Every Other Weekend(83)

Dad walked forward and opened one of the doors for us to go inside.

There were massive marble columns, floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows, and rows and rows of carved wooden pews inside, both on the ground floor and in balconies that lined the sides of the sanctuary. The building appeared to be empty.

Dad led us down a narrow, steep staircase and through a hall that branched off in several directions before we stopped in front of the last room on the left. Inside, a group of people had arranged themselves in a circle of chairs in the center of the room.

I knew what this was, though I’d never been to one before. A support group.

Dad greeted a few people and introduced Jeremy and me as his sons before directing us to grab a few more folding chairs. Jeremy moved right away, and the people already sitting began to move back and make room for us, but I stayed in the doorway. I flinched when Dad put a hand on my shoulder.

“Okay.” He quickly drew his hand back. “Right. Well, this is where I’ve been going.” Dad lowered his head along with his voice. “These are all people who’ve lost someone.”

My face felt hot, and I couldn’t seem to inhale enough air. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see any of their faces. “Since when?” I asked. I didn’t know what exactly was bothering me. The fact that he was in a support group, or that he hadn’t told us about it.

“A while,” he said. “First back home, and then when I moved out, I found this one.”

I took a step back into the hall. “Does Mom know?”

Dad’s hands were in his coat pockets, and it seemed to take everything he had to hold himself back from me. “I wanted her to come, but she...” He shook his head. “I needed to talk about it, to be able to talk about what happened—about losing my son.” His eyes were wet, but he laughed a little. “Sometimes I want to talk about the stupid stuff he did and how—” the laugher turned hoarse as suddenly as it had appeared “—I wish he was still here to do more. I need to talk about being angry at God for taking him from me and being grateful that He gave him to me for all the years that He did. I know your mom needs that, too, and I wish...” His voice caught, and we both knew he couldn’t say more.

My chin quivered before I could stop it, but when Dad took a step toward me, I retreated farther into the hall.

At Greg’s grave, he’d been asking Mom to come here with him. I knew it without him having to tell me. She’d said no. And he was standing in front of me, silently asking me the same question.

I didn’t know what to do, and ultimately Dad didn’t make me decide. He went back inside and took one of the two empty seats beside Jeremy, and I stood in the hallway.

I listened to them talk, the tear-filled stories they told and the watery laughter that hit me in the gut.

Jeremy didn’t say anything, but Dad told a story about Greg, one that I’d never heard, about him peeing in our cat box once during a thunderstorm because Mom was taking a shower in the only working bathroom. Greg had been so impressed with himself for thinking of that solution that he’d bragged to Dad about it, not realizing that the cats would—and did—pee everywhere but in the cat box after that.

Dad and Jeremy and I laughed, but I knew Mom wouldn’t have. She’d have cried, because she still held her grief so tight that none of her memories—or ours—made her happy.



* * *



Back at Dad’s apartment, Jeremy didn’t dead-arm me when I said it was time we headed home. Instead, he gave me a small smile and nod.

I didn’t hug Dad, but I said one word. Without any prompting or threat of physical pain from my brother.

“Bye.”





   Jolene I texted Adam a picture of my license along with a message for him to suck it, and he texted back a picture of his middle finger. I wonder what he would have sent if I’d taken a picture of my Lexus? Not that I had the option anymore. I got to drive it only that one day. It was gone by the time I woke up Wednesday morning and learned that Mom’s lawyers had made Dad take it back.

If Dad wondered why I’d never sent a thank-you note, it never got back to me.

Adam texted back with a picture of a bike and the word Jealous?

A smile I didn’t know I had in me crept onto my face. I hadn’t heard from Adam in a few days—long, empty days. I’d tried texting him after he was due back from his grandparents, but his mom had responded and explained that Adam was grounded until Thursday. Perfect Adam got in trouble? I was so curious about what he’d done that I almost asked her. But I liked thinking that his mom liked me, or liked a photographic version of me. I didn’t want to wreck that by coming off as nosy and rude, even though I was nosy and rude.

But he was finally texting me back.

Adam:

I can’t believe I had to wait this long to see your license.

Jolene:

And I’m dying to know what you did to get grounded for three days. Chew with your mouth open? Forget to say thank you? Get less than 105 percent on an extra credit assignment?

Jolene:

Hey, was it a self-inflicted

grounding? I’m betting it was.

Adam:

I got into a fistfight with my brother while he was driving to my grandparents’ house and we crashed my mom’s car.

Jolene: