chapter thirty-seven
After breakfast on Monday morning, I do aerobics in front of the TV with the windows open wide so the day can come in. I can do the whole workout now without running out of breath. I bounce from one foot to the other, pumping my fists up in the air while sweat drips down my face. After that, I put on my stretched-out Speedo and swim laps in the pool. I have no idea how far I go. The pool is only fifteen yards, so the laps are there and done too quick to count. Still, I can feel the strength in my muscles and my lungs and I have faint tan lines across my back again.
When I come back inside, wrapped in a towel, my hair dripping wet down my back, the home phone rings. The woman on the other end asks if either Carol or Morgan Grant is available, and I tell her that I am. She tells me her name is Karen and that she’s calling from Pacific Palms Primary. Ben’s school. My stomach flips up and over itself like a trapeze artist.
There’s a scratchy sound followed by a bang, like she’s muffling the phone with her hand. “I, um, I have a Mr. Richard Grant here to pick up Ben,” she says. “He claims to be Ben’s dad, but I don’t have his name on the emergency release form. It says we can release Ben to you or Carol or his after-school program. Does Richard Grant have permission to take Ben?”
Everything stops long enough to feel like forever. And when the seconds start again, they’re revved up like race cars.
“No. Don’t let Ben go. He can’t go with him.” I say these things, panicked and petrified.
“He’s, um, rather insistent,” she says.
“I’m coming,” I say. “I’m coming right now.”
I turn off the phone and toss it onto the desk, then race down the hall to my room. I pull sweats on over my damp suit, run back through the apartment, and grab my car keys from the hook in the kitchen. Everything is automatic at first. Slapping through the screen door and tearing down the stairs and through the courtyard doesn’t even faze me. But when I run out to the back of the building, I stop still at the line of marked parking spots. What I’m doing hits me full-force. I look at my car covered in the navy blue tarp. I can’t move forward. I’m frozen, gripping my key ring in my hand. I grip it so tightly that the teeth of my house key dig into my palm enough to make an indentation.
And then I pace. I walk back and forth, from parking spaces 200 to 215. Counting up. Counting down. I can’t do this. How can I do this? I sink to my knees, trying to catch my breath. My stomach churns. I lurch forward like a cat. I retch. Nothing comes up. I pant in place until the warm pavement soaks through the knees of my sweatpants and scrapes the palms of my hands. What good am I?
And then I think of Ben. I think of the googly eyes on his frog costume and the way he pronounces the word paleontologist incorrectly when he talks about dinosaurs. I think of the way he squeezes my cheeks between his hands so I can’t say “I love you” coherently before he kisses me. I think of the way he sleeps and runs and jumps and dreams. I think of all that he doesn’t know and all that he shouldn’t have to know. Not yet. And because of that, I stand up and yank the tarp off my car, leaving it in a crumpled mess on the ground.
I get inside and shove the key into the ignition. The engine growls in protest from so many months of not being driven while the exhaust pipe coughs up black smoke into the alley.
I sit for a moment.
My seat rumbles underneath me.
I grip the steering wheel.
I look over my shoulder.
I back my car out.
I go.
When I round the corner and merge into traffic, there are lights and bikes and people and things that make me jerk in my seat. I continually start and stop my car with a jolt, trying to avoid everyone and everything. Even though I’m alone, all I can see is Aaron Tiratore sitting next to me clutching a backpack full of secrets. I dry-heave at a stoplight and quickly roll down all the windows in case I puke for real.
He’s not here. He only exists if I let him.
*
It’s just before ten a.m. when I peel into the lower lot of Ben’s school. I don’t even check to make sure I’m parked between the lines. It seems like it should be time for recess, like kids should be hanging upside down from monkey bars or slurping up tubes of yogurt and juice boxes. But the campus is quiet and empty, and I worry that it’s because of my dad. Especially since there’s also a police car parked in front of the school. I know it’s bad. Not Aaron Tiratore bad, but still bad.
I run up the concrete steps, past the handmade posters advertising Ben’s play four days from now, and through the front door of the office. I must be loud, because everyone turns to look at me at once—two police officers, one principal, one secretary, and both of my parents.