There are a lot of good reasons not to go hunting with Dad and Dean today:
1) Sleep. I like it. Getting up at the ass-crack of dawn on a non-school day is not my idea of a good time.
2) A certain incident involving a certain Bubba Blade and an uncertain amount of vomit.
3) I don’t want to accidentally punch my brother in the face.
4) It’s not like they’ll notice whether I’m there or not.
It’s always been like this. Even when we go camping. You’d think us being crammed into a tent, the only three people for miles and miles and miles, would bring us together. Fresh mountain air and manly bonding and all that shit. But they’re always off hunting. Or strategizing about hunting. Or sharing war stories about The Hunt. And I’m hunkered over my magnifying glass trying to check off more bugs in my beat-up copy of The National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders.
But none of these are the most important reason I’m not hunting today. No, no, no. That would be:
5) Today is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, which means Dad’s intensity will be dialed up to an eleven, and if he doesn’t shoot a wild turkey, he’ll come home from today’s hunting trip with a store-bought turkey and a magnum of shame.
When I wake up Thanksgiving morning, there’s a burlap sack with a freshly shot turkey sitting on the kitchen island, and all is right with the world. The conquering heroes emerged victorious from yesterday’s hunt, and now’s when I feel like I can really contribute. I have a particular set of skills, and while those skills do not include hunting, they definitely include eating. And Thanksgiving is the one day during all of wrestling season for which I make an exception.
I spent most of yesterday helping Pam make pies—blackberry-apple, chocolate-pecan, pumpkin and cherry and coconut cream. This morning she started on the vegetables, and I worked on this sweet-potato thing topped with a crunchy brown sugar–pecan mixture. Mimi is making Brunswick stew, which isn’t really a Thanksgiving thing, but nobody cares because Mimi makes a mean venison Brunswick stew. And if you want to go all traditional, you’re technically supposed to make it with squirrel, but really, who wants to eat a squirrel? I think she’s mostly making it so she could use some of the deer Dean shot yesterday, and even though I hate going hunting with Dad and Dean, I still think it’s pretty cool how they never hunt more than we can eat.
“Spencer! Where have you been, my love chicken?” Mimi squeezes me into a hug that smells like her sugar-lemon hand lotion. And safety. If safety had a smell, it would definitely be sugar lemon. “Do you mind taking out the trash again?” she asks. “We seem to create extra on Thanksgiving.”
“Wait, let me get these in first.” Pam moves to dump some pie crust trimmings, but Mimi stops her.
“Oh, no, dear. Save those for the possum plate.”
Some people compost. Mimi has a possum plate. Only Mimi has a heart big enough for the possums (or raccoons or flesh-eating Morlocks or whatever it is that comes to eat our food scraps in the middle of the night). It’s really pretty impressive. Have you ever seen a possum? They make rats look positively cuddly.
Pam’s face pinches. She clearly does not share Mimi’s affinity for butter-faced marsupials. “Here.” She deposits the floury scraps in Mimi’s hands. “I’ll let you take care of that.”
Pam and Mimi are incapable of preparing a meal without sniping at each other (too many Mama Bears in the kitchen), and I’m not expecting a Thanksgiving miracle today, so I grab the trash bag and haul ass, but not before I hear Pam mutter something about vermin.
I’m just shutting the lid on the trash can when I hear: “Hey, Spencer.”
My dad emerges from behind the woodpile, cigar smoke clinging to his clothes. I hope he knows he’s not fooling anyone.
“Yes, sir?”
He brushes at the front of his jacket. “Listen, I’ve got a big sale going on for Black Friday, and I think we’re gonna be short-staffed.”
“Do you want me to help?” I try not to sound like it matters too much.
“The store’ll be pretty packed . . .”
“Oh.”
“I’ve been watching you work. It seems like you’re a lot more comfortable with talking to people. Do you think you can handle it?”
He noticed. “Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”
He grins. “Well, great.”
I grin back. “Yeah.”
“Well, I’m just gonna get a little more fresh air. I’ll see you inside.”
“Okay.”
He’s going to walk around the yard until the cigar smell goes away, but I’m so happy I don’t even care. All the stuff I learned at camp and from meeting other people with Tourette’s, figuring out how to explain it to people in a way that makes me feel the most confident—I never would have guessed those things would have helped just as much as my meds, but now I feel like everything is paying off. When I get back inside, Mimi is making sweet tea.
“Didn’t Pam already do that?” I ask.
Mimi glances around and puts an arm around me conspiratorially. “That woman can’t make sweet tea to save her life, bless her heart.” She stirs faster. “I poured hers down the sink, and I’ll have this in the fridge before she gets out of the shower. You got my back?”
I cross my arms like I’m really taking my time to think about it. Mimi looks scandalized.
“You know I’ve got your back.”
