Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Clark

FIRST, I NEED TO see my father.

I head to my parents’ place after work. The presence of Alyssa’s car in the driveway steels me as I park in front of our parents’ house in West Seattle. It still requires several deep breaths before I can make my way up the sidewalk and knock on their door.

My mother throws open the door and wraps me in her arms like I’ve been overseas for years and not down the road in Seattle.

“Clark, how are you? You haven’t visited in so long. Are you still at that place in Seattle? Do they treat you well?”

The barrage of questions washes over me. I pick out the easiest one.

“I’m fine, Mom. How are you and Dad?”

Her expression sobers. “We’re fine, but, you know, with his hip and all…”

Right. The hip he hurt by climbing on the roof when he easily could have asked or paid for help. The hip he injured through pure stubbornness.

“How’s he healing up?” I ask as I pry my shoes off and leave them by the door.

“Oh, you know your father. He’s trying to do too much, and no matter how many times I repeat the doctors’ instructions, he—”

“Clark, there you are.”

The man in question hobbles down the hall, limping in order to favor his uninjured hip. He grits his way through it, sweating as he insists on walking normally in spite of his injury, and my heart sinks. He’s clearly in pain, yet even now, even only in front of his own family, he won’t let anyone see it, much less help. Should he be out of bed yet?

“Hey, Dad,” I say, hurrying to close the last bit of distance between us so he doesn’t go on hurting himself.

He’s always been this way, stubborn, determined, relentlessly independent. I used to admire it, but today his obstinance looks more like weakness than strength. He must have a cane or something to help him walk, yet he’s not using it. Sweat beads on his brow. He’s almost out of breath from going from the kitchen to the front door. And still he insists he’s fine when I ask.

Is this my future? Is this what I’m like? When River pushes, is this what he sees?

I shudder, but remind myself this is why I came here today. I need to know. I need to be sure. I need to look this in the face and confront whatever it means for me.

It’s the only way I’ll ever have an answer for River.

My sister is the last to appear. She waddles down the hall, her hand on her back and her husband Jamal supporting her. She’s always been petite, but now she sports a huge bulge in her belly, a protrusion so large she looks like she’s about to pop.

“You didn’t need to get up,” I say.

“Oh, it’s fine. The doctors say it’s good to keep moving a bit.”

I hug her carefully. “When are you due?”

“Any day now,” she says. “I kind of can’t wait. Get this thing out of me already.”

Mom beams. Dad hides it, but I know he’s proud too. He just won’t say it … which is part of the problem here, isn’t it? Why not say it? Why not congratulate his daughter on such a huge milestone in her life? That’s simply not how our father does things, though. It was up to me and Alyssa to assume he was proud of us; he was never going to say it himself.

It’s a jarring contrast from my time with River, who holds nothing back, who is so bold and outspoken about his emotions. There’s no doubt about what River feels at any time. He embraces his emotions instead of hiding from them, and perhaps that’s part of what scares me so much about him.

Mom and Dad head back to the kitchen (Dad won’t sit and rest no matter how much we ask him to) in order to finish up dinner. That leaves me alone with Alyssa. Well, Alyssa and Jamal, but Jamal takes the hint and heads back to the living room to watch a baseball game.

“So?” Alyssa says.

“So what?”

“What’s this all about, Clark?”

I sigh in surrender. There’s no use hiding it from her. My parents might be willing to believe this is a friendly visit, but Alyssa sees right through me.

“I just wanted to see Dad like you said,” I say. “I mean, with his hip and all, I wanted to see how he was. We both know he’s going to try to push through it. You were the one who suggested this in the first place.”

She rolls her eyes. “I did and he will. He won’t even let Mom take care of dinner. Either of us could help her, but no. It’s his house. He has to be the one to do everything.”

I shake my head. “Why can’t he just ask for help?”

Alyssa fixes me with a heavy look. “That man has not taken a day off since he was fifteen-years-old. He isn’t going to start now.”

I swallow as she stares at me, trying to ignore the implications lurking beneath her words like mines underfoot. I turn away, facing the wall. Framed pictures line the hall, the same framed pictures that have been hanging here for as long as I can remember. Our parents never bothered to change or update them. I’m still the kid in the baseball jersey holding a bat that’s too big for him. Alyssa is still the girl smiling for her high school prom photo. We’re frozen in time on this wall, forever preserved as the children our parents cherished growing up.

