Birthday(8)

Dad had held it together through every night at the hospital, through the final talk with the doctor, and even through the funeral. But something about this drawing opened the dam and he started sobbing. He locked himself in his bedroom and cried for almost an hour, and when he came back, neither of us said anything. I’d never seen him cry before and I don’t think I could stand to see it again.

So, we don’t talk about her, at least not directly.

I spear some broccoli, think about putting it in my mouth, and then drop it in the mashed potatoes.

We go quiet and keep watching the game for a little while. It’s close, but the Vols are clearly struggling and then, twenty-one to twenty-two in Florida’s favor, the Gators’ defense manages to run down the clock. Dad groans and rubs his temples. I use the distraction to get up and dump my mostly untouched plate in the trash.

“There’s always next season,” I say.

“Can’t think like that when you’re a coach,” he says.

“I guess.” I stand still. “Thanks for dinner.”

“Of course. Birthday and all. I know it’s not what it used to be…”

It’s been two years since we had a birthday dinner like that. Mom and Jenny used to cook a huge dinner for all of us. Mom would make dessert—she was such a good baker that now pastries and cakes from the grocery store taste awful in comparison. Eric’s oldest brother, Isaac, still lived at home. Peyton wasn’t as mean. Mom was alive and healthy.

“It’s fine,” I say. “It was good.”

If Dad noticed I didn’t eat anything, he doesn’t show it, just nods and smiles as I step outside. He’ll probably leave soon to organize equipment or whatever a coach does when he doesn’t want to be at home, leaving me to come up with a way to pass the time.

I let the screen door bang behind me and squat to sit on the front steps of our trailer. Three long-haired kids scream and splash in a plastic pool across the lane while their aunt, a round older woman with a gray ponytail and horn-rim glasses, watches them and works through a pack of Camels. The smell of smoke, grease, and barbecue sauce wafts on the breeze.

Distantly, so faint it could almost be a thought, I hear a thrum of an acoustic guitar.

Eric. I wonder if he’s playing the guitar Mom gave him right now? It’s hard to say why, but for some reason I’m sure he is, and if she’s capable of hearing him, I know she must be happy. The thought only makes me more miserable.

I kick at the pebbles at my feet and stub my toe with a sharp intake of breath. I hate you, I hiss at that stupid rock. I hate this trailer park almost as much as I hated living in the apartment that reminded me of Mom every minute of every day. I hate it for having no permanence, and I hate it for not being my home, and I hate that there is no home to go back to anymore.

Closing my eyes, I put in my headphones and let myself drift away to anywhere but here. I pull my knees to my chest, trying to become so small that I disappear.





ERIC



The fireflies are out. I’m sitting on our back porch, watching them twinkle and twirl, while I absentmindedly play my guitar. I finger an F chord, which was the hardest one to get right when I was first learning. Now it’s not too bad.

The guitar was my last birthday present from Morgan’s family before Donna died, this and a songbook with tabs for popular nineties rock songs from the McKay’s in Knoxville. They were both from the Gardners collectively, but I know that Donna picked them out. She always said I had long fingers, perfect for playing music, and it would be a shame to let them go to waste. I owe her for seeing that such a thing existed in me—that my hands can do something besides catch a football. It’s also thanks to her that my taste in music isn’t just songs that are about trucks, and that the country I do listen to leans more toward My Morning Jacket and Old Crow Medicine Show than Garth Brooks. I’d be lying, though, if I said I don’t still enjoy the occasional stadium song about a really nice truck.

I play a G minor. Hold it.

B flat major 7 chord.

Strum.

I switch back and forth between the chords, liking the way the strings make my fingers ache. Aching is good. Aching means they’re getting stronger.

A lawn mower buzzes to life and my oldest brother, Isaac, pushes it around the corner into the backyard, sending the fireflies floating off. I watch him work for a little while, setting my guitar aside. Isaac is huge, a carbon copy of Dad when he was in high school. All abs and thick biceps and square jaw, but with Mom’s dark red hair. He’s nineteen now, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on a football scholarship, but he came home for my birthday. I know it was mostly to see his girlfriend, though, since he skipped out on the water park. Isaac stops halfway through the yard, kills the mower, and wipes his forehead. He smiles when he notices me sitting there, watching him.

“Stay there, birthday boy.” He strides across the yard, climbs the porch steps, and heads into the kitchen. Sometimes Isaac’s kind of a jerk, though not in the same way as Peyton. My birthday is the only time Isaac can be counted on to be in Good Brother mode, and most of the time even Peyton doesn’t show his ass. Though Morgan did give Peyton a bloody nose once when we were eight and he was eleven. Peyton kicked a controller out of Morgan’s hand when he’d lost too many times at Tekken and Morgan leapt across the couch and busted his nose with one wild punch. That’s the Morgan I know—the kid who’s gonna dish it back—not the one like today, who shut down and seemed so off.