“How do you know what I need?” I ask. “You don’t even know me.”
“Whose fault is that?” Frustration drives his hands to his hips, his posture defensive. “You haven’t shared anything about your life. You ignore the rules. You keep secrets. And we both know who was responsible for the mess at the house the other night. You lied to protect her, and I suspect you’re the one who told her about the house in the first place. I’ve given you a home, Callie. Stability. A future. How could you do that?”
“Do you expect me to forget she exists?” I’m shouting and it occurs to me that the neighbors might hear, but I don’t care. “Like I’m just supposed to swap her out for another parent. Right or wrong, she was my everything, Greg. Not you. And now you act as if you’re some kind of savior, but you know what? I’ve been saving myself my whole goddamn life.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “It doesn’t mean anything at all.”
He looks at me for a long moment and I know he doesn’t believe me.
“So maybe I’m not the savior, but I’m sure as hell not the villain. Obviously I’m not keeping you and your mother apart. When I brought you home, we made a deal that if you wanted to leave, I’d let you go.” He gestures at the trailer door, his voice low. Controlled. More awful than yelling. “If life is so much better out there with her, don’t let me stop you.”
Through the screen I can hear the incessant cricket song that’s become a lullaby over the past couple of months. I don’t know why I tell the lies I tell, especially when I don’t mean them. What I mean to say is Greg, I love you. Please don’t let me go. But I’m afraid to say it, so I just watch as he walks out of the trailer.
“Dinner is at seven.” There’s acid in his tone, and I wonder if it burns his mouth as much as it does my heart. “If you feel like joining us.”
“I don’t.”
Greg and Phoebe are setting up folding tables end-to-end in the backyard to accommodate what quickly becomes a celebration. Cheers erupt like fireworks each time someone new arrives. People laugh. Glasses clink. And somehow the food—including the mashed potatoes I never finished learning to make—seems to multiply in an almost biblical way. When Kat comes around the corner with her parents and little sister, I want to go out and see her, but shame binds me in place.
These people love me. I know this. They loved me when there wasn’t even a me around to love, but I wonder if I’ll ever really belong to them. Or if they’ll ever feel as if they belong to me.
Maybe it’s time to go.
I take my guitar from its case and unstring the low E so I can remove the rubber-banded bundle of money that is my life’s savings. It’s not much—a couple hundred dollars—but it’s more than I’ve ever had.
Greg’s laugh drifts across the yard and I feel empty inside, as if my heart has been scooped out. I read somewhere that heartache triggers the same part of the brain that responds to physical pain, creating the same sensations. It hurts to think about leaving my dad. Alex. All of them. And I’m so confused.
“Callie?”
Kat’s on her tiptoes at my window with her nose, lips, and palms flattened against the screen. I can’t hold back a smile and my heart shifts back into place. “Permission to come aboard?” she asks.
“Yeah, sure.”
I hide the money in my pillowcase and set aside the guitar as she enters the Airstream. Kat flops down on the bed beside me, threading her fingers between mine, and the scent of her flowery perfume wraps around me like a comfortable blanket. When her head rests against my shoulder, her personal space invasion is complete. It doesn’t bother me so much anymore. Not at all, really.
“I bet you’re going to miss this old trailer.” Her words rattle me, making me feel as if she can see straight through to my intentions.
“What?”
“Well, knowing Greg, your room at the new house is probably amazing,” she says. “But you have to admit that living in an Airstream has been pretty damn cool.”
I blow out a silent breath of relief. “Definitely.”
“So, um, how was your date?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
Kat squeezes my hand. “Completely.”
I edit out the nightmare about Frank, but tell her everything else, including my fight with Greg. Including the fact that my mom is still somewhere in town. “She’s waiting for me, so we can leave.”
“But you’re staying, right?” Tears fill her eyes and my resolve crumbles.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Please, don’t go.”
“I don’t belong here, Kat.”
“You’re wrong. Just look.” She grabs my hand and pulls me into the main part of the trailer, gesturing at nothing and everything all at once.
My laptop is propped open on the table with the GED book beside it, the orange-slashed pages held open by the highlighter that did the slashing. My growing collection of books is lined up alphabetically on the shelf above the refrigerator, and taped to the fridge door is a drawing Tucker made of a stick-figure girl—you can tell she’s a girl by her triangle skirt—with tons of squiggles radiating from her head. Me, and my hair. Hanging on the wall at the foot of my bed is a snapshot of Kat and me, wearing our Tarpon Sponge Supply Co. T-shirts on my first day of work. And the last thing I see every night before I go to bed, pointing down at me with its gnarly fingers, is the sponge from Alex.
“Before you got here, the Airstream was a storage shed for Christmas decorations, but you’ve made it your home. You’re trying to convince yourself you don’t belong so you don’t hurt your mom,” she says. “But if you leave … Callie, you’re going to break Greg’s heart again.”
“No matter what I do, one of them gets hurt.”
“So maybe you need to stop thinking about their feelings and decide what’s best for you,” Kat says. “What do you want, Callie?”
She hugs me as if this is good-bye, and I cling to her, wishing I didn’t have to make a decision at all.
Kat and I are selling dive-tour tickets out in front of the shop the next morning when my grandma’s car pulls up alongside the curb with Alex’s mother in the passenger seat. Kat lights up and runs into the street to hug Yiayoúla, who gives me a pointed look from over Kat’s shoulder. As if she knows I don’t want to take up my role in this performance. I step forward to open Evgenia’s door.
“I didn’t know you were coming today,” Kat chatters as Yiayoúla pops the trunk. “Let me help you with that wheelchair.”
Alex’s mom babbles something at me as I help her from the car. She pats my hand, which makes me think she’s saying something nice, and I smile at her vacant face. It must be terrible to be trapped inside her uncooperative body, knowing what she wants but unable to vocalize it. Evgenia shuffles forward just enough for my grandma to position the chair behind her. The disease has progressed since I last saw her, and it makes me think maybe Yiayoúla is right. Alex needs to see his mom.
He comes through the side door of the shop wearing his traditional Greek costume and it steals my breath away. Until the smile I know is meant for me slips away, replaced by a flash of anger in his eyes as they meet mine. His smile returns as he crouches in front of the wheelchair to Evgenia’s level.
“Hey, Ma.” His voice is low and tender, and he’s so good that I almost believe him when he tells her it’s nice to see her. Her hands tremble as she reaches out to touch his face, and her words are nothing more than a tangle of sounds. The whiteboard is on her lap, but he seems to understand without her writing it down. “S’agapó, ki ego, mamá.”
I love you, too, Mom.