Where We Belong

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  “Well, she’s been waiting breathlessly for me to show some interest in boys. She must have noticed how far behind schedule I am. I just don’t think it’s that hard a guess. You know?”

  “I guess our moms know us. Just set that box down here in the back bedroom, and we can leave it here until you get the hardware. If you want, you can put your things from the trunk in it, and I’ll guard it with my life until we get it locked up.”

  “Thanks. But my mom’s been plowing through it, anyway.”

  He looked into my face for a minute. I couldn’t decide what he was thinking.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Starving. I was hoping my mom would ask. But instead, we just had this nasty fight.”

  “Come sit in the kitchen. I’ll cook. I’m hungry, too.”

  I followed him in. Watching him. Tracking something in him that felt a little… different.

  “You seem happy,” I said as I sat down at the table.

  “Do I? How would some cold shrimp with cocktail sauce be for a snack? While I’m cooking?”

  “It would be absolutely amazing.”

  “Done. I just have to thaw them under running water for a couple of minutes.”

  As he stood at the sink doing that, he said, “Happy. Yeah. I guess so. I just felt like… I’m not referencing this correctly. Rachel called last night. Like I said. It felt different. I can’t explain it. It felt like something had shifted. She didn’t actually say anything different from before. But there’s always this… I don’t know. I don’t want to say wall. It’s trite. But there’s always some kind of structure that keeps us at a little bit of a distance from each other. And it’s like she just stepped over it. Or something. Might be totally my imagination.”

  “I don’t think it is.”

  He looked back at me. Curious. But only mildly, I think.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Just an observation. We all go around saying we don’t know where we stand with other people, because we don’t know what they’re thinking. Which is true. But we can feel where we stand with them. But then we get back into our heads and start second-guessing what we feel and get ourselves all confused and tangled up again.”

  “That’s exactly what I did. I sat up most of the night deciding I only thought it was that way, because I wanted it to be.”

  “But you wanted it to be that way for fifty years, and you never thought it was until last night.”

  He reached up into the cupboard and took down a fancy cut-glass… I didn’t know what you’d call it. Like a cross between a bowl and a glass. Like something you’d use to serve ice cream or a parfait. If you were fancier than anybody at my house. He arranged about ten of these big shrimp with their tails hooked over the edge of the glass and poured red cocktail sauce into the middle.

  “I like it better your way,” he said, setting the glass in front of me. “So I’m going with what you said. I felt like something was different because it was.”

  I picked up a shrimp by its tail, bit off almost all of it, chewed three or four times, and sighed a very contented sigh.

  “I feel bad about one thing, though,” he said. “It doesn’t feel fair. But if she’s going to come up and visit more often, I’ll be asking you and your family to scram more often. Might add up to an awful lot of camping.”

  “It’s okay. Some things are more important than others.”

  I also knew that, if things worked out between the two of them, we’d be looking for a new place to live. Especially if I was right that Sophie was starting to revert to her old, pre-Rigby self again. Paul wouldn’t want all that noise while he was trying to have a nice life with Rachel, and I didn’t blame him.

  And also, I’d known it before I ever went down and talked to her. I knew, before I even started trying, that their complete success would go hand in hand with our complete eviction.

  But some things are more important than others.

  By the time I got back upstairs, my mom and Sophie were in bed on the foldout couch. They seemed to be asleep.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, but a cautious one. My mom was not above sand-bagging me out of nowhere. It had happened before.

  But I went into my little bed area, and changed into my pajamas, and nothing moved. So I figured she really was asleep.

  It took a long time, because my head was such a whirl of thoughts, but eventually I got some sleep myself.

  I woke with a start, feeling something touching my head.

  I let out a little noise and half sat up.

  But then I heard my mom say, “It’s me, honey. It’s only me.”

  I lay back down again, and she stroked my hair some more. I looked at her shape in the moonlight and wondered how I’d gotten to be her honey again. It had been a long time since I’d been her honey. And I’d never been further from it than last night when we went to bed.

  But I had no reason to ruin a decent moment. So I kept shut.

  After a while, she said, “Andy knows more than I do. But I’ll tell you what little I know.”

  Andy was my dad’s cousin. We hadn’t seen him since my dad got killed. At least, I hadn’t. Not once. This place in my gut tried to tell me I should tense up now. Because there was truth coming. But I never did. Because whatever was coming, it just couldn’t be any worse than what had been there all along.

  Except…

  “If he died some really bad way, don’t tell me details about it. I don’t want to know that part.”

  “I thought you said you read the newspaper articles.”

  “No. I didn’t exactly say that. I said they came up in a search. I had a friend read them for me and spare me the tough stuff.”

  “I’m relieved.”

  “That bad, huh?” Then, fast, before she could answer, “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Just tell me anything you know about why.”

  “He got himself into a big hole with a loan shark. I don’t even know how big, because I tried not to ask. It scared me. And I got so mad at him. I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t just stop. He adored me, and he adored you, and I felt like we should be enough to make him stop. But then I talked to a therapist after he died, and I guess it’s not that easy.”

