“No sir.” Please leave. Please leave.
His father got up even closer and spoke with menace. “If you’re a fag, I’ll teach you not to be, by God. You better man up.” He gave Travis a push. Not an especially hard push, but it caught Travis by surprise and he stumbled backward a couple of steps. He almost looked his father in the eye, but thought better of it. He stared at the ground. Just shrink away and he’ll get bored and leave. Make yourself small. That’s what he wants—for you to be small.
“Clint, honey,” Travis’s mother said gently, as if she were talking to a dangerous animal or a recalcitrant child (or some combination of the two). “Travis is a Christian. Don’t worry. Now can I fix you something to eat?”
Travis’s father belched and sauntered over to the mixing bowl. “Nope, I’m fine.” He dipped three fingers in the cake mix, and while staring Travis’s mother dead in the eye, sucked them clean and then stuck his fingers back in the bowl for a second helping.
“Oh Clint. I wish you hadn’t done that. That cake wasn’t for us.”
Travis’s father walked over to his mother. “I. Don’t. Care,” he said, poking her in the upper chest, punctuating each word. She looked away. He stood over her for a second. Travis’s fear began to turn to rage. He felt what he had felt with Alex Jimenez. Please leave. And don’t touch my mom again.
“Can’t wait to try the cake,” his father said with a smirk. He pointed at Travis. “Better not be a queer.” He stalked into the living room, where he flopped on the couch and clicked on the TV.
Travis breathed again. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. So did his mother. They made eye contact. Travis started to speak. His mother put a finger to his lips as if to say Don’t. Be careful.
“I’ll go ahead and bake this one and your dad can have it. And I’ll do another for Crystal. I have another yellow cake mix in the pantry. In fact, it’s better than the mix Dillard gave you.”
“You want help?”
She gave him a sad half-smile. “No, sweetie pie. I’ll take it from here,” she whispered.
“Dad didn’t always used to be this bad,” Travis whispered.
“I know.” She picked up a damp cloth and gently wiped the flour from Travis’s face. From the living room, they heard Travis’s father cackle at something.
Travis’s mom dumped the batter from the mixing bowl into a cake pan, bent down, and got another cake pan from under the stove. She put the mixing bowl in the sink and started to wash it with quaking hands.
Travis walked up to her and put his arms around her neck, hugging her from behind. She put her hand on his arms. “I love you, Mama,” he whispered.
He managed greater stealth than usual and sneaked past his father, who was absorbed in some sitcom rerun. Safely in his room, he turned on his decrepit laptop. It whined to life. While he waited for it to boot up, he ran hypothetical scenarios in his head—ones where he stood up to his father. Where he didn’t slink around and shrink from him. Where he didn’t let his father make him feel small and worthless. His loathing of his father kept circling back to self-loathing. Why aren’t you braver? At least for your mom’s sake? You’re nothing like Raynar Northbrook. He would stand up to a bully. Of course, even if you stood up to him, you’d probably just screw it up and feel even worse, like what happened with Alex.
He wanted to text Amelia. But also he didn’t. He didn’t want to look weak in front of her. But he also didn’t feel like being alone right at that moment. He didn’t think Lydia would understand because her family was so awesome. And he didn’t think Dill would understand because his family was so awful.
Travis went around in circles until finally he just did it.
Hey, he texted.
Hey yourself mister, Amelia texted back, almost immediately. How are you?
Rough. I got into it with my dad.
OMG. You ok?
Yeah. I guess I just needed cheering up.
If I were there I’d give you a huge hug and remind you that Deathstorm comes out soon.
That’s working!
His phone buzzed again. It was a photo of a baby elephant playing with a beach ball.
Yes!
A funny Bloodfall meme. And then another. And another. Travis almost laughed out loud but caught himself.
Thank you!
When we meet in person, I’m going to give you a million hugs and tell you it’s not your fault your dad is an asshole.
As Amelia’s disembodied words of encouragement continued to stream in, the warm sugar-buttery smell of baking cake filled the house.
He lit the candles the moment he heard her pull up. There were only five of them.
“Dillard, you home?” she called out when she entered the dark house.
“In here, Mom.”
She walked into the kitchen, where Dill stood behind the cake, candlelight illuminating his face. “Happy birthday!”
She shook her head and set down her things. “Dillard Wayne Early, what have you done?”
Dill grinned. “I made you this cake. Sort of. I got the stuff and Travis’s mom made it. It turned out a lot better than if I’d done it, I promise.”
She smiled. “I don’t even—”
“Well. What are you waiting for? Blow out the candles. Let’s have a piece or two.”
She sat down and blew out the candles. They sat in the dark for a second while Dill fumbled for the light switch.
“Did you make a wish?”
“I sure did. I wished for—”
“No, no, you can’t tell me. Then the wish won’t come true. Besides, I can probably guess.”
“Wishes don’t matter anyway. Prayer does.”
Dill got up and grabbed a knife, two forks, and two plates. He pulled out the candles and cut two large pieces of the vanilla-frosted yellow cake.
“Did your work do anything special for your birthday?”
“The gals on the cleaning staff put their money together and got me a twenty-dollar gift card to Walgreens. I think I’ll buy a little something and see if they’ll cash out the rest. We need stamps to write your father.”
“I think you should spend it on yourself,” Dill said.
“There isn’t anything I want.”
“Get some of your favorite candy or lotion or something.”
She thought for a second. “Maybe we’ll go for an ice cream.”
“I really wish you’d spend it on yourself. It’s your present.”
“We’ll see.” They sat silently and ate their cake. Dill finished his first. It was delicious. And as they sat there, something came over him. It seemed as good a time as any to bring it up.
“While we’re talking about money, what if there were a way for me to make us a lot more money than I’d make at Floyd’s, even as a manager? What would you think about that?”
She gave a rueful laugh through a bite. “Oh, that’d be great. As long as you aren’t proposing to sell drugs.”
“No. But what I’m talking about would mean that we still have to spend a few more years with me not making as much as I’d make full time at Floyd’s.”
She took another bite of cake. “I’m not following,” she said, but her eyes said I hope I’m not following.
“I’m talking about what if I were maybe to go to college. People who—”
She shook her head and put up her hand. “No.”
“But Mom, listen to me. You didn’t let me finish.”
“No. No need. I know what you’re going to say and what my answer will be.”
“Mom, I talked with Lydia, and she told me about how much more money college graduates make over non–college graduates and—”
“Oh Lydia, of course. She sure does say the things that are easy for her to say, doesn’t she?”
“But she has a point. If we sacrificed a few years so that I could go to college, I could get a better job and help you more. It’d be like”—Dill racked his brain for some Bible analogy that would encompass the idea of short-term loss in favor of long-term gain—“how we sacrifice the opportunity to do certain sinful things, so that we can live in heaven with Jesus.”
“Sin is not an opportunity. Following Jesus isn’t a sacrifice. He did all the sacrificing.”
“I was trying to come up with something to compare it to.”
“Come up with something else.”