10. (x a thousand) Number of times I’ve closed my eyes and seen Rex’s face. His big down-slanted eyes staring into mine. If only he could see my pain and come hold me now.
REX
When a mother tree is dying, she passes on messages of wisdom to her baby seedlings. No lie. Suzanne Simard, this badass forest ecologist, has actually traced messages moving down a dying mother’s tree trunk, through the fungus in the ground, and into her seedlings. Dying trees speak to their children.
Crazy, right? That’s my favorite thing to think about when I’m out here in the pine forest behind our house. Makes me think Mom spoke to me when she was dying, too. Makes me think, in the thirty seconds she held me on her chest before her heart stopped beating, she somehow gave me a lifetime of lessons.
I just wish I knew what they were.
Tell Me
CARLI
Cole came into my room this morning and I get to see Daddy today. That’s all.
REX
Yo! Once again my boy Cole comes through. He started to fall off for a minute. Hadn’t posted all week. But this morning, on my way to school, he’s making up for it—plenty! At the red light, I look down at my phone again and see he’s posted another picture of Carli. She’s riding in the backseat of their old-school Land Rover in a pink T-shirt with a rainbow. Underneath the rainbow the words Easy Like Sunday Morning are in gold, glittery letters. Man, easy is right. I swear it’s never been easier to look at someone’s face. And she’s smiling so big. I mean huge.
They’re on their way to Carli’s surgery and Cole gave up all the deets. Say what! It’s like he was personally giving them to me.
There’s only one problem. Well, actually four.
1. I’d have to skip school and I have a precalc test second period. Dude, I studied all night for that thing. I could make it up next week, but a weekend is a long time to forget things like:
2. I’d miss gym period, which is the mini-practice before tonight’s game. I need that time to make my 111 shots a day. Gotta keep the jump shot dropping! Plus, Coach Bell will wonder where I am. I don’t want to disappoint him again.
3. Carli’s surgery will be at Houston Methodist in the Medical Center, the same hospital where my father practices. Last time my father caught me skipping school (eighth grade, to try and stop this OG oak tree in the neighborhood from being chopped down by a builder), he didn’t say a single word to me for weeks.
4. I hate hospitals. Haven’t stepped foot in one since I was born. Every time I even drive by one, the world plops its fat ass right down on my chest, making it almost impossible to breathe.
But really, all these problems don’t have shit on the promise of Carli. All week she’s been glinting off the shiny parts still tucked inside of me. The pure and happy and hopeful parts, the parts starving for love. I’m telling you, it would kill me to miss this chance to see her. No question, all my shiny parts would go dull.
CARLI
When we get to the hospital, Daddy’s already in the waiting room. He’s sitting in a chair, hugging his briefcase, staring at the ground. Even though he’s in his lawyer clothes, his scared little-boy face is in full effect.
See, this is exactly what I was trying to tell Cole. I hate seeing Daddy like this. Whenever I catch him this way, everything inside me plunges toward the place he must’ve gone when he was eight after hearing both of his parents died in a car accident. An endless pit with no sound or light.
I hope Daddy hasn’t been sitting around his rental house like this. The thought of it makes me want to tell him that I chose him. Makes me want to tell him that I’m going to his place after surgery today.
When he sees us, he wipes himself clean of the little boy and stands up.
Without thinking, I run to him.
As I slam into his chest, he hugs me tight, lifting my feet off the floor. “Hey, Angel-face,” he says.
“Hey, Daddy,” I say, and as my feet touch the ground, my stomach growls super loud, like it’s saying Hi, too.
“Hungry, huh?” Daddy says, and laughs. “Yeah, I remember when I tore my ACL in college and couldn’t eat the night or morning before surgery. It was awful.”
I’ve heard about his ACL a million times. Everybody has. He tore it mid-season of his senior year at Kentucky. Left knee. Says it’s what ruined his chances of going to the league. But right now I can hear about his ligament all day. Every word he speaks is filling up the massive hole his absence is digging inside me.
I want to tell him how strange it’s been not having him home. How I’ve been missing his morning pancakes, the smell of his aftershave, the sight of his socks on barstools and sofas and tables, and his keys, especially his keys. But nothing comes out.
“Hey, Dad,” Cole says, right behind me.
Dang, already? I feel like the girls on The Bachelor when someone interrupts their one-on-one time too soon. But I act like the bigger person and step aside.
Mom doesn’t come into the waiting room. She’s in the lobby, talking to the reception lady behind the large, circular desk. Mom must feel my eyes on her because she glances in my direction through her oversized shades before pointing toward a hallway. The reception lady nods, and Mom turns away and waves at us to follow her.
Walking down the hall, Mom’s ahead with Cole and I’m lagging back with Daddy.
“How’s the new place?” I ask Daddy, hoping it’s full of those manila folders and flip-top boxes he’s always bringing home from work. Better to be working than sitting around sad.
“It’s nice. You’ll have to come stay for a weekend as soon as you’ve healed up. I only signed a six-month lease because I plan to buy a house this summer, but I still want it to feel like home for you and Cole.”
Way too much of the new reality rushes in at once, and I can’t think of anything else to say.
Daddy ducks under a doorway. “You can do that thing you do to your walls, and I can help you transfer it all when we move. I’ve already helped you start. Hung a life-sized poster of Candace Parker in your room yesterday.”
Astonishment helps me break my silence. “Really?” I say, but I want to be like, Seriously, Daddy? Have you seen my walls? Candace Parker can ball and all, but I don’t have a single picture of a basketball player in my room. My walls are full of random things I love.
Maybe they haven’t told me what I want to do with my life yet. But one thing’s for certain: staring at a life-sized basketball player will tell me zero things about my future. I don’t know how I’m going to take it down without hurting Daddy’s feelings, but best believe it’s coming down.
As I approach the elevator, Mom says, “The gastrointestinal surgery department is on the sixteenth floor and you’re sixteen!” Guess my feelings about that poster were still all over my face becase Mom only points out potential signs when she catches me with a sad or sideways look. It usually perks me up, but today it makes my mood worse.
You see, Mom doesn’t believe in all my sign stuff. She’s never said so, but she’s not exactly big on believing in general. Well, believing in yourself, in your dreams, in love—those types of things—sure. But with everything else, she’s always preached that questioning and studying is more important that believing. And every time she’s asked me how my signs work, I’ve never had a good answer for her.