I wouldn’t give Keith the satisfaction of making me cry. I let him haul me by one arm back up to the main road that led toward our grandparents’ cabin. People walking downhill to the lake from the parking lot took one look at the mess and stench that was me and skirted to the far side of the trail, their faces pulled back in disgust.
“Why can’t I trust you to be, like, at least semi-responsible every now and then?” His black flip-flops slapped on the pavement in a way that didn’t appear to fully satisfy his anger. He stomped harder.
“You’re acting like I’m a baby!”
“No. You’re acting like a baby. It’s really annoying.”
“Let go of me.” I wrenched free from his grasp. Keith sort of lunged for me, but I jumped forward and walked a few steps ahead of him. I stayed just out of reach. My long legs stomped along in time with his.
“Dad’s going to be pissed,” he warned.
“I don’t care!”
“You should.”
“Why’d Charlie say you were mad at her?” I asked.
I glanced over my shoulder. Keith’s stride faltered. He frowned and looked away. He didn’t just look mad. He looked embarrassed.
“She was talking to boys, you know,” I said, watching to see if this upset him the way I hoped it would. “They were in a boat. They … they liked her, I think. Anna, too.”
“What boys?”
“Older ones. Like older teenagers. From the campground, I think. They were talking about sex.”
“Trash,” muttered Keith. “All of them.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I don’t care what Charlie does.”
That was disappointing. We crested the driveway of the cabin. My father and grandfather sat on the back porch, drinking something amber out of glasses. Whiskey, probably, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out.
As I drew closer, I saw that my grandfather had fallen asleep. A familiar sight: glass still clutched in his hand like his life depended on it, head thrown back in his Adirondack chair, loud snores ringing from his throat and nose. My father had mirrored sunglasses on. But I knew he wasn’t asleep because he smiled when I first came into view. Then he grimaced at the sight of my clothes.
“What happened?”
Keith trotted up, grim-faced and puffing. “He got on Grandpa’s boat is what happened.”
“Ah,” my dad said, tipping more of his drink into his mouth. His nose and cheeks were very red.
“Idiot,” Keith snarled in my direction.
“Hey, hey. Take it easy on him. He got sick to his stomach. Yelling at him isn’t going to make him feel better.”
“I’m not trying to make him feel better.”
“Oh, really?”
“Dad, he knows not to get onto boats!”
“Enough, Keith. Really. I don’t want to hear about it. You go hose that deck down, got it?”
My brother folded his arms tightly. Shot daggers in my direction. “Yeah, I got it.”
I sidled closer to my dad until Keith looked like he was the one who was going to throw up.
“I’d better get back down there,” he mumbled.
“Guess so,” my dad said cheerily. When Keith had gone, he wrinkled his nose and inspected me. “Go clean yourself up, Drew.”
*
That evening, my father stationed himself in front of the smoking grill. Another transformation: the genius professor turned typical suburban patriarch. He held a pair of metal tongs in one hand, a glass of liquor in the other, and wore a bright red apron with an illustration of a lobster on the front. Everywhere, our family teemed. Anna and Charlie flipped their hair and took pictures of each other in front of a pine tree. Phoebe drank an energy drink from a can and tried to get Keith to help her with a Sudoku puzzle. My aunt and grandmother labored in the kitchen.
But I kept my eyes on my father. I watched him from the back steps of the porch while swatting mosquitoes from my thighs. The scent of charring (free-range) chicken fat made my mouth water, and when my uncle slipped inside to get more meat, I went to stand by my father’s side in the dwindling summer light.
He tousled my hair.
I shuddered.
He stared down his nose at me. There was no expression on his smooth face. At least none that I understood.
“You’re a very intense person,” he said.
I didn’t take my eyes off him. I longed to hear admiration in his words. Pride.
But I didn’t. Under the weight of his gaze, I felt the way I always did, like the weak pup he wished he’d culled. The one he should’ve tied to a stone and tossed into the ocean.
“I know,” I whispered.
“It’s hard to watch sometimes.” He lapped at the amber drops hanging from the edge of his glass.
“I know,” I said again, and I pulled myself up as tall as I could, throwing my shoulders back in the same way he did. Maybe I could get him to look beyond the bandaged neck, the lingering smell of vomit. Maybe I could make him remember my triumphs. Maybe I could make him see me as strong, like him. Not weak, like Keith.
It worked.
He threw an arm around me and pulled me close until I smelled the booze on his breath. “I love you, Drew.”
My heart jolted, from the touch and the words. “I love you, too, Dad.”