Steering Toward Normal

by Rebecca Petruck

Pop didn’t pressure Wayne about it. But then he got another call from the Vogls—the third one this week—trying one last time to convince Wayne to go to their house for the holiday. This time Wayne told them he couldn’t because his dad was coming to dinner.

  Graf was over earlier than he needed to be, his hair still wet from a shower and his cheeks so raw from a shave they glowed. He tried too hard at first, but soon Pop got him standing at the turkey fryer, watching the oil temperature and injecting marinade. Having something to do helped him relax.

  Same went for Wayne. The calves weren’t used to so much outdoor activity that didn’t include them, and they kept wandering over to see what was what. The boys could have tied the steers or closed them in the barn, but it was more fun to let them stroll about in the leavings of a barely there snow and chase them away when they got to where they shouldn’t be. Diggy didn’t exactly worry about Kubat’s dogs anymore—Kubat had promised to keep them tied up or in the barn if he wasn’t outside with them—but he also didn’t let the steers wander too close to the woods, either.

  After a while, the day settled into a weird kind of normal. They got the big table cleared off and the food heated up. Pop twisted off the turkey legs and gave them to Wayne and Diggy, then cut big chunks out of the bird’s sides for himself and Graf.

  Diggy and Wayne told the story of the dog attack again, a much-improved version with greater heroics and more laughs. The cuts hardly bothered Diggy at all anymore except when he tried to do things like use his fork, and he was not particularly coordinated with the other hand.

  “He’s probably got rabies,” Wayne explained.

  “Har, har.” Diggy ate his food with his fingers. Until he squished some stuffing into a ball. Pop gave him the eye, and he grudgingly picked up his fork again.

  It never took as long to eat dinner as it did to put it together, but no one rushed away from the table. Everyone was stuffed, but that didn’t stop anyone from picking at the offerings until all the dishes were about empty and the bird nearly skeletal.

  “Did we eat a whole turkey?” Wayne asked.

  “It wasn’t that big,” Diggy said.

  “It can’t be too big and still fit in the fryer,” Pop added.

  “Still,” Wayne said.

  Pop chuckled. “Guess that means it’s time to get the pie warming in the oven.”

  He went into the kitchen, and the weird normalcy wavered. Graf cleared his throat. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  Wayne nodded, but he didn’t really look at his dad.

  “I got my thirty-day coin this week. From AA.”

  “That’s good,” Wayne said.

  Pop got the pie into the oven, then hung back in the doorway. Diggy wished he could hang back, too, but was stuck at the table. Graf was just so … sincere. It was painful to see.

  “I realized …” He cleared his throat again. “I wasn’t sure you had anything from your mom here.”

  Wayne was surprised enough to look at his dad this time. He shook his head.

  “I’ve been going through some stuff.” Graf caught himself and explained quickly, “Not getting rid of anything.”

  Wayne nodded, clearly not sure what he was supposed to say or do.

  Graf pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket. He looked at it and had to breathe deeply. Then he set it on the table and slid it toward Wayne. “This is one of my favorites.”

  It was a photo like they took at Sears, but instead of being all posed, Mrs. Graf had her arm hugged around Wayne’s neck, the both of them smiling cross-eyed at the camera.

  Wayne looked at it, then abruptly cracked. He started crying and doing that funny-breathing thing, stubbing his chair on the floor, trying too fast and too hard to get away from the table, until finally he stumbled from the room and up the stairs.

  Graf and Diggy stared at each other, wide-eyed. Graf pushed his chair back, too, but Pop stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. “He needs to let it out.”

  Graf looked like he might argue the point, but only a few seconds passed before he pulled his chair back to the table. He rested his forehead against his clasped hands.

  “You’re doing good, Harold,” Pop said.

  “The day I need you, of all people, to tell me that …” There should have been more to the sentence, but Graf added instead, “Jeez, I want a drink.”

  Pop said the oil in the turkey fryer should have cooled down enough by now to be emptied, and he asked Graf to help maneuver the pot so they could clean up.

  Diggy stacked dishes but was soon distracted by the photo.

