He and Harry were night and day, yin and yang. No shared interests, no connection beyond name, and a bond neither of them seemed able to comprehend. Because if Harry understood one thing about his father, he would know to put his Dr. Martens where they belonged. It was an inarguable fact: the sky is blue; shoes go in the shoe cabinet.
Felix counted backward from ten, a calming technique he used at work when nothing was going in the right direction, and focused on his fiftieth birthday present. Stylish and functional, the cabinet had proved an adequate solution to the hazardous clutter of shoes in the hall, but as a gift it had been overly extravagant. When he’d pointed this out to Ella, she had pursed her lips, then walked away. That reminded him, he needed to ask her about the fifty-dollar charge on her last credit card statement from somewhere called hankypanky.com.
And still she hadn’t replied to his text, even though his phone had marked the message as read. Ella knew he liked messages acknowledged immediately, but these days everything he did seemed to provoke her disapproval. Was it because of Harvard, or was a darker force at work, one that undoubtedly involved Katherine, the wine-drinking, marijuana-smoking, divorced she-devil?
“Harry, could you please hurry up?” Felix pulled his hands from his pockets and tapped his palm.
Harry glanced through the screen of blond hair that was reminiscent of Ella’s hair twenty-three years ago. Or rather, it was until Harry had returned from Mad Max’s with a purple streak and matching sparkly nail polish. Was his son trying to make a statement about sexuality, or was this merely the behavior of the socially challenged? With Mad Max involved, anything was possible. Supposedly a math genius, Harry’s BFF dressed like a yobbo, stenciled on his arms with Sharpies, and burped far too loudly. Where was Max on the autism spectrum?
Felix pulled out his to-do list and checked. Yes, he had written buy nail polish remover at the bottom. He could have asked Harry to take care of this, but what was the point? Harry would forget and end up going to school tomorrow looking like a performer in the Ringling Bros. Circus. Given Harry’s taste in clothes, that was entirely possible even without the nail polish.
“Harry, have you brushed your hair today?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t you have any self-respect?”
“Tons, Dad.” Harry blew sideways out of his mouth, and what had once passed for a neat fringe ruffled. “Just none related to my hair.”
A blast of ugly, harsh music blared from Harry’s phone. “Hey, dude,” he said in the singsong voice he used with his friends, but not his father.
“Harry!” Felix didn’t mean to yell. Hustling Harry never ended happily, but late wasn’t an option.
Harry swiveled round to face the wall, his upper body convulsing through a bout of tics that contained the power to strain muscles and joints. A complex tic was never a good sign. What would Ella do? She would give Felix the look—eyebrows raised, corner of her mouth dimpled—that either meant I’ve got this covered or Really? You think you can help? Then she would turn her back on Felix and exile him with an elegant wave. It was impossible not to feel irrelevant around those two, but he and Ella had made an agreement when Harry was first diagnosed: Ella, as the full-time parent, would take sole responsibility for Harry’s therapy and treatment; Felix would follow her lead and never countermand that agreement. When he felt the urge to interfere, Felix would force himself to retreat into the havoc-free den he had designed and built at the far end of their 1950s bungalow. Ella and young Harry had a separate den, where there was always at least one toy in the middle of the sofa. Felix had rarely ventured inside.