He considered that.“Bet that sucked.”
“It really did.”I couldn’t help smiling a little.
He stared out the window.“I’ve got baseball tonight.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding, filing it away as something important to him.The light turned red, and I eased to a stop.“What time?”
He sighed, dramatic and put-upon.“Practice starts at five.I can’t miss.”
I glanced at the clock, which showed we had less than an hour.“How long is practice?”
He looked at me like I’d just asked something obvious, but this time I didn’t bristle.I tightened my hands on the steering wheel, already doing the math—and realizing this wasn’t about my evening anymore.
“Until 6:30.Sometimes we go until seven if we’re doing a drill.”
“What about the rain?Won’t the fields be muddy?”
“It’s grass.”His tone was flat, unimpressed.“There won’t be puddles.It’ll be fine.”
More time outdoors.Oh, joy.“What do you usually do for dinner?”
“Mom has it ready when I get home from school.”The way he saidMomcut deep—like she was the gold standard, and I wasn’t even bronze.
“Is there food at your house?”I asked carefully.
“Not really.Maybe mac-n-cheese.”He paused, then added like a punch to the ribs with a hefy dose of sarcasm, “You can cook like mom, right?”
“I can probably handle mac-n-cheese.”I swallowed hard.Anything more complicated than that?Probably not like his mom.“Can you skip baseball tonight so we can sort through our… Well, everything?”
The look he shot me in the rearview mirror could have scorched earth.Pure betrayal.As if I’d asked him to set his prized baseball glove on fire.“Baseball,” he said sharply, the word final and unmovable.
“Baseball it is.I need a shower?—”
“I need food.”
“I’ll shower.You eat.I’ll?—”
“What?”he interrupted again.“What will I eat?”He crossed his arms.
“Burger Times.”It was the only fast-food restaurant in town.Vision was one of those main street towns that if you blinked while riding the train through the center of town at top speed you missed it.However, Vision had two primary business streets that T-boned into the courthouse.Terrible city planning.The town had gotten a pizza place since I left.If anyone wanted other options, they had to drive fifteen to twenty minutes up the road.
“You’d go there?To Burger Times?”Curiosity lit his face.“Mom never let me get that.She called it overpriced fat food.”
“I enjoy overpriced fat foods.”
Twenty minutes later, I dodged potholes down the gravel driveway to a white farmhouse perched on a hill, complete with a wraparound porch.Very on-brand for Dad, the porch didn’t have charming rocking chairs.Instead, it featured one rickety wooden chair and a sagging canvas chair, both wearing a fashionable coat of moldy leaves.
The house was missing a few shutters and probably should’ve been repainted sometime during the Obama administration.But the porch mat looked brand new.So did the boot brush beside the door.Clearly, chaos was allowed everywhereexceptwhere shoes were involved.Maybe this was Hope’s way of drawing a line in the dirt—literally.
I parted the pile of unopened mail on the kitchen table to slide the paper bag of burgers toward Vinny.“Eat.I’m going to shower.”
He had one-fourth of a burger eaten before I even left the kitchen.His mouth full, he said, “We need to head to baseball in ten minutes.”
I made it only a few steps into the master bedroom before I faltered.The bed was unmade and clothes draped over chairs and spilled across the carpet.My dad’s belongings cluttered the dresser like he’d just stepped out for a minute.But he hadn’t.Neither of them had.The ache hit hard, sharp.I forced myself to move, because staying meant feeling everything I wasn’t ready to face.
The bathroom was barely larger than a linen closet with a shower-tub.It reeked of plug-in deodorizer and mildew.Rust stains around the shower, toilet, and free-standing sink made me shaky with the need to scrub.No excuse for that kind of muck in a bathroom.I missed my condo bathroom that was half the size of this house’s master bedroom.I kept it pristine.
I couldn’t figure out how to close the sticky bathroom door or how to turn on the bathroom fan.Maybe it just didn’t work.