“And I’ve got yours, chickadee.”
She puts the new pitcher of sweet tea away, and I go upstairs to change into a polo shirt and khakis because that’s something we do on Thanksgiving. I take a bag of ice, too, so I can sit on my bed and RICE (Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation.) my ankle again.
RICEing is pretty boring. I stare at the ceiling for a few minutes, and then I attempt to re-read Harry Potter for the eighty-seventh time, while Lord Voldemort silently judges me for how I handled things with Hope.
“Dude, I know it was a dick move. You don’t have to stare at me like that.”
He bites the head off a cricket in reply.
I turn my body so I can’t see him because eight eyes’ worth of judgment is A LOT of judgment. I guess I get a little carried away what with the reading and self-loathing, because by the time I get back downstairs, Mimi is gone, and Pam is crying.
“I can’t believe it,” she says.
“Is it the tea?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“The rolls.” Pam is full-on sobbing now. “I let them go too long while I was getting ready, and now they’re burnt to a crisp.”
The rolls are the only part of Thanksgiving that’s not made from scratch (well, that and the cranberry sauce—hello, my delicious, gelatinous friend). They’re just these Hawaiian rolls we get at the store. No big deal.
I try telling this to Pam. “Don’t worry. Those are like the least-important part of Thanksgiving.”
“But they’re your dad’s favorite.”
“Um.” I am starting to feel completely and utterly out of my depth when Mimi swoops into the kitchen. Oh, thank goodness.
“Don’t you worry.” She wraps Pam in a hug. “I’ll send the boys out to get more, and they’ll be back before you know they’re gone. You’ve made the loveliest meal.”
Pam nods and cries and cries and nods. Mimi sends her upstairs to fix her makeup.
“That was really nice of you,” I say.
Mimi acts mock-offended. “Well, of course it was. I’m a nice person.”
“I guess I’ve always kind of thought you didn’t like Pam.”
Mimi puts her arm around me. “I didn’t at first. But it takes a special kind of person to love someone else’s children like that.”
My grandma doesn’t often let her soft underbelly show, especially where Pam is concerned. I kind of just stare at her, stunned.
“She still can’t make sweet tea worth a damn.”
There’s the Mimi I know and love.
“Get your brother and get to the store.”
Oh heck no. “I’ll just go by myself.”
“Oh, no, you will not. Dean, get up here!”
Dean and I haven’t been alone together since three days ago when I saw Hope crawl through his window, I’ve made sure of it. I suspect Mimi has noticed and this is part of one of her plots.
My brother emerges from the basement with video-game haze in his eyes.
“Dean, you and Spencer are going to the store to get more rolls.”
“Yeah, okay. I feel like I haven’t seen you all break, man.”
I start to protest, but she grabs him with one hand and me with the other and pushes us together. “You’re going or you’re not getting any pie.” She pokes me in the back with her finger. “And smile,” she whispers.
I really do try to smile during the car trip. It feels like my face is doing a bench press.
Dean makes small talk about college. Mostly about all the girls he’s hooking up with. I stop bench-press smiling and consider punching him in the face. Luckily, we are already in the grocery-store parking lot.
“I’ll get the bread. Don’t bother parking,” I say, and then practically tuck and roll out of the truck.
The rolls are easy to find and not sold out, which means I definitely have something to be thankful for today. I feel less thankful when I get back in the truck with Dean’s ugly face. At least this time he takes the hint and stops trying to talk to me.
Then we get home, and Pam hugs us and tells us what wonderful boys we are and almost cries again. And then, The Eating. And it is some oh-so-wonderful eating. I almost forget how pissed I am at Dean. Almost. I still remember to “forget” to pass him the mashed potatoes until the third time he asks, and I also make sure to give him the stink eye and accidentally kick him under the table at regular intervals. But it’s when we get up for second helpings of pie and I cut in front of him for a piece of chocolate-pecan that the shit really hits the fan.
“What the hell is your problem?” he hisses.
I peek over my shoulder to make sure the rest of the family is still at the table.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Um. You’ve been acting like a little punk all day, but okay, sure, nothing’s wrong.” And then he picks up my piece of pie (MY PIE) and starts walking back to the table.
And I am just so damn sick of him taking everything from everyone and never thinking about how his actions affect other people that I snap.
“YOU.”
He turns. So do the heads of everyone currently enjoying Thanksgiving dinner (now with a show!).
I lower my voice. “You’re my problem.”
He rolls his eyes and grabs me by the elbow. “Spencer and I need to talk about something downstairs. We’ll be right back.”
He frog-marches me down and then sits on the couch. “Well? Let’s do this, drama king.” He takes a bite of my pie. Dean knows how to push all my buttons—he’s the one who installed them.
“You’re an asshole,” I say. “I know you hooked up with her in your room this week, and you don’t even care about her, and you’re screwing around with all these girls at school, and you’re an asshole.”
