There we were, me and Sam and Fito sitting in Sam’s living room. Not that she lived there anymore. There were a lot of boxes around, most things all packed up, waiting to be moved. “You know,” Sam said, “we almost moved everything out. We were going to put a lot of this stuff in storage, and then Lina said, ‘What for? We can leave it here.’” She looked at Fito. “So now you have a place to stay. And we still have electricity and we still have water. Very cool. The heater doesn’t work. It went haywire on us, and Mom didn’t get around to fixing it. Poor Mom.” Sam got this look on her face. “But we have lots of blankets. You won’t freeze to death. And sorry, no TV and no Internet.”
Fito just kind of shrugged. “Don’t do TV. And you think I had Internet at my house?” He looked around and kept nodding. And then, I thought he was sort of going to start crying. He looked away, then put his head down—?but he kept himself together. “Why are you guys bein’ so nice to me?”
“Because we’re such fucking nice people.” That Sam. Her and that word. But she was the best. Maybe when she was old, she’d be all heart, like Mima. And everybody would love her. Well, maybe not. There was something wild in Sam. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have a heart. She had a heart, all right. A really good one.
We hung out with Fito most of the morning, listening to vinyl records. Mostly Beatles stuff. Fito was really into Abbey Road. I wondered if we were pretending that everything was fine when it wasn’t. I mean, getting thrown out of your own house was pretty drastic. And Sam and I had stuff going on in our heads and in our hearts. Just as I was watching Sam and Fito singing along with one of the songs, I remembered a dream I’d had the night before about Mima—?how I couldn’t find her—?and I thought about the letter my mom left me and wondered what I was so afraid of. Risk averse. That’s what Sam said I was. It was a nice way of saying I was afraid of trying new things. Maybe what it really meant was that I was a coward. Maybe I lost my temper with guys who acted like assholes because I wasn’t brave enough to talk to them.
I felt a pillow hit my head. “What are you thinking over there?”
I smiled at Sam. “Ah, just stuff.”
“I know,” she said. “Let’s order pizza, and Fito can tell us about his shitty childhood and I can tell you about what stage of grief I’m in today.”
“Yup, yup,” I said.
Fito looked at her—?like What?
I texted Dad: Sam and I are hanging out with Fito. It wasn’t a lie, but why did I have this thing in me that didn’t feel all that good when I kept secrets? What was up with me anyway? I needed to stop analyzing myself. I didn’t have the credentials to be my own therapist.
I swear, that Fito could eat. How’d he stay so skinny? He was like Sam. Good thing we ordered a large pizza. “Let’s play a game.” Sam was always making up games. And she always changed the rules and always said she could do that because, surprise, she was the one who’d invented the game.
“What game?” I said.
“What was the worst moment in your life? The only rule is that you have to be honest.”
“Okay, but only if the next game is ‘What was the best moment in your life?’”
“Okay, that’s fair. If you have to have your optimism fix for the day, I’m good with that.”
I could see Fito getting a kick out of the way Sam and I got along.
She looked at Fito. “You first.”
“Why me? I’m the new guy in this group.”
“Yup. Initiation.”
“Well, actually, the worst moment in my life is my whole life.”
“Wrong.”
I laughed. “Sam’s gonna be tough on you. She’s like that. I can even tell you why she said wrong.”
“All right, smart-ass, why did I say wrong?”
“Because it’s not specific. There’s no detail. If you don’t get to relish in Fito’s tragedy—?if you can’t do that—?it’s no fun.”
“I don’t do relish,” Sam said.
“Yeah, you do.”
“Oh, you think you know me so well.”
“Point out where I was wrong.”
She gave me one of her I-think-I-might-hate-you-at-this-very-moment smiles and turned her attention back to Fito. “We’re waiting.”
“My worst moment. I have a lot to pick from. Let’s see, it would have to be when I was about five. Maybe I was six. So this guy came to our house. And he and my mom, they were doing something. Smoking something out of a pipe, and my mom and him, they start taking off their clothes and shit, and they’re making out and shit, and I don’t really know what the hell is going on and so I ask them. And the guy goes after me. I mean, he goes after me. I thought he was going to kill me. I remember running out of the house to get away. I spent the night hiding in the backyard. In the morning, I didn’t go inside until I saw that his car was gone. I had dreams about that for a long time.” He looked at Sam. “How’d I do?”
Sam leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This is a stupid game.”
But Fito smiled at her. “Not so fast. Your turn.”
We all started laughing. And who cared if it was just whistling in the dark? “Okay,” Sam said. “Mom left me alone once for a whole weekend. I was seven—”
I interrupted her. “Why didn’t you come over? Or call or—”
“You and your dad were somewhere out of town. Some art show or something. And I was scared. Mom told me not to open the door for anyone and just leave it locked. She said she’d be back on Sunday morning. Anyway, I was sleeping that Saturday night, and I woke up. I heard a crash, and I knew someone had broken the window to the back bedroom where my mother slept. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran out the front door.”
She looked sad.
Fito wore this really kind expression. “And then what happened?”
“I ran to the Circle K up the street, the place where you’re working now, and there was a police car parked there. And I saw two policemen in the store and they were paying for coffee. So I just went in and told them someone was breaking into my house. One of the policemen was super nice. ‘Did you forget your shoes?’ Anyway, I showed them where I lived, and we went inside, and someone had taken the television and some other stuff.
“And the policemen asked me where my mother was. I told them she was away on a family emergency, that my babysitter was here when I went to sleep, but when I heard the noise, she was gone.”
“Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t want my mother to get in trouble. I don’t know what happened, but my Aunt Lina got involved, and she told my mother she was going to take me away from her. I remember that. It was scary. Really, really scary, and my mom never left me alone again. Well—?not until I was, like, thirteen. But I spent a lot of weekends at your house, Sally.”
“Why do you always call him Sally?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “I think it’s a control thing,” I said.
That pissed Sam off. “A control thing? Really?”
“Yeah. If you get to name me, you get to tell me what to do.”