After eating, we head back. My mom swings Ben’s hand in hers, the wind whipping her bun loose so the shiny brown strands of her hair brush her shoulders. It’s just the three of us—the way it used to be when we’d spend warm evenings or sunny weekend mornings here like this. We make our way up the pier where we pass fishermen and moms pushing babbling toddlers in baby strollers. We pass runners wearing formfitting Lycra tank tops and neon shoes. We pass a girl who looks a little older than me hustling to the ice-cream shack, tying her bright pink apron around her waist while balancing her phone between her ear and her shoulder.
And I have a memory then. Of days at the beach with my dad when I was just a little kid and it was only the two of us with a boogie board and a bottle of sunblock. He taught me how to swim in the ocean, navigate waves, and get out of rip currents. Ben wants my dad to get help so he can still love him while I’ve tried to pretend I don’t love my dad because of who he’s become. I don’t love this new version of him. I miss the old one. But that’s not the whole truth. Because my dad is going to be my dad forever. He’s going to be my dad whether he gets help or doesn’t. The truth is I will love him either way because he’s my dad. I will love what I remember. But loving isn’t the same as forgiving, and I still need to work on that.
About halfway up the pier, Ben stops at a binocular stand that costs twenty-five cents. My mom fishes out her wallet to come up with a quarter for him. We sit down on the bench next to the stand to stare out at the horizon while Ben looks through the binoculars at some stand-up paddleboarders way off in the distance. It’s weird to say, but I already miss this moment. I’m longing for something before it’s even gone. It makes me want to do everything I can to keep having moments like this.
*
My mom’s phone rings as we’re heading back to the car. She answers. “It’s the police,” she tells me, and ducks behind a concrete column to talk.
I pull Ben to the wide front window of a nearby bakery, where we watch a man in a hairnet roll out dough across the floured surface of a butcher-block table. He has a bunch of metal cookie cutters laid out next to him, and I ask Ben if he can tell what shapes they are. He squints and takes inventory.
I look over at my mom. She’s fidgety, nodding her head, and clipping and unclipping the clasp on her purse.
Ben looks up at me, ticking off all the shapes, and I nod with enthusiasm. “Good job,” I say. “I think you figured out all of them.”
My mom is only on the phone for a few minutes, and she looks shell-shocked when she walks back over to us.
“What is it? What happened?” I ask.
“I don’t believe it. Your dad willingly checked into rehab. He actually did it.” Her eyes tear up, but they’re tears of relief. Of happiness. Of hope.
I have them, too.
Just a few minutes ago we were on the pier, escaping reality. Now reality is back. But it’s a good reality. It’s a promising one.
chapter thirty-nine
Evan insists that going to Ben’s play is our first date. So on Friday night, we drive in his car to make it more official. His music is good. The windows are down. The air is salty. I want to love the moment more than I do.
But I can’t.
Because the reality is that I’m about to do the thing I’ve been worried about ever since Ben told me he was in a play. I’m about to sit down with a bunch of strangers and pretend like it doesn’t bother me.
“Pull over,” I say only three blocks past Paradise Manor.
I scramble out of the car and sit down on the curb. I take deep breaths while the evening traffic rush comes and goes through several cycles of red, yellow, and green traffic lights in front of us. East and west. North and south. Evan sits, too, quietly watching the cars with me. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t tell me to get over it. He just lets me work through my moment. I appreciate that.
It’s why I get back in the car.
He holds my hand for the rest of the drive, squeezing it every once in a while to remind me I’ve got this. And then he holds my hand through the lobby, past the door, and down the aisle of the auditorium. He finds me an end seat in case I need to make a quick escape, then sits down to the left of me. He tosses his jacket on the seat next to him to save it for my mom, who had to come earlier to help Ben get ready backstage.
And then we sit. And wait. And watch.
I visualized every single second of this with Brenda, but it’s still different when I’m actually living it.
Everyone except us has some form of recording device. Before anything has even started, parents are taping the audience filing in or snapping pictures of themselves holding up the program. I try to record a memory of the scene. I snap a visual of the chocolate-brown velvet curtain skirting the sides of the stage. It’s open wide enough to see the cute kid-painted forest scene that will be used as the backdrop for the play. There are white fluffy clouds and trees hanging low and dotted with lush green leaves and bluebirds. The sounds of flowing river water and forest animals echo through the sound system.
As we sit, the auditorium gets more packed with people. Lightweight jackets are shed and hung over the backs of seats, and cell phones are whipped out for last-minute checks of e-mail and other pressing things. I take inventory of every face and emergency exit.
“It’s nice to be out with you,” Evan says, squeezing my hand and distracting my brain. “In the world, I mean.”