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“Daniel?”
Has he been calling my name?
“Huh?” I say.
“It’s freezing in here.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I can try and turn it up.”
“No, baby, we’re not staying. I just meant…. Never mind,” he says, and crosses to me. He brushes my hair out of my eyes. “Do you have a suit?” he asks gently.
I stare at him, unsure why I would need a suit. Rex clears his throat.
“For the, um, the funeral?”
Right. The funeral. What a strange word. Fyooneruhl. Not very many words with an f and then a long U-sound. Future. Fuchsia. Fumarole. Fugue.
“Daniel?”
I take my only suit out of the closet and roll it up into my backpack. I add my toothbrush and toothpaste to the bag.
“Do I have to do something with the pipes?” I ask Rex. “So they don’t freeze or something?”
“We can call your landlord and let him deal with it.”
“What about Marilyn?” I ask, suddenly remembering the dog.
“I called Will. He’s going to take care of her. Is there anything you need to see to at school?”
I shake my head. I submitted grades before I went to Rex’s the night before and I’d dropped the essays off in the main office.
“Okay,” Rex says, and as we walk back out into the Michigan snow, I have the strangest feeling that it’s the last time I’ll ever see my apartment. But of course that’s ridiculous.
IT TURNS out that Rex is one of those people who know how to get places. He has an atlas in the truck, and I ask him if he wants me to look up directions, but he says he doesn’t need me to. For the first few hours, I keep expecting him to ask me to check something, but he never does. Rex doesn’t talk to me, for which I’m grateful. I have no words right now and to demand any of me would be cruel. I can’t even answer no when he asks if I’m hungry. I know I should offer to take a turn driving, but when I gesture vaguely at the steering wheel, Rex just shakes his head and squeezes my knee.
I’m not sure if I sleep or not, but it’s been dark for hours before I notice. Rex gets off the highway in Youngstown and the Springsteen song starts playing in my head. Good song. We pull into the parking lot of a motel.
“Are we stopping?” I croak.
Rex nods. I bite my tongue. I want to keep going, but Rex has been driving all day and he must be tired.
In the room, Rex tells me he’s going to go get some food and starts the shower for me. It feels like it’s been months since we showered together this morning. I get into the shower like he says. I have the strongest memory of the week my mother died. I didn’t quite understand at first, but when I realized she was never coming back I started to make a wish when the clock turned to 11:11. A kid at school had told me that if you wished on 11:11 it would definitely come true. I would stay up late so that I could make the wish twice a day, that whole week. I wished for my mom to come back and my dad to be gone instead.
Rex opens the door and the water has gone cold. Again, I haven’t even washed my hair.
“Come here, love,” Rex says.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I think the hot water’s gone.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Rex has laid out Subway sandwiches on the small table by the window.
“I got you turkey,” he says, but I’m not hungry. I shake my head and lie down on the big bed.
“Daniel, you haven’t eaten anything all day. I know you’re not hungry, but you need to eat. Just a little.” I close my eyes. “Please,” Rex says, and when I open my eyes I see how tired he looks. How worried. About me, I guess.
I nod and haul myself up again. Rex is clearly starving because he finishes his sandwich in about two minutes. I take a bite and it tastes like glue. When I try to swallow, it’s like I’ve never eaten before. The sensation is so strange. Like a brick has lodged itself in my stomach. I take another bite and chew until it’s paste, hoping it’ll just slide down. I swallow it, but on the third bite my mouth refuses to open. I know I’ll throw up if I try.
“Sorry,” I say, and push the sandwich across the table to Rex.
“We can save it for later,” he says, but I shake my head quickly. Just the idea of eating it later, slick turkey clinging to moist bread, makes my stomach heave.
“You eat it,” I say. Rex hesitates, but he’s obviously still hungry and acquiesces. It’s gone in minutes.
