Steering Toward Normal

by Rebecca Petruck

  “Maybe you should go to your dad’s for Christmas,” Diggy said. If the kid didn’t want to share his Mom-Christmas, Diggy didn’t have to share his.

  Wayne sighed. “I was thinking that.”

  “You were?” Diggy hadn’t even really thought it yet.

  “I haven’t been back since Dad …” Wayne trailed off. “All her things.”

  He sniffed, and Diggy pretended it was the cold making the kid’s nose drip.

  Wayne hadn’t been back to his house. Diggy hadn’t really thought about it that way, but all Wayne’s stuff, all his mom’s stuff, the house he’d lived in with her his entire life—one day he was there, and the next, he wasn’t. The guy had to feel like he was in a parallel universe sometimes.

  “But after what happened at Thanksgiving, I’m kind of afraid to.” Wayne whispered the last part. Then he added even more quietly, “And I’m afraid to go and have her not be there.”

  Diggy hated that that was exactly what would happen. Wayne would go home, and his mom would not be there.

  The boys fussed over the calves. Joker and Fang snuggled into the boys’ sides, as close to a hug as a steer could get. Steers were so smart. People liked to think they had the lock on emotions and understanding, but Diggy’s calves usually worked with his mood. When he was mad, they were pissy. When he was sad, they were calm and affectionate. His steers were more like pets than some people’s dogs. He could hardly stand to think about the end of next summer.

  Or Mrs. Graf. It hit him all over again that she wasn’t out there in the world somewhere, waiting for him to bump into her at the grocery store so she could tell him to put back the candy bars and get some fruit already.

  “There’s an old telescope in the attic,” Diggy announced. “We would have a pretty clear view from your window to watch for reindeer.”

  Wayne’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

  Diggy looked away. He squinted back again. “You know there’s no Santa, right?”

  Wayne thumped Diggy’s arm. Diggy thumped him back.

  CHRISTMAS WENT OFF PRETTY WELL. AFTER SOME COACHING FROM POP, WAYNE DID go to the Vogls for Christmas Eve and seemed really glad to have seen all his cousins. Diggy wasn’t even jealous of all the loot he brought home—most of it was clothes anyway.

  Graf came out on Christmas Day, and they all rode into the city for dinner and a movie. Graf seemed so grateful to be included, it made Diggy uncomfortable and kind of sad. He hadn’t really thought about what it was like for Graf being alone in his house all the time, even if it was of his own doing. But after Wayne had said that about not having been home in so long, Diggy kept picturing the house waiting for Mrs. Graf to come back, sort of puffed up from holding its breath. It was crazy thinking, but he couldn’t help it.

  The rest of Christmas break, Diggy kept Joker outside as much as possible so his hair would get nice and thick. The snow acted like a megaphone—every time Kubat’s dogs barked at something, the steers heard it—but Joker and even Fang seemed to have gotten over the biting incident, which was very encouraging. If they were still skittish about dogs, they’d be terrified when they got to the fair.

  Diggy went to Jason’s to snowmobile a couple of times—Crystal went to Florida every year for Christmas to visit grandparents—but snow and ice kept most people home when they could help it. So Diggy got a lot of work done on his level-three rocket design. He hadn’t decided if he was going to enter it into the 4-H contest at the fair or not. Like everyone else, he usually entered a couple of non-livestock things, but this year he felt he should stay focused on winning Grand Champion. When Pop came up to help with the rocket, Diggy had confessed to the level-three design. Pop took it okay, partly because Diggy didn’t mention the design was for D- and E-class engines. He wanted Pop to see that he knew what he was doing first. Wayne got interested in the rockets, too, so Diggy showed him some stuff.

  And set up the air-horn prank. When Wayne sat on Diggy’s desk chair, sounding the air horn Diggy had rigged, Diggy fell out of his own chair from laughing so hard. Pop rushed in like a fire alarm had gone off. Diggy wasn’t really surprised later when he and Wayne tried to twist open some soda bottles and got squirted with the old pinholes-in-the-side-of-the-plastic trick. He was surprised when he tried to squirt some ketchup onto his burger and it oozed out of the sides instead, where Pop had sliced the bottle’s neck after gluing closed the hole in the top. Pop must have really had a heart attack when that air horn went off, for him to double down on his return prank like that.