  Mrs. Graf looked so healthy and Wayne so young, though the picture was probably only two years old. They looked like family. It was more than the similar coloring in the light hair and eyes. The funny faces and tilt of their heads and just the way they looked at the camera proclaimed, Family!

  Diggy and Pop rarely remembered a camera for anything other than the show ring. Diggy had more pics of his steers then he did of himself and Pop. He couldn’t help but wonder if that might be different if his mom were around.

  The photo glared up from the table, colors bold, faces bright.

  It was a perfect example of why Diggy didn’t let himself think about his mom anymore. Even if he found her, he would never, ever have with her what shone between Wayne and his mom.

  When he heard a car engine, Diggy almost wasn’t surprised Graf was leaving without saying good-bye, when there was a photo like that and everything it meant in the house. He finished stacking dishes, but then from outside he heard raised voices and went to the window. Graf hadn’t left. Wayne’s grandparents, Mrs. Osborn, and a few kids had arrived instead, and Graf was not happy about it.

  Diggy called upstairs, “Wayne, you might want to get down here,” then went outside to help Pop.

  “You can’t keep us from our grandson,” Mrs. Vogl was saying to Graf.

  “Why not? You’d have kept him from me if you got your hands on him,” Graf said.

  Pop tried to calm things down by explaining, for what sounded like the second or third time, that Wayne wasn’t feeling well. Mrs. Osborn tried to calm her mom down, too, but one of the kids was little and maybe scared and kept trying to get her to pick him up. Wayne’s other two cousins pretended they didn’t hear anything and weren’t even there.

  When Wayne came outside, Mrs. Vogl’s eyes got round just before her face went red. “He’s been crying!” she exclaimed. “What did you do to make him cry?” she accused Graf.

  “It’s not that, Grandma,” Wayne tried to explain, but Mrs. Vogl had her sights set on Graf. Not that he was taking any of it.

  “Maybe he’s sad because it’s Thanksgiving and his mom’s gone,” Graf said. “You ever think of that, huh, before you start accusing me?”

  “Don’t you talk to me like that. My daughter is gone, and you did nothing to deserve her.”

  “Mom, we aren’t helping anything by—” Mrs. Osborn tried.

  “Anything we do will help. Ann’s liebchen with strangers on the first holiday since she’s dead.” Mrs. Vogl’s English had gotten so thick with her German accent, it took Diggy a second to figure out what she’d said.

  “He’s with me,” Graf argued.

  “Puh.”

  “Why don’t we all go inside?” Pop offered. “There’s pie in the oven. We can take a breath and—”

  “You!” Mrs. Vogl shouted. “You don’t speak! My daughter was a good girl, then you come along.”

  “Stop!” Wayne yelled. “Just, everyone. Stop. Please.”

  “I’m sorry, Wayne,” Mrs. Osborn said while Mrs. Vogl sputtered in German. “I thought if I came, too, it would keep her from getting so upset.” She picked up the little one, though it seemed as much for herself as the child. “It’s hard, you know. Thanksgiving.”

  “I know.” Wayne sighed.

  Mrs. Vogl had started to cry, and Mr. Vogl led her to the minivan. Wayne ran over to hug them and tell them he loved them, but he didn’t let his grandma keep a
hold of him too long. After saying some stuff to his cousins, he hugged Mrs. Osborn and waved everyone good-bye.

  They were pretty well down the road before Graf said to Wayne, “Stuck up for Lawson, didn’t you, when she went after him? Didn’t see you saying anything when she was at me.”

  “Dad—”

  “No. Hey, I’m carrying around this chip like it means something,” Graf said, pulling out the red coin from Alcoholics Anonymous.

  Wayne didn’t say anything.

  Pop was the one who said, “It does mean something, Harold.”

  Graf stared at Wayne. “I see how it is. You’ve got a new life where you don’t have to think about me or your mom.”

  “Harold—”

  “Back off, Lawson.”

  “It’s not like that,” Wayne said.

  “Yeah? I don’t see you packing your bags. You going to pack your bags, Wayne?”

  Graf didn’t leave much room for Wayne to reply, but he didn’t need to—Wayne’s only movement was to hunch his head down in that way he had, like he could plug his ears with his shoulders.

