“Game of Thrones marathon with Ruby,” I say.
“Tell her we say hi,” Dad adds.
“Will do,” Charlie replies, grabbing another slice of pizza.
“Have fun,” I call out as they leave.
As soon as the garage door shuts, Charlie turns to me, chewing while he talks. “It’s still weird, right?”
I nod.
It’s been three and a half weeks since all hell broke loose.
In an effort to move forward, we’re all trying out what our family therapist calls “radical transparency” and what Charlie calls “telling everyone everything all the time.” This translates into a lot of detailed updates from all of us on what we’re doing and thinking at pretty much every hour of the day.
But even though we complain about it, the results haven’t been terrible.
For the first time ever, Mom’s talking about teaching. Right now her current batch of students is making her wish she’d “never gone into education.” I don’t think she’s quite used to unloading about her day on us, but the second time she did, Charlie offered for him and me to make dinner so she could relax for a little bit, and Mom was so happy, she teared up.
Dad’s still disappointed about Harvard, but he’s stopped calling me Dr. McCullough, and he made a point of getting down some of his old clips the other day, showing me his first published music review from his high school newspaper. And earlier this week, he mentioned how he’s been waiting for a new album by the National to come out, which resulted in the two of us taking a trip together to Shake It Records to meet the band at the release party last night. I can’t think of the last time just Dad and I hung out together in the world. It felt good.
As for me, I’m working on not lying. It seems strange to tell my parents that I’m spending the afternoon with Carla composing a grant application, even stranger to tell them that sometimes I worry too much about snakes and cult compounds, that after talking with my own new therapist, I’m trying to stop making so many bargains with fate, that what happened to me over the past year wasn’t just nerves, but panic attacks, like Henry said.
But even though it feels uncomfortable to talk—like breaking in a new pair of shoes—it’s not impossible.
And every time I do it, I’m convinced it will just keep getting easier, until it’s as second nature as breathing.
Charlie, of course, is taking the transparency business to the extreme, his answers to what he’s doing later ranging from “making out with my girl” or “wondering about the jerk who invented the SATs” to “taking out the garbage because Mustard’s cat barf is stinking up the kitchen.”
But underneath that all, he’s there, with us, with me.
I’ve been helping him with his chemistry homework.
He’s been teaching me how to play poker.
Every night, we binge-watch Game of Thrones.
We aren’t finding our way back to who we were before he got sick—those people are gone. Instead, we’re getting to know who we are now.
But when I try to tell Charlie that, he rolls his eyes and tells me I sound like a Hallmark card.
“You better save some of that pizza for Ruby,” I say as Charlie grabs yet another piece.
Right then, the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it!” Charlie says, dropping the slice back in the box, his whole body lighting up, and I smile to myself at how wrong I was to worry about him and Ruby. He, quite rightfully, worships the ground she walks on.
“You ready for the Red Wedding?” Ruby asks me as she enters the kitchen. She takes off her Float visor and grabs the seat next to me. In a matter of seconds, Charlie appears at her side with a piece of pizza, a napkin, a glass of Diet Coke, and a jar of maraschino cherries, like he’s a waiter in a four-star restaurant.
“I could get used to this,” Ruby says, laughing. “Will you be this way in the school cafeteria next year?”
“Anything for you, Roo,” Charlie says.
“How about you carry my purse for me?”
Charlie frowns, and I laugh.
“Oh man, the thought of that almost makes me wish I could go back to high school,” I say.
“But you’ll still be around next year?” Ruby asks.
I nod. “Yep. I officially withdrew from Harvard yesterday. Dad wanted me to defer for a year, but I don’t want to have it hanging over my head. I talked with Carla and she’s going to hire me on full-time. For however long I need. I’m going to help her set up an art outreach program at the Wild Meadows Retirement Community.”
Charlie leans forward. “Parker’s underplaying it. She’s actually going to run the whole thing—set it up, design the programming, maybe even roll it out to other retirement homes.”
“So no college at all?” Ruby asks.
“Not for now. But Carla’s going to help me research art therapy programs. She said she could help with recommendations, too, when I’m ready.”
“Well, if you’re happy, then I’m happy,” Ruby declares.
“I’m getting there,” I say.
She puts her slice down and wipes her mouth. “Um, Parker, there’s something I have to tell you. You know Finn’s leaving for New York tonight, right?”
My heart skips. “I do,” I say, though the news didn’t come from Finn.
Unlike Charlie and Ruby, who see each other every day, Finn hasn’t talked to me since that day at the hospital. He hasn’t responded to any of the texts I’ve sent or the messages I’ve left, and he refused to see me when I stopped by Carla’s house after work last week.
Carla tells me to give him space, that he’ll come around. But I’m not so sure.
Carla’s been my Finn lifeline ever since the afternoon at the hospital. She and her husband were the ones who checked him out that day, refusing to let him go back to his family’s house. He’s been at their home ever since, recovering slowly, quietly.
He had a broken nose, three broken ribs, numerous cuts and bruises.
He refuses to press charges.
He won’t talk about what happened.
Carla told me Johnny came by once, early on, but Carla wouldn’t let him see Finn, threatening to call the police and to report him for assault if he didn’t leave. He hasn’t been around since.
“I failed Finn,” she said to me last week, her face grim. “When they were with me, Johnny and Finn fought, but it was never more than brothers picking on each other. And after he moved back home, Finn was always so quick to reassure me the bruises I saw were from boxing. But I should have pushed him harder. I should have known. I didn’t do enough.” She shook her head, looked outside.
It was hard to hear her say those words, my words.
I know how much she loves Finn. I know what she’s given him. And I know how guilt can creep inside of you, spreading like a stain. Even now, I can feel it pushing at my edges, that I didn’t see what was happening with Finn earlier, that I didn’t help him earlier.
But just like I couldn’t make everything right for Charlie, I can’t make everything right for Finn. The only person I can do that for is myself.
All I can do is love them both the best way I know how, to be brave, so that they know when they need me, I got them.
I’m here.
When Carla told me last week that Finn was leaving, that she’d found a place for him to stay in New York with a former art professor and his wife so he could get a fresh start, I knew how important it was to tell her she was doing the right thing.
Even though inside I wanted to keep him here.
Even though I missed him so much already, it was like missing a part of myself.
“I just wish he’d talk to you before he leaves,” Ruby says unhappily, rubbing the bridge of her nose under her glasses, her silver bracelets jangling. I see the new one Charlie got her, with a small silver charm in the shape of a cherry, in homage to her love of Cherry Coke.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Ruby doesn’t know everything that happened with Finn, that Johnny was the one who hurt him, who’d been hurting him. It’s not my story to tell, but I hope it will be Finn’s someday.