Not Today

by MC Lee

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned my head. Dad had shuffled into the living room and was frowning as he tried to button up his shirt. His fingers kept freezing, as though they no longer remembered what to do.

  “Is that what you want, Emmett?” Her voice was smaller than I’d ever heard it.

  Dad suddenly stopped his useless fumbling and let his hands fall to his sides. He looked up, his eyes haunted and filled with dread. His shoulders hunched, and he turned away, but not before I saw the moment he gave up, something I’d never seen in him before.

  “Is that what you want?” Mom pressed. “Because even if he wasn’t there, I can’t come back to that house. It’s too painful. Can you see that?”

  “Too painful,” I repeated dully. Dad slumped into his armchair, his hand shading his eyes as though the light was too bright.

  “There are too many bad memories. Because of him, because of Jamie.” Her voice caught on his name, and the feelings I’d been fighting suddenly cooled.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said, my eyes fixed on Dad’s defeated body. “You had two sons. Only one of them died. I’m still here.”

  “Emmett—”

  “It’s better if you don’t call here again,” I said, all emotion leached out of my voice. I hung up the phone, and when it rang again, shrill and insistent, I stood my ground and refused to pick up.

  I understood her pain, because it was my pain too. It was Dad’s pain, though he showed it in a different way. I didn’t blame her. After so many years of hardship, she had finally decided to put herself first. It was a fearless and uncommon choice. One I wasn’t brave enough to make. One I found I couldn’t fault, even though I wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear.

  I crossed the floor and knelt beside Dad’s chair. He kept his eyes shaded, but it was too late—I’d already seen what was in them.

  “You okay, Dad?” I asked.

  “What’s happening, Emmett?” he asked. “I’ve become such a burden—”

  “You’re not a burden,” I said.

  “I’m scared.” He dropped his hand, and I saw the fear he’d tried to hide. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. Half the time I don’t even know where I am, and I’m scared.”

  I gripped his arm and squeezed it gently. “I’m here, Dad. I’ll always be here.”

  “When is your mother coming home?”

  For a minute I thought he’d heard me on the phone, but the expression on his face had suddenly gone slack. I couldn’t tell whether he was here, with me, or lost in it again. His next plaintive question answered the question.

  “You think Jamie will be home soon?”

  I swallowed down the sudden lump in my throat. “Soon, Dad. I promise. Here, let me fix that.”

  I pushed him gently back in his seat and buttoned up his shirt, feeling his eyes on me all the time.

  “You’re such a good boy, Jamie,” he said, his voice startling in its gentleness. I didn’t have the heart to correct him, even when he added, “You always make me so proud.”

  I TRIED to hide my surprise when I walked out of the house to find Noah parked out front, his customary smile strained but intact. After last night, I had consciously tried not to guess if he would be here. I climbed into the Jeep, my gratitude so profound I actually felt it deep in my gut.

  “Did you lose your job?”

  “I’m sorry,” Noah said simultaneously.

  I frowned. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

  “I shouldn’t have pushed you about your dad—”

  “You were trying to do something amazing for us, man. I’m grateful.”

  Noah blushed, and his smile turned disarmingly shy. He concentrated on pulling the Jeep away from the curb and turning it in the direction of the school.

  “So, did you lose your job?”

  “It all worked out okay, Emmett. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Recently I’d grown adept at interpreting silence, and I knew there was something he was hiding. “But?”

  He shrugged, his eyes fixed determinedly on the road. “But Tenelli doesn’t want you to come around again.”

  I barked out a laugh. “He really doesn’t have to worry about that,” I said dryly. “There’s more. What else?”

  For a moment Noah looked startled, and then he added, “And he’s making me pay for the damage. Don’t stress about it,” he said quickly. “I can cover it, no problem.”

  There was no way I could offer to pay him back. The knot that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in my gut tightened.

  “Speak to me, Emmett,” Noah said.

  There had been a time I would have let it fester, but I owed Noah this much. “I seem to be doing nothing but screwing up your life,” I said. “You must wish you had a normal boyfriend.”

  “Normal’s overrated,” he said.

  It was the kind of thing that only a rich kid could say. Because his normal was so very different to mine.

  I turned my head and fixed my gaze out of the window. “My mom called,” I said.

  “That’s fantastic, Emmett.”

  “Is it?”

  “Isn’t it?” Noah said, his voice betraying his confusion.

  I didn’t blame him. His family was tight. They supported each other and cared for each other. He couldn’t imagine a situation in which hearing from his mother created a tangled web of relief and pain and anger.

  “She isn’t coming back,” I said, and in giving voice to the words, I suddenly knew they were true. She’d send money, she’d call, and I knew she would text because as soon as she realized I wasn’t going to pick up the landline, my cell phone had vibrated with a message from her. But she wouldn’t come back to the house, to him, to the ghostly memories. That much I knew for sure.

  The three of us were tied together in a knot that couldn’t be unraveled without one of us getting hurt. If she came home, Dad would get the help he needed, and I would be free, but she would be returned to the hell she’d finally clawed her way out of. If I let her call the authorities, I could leave Whitmore and live with her, but Dad would be shut away in some dismal place, confused, bereft, alone. Or we could all play the hand that had been dealt and do our best to limp across the finish line. My eighteenth birthday was only a year away. We could surely keep it together until then.

