Harry was dreaming about Sammie, the hot new girl in tenth grade. It was summer and they were at Kerr Lake, and she was wearing a red bikini. But Dad was rising out of the lake like Godzilla, cawing at him, “Get up, Harry! Get up!”
Harry shot up, heart pounding on jackhammer overdrive. No hot tenth grader, no summer weather, and Mom was in the hospital. And Dad . . . Dad was standing in the bedroom doorway, weaving around looking totally batshit. His hair was wet and sticking up like he’d been zapped with a high-voltage cable. Eyes bloodshot; skin beet red. Had he tried to boil himself like a lobster?
The numbers flashed 7:30 a.m. on his digital alarm clock. For real?
Harry sprang out of bed. “Why didn’t you wake us, Dad?”
“I just did.”
“Wake up, Maxi-Pad!” Harry grabbed and jostled his psychedelic beanbag. Max was buried in a nest on top of it with the duvet from the guest bedroom. “Dad let us oversleep.”
Dad glanced down at the pile of clothes on the floor, then glanced back up with lips curled back in disgust. Didn’t even bother to fake it. Mind you, Dad often gave him that I-can’t-believe-we-share-the-same-gene-pool scowl. “You’ve got plenty of time to get to school, if you can extricate yourself from this pigsty.”
“But we normally leave at seven forty-five.”
“Why?”
“Traffic.” A white lie, but Dad would never know differently.
Harry pulled his jeans off the back of his desk chair. “Dude.” He nudged Max with his foot. “Wake the fuck up.”
“Harry! Language!”
“Sorry, sorry. Did you talk to Mom last night? Is she okay? How’s she feeling? Did you learn anything else from Katherine? I texted Mom before we went to bed, you know, to say good night, but she didn’t answer.”
“Apparently, your mother has done little but sleep since we saw her.”
“Is that bad?”
“Harry, she’s been heavily sedated.”
“And Mom always says sleep is nature’s cure. So I guess that’s good. Right?”
Dad didn’t answer. “I’m driving straight to the hospital after you boys leave. Do you want me to call the school if there’s any news?”
“Really? You’d do that?”
“Of course I would.”
“You’ll tell me the real truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Harry paused. “Even if it’s humongously bad?”
“If that’s what you want. Is it?”
Wow. Mom never gave him the option. She saw herself as his personal film editor, passing on truth with bits edited out. “Yeah.” He looked Dad in the eye. “That’s what I want.”
“Fine.” Dad turned to leave. Harry tugged off his pj pants and pulled on his boxers. He hopped into his jeans and followed down the hall. “Uh, Dad, do I get lunch today?”
Dad looked at him like he was an orc. “How the hell should I know?”
“Mom marks it on a calendar in the kitchen. Every other Monday, I get lunch through school. Mexican.”
“Did you have it last Monday?”
Harry shrugged. “Can’t remember.”
“For God’s sake, Harry.” Dad began rifling through the kitchen drawer, the one where Mom kept the really important shit. “The calendar, the calendar,” he was muttering, “where the hell is the calendar? I can’t find it, Harry. Harry, I can’t—”
“Here.” Harry reached past him. “No, I don’t get lunch.”
“Meaning?”
“Can you make me lunch?”
“Lunch, as in—”
“A sandwich?”
“How about a bagel with cream cheese?”
“O—kay. Can you fix one for Max, too? And Dad? Maybe you should call school and tell them Max and I will be late. Maybe if you explain about Mom they won’t mark us tardy.”
Dad scowled. Uh-oh. Oversharing.
“Do you get marked tardy often?”