  “I didn’t know you went to a therapist.”

  “Went to one and sent you to one.”

  “I have no memory of that.”

  “You only went about five times. That was all I could afford.”

  “Anyway, go on with what you were saying.”

  She sighed. Like she’d been hoping she’d never have to.

  “I think if he were here right now, I’d be more understanding. I’d sure try to be, anyway. But I was not understanding at the time. I was really resentful. I don’t want you to think he wasn’t a good guy, your dad. He was. He wasn’t a scumbag, or a loser. He was a nice guy, but it was like a sickness with him. Anyway. I started not really wanting to know how deep in he was. But after it happened, I talked to Andy to try to get more information. And the police talked to him, of course. I guess your dad told Andy he had a plan to try to get the money. Because if he didn’t, they were going to break both his knees, and if that didn’t work, I guess they’d made some kind of threat toward us. You know. His family. So… I don’t know what the plan was, exactly. But I guess it had to do with double-crossing somebody you shouldn’t mess with. And hopefully not getting caught. Andy said he didn’t have all the details, but maybe he just didn’t want the police to have them.”

  “But he wanted the killers to get caught, right?”

  “Yeah, but… I have a funny feeling if we knew the whole story, it might not look so good for Andy, either. He might’ve gotten in some hot water, too. Anyway, I never really pushed him that hard. Because… what would the point have been? It’s not like I needed to know how stupid a plan it was. Stupid enough to get him killed. That’s all you really need to know about the quality of the plan.”

  We didn’t talk for a minut
e. I kept quiet, in case there was more. She was still stroking my hair. And it felt good. Not so much physically good. More like good that we could both be on the same side for a minute. Not always facing off like two sparring partners in a ring.

  “I wish I’d known that the gambling killed him,” I said. “So I’d know to steer clear of it myself.”

  “You’re not a gambler.”

  I could have argued. At first, I wanted to. I wanted to get a little mad and say, “See? You really don’t know me at all.” But I was so tired of us being mad at each other. It took so damn much energy. Besides. If she didn’t know me, that was at least as much my fault as it was hers.

  “If I handled it wrong,” she said, “I apologize. It was a horrible time for me. It probably was a mistake. Probably everything I did around that time was backwards and wrong. But I was doing my best with what I had at the time. I hope you can understand that. I hope you can accept my apology.”

  “I accept your apology.”

  “I’ll buy you a new trunk.”

  “No, it’s okay. Paul’s got a big wooden box I can use. I just have to get a hasp and a padlock, and he’ll put in on for me. It’s a nice box.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

  I could tell she would have liked it better if she could’ve solved the problem for me. She was probably getting tired of Paul being my go-to guy. But she didn’t say anything more about that.

  She stopped stroking my hair. We just sat that way for a time, in the little sliver of moonlight that came through the high window over my bed. I was thinking we felt done. But she wasn’t leaving. So maybe not.

  Then she said, “You know I love you no matter what, right? Even if you’re not anything like me. And no matter what you… I mean, no matter who you grow up to be. And how you…”

  I waited, but she seemed to have run out of steam.

  Not to argue with her, more to help her finish the thought, I said, “Can we just say it out loud already? ‘Angie, I love you even if you’re gay’?”

  A strange little pause.

  “Angie, I love you even if you’re gay.”

  “Thanks. I love you, too.”

  She kissed me on the temple.

  Then she went back to bed.

  The inside of my head felt a little heavy when I joined her at the breakfast table. I had a dull headache. I think I’d been missing too much sleep.

  Sophie was sitting at the table, alone in her own little world, a sausage link flapping in one of her hands.

  If nothing else, we’d been eating better.

  “Scrambled eggs and sausage on the stove,” my mom said. Artificially cheerful.

  “Oh,” I said.

  I’m not sure why I’d bothered to sit down.

  “Want me to get them for you?”

  “No. I’ll get up.”

  “You look tired.”

  “I am tired. I haven’t slept straight through the night for days.”

  “Oh. Sorry about that. Or, at least… my part in that. The last-night part. You sit. I’ll bring you your breakfast for a change. Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  I watched Sophie for a minute, then fiddled with my fork for another one.

  “Just to give you fair warning,” I said, “I think we have another camping trip coming up soon.”

  I expected an explosion of objections.

  Instead I got a tiny little, “Uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh, what?”

  “The queen is coming around a lot more often, isn’t she?”

  “The queen? Why in God’s name would you call her that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess because everything grinds to a halt when Her Highness deigns to visit.”

  I was more than a little stunned.

  “Do you not like Rachel or something? Because I like her. A lot.”

  A plate of eggs and sausage appeared in front of me. A mug of coffee followed. I spooned in sugar while I was waiting for her to answer.

  She sat down with a grunt and then sighed.

  “I don’t even know her,” she said.

