“No.” Dad folded his arms. “I don’t.”
“Have one.” Claire held one out to me and Owen and Grandma. “You probably haven’t eaten since breakfast, right?”
I took the granola bar and nodded. Claire sat down again. She pulled a side table in front of her and kicked off her sandals and rested her swollen feet on the table. Dad grimaced.
“It’s a hospital, Claire. Put your shoes on.”
“Plenty of people here do not have shoes on.”
“They’re patients.”
“What’s the difference?” She fished in her bag. “I’ve got apples and some cheese in here, but I didn’t have time to put together anything else. Or we would’ve missed the ferry.” She aimed a pointed glance at Dad.
“We caught the ferry with plenty enough time for you to get a chocolate bar before we boarded, right?”
“Barely.” Another icy glance at Dad.
What was this about? Why were they acting like this? Other parents acted like this. Other people spoke to each other like this. Not Claire and Dad.
“You had a chocolate bar?” Owen sat up.
“And she bought one for Corbin,” Dad said.
“Pregnant women can have chocolate whenever they want,” Claire snapped. “So can children with broken arms.”
“That’s not fair, Mom.”
“No, it’s not fair. Go break an arm.” This was such an un-Claire-like thing to say that the three of us stared at her, amazed.
“Oh, Owen.” She reached for him. “That was unkind. And I have no excuse. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”
Owen, confused and bewildered, began to cry. Claire awkwardly pulled him into her lap. “I’m sorry, baby. So sorry.”
“Can I have a chocolate bar?” Owen asked through his tears.
“Of course, baby. Of course.” Claire set him on his feet and looked up at my dad. “Will you please take him outside for some fresh air? Go across the street and buy him a chocolate bar.” She said it so formally, but instead of sounding polite, it sounded like Claire was really telling him to take Owen across the fucking street and get him a fucking chocolate bar, and, by the way, fuck you.
—
Once Dad and Owen were gone, Claire put her face in her hands. “I didn’t know where Billy was,” she said. “When you called.”
“But you found him,” Grandma said.
“Where was he?” I asked.
“He said he was going to work, to get a few things done before shooting starts on set next week.” Claire shook her head. “I called his cell. Ten times. Then I called the production office, and whoever picked up that line went to look for him and couldn’t find him. Finally he called me back after I left a bunch of messages and texts. I asked him where he was. He said work.”
“So he was at work,” I said. But I thought of the night I arrived, how he’d been so late. All the long days on set. Too long.
“So he says,” Claire said. “He says that whoever answered the phone was just a PA who didn’t know where to look. He says it’s a big lot. But I don’t think he was there. I don’t think he was there at all.”
“You’re overthinking it, Claire.” Grandma put a hand on Claire’s arm. “He’s been sober for five years this time. And he’s not having an affair. If that’s what you’re worried about. He is head over heels in love with you, and only you. You know that.”
“I know it’s not drugs. I’d know. I’d know it in my gut.”
“You would.”
“And I know he loves me. And the kids. And the baby.” She put her hand on her belly.
“Did you ask him outright?” Grandma said. “?‘Are you having an affair, Billy? Are you using drugs again, Billy? Are you drinking again, Billy?’?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t want to be hearing any of this. When I stood up, my knees trembled.
“He insists that it’s work,” Claire said. “He says it’s crazy busy.”
“Then he was at work.”
I was halfway to the bathroom, but I could still hear them.
“I can’t help but think about when he was with Deena,” Claire said. “And what happened.”
—
Deena. My mom.
Claire was talking about the affair that ended my parents’ marriage. What was her name? Shelley? Kelly? She was a single mother who worked at the café up the street from the recording studio in Seattle. She had no idea who the Railway Kings were. She didn’t know that he was nearly famous. She only listened to popular country music. He told her that he worked in a warehouse, packing paper cups into boxes. When the band went in together, he said they worked together. Paper cups. Paper plates. Plastic knives and forks and spoons. He said he liked that she didn’t know about the band.
She also didn’t know that he was a husband, and a father to a toddler, and a drunk. She didn’t know that he put a lot of money up his nose. She didn’t know how angry my mother was. The woman in the café was the one who changed everything. She was the one who wrote her number on his coffee cup. She was the one who opened her door to him, night after night, while my mom was at home with me asleep in the bed beside her and didn’t know what to do. That woman was the one who changed everything. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember her name. She could’ve been anyone.
—
I locked myself in the bathroom and sat on the toilet. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. I sat on the toilet for a long time, staring at the red emergency button on the wall. I wanted to press it. But it was for the wrong kind of emergency. Dad was messing up. Claire was angry. The baby was coming. Corbin’s arm was broken. My mom was in Haiti. I even lost the girl from the bus station on the ferry. It all felt like an emergency.
Claire stayed with Corbin at the hospital, even though Dad had offered. In the morning, we all went up to get them. About five minutes after we arrived, Dad said that he had to catch the next ferry.
“I’ve got to get to work.”
“On a Sunday?” Claire was wearing one of his old Railway Kings T-shirts, threadbare over her belly, and a pair of sweatpants. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes were ringed with red. It looked like she hadn’t slept at all. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He kissed the boys and me. He didn’t kiss Claire at all. “To finish what I was supposed to be doing at work yesterday.”
Once he was gone, Grandma rallied the four of us. “Let’s go have brunch,” she said after Corbin was discharged.
“I’m not hungry,” Claire said.
“Your baby is.” Grandma shook her car keys. “Let’s go.”
Corbin was the first one out of the car when we pulled into the Gumboot Garden parking lot.
“Waffles and whipped cream!” He started to run, but then he stopped with a yelp and held his casted arm closer. “Is it still supposed to hurt?” Grandma and Claire followed him inside, while I hung back with Owen. He surveyed the rock bed at the edge of the road.