  “Give her time,” Noah said gently. “Things will work out.” He believed she’d come around, because he couldn’t conceive of anything else.

  I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and looked at the three-word message: I love you.

  I felt almost nothing when I deleted the text with a flick of my thumb. Because with everything that needed to be said—that was all she wrote.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WHEN FRANK called to tell me Jimmy Naylor would be dropping by on Sunday morning for the monthly visit, I immediately sent a text to Noah and set up a date. We had talked about hitting Whitmore’s only art gallery and decided to meet for a quick coffee first. Noah seemed weirdly excited for somebody who had seen some of the greatest works of art in the world.

  I made breakfast and had Dad cleaned up and ready by ten, and then I sat down in front of the TV to wait. I flicked idly through the channels until Dad growled, “Would you stop that! You’re giving me a headache.”

  “Sorry.”

  I found a sports station showing a baseball game from five years ago, and I put the remote down on the table. When I glanced at my phone, I saw that Jimmy was ten minutes late. I sent a quick text to Noah telling him I was running behind, heartened when he immediately replied: I’m not going anywhere.

  I stood up and walked to the window, twitching the curtain back to peer up and down the road. There was no sign of Jimmy, so I checked my phone in case Frank had contacted me, but there was nothing from him. I sent him a text message asking him to call, but it was met with silence.

  Even though I knew it was stupid, I walked to the door and
pulled it open, then stepped onto the porch. My heart raced when I caught sight of a figure at the end of the street, but it soon became obvious it wasn’t Jimmy.

  My phone pinged, but it was only Noah texting a question mark. I sent back: Five more minutes? and got a thumbs-up emoji in return. I smiled, but the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach was rapidly spreading.

  I walked back inside the house and forced myself to sit down. No amount of pacing the floor or looking out of the window was going to bring Jimmy here any quicker.

  “I’m surprised Jimmy decided to visit today,” Dad said absently.

  I glanced over at him, wondering where the thought had come from. “He hasn’t been for a few months. I’m pretty sure it’s his turn.”

  Dad shook his head. “He visits his mother every Sunday. Like clockwork. He drives her to Mass. She can’t get out otherwise.”

  My stomach plummeted. Of course Dad was right. They might beat their wives, snarl at their kids and kick their dogs, but like everybody in our immediate circle, they were old country Catholics and they never missed Mass. I didn’t know how I’d forgotten; except that the Callaghan household had given up that particular hypocrisy the minute Jamie and Mom were gone.

  By now Noah had been waiting for over thirty minutes. I reluctantly pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed his number. He picked up on the first ring.

  “I’m sorry. Doesn’t look as though it’s going to happen.”

  The line crackled with the noise of happy people meeting over a coffee, shooting the breeze without a care in the world. I longed to be one of them.

  “Your dad’s friend isn’t coming?”

  I tried to swallow the lump of cold disappointment lodged in my throat. “Doesn’t look like.”

  “And you can’t get away for an hour?”

  I glanced over at Dad and saw that the empty look had returned. I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “Look, Noah—”

  “Shit, you don’t have to explain,” he said hurriedly.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize,” he cut in.

  “But I feel like shit.”

  “Hey, man. Not your fault. I get it. Maybe next time?” His voice sounded so hopeful, so gentle. It didn’t help dislodge the knot in my stomach.

  “Yeah. Next time,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “You bet.” The phone went dead, the sound of Noah’s faked cheer echoing in my head.

  Dad had picked up the remote, and now he was the one flicking aimlessly from channel to channel. I sat and stared at the ever-changing screen, not registering anything outside a jumble of sounds and images. When my phone rang, I stood up and walked to the window.

  “Frank.”

  “What’s wrong, Emmett? Is it your dad?”

  I choked down my rising anger. “Frank, you told me Jimmy was coming over to sit with Dad today. I made plans—”

  “It’s Sunday. He wouldn’t come on a Sunday. He takes his mother—”

  “The sixth. You said the sixth. That’s today,” I cut in.

  Frank gave a dismissive snort. “I meant Monday, of course. Why would you think he’d come on the weekend?”

  “It’s what you told me,” I said, my voice rising dangerously.

  I could hear the impatience in his tone when he answered. “He has commitments, Emmett. We all do. He’ll be there on Monday. Like I said.”

  There was a click, and I was left holding my phone uselessly against my ear while Frank went back to his commitments. I tried to stem the rising tide of anger, but it was a hard fight.

  “I’m going to put the kettle on,” Dad said. He stood abruptly and pushed past me on his way into the kitchen.

  I put my phone down onto the table carefully, afraid that if I gave in to what I was feeling, I’d throw it across the room. It had honestly never occurred to Frank that I might have commitments too, that I might want something outside of watching Dad at every turn.

  I longed to call him back, to tell him I had a right to my own life, but I knew I wouldn’t, no matter how angry I felt. If he took offense, he could walk away forever; after all, he had no real obligation to my father outside of a shared history and some ancient, vaguely remembered common roots. I couldn’t afford to cut Dad’s last link to his previous life, no matter how much the injustice burned.