Even so, it’s hard to forget how many times Dad wasn’t there. He wasn’t at the baseball game preserved in that photograph. He had to work. He had to work so many times. He wasn’t there for Alyssa’s prom night either. A late night at the office kept him away too long, and he missed her before her date picked her up. He only saw her at the end of the night, when her hairdo was wilting and her makeup smudging. He only saw her when it was already too late.

Am I already too late?

Alyssa waddles up beside me. For a moment, we stand in silence contemplating our childhood.

“He missed out on a lot,” she says quietly.

A lump forms in my throat. I push it away by changing the subject.

“You won’t,” I say. “You already have your maternity leave set up, don’t you?”

“Me and Jamal both.”

That catches me off-guard. “Both of you? I didn’t know they did that.”

She smirks. “Well, it wasn’t easy. We did have to push for it pretty hard, but we both felt this was too important to let it slip by because of a technicality. This is our baby’s life. His first steps. His first words. His first everything. Neither of us were willing to sit that out.”

“But what if they fired you or something? What if they said no?”

Alyssa shrugs. “We have options. Jamal works in tech. I work in education. We knew the risk, and we agreed it was worth it. You don’t get a second chance at these kinds of things, Clark.”

A second chance. At this point, would things with River be a second chance? A third chance? A fourth? How many times have I run away, only for him to welcome me back? I ran after the yoga class. I ran at the retreat. I ran out there under his favorite tree beside the lake. I’ve lived my life like a yo-yo, spiraling away only to snap back a moment later. Some day River will give up drawing me back to him. Perhaps he already has.

“Clark.” Alyssa’s voice calls me out of my spiraling thoughts. “What’s going on? Are things okay?”

For a crazy moment, I want to blurt out the truth to her. She’s my older sister, after all. All those times when Dad wasn’t there, she was there instead. It was Alyssa cheering me on at my baseball games and welcoming me home from school and often even making sure I had my lunch in the morning. When our parents were too busy, she always had time for her little brother.

“Yes, I think,” I say. “Things are okay. They’re just … confusing.”

“Is it work?”

“No, not really. Kind of. I don’t know.”

She shoots a glance at the kitchen, but our parents are occupied. They won’t be back out here for a while.

“You’re not sick or something, are you?” Alyssa says.

“No, I’m fine, really. I am. It’s more that…” How do I begin to explain this to my own sister? It feels beyond weird. I lower my voice to something barely above a murmur. “There’s this guy…”

Her eyebrows rise. “I haven’t heard you mention a guy in ages.”

“I know, I know. It just kind of happened, but, well, it doesn’t matter. I think I’ve already screwed it up. When you called the other day to tell me about Dad, you said something about me being like him, and now I’m questioning everything. I kept this guy at arm’s reach. He’s young. He’s … different. I thought it couldn’t work, but now I’m scared that I’m just…”

“Fixing a roof you shouldn’t even be on?”

“Something like that.”

Alyssa rubs my arm. “Our father isn’t a bad man. He worked that hard for us so we could have good lives. We can be grateful without emulating him.”

“It might be too late for that.”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because this guy you mentioned is still around, isn’t he? I can tell from how you talk about him.”

I pause, contemplating her words. I told River we would talk, but I never followed up on it and figured I’d missed my chance. If Megan and Alyssa are right, however, there might still be a shot. I might have one more opportunity, if I’m brave enough to take it.

Alyssa squeezes my arm. “Don’t miss out on your own life, Clark. So he’s different. So he’s young. So what? It sounds like you like him. You must have connected with him for some reason if he’s on your mind like this. Give yourself a shot at living your life. For once, Clark, do something reckless. Act from your heart and not your head.”

“What if I screw it up more?”

“Then you’ll learn and move on,” Alyssa says, “but at least you’ll have tried. It’s gotta be better than this.”

She waves at the pictures on the wall, all those photographs depicting our childhoods and missing one crucial component. If someone took pictures of my life these days, would I be missing from the photographs? Would I be absent from my own memories? The last time I was present, truly present, was with River. The show. That night I spent with him in his apartment. That spontaneous hike the next day. The times I’ve spent with him stand out like bright jewels against the dreary backdrop of my life. All the days before him blur together into a gray mosaic. Work, home, work, home. On and on with no end in sight. I keep telling myself I’m working toward something, but what? I have an apartment. I have money. So why am I insisting on remaining on this treadmill instead of taking a chance?

For the second time this week, someone in my life is trying to push me off the treadmill. They can’t do it for me, however. If I’m going to take a chance on this, on River, on us, I’m going to have to get up and do it myself.

Otherwise, my photographs will look the same as Dad’s.