“Lunch. On weekdays it’s at noon, but on Saturdays and Sundays, it’s at one. I want to go eat. I’m hungry.”
“I’m hungry too.” I appeal to David. “Maybe we could run out for a meal and then come back?”
“Let’s just check out the cafeteria first—?I want to see what kind of food they’re serving here.”
Ethan is trotting ahead, so I take the opportunity to whisper to David, “If you say a single negative thing about the food—”
“I won’t. Not unless there are maggots in it or something.”
“If there are maggots in the food, you will be too busy scraping me off the ceiling to talk at all.”
The food doesn’t have maggots in it. It’s just your basic cafeteria food, not particularly appetizing, but edible. Ethan seems happy enough with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that’s offered as an alternative to anyone who doesn’t want the main course of fish and rice. Ethan tells David, me, the two cafeteria servers, Sammy (who’s keeping a watchful eye on everything), and every one of his friends who’ll listen that he doesn’t like fish and doesn’t believe that anyone else really likes it either.
Once he’s gotten his sandwich, he points to a group of kids at a table. “I sit there. Between Julia and Nicholas.”
“Go ahead and join them,” David says. “We’ll go get lunch and come back after, okay?”
“Okay,” Ethan says, and walks off.
“Maybe I should say something to Sammy now about the bunk beds,” David says.
I tug on his arm. “I’m starving. Can’t we eat first? You can go on the attack later.”
“I’m not going to go on the attack.”
“Still . . . food first.”
In the car, I Google restaurants, and we locate a Subway just a couple of miles from the school. After we get our food and sit down, I tear savagely into my sub—?I really am starving.
When I look up, David isn’t eating. Just sitting there, staring at the table.
“You okay?” I say. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” He sinks his face into his hands. “I feel all messed up inside.”
“Why? Ethan seems okay, doesn’t he? Maybe there are some minor issues . . . but the school’s a lot better than I expected.”
“I know,” he says with a small groan. “I thought so too.”
“Then what? What’s wrong?”
He drops his hands. “I honestly don’t know! I mean, I’ve spent the last month picturing the worst, and it’s not that bad, and I should be happy about that. So why do I feel like shit?” He reaches for his sandwich and unwraps it slowly, then takes a bite without any real interest or appetite.
“Maybe because it’s all anticlimactic,” I say. “Ethan doesn’t need to be rescued. At least not immediately.”
“That should be a good thing.”
“It should. But we’ve both been thinking about him so much—?especially you—?and wondering what would happen when we came. And there’s kind of nothing for us to do. For now, anyway.”
“Maybe.” We eat in silence for a minute. Then David says, “I thought he’d be happier to see us.”
“He was totally happy to see you!”
“Not really. I mean, yeah, he thought it was nice I came, but it wasn’t like he was sitting around waiting for me or anything.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Years and years of us always being together, with me doing everything I could to . . . you know . . . help him. And then he goes away, and he’s totally fine.” He gives a strangled, slightly choked laugh. “Oh, God. Is that my problem? That I’m so selfish I want him to be miserable without me? Am I that big a wack job?” He drops the rest of his sub on its paper wrapping.
“Well, yeah,” I say. “But not for that reason. You don’t want him to be miserable. It’s just . . . you were planning not to go away to college because he might need you, right? And then he’s the one who goes off to school, and he doesn’t even seem to miss you. But I bet he does miss you. It’s just that he’s like Ivy—?neither of them is very good at saying what other people need to hear.”
“But it’s more than just what he says. I honestly think I miss him more than he misses me.”
“That’s because you took care of him. And he’s still basically being taken care of, but you don’t have anyone to take care of. So you lost more than he did.” I nudge his hand with mine. “I’m willing to be taken care of, by the way, if you need someone to fill that void. I could use a little more nurturing in my life.”
“I’ll try,” he says. “But I’m not all that great at being warm and fuzzy.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“I think maybe you’re being sarcastic,” he says, exactly the way Ethan would say it, and I laugh.
“You need to be proud he’s doing so well,” I say. “It’s all because of you.”
“So basically you’re saying I should let my baby bird leave the nest?”
“Exactly. Now eat your sub so you can regurgitate it for him when we get back.”
The afternoon goes better than the morning did, mostly because David stops looking for things to criticize.
Sammy suggests that Ethan show us the “movie studio,” which turns out to be a corner of the arts and crafts building with a green screen and a digital camera on a tripod. Ethan tells us he’s going to make a movie and that Julia will star in it.
“Maybe also Nicholas,” he says. “But I’m not sure about that.”
David corners Sammy about the “bunk bed situation,” as he calls it, and Sammy explains that they didn’t want to move any of the other boys too soon after Ethan’s arrival—?“Transitions are hard for them, and we didn’t want them to associate Ethan with something negative”—?but that eventually they’ll have the bottom and top sleepers switch places. “I promise you it will be fair and even in the long run.”
David nods and doesn’t bring up the dresser drawers. Which I take as a personal triumph.