“I don’t believe you,” I say. Dad and Joan are talking. They aren’t touching. But for some reason, beneath the doorway, they look like two people who’ve slept together.
“Believe me or don’t: it’s true,” Theo is saying.
“So if we trapped a squirrel, and tied its hands and feet behind its back—”
“And fed it.”
“And fed it. A strict no-nut diet.”
“Or a liquid nut diet—”
“Liquid nut?”
“Like almond milk. Or peanut butter.”
“A liquid nut diet of almond milk and peanut butter—”
“We could grow a saber-tooth squirrel.” Theo nods.
I try not to make it obvious that I am watching Joan, who is talking with my father, who is shaking his head.
“How cool would that be?”
“What?” I say.
“The squirrel,” he says.
“Very,” I agree.
I watch Howard put a hand on Joan’s shoulder, to say goodbye.
“You’re not as into this as I am,” he says.
“The squirrel?” I say.
He nods.
“It sounds dangerous,” I say. “That’s all.”
I look over and Joan is gone and my father is alone, and when he sees me he taps his watch.
March 24
Okay, but listen: this is why I so seldom visited. I didn’t want Linus’s claims confirmed. I wanted to preserve my memory of my perfect father. I didn’t want to know the many ways he’d hurt my mother. I didn’t want to have to pick sides. Unlike my brother, I wouldn’t have been able to do it as easily.
A couple of years ago, Dad visited me in San Francisco. He was in town for an academic conference, and staying at a hotel downtown. We had an early dinner with Joel, but Joel was on call, so he left Dad and me to drink together.
At first it was exciting: I had never seen him drink to excess; I had never gotten drunk with my dad before. It felt like a way to be closer. But then it became apparent we weren’t drinking together: he was drinking like it was a race. And I drank and drank to keep up.
I don’t know how many drinks in we were when he confessed to having had that affair with the physics professor, the one that Linus had told me about, and that I had hoped to myself wasn’t true. It was years ago, he continued, and it had been a mistake. He loved my mother. He felt that he was still being punished, even though it had happened so long ago. He didn’t know how to make things right, but he would—he had to.
Did he bring up divorce then?
Try as hard as I can to remember, I can’t.
I don’t remember making the decision to go to bed. I woke up on the hotel couch, jeans still on, a blanket pulled over me. On the floor was an empty bottle of whiskey, drained, and another bottle of wine I don’t remember.
Dad left for the airport early, and I could smell whiskey on him when we hugged goodbye.
It was clear he didn’t remember much of the night. He didn’t seem ashamed about it. I was still a little drunk. Everything smelled like alcohol and was repulsive. The smell might have been coming from inside my nose. I could smell it in the waistband of my jeans, so I took them off and chucked them across the room. I picked up a glass of water that was sitting on the nightstand, took a swig, and spat it out: it was gin or vodka or some combination of the two. I tidied the hotel room in my underwear—throwing the bottles away, straightening things. I drew myself a bath.
“What happened?” Joel said when he picked me up. My hair was still wet from the bath; my face was pink. I burst into tears, hideously. I hiccupped the whole drive home.
March 26
Mom’s been heading straight to the living room after work. Today she takes a bag of popcorn and a plate of the broccoli I’ve made for dinner—“Good,” she nods—and turns on the TV. I join her. The star of the show is a bachelor who is to select his future wife from a group of women. He is an ex–soccer star. He calls all the women “gills.” “There are so many beautiful gills to choose from,” he says. “How is it possible I can ever be able to make this choice?”
During commercial breaks it’s:
? Mom changing the subject.
? Mom balancing popcorn on my knee.
? Mom not letting me in on things and me having trouble eliciting it from her.
And Dad without a clue. Eating his dinner, screwing pieces of wood to other pieces of wood, cautiously climbing a ladder, oblivious to any atmospheric disturbance.
I walk to the nearest bus stop and board the bus. I get on without looking to see which bus it is. Not that I know what any of the numbers mean.
A couple is sitting on the bus. The young woman is feeding her boyfriend yogurt.
A mouth, if you aren’t interested in the person it belongs to, is disgusting.
The couple gets off the bus, and a large man in a police uniform gets on. I wonder what happened to his car.
“Hey, stranger,” somebody else says to him. His face snaps out of his dull bus-riding face.
“Hey,” he says. “Hey.”
“How many kids you got now?” she asks.
“Five,” he says.
Before I know it, we’re at the last stop. I don’t know what city we’re in. There are warehouses all around me—a vast, unending parking lot.
I try Reggie—my only friend still in town—but he doesn’t pick up. I dial PHILLIP, and Theo answers after the first ring.
“This is embarrassing,” I say, “but could you give me a ride home?”
“Where are you?” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and read him the cross streets.
He picks me up after not too long and doesn’t ask what happened, which I appreciate. Instead he tells me about his day. How he was, when I called, leaving a bad stand-up show and feeling outrage. How, earlier today, he returned bad avocadoes to the grocery store, and got a refund, and felt triumphant.
We’ve been in the car for an hour. He pulls into my driveway.
“Can we, I don’t know, sit here for a second?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says, still not asking any questions, and which I still appreciate.
“What happened with them?” I finally ask Theo. Theo who knows Dad, who knows Joan.
He inhales, holds his breath for a second.
“It’s really none of my business,” he says. “There was a flirtation between them. Text messages. I think it started last semester, lasted a couple months. She said he led her on. He didn’t seem to think so.” He pauses. “It’s over, I think. Whatever it was.”
“But,” I say. “Did anything happen?”
“No!” Theo responds, sounding surprised. “I mean, I didn’t even . . . I don’t know. I doubt it. I don’t think so.”
He looks, concerned, at me. He touches my shoulder.
“You’re gonna be okay?”
“I think so,” I say, opening the car door. “Thanks for getting me.”
“Anytime,” he says.
“Anytime?”
“Well, at least a few more times.” He smiles. “Maybe, like, four more times?”
“A gentleman,” I say, and turn toward our house. I turn back around before I enter and see he’s still looking. He gives a small wave and drives off.