  All in all, Diggy was feeling pretty good by the time school started again. Until he saw Crystal wearing a dress. He avoided her in the hallways, even though it meant getting to classes early. But at lunch she sat down before she got any food and huffed, “It’s only a dress, Diggy. Jeez.”

  “It’s why you’re wearing it that I don’t want to have to talk about. You have girl friends.” Not to mention, it was kind of creepy that she knew him so well, she’d guessed why he had dodged her all morning.

  “Who says I want to talk to you?”

  “Great.”

  “Though you could use the practice if you want to date a girl someday.”

  Diggy thunked his head on the table.

  “See?” Crystal said, like he had proved her point and ignoring the fact that she had proved his. “It was something you said, anyway, that made me—”

  “Don’t blame me!”

  “—realize Jason doesn’t think of me as a girl, and I need to make changes if I want to fix that.”

  Why hadn’t Diggy gone to the library for lunch? Or outside? Sure, it was twenty degrees with wind chill, but he had a coat. “He doesn’t even like Darla that much.”

  “He told you that?” she asked hopefully.

  “No.” Jeez. “Boys don’t talk like girls.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just tell me why you think he doesn’t like Darla that way.”

  Because Jason didn’t get stupid around Darla the way Diggy did around July, but Diggy would roll around in a giant pile of cow poop before he told Crystal that. “Just tell him you want to go out, and he’ll go.”

  Crystal studied him for a bit. “Remember how you said he’d like being picked?”

  “Quit using my own words against me,” Diggy mumbled.

  “Girls like to be picked, too.”

  Diggy blinked in surprise. Rationally, he knew that everyone, boys and girls, liked to be picked, but in his experience girls had all the choosing power. Until now, he hadn’t realized he believed that. He had never thought of himself as having any real choosing power. But what if he did?

  Suddenly the cafeteria and everyone in it looked funny—the same but totally different—like he had flipped into a parallel universe.

  Fortunately, Jason sat down and snapped Diggy out of it.

  “I thought you were having lunch with Darla,” Crystal said.

  Jason shrugged. “Her friends keep talking about some actor who broke up with some other actor.”

  They weren’t anymore. One glance at the girls’ table and Diggy could tell they were talking about Jason, and they weren’t saying nice things.

  Diggy waggled his eyebrows meaningfully at Crystal. It looked like her problem had been solved. Darla would dump Jason, and then Crystal could make her move.

  Being the friend he was, he actually said out loud to her, “You look nice today.”

  Crystal immediately turned red. “Shut up, Diggy.”

  What? She wanted Jason to notice her, didn’t she? He was helping!

  Jason glanced back and forth between them. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Crystal said. “I’m going to the library.”

  Diggy gaped at her as she left. She was wearing a dress. Jason had left Darla to sit with them at lunch. Diggy had pointed out that she looked pretty so Jason would notice. It was like a triple play, but Crystal had refused to run the bases. “Girls.”

  Jason grunted his agreement.

  THAT AFTERNOO
N, WAYNE CAME SO CLOSE TO MISSING THE FIRST BUS HOME, DIGGY thought Mrs. Osborn might take off anyway to teach him a lesson. But Wayne made it.

  And threw himself into the seat next to Diggy.

  “What?” Diggy asked.

  “Not here.” Wayne jiggled a knee.

  Diggy kicked Wayne’s foot out from under him. “Tell me now.”

  “I don’t think you’ll want to talk about it on the bus.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to talk about it at all.”

  “Your grandparents are only the next county over,” Wayne whispered.

  Diggy’s grandparents were in Texas. They had gladly given up Minnesota winters when Grandpa’s job offered him a promotion in the Lone Star State and when Grandma was convinced Pop knew enough about taking care of a kid to not drop him, lose him, or cause him to spontaneously combust. They typically visited for a month in June.

  But then Diggy realized Wayne didn’t mean Pop’s parents.

