Every Other Weekend(61)

“Be sure to say stuff like that to my mom. She’ll think you’re more of an angel than she already does.”

“That’s a new one for me.”

“To be clear, angel is the word she uses because she hasn’t met you.”

“And what word would you use?”

“Jolene.”

“Hmm.” The way he said my name, all slow and confident, made me shiver in such a delicious way.

“So back to the dance. Maybe a little mauling?”

“That’s a firm no.”

“Wait till you see my suit,” he said, stretching and folding his arms behind his head. “We’ll see who wants a little mauling then.”

“Wait till you see my dress,” I said. “They put sharks on anything these days.”





   ADAM

The suit I owned was too small, like the-pants-were-halfway-up-my-calves too small.

I slid into the hallway to show Mom on Sunday night. “That’s not gonna work,” she said. “You’ll freeze to death.”

I extended my arms stiffly at my sides. The fabric was so tight that when I tried to bend my elbow, the seams started to pop. “Yeah, that’s the problem with this suit. It’s not warm enough.”

“I didn’t think you’d grown this much. Jeremy can still wear his suit from your cousin Becky’s wedding.”

“Jeremy could still wear his footed pajamas if he didn’t care about zipping them up.”

Mom looked up at me from where she’d been checking the hem of my pants. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that about your brother. He’s sensitive about his height. Please try.”

Mom had this way of making me feel like I’d just gotten caught burning our photo albums or something when she used that tone. It was so laden with hurt and disappointment that I probably would have hugged Jeremy in front of her if he’d been around instead of at a last-minute play rehearsal at somebody’s house. I was supposed to be making her feel better, not worse. I mumbled an apology and a request to go remove the ridiculously ill-fitting suit.

“Wait. Wait.” Mom popped into my room and came back carrying my phone. “Tell me how to take a photo so we can send it to Jolene.”

I looked down at myself. I’d somehow gotten the pants up, but the jacket wouldn’t close and the overall impression was that of the Hulk mid-transformation. “Ah, no?” I said. “I will not be doing that. That’s a horrible idea.”

“She’ll love it.”

She would, just not in the way I wanted. “You only know Jolene from cute pictures. Real-life Jolene would never stop laughing if she saw this.”

“Whoops!” Mom said as my phone made the sound that indicated a photo had been taken.

She let me take the phone from her and I quickly deleted the photo, noticing as I did that Mom’s smile dimmed.

“If your dad had sent me a picture like this when we were young, I would have thought it was adorable.”

I stopped trying to tug the constricting jacket off my shoulders with the limited range of motion it allowed. Every time she brought up Dad like nothing had changed, it was like a mosquito buzzing around my ear. Normally, I mentally swatted it away as an easily ignored annoyance, but I couldn’t dismiss the somewhat dreamy look that slipped onto her face at the mention of Dad.

We were standing in the upstairs hallway, the doors to all the bedrooms surrounding us—mine, Jeremy’s, hers and Dad’s. Greg’s. Our family used to sleep on the same floor, in the same house. Now we didn’t eat in the same city, much less at the same table. I was the one who didn’t get why, and I got it even less when she mentioned Dad with such easy longing. Dad did it sometimes, too—more than someone who had amicably split from his wife should. If they couldn’t stand each other or fought or were even indifferent, I’d understand. I wouldn’t agree or accept it, but I’d understand why they were living apart.

What they were doing didn’t make sense.

“I don’t get how you can talk about Dad like that, miss him, but still want him gone.” I didn’t talk to her the way I would have Dad. I wasn’t struggling not to yell or lose my temper. I could never talk to her that way.

“Oh, Adam.”

“No. Mom. I’m trying to understand. Jolene... Her parents are going to throw parties when the other dies. She never has to wonder why they aren’t still married—she wonders how they ever got together in the first place. I know why you and Dad got married. I’ve known it every day of my life. What I don’t know is how you can want to be apart when you still love him...when he still loves you...?”

“This is hard for me.”

I almost asked her if she thought she was the only one it was hard for. “Then why are you doing this?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “Because we make each other sad.” She swallowed. “After Greg... It nearly destroyed us, I know you know that.” She stood and took my hand in both of hers. “We made it day by day, hour by hour. Sometimes minute by minute. It was all we could do.”

I did remember. Waking up at night to the sounds of Mom crying and, worse, Dad crying with her. Holidays where one or both of them would leave the room and not come back for hours sometimes. The way she was squeezing my hand as she spoke.