Senior Year
TOBIAS BURSTS INTO MY ROOM LATE SUNDAY morning while I’m still in bed to show me his finger in between dressing changes. He seems fascinated by its gruesomeness.
“You were really brave, Tobes,” I tell him, remembering how still he sat in the hospital, his eyes staring resolutely ahead while his fingers stayed locked around mine.
“So were you,” he says, flashing his big-toothed grin. He hasn’t smiled at me like that in so long, the sight of it now makes me want to hug him. Before I can even think about it, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I breathe in his little boy smell of sweat, kid shampoo, and peanut butter, and something in me unravels.
“Ahhh,” he yelps, wriggling free. “You’re crushing my bones.”
“You mean these bones?” I tickle his ribs and he runs for the door, giggling.
After Tobias leaves, I take a long, hot shower. By the time I’m dressed, my stomach is growling and there are strange noises coming from downstairs. Banging sounds, like metal clanging against metal.
I shuffle downstairs to the kitchen and almost trip over my father, who’s stretched out on his stomach on the floor in front of the dishwasher with a flashlight in his hand. Various tools are scattered on the tile around him.
“What are you doing?” I ask, grabbing a bagel and popping it in the toaster.
“Dishwasher’s leaking.” He sticks his hands into the opening at the bottom and moves some tubes around. “Looks like the drain hoses are cracked.”
“Where are Mom and Tobias?”
He lifts himself into a kneeling position and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Grocery shopping. Your brother wants homemade pizzas for dinner tonight, and he insisted on being in charge of picking out all the toppings.”
My bagel pops, and I’m glad for the excuse to turn away. It’s the most my father’s said to me in weeks and I’m not sure how to react.
“I have to go to Home Depot for new hoses.” He gathers up the tools, his back to me. “Feel like tagging along?”
I concentrate on buttering my breakfast, feeling torn. Clearly, Mom told him what I said in the car yesterday, about him hating me for coming home, and now he’s trying to prove me wrong. But then I think about what she told me about him, that he’s a fixer who can repair everything except people, and how helpless it makes him feel to watch me suffer. Seeing me broken probably eats at him the same way guilt eats at me, and there’s no quick cure for either of us. All we can do is avoid being devoured completely.
“Yeah,” I reply, finishing the rest of my bagel. “I do. Just give me a few minutes to get dressed.”
Home Depot is a madhouse, but for once in his life, Dad doesn’t linger in the aisles, drooling over expensive tools he’ll never have any use for. He finds the hoses he needs and pays for them, and we’re back at the truck in under ten minutes.
We barely speak on the way home, unless it’s to comment on something trivial, like the weather. As we pull into our driveway, I wonder if this is how it’ll always be for us now—long silences interspersed with safe conversation. But then my father shuts off the truck and lets out a long, weary sigh, and I brace myself for something bad.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you yesterday,” he says gruffly. “At the hospital. I was worried, and sometimes when I’m worried it comes across like I’m mad, even when I’m not. And I wasn’t. You did a good job yesterday, taking care of your brother like you did. I . . . I’m proud of you. And I’m glad you’re here with us, at home. It’s where you belong.”
He says all this to the side window, face hidden from my view. Slowly, I reach out and touch his hand, which is rough and twice the size of mine. Still facing away, he grasps my fingers and squeezes hard, like he used to when I was little and we went somewhere crowded. Whenever I complained about him holding my hand too tight, he’d say, Sorry, baby girl, just trying not to lose you. Hearing it always made me want to stick close.
“Thanks,” I say, blinking back tears. Crying would just make us both uncomfortable.
Dad clears his throat and lets go of my hand, reaching in back for the Home Depot bag. We climb out of the truck and walk up to the house together.
“So,” he says as he unlocks the door. “You and Ethan. What’s going on there?”
My face gets hot. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to have to take him down to the basement to show him my rifle collection, am I?”
We step inside the warm house, and I concentrate on my jacket zipper. “No, Dad. We’re not— It’s not like that with us.”
“No?” He raises his eyebrows. “That’s not the impression your mother and I got. Seems like you two spend a lot of time together.”
I take my jacket off and hang it up. “We do. Well, we did. I’m just not sure it can work.”
“And why’s that?”
I sigh. My father and I never talk about things like this. But he’s clearly trying to connect with me, so I explain. “Because of Aubrey. Because it’s too hard. Because his parents hate me. Pick one.”
He looks at me for a long moment and then shakes his head. “That’s doesn’t sound like the Dara I know.”
I’m not sure how to respond, so I shrug and head for the kitchen.
“The Dara I know,” he goes on, following me, “doesn’t back down from challenges. She tries things, even when they seem impossible. She tries things just because they seem impossible.”
I sidestep the dishwasher mess and get a glass from the cupboard, keeping my back to him so he won’t see the tears in my eyes. He’s describing the old me, the girl who died on that warm June morning. The girl I’m not sure I can ever get back.
“She’s one of the bravest people I know.”
My fingers tremble on the glass. I set it on the counter, empty, and turn to face my dad. “Was,” I say. “Past tense.”
“No.” He opens the Home Depot bag and takes out the hoses he bought. “Pretty sure I used present tense. Want to help me install these?”
“Dad,” I say, ignoring his question. “Remember what happened when you drove down Fulham Road? I still haven’t gone back there, or to the graveyard either. I can’t even bring myself to look at her headstone.” I let out a breath. “I’m not brave.”
“I disagree.” He crouches next to the dishwasher and starts digging around in his toolbox. “You came home. You went back to school. You faced Ethan and the rest of your friends. You stepped up to take care of your brother yesterday even though you were probably terrified. You think a coward could do all that?”
My brain scrambles for another argument but comes up empty. Maybe because there isn’t one. Maybe the old me isn’t as dead as I thought.
I kneel next to my father and pick up a wrench, turning it over in my hands. “Okay, so I’m not a coward,” I say, humoring him. “In that case, it should be easy for me to go talk to Ethan, right?”