He plugged his iPod into the speaker dock to blast out My Chemical Romance. Why not? He was alone; he could blare his music. And tonight? They were going to have nachos and fajitas. Yum.
Harry started to spin, to dance, to sing, to “get up and go,” as the lyrics said. Dad would come home expecting chaos, and Harry would bowl him over with order. And when Mom came out of the hospital, she would be impressed at how independent he’d become, how organized, how neat and tidy . . .
Yes, he was lord of his universe—a guy who could deal with it by himself!
THIRTEEN
Felix sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor with Ella’s green T-shirt in his lap. Did it belong in the light or the dark pile? He held it to his face and inhaled her scent, then created a third pile of clothes he wouldn’t wash—just in case. Eleven o’clock on a Saturday night, and he was sorting laundry, tackling a mindless task that made more sense than Ella handing over her phone chock-full of unanswered texts from Harry.
“Take it home with you,” she’d said.
When he’d asked how Harry would text her, her answer had made less sense than the laundry instructions: “For once, Felix, can we do something my way?”
Then she’d extended the embargo on Harry’s visits. “He’s not to see me like this, Felix. Promise.”
He was handing out a lot of promises these days.
Harry had accepted these developments with quiet stoicism. Felix had even broken his own house rule and allowed TV with dinner—some moronic cartoon called Family Guy. An IQ off the charts, and his son still watched rubbish.
“Dad?” Harry’s voice, hesitant and childlike, came from the master bedroom.
“I’m in here. Sorting laundry.” Felix got up and stretched. “Be out in a sec.”
“Does Mom really not want to see me for the next two weeks?”
Felix walked into the bedroom and stared. Harry was wearing slouch pants and a ridiculously small T-shirt with some demonic-eyed little pony on the front. The T-shirt didn’t look familiar, but had he shrunk it in the wash and not realized?
“And why won’t she let me text her? It’s like she’s punishing me. I want to go see her, Dad.”
“Come. Sit.” Felix patted the bed.
Harry slumped down and heaved a sigh of dejection.
“I know it’s hard, Harry, but you and I have to figure this out. Getting home to you is all that matters to Mom. But she’s pretty sick, thanks to the blood clot, and we need her to concentrate on taking care of herself so she can come home in two weeks.” Felix took a deep breath. Two weeks, two more weeks.
“You mean I’m high maintenance and I distract her?”
“I mean she loves you so much that worrying about you can sidetrack her. We need her focused.”
“Was this your idea—to sever communications with me?”
“No.” Felix frowned. Why was he always cast as the bad guy? “This affects me, too, Hazza. We can still call her room anytime, but I think she wants to make phone contact a little less convenient, to encourage us to go to each other, not her.”
“So we can do this for real if she dies?” Harry sniffed.
“Your mother is not dying. This is merely a setback.”
Harry leaped up and bounced on the balls of his feet like a ballerina. Could he not stop moving for two seconds? Even a dog knew when to sit and stay. And there, right there, was the thought that made Felix Fitzwilliam a monster.
“Are you scared?” Harry pirouetted through a tic.
Felix opened his mouth to reprimand Harry for not controlling his own body, but nothing slipped out. The tic didn’t even bother him that much. What really bothered him at this precise moment was the truth. “Terrified. You?”
Harry threw himself back on Ella’s side of the bed, facedown. Then he grabbed one of her pillows and bundled it under his head. “Dad, what did you want from life at my age?”
“To pass my A-levels with all As and sit Oxbridge—the exam that would get me into Oxford or Cambridge.”
“No, I mean big picture.”
“Be the best.”
“That was it? No dreams?”
“I’m not much of a dreamer, Harry.”