“So you’re twenty-five and you don’t have a girlfriend?” I ask. “I mean, I’m not trying to pry, but what’s with that? You’re a cool guy.”
He laughs. “Well, I’ve had girlfriends. I thought I even wanted to get married a few years ago but it didn’t work out. Twenty-five isn’t old. I’m sure I’ll find someone one day. I don’t know. I just like to work a lot. It keeps me happy and busy and probably too busy for having a girlfriend who needs me to be around a lot.”
“You must like your job.”
“I love it. Every day I get to help kids like—kids like . . .”
“Like?”
“Like me,” he says. “Every day I get to help kids like me.”
Do you see how we skirt around it? How we maypole dance? We’re not tilting at windmills—we’re talking about a real monster. We’re just not allowed to talk about it. Which makes my stupid headpiece story even more ridiculous.
“I’ll text you later once I buy tickets. I already called the B and B and they have a room. I’ll stay for a while. We’ll do some stuff. Maybe take me to the art museum!”
“Christ,” I say.
“What?”
“I don’t want to go to the art museum.”
“How about the Mütter?”
The Mütter Museum is the grossest museum on the planet. It’s filled with medical oddities and skulls and Civil War amputation kits and the livers of the most famous conjoined twins in history. There are centuries-old gynecological tools. There are babies in jars. Parts of Albert Einstein’s brain. Seriously. Albert. Einstein’s. Brain. It’s the perfect place.
“Yes. You’re on.”
“I’ll text you,” he says.
We say good-bye and hang up.
Katie
We make tacos. Chicken and black bean mix—extra spicy because Mom and I both know that’s how ten-year-old Sarah likes them.
“Did you know that she only got back from Mexico about a month ago?” I ask Mom.
“No,” she answers, and she looks concerned.
“That’s why she’s still peeling,” I say. I feel like I’m still peeling, too, six years and one month later.
Mom pours the taco sauce over the chicken and the beans. She mutters something about wishing she’d had time to make it homemade. “Your father didn’t recognize her when he saw her last week, did he?”
“I don’t think he’d be able to believe it.”
“I hope he’s ready,” she says. She stops and laughs to herself. “Maybe I should just take dinner to him upstairs.”
“Nah. I think we should have dinner as a family.”
This is a joke. It’s a joke on Dad. He’s the one who always said to me, when I wanted to eat in the living room, “We should have dinner as a family.” Not like it ever helped much. He called Mom “Mom” and she called him “Dad” and they never held hands or smiled and they never talked to each other. It was just his rule. Dinner as a family. I think he should live by it as we all have had to live by it.
“We never got to do anything fun today,” Mom says. “Tomorrow? I have to work at seven, but I’d love to go somewhere fun during the day.”
I think about Bruce. I think about the Mütter Museum. I think about what’s fun. I have no idea where she could take me. “Yeah, sure.”
“Also, I talked to the principal today,” she says. “You’re all set for a break but you have to do a little summer school.”
“God,” I say. “Summer school.”
The doorbell rings. As I walk to the door, I realize how weird it must be for ten-year-old Sarah to ring the doorbell to her own house.
? ? ?
When Dad sits at the table, ten-year-old Sarah is taking a bite out of her taco. This is against every one of Dad’s rules. He’s very strict about table manners. You eat only once all people are sitting and served. But we did wait five minutes for him and his tacos have been getting cold, so Mom, ten-year-old Sarah, and I decided that his rules didn’t count if he was five minutes late for dinner.
He appears to be a different person. Unshaven and in a pair of sweatpants. His hair looks greasy. He doesn’t care that we’re eating. He doesn’t make eye contact. But he’s as cheery as he can be about ten-year-old Sarah.
And out of the three of us, it’s ten-year-old Sarah who has planned for his first question. Mom and I never even thought about it.
“So nice to see you again . . .”
“Katie.”
“Katie! Yes. Now I remember!” Dad says.
“Thanks for having me to dinner,” she says. “I love tacos.”
Dad looks at her, sitting in my seat—her seat—our seat for the last sixteen years. I’m sitting in Bruce’s old seat. Mom and I planned it this way.
“It’s our pleasure, isn’t it, Mom?”
Mom says, “Dad and I rarely get to meet any of Sarah’s friends.”
Ten-year-old Sarah nods as she chews on her taco. Dad takes a bite. Mom looks at me and smiles.
Dad says, “Wow! You made these spicy! Katie, I’m sorry if it’s too hot for you.”
Ten-year-old Sarah says, “I like tacos spicy. They’re perfect.”
Dad stares at her for a minute and Mom and I watch him, checking for signs of impending brain implosion. So far, he’s clueless.
“Could you pass the tortilla chips, please?” ten-year-old Sarah asks.