The Last Time We Say Goodbye
Page 34
She folds her hands in her lap and looks down at them, her decision-making pose. “I don’t know, Lex. That seems excessive.”
It’s not excessive. It’s been three years since he moved out. They’re divorced.
Dad’s never coming back, I want to say to her, but I don’t. I don’t want to push her. But I wish that Mom was stronger. That she didn’t cry. That she hadn’t been so devastated when Dad left. That she’d done that woman-scorned thing and piled up his stuff in the yard and burned it all. Maybe, I think, if she hadn’t been so weak, then Ty could have let go of the rage he felt whenever he saw her hurting like that. He could have moved on. And then maybe he would never have made that first attempt with the Advil. And maybe it would have occurred to him to fight back when life got tough.
Maybe he’d still be alive.
So in that moment, even though she’s kind of the only thing I have left in this world, I blame her.
But there’s nothing to do with that emotion but swallow it down.
“I’ll ask him,” I say to her, although I don’t clarify whether I’m referring to the photo or the house key. I turn away. “I’m going to bed.” I tilt my head toward the hall and my waiting bedroom. “I’m thrashed.”
“Night,” she says. “Sleep well, sweetie.”
Yeah, right.
17 February
The last basketball game I saw of Ty’s was in the first week of December. December 3rd, if I remember correctly. A Tuesday night. On Thursday morning Mom would get called into the principal’s office because Ty had punched one of his jock friends. Broke his nose, so the story went. By Friday people at school were giving Ty that we’re-so-over-you look. So Tuesday night might have been when he and Ashley broke up.
That was the week Ty made shooting guard on the junior varsity team. It was a big deal. He was proud of it, I could tell by the half jog he did as he came out onto the court that night, wearing the black jersey with the number 02 on his back. He tried to look confident through his nervousness: nonchalant, unruffled, oh-so-cool. Then he gazed up into the stands the way he always did, scanning the crowd. He never said so, but I knew he was searching for Dad’s face.
Dad was the reason Ty started basketball.
Basketball had been one of Dad’s obsessions back when Ty was around 12. Dad was like that, before, always looking for a new weekend hobby, finding something that interested him and then getting consumed by it, spending all his time and extra cash on procuring the best equipment and how-to manuals and clothes. I used to chalk it up to Dad having the most boring job in the world, so he was looking to get some excitement in his life. Every few months it was a different thing. Tennis is the first one I remember, a string of early Saturday and Sunday mornings where Dad went off wearing white shorts and carrying a racket. Then sailing—Dad bought a sailboat (yes, a sailboat in Nebraska: landlocked state) and a different set of white shorts, and spent 2 entire summers gliding back and forth across Branched Oak Lake before he lost interest in that. Then came inline skating, which was mercifully short, only a few weeks that he dragged us out to the empty church parking lot laden with pads and helmets to practice pivoting and stopping. Then mountain biking, which ended in Dad breaking his leg. Then chess, while the broken leg healed. And then, if I remember correctly, it was basketball.
We woke up on a Saturday morning to the sound of a ball hitting the concrete in our driveway, Dad wearing some kind of jumpsuit, throwing and missing and cursing as the ball bounced off the hoop he’d just installed over the garage door.
“Hey, kiddos,” he said when we went out on the porch to watch him. “Want to shoot some hoops?”
I declined. I’d borrowed a book about Einstein from the library, and I wanted to spend the day curled up in my room trying to get my 14-year-old brain around the theory of general relativity. But my brother’s eyes lit up.
Finally, something he could do. Something he and Dad could do together.
After that, Ty was always out there practicing. Dad moved on to hunting and guns and target practice that year, but Ty stayed with basketball.
The team was up against Omaha North that night, in the last game I saw Ty play. Math Club was running concessions, per usual, but they let me sit out in the stands for most of the game and then rush back at halftime to help fill sodas and pour nasty molten nacho cheese over stale chips and run the register. So I saw him play. I caught the look he sent into the crowd, the search for Dad, and when he glanced in my direction I held up my hand and smiled. He nodded, glad to see me and disappointed that I was alone, and turned away. He didn’t look up into the bleachers again.
Dad came to a few games in the beginning, but that petered out fast. I guess he couldn’t bear to be away from Megan for that long. It’s a shame, though, that Dad didn’t get to see Ty play. It was a thing of beauty to watch him. And it would have made Ty so happy—even though he never would have admitted it—if Dad could have seen just how stellar he’d become on the court.
He was the best shot on the team. No question. Sometimes I wonder if that’s how the math gene presented itself in Ty—his ability to calculate angle and force with the muscles of his arm, so he could hurl a ball from half a court away and then stand back to watch it swish effortlessly through the net. He wasn’t the fastest player, or the tallest, and he wasn’t great at blocking or guarding or slam dunks. But my brother could shoot.
I want to remember that game. I’ve tried so many times in the past week, since I figured out that the letter belongs to Ashley Davenport. I try to bring up even one shot he made that night. He must have made several—we won the game 97 to 33. I remember the freaking score, the red digital numbers lit up on the board, I remember what happened right before, as he came out with the team, and what happened after, but no matter how many times I go back through it, I don’t remember any specific moment with Ty during the actual game.
