When We Collided(57)

He says these words even in his sleep, like he has said them so often that it’s his mouth’s default sentiment. All this pain in his life, all this care he doles out to everyone else. And yet he still cracks his broken heart open even wider—wide enough to fit me, too. I wonder how much this must hurt him, the toll it must take to give more of himself to me when he already has so little left to give.

In slumber, his arm stays wrapped around me, encasing me for safekeeping. He would protect me even in his unconscious state, as we lie beneath my ceiling’s half-painted sky.

This thought is enough to swell my heart—to swell, and to break.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jonah

I return home from the lunch shift to find Felix sitting at the kitchen table with my mom. They’re chatting over coffee in the easy way of old friends. My mom is wearing jeans and a button-down.

So apparently I’ve walked through a portal to the past. Like, almost eight months ago when I had a mom who showered and walked among the living.

Two months ago, I would have thought, This is a good step. But she’s psyched me out too many times. I know she’s putting on a show for Felix. It’s a show she can’t bother to perform for us, not even for one day.

“Hey, pal,” she says, sensing me in the doorway.

“Hey.” A single syllable from me could disturb the balance. That’s what it feels like, anyway. There’s this movie Leah loves. In it, the sorceress makes herself look like a princess. Except when she looks in the mirror, her true self reflects back. If I held up one of the stainless steel pots near my mom, she’d reflect back in pajamas with swollen eyes.

“I took my daughter’s good advice, Maní,” Felix says, gesturing at the papers laid out across the table. “Called your mama this morning for help with the books.”

“Is everything okay?” I ask. Even though I know he wouldn’t tell me anyway.

“It will be,” my mom says. “We’re going to head down to the restaurant and go through some papers there. Can you stay with the littles? Silas and Naomi should be home from work in an hour or two to take over for you.”

I narrow my eyes. I resent her telling me this like I don’t know. She’s not the captain around here, but she’s grabbing the wheel for Felix’s benefit. “Sure.”

Felix gathers up the papers, and my mom pecks me on the cheek as they pass me. I steel my body to resist jerking away. I don’t want her to pretend to get better. I want her to actually get better.

Some days I wish I could fall asleep and wake up in two or three years. Maybe I’ll be in culinary school. Maybe I won’t have to push our broken-down family along the road. Maybe, years from now, we’ll be fixed enough to move forward.

I nod off on the couch until Bekah complains about being hungry. I make chicken sandwiches and force everyone to eat side salads, too. Then Leah and I go to her room to play horses. Plastic horses have many personal accessories—brushes and flowers for their manes and ribbons for their tails. We’ve barely unpacked everything when I hear Bekah and Isaac bickering.

Then I hear something shatter. Shit.

“Stay here,” I tell Leah.

Downstairs, Isaac and Bekah are still fighting. They’re pulling the remote control between them, both flushed from anger and exertion. I’m relieved to see it wasn’t the TV they broke. It was a picture frame, facedown on the side table near their tug-of-war.

They see me and exclaim “He did it!” and “It’s her fault!” at the exact same time. I look between them, and Bekah says, “I was here first, and he knows I always watch this show!”

“That show is stupid, and there’s a show on about dinosaurs, and I told her about it last week!” Isaac makes another grab for the remote.

“Stop.” I hold my hand out. “Give me the remote. No one is watching anything because you guys are acting like five-year-olds.”

“But!” they both say.

“Now.” I rip the remote from Bekah’s hand and slide it into my back pocket. “You broke something, and it wasn’t enough to stop you? Do you understand how ridiculous that is?”

I lift the picture up gently, and no glass pieces fall out. It’s just cracked in the center from hitting the edge of the table, splintering off into several arcs of fragmented glass.

It’s my parents’ wedding picture. Glass is shattered over their smiling faces. And I’ll never see my dad smile at my mom like that again. I’ll probably never see my mom smile like that again, at anyone, ever. The best years of their lives are gone, and sometimes it feels like mine are, too. Like life will never be that good again. I didn’t even appreciate it at the time.

“The dinosaur show is educational,” Isaac begins, making his case, as if I’ll change my mind.

“Come on, Jonah! It’s bad enough that you guys made us get rid of cable!” Bekah shrieks, turning on me.

The broken picture has knocked the wind out of me. Hit me right where it hurt—in my own broken places. Part of me wants to sob. But instead, I yell, anger roiling up from inside me.

“Goddamn it. Are you two f*cking kidding me?” My voice echoes against everything. I’m pushing air from my stomach. “You’re making this so much harder than it already is. Do you understand that I’m seventeen? I’m not a grown-up! And you’re down here . . . fighting like idiots and breaking Mom and Dad’s wedding picture. Look what you did!”