“You said that already.” Dean sets the pie on the coffee table, and at least has the decency to look ashamed. “And I really am sorry about that. I don’t know what she told you, but I—”
I stamp my foot like a toddler. I am livid, and this rage fountain is coming out, sorry excuses or no. “How could you do this to me? How could you? Anyone else but her.”
Dean throws his hands in the air. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I didn’t do anything.”
The memories of that day flood back, and I let them. I take a fucking misery bath in them. “Liar. I saw her sneaking in your window.”
My brother makes a stupider face than usual. “Wait, who are we talking about?”
And I say, “Hope,” just as he says, “Jayla, right?”
There are three seconds of silence that feel like standing on the lid of a dormant volcano.
“Wait, Jayla? You had sex with Jayla, too?” BOOM.
“No, I didn’t have sex with Jayla. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We walked home from Ethan’s party together, and she said you guys had broken up, and you wouldn’t even care if we hooked up because you were so into Hope. And out of respect for you, I asked her to put her shirt back on and took her home. Which wasn’t easy because I actually think we’d be great together.”
I can barely process the words that are coming out of his mouth.
“And just so we’re clear, Hope was my girlfriend. You were the one pining over my girlfriend for years.”
“I liked her first!”
“She’s a person. You can’t call dibs on a person.”
He’s right. But if someone you care about loves someone else, and it’s in your power not to crush that? I mean, you shouldn’t, right?
“I love her,” I say quietly. “I’ve always loved her.”
He sighs. “I care about her, too, Spence.”
Her in his bedroom. Her after he dumped her. “You.” I point my finger in his face. “You almost broke her.” I snatch the plate with my motherfucking pie and sit in my dad’s chair. “And she’s the only one who gets to call me Spence.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “She’s not that great, man. I mean, yeah, she’s fun and intoxicating and all that, but then something bad happens, and that’s it. She’s out. And it’s all your fault. None of it’s hers. It’s just not worth it.”
I’m up, and I’m fighting mad, and the pie is on the floor, and it’s a damn shame there’s a coffee table in between us. “Her sister died.”
“I know. And that’s really sad—”
“No, you don’t know.” I push him in the chest. “All you can see is how she relates to you. But she has her own life. Her own stuff. And she’s amazing.” I wipe my cheeks. Not that I’m crying. “But you’ll never get to know it—about her or any other girl—because all you ever see them as is something to make you happy or inspire you or cheer you on.”
I sink into the floor and rest my head against my knees.
Dean sits beside me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to talk about Hope like that.” He pauses for a long moment. “And maybe you’re right. Yeah, I’ve had a ton of girlfriends or whatever, but it’s not like what you guys have. I get that.” It hurts him a lot to tell me this. I can see it. “We didn’t hook up this week, when she came into my room. She was asking for my blessing.”
My brain is going to be mush before the end of the day. It’s incorporating new facts and building new life knowledge like so many busy ants digging a network of tunnels.
“For what?”
He pushes me. “For you, doofus. She was asking for my blessing to date you.”
Me. Blessing. What?
“I told her it was fine, and then we hugged it out. I’m really kind of surprised you guys haven’t started dating already.” He pushes me one last time before he heads upstairs. “It’s probably because you’re such a doofus.”
How does it feel when it happens?
Like your heart is a firework and someone just lit the fuse.
Like all the colors in the world are brighter, and there are more of them, ones I would swear didn’t exist yesterday.
And the air is filled with chances. They’re just floating there like specks of dust. And I get the idea that they’ve always been there, a flurry of chances following me around, only now I can see them. Now I can take them.
I could do any bold, reckless thing, like hang glide off a mountain or talk to Hope.
Hope.
I have to see her.
I can’t.
Because A) she probably hates me, and B) I’m probably not allowed. It’s bad enough that Dean and I got up in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner to “brawl like heathens” in the basement. There is no way Pam will let me interrupt this meal a second time.
Turns out Thanksgiving dinners last a freaking long time when everybody keeps going back for seconds and thirds and fourths and just one last sliver of pie.
Finally, I feel like I can ask, “May I be excused?” Before Pam can answer, I add, “Dinner was really delicious. Thanks.”
She smiles. “Thank you, sweetie. Of course you can.”
I calmly get up from the table, calmly walk out the front door. But as soon as it’s closed, I run/limp across the yard and up Hope’s steps, and I rap that anchor-shaped door knocker for all it’s worth.
No one answers. I knock again. It occurs to me that the lights are out and a car is missing from the Birdsongs’ driveway. The trip. They’ve already left. I try calling, but it goes straight to voicemail, so I put my phone back in my pocket and sit on her welcome mat and lean my head against the door. I feel like I’ve swallowed a firework.