27
When I wake the next morning, I’m completely disoriented. It takes me several seconds to realize that I’m not in a tent with Lennon; I’m sleeping in his empty bed, and the sheets smell like him, freshly laundered and sunny. So good. For a moment, anyway. Then I spot his dastardly wall of reptiles, including Ryuk, who’s staring at me through his lizard habitat.
“Sorry, buddy,” I tell the bearded dragon. “Your dark master is not here.”
And he won’t be for several hours. Mac got a text from Avani last night before I showed up. Apparently, Lennon’s phone is still dead, and she informed them that he was safe and would be riding home with her today.
I hope he’s okay.
Sitting atop a pile of gruesome graphic novels, the clock on Lennon’s beside table says it’s half past nine. I smell bacon and coffee, and my stomach leaps with joy. Even though I showered here last night before I dropped dead in Lennon’s bed, I didn’t eat, and my body is more than aware that the last meal I had was freeze-dried stew yesterday afternoon when Lennon and I were hiking toward Condor Peak.
Part of me wants to hibernate in Lennon’s room among the stacks of horror comics and DVDs, but I know I can’t linger here forever. So after checking the state of my hives—not great, but not out of control—I dress in the clothes I stuffed in my purse last night and head down a short hall to the Mackenzies’ main living area. Sunny and Mac are already dressed and sitting at the dining room table, browsing news headlines on a tablet with a cracked screen.
“Good morning,” Sunny says brightly. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like the dead.”
“Excellent,” she says, getting up to head around the kitchen counter. “How about some sustenance?”
“Yes, please. I’m starving.”
Mac squints at me. “You haven’t developed any new allergies to eggs or pork, have you?”
“As long as no one’s cooking shrimp scampi, I’m all good.”
“Ugh,” Mac says, pretending to be exasperated. “Will I ever live that down?”
“Bad shrimp,” Sunny calls out cheerfully from behind the stove.
I exhale deeply and take a seat next to Mac. “I’ve missed you guys.”
“We’ve missed you too,” she assures me, bumping her shoulder against mine.
Sunny brings me a plate piled with eggs, bacon, and toast, and I help myself to the pot of coffee that’s sitting on the table. “Any word from Lennon this morning?” I ask, hopeful. I charged my phone overnight, but there were no messages from him.
Mac lifts her coffee cup. “Avani said she’d text when they were leaving today. I told her to let him know you’re here with us.”
I’m glad, but I also feel left out and unconnected from him. It’s weird to be on the other end of the no-phone-service problem. I liked it better when I was the one without reception.
I’m not sure what it is about civilization, but now that I’m here, the nagging urge to stay connected has returned. If I can’t have him in front of me, I need him to be a text away.
Resisting the urge to double-triple-quadruple-check my phone, I instead answer Sunny and Mac’s questions about the trip. They’re curious, asking questions, and I tell them a lot of things . . . but not everything. I get the feeling they know exactly what Lennon and I have been doing in the woods; they’re smiling a lot, and it’s making me a little uncomfortable, so I just focus on the life-and-death parts of the trip, not the sexlaxation parts. The doorbell rings as I’m telling them about the lightning storm, and when Sunny answers it, she talks to someone for a moment and then calls me quietly into the hallway.
“It’s for you,” she whispers.
I glance down the front hall toward their cracked front door. “Is it my mom?”
She shakes her head. “Go on. It’ll be fine. And we’re steps away if you need us.”
With trepidation, I shuffle to the door and open it. The face staring back at me is familiar, yet unexpected: a handsome Korean man in his fifties with short hair that’s gray along the temples, black in the back.
“Grandpa Sam?” I say, utterly confused.
“Zorie,” he says, enunciating carefully. Then he launches into a string of incomprehensible sentences that sound urgent and decisive.
“You know I don’t understand Korean,” I tell him. I can say hello (Annyeong-haseyo) and please (juseyo) and a few choice words that my mom uses when the man who owns Pizza Delight tries to overcharge us for extra toppings. Occasionally, I can figure out what the actors in my mom’s favorite K-dramas are saying after we’ve binged several episodes in a row, but that’s about it.
Grandpa Sam, on the other hand, understands most English. He just doesn’t speak it well. He says “okay” and “yes” and “no,” but he doesn’t bother with much of anything else, which is why emojis are his preferred way of communicating with me.
Right now, he lifts his head and mutters to the sky. Then he sighs heavily and motions for me to come with him. “Okay?” he says.
“Okay, hold on.” I run back into the house and get my stuff, and when Mac asks what’s going on, I tell her, “I have no freaking idea.”
They tell me everything will be fine, and I head outside where Grandpa Sam is waiting. He silently guides me across the cul-de-sac, one gentle hand on my back. He’s still talking to me in Korean, but now he sounds less upset. He’s trying to assure me of something, but when I see my mom sitting in the backseat of his shiny Audi sedan, parked in front of our apartment, I have a horrible feeling.
“What’s going on?” I ask. Mom is looking the other way. Is she avoiding me? What about her promises last night? She said she wouldn’t leave.
Grandpa Sam points to our front door and gives me a command in Korean, then says, “Okay?”
“No, I don’t want to stay here,” I tell him, desperate. “Take me with you.”
