way. Hell, I’m sorry it happened at all.”

  “Do you want her back? Is that why you didn’t let her tell me? Why you waited?”

  “No, Travis. I know that’s not going to happen. Your mom and I love each other, we really do. And we’re friends—we talk a few times a week, have for years. It’s just one of those things that happens. I can’t try to explain it because I’m not sure why it happens either.”

  “Like it is with Cate,” I said. “Only I can’t let go of it.”

  “You’ll find a way, Travis. You’ll have to.”

  “My head is going to explode.” I took a seat on the floor. “This room, Dad. This is . . . weird.”

  “It’s the only thing I knew to do. I never even come in here. I just open the door every now and then and look inside, imagine you sitting on the bed listening to music or inviting me in to watch an old movie.”

  “That’s so sad.” I was crying.

  “Losing you was the worst thing I could ever imagine happening. I can’t do that again, you know. I can’t go through that again. She can’t either.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t have to.”

  “Can I tell you something else?”

  “It can’t get any worse,” I said.

  “I lost my job six months ago. Your mom doesn’t know yet. Please let me tell her.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Nothing. Things change. The company grew faster than I could keep up with, and they replaced me with some young asshole fresh out of college.”

  “Their arcades suck now anyway.”

  Dad held one hand down and helped me up. There was no emotional embrace or anything, but he let his grip linger for a few seconds and he nodded, looking into my eyes. I walked out of the room, amazed I hadn’t started having another panic attack, and I didn’t stop walking until I was opening the door to Kyle’s truck and jumping back into the front seat. They didn’t say anything. They were watching my dad up on the second floor looking down at us.

  “I need to go home, please.”

  “Everything okay?” Hatton asked quietly.

  “Everything is not okay.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY

  By the time we pulled into my driveway, I’d told Kyle and Hatton everything. Kyle was astonished that he hadn’t found out about the divorce somehow, and Hatton was too preoccupied by my dad’s creepy bedroom museum of death to talk about anything else.

  “You want us to come in with you?” Kyle asked in the driveway.

  “I’m not going in there.” Hatton was shaking his head. “Sorry. I mean, I think this is all you, man.”

  “He’s right,” I said. “I’ll see you guys later. Thanks.”

  Mom was standing in the middle of the living room when I walked inside. Dad must’ve called her because she was pale, and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked at me like I was that doctor who first told us I was sick, with an expression so lifeless and haunting that no amount of good expressions or smiles or laughing could ever erase it from my memory.

  “Travis, I—”

  “You lied to me.”

  “Yes. I lied to you. Your father lied to you. We lied.”

  “And Grandma and Aunt Cindy? They all—”

  “Yes. They lied for us. It wasn’t okay to ask them to do that, but they did it anyway.”

  “Shit.”

  “Can you just sit down? Can we just talk for a little while?”

  “What’s there to say, Mom? Every
thing is so wrong.”

  “But it’s not wrong, Travis. Look, you are here. Every science book on Earth says you should be dead and gone, and you are standing right here in our living room. This is complicated.”

  “Why’d you leave him?” I sat down because I was afraid I’d eventually collapse if I didn’t.

  “I want to tell you what happened after you went away, okay, Travis?” She sat down to face me.

  “Okay.”

  “When you died or got frozen or whatever, we weren’t sure exactly what to do. We talked to a therapist, we got rid of your things, we even thought about adopting a kid from Russia or China. But nothing worked because there was always, above all else, this silent and heavy shred of hope that you’d come back, that they’d find a way to bring you back and we’d be okay again. But a few months went by, then a year, and we heard nothing. I called to ask how far they were from saving you, and all I ever got were vague answers and impossible time estimates. The best they ever told me, after one year, was that maybe, if things worked out okay, then maybe we’d survive into our eighties or nineties and possibly be able to see you again before we died. And we knew it was crazy—the whole thing. Every part of me believed that when we said good-bye to you, that was it. But then after you really were gone, it was different. It wasn’t so easy to just accept it, you know? And there was that small chance that it wasn’t permanent, and that got so easy to cling to. So we ate healthy and we stopped drinking caffeine and alcohol. We exercised every day and took fistfuls of vitamins because we were determined that no matter what we did, no matter what our lives became, we would live to see you again, live to make sure that you would have a real life.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Let me finish, damn it. Sorry.” She was crying. But she kept talking. “Then another year went by and we heard even less. We started talking to other families whose relatives had volunteered for this, and that just made it worse, made it seem even more hopeless. Eventually we saw a grief counselor because we could hardly talk to each other anymore. He told us that as long as we kept holding on to the idea that you’d come back, we’d never be able to move on or get over losing you. He told us we were sentencing ourselves to a life of perpetual mourning, a life where we’d feel like you were dying every single day over and over again.”

  “So you split up and everything was fine until I came back?” I wasn’t playing fair. I knew that.

  “We tried, but it was obvious that we were moving at very different paces. We just couldn’t quite sync back up after you’d gone, Travis.”

  They say most marriages end after a couple loses a child. My parents were only doing their part to make sure the statistic held true. How could I blame them? How could I be angry at them when I wasn’t there to see what it was like? Leaving had been so easy because I thought I was doing it for them. I thought letting go would give them their lives back. But it just messed things up even worse. As I looked at my mom and her sad eyes, I knew I’d been a selfish asshole. I never thought I’d come back, but I gave up anyway. What a coward. I was so scared and so tired that I let the idea of leaving for them overshadow the fact that I was really doing it all for me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ALL FOR ME

  After the talk with my mom I called Dad to apologize, and he asked if I wanted him to come home. I said he was home and that there was no reason to keep up their charade any longer just for my benefit. I told him I’d come over the next day and we’d talk about where to go from there.

