You Know Me Well(52)

THURSDAY





18

Kate

It’s a normal Thursday morning in my kitchen. The coffeepot hisses and puffs as it always does; we sit at the round breakfast table as we always do. Mom, as always, reads the business section while Dad, as always, reads about the foreign news first and then cheers himself up with Arts and Entertainment.

We eat toast and fruit and yogurt.

We reach over one another for the box of half-and-half or the jar of honey.

Periodically, we check the bright red clock until one of us says, “Seven thirty,” at which point we’ll collect and rinse the dishes, put the perishables back in the refrigerator, and walk to our three cars, parked side by side in our wide suburban driveway. I can’t even explain the comfort I take in this routine. The comfort could fill the sky—it’s that immense.

But I haven’t been able to enjoy it for months, because of this thing I’ve been carrying. This anxiety. This crushing, terrible dread. This weight I decided to shed yesterday in the shadow room, holding hands with Mark and Violet. We were like a paper chain of children. We were substance and shadow. We were heat and clutched hands, and wonder, and love. And that clarity I got—it was breathtaking, it took me by surprise, and then it let me go.

So maybe a normal Thursday morning at the breakfast table is not the right time to do this, but I’m doing it anyway.

“Mom?” I say. “Dad? Can I talk to you guys for a second?”

They lower their sections of the paper.

“Of course,” Dad says.

“You can have more than a second,” Mom adds, smiling even though I can see her nervousness.

“I’ve been having a hard time lately.”

“Something’s happened with Lehna, hasn’t it?” Dad says. “The house hasn’t been this quiet since you two met.”

“Shh,” Mom says. “Let her tell us, sweetheart.”

“Right. Go on, Katie.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Lehna and I are going through some stuff. That’s part of it, maybe, I don’t know. But what I’m really struggling with is college.”

Mom cocks her head. Dad takes his glasses off—very, very slowly—and presses on the spot between his eyebrows.

“I don’t want to go,” I say. “Not yet.”

“Hmmmm,” Mom says.

Dad keeps pressing between his brows. Harder and harder.

“Can you … elaborate?” Mom asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. I just want to defer for a year. Every time I think about leaving I panic. I know it’s normal to be nervous, that it’s huge—to leave home, fend for myself—so it’s expected to feel kind of shaky about it. But I should be a little bit excited, too, right? And I’m not. I’m not at all. I can’t even think about it because I hate the idea so much.”

“You hate the idea,” Mom says.

“I do. I hate it. Dad, you’re stressing me out. You’re going to bruise your face.”

“I don’t even,” Dad says. “I don’t even know…”

“I think what your father is saying is that we need a little time to sit with this.”

I have no idea what’s going on inside her head. Her voice is calm; she’s even smiling. But she works in the Human Resources department at an investment firm. She’s used to telling people what they’ve done wrong in a way that makes them feel good about themselves. She’s used to firing people and making it sound like an opportunity.

“Fair,” I say. “It’s seven thirty anyway.”

We all rise. Dad puts his glasses back on.

“We love you, Katie,” Dad says.

“Kate,” Mom corrects.

“Right,” he says. “Kate. We’ll pick this up later on, okay? When we have more time.”

I nod. We clear the dishes and we rinse them. We grab our bags and hoist them over our shoulders. We walk single file out the door and to our three cars.

“Just a year,” I say, before we all slide in.

My mother nods. My father sighs.

And then they pull away, and I hear my phone ringing from the back. I haven’t left yet, so I jump out and get my bag, and I look at the caller.

Ryan. His name on my screen takes me by surprise. We haven’t texted since last year when we were working on the lit mag cover. I had forgotten that I even had his number.

“You answered,” he says. “Are you with him?”

“Mark?” I say. “No. I’m on my way to pick him up.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Um … getting ready for school I’d imagine?”

“Not right this second. That’s not what I meant. Or maybe I did. Right now he’s probably finishing his homework for first period. Or brushing his teeth? He brushes his teeth a lot. Like a lot a lot. Or maybe that’s just because he thought we might be making out and he was trying to be prepared. I never thought about that, but it’s probably what it was.”

“Hey,” I say. “Are you okay?”

“No. I don’t know. I’m tired. I didn’t sleep.”

“At all?”

“He saw the poem, right? I mean the rest of it, right? I know he did. I can just feel it. And his phone was off. Off at midnight, off at two, off at five, off at seven. It’s just been totally … off.”