Devine Intervention by Martha Brockenbrough Page A

talk about?”
    â€œTruth?”
    She nodded. The train whistle blew again, and the lights flickered as we hit the tunnel.
    â€œNever thought about my future because I knew I didn’t have one.”
    Heidi stared at me like I’d just sprouted horns.
    â€œI’ve never met anyone who didn’t think about the future before.” Her face was a big question mark. Darcy Parker would’ve been proud. “It was pretty much a rule in my house. You saw how it was. Good grades. Impressive activities. Check and check. It was all so we could be successful. All I ever really wanted to do was draw, but you know what my parents thought of that. I don’t even think they noticed when I stopped showing them my stuff. But even then, I still thought about the future as this thing, this thing with possibilities, this thing that would actually happen at some point.”
    She got real quiet.
    I poked her in the arm a little.
    â€œWell, it wasn’t like I wasn’t thinking about anything. Just not the future. Best I could do was have a good time as long as the ride lasted.”
    She put my hand back on the table. “Did you?”
    â€œActually, yeah. I just didn’t realize it at the time. But what would plans for my future have done to make my life any better? What was the point? I saw what Pop’s day was like and didn’t want any part of it. He got up before sunrise. Went to work at the base. Busted his butt fixing planes. Came home. Drank beer, watched America’s Deadliest Animal Attacks or whatever on TV, fell asleep in his La-Z-Boy. On weekends, he’d fix stuff that got broke around the house or work on his model train set, which we used to do together until that one time I spilled Coke on a switch tower and he yelled at me until his voice kicked out. I kept my distance after that, and so did he. It was like I broke the switch tower and he broke what was left of us. Every so often he’d ask me about homework or getting a job, but we both knew we were just going through the motions, and that there was nothing much ahead for me, less even than he had.”
    She sat there watching me and we finally blasted out of the tunnel. My nose started to sting a little bit, but I just rubbed it and kept on going. I was glad she didn’t ask me any more about Howard or rehab or Pop. I didn’t have any answers about why she couldn’t Commune with the living, or why she hadn’t flown up yet. I wished I knew where to look for the handbook.
    I felt fully exhausted all of a sudden. “A life like my pop’s was gonna be as good as I could get — and probably not even that much on account of I could never live up to his way of doing things. Guy couldn’t even stand being around me.”
    â€œYou don’t really believe all that, do you? Your dad loved you.”
    â€œNope,” I said. “Trust me, there wasn’t a lot to love. I usually made a mess of things.”
    â€œAll parents love their kids. It’s a rule.”
    â€œMaybe in your world. But in mine, no way. I was watching him once when you were taking a nap. He was at work, talking with his buddies, who were all going on about the dumb stuff their kids had done. His supervisor was all, ‘But your boy, he kind of won on that score, right? No offense or anything.’
    â€œMy dad got this look on his face, the one he used to get when I’d flask up really bad, where it looked like he was two parts shocked, three parts disappointed, and one part like he wanted to punch someone. And he said, ‘Yeah, guess so. Shoulda probably put “took him long enough” on his grave, right?’ I shooped out of there real fast after that. Haven’t watched him since.”
    Heidi’s mouth hung open a little bit, and I tried not to stare at her lips. There was something about the way the train lights hit that top part of her lip, the part where it dipped under her nose. It