Chapter 26

I’ve been spending some nights at Vince’s house. He makes me laugh with stupid jokes, and Gracie and I have become attached at the hip. The other day when I left, he said she paced by the front door for an hour. We cuddle all the time, and I think it makes Vince jealous—and also sort of happy. I caught him staring at us one lazy Sunday, with my head butted up against Gracie’s belly as I read the latest Nora Roberts Vince had bought for me. He’d merely grinned and then gone back to watching the football game on TV.

I spend one hour every day searching for jobs and exploring different paths I could take, but I’m not particularly interested in selling Avon, teaching kids in Asia how to speak English, or working in another restaurant. I applied to a part-time job at the library, which I didn’t get, and also put my application in at a gym, for shits and giggles. Understandably didn’t get that one either. I sent my résumé off to a marketing firm even though I don’t have all of the qualifications they’re looking for. I figure if most men apply for jobs with half the qualifications required, I should too.

I continue to write grief posts, and they’ve earned me a few follows by a couple low-level celebrities, and I’m close to fifteen thousand total now. And if I’m really desperate—and by desperate, I mean I want to see Vince’s face—I hang out at the funeral home for a few hours, but mostly, I spend my days walking.

It clears my head, quiets my thoughts, and has done some really terrific things for my butt. Sometimes I get cocky and challenge Vince to a race when he joins me, but the guy’s like the Energizer Bunny. He goes and goes. My lung capacity can’t seem to make it past the pace of a third grader, but nevertheless, I love it. My shoes, on the other hand, don’t.

Without a job, I’ve severely cut back my spending. But I need new sneakers, and this is my first purchase outside of necessities in weeks. Buying a pair of HOKAs isn’t exactly the same as a Sephora spending spree, but it is oddly satisfying. And I wonder if this is what it’s like to grow older. Finding immense joy in appropriate footwear?

It’s not half bad.

I dig out my debit card at the register, ready to pay, when the kid behind the counter tilts his head at me. “Hey, I know you.”

I raise one eyebrow.

“You’re Coach George’s sister.”

Coach George, the moniker hits me like a wave. I hold on to the edge of the counter, treading water. I haven’t had an episode like this in a while, and I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to drown in grief.

“Yeah, I’m his sister,” I say after I can breathe again.

He rings up my sneakers. “I played outfield. Man, I really miss him,” he says nonchalantly. “He was the best.”

“The best,” I agree, putting my card into the machine to pay. He hands me the receipt and bag, a wobbly smile on his face. It connects to something inside me, a shared experience, even though we don’t know each other.

“How are you?” I ask, my heart taking another punch.

His cheeks pink as he casts his eyes down. “I’m good. The team didn’t do very well last season.”

I assume he’s probably ashamed, but I’m no athlete, definitely no coach, and have no advice. “Well…I’m sure it’s hard for you guys without…”

He swipes at one of his eyes with the back of his hand before meeting my gaze again. “Coach Fetterman took over, and none of us like him. He’s kind of a dick.”

Of course he is. I don’t know Coach Fetterman, but he’s not my brother, so…

I think of Vince. Of how much he loves baseball, how he gave up his scholarship, and how he would be a great coach. I tuck that idea away for later.

“Well, good luck.”

When I start to leave, he raises his hand to stop me. “You should come to one of our games.”

The invitation has me rocking back on my heels. I can’t imagine it would matter if I’m there, but the sweet sentiment makes my eyes water. I can’t say no to the kid, so I only smile.

It’s amazing to me how I can go from being fine with my brother being dead one minute to eating a giant cinnamon roll in my car by myself the next. Intellectually, I know there’s no right way to grieve—I read that in a pamphlet—but this is extra pitiful. I imagine how I might look from the outside, smeared eyeliner, hair in my face, and icing on my chin.

A mess.

I’ve been listening to Bruce Springsteen more and more lately, finding the soul in the music Ray always went on about, and I fire up “Tougher Than the Rest.” With the windows down, I take the long way home as The Boss keeps me company. I sing along to “Downbound Train” and then scream into the wind “Born to Run.”

It releases the tension in my body. I don’t care the guy in the car next to me gives me a funny look; I keep it up. Ray used to do the same thing, and I found it endlessly embarrassing, but he’d chuckle and sing-yell even louder. Doing it now helps. Like the lyrics of the song, I am wild and free, and maybe that’s why my brother liked to do it.

It’s a call to life.

