“I’m Amy’s roommate,” she said.
My roommate. Hearing that stopped me cold, because I remembered that drunken night in high school when Wavy had tried to comfort me. “Nothing left to be afraid of,” she’d said. Even if that wasn’t true, I wanted to live like it was. I wished that I had introduced Trisha properly to Mom and Leslie, but all I could do was correct the mistake.
“Actually,” I said. “Trisha is my girlfriend.”
Trisha’s mouth dropped open for a second, and Leslie snapped her head around to look at me. Like a reward for my bravery, Wavy reached out and shook Trisha’s hand.
In an act of diplomatic caution, Leslie put as much distance as she could between Kellen and Mom, but the result was that they sat at opposite ends of the table, facing each other. Still, it probably wasn’t much worse than most family holiday dinners. Mom was torn between glaring at Kellen and smiling tearily at Donal, who sat next to him. The rest of us tried to keep the conversation going with as much harmless chatter as we could muster. We talked a lot about the weather, and Leslie and Brice’s honeymoon to Mazatlán.
Wavy seemed different but I couldn’t tell why. She managed to eat half a dinner roll and a bite of ham that took her almost five minutes to chew and swallow. Kellen ate slowly and methodically, clearing his plate, while Donal picked at his food.
“How are you, Donal?” Mom asked over dessert. She’d asked that a couple of different ways during dinner, but all she got were mumbled responses.
“Where did you find him?” Leslie said, like it was a scavenger hunt.
I tried, “How did you find each other?” Because that was the question nagging at all of us. After seven years, how had Donal come to be sitting at our table for Christmas dinner?
“My parole officer knows this private detective,” Kellen said. “Got him to look through juvenile records in a couple states. He found Donal out in California.”
“What about Sean? Where is he?” Mom looked at Wavy when she said it, even though the answer was likely going to come from Kellen.
At the mention of Sean, Donal stood up from the table, sending his fork and his napkin tumbling onto the floor. He shoved his chair back and stomped out into the entry. A moment later the front door slammed.
Kellen picked up the fork and napkin, while Wavy whispered something to him. He and Mom stood up at the same time. He followed Donal out the door, while she headed toward the front windows. Part of me wanted to give them some privacy, but it wasn’t the strongest part. I peeked out the edge of the curtain.
Donal and Kellen stood on the front walk, just about where Wavy and Kellen had been reunited earlier in the year. Donal was hunkered down against the cold, while Kellen leaned over him, talking. Donal nodded. Kellen took out his wallet and handed Donal some money. Then he pulled something out of his front pocket and palmed it to Donal, while giving him a rough pat on the shoulder. As Kellen came back up the sidewalk to the house, Donal got into their car, started it, and drove away.
I tensed, waiting for the inevitable explosion. As soon as Kellen stepped into the dining room, my mother said, “What are you thinking? He’s not old enough to drive!”
“Yeah, well, he’s not old enough for a lot of the shit he’s been through,” Kellen said.
“You cannot be serious. You cannot be serious,” Mom said, even though he obviously was. “And what if he gets pulled over? What then?”
“He won’t get pulled over. He’s a decent driver, and dollars to donuts he’s just gonna go up the road to the gas station and buy a pop or something.”
“We have some pop here,” Leslie said.
“He don’t need anything to drink. He needs to get some fresh air.”
“He is only fourteen!” Mom said.
Kellen clenched his jaw, and I could see that under all his jokes about my mother’s anger, he was carrying a grudge. I imagine six years in prison will do that.
“What do you want from the kid? What the hell do you want? You think this is easy for him? Coming back here after all these years and seeing his family and not knowing what to say or how to act. It’s fucking hard, okay? It’s hard for him.”
That shut Mom up for a few minutes. Kellen dropped back into his chair with a thud. He snapped his napkin across his lap and picked up his fork. We were all quiet while he chewed an enormous bite of pie.
“So is Donal living with you?” I said.
Wavy nodded.
“Since November,” Kellen said. It looked to me like it wasn’t easy for him, either.
“What happened? I mean with his uncle—your uncle? Sean?” The whole conversation was a minefield.
“He’s dead,” Wavy said. Kellen looked at her and she shrugged.
“He died of a heroin overdose, more than two years ago. Donal went into foster care after that and then ended up in juvie.”