“Do you have a garment bag for your suit?” I asked him.
He shook his head. Tears began to well in his eyes again, threatening to spill over.
“No problem, I’ve got this,” I reassured him.
An hour later, I stood in the boarding line with Finn’s suit wrapped in an upside-down garbage bag as my carry-on. When the man in front of us side-eyed my choice of luggage, I stared back with open disgust until he looked away first. Today was not the day to cross me.
As soon as the seat-belt sign turns off, Finn shuffles to the back of the plane and taps the man next to Theo on the shoulder. I can’t hear what he says from my seat in the last row, but watch Finn point to his seat at the front of the plane. The older man gathers his belongings in a rush before Finn can take back his offer.
When I use the bathroom mid-flight—walking to the one in the center of the cabin instead of the one beside my seat—I’m relieved to find Finn sleeping with his head on Theo’s shoulder. Theo gives me a sad smile as I walk by his row. I’m glad Finn’s not alone.
* * *
? ? ?
?In Atlanta, there’s a handwritten sign on the desk of the Alamo counter. The message, written with a Sharpie in blocky capital letters, says: merry christmas. we’re out of cars. god bless. We make our way down the row of abandoned rental car counters until we find the lone open kiosk. “It’s your lucky day,” the woman behind the counter tells us in a syrupy southern accent, “we have one car left.”
She may have oversold our luck, because the last car turns out to be a bright yellow Hummer. In the parking lot, we stand a few yards away from the car, giving it a wide berth, like it might turn sentient and take offense if it hears us talking shit.
“Who’s driving?” Theo asks.
“Aren’t you driving?” I ask Theo. He paid for the rental and put his name on the insurance form.
“I’m not used to driving on the right side of the road. Even in, erm, more modestly sized vehicles. I’m afraid I’d run us off the road,” he says as he eyes our monstrosity of a ride.
“I don’t have a license,” I offer. I let it lapse after four years in the city. It seemed like too much of a hassle to go to the DMV for a license I wasn’t planning to use for anything other than getting into bars, and I could use my passport for that. Until tonight, it’s never been an issue.
No one looks at Finn.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Priya says. Theo tosses her the keys and she fumbles them. They skid underneath the car, and she has to get on her hands and knees on the asphalt to retrieve them. Not a fortuitous omen for the drive ahead.
In the car, Priya looks like a child, dwarfed by the massive red leather driver’s seat. She adjusts it as far forward as it will go before turning the key in the ignition. When she does, “I Did It All for the Nookie” blares from the speakers at full volume. I jab at the buttons on the dashboard trying to get it to stop. Not the time, Fred Durst.
* * *
? ? ?
?The Hummer roars to the curb in front of Finn’s childhood home just after eleven. “You have arrived at your destination,” the GPS lady announces.
Priya slams the breaks and the car jerks forward before settling to a stop on the quiet cul-de-sac. Once in park, Priya sighs with relief. Her shoulders ease down from where they’ve been hunched up by her ears for the forty-five-minute drive on a five-lane highway to Peachtree City, a leafy suburb south of Atlanta.
I stare out the passenger window at the house. I’ve never pictured what kind of house Finn grew up in. I always thought of us as the same—lacking in parents, lacking a home, rootless—but the stately two-story white brick colonial in front of us is proof that Finn does have a family. And they rejected him. My hands ball into fists in my lap as I survey the house. There’s a light on in the front room.
“I don’t know if I can go in,” Finn says from the back seat. His voice is shaky. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
“Do you want me to make a loop around the neighborhood while you decide?” Priya offers. Her shoulders creep up at the prospect of turning the car back on.
“Can we just sit here for a minute?” Finn asks.
“We can sit here all night if you want,” Theo offers. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
twenty
Finn
Christmas #10, 2017
I wake with my head on Theo’s shoulder. There’s a crusted track of drool down my chin and my neck screams from sleeping at a weird angle.
My phone says it’s 6:04. I didn’t mean to stay outside all night; I only wanted a few minutes to compose myself, because once I go inside it will be real. My father will be dead, and I’ll be face-to-face with my mother for the first time in nine years.
I open and close the car door as gently as I can, so I don’t wake anyone. Up front, Priya is reclined in the driver’s seat with her wrinkled purple coat draped over herself like a blanket, while Hannah’s face is squished against the passenger window. Gratitude surges through me. No matter what happens inside, these people, the ones sleeping uncomfortably in this monstrosity of a car, are my real family.
For a moment, I stare at the house. To the right of the walkway is the happy willow. Willow trees only weep near water, so ours stands tall and broad, casting the front of the house in a welcome shade from Georgia’s sweltering sun. The tree was always base when I played tag with the other neighborhood kids. It’s taller since I left.
At the door, I freeze. I don’t have a key—mine was abandoned in a junk drawer two apartments ago. I didn’t think to keep it because I never expected to come back. It’s not rational, but I never considered the possibility my dad could die. I assumed he might live forever; the bad guys always do. When I lived here, he ran five miles every weekday morning, even in the hottest part of summer, and hadn’t touched bread since the Atkin’s craze in the nineties.
I don’t want to wake anyone with the bell, so I try the doorknob. To my surprise, it’s unlocked. I step into the foyer and breathe in the smell of Pine Sol and the white gardenia candles my mother favors. It smells like home.
“Finn, is that you?” my mother calls from closer than I expected, not upstairs in her bedroom. She’s in the living room, the one we only use for company, lying on the slipcovered white couch underneath a hand-crocheted blanket made by her own mother, who died when I was eleven. My grandmother’s was the first and only funeral I’ve ever been to. Until now, I guess.