the world people are swimming in creeks. They’re riding bikes, maybe giving a friend a lift on the front handlebars. Somewhere out there a boy is gearing up to kiss a girl for the very first time. Maybe on a camp tennis court, in the fading light of day, to a chorus of just-stirring crickets.
Outside someone is walking toward something.
For something.
Because of something.
I don’t mean to romanticize the messed-up world of my brother, but any way you cut it, as I sit in here running the scanner over bar codes and calculating change for a twenty, I’m wasting the minutes away.
And then I have this revelation that is so totally not a revelation, because I’m pretty sure revelations are supposed to rock your world to the core and this is the most obvious thing ever, but here goes: There’s more to do. More I can do. There is more than this.
I race to Frozurt on my lunch break.
I’ve discovered I’m able to stomach the peach, if it’s the price of spending time with Pearl. She readies my order when she sees me walk in. Granola on top.
“You better eat quick,” she says. “I don’t think Il Duce much likes your lunchtime visits.”
“So what?”
“So we don’t want to make him angry. Nobody likes Il Duce when he’s angry.”
I can see him sitting in the back office, in a swivel chair, talking on the phone and folding paper airplanes.
Pearl leans over the counter. “How’s your day going?”
This isn’t idle talk. She’s asking something bigger. How is
this
day going?
The fifth since he’s been gone.
I tell her how I woke to an empty house. It’s not unusual for Abba to rise early and head in to work. He’s not the type to linger over the paper and a cup of coffee. But today Mom was gone too. She left a note on the table.
Off to interview for a freelance thing
.
Waffles in the fridge
.
So I tell Pearl that waffles don’t belong in the fridge, and Mom doesn’t belong at a job interview. Both disrupt the natural world order.
“I guess it’s time,” Pearl says. “She’s no longer got any business sitting home worrying. And besides, the pay is lousy.”
“She’s got plenty of reason to sit home and worry.”
“She might, but fortunately, she doesn’t know it.”
“But I do.”
“Yes, you do.”
“And I’m going to do something about it.”
When I get home from work there’s a letter waiting for me.
The letter is from Christina Crowley.
I take it up to my room and lock the door behind me. I climb out onto the roof. I hold it in my hands and stare at my name in her handwriting.
I don’t want to open it right away.
I want to know what it feels like to sit with an unopened letter from Christina Crowley in my lap.
I slowly slide my finger under the back flap of the envelope and take out a single sheet of white paper. I unfold it with the precision experts must use in dismantling a bomb.
What do I expect?
A whiff of perfume? A lipstick kiss? A declaration of her undying love in feminine cursive?
Or maybe what I’m hoping for is all those sad little things—perfume, kiss, cursive—not for me, but for my brother, like somehow she’d find it necessary to communicate to me that her love for him didn’t die when he chose to leave her for a war.
What I read instead is a note. All business: Here’s how to reach me in Washington if you need to. Here’s my e-mail, my new cell phone number and the address where I’ll be living, it’s a studio in Georgetown, with Max.
On day eight I go for a run.
Mom started a new job. She’s doing graphic design for an advertising firm. Two months is all she’d commit to. By then she figures, Bo will be back, brand-new digital camera filled up with pictures of the Appalachian Trail. By then she figures, maybe he’ll need her.
Dusk’s arrival hasn’t done much to cool off the day. About every other house has its sprinkler system on, and I go out of my way to run through the drops of water, which disappear from my skin as
Outside someone is walking toward something.
For something.
Because of something.
I don’t mean to romanticize the messed-up world of my brother, but any way you cut it, as I sit in here running the scanner over bar codes and calculating change for a twenty, I’m wasting the minutes away.
And then I have this revelation that is so totally not a revelation, because I’m pretty sure revelations are supposed to rock your world to the core and this is the most obvious thing ever, but here goes: There’s more to do. More I can do. There is more than this.
I race to Frozurt on my lunch break.
I’ve discovered I’m able to stomach the peach, if it’s the price of spending time with Pearl. She readies my order when she sees me walk in. Granola on top.
“You better eat quick,” she says. “I don’t think Il Duce much likes your lunchtime visits.”
“So what?”
“So we don’t want to make him angry. Nobody likes Il Duce when he’s angry.”
I can see him sitting in the back office, in a swivel chair, talking on the phone and folding paper airplanes.
Pearl leans over the counter. “How’s your day going?”
This isn’t idle talk. She’s asking something bigger. How is
this
day going?
The fifth since he’s been gone.
I tell her how I woke to an empty house. It’s not unusual for Abba to rise early and head in to work. He’s not the type to linger over the paper and a cup of coffee. But today Mom was gone too. She left a note on the table.
Off to interview for a freelance thing
.
Waffles in the fridge
.
So I tell Pearl that waffles don’t belong in the fridge, and Mom doesn’t belong at a job interview. Both disrupt the natural world order.
“I guess it’s time,” Pearl says. “She’s no longer got any business sitting home worrying. And besides, the pay is lousy.”
“She’s got plenty of reason to sit home and worry.”
“She might, but fortunately, she doesn’t know it.”
“But I do.”
“Yes, you do.”
“And I’m going to do something about it.”
When I get home from work there’s a letter waiting for me.
The letter is from Christina Crowley.
I take it up to my room and lock the door behind me. I climb out onto the roof. I hold it in my hands and stare at my name in her handwriting.
I don’t want to open it right away.
I want to know what it feels like to sit with an unopened letter from Christina Crowley in my lap.
I slowly slide my finger under the back flap of the envelope and take out a single sheet of white paper. I unfold it with the precision experts must use in dismantling a bomb.
What do I expect?
A whiff of perfume? A lipstick kiss? A declaration of her undying love in feminine cursive?
Or maybe what I’m hoping for is all those sad little things—perfume, kiss, cursive—not for me, but for my brother, like somehow she’d find it necessary to communicate to me that her love for him didn’t die when he chose to leave her for a war.
What I read instead is a note. All business: Here’s how to reach me in Washington if you need to. Here’s my e-mail, my new cell phone number and the address where I’ll be living, it’s a studio in Georgetown, with Max.
On day eight I go for a run.
Mom started a new job. She’s doing graphic design for an advertising firm. Two months is all she’d commit to. By then she figures, Bo will be back, brand-new digital camera filled up with pictures of the Appalachian Trail. By then she figures, maybe he’ll need her.
Dusk’s arrival hasn’t done much to cool off the day. About every other house has its sprinkler system on, and I go out of my way to run through the drops of water, which disappear from my skin as
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