  A surge built in Diggy’s chest. He spoke calmly so as not to spook the kid until he found out how far Wayne had gone. “How do you know where her parents are?”

  “Your grandparents,” Wayne repeated. “The secretary in the principal’s office knows everyone.”

  Now everyone would know Wayne had been asking about Diggy’s mom’s parents. And they’d think it was because Diggy wanted to know.

  “Why are you mad?” Wayne asked in an aggravated tone.

  Diggy tried Pop’s tactic and ran a hand down his face. It didn’t work.

  “This town talks, Wayne. I told you not to look for her.”

  “Who cares who knows? Your mom’s out there somewhere.”

  “She can stay out there!” Diggy yelled.

  Heads turned in their direction, and Mrs. Osborn frowned at them via the bus’s huge rearview mirror.

  Both Diggy and Wayne hunched lower in their seats.

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” Wayne said. “You can have a mom. I can’t. Not ever again.”

  “I don’t need a mom. I have Pop,” Diggy explained, slowly.

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “When your mom leaves you on a doorstep and runs out of town—on a tractor,” he emphasized, “that’s exactly how it works.”

  Diggy got up and shoved past Wayne so he could get away from this kid who seemed to go out of his way to not get it. Normally, Mrs. Osborn would have said something about staying seated, but maybe she knew it was let Diggy move or deal with a fight on the bus. Diggy slung his backpack onto another seat and dropped down beside it.

  Wayne was crazy. Just crazy. Diggy didn’t know what else to think about the kid.

  Mostly, he was tired of having to think about him at all.

  He had told Wayne, but Wayne kept doing whatever he wanted, no matter what Diggy said. It wasn’t fair.

  By the time the bus pulled up to their drive, Diggy was ready to rodeo and knew he couldn’t go anywhere near the steers yet. He clomped through the snow all the way to the tree line and in.

  Diggy kicked through foot-high snow crusted with a sheen of ice, the crunch and crackle an echo of his own disjointed thoughts, the drag on his feet like his ankles had been cuffed by two-leg hobbles.

  He almost wasn’t surprised when he walked out of the woods and saw Pop coming toward him, not looking happy.

  “So, what’s going on with you two?”

  “Did you talk to him?” Diggy asked.

  “I’m talking to you.”

  Which wasn’t fair, either. Wayne had started it.

  “You seemed to be doing okay after Christmas.”

  “What did you think? That one Christmas together would make us brothers?”

  “You are brothers.”

  “Half brothers,” Diggy corrected, then burst out, “You act like it’s supposed to be easy!”

  “It’s not easy for any of us,” Pop said. “We all have to work at it.”

  “Tell Wayne that.”

  Pop rubbed his hand down his face. “You know what month it is?”

  “January,” Diggy huffed. He had a feeling he would not like where this conversation was going.

  “January. Four months.”

  Pop waited long enough for Diggy to figure out what that meant. Four months. Mrs. Graf had died in September.

  “He’s the one being a meathead,” Diggy grumbled.

  “He gets some leeway.”

  Didn’t Diggy get some leeway for finding out his father had another son no one knew about for fourteen years who suddenly moved into their house? When did Wayne’s free pass to walk all over Diggy run out?

  “I’m not asking you to fix things,” Pop said. “I just want to be sure you’ve got the whole picture in mind.”

  Like Pop did? Ha. He had Wayne’s picture in mind, not Diggy’s. But that made Diggy think of Wayne’s picture, where he and his mom made funny faces at the camera.

  “Why do I have to be the reasonable one?” Diggy muttered.

  “Because you are.” Pop hooked his arm around Diggy’s neck and mussed his hair. Then he laughed. “And because you like hot showers.”

  Diggy wanted to be cheered up by Pop’s teasing, but mostly it felt like he was getting a red ribbon for showing up while Wayne got the purple rosette. Diggy shouldered away and trudged off to take care of Joker on his own.

  Diggy decided he was glad to give Wayne leeway—planned to give him so much of it they wouldn’t see each other for weeks—but the very next morning, the stupid kid was waiting for him in the kitchen.

  “We should call them.”

