“So you can write letters to your sister,” he whispered.
I looked down at the bag, but only to avoid eye contact.
“I read about it,” he continued, “and thought this might be something you’d like to try. This way, you can talk to her before she gets here. And, I don’t know—it might help you process things. Or something.”
I unwrapped the ribbon, the paper, held the journal in my hands. It wasn’t leather-bound or anything, and some of the corners were already beginning to fray. He’s apologizing, I thought. This is his apology. But it was cheap in every way imaginable. A real apology cost something, because you had to stand there like an idiot and say it out loud for all the world to hear—I’M SORRY. And the world, as always, would respond with a resounding, “Yes. Yes, you are.” Dad wasn’t going there; I wasn’t sure he could. That kind of humility required a depth of love he had never been proven to possess.
“Of course, if you do plan on giving it to her one day, maybe you could avoid topics of, you know, tragic substance. Or at least despair.”
I looked up at him, wondering how it was possible I could be a product of this man’s loins. “And how do you propose I do that, Dad, seeing as how our family is prone to substantial desperation?”
He rolled his eyes and flared his nostrils. “I was kidding, Mim. Trying to lighten the tension a little. Of course, write what you want. Tell little Iz all about the atrocities of life. I just hope you’ll remember some of the good stuff, too.”
I looked at the journal and suddenly remembered that day long ago, reading a book at Aunt Isabel’s feet. “I can round off the sharp edges of my brain,” I said.
Only it wasn’t supposed to be out loud. Dad and Kathy looked at each other, their concern thick in the air. Suffocating, actually. Still holding the journal, I stood from the couch.
“Oh, wait,” said Kathy. “I got tacos.”
I looked at her, wondering what she’d actually said. Surely it wasn’t I got tacos. Surely, even she could understand how I got tacos was not the thing to say at the foot of this colossal conversation. Surely . . .
“You what?”
She blinked. “From the Taco Hole. I thought we could have dinner and . . . talk.”
Nope, I was wrong. She didn’t understand. She never would. I turned, walked from the room.
“Honey, where are you going?” asked Dad.
The real question wasn’t where, but when and how. I knew the where, because I’d already looked it up.
Nine hundred forty-seven miles away, I thought to myself. Nine hundred forty-seven miles . . .
CLEVELAND, OHIO
(947 Miles from Mosquitoland)
37
Best for Her
“FOR REAL THOUGH, you have to show me how you did that.”
I will ignore her. For all of eternity, if possible.
“Your haircut, I mean,” says Kathy. “You really pull it off.”
From my bag, I grab the makeup remover and wipe the war paint from my face. Beck and Walt are following behind us in Uncle Phil. Their trip back to Ashland Inn had turned up nothing. Beck’s phone was officially missing, most likely stolen by some disgruntled maid or maintenance worker. They’d arrived back at the house just as Kathy and I were exiting. I’d give a pinky toe to be with them instead, but leave it to Kathy to suck the fun out of a thing. Her one condition for allowing us to continue to Cleveland was that she would drive me the rest of the way.
“Still wearing those shoes,” she says. It’s her last-ditch effort to get me to talk, and I have to say, a rather predictable move. I don’t bite.
“You know—” she starts, then shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“I’m so sick of people doing that.” Honest to God, I had every intention of not speaking to her, but this is just too much.
“What?” she says.
“Starting a sentence, and then saying ‘never mind.’ Like it’s really possible for me to not sit here and try to figure out what you were gonna say, before you thought better of it.”
“Well, what I was gonna say was really not my place.”
“Ha! Right. Okay. Well, how about we go back in time so you can apply the same set of scrupulous principles to basically every decision you’ve made in the last six months.”
She takes a deep breath and rubs her belly, which seems to have grown considerably over the last five days. “You’re mad. I get it.”
“Mad? Kathy, my life was fine before you. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good. And then you came along and suddenly home wasn’t home anymore, it was part-time, like a hostel or something. Dad wasn’t Dad, he was Part-time Dad. Mom wasn’t Mom, do you know what she was? Gone. Along with my life, both of which you took from me, leaving this I-don’t-know-what . . . part-time shadow of myself in its place. Now you and my part-time dad are having a full-time kid. And you want me to be, what, part of the family? Thanks, I’ll pass.”
Kathy takes the next exit, and navigates a back road. For a moment, we sit in silence, avoiding the uncomfortable nearness of one another. “Whether you like it or not, Mim, this family needs you. Now more than ever. Izzie’s going to need a big sister. She’s going to—”
“I read the letters, you know. The ones Mom sent you, asking for help.”
Kathy stops talking, which is half the battle. The other half is to shame the shit out of her.
“She’s sick, right?” I say. “Is she dying?”