  “You want to stay here? Fine! Maybe it’s what Ann would have wanted. It’s not like anyone thinks I make a good dad anyway.” He stomped off to his truck.

  Diggy waited for Pop to do something, but all Pop did was run a hand down his face. “He needs to cool down. But I should see if he’s got a sponsor in AA yet.” Pop held Wayne’s shoulder. “You going to be okay?”

  Wayne shrugged.

  “Setbacks are a normal part of recovery, and Ann’s mom isn’t helping. He didn’t mean what he said.”

  “That makes it worse, doesn’t it?” Wayne said.

  Diggy had to agree with him. Pop’s making excuses for Graf was not okay, especially when Pop was wrong. Diggy was pretty sure Graf had meant exactly what he said, because it was pretty much stuff Diggy had thought, too.

  NO ONE WAS SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT GRAF SHOWED UP AT OTTO’S BAR THAT night, already drunk, and broke a window when he found the place closed for Thanksgiving.

  The police had to pick up Graf, and Pop had to do some fast talking to keep Otto from pressing charges this time—he was losing patience for the “grieving husband” and banned Graf from returning to his bar. Which was kind of the point of the whole Alcoholics Anonymous thing anyway.

  Diggy wasn’t sure why Pop bothered. Graf was doing just about everything he could to screw up his life and make sure he never got Wayne back. Wayne hardly seemed to care.

  He went through the same routine Diggy did every day, minus the friends. Wayne used to hang out with a couple of guys who were always on honor roll like him, but lately he seemed to have dropped them. He spent his lunches in the library and went straight to the buses after school.

  To make things worse, Crystal and Jason were being weird. Crystal was, anyway. She came back from Thanksgiving dressing more like a girl and acting as if everything Diggy said was so funny and smart, especially when Jason was around. Diggy had kind of always thought she liked Jason, so the way she acted made him feel bad, like he was stealing his best friend’s girlfriend, even though he wasn’t.

  Diggy had way too much to do to deal with her weirdness. Pre-Christmas at school was always a ton of presentations and papers due and getting ready for finals. Not to mention all the usual 4-H community-service stuff, caroling at nursing homes, and the family potluck. So when Crystal cornered him after school and asked him on a date, he didn’t have the patience to be nice.

  “What is going on with you?”

  “Gee, thanks, Diggy,” Crystal said. “A girl asks you out, and you yell at her?”

  “You’re not a girl. I mean, a girl who’d ask me out. You don’t even like me.”

  “Of course I do! We’ve been friends since fourth grade.”

  “You know what I mean.” Sheesh. It was bad enough he had to talk to her like this at all—she didn’t have to pretend she didn’t know what he meant.

  She twisted the end of her ponytail, which she had curled, and she had some kind of shimmery, powdery stuff on her eyelids. Finally she huffed out a breath. “Darla asked Jason to a winter-dance thing at her church.”

  “I thought you said Darla liked me.”

  Crystal rolled her eyes. “That was months ago, and it’s not like you did anything about it.”

  Because he’d found out about it at the same time Wayne arrived. The guy had lived with them for months now.

  Crystal twisted her ponytail tighter. “Anyway, Jason said yes.”

  “Of course he did. He wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings.” Diggy had spent plenty of time with Jason around his sheep. The animals fell all over themselves to get close to him, and when he sheared them, they never struggled—they practically fell asleep in his arms. Jason was like the sheep whisperer or something. But part of it was that he was so nice. Animals and people tended to be calmer when he was around.

  “So what do I do?” Crystal asked.

  “You don’t go out with me, that’s for sure.”

  She glared at him.

  “I don’t know! Just ask him out. He’ll say yes.”

  “I don’t want him to say yes to be nice! I want him to say yes because he likes me!”

  “Everyone likes being picked!” Diggy couldn’t believe he was stuck in the middle of this stuff and wished for maybe the first time ever that he had gone with Wayne to the library instead of trying to hang out with his friends for a few minutes before getting on the bus. Where the heck was Jason anyway?

