I’ll Give You the Sun(64)
Author: Jandy Nelson

Once inside, I go to my room, noting that Jude knocked over a water bucket on my floor in retaliation. Whatever. I throw a towel down on the puddle and as I do, glance at the clock on my desk, which has the date as well as the time.

Oh.

Later, I find Dad sunk into the couch in front of a college football game. I went through all my sketchpads and couldn’t find one drawing of him with his head still on, so I took out my best pastels and did a new one of the two of us on the back of a blue wildebeest. On the bottom, I wrote, Happy Birthday.

He looks right in my eyes. “Thanks.” The word comes out all scrunched up like it was hard to get out. No one remembered. Not even Mom. What’s her problem? How could she not remember Dad’s birthday? Maybe she’s not a blow-in after all.

“She forgot the turkey on Thanksgiving too,” I say, trying to make him feel better, only realizing after I say it how lame it is to compare him to a turkey.

He laughs though, which is something. “Is that a blue wildebeest?” he asks, pointing to the drawing.

When we’re done with the world’s longest conversation on the blue wildebeest, he pats the couch and I sit down next to him. He puts his hand on my shoulder, leaves it there like it fits, and we watch the rest of the game together. It’s pretty boring, but the athletes, well, you know.

The lie I told him about Heather is a stone in my belly.

I ignore it.

• • •

A week after Dad’s forgotten birthday, with the rain beating the crap out of the house, Mom and Dad seat Jude and me in the frozen part of the living room no one ever sits in to inform us that Dad’s temporarily moving down to the Lost Cove Hotel. They, well actually, Mom tells us he’ll be renting a studio apartment by the week until they can work out some issues they’re having.

Even though we haven’t spoken in forever, I can feel Jude’s heart clenching and unclenching inside my chest with mine.

“What issues?” she asks, but after that the rain gets so loud I can’t hear what anyone’s saying anymore. I’m convinced the storm’s going to bust down the walls. Then it does and I’m remembering Dad’s dream because it’s happening. I watch as the wind sweeps everything off the shelves: knickknacks, books, a vase of purple flowers. No one else notices. I grip the armrests of the chair tight.

(FAMILY PORTRAIT: Assume the Crash Position)

I can hear Mom’s voice again. It’s calm, too calm, yellow fluttering birds that don’t belong in this life-bucking tempest. “We still love each other very much,” she says. “We just both need some space right now.” She looks at Dad. “Benjamin?”

At the mention of Dad’s name, all the paintings, mirrors, family photographs come crashing down from the walls. Again, only I notice. I glance at Jude. Tears suspend in her eyelashes. Dad seems like he’s going to say something, but when he opens his mouth, no words come out. He drops his head into his hands, his teeny-tiny hands, like raccoon paws—when did that happen? They’re too little to cover up what’s happening on his face, how his features have all squeezed shut. My stomach churns and churns. I hear pots and pans in the kitchen plummeting out of the cupboards now. I close my eyes for a second, see the roof whip off the house, reel across the sky.

Jude explodes, “I’m going with Dad.”

“Me too,” I say, shocking myself.

Dad lifts his head. Pain’s leaking out of every part of his face. “You’