I kick off the covers way too early, still on school time since the year ended just a few days ago. Stumble down the back staircase to the kitchen to make coffee and walk Ginger, our runty white Lab.
The stone floor is cool under my bare feet, and the whole house feels eerily silent. Something’s off, or maybe it’s just me. Coffee will help.
Our kitchen used to be an attached shed that my granddad renovated in the seventies. It was pretty modern back then, but nothing’s been updated since he died. We’ve got one of the first microwaves ever created and a Mr. Coffee drip pot from the late twentieth century.
I’m probably the only guy I know who can make coffee in his sleep: water, filter, a hundred scoops of Maxwell House (because it’s good to the last drop). Press the button and we’re good to go. That’s when I take Ginger out for a walk. By the time we’re back, the coffee’s done and I feed Ginger and . . .
Ginger isn’t there.
Her doghouse, which I painted red like Snoopy’s when I was eight, is empty.
“Ginger! Ginger! Here, girl!” I whistle for her and clap my hands and probably wake up the entire street, but she doesn’t come to me.
“Ginger! Ginger!” I hold my breath and listen for her paws rustling in the bushes or her panting as she clambers up the short hill from the woods. All is quiet. Ginger has run away before, but she always returns, usually right around mealtime.
I clap my hands a few more times and whistle as I walk around the outside of the house. Maybe she’s stuck somewhere, trying to crawl after a ball or a bird? The bushes and trees are still, and the driveway where my granddad built a basketball hoop is empty.
The open garage door catches my eye. It should be closed. I should be looking at a sign that says Jones Family Farm in fat orange letters painted across the faded wood.
I take a few steps closer and find Ginger lying on the concrete floor of the garage in the spot where my dad’s pickup is usually parked. Her front paws are crossed with her head resting on top of them.
“Hey, girl,” I croon. “Whatcha doin’?”
Her brown eyes are wide as she seems to shake her head. Darned if I know.
The pickup. Where’s Dad’s pickup truck? Mom’s Honda is in its place, but there’s only a sad-looking Labrador retriever with a streak of gold down her back sprawled on the oil-stained concrete.
My heart sinks to my stomach. It feels wrong, this empty garage. Ginger knows it too.
Mom . . .
By the time I get inside, my mother is sitting at the round wooden table in the breakfast nook, drinking some of the coffee I made. She has a smile on her face, which tells me she doesn’t know yet about the empty garage.
“Good coffee.” She lifts her mug—an oversize ceramic thing that holds twice the usual amount of liquid—and nods. She drinks at least three of these every morning before work.
“Thanks.”
She isn’t dressed in her normal work scrubs. She’s wearing the pink shorts and tank top she likes to sleep in, along with a thin cotton robe and flip-flops. Her hair isn’t ready for work either; her brown pixie cut sticks up all over her head, like she’s gotten an electric shock.
She waves a hand at the coffeepot. “Grab some more of that for me, would you?”
I pour myself a cup and then refill hers. Black. No sugar. Two sugars for me.
“Sit, Matty, sit,” she urges. There’s an edge in her voice, a tone warning me something is coming. My mother’s hand slides into the front pocket of her robe, and I hear the scritch-scritch sound of her nails on paper.
“What’s that?” I aim my gaze at her pocket.
Mom’s eyes flicker from me to her lap and back again. She takes out a crumpled envelope and lets it sit on her thigh for a very long moment. Her fingers tremble and her foot bounces nervously, the plastic sandal making a snapping sound against her bare skin. “Your dad . . .”
“He’s gone,” I say, but it sounds like a question. “Is that . . . is that what you want to tell me?”
There’s a hitch in her breath when she sighs. “I don’t think . . . well, I don’t know for sure, but—no, no, I do know. He’s—yes, he’s gone.”
The scritch-scritch again draws my gaze. “And that’s . . . a note from him? Did he leave us—you, I mean, did he leave you a note?”
“Matty—”
I grab it from my mom’s hand. “‘Dear Lorna . . .’” That’s my mom. “‘I’m sorry, but Carol and I . . .’” And that’s all I see before Mom snatches it back. Not that I need to see any more. I know who Carol is: the wife of my uncle Jack, my dad’s brother. Like my mother, Jack is ten years younger than my dad, and Carol is ten years younger than Jack, which makes Dad running off with Carol . . . really pathetic.
“Well, that’s that.” I hear a quaver in my voice and swallow to clear it.
“We don’t know that.” My mom looks both too young and too old. Cheeks sprinkled with freckles and gray hairs at her temples. “We don’t know what will happen.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“He could . . .” Her words hang in the humid air. She takes a long gulp of coffee as her eyes dart around the kitchen. Does she really want him back? Seriously? A guy with no steady job who’d rather tweet and write blog posts all day? A guy who let his own family business wither and die because he couldn’t be bothered to care?
I stand abruptly and the table shifts. “I gotta eat.” At the sound of “eat,” Ginger whines. “Oh crap, I forgot.” I bend down and rub the dog’s neck. “Sorry, girl. I got your breakfast. Hang on.”
Mom waves her mug. “You got that, yeah?”
“Yeah, no worries.”
“And your breakfast too?”
“What am I, ten? I can make breakfast for myself.”
She cocks an eyebrow. “You sure?”
“Uh, which one of these things is the toaster again?” I walk up to the refrigerator. “This one? Is this it?” I tap the microwave. “Oh no, it’s this one, right?”
My mom smiles for a split second and then presses her lips together. “I gotta get ready for work. I leave Ginger and Mr. Coffee in your capable hands.” She finishes her mug silently, not looking at me. A minute later, I feel her hand rest on my shoulder as I’m pulling down a bag of kibble. She’s about a foot shorter than me, petite framed, and tough. She doesn’t look it but my mom is one kick-ass mother. “Have a good day. It’ll be okay.”
I shrug off the implication that my dad leaving would in any way impact my day, week, and/or life. “Well, duh, it’s summer. It’ll be great.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment, and in that time, I try to read what she’s thinking. Are we on the same wavelength about Dad? This isn’t a big deal, right? We’re not devastated, are we? Our eyes meet and she suddenly glances away as if she’s said too much, projected too many feelings. “Yes, then, good.”
She looks like she might need a hug, but we’re not real touchy-feely in the Jones family. It would be weird for me to offer her one. Instead I salute her as she walks out the door.
I scoop out some kibble for Ginger, wondering about the letter in my mom’s pocket. What else did my dad write? Is there anything in there about me? Not that I care. He’s always had his own shit going on that had nothing to do with us. Maybe now he’ll finally be happy.
I hear my mom upstairs in her room above the kitchen, padding lightly from dresser to closet to bed. It hasn’t been easy being David James Jones’s wife; she’s had to hold the family together for a while now. Maybe she’ll finally be happy too.