  I forced myself to swallow resentment and disappointment, and I walked into the kitchen to find Dad staring into space.

  “You want me to put the kettle on?” I asked.

  Dad seemed to snap out of his reverie and he nodded. “Make a cup for your mother too,” he said. “She’ll be back from church soon.”

  THANKS TO Dad, I could no longer visit Noah when he was at work, so we made a plan to meet at Starbucks as soon as his shift ended on Wednesday night. I thought it would be easier to get out of the house later in the evening, after Dad had been fed and settled for the night.

  When the final bell went off and we were stuffing our books into our backpacks, Foster sidled over.

  “You guys are coming to the Speedway on Saturday, right? It’s Midnight Madness.”

  Noah threw me a questioning look.

  “It’s the track a couple of miles outside town. They run a stock car series—”

  Foster practically elbowed me aside. “It’s totally rad. They have a whole program of races all evening leading up to the big one at midnight. Everybody will be there. And Owen’s dad buys us beers all night, and nobody even cares.”

  Noah’s face had brightened while Foster talked, and he raised an eyebrow, even as I was shaking my head.

  “You can’t miss it, man,” Foster declared. “It’s the highlight of the summer.” He turned to me and added, “I’ll pay for your ticket, Easy. No sweat.”

  I choked back my irritation at Foster’s tactless assumptions and turned my back on him. “You should go, Noah,” I said. “It’s a blast.”

  The last time I’d gone was the month before Jamie enlisted. He’d let Cal and me tag along with him and had paid for a full-access pass for both of us. He’d been the one sneaking beers, loading us up with hot dogs and fries, even putting on a bet for us with one of the shady bookmakers who ran an illicit gambling operation. We’d ended up ditching Jamie when we ran into Dad and his cronies and they wanted him to hang out with them. I wasn’t about to spend any more time with Dad than was absolutely necessary, and I wasn’t even sure the invitation had been extended to me and Cal. Jamie had been cool, pressing twenty dollars into my hand and arranging to meet us later to give us a ride home.

  Like everything else in Whitmore, the Speedway had been taken over by the rich newcomers, so now everything was more organized, more upmarket, less ours. But it was still a great place to hang out, and Midnight Madness was the best night of the racing season.

  “You can’t come?” Noah asked.

  “Not sure,” I murmured.

  Noah turned back toward Foster. “Nah. Count us out.”

  Foster looked incredulous, then he turned to glare at me. I don’t know if he’d planned on saying anything, but a look from Noah sent him on his way.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Noah said cheerfully. “Let’s talk it over tonight.”

  There was no point telling him there was nothing more to talk about. I couldn’t make the kinds of plans he wanted. I couldn’t commit to anything or confirm anything. My life wasn’t my own. I’d thought he understood that.

  DAD WAS on edge when I got home, and at first I didn’t even know whether he was himself or not. The snarl on his face told me one thing, but his first words confirmed that he was gone.

  “Where the hell have you been? Your mother hasn’t been home all day.”

  So, we were doing this. He relived certain days over and again, the days that had broken his heart the most—that Thursday morning when two uniformed soldiers turned up at the door with the news of his favorite son’s death; the Tuesday he’d stumbled blindly through Jam
ie’s funeral; the day his wife had walked out. Sometimes he recreated things almost exactly the way they had gone down. Sometimes he added his own unique spin. I never knew whether it was a sign he was getting worse that he changed the story to suit himself.

  “I’m calling Frank,” he said decisively. “He’ll know what to do.” He started walking purposefully toward the coffee table and his cell phone.

  “She left, Dad,” I said tiredly.

  He stopped midstride and turned to face me. “What do you mean, she left? Where did she go?”

  “She left us!”

  In the beginning I had tried to be patient, but I was too worn down and didn’t have the energy to go through this again. The first dozen times had been bad enough.

  “That’s crazy,” Dad said, his brow furrowing. “She went to the store to buy shaving foam. She said she’d be back in a few minutes. That was hours ago. Anything could have happened to her!”

  “That was just an excuse to get out of the house. She’s gone. She left a note.”

  “What are you talking about, a note?”

  I’d thrown the original out months ago, around the third time we’d done this dance. It had said so little that Dad didn’t believe it. It was a mark of how twisted our lives had become that the next time we ended up here, I didn’t think twice. After he’d calmed down, or totally forgotten, I can’t even remember which it was, I’d pulled out a pad of paper and with great care composed the note she should have written, instead of the one she had.

  Now, I stalked over to the desk in the corner where she had kept all the bills and random flyers, and I pulled open the drawer. Inside was the note I’d faked, creased and pawed over, blurred and faded with time and too much rough handling.

  I shoved it into Dad’s hands and turned my back so I wouldn’t have to see his hands trembling as he read it. By now, I could quote it from heart: how much she loved us, how it broke her heart to walk away, and the biggest lie of all, how she would come back as soon as she felt stronger.

  “She’s staying with a friend for a few weeks,” I said, my voice barely cracking. “She’ll be back soon.”