  I tried to sleep, but it wasn’t working too well. I was worried about both of them, I guess. I was worried that they were doing the same thing I was—staring up at the ceiling in their lonely beds and thinking about everything we’d been through. They lied, sure, and I was still pissed about it and probably wouldn’t get over it too quickly, but they hadn’t given up. There was no reason in the world to think this crazy shit would ever work, but they tried anyway. These two people had waited on something impossible because they couldn’t stand not to.

  I’d tried to call Cate all afternoon, but she never answered or came over or anything. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I eventually gave up and went to bed. I lay there looking around at all the stuff in my room that wasn’t mine. It couldn’t be mine, because that was all sitting silent in a dark room across town, waiting for its ghost to come back and haunt it someday.

  Mom drove me to school the next morning, and I don’t have to tell you it was a bit uncomfortable for both of us. I wondered if Dad had told her about his job, if maybe the previous day’s events had prompted him to come clean about all his secrets. I wouldn’t dare tell her, though. The two of them had enough to deal with all on their own.

  “Did Chloe and all the other cousins know too?” I asked in the car.

  “No,” she said quietly. “We only told a few people. Our friends know, but they’re so few and far between that we knew it wasn’t much of a risk.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out.”

  “Your poor father’s been sleeping on the floor of my bedroom for three months. I half think he wanted to get caught with all his late nights.”

  “I’d like to say I feel sorry for him.”

  “Travis, don’t be too hard on your dad, okay? I know this seems bad, but he’s much better than he’s been in a long time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You need a ride after school or you planning on skipping out early again?” she asked, suspicion on her face.

  “Sorry. I had a mission.”

  In class that morning Matt Braynard passed me a note. It read: Where were you yesterday, dude? I crumpled it up and shoved it into my backpack and never looked his way for the entire hour. After class he blocked the door so I couldn’t escape him.

  “Look, Matt. I’m sure your project is nice and all, but I really have a lot going on right now.”

  “Five minutes, Travis. Give us five minutes. Come by Conference Room B in the library at lunchtime, okay? Bring Hatton if you want.”

  I’ll admit that my curiosity, at that point, was pretty piqued. I told Hatton in geometry that we had to go check it out or we’d never hear the end of it from Matt. He agreed, with a pretty sour look on his face, and we headed that way when the bell rang. Audrey Hagler was standing at the door to Conference Room B in the far back corner of the library. She was smiling a huge smile and gave me a hug when I walked up. She said a polite hello to Hatton and pushed him off with one hand as he tried to wrap his arms around her.

  “What’s this about anyway?” I asked her.

  “You’ll see. Come inside.”

  She opened the door and there were ten or so members of the Christian Youth Club standing in a circle and holding hands.

  “Okay, guys,” Matt spoke loudly. “Thank you so much for coming. We have something to show you.”

  “I’m Jewish!” Hatton yelled. “I’m just putting that out there so it’s clear. Okay? Okay. There.”

  “Okay,” Matt said. “And I’m Lutheran!” he yelled with a fist in the air. The room filled with laughter.

  “Travis,” Matt continued. “And Hatton. We’ve been working on a little project for a few weeks now, and we decided over Christmas break that maybe it was time to show you.”

  “Well,” Hatton began, “this is officially terrifying.”

  “Hatton, stop,” Audrey said.

  “Mr. Franklin said it would be okay,” Matt continued.

  “Said what would be okay?” I asked.

  “Mr. Franklin? The counselor?” Hatton added.

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “It was his idea, mostly.”

  “What was his idea?” I asked.

  “We should pray first,” one girl said from the circle. “We start all of our meetings with prayer.”

  “Please bow your heads,” Matt said.

  I looked over at Hatton and he had his head lowered, his eyes closed, and one hand gripping Audrey’s. He may have been Jewish, b
ut I knew his true religion was girls, especially ones like Audrey.

  “Dear Lord,” Matt prayed, “thank you for this day. Thank you for bringing us together, and thank you for bringing our new friends here to join us. Amen.”

  They all said “Amen” in unison as they lifted their heads and opened their eyes. I mouthed it with them, feeling as if I’d be breaking some cosmic rule if I didn’t. And they were smiling at me in this way that was so welcoming but curious, too. It wasn’t how all the others looked at me, though, not like they were seeing a science experiment or the famous kid from TV. These kids didn’t expect anything from me. They were just glad I was there.

  “Should we show him?” Audrey asked.

  “For sure,” Matt said. “Let’s go next door.”

  I followed them out of the room and watched as they filed into Conference Room A one by one. I was the last to enter and wasn’t too surprised to see that they’d all made a circle around the room. What was it with these people and their circles? I should go to church more, I guess.

  In the center of the room there were two big tables covered in large plastic containers. Each one had words written on top in black marker ink. The first one that caught my eye read “Kentucky-Nebraska.” I knew what was inside the boxes before they could tell me.

  “Letters,” I said.

  “What letters?” Hatton asked.

  “His letters,” Matt said.

  “Fan mail,” I said. “Been coming since I got back.”

  “For real?” Hatton slapped my arm.

  “I told Mr. Franklin I didn’t want them.”

  “We haven’t read them or anything,” Matt said. “Just so you know. We just sorted them for you.”

  I walked over to one of the containers and took the lid off. Inside it had cardboard dividers to separate each state. I flipped through for a few seconds before putting the lid back on and looking around at the rest of the boxes.

  “You’ve gotten something from every state,” Audrey said.