  “Right. That’s what I was just thinking. So where’s all this bad-attitude stuff coming from all of a sudden?”

  She sighed again.

  I poured milk into my coffee and took a big, long swallow. It went down just right. Tasted good, and felt good, and fit what I needed. Like a mild drug. Well. I guess that’s what it was.

  “It’s just… I think she’s interested in him,” she said. All whiney, like a teenager moping about dating problems.

  “That would be great if she was.”

  “Great? How would it be great? Sophie is getting fussier and louder every day, and every time she comes to visit, we have to clear out. Are you trying to tell me if she moves in, we won’t be moving out?”

  “No. We probably would be.”

  “So why is it great?”

  “Because he’s lonely.”

  “I don’t want to move! This place is rent-free!”

  By the time she got to the word free, things had gotten a little screechy. Enough that, if I’d expected more, I’d have been tempted to put a hand over my mom-side ear.

  I guess I didn’t realize she’d been so panicky about it.

  Then I wondered why I wasn’t. Under the circumstances.

  “He’s been alone just about all his life. And now he doesn’t even have his dog anymore. He’s almost sixty-eight. If this doesn’t pan out for him, how many more chances do you think he’ll get? He deserves to be happy, you know.”

  “Well, excuse me for being more concerned for us than for him.”

  But, honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could excuse that in her. Considering everything he’d done for us.

  “The point was to stay here and save money,” I said. “So we can afford another place. Our own place. It would be nice to have a bedroom with a door that closes. This was always supposed to be temporary. And you said you’ve been saving money—”

  “I have.”

  “You said you could save a thousand a month.”

  “Not that much.”

  “But we’re saving fifteen hundred a month over where we were before.”

  “Life intervenes, kiddo.”

  It was not the first time she’d said that. I hadn’t liked it any of the other times, either.

  “How much do we have?”

  “A hair under twelve thousand.”

  “Which is, like, half of what I thought. But at least it’s enough for a down payment on something. I think.”

  “You’re forgetting two things, Angie. One of them is sitting right here at the table with you, eating link sausage. The other is that I have no credit. Which I’ve told you before. Every time you bring up buying instead of renting, I tell you that. And you always manage to conveniently forget.”

  “I didn’t forget.”

  “You have some magic trick in your pocket I know nothing about?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And that would be…?”

  “That would be a friend who worked for forty-five years as a loan officer at a bank.”

  She wrinkled her nose and forehead. Took a sip of coffee. Shook her head.

  “I don’t think it’s a ‘who you know’ kind of proposition. More of a ‘how much you have.’”

  “I just thought he could give us some advice on how to get a loan.”

  “I’m sure he will. He’ll say, ‘Start with good credit.’”

  I shook my head and said nothing. I had that “this is getting us nowhere” feeling again. It hit me that I got that feeling a lot around my mom. If it had been a day or two earlier, I might have jumped up and gone blasting away from the table in disgust. But that was getting old.

  Besides. I was hungry.

  Rachel showed up four days later. And only stayed two days.

  On the day she left again, my mom had dropped me off at the apartment on her way to work. Partly because the Special Ed van still met Sophie there in the m
orning and dropped her off there in the afternoon. Partly because, if I hung out there during the day, I’d know when Rachel was gone, and whether we needed to camp another night. And it didn’t matter if I was there. They couldn’t hear me up there, and it didn’t change things for them at all.

  It was Sophie. Sophie was the wild card.

  I went upstairs and took a shower, and then poured myself some cereal. Before I even finished eating it, I heard Rachel’s car pull out of the garage. I looked out the window, hoping they were both going somewhere.

  It was just Rachel.

  I sat back down at the table and tried to think whether it would be okay to ask Paul how it went. I never managed to figure that out. My logic just kept going around in circles. It also occurred to me that maybe she was just running to the store or something and was coming back.

  The phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  I grabbed it up on the second ring.

  It was Paul.

  “You’re there,” he said. “Great.”

  “You sound happy.”

  “I am happy. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

  “I don’t know. It was such a short visit.”

  “Good one, though. Come fishing with me.”

  “Okay. Is there something to tell here? I mean, are you going to tell me what happened? I mean, if something happened. I’m not saying anything did. Just that… you sound really happy.”

  “Meet me at the garage,” he said.

  I did.

  We packed up our gear and drove to one of those tiny, cold mountain lakes.

  But while we were doing all that, he never told me what happened.

  We were standing in a lake up to our waists—well, my waist—and had been for some time when he said, “I think I feel weird talking about it.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me what happened?”

  “I didn’t say that. Probably I am. I just feel weird about it.”

  “So what do you want me to do while I’m waiting? Just fish and shut up? Or am I supposed to be trying to drag it out of you?”

  “That’s a good question. I’m not sure.”

  I was looking at his face when he said it, and I laughed out loud. Then he wanted to know why, and I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t exactly ask why. Not out loud. He just gave me a look that I could tell meant he wanted to know. I thought it was interesting that we could do things like that without talking.