Every Other Weekend(82)

I made a face and went back to watching my wall. Though I did want some. I hadn’t eaten all day, and the sight of food, even ice cream when I was chilled through from sitting on thin carpet for hours, looked really good. “Are you seriously doing this right now?”

“It’s really good ice cream. It’s got candy bars chopped up in it.”

“Why do you care?”

He didn’t answer, just continued eating. And it suddenly seemed like the best offer I’d had all day, so I stood up, leaving the door to Dad’s empty apartment behind me, and literally took candy from a stranger.



* * *



I came to a dead halt the second I stepped into his apartment. My eyes went so wide that I’d swear my eyelashes passed my eyebrows. Like a magnet, I flew to the nearest shelf in front of me and started dragging my hands down row after row of movies. Every wall in the apartment was lined with them. Thousands.

I let out a laugh.

“Yeah, occupational hazard,” Guy said, coming up behind me. “I’m a film critic and—”

I tore my eyes from the shelves and spun to find him right behind me. “You’re the film critic?”

“I’m a film critic. The film critic? That’s got to be Roger Ebert.”

“No, I mean...” My eyes widened impossibly farther. “I’ve been waiting to meet you. I heard that a film critic moved in and... I love movies.”

“Yeah?” Guy said, his lips curving up. “Guess it’s a good thing we found each other.”





   ADAM

My arm went numb all the way down to my fingertips before pain crashed back up, all courtesy of the dead-arm Jeremy just gave me. The worst part was that I couldn’t hit him back. It was all part of the moronic agreement we’d reached to help reunite our family.

The first thing I had to do was stop being a jerk to Dad. Anytime I started, or Jeremy perceived that I was starting, he got a free shot.

Jeremy grinned at me and readied his fist for the next hit.

I just stood there. Outside Dad’s apartment. When I didn’t have to be there. It wasn’t a holiday or special occasion. It was a Wednesday. It was nothing. Which was why Jeremy said we should visit him. We.

Mom had looked like we’d asked to shove her into a small, dark box filled with spiders suspended from the top of a skyscraper. There it was, all her fears rolled into one: her sons wanted to leave her. She managed to smile and cry at the same time. She wanted us to go, but clung to our shirts a little too strenuously to really sell it.

But we’d gone. We were there; Jeremy was letting us in with his key, while I tried to force my jaw to unlock. It was harder than I’d thought. All I had to do was speak first, say hi or anything before Dad could. That was what Jeremy and I had agreed on in the car.

But it wouldn’t come, that tiniest of almost all words. I wasn’t even especially mad that day. Yeah, Mom had started crying when we left, which had made me want to kick Dad in the nuts, but then Jeremy had stopped the car and run back to hug her on the steps. It was nice. It was the kind of thing I would have thought of, if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with having to choke out impromptu civility with Dad.

Greg would have done it.

I looked at Jeremy again. The grin was gone. I could see him pleading with his eyes as I stood in front of Dad. We need this. They need this. One word.

“Hi.”

I never knew a word could physically hurt, but that one did. It clawed up my insides so that every breath after felt raw. But I did it. Jeremy’s whole body relaxed, and he jumped right in, taking over the burden of the conversation both for me and Dad, who looked as stunned by my greeting as by our unscheduled arrival.

Seeing Dad, I believed what Jeremy had said about him, which made me realize that I hadn’t before. Dad wasn’t doing well; he just wore a better mask around us than Mom did. But that day, he hadn’t had time to disguise his red eyes or hide the photos he’d been looking at.

It was microscopically easier after that.

He hugged Jeremy and looked back and forth between us. “No, of course I’m glad you’re here. I just didn’t know you were coming.”

That was obvious, given the coat he’d been shrugging into when we’d come in and the keys in his hand.

“If you’re going to grab food, I could eat.” Jeremy looked to me to make a similar statement, and though it hurt as much as my greeting, I nodded.

“Food sounds good.”

Dad looked pained. He kept glancing at the door, then back again at us. “Yeah, I was gonna eat...after.”

Something vile squirmed in my gut and my entire body clenched. “He has a date.” I spit the words at my father and Jeremy looked almost as disgusted as I did before denials started pouring from Dad.

“What? No. Never.”

But I didn’t believe him, and Jeremy wasn’t rushing to his defense either.

“I’ve been going to a place and—” His face contorted a little. “Look, come with me, all right? I’ll show you.”

Jeremy and I hesitated, but when Dad moved into the hall, my brother gave me a look, and we followed.



* * *



“Church?” Jeremy said, drawing his brows together as we walked up the steps to a large old redbrick Byzantine-inspired building with a sign that read Tenth Presbyterian Church. I shared my brother’s frown. Church wasn’t a new thing for our family. We—Jeremy and I—went every Sunday we were with Mom to the same church we’d been baptized in as babies. We hadn’t gone with Dad during his weekends yet, because he’d said he was still trying to find the right one—not that I’d ever seen him looking. If he’d found one, then why not say so? Why drag us outside in the freezing cold as night fell?