In an Instant(6)

Oz says, “Dad, come wash the M&M,” but my dad doesn’t hear him. He’s enjoying Aubrey’s story too much, his grin spread wide as she grinds, “Whrhrhr,” her hands continuing to play the accordion. “And Mom’s screaming, ‘Brake,’ which causes Finn to slam the accelerator again—whrhrhr . . .”

I want to leave, but I don’t know where to go. Joining my mom in the house is out of the question, and Mo’s not home because she’s shopping for ski clothes for our trip. So I stand mortified and seething, wishing Aubrey would finish already and leave.

Oz is feeling the same way. He wants my dad to come back and wash the camper with him. His brow is slashed low over his eyes as the hose sprays a puddle on the lawn.

I watch as his impatience grows, his hand tightening around the nozzle and his face growing dark.

And I could stop it.

“Whrhrhr,” Aubrey says again.

But I don’t.

“And Mom screams, ‘Other pedal . . . ’”

The water hits Aubrey’s hair first, then travels quickly down her silk tank top to her designer jeans before reaching her new leather boots. Quick as a rattler, my dad spins to get between her and the spray, but already it’s too late: my sister’s drenched head to toe, her flat-ironed hair plastered to her face, her shirt stuck to her skin. Like a dog, she grunts and shakes the water from her arms and then, without a word, spins to storm off to her car on the street.

“Oz, stop,” my dad says, his hands held in front of him to block the spray and his head craned over his shoulder to look at Aubrey as she drives away.

“Christ,” my dad barks. “Jesus effing Christ. Five minutes with my daughter, is that too much to ask?” He glares through the deluge of water at the closed door of the house, where my mom had escaped minutes before. “Oz! Enough!” he barks, and the smile drops from my face, my blood freezing. With my dad’s harshness, Oz’s face darkens to a dangerous shade that stops the humor instantly and prickles the hair on my neck. In the past year, my brother has grown to nearly my dad’s height, a smidge under six feet, and he has passed him in weight by at least thirty pounds. Unlike my dad, who is built like an athlete, Oz looks fat, but mostly he is strong. Combine that with a severe lack of impulse control and the temper of a silverback gorilla, and what you have is a highly combustible bomb with a hair trigger that needs to be handled with great care.

My dad notices the shift as well and forces the anger from his face and levity into his voice as he says, “Okay, big boy, let’s get this baby washed.”

Oz’s expression softens, and my dad and I breathe.

The water is still trained on my dad, the spray washing back and forth across his T-shirt, and just like my dad always does with Oz, he takes it, as if the ice-cold spray blasting him in the chest and soaking him all over is not annoying in the least.

“Water fight,” Oz says, grinning.

“No. No more water fight,” my dad answers, a sigh of weariness in his voice.

I creep forward, making my way carefully around Oz to the Miller Mobile.

“Water fight,” Oz demands.

“I’m done with the water fight,” my dad says, clearly done with more than just that.

From the bucket beside the camper, I pick up the sponge and scrub the spray-painted peace symbol over the wheel well, scouring extra hard to create a lather of foam. As I work, I whistle, and the tune draws Oz’s attention, along with the nozzle, away from my dad. When I have a healthy froth, I sweep the suds onto the sponge, then blow the bubbles in the air, and Bingo charges from the grass to leap and bite at them, his tail whipping wildly as he tries to catch the floating clouds, a game we’ve played since he was a pup.

Oz drops the hose and races to join in the fun. Snatching the sponge, he sweeps up another scoop of bubbles and blows them in the air like I did for Bingo to chase.

Thanks, my dad mouths.

I shrug and turn to leave.

“Hey, Finn,” he says, stopping me, “when we get back from the mountains, I’ll take you driving. We’ll figure it out.”

I give a weak smile. The intention is there, but it will never happen. Oz doesn’t allow for things like driving lessons. Maybe Aubrey or Chloe will take me.





3


The afternoon’s as bleak as the mood of half of us, thick clouds obscuring the sun. The other half, who I refer to as the glass-half-full fools, include Aunt Karen, Uncle Bob, Oz, Mo, and my dad.

Even Bingo is unsure of the idea of the ten of us traveling together. His tail swishes at half mast as he wanders from person to person looking for confirmation as to whether he should feel excitement or dread.

Last night my parents fought like hyenas—growling and barking at each other over everything from the brand of pretzels my dad bought to the standard fight of how little time my mom spends with Oz. Chloe ignored it, her headphones glued to her ears, a magazine on her lap. Every now and then she would look up and make a funny face to try and distract me. If anyone understands how bad it feels to be on the wrong side of my mom, it’s Chloe.

At one point she even threw me the last of her Toblerone, a gift given to her by Vance when he returned from a tennis tournament in Washington a week ago. It didn’t work. I couldn’t be distracted, and I couldn’t ignore it. I had started it: me and my dyslexic foot. Things had already been fragile, and I’d tipped them over the edge. The final thing my mom had yelled before storming up the stairs was, “I’ll make it to the wedding, Jack, for Aubrey, but then that’s it. We’re through!” It wasn’t the first time divorce had come up, but it was the first time I’d believed it.