  Plus, now Crystal was looking at him funny. “Are you okay, Diggy? I mean, I didn’t think you’d get so upset.”

  “Me? You’re the one being all girl and stuff.”

  “If you ever want to talk about things with Wayne and—” Her eyes got big, and her cheeks reddened. “Uh, hi, Wayne.”

  Wayne grabbed Diggy’s arm. “Come with me.”

  “We’re already late for the bus.”

  “We’ll take the activities bus.”

  “No way. That thing stops everywhere.” It would take forever to get home, and they had Joker and Fang to think about.

  “This is important,” Wayne said.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to, Wayne,” Crystal said.

  Diggy appreciated how she always tried to stand up for him, but he kind of wanted to get away from her. So when Wayne said they needed to go to the library, Diggy waved at Crystal and followed his accidental rescuer. Girls were crazy.

  Sure, he had kind of known she liked Jason, but things were different now. Now she cared if Jason liked her back. Dressing like a girl, acting like a girl … that was only the beginning. What if she and Jason did start to go out? They’d be a couple, and he’d be—what? The guy they had to get rid of so they could be alone? He didn’t want to be that guy, but he didn’t want to lose his friends, either.

  Why didn’t she like him, anyway? He might not like her like that—his heart was July’s—but still. Crystal could have liked him a little bit. Why did she choose Jason instead of him?

  With his head swirling, Diggy barely heard Wayne’s mumbling about how he’d been looking through old school newspapers and wished he hadn’t lied to Mrs. Schafer, the librarian, about it being for a school project, because she figured out what he was really doing, and he never would have found them without her and had wasted all that time looking in the wrong place.

  He led Diggy to a back corner, then held out a book, holding it as if it was of the thinnest glass.

  It was a yearbook. An old one, even though it looked brand-new.

  The way Wayne was acting, Diggy was almost afraid to take it. He sat at the table and flipped through the pages. He wanted to laugh at the horrible hairstyles, but Wayne’s behavior kept him quiet. It was hard, though. The clothes were so funny.

  Diggy froze.

  He looked up at Wayne.

  Wayne pushed four more yearbooks closer. “The library has copies of every year.”

  Diggy stared at the dates marked in
large block numbers on the spines.

  He sorted through the freshmen Ds, then stopped at the sophomores. There she was. Sarah Douglas. His mom.

  She was blond with light eyes. Though it was a color photo, it was hard to tell if they were blue or green. She was pretty, straight white teeth showing through a carefully constructed smile. She wore her hair simply, in long curls down her back, and had on a plain white blouse. The other students were dated by hairstyle and dress, but she stood out, looking as normal now as anyone else Diggy knew.

  He went back to the very beginning and methodically turned every page, studying the candid shots, until he found her again, at the top of a pyramid. She was a cheerleader. The smallest on the squad, standing tall on the other girls’ shoulders, her arms in a V over her head. Diggy laughed faintly. He’d gotten his size from her. He’d been around steers long enough to know about genetics and breeding—his hopes of a big growth spurt faded.

  He scanned more pages and found a shot of her in the cafeteria with some girlfriends. Each dangled a French fry from her lips and crowded together to smile for the camera.

  He thumbed pages again, and then he saw Mrs. Graf. She held a trophy, surrounded by other members of the volleyball team. She was sweaty, like all the girls, and her ponytail was half undone. She looked so alive.

  Diggy breathed deeply.

  Wayne had picked up a yearbook and stared down at a page. “This was the way Pop knew our moms. This was them before us.”

  Diggy found Pop in the junior Ls, looking much like he still did; then he found his mom again. Flipping back and forth, back and forth, he almost made himself dizzy trying to imagine them together, even only for long enough to make him.

  He settled on a photo of his mom in the yearbook office, walls filled with pictures of her friends, as she studiously sorted even more photos spread out across a table. She seemed like she had a plan. Like she was looking for something in particular. Like she knew what she wanted and would find it at any moment.

  Diggy studied the books stacked between him and Wayne. Wayne had found her other years. “I bet Pop has copies at home,” Diggy said.

  “I hope so,” Wayne replied. “Mrs. Schafer will know it’s me if these go missing.”