And it grants me a little bit of peace, a way to be closer to my brother, who no longer exists on this plane.

Maybe we can find each other again in some in-between place, where only music lives.

That thought makes me smile, but as I pull into my parents’ driveway, the same peace that filled me up with tranquility seeps out, steam rising on a cold day.

Dad’s car is parked out front. It’s odd because it’s a weekday, and I haven’t seen him in over a month. I open the front door, dropping my overnight bag in the entry. I’d planned to repack some clothes to take to Vince’s, but I can’t shake the foreboding pit in my belly.

Stalking toward the kitchen, I backtrack, noticing an unfamiliar figure in a uniform out of the corner of my eye in the dining room. I choke on a breath, flashbacks of that night flipping through my memory. My skin prickles with fear as I lean against the wall, out of sight. The officer in the sheriff’s uniform says something quietly to my mother, who’s sitting at the table, eyes distant, then passes me with a terse nod to leave.

“I’m sorry,” Dad says, from somewhere I can’t see. I tilt my head around the wall, and there he is, in the corner with wrinkled clothes and familiar red face. He doesn’t look drunk, though.

Mom fingers the edge of a thin packet of papers, unresponsive to my father.

“You can’t be surprised.”

She doesn’t respond.

“It’s like you’re living in a different world, and I’m unhappy.”

My heart rate spikes as I connect the dots.

“I—we don’t have to live like this anymore. I won’t even fight over the house or?—”

“What’s going on?” I ask, stepping forward, even though I already know.

Dad spins toward me, his face going slack. “Hi, Cassandra.” He rubs his hands on his work pants, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so nervous. “I… Uh…”

“You’re divorcing Mom?”

She still hasn’t acknowledged anything else but the papers under her hand.

“Listen, I?—”

“You thought it was necessary to have the sheriff bring the papers?” I interject, disgusted.

“Cassandra,” he starts in the patronizing tone I’m used to. “You don’t understand what?—”

“Don’t tell me I don’t understand!”

“Cassandra,” my mom says in nothing more than a whisper, “please keep your voice down.”

Her dead eyes set me off again, this time at her.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say? Cassandra, keep your voice down? He wants to divorce you, but I have to keep my voice down?”

She wipes at her eyes before aiming her head toward the wall, away from my father and me.

“Don’t yell at your mother,” Dad says.

“Oh, fuck off. You don’t give a shit about her or me. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.” He crosses his arms but doesn’t argue, so I keep going. “If you cared about Mom, you’d try to help her, not divorce her. But what did you call her?” I press my finger against my temple in mock thought. “That’s right, you called her a zombie. You hear that, Mom? You’re a zombie!”

She can hear me fine, yet I still shout. Everything is falling apart around me, and like Samson, I want to be the one to wrench the final pillars.

“So, what now, Dad?” I ask, waving my arm at him. “You going to find some twenty-year-old to fuck while Mom slowly kills herself?” I spin toward my mother, marching around the table to bend down to her level, making sure I have her eyes when I say, “What about you? You going to waste away to nothing, become a bag of bones like Ray?”

Her eyes focus on me then, fire behind them, and she strikes me, fast and sharp across the cheek.

I rear back, placing my palm there, more in shock than pain. Whether I deserved the slap or not, my eyes fill with tears.

And that’s it, the last straw. The final tug of the delicate string holding my family together has unraveled, and I’m shattered.

Dad’s abandoning ship.

Mom doesn’t care. About anything.

Which leaves nothing for me.

I scrub at my eyes, wiping the tears to clear my vision as I grab my bag by the door and press the tip of my car keys into my palm. Mom cries behind me as I sprint out of the house without another word.

The family I knew doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve spent so much time and energy fixing something that, in the end, is unfixable.

I jump in my car with no particular destination in mind and drive. Memories of my family inundate me, rushing into my veins, clouding my eyes, filling my ears. I’m flooded with my brother’s voice cheering me on when I finally skateboarded down the street without falling. My mother laughing as my father knocks into her bumper car at the fair. The embrace of my brother’s arms around my shoulders when Jimmy Lei broke my heart in eighth grade. My parents holding hands as they walked in front of me through a park. My father twirling me around during the daddy-daughter number at my kindergarten dance recital. These memories are few and far between, but they’re embedded deep inside me, and they’re all that surrounds me.

They’re all that is left among the ash. Only memories.

And I know I need to leave.

I can’t stay.