One
My dad held his hands at the bottom of the large steering wheel. It drove me nuts because when he’d tried to teach me how to drive (and failed miserably) he’d yammered on about keeping my hands on the ten and two positions. But that was the past, and it wasn’t me who had been driving for an hour straight. I couldn’t complain about my sore and stiff leg muscles, at least not out loud—not unless I was willing to listen to him rightfully grumble in return.
A couple of days before this trip, he sat me down and said that no matter what, by the end of June we had to make the trip up from Boston to Maine to visit Mom. Now, seeing the beach along York Harbor and the happy families emerging from their campers and making their ways to the rocky beach made me regret my choice to come. Once upon a time we were them, spending hot days together swimming in the sea and eating ice cream. We didn’t need to take this route to get to York Heights, but it was as if Dad sensed I needed a few minutes to absorb that we were back. The salty breeze caressed my face from the open window and memories of us as a family washed over me.
The coast couldn’t go on forever, and the van found its way to York Heights, passing by my old elementary school and onto the road that led to my mother’s house. Tall trees stood on both sides, offering the long row of houses a sense of privacy. I’d gotten so used to the city—the high-rise buildings, the masses of people, the wide sidewalks—that I had forgotten that we used to live so uncomfortably close to nature.
In a way, I missed the coast of York Beach—this little village in Maine and how it always felt like summer. Not that I remembered much. When I tried to picture my old classmates’ faces, they were just blurry images and one semidecent image of my childhood best friend, Jessie. On the day we left this town to move to Boston her freckled six-year-old face had tears running down its cheeks, and her hands were wound in her curly brown hair. When we came back briefly for eight months when I was fifteen, it helped that she’d sent pictures in the mail. Jessie and I didn’t connect that much—so much for the lifelong friends you’re supposed to make at age six—and I made few friends. No one particularly memorable.
Dad pulled up beside the four-foot high, grey stone wall that separated the road from my mother’s house. Once he turned off the engine, the noise of the tools clattering around in the back of the vehicle stopped. With all the traveling he did for work, it always came as a surprise that none of his carpentry equipment or projects smashed into smithereens. He’d had this blue work van for years, and it always shone, tended to with care, as he did with all aspects of his life, namely me. We didn’t do anything, not so much as move to get out of the van. We couldn’t believe this was how our day was going.
“Okay, I’m willing to compromise,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Emma, we are at your mother’s doorstep. I think it’s a little late to compromise. You’ll have the summer to catch up with Jessie. It’ll be fun.”
“Dad, we weren’t all that close to begin with. I sat with her at lunch sometimes, that’s about it.”
“You’ve been writing back and forth since you left. You’re probably closer than you think.”
“Writing someone and being friends with someone are completely different things,” I insisted.
“You used to be close. Don’t you remember?”
“When we were six, not so much when we were fifteen.” I dismissed him. “I’m willing to spend two weeks of summer with Mom.”
“Emma,” he said, and then sighed.
“Two weeks is a significant amount of time.” Prodding his leg with my shoe made him turn in his seat to look at me. His face held reluctance, and I knew he didn’t want to drop me off here. “Two weeks with you? That’s like blinking. Two weeks with her? Just the idea of blinking hurts. That’s constant arguing, possibly crying—angry tears, of course—slamming doors, endless swearing . . .”
“Since when do you slam doors?”
“I don’t,” I said pointedly.
His expression was torn, and he mumbled to himself, “This was the arrangement, Em. If we don’t go with it . . .”
“I turn eighteen near the end of summer. I’ll legally be an adult. She can’t request access to me.”
“Think of it this way—one more summer and then you’re an adult. Neither your mom nor I can tell you what to do. But I sure as hell don’t want you vanishing into thin air when that happens. You hear?”
“This isn’t a compromise in the least,” I complained.
“It’s all I’ve got,” he said. “Are you being testy because you’re leaving someone important behind?”
“Nope.” Choking on my own laughter, I continued. “Did you know that depression can and will deter people from interacting with you? Not even bullies. The lack of reaction freaks them out. Besides, being homeschooled for the year didn’t give me a chance to meet someone. Or reunite with anyone, really.”
Dad gaining custody and moving me in with him and out of York when I was nearly sixteen was the right decision in the end. He took action and got me a personal tutor at home while I worked on my mental health. I spent my senior year, my final school year, at home.
He snorted, turning away to rub his jaw. “You react to plenty nowadays. Don’t roll your eyes. You can rejoin civilization next year, if you want,” he offered. “You don’t have to put off college for a year.”
“It’s not that I’m not ready—I honestly don’t know what I want to do with my life.”
“You are ready,” Dad said. “You can put up enough effort to joke about it. You’re managing it much better now. You’ll call if you . . . can’t? I’ll always be here for you.”
“Yup, Dad. I will.”
“So, no girlfriends?”
“No girlfriends,” I confirmed.
After we got out of the van, he helped me with my luggage. In with my belongings were all sorts of his equipment: a toolbox with hammers, screwdrivers, and nails; a saw with its rusted handle; and a bunch of black-and-yellow chisels, a constant reminder that carpentry was a form of art. Then there was his latest project: a bed’s wooden structure. The smell and the dust made me feel warm inside—it was familiar, homey; it was him. I missed him already, even the ugly purple work sweater he insisted on wearing that morning even though it was practically summer.
In front of me was the house that wiped the joy out of my life in one full swoop. It was where I spent the first six years of my life, and random spouts of vacations whenever my mom was available, but the memory of the last time I tried to live here was a shadow I couldn’t escape. The house had always been painstakingly quiet. During the day while I was at school, my mother spent her time out, and she was also out during the night doing who knew what. According to the planner on the fridge, she went to her book club, wine tastings, any number of social outings she never spoke to me about. The one time I put a parent-teacher meeting on her planner, she scribbled over it and missed the meeting.