We Are the Ants(60)

I reached across the table and rested my hand on hers. I’d never labored under the false notion that my mom was infallible. I knew that my mom was a human being, frail and confused, but I’d always thought she was just a little less confused than everyone else. She wasn’t, though, and that’s the moment I knew it.

But in the end, it wasn’t her belief that kept me from telling her the truth. It wasn’t her frailty. It was the certainty that we’d all be dead in sixty days. It was the knowledge that none of our choices mattered, that all our pain and all our suffering would end with the world, and we’d be free of those burdens. No faulty memory, no baby, no shitty job, or dead boyfriend. Just the perfect peace of nothingness. That’s what I believed.

“I’m okay, Mom.”





5 December 2015


Audrey’s bedroom hadn’t changed much in the year since I’d seen it last. More pictures of Jesse were framed and hung on the walls or arranged on her desk and nightstand and dresser, but it was still the pink, obsessively organized room where I’d spent dozens of afternoons and evenings hanging out with her and Jesse.

“Are you even studying?” she asked without looking up from her chemistry book. “If you’re not going to do the extra credit for Faraci, you need to ace every test between now and the end of the term.”

My book lay open in front of me, still on the same page I’d opened it to an hour ago. The science was easy; it was concentration that eluded me. “When the world ends, grades won’t matter.”

“What if the world doesn’t end on January twenty-ninth?”

I leaned against Audrey’s bed and looked at the ceiling. She had glow-in-the-dark star stickers plastered up there, clustered together in constellations she and Jesse had named. They’d been stuck up there so long, they hardly glowed anymore. “Then it’ll end some other day, and my chemistry grade still won’t matter.” I stretched and grabbed her laptop off the edge of the bed.

Audrey peeked up at me. “What’re you doing now?”

I checked my SnowFlake page, but no one had posted anything not related to Space Boy. Audrey had fixed Jesse’s profile, but I didn’t have the nerve to look for myself. “I think I want to find my dad.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since now.”

“Do you know where he is?”

I shook my head. “He split while Charlie and I were at school, and we haven’t seen him since. I don’t think he’s ever paid child support.”

Audrey tapped her pencil on the inside of her book. “Is this some end-of-the-world thing? You want to find your father and reconcile before your alien friends nuke the planet?”

“I don’t think so.” It had seemed like a good idea a few minutes ago, but I wasn’t sure how to explain it to Audrey. “Jesse killed himself without leaving a note.”

“What’s that got to do with your father?”

“He left me too, but he’s still alive to tell me why. I think he’s still alive.” Charlie was right: my father hadn’t abandoned us; he abandoned me. I needed to know why. I needed to know what was wrong with me that made everyone want to leave.

Audrey shut her book and crawled over beside me. She slid the computer into her lap and started searching. It didn’t take her long to figure out there was nothing to find. My father’s trail ended with the divorce. “Well,” she said after an hour, “we know he’s probably not dead and hasn’t been arrested in the last three years.”

“But?”

“He hasn’t filed his taxes or gotten a job, either.”

“How do you know that?”

“The IRS would have taken his tax return for child support if he’d filed and, if he had a job, the state would have garnished his wages.”

“He could be working off the books.”

Audrey sighed and passed the laptop back to me. “That won’t make him any easier to find.”

“Forget it. It was a stupid idea.”

Before Audrey could respond, Mrs. Dorn popped into the doorway, carrying a tray of assorted cheeses and two -bottled waters. She was a more polished version of her daughter, but lacked Audrey’s intensity, which she claimed to have inherited from her father. Mrs. Dorn had practiced ballet for most of her life and still moved as if dancing.

“Henry, dear.” Mrs. Dorn set the tray on top of Audrey’s television stand when I got up to hug her. “Boy, have I missed you. Your hair’s getting so long!” She held me at arm’s length, eyeing me critically the way only a mother could. “I don’t like it.”

“I missed you too, Mrs. Dorn.”

Audrey gave her mom a sour look. “We’re studying, Mom.”

Mrs. Dorn threw the look back at Audrey. “I just wanted to see Henry, sweetheart.”

“You’ve seen him. Now go.”

“I heard you’re working on a book.”

“Gave up,” Mrs. Dorn said. “As it turns out, writing is hard. But I do have an idea for an automatic doggie bath.” She launched into a detailed description of her doggie bath concept, which sounded more like doggie torture, while Audrey and I snacked on cheese. She probably would have talked forever if Mr. Dorn hadn’t come home. Audrey and her mom went downstairs to greet him, leaving me alone.