airplane. Worry lets you hold on so that you, so that no one , falls.
“I know,” she continues. “Worry makes you feel like you’re doing something, but it eats at you.”
But then again, worry can propel you to actually do something. Worry can propel you to make a plan for when global catastrophe strikes, a plan that involves our basic, most simple life-giving seeds such as corn, wheat, rice; a plan that unfolds inside the deepest layer of an icy mountain, in a structure constructed of reinforced concrete with rock caverns and doors of steel, situated high enough to allow for major climate changes and a seventy-meter rise in sea level—the equivalent of the simultaneous melting of all the ice in the Antarctic, the Arctic, and Greenland. Worry is not all bad. But we’re not at that part of the story yet.
“Are you saying that you don’t worry, Jenny? You should see your face.” I don’t particularly like Jenny noticing the way I operate. I don’t want her hands tinkering with my personal machinery. It’s time to switch the focus to her, and quick.
“Do as I say, not as I do.” She chuckles.
“Dad obviously doesn’t take after you. He’s all about life in the moment, cha-cha-cha.”
“It’s all that—” She puts her thumb and two fingers to her lips and inhales.
“You know about it?”
“Since he was sixteen.”
“I hate it,” I say.
“I hate it too,” she says.
Our mutual defection makes me feel bad. “He’s not irresponsible about everything. I mean, he’s a good father.”
Jenny has her bare feet up on the coffee table. She folds her arms, purses her lips, giving her face a bunch of little wrinkles. She’s keeping her mouth shut.
“He’s consistently inconsistent,” I try, and when she’s still silent, I say, “Fifty-three percent of people ages thirty-nine to fifty have smoked pot. Thirty-six percent of those are chronic users.”
She raises her eyebrows. “They say it freezes your mental growth at the age you start using it.”
I think about this. “So, he’s perpetually sixteen?”
“Well.”
“I love him no matter what,” I say.
“ I love him no matter what,” she says.
I may have a lot in common with this stranger after all. I almost feel a bond between us. Female solidarity, all that.
“What’s that one?” I nod toward the large painting in front of us, four brown smears rising toward blue. “Trees? Earth, life, renewal?”
“I repeat myself.” She shrugs in apology.
“Why did I not know you all these years?” I ask.
“Misunderstandings.”
I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t. Something is poking my back in that couch. It’s jabbing me. I feel around. Sticking out between the couch cushions is a rawhide bone. I hold it up.
Jenny shrugs in apology again, and then she smiles. “He loves to bury.”
It’s kind of funny, but I’m not ready to forgive Vito yet. He’s forgotten all about his crime spree and lies in a doughnut circle by Jenny’s chair, farting something awful every now and then.
“He is who he is,” Jenny says.
* * *
My father calls me that night. Jenny and I are just putting away dinner dishes. I look down at my phone, expecting it to be Meg. She’s left me three messages today, each increasing in panic. Something about Dillon breaking up with me. The messages make me feel like I’m watching a predictable movie. But it isn’t Meg.
“Speak of the devil,” I answer. Jenny was just telling me about my father in junior high—how he made a chessboard in wood shop and then decided he was going to go pro, studying books like Bobby Fischer’s Master Class . I head for the stairs, plugging one ear as if there’s a racket over here, even though Jenny has stopped rattling dishes in an obvious attempt to listen in. In the blue-white room, I shut the door.
“It’s about time,” I say. But there’s no response. I think maybe he’s hung up. “Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“What the hell, Dad?
“I know,” she continues. “Worry makes you feel like you’re doing something, but it eats at you.”
But then again, worry can propel you to actually do something. Worry can propel you to make a plan for when global catastrophe strikes, a plan that involves our basic, most simple life-giving seeds such as corn, wheat, rice; a plan that unfolds inside the deepest layer of an icy mountain, in a structure constructed of reinforced concrete with rock caverns and doors of steel, situated high enough to allow for major climate changes and a seventy-meter rise in sea level—the equivalent of the simultaneous melting of all the ice in the Antarctic, the Arctic, and Greenland. Worry is not all bad. But we’re not at that part of the story yet.
“Are you saying that you don’t worry, Jenny? You should see your face.” I don’t particularly like Jenny noticing the way I operate. I don’t want her hands tinkering with my personal machinery. It’s time to switch the focus to her, and quick.
“Do as I say, not as I do.” She chuckles.
“Dad obviously doesn’t take after you. He’s all about life in the moment, cha-cha-cha.”
“It’s all that—” She puts her thumb and two fingers to her lips and inhales.
“You know about it?”
“Since he was sixteen.”
“I hate it,” I say.
“I hate it too,” she says.
Our mutual defection makes me feel bad. “He’s not irresponsible about everything. I mean, he’s a good father.”
Jenny has her bare feet up on the coffee table. She folds her arms, purses her lips, giving her face a bunch of little wrinkles. She’s keeping her mouth shut.
“He’s consistently inconsistent,” I try, and when she’s still silent, I say, “Fifty-three percent of people ages thirty-nine to fifty have smoked pot. Thirty-six percent of those are chronic users.”
She raises her eyebrows. “They say it freezes your mental growth at the age you start using it.”
I think about this. “So, he’s perpetually sixteen?”
“Well.”
“I love him no matter what,” I say.
“ I love him no matter what,” she says.
I may have a lot in common with this stranger after all. I almost feel a bond between us. Female solidarity, all that.
“What’s that one?” I nod toward the large painting in front of us, four brown smears rising toward blue. “Trees? Earth, life, renewal?”
“I repeat myself.” She shrugs in apology.
“Why did I not know you all these years?” I ask.
“Misunderstandings.”
I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t. Something is poking my back in that couch. It’s jabbing me. I feel around. Sticking out between the couch cushions is a rawhide bone. I hold it up.
Jenny shrugs in apology again, and then she smiles. “He loves to bury.”
It’s kind of funny, but I’m not ready to forgive Vito yet. He’s forgotten all about his crime spree and lies in a doughnut circle by Jenny’s chair, farting something awful every now and then.
“He is who he is,” Jenny says.
* * *
My father calls me that night. Jenny and I are just putting away dinner dishes. I look down at my phone, expecting it to be Meg. She’s left me three messages today, each increasing in panic. Something about Dillon breaking up with me. The messages make me feel like I’m watching a predictable movie. But it isn’t Meg.
“Speak of the devil,” I answer. Jenny was just telling me about my father in junior high—how he made a chessboard in wood shop and then decided he was going to go pro, studying books like Bobby Fischer’s Master Class . I head for the stairs, plugging one ear as if there’s a racket over here, even though Jenny has stopped rattling dishes in an obvious attempt to listen in. In the blue-white room, I shut the door.
“It’s about time,” I say. But there’s no response. I think maybe he’s hung up. “Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“What the hell, Dad?
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