An Anonymous Girl(12)

I’m pretty sure I know what she wants to talk about.

I slide my finger over the screen so I don’t have to see her message any longer. Then I reach for my earbuds and pull up Game of Thrones.


My dad is waiting at the bus station in his beloved Eagles jacket, a green knit cap pulled down over his ears. I can see his exhalations make white puffs, like cotton balls, in the cold air.

It has been only four months since I last visited, but when I glimpse him through my window, my first thought is that he appears older. The hair peeking out from beneath his cap is more salt than pepper, and his posture sags a little, like he’s weary.

He looks up and catches me watching him. His hand flicks away the cigarette he is sneaking. He officially quit twelve years ago, which means he no longer smokes in the house.

A smile breaks across his face as I step off the bus.

“Jessie,” he says as he hugs me. He is the only one who calls me that. My father is big and solid, and his embrace is almost too firm. He lets go and bends down to peer in the carrier I’m holding. “Hey, little guy,” he says to Leo.

The driver is pulling suitcases out from the belly of the bus. I reach for mine, but my father’s hand gets there first.

“You hungry?” he asks, like he always does.

“Starving,” I say, like I always do. My mom would be disappointed if I came home with a full stomach.

“The Eagles are playing the Bears tomorrow,” my dad says as we walk to the parking lot.

“That game last week was really something.” I hope my remark is flexible enough to cover a win or a loss. I forgot to check the score on the bus ride down.

When we reach his old Chevy Impala, he lifts my bag into the trunk. I see him wince; his knee bothers him more on cold days.

“Should I drive?” I offer.

He looks almost offended, so I quickly add: “I never get to do it in the city and I worry I’m getting rusty.”

“Oh, sure,” he says. He flips me the keys, and I snatch them out of the air with my right hand.


I know my parents’ routines almost as well as I know my own. And within an hour of being at home, I realize something is wrong.

As soon as we pull up in front of the house, my father lifts Leo out ot his carrier and offers to walk him around the block. I’m eager to get inside and see my mom and Becky, so I agree. When my dad returns, he has trouble unfastening Leo’s leash. I go to help him. The smell of tobacco is so powerful I know he has snuck another cigarette.

Even when he was an official smoker, he never went through two cigarettes in such a short time.

Then, while Becky and I sit at stools in the kitchen, tearing up lettuce for a salad, my mother pours herself a glass of wine and offers me one.

“Sure,” I say.

At first I don’t think twice about this. It’s the night before Thanksgiving, so it feels like a weekend.

But then she pours herself a second glass while the pasta is still cooking.

I watch as she stirs the tomato sauce. She’s only fifty-one, not much older than the bat mitzvah mothers, the ones who want to look young enough to get carded. She colors her hair a chestnut brown and wears a Fitbit to monitor her ten thousand daily steps, yet she appears a little deflated, like a day-old balloon that has lost some helium.

As we sit at the round oak table, my mother peppers me with questions about work while my father sprinkles the grated Kraft Parmesan over the pasta.

For once, I don’t lie to her. I say I’m taking a little break from theater to do freelance makeup.

“What happened to the show you told me about last week, honey?” my mother asks. Her second glass of wine is almost drained by now.

I can barely remember what I said. I take a bite of rigatoni before answering. “It closed. But this is better. I can control my own hours. Plus, I get to meet a ton of interesting people.”

“Oh, that’s good.” The creases in her forehead soften.

Mom turns to Becky. “Maybe someday you’ll move to New York and live in an apartment and get to meet interesting people!”

Now I’m the one who frowns. The traumatic brain injury Becky suffered as a child didn’t just affect her physically. Both her short-and long-term memory are so damaged that she can never live alone.

My mother has always held on to false hope, and she has encouraged Becky to do the same.

It bothered me a little bit in the past. But today it seems kind of . . . unethical.

I imagine how Dr. Shields would pose the question: Is offering someone unrealistic dreams unfair, or is it a kindness?

I think about how I’d explain my thoughts on the situation to him. It’s not exactly wrong, I’d type. And maybe this is less for Becky more for my mother.

I take a sip of wine, then deliberately change the subject.

“Are you guys getting excited for Florida?”

They go every year, the three of them, driving down two days after Christmas and returning on January 2. They stay in the same inexpensive motel a block away from the water. The ocean is Becky’s favorite place, even though she doesn’t swim well enough to go in past her waist.

My parents give each other a look.

“What?” I ask.

“The ocean’s too cold this year,” Becky says.

I catch my father’s eye and he shakes his head. “We’ll talk about it l ater.”