It’s not excessive. It’s been three years since he moved out. They’re divorced.
Dad’s never coming back, I want to say to her, but I don’t. I don’t want to push her. But I wish that Mom was stronger. That she didn’t cry. That she hadn’t been so devastated when Dad left. That she’d done that woman-scorned thing and piled up his stuff in the yard and burned it all. Maybe, I think, if she hadn’t been so weak, then Ty could have let go of the rage he felt whenever he saw her hurting like that. He could have moved on. And then maybe he would never have made that first attempt with the Advil. And maybe it would have occurred to him to fight back when life got tough.
Maybe he’d still be alive.
So in that moment, even though she’s kind of the only thing I have left in this world, I blame her.
But there’s nothing to do with that emotion but swallow it down.
“I’ll ask him,” I say to her, although I don’t clarify whether I’m referring to the photo or the house key. I turn away. “I’m going to bed.” I tilt my head toward the hall and my waiting bedroom. “I’m thrashed.”
“Night,” she says. “Sleep well, sweetie.”
Yeah, right.
17 February
The last basketball game I saw of Ty’s was in the first week of December. December 3rd, if I remember correctly. A Tuesday night. On Thursday morning Mom would get called into the principal’s office because Ty had punched one of his jock friends. Broke his nose, so the story went. By Friday people at school were giving Ty that we’re-so-over-you look. So Tuesday night might have been when he and Ashley broke up.
That was the week Ty made shooting guard on the junior varsity team. It was a big deal. He was proud of it, I could tell by the half jog he did as he came out onto the court that night, wearing the black jersey with the number 02 on his back. He tried to look confident through his nervousness: nonchalant, unruffled, oh-so-cool. Then he gazed up into the stands the way he always did, scanning the crowd. He never said so, but I knew he was searching for Dad’s face.
Dad was the reason Ty started basketball.
Basketball had been one of Dad’s obsessions back when Ty was around 12. Dad was like that, before, always looking for a new weekend hobby, finding something that interested him and then getting consumed by it, spending all his time and extra cash on procuring the best equipment and how-to manuals and clothes. I used to chalk it up to Dad having the most boring job in the world, so he was looking to get some excitement in his life. Every few months it was a different thing. Tennis is the first one I remember, a string of early Saturday and Sunday mornings where Dad went off wearing white shorts and carrying a racket. Then sailing—Dad bought a sailboat (yes, a sailboat in Nebraska: landlocked state) and a different set of white shorts, and spent 2 entire summers gliding back and forth across Branched Oak Lake before he lost interest in that. Then came inline skating, which was mercifully short, only a few weeks that he dragged us out to the empty church parking lot laden with pads and helmets to practice pivoting and stopping. Then mountain biking, which ended in Dad breaking his leg. Then chess, while the broken leg healed. And then, if I remember correctly, it was basketball.
We woke up on a Saturday morning to the sound of a ball hitting the concrete in our driveway, Dad wearing some kind of jumpsuit, throwing and missing and cursing as the ball bounced off the hoop he’d just installed over the garage door.
“Hey, kiddos,” he said when we went out on the porch to watch him. “Want to shoot some hoops?”
I declined. I’d borrowed a book about Einstein from the library, and I wanted to spend the day curled up in my room trying to get my 14-year-old brain around the theory of general relativity. But my brother’s eyes lit up.
Finally, something he could do. Something he and Dad could do together.
After that, Ty was always out there practicing. Dad moved on to hunting and guns and target practice that year, but Ty stayed with basketball.
The team was up against Omaha North that night, in the last game I saw Ty play. Math Club was running concessions, per usual, but they let me sit out in the stands for most of the game and then rush back at halftime to help fill sodas and pour nasty molten nacho cheese over stale chips and run the register. So I saw him play. I caught the look he sent into the crowd, the search for Dad, and when he glanced in my direction I held up my hand and smiled. He nodded, glad to see me and disappointed that I was alone, and turned away. He didn’t look up into the bleachers again.
Dad came to a few games in the beginning, but that petered out fast. I guess he couldn’t bear to be away from Megan for that long. It’s a shame, though, that Dad didn’t get to see Ty play. It was a thing of beauty to watch him. And it would have made Ty so happy—even though he never would have admitted it—if Dad could have seen just how stellar he’d become on the court.
He was the best shot on the team. No question. Sometimes I wonder if that’s how the math gene presented itself in Ty—his ability to calculate angle and force with the muscles of his arm, so he could hurl a ball from half a court away and then stand back to watch it swish effortlessly through the net. He wasn’t the fastest player, or the tallest, and he wasn’t great at blocking or guarding or slam dunks. But my brother could shoot.
I want to remember that game. I’ve tried so many times in the past week, since I figured out that the letter belongs to Ashley Davenport. I try to bring up even one shot he made that night. He must have made several—we won the game 97 to 33. I remember the freaking score, the red digital numbers lit up on the board, I remember what happened right before, as he came out with the team, and what happened after, but no matter how many times I go back through it, I don’t remember any specific moment with Ty during the actual game.