“Yes,” he says, vexation in his voice.
“What do you mean, ‘yes’? Yes, I can come? Yes what?”
Before he can give me another one of his exasperated rants, the front door of our apartment swings open to a torrent of swear words that I do understand. Only, they’re coming from the mouth of my tiny Korean grandmother, which makes them sound so much worse—mostly creative combinations involving animals.
Esther Moon never swears. She never yells, either, so I know we’re in uncharted territory now. She has Andromeda on her leash, and smoothly transitions from anger to murmuring baby talk at my dog in order to coax her down the front stairs. I’m not sure who’s having more trouble navigating them: the old husky, or the woman in stiletto heels and a designer skirt that fits like a glove.
My grandfather calls out to her, and she lifts her head. “Zorie! Thank God. Pack a bag and say goodbye to your fly-covered dog turd of a father.”
Like I said, unlike Grandpa Sam, she speaks English just fine.
“Grandma Esther,” I say. “What’s happening?”
“You and Joy are staying with us for a few days,” she says brightly, scratching Andromeda’s head while the dog tries to lick her skirt. Grandma Esther is the Korean dog whisperer. She has two Frenchies and a Boston terrier, and they adoringly follow her around the house like her posse. She coos at Andromeda, “And you’re going to have so much fun with my girls, aren’t you, sweetie?”
My head is trying to process everything. “We’re going to Oakland?”
“No, to our vacation home in Bali,” she says sarcastically. “Of course, to Oakland. Are you all right?” She tears herself away from the dog and gives me a thorough once-over, smoothing my curls with delicate fingers.
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully.
“You will be. I’ll make you chicken and rice soup.”
Admittedly, that’s a strong motivator. Grandma Esther is an amazing cook. She does that in heels too.
Grandpa Sam pleads with me about . . . something. I can’t tell. He talks too fast.
I look back and forth between them. “What?”
Grandma Esther sticks her tongue out my grandfather. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s trying to rush back to watch the football game. Take your time. We’ll be waiting in the car.” She clucks at Andromeda, and as she heads toward the sedan, adds sweetly over her shoulder, “If your pig-shit father tries to talk you into staying, tell him he can sue for custody.”
Oh, God.
Grandpa Sam chuckles to himself, pats me on the back, and follows her to the car. I’m left alone, and I really wish I weren’t. It feels like I’m walking into a haunted house filled with ghouls waiting to jump out at me.
Steeling myself, I step inside our living room. My dad is there, red-eyed and bleary. He looks like he’s just been told someone died. Shell-shocked. Blank. Unable to comprehend.
Confident, charming Diamond Dan has left the building.
“Hey,” I say warily.
“Oh,” he says, sitting down on our sofa. “Zorie.”
“What’s happening?”
He rubs his head. “That’s an excellent question. I’m not quite sure, myself. What did Esther tell you?”
“That I’m staying with them for a few days.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He nods while placing both hands on his knees as he gathers his thoughts. Then he gives me a reserved smile. “So, your mother and I may be separating. It’s not decided yet. I won’t go into the details, but you don’t want to hear them anyway. Well, you already heard a few things last night, so I’m assuming this isn’t a surprise—”
“Dad, the entire last two weeks have been nothing but surprises.”
“Ah. Well.”
That’s it? That’s all he’s going to say? How about, Hey, I’ve been sleeping around and this family is a sham. Oopsie! I mean, come on. Give me something.
A silence hangs between us.
“Why?” I finally ask.
He shakes his head slowly. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think.”
After he looks away, I think about what Mom had told me—that my father was still having trouble getting over my birth mother’s death after all these years. Last night, that sounded like a convenient excuse, but now I’m thinking about the photo book, and how that woman looked a little like my birth mother.
“You can’t bring her back,” I tell him. “She’s dead, and there was only one of her, and you can’t bring her back.”
“I know,” he says in a broken voice.
“You could have talked to me instead of shutting me out. I was mourning her too, you know? She was my mother.”
“I know she was.”
“Then why didn’t you talk to me? Ever?”
One shoulder lifts slowly, and then falls. “I was unprepared to raise you on my own. I felt like a failure. And then I had to watch while Joy swept in and provided what I couldn’t. She was a natural. How could she do better than I could, when I was your own flesh and blood? Her parents spoiled you—”
“Spoiled?” I hardly think so. It’s not like Grandpa Sam showers me with gifts constantly. He just buys me practical stuff.
“Christ, even the Mackenzies do a better job raising you than I could,” he says. “Your mother would roll over in her grave.”
I don’t remember my birth mother being homophobic, but maybe I blocked that out.
“You don’t need me,” my father says in a low voice, despondent.
“Dad—”
“It’s true,” he says. “I know it. Everyone knows it. You’re better off without me.”
I’m not sure if this pity party is genuine, or if he’s trying to manipulate me into feeling sorry for him—or if he’s trying to push me further away. But I give him the benefit of the doubt.
“It’s going to take me a long time to forgive you for what you’ve done,” I say. “To Mom, and to me. However . . . you’re still my father. I’ll always need you. At some point, I think you’ll realize that you need me, too. And when that day comes, I’ll be here.”
He looks up at me, face pinched in pain.
“But today,” I tell him, turning away, “my mom needs me more.”