  Diggy clenched his teeth.

  “Why hasn’t Pop called them? Shouldn’t he know where she is, for your sake?” Wayne persisted.

  Did Pop already know? Diggy wondered. He couldn’t help but think about the yearbooks—why hadn’t Pop ever given them to Diggy?

  “Does he know where she is?” Wayne asked.

  “Of course not.” Diggy did not like the feeling of Wayne practically pulling thoughts from his head. If Pop knew … It didn’t matter. Diggy didn’t want to know where she was anyway.

  “Why not? You need to know—”

  “I don’t need to know anything!” Diggy yelled. “There’s history, remember? Abandonment? Tractor? And her parents know where I am, just like she does.”

  Wayne shook his head. “Pop must have done something. Maybe he’s not that great after all.”

  Diggy shoved Wayne hard enough that the chair the kid was sitting in tilted. Wayne stood and shoved back. Diggy hit the counter. He dug a shoulder into Wayne’s chest and drove him across the room. He started to lose his balance, but then Pop got ahold of them and pulled them apart.

  “He started it!” Diggy yelled.

  “I never get a chance to!”

  “Enough!” Pop roared.

  Both boys immediately slumped into sulks.

  Pop hauled them to the door. “You’ve got enough clothes on that you won’t hurt each other much, but if you’re going to fight, do it outside.”

  They didn’t have time to brace for the cold before they were out in it, the door slammed behind them.

  “Is he kidding?” Wayne asked.

  Diggy slouched toward the barn.

  “See? What kind of father encourages his kids to fight?”

  “It’s reverse psychology. Who wants to fight when you have permission to?”

  “What it is, is crappy parenting.”

  Diggy was at Wayne, a fist thrown, before he’d had time to plan where to land it. The blow slid across Wayne’s weather-resistant coat and twisted Diggy almost fully around, so he had to crash to a knee to keep from a full-body dump in the snow. Angled toward the road, he saw a truck’s dark profile tilted in the ditch not far from their driveway. He had only a glimpse before Wayne tackled him.

  Diggy shouted at him to stop, fending off Wayne’s stiff-armed punches. “There’s a truck in the ditch.”

  Wayne froze, knees pinned tightly around Diggy’s s
ides, then twisted to look. Diggy bucked his hips, tumbling Wayne off. Diggy scrambled backward and onto his feet but got his palms up fast. The safety light shone just far enough out into the predawn darkness to suggest the truck was Graf’s.

  Wayne dove in for another go.

  Diggy sidestepped. “Wayne. I think it’s your dad.”

  Wayne pushed up from his hands and knees. This time when he looked out, he saw the truck and went pale.

  He charged up the driveway.

  Diggy shouted for Pop, then went after Wayne, worrying about the last time Graf had gotten himself into a ditch chasing the school bus.

  The truck was at a full forty-five-degree tilt, and snow was mounted on the roof’s back edge like a pair of Texas longhorns. The windows were cloudy, either frosted from the outside or fogged from the inside. Either way, the truck had to have been there awhile.

  At the ditch, Wayne stopped. Diggy caught up and studied the ground for a few seconds, then sidestepped at an angle down to the driver’s door.

  But Wayne didn’t follow. “He’s dead.”

  “No, he isn’t,” Diggy said automatically. Then he gaped at the clouded window. What if Graf was dead in there? Frozen, maybe, or from hitting his head.

  Wayne half slid into the ditch. They stared at the truck.

  “Pop will get here in a minute,” Diggy said.

  “This is probably something I need to do.” Wayne took hold of the door handle, breathed in deeply, and opened the door.

  Graf was slumped forward, arms hugging the steering wheel, snoring.

  Diggy got a noseful of smoke and beer.

  “So much for Alcoholics Anonymous, huh?” Wayne said. “That’s another thirty-day coin out the window.”

  Diggy felt the blood pulse in his cheeks. Graf was supposed to be staying sober so he could take Wayne home.

  The alcoholic in question turned his head, his cheek smearing drool on the steering wheel. “Thirty-four,” he slurred.

  Huh?

  Wayne slammed the door shut.