I boot up my computer to see him. The clips. Nothing movie length. Nothing longer than five minutes. But there he is, taking up the whole screen. Laughing. Talking, listening. Eating an entire ham in a time lapse and then dabbing his face with a napkin, pinkie up. The ones my mom shot are hilarious because the camera is aimed as high up as it can go and he chuckles because she’s still so tiny compared to him. But they love each other, that much is clear. This is why they can still communicate. It makes me feel disastrously whole. And then immediately empty.
The clip of him I secretly did and didn’t want to see comes up. There’s his buddy goofing around in their frat house at college. Clear and brown bottles and empty red cups lie across the dingy old couch, the coffee table, and the windowsills, and even on top of the curtain rods. Greek letters on the wall. My dad takes up three-quarters of the couch, and his drunk friend tries to crawl across him, misses, and his ass breaks the window. Dad hollers with laugher and states, clear as a bell, “That’s so gay.”
I pause the clip and rewind. Watch it again.
Was it condemnation? Turn of (stupid) phrase? I can’t tell.
I leave the screen frozen on his face, full of life and laughing at his friend’s rear end hanging out a cheap, single-paned window.
In time, I turn it all off.
I don’t know if I want to see this one when I turn sixteen.
After Mom’s perked up long enough to throw a turkey into the oven, I check my phone because if I don’t, even on a major holiday, I will curl up in the fetal position. When I check my phone, I imagine a rat in a lab somewhere getting a little pellet every time I click. Today the rat is hungry. I look at the screen and blink. Four texts from Jamie. She wrote to me. I tamp down the leaping in my gut and pretend I don’t have all the anticipation of someone else’s Christmas morning.
Hey, it’s me. I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas.
I left you a present on your front step.
If you take it inside and eat it, then you still think about us.
J.
I get up from the couch and head to the front door. The air is cold and sharp and floods the hallway as I pull it wide. On the front step, as promised, sits a little package wrapped inside a napkin. I peel back the layers. Inside is a pretzel.
The street is still as death. No strange cars, no movement aside from an occasional gust. I look everywhere for Jamie, for her bike. I leave the house and hobble down the front walk, risking a lecture for leaving the door wide open, but Mom’s still too steeped in her seasonal depression to notice.
I pick up the pretzel and it’s stone cold. Maybe Jamie waited until she was long gone before texting me.
Dad. Now. Give me a sign now.
I rub my arms and look around. I wait for a leaf to smack me in the head or a sudden storm to slam a tree into a telephone pole. Nothing. It’s quiet. Maybe there’s a delay between here and the afterlife. I decide to make it very formal.
Okay. Here goes.
Hey, Dad, it’s me.
I need to know a relationship with this girl is okay because I feel like I’ve already screwed up by not talking to her and waiting for you and all the rest of it. But you’re my dad and you’re very important to me, no matter your current somatic state, so if you could please send me a sign in the next ten seconds. Preferably something I can’t miss, like a ray of sunshine at my feet or a transformer exploding. Your choice. I’ll be right here on the front step you carried Mom over when you first bought the house. I really like Jamie.
There. I said it. I am officially coming out to you; now you know I like her. Tell me you love me. Tell me I’m okay. Tell me we’re okay. Give me your blessing.
I count to ten and nothing happens.
No sunshine. No overloaded electrical wires. No sirens, no fires, no fluttering leaves.
I peel off a piece of the pretzel, almost exactly half. One half I put back into the napkin and the other half I bring inside the house. The front door is once again shut and locked behind me and I climb the stairs to my room, where I put the pretzel on my desk.
When I get my sign, I’ll eat it. Even if I have to wait forever. Except I didn’t hear from my dad, so the pretzel sits.
Maybe he’s busy.
THIRTY-TWO
I’m back in the old weight room. Go figure. But as far as stuff to do after school is concerned, it’s nice to be a part of something. The guys on the team that I’ve met so far seem real happy about next season, and now I have a whole new thing to worry about: sucking at football and letting everyone down. No pressure.