We Are the Ants(65)

I wasn’t in the mood to talk on the drive back, and Audrey gave me some space. We stopped for coffee, and after we left, she said, “Nana seems okay.”

“I guess.”

“I mean, I’ve heard of worse places.”

“Me too.” I burned my tongue and swore. “Truth is, I’m not worried about her being mistreated. You just don’t know her. She was barely forty when my grandfather died, and she’s been on her own ever since. She’s so stubborn that Mom had to practically force her to come live with us.”

Audrey only ever drank iced coffee, and she sipped hers through a ridiculously long straw. “I don’t think she remembered me.”

“She called me Henry, but I think she thought I was my grandfather.”

“They’ll take care of her.” Audrey patted my leg. “How are things with Diego?”

I leaned my head against the window. “Confusing.”

“He doesn’t seem confused.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.” I’d been so sure that staying away from him was best for us both, but then we’d kissed and I’d read to him from my journals and he still hadn’t told me why he moved to Calypso, but I think maybe he wanted to. I couldn’t think when we were together. Diego took the clarity granted to me by the sluggers and twisted it around until I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.

Audrey drove slower the closer we got to my house. “Henry, Jesse would want you to be happy.”

“If either of us had known what Jesse really wanted, he might not be dead.” It was a terrible thing to say, but I had so many terrible things bubbling inside of me that it was inevitable some would occasionally spill out. “Whatever. It’s not just Jesse. It’s complicated.”

“I know, I know. End of the world.” Audrey pulled up in front of my house. She came to a stop but didn’t put the car in park.

“Maybe the end of the world isn’t the problem, Audrey. Maybe it’s the solution. And right now Diego’s a complication.”

? ? ?

Dust clouded the air in the living room when I got into the house, and settled on every surface. Boxes of Nana’s belongings were stacked against the walls. Clothes mostly, but also picture albums and scrapbooks I remember Nana displaying on bookshelves in her old house. The walls rattled, and I followed the twang of a cheerful country song toward Charlie’s room. The doorway was covered with plastic sheeting that I ducked through, and Charlie was dressed in board shorts, flip-flops, his old workout shirt, and a breathing mask, swinging a hammer at the wall that used to divide his room from Nana’s. She’d only been gone a few weeks, and it was already like she’d never lived there.

“What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?” I pulled my shirt over my mouth and nose to keep from breathing in the drywall dust.

Charlie slipped the hammer into his waistband. “Making room for Zooey and the baby.”

I surveyed the mess. “You’re going to bring the house down on our heads!”

“I know how to Google shit, *. I’m not a total moron.” He tore a down a chunk of drywall and tossed it onto the heap with the rest.

“You failed woodshop in high school.”

“I was stoned through most of high school.” Charlie lifted the mask and rested it on top of his head. White dust coated his face, and he looked like the surface of the moon. He reached into a cooler under the window, grabbed two beers, and tossed me one.

“I’m pretty sure this is the cheapest beer you can buy.” I’m not a beer connoisseur, but I know shit when I drink it.

“Babies are expensive.” Charlie shook his head. “I’d give up drinking completely if I didn’t live with you *s.”

“Mom could drive the pope to drink.”

Charlie chugged his beer. “If I could afford to get my own place, trust me, I would.”

“Do you really think this is worth it? The job, living here?”

Charlie sat down on the cooler and wiped the sweat from forehead. He was gaining back some of the muscle he’d lost after high school, but he’d lost the war with his hairline. “I’m doing what I have to do.”

“Wouldn’t you rather do something you love?” I thought back to my conversation with Zooey, about Charlie giving up his dream of being a firefighter.

Charlie finished his beer and grabbed another. I’d barely taken two sips of mine. “I’m gonna love being a dad. I’ll get to teach my kid how to throw a punch and a football. It’s going to be fun.”

“Raising a kid isn’t supposed to be fun.”

“Says you.”

“What makes you think you’ll be any better than our dad?”

“Because I want to be.”

“Is it really that simple?”

Charlie stared at me for a second, his brow furrowed. “Yes! It’s that f*cking simple. I’ll be a better father than our father because I want to be. I’m sure I’ll screw up loads of other things, but I won’t make the same mistakes as him, and I won’t ever leave.”

“Was it my fault? Did Dad leave because of me?”

“Damn it, Henry.” Charlie rubbed his head and looked at me like he hoped I was joking, but I wasn’t. “You know what your problem is? You overthink everything.”