“Who’s moved into the old Dunlop place?” I ask. “Someone showed up with a moving van last night.”
“Were you up all night again?” my mother asks suspiciously. “No,” I lie. “The truck woke me up.”
“I totally forgot to mention,” says Dad. “Georgina Walsh filled me in at the grocery store the other day. Some distant relative of Mrs. Dunlop’s is going to take the place over.”
Dad is a dedicated member of the community gossip hotline. It’s not unusual to find him on his laptop in the kitchen, participating in the neighborhood group chat, his mouth hanging open as he absorbs some particularly juicy tidbit.
“A family?” asks Mom.
“A couple around our age,” says Dad. “I think they have a daughter. They’re from somewhere on the West Coast.”
“We should go over soon and welcome them,” says Mom. She stands from the island and shoves her laptop into her bag. “Anyway, I’m off. I have a consult in half an hour. You’ll figure out dinner?”
“I always do,” says Dad, coming around to give her a kiss full on the lips.
I studiously turn away.
“Bye, sweetie,” says Mom, coming over to kiss me on the cheek. “Have a good day.”
“You too,” I say.
She disappears down the hallway, and Dad removes his apron before bringing a plate of his own over to the table.
“So what’s on the go at school for the new semester?” he asks, sliding in across from me.
“At school?” I ask, surprised. “Same shit, different pile, I guess.”
He smiles but doesn’t drop it. “Come on, really? There’s nothing exciting planned? Dissecting frogs? Digging into a really good short story?”
He sounds so desperate for me to tell him something interesting that for a split second, staring at his bright, needy face, I consider telling him about the podcast, letting him in on the biggest secret I’ve ever kept. But no. Not a chance.
“Um, I think we’re supposed to be building doghouses in shop class?”
“Cool,” he says. He seems kind of disappointed.
“What about you?” I ask, trying to make up for it. “What’s up for today?”
He shrugs. “Probably going to get some work done on the wainscoting. Might stop at the café to see what the guys are doing.”
“You want to walk with me?” I ask.
“Yes!” he says. “Just let me change.”
He looks genuinely excited, like a little kid who’s been offered a trip to buy ice cream. He bounds up the stairs, two at a time, and I pull on my coat and boots and wait outside on the veranda for him.
Across the street, the Dunlop house is quiet. Curtains drawn, no activity outside. No wonder, considering how late those people arrived.
The door opens behind me, and my father steps out, bundled up in his best aging-hipster winter gear.
“Oh, hey, look at that,” he says, pointing across at the blue car. “A ’77 Chevy Nova. Man, when I was a kid I would have killed for one of those. My aunt dated a guy who used to fix up old cars.”
“Oh yeah?” I say. “That’s a fascinating story.”
He grins. “Always nice to start the day hearing how boring I am.”
“What? I said it was fascinating.”
At a crosswalk, we pass a young man holding a little girl’s hand as they cross the street. The little girl is chattering cheerfully at her father, and he’s beaming down at her, gamely answering her questions. It’s pretty cute.
The guy looks up at us briefly, smiling, and he and Dad share a brief head tilt and a mutual “hey man.” An eye-rollingly masculine acknowledgment that they know each other.
“You know that guy?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Aras.” His voice is wistful, and when I glance at him, he’s twisted his head around to glance back at them. “I miss that age,” he says.
“What, thirty?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Well, yeah, obviously, but I mean I miss when you were that age. You always wanted to hold my hand. You were a very touchy-feely child.”
“I was not,” I say, shocked. If I were any less touchy-feely, I’d be a porcupine.
“You were,” he insists. “After, you know, everything…you just needed your distance more, is all.”
I consider this. “Are you saying you want to hold my hand now?” I ask, wondering what I’ll do if he says yes.
He laughs. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll spare you.”
We’ve arrived at Fresh Brews, the local kid-friendly café, and he leans in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Have a good day, my sweetie.”
“You too, Dad,” I say.
He bounces up the steps like he’s on his way to a playdate. As the door jingles open to announce his arrival, I catch a glimpse of his group of friends, Jaron and Pickle and a couple of other guys I don’t recognize. They’re at their regular table and raise their hands in greeting as Dad enters. Over the past couple of years, Dad has found himself a small group of young, stay-at-home dads to hang out with. He says that he likes hanging with them because they’re living the life he wished he’d had when he was a young father. Stay-at-home dads are a lot more common these days.
As I walk to school, I can’t help but think about what Dad said about me needing more distance. I wonder: How different am I now than I was then? What if things hadn’t happened the way they did? Would I be a completely different person if Sibby had stayed? If I’d been taken instead of her?
6.
I stop across the street from the school, watching the throngs of students returning. I have at least ten minutes before the first bell rings, and I’m in no rush to join the fray, so I grab a seat on the stone wall that runs along the sidewalk and pull out my phone. My Radio Silent notifications are as busy as I expected. Loads of retweets and mentions and threads, which I’ve come to expect the day after a case has been cracked.
“Yo, Dee!”
I look up and see Burke approaching, his bag slung over his shoulder, sunglasses perched uselessly on the end of his nose as he peers over them at me. The impression is of a cheerful but slightly confused puppy, which isn’t a bad way to describe Burke. He and I have been friends since we were babies. He grew up next door to me, and Sibby grew up across the street. The three of us were inseparable. Until one of us was separated.
“Yo,” I say, shooting him an ironic finger gun.
He stretches out his arms and takes a deep, satisfied breath. “Wonderful day to reenter the social assimilation facility, wouldn’t you say?”
I slide my phone back into my pocket and stand. “Not much choice about it either way.”
“Good Christmas?” he asks as we cross the street to the school.
“It was okay. Turkey and presents. Not as good as yours, I bet.” Burke’s family spent the holidays with his grandmother in Florida, and he spent two weeks posting pictures from the beach on his Instagram.
“Yeah, it was pretty awesome,” he says. “Sun and surf.” We weave through the crowd of loiterers and push through the front door into the school foyer. “Any intriguing new cases?”