Twelve Steps to Normal(3)
I wonder how many ceramic mugs it took to help him stay clean this time. I say this aloud because a part of me feels like being spiteful. Silence falls thick between us. I’m not sure if he heard me. I tell myself I don’t care.
We clear through dense clusters of oak trees and emerge into the flat, wide landscape of Cedarville. It’s a running joke that there are more cows than homes out here, but I’ve always loved how everyone on the farm town outskirts owns so much property. Whitney is the only one of my friends who lives a few miles outside the suburbs of Cedarville. When we were younger we would take turns riding her go-kart on the expanse of green acres in her backyard.
“Mr. Buckley offered me a janitorial position at Cedarville Elementary,” my dad says. “I guess we’ll both have big days tomorrow, huh?”
I shrug. This time he gives up on the small talk. We stay silent for the rest of the ride home.
It never used to be like this. Before Grams died, we had our own Wednesday night tradition where we’d bake homemade pizzas and watch an episode of Crime Boss, a show similar to Law & Order (with a whopping fourteen seasons and counting) that always replayed on various networks. He used to scribble awful puns on napkins—ORANGE you glad it’s Friday?!—and slip them into my lunch sack. I’d always pretend it was so lame, but I was secretly pleased when my friends found them hilarious.
Sometimes he’d text me selfies he took in the milk aisle of the grocery store, mock-terror on his face as he captioned it with, I CAN’T REMEMBER WHICH % WE BUY HELP. He’d buy ingredients for dinners he found on cooking blogs and together we’d whip up homemade ziti and falafel.
We’re a long way away from those days now.
When we pull in the driveway, Dad gets out to grab my bags from the trunk. I reach in the backseat for my purse, but I’m fumbling blindly in the dark. I flip on the overhead light so I can see. That’s when I spot it. There, lying in the middle seat, is a mug-shaped gift wrapped in newspaper, tied neatly with a turquoise ribbon.
TWO
MY DAD HAS THE KEYS in his hand, but he doesn’t let us inside right away. I step around him and make my way up the porch. If I had my own key with me I would let myself in, but I don’t. It’s inside along with the rest of my interrupted life.
Our house looks the same. The rusty red brick exterior held up without us during tornado season last spring. I notice the plants in the front look a little wilted, but with unsurprisingly hot summers, that’s to be expected. Grams’s white porch swing gently sways in the night’s breeze, and a familiar emptiness falls over me. I remember her sitting out here every morning in her terry cloth robe before I went to school. How she’d kiss me on the cheek and tell me to Be good, darlin’.
It’s been two years since she unexpectedly passed from a heart attack, but some days it feels like yesterday. Being back here at her house, where her memory lives so strongly, brings back the dull ache of her loss.
I wait for my dad to catch up to me, noticing that he takes his time hauling my suitcases up the porch steps.
“Listen.” He hesitates, thumbs over the house key. The floodlight is on, and I can see spiderwebs of wrinkles near his eyes. “We have some company.”
“Company?” I repeat, wondering if it’s my social worker Margaret, or if he’d already contacted Lin and Whitney and Raegan.
Or Jay.
My heart squeezes tight. Leaving my friends was hard, but leaving Jay was harder. Because I was falling for him, and being forced to leave someone you’re falling for is kind of like having to throw away a chocolate swirl cone after one bite.
In Cedarville, you grow up with the same group of kids. You know birthdays by heart and whose parents are on the PTA and who’s allergic to nuts or latex. I knew Jay Valenski, but I’d never noticed Jay Valenski.
I did, however, start noticing him in history class.
He’d gotten his braces off and started taming his puffy hair with the magic of hair wax. He was always giving these super intellectual responses in class discussions, but he’d litter his replies with humor and always make the whole room laugh. I’m not exactly a world history fan, but I found myself poring over our assigned reading so I could contribute. I figured the more I talked in class, the more he’d notice me.
Of course it didn’t occur to me that it would be much easier to just talk to him outside of class.
I was right behind him when we were leaving history one afternoon. He was opening a packet of those fun-sized M&M’s, so I seized the opportunity when he turned in my direction to throw the packaging away.
“Did you know red M&M’s were taken off the shelves at one point in time?”
I regretted the words the moment I said them. He just stared at me. Oh god. He thought I was a total dork. I could feel the heat in my cheeks. My skin burned.
But he laughed. In this completely charming, nice guy way. “For how long?”
“Like, ten years.”
“How could an entire decade of chocolate lovers be deprived of one of the most important primary colors?”
An ease of relief let up in my chest. “Good thing they came to their senses.”
We became closer friends after that. He started sitting by me in history, and sometimes we’d walk to the Sno Shack after school. He told me about his obsession with Sudoku and putting together those classic model car kits. I told him about my obsession with pineapples and how I had all sorts of vibrant knick-knacks decorating my room.