“We do?” Harry was gripping Sammie’s right hand with both of his hands.
“We do,” Felix said. There had to be consequences for calling your father a Nazi. “And if you break it, you’re grounded for the rest of your life.”
Harry blushed.
Felix turned to Sammie’s mother. “Would you mind if I talk to Harry in private?”
Sammie glanced at Harry, her bottom lip caught in her teeth.
“Of course,” Sammie’s mother said. “We’ll wait in the car.”
They disappeared into the night, but not before a blast of frigid air entered the house.
“You didn’t think I’d ground you?” Felix asked Harry. “I would like to remind you that you are still a child. For another year. And that I am the parent.”
“Dad—when have I ever disobeyed you? I may have focus issues, I may be untidy, but I’ve always followed your rules. If you say home by nine thirty, I’ll be home by nine thirty. You don’t have to threaten me.” Head down, Harry hoisted his bag over his shoulder. “Can I go now?”
“Yes.”
Had Ella ever grounded Harry? In fact, had Ella ever so much as raised her voice at him? The front door closed quietly, and Felix glanced at the space where the jug had been, the one that he’d swept up and dumped in the kitchen bin.
An empty house breathed differently. It wasn’t the silence; it was the nothingness. The heavy, painful solitude that hung in every corner. In the black forest beyond the sliding doors, eyes popped through the trees. The nighttime creatures were out.
An owl hooted, speaking the language of darkness, of despair. Of loneliness.
When they were first married, Ella had planned to get a dog and walk it in Duke Forest every day. But once Harry was born and brought chaos into the house, Felix said no, and the subject had never come up again. Should they get a dog? Not a puppy, but maybe a rescue dog. No, that would come with unknown problems. A dog with a pedigree, then, with kennel-club papers. A perfectly behaved, perfectly trained, perfectly housebroken dog. Would that make Ella happy? Would it make Harry happy? Would a dog give Felix the one thing that continued to elude him: a real family life?
Down the hall, Harry’s door was flung open. As always, the lights blazed. Once his son left home and had to pay his own electric bill, maybe he’d realize what it meant to be wasteful.
Felix stormed toward the teen cave. Harry’s laptop was open, and the clean laundry Felix had folded that morning—he’d done a full load at 6:00 a.m.—lay scattered over the floor. Drawing a deep breath, Felix entered the room and forced himself to ignore the empty lemonade bottle, the crushed soda can, and the half-eaten bar of chocolate. He stepped over the debris of shoes.
“What’s this unnatural obsession you have with putting away shoes?” Harry had said.
It’s called order, Harry. You’ll never understand.
He refolded the T-shirts, repiled them on the bed, and picked up the open laptop to shut it down. As he clicked on the track pad, the screen opened to Harry’s Facebook page with a message to Sammie: see you in a few. Followed by a crazy number of kisses.
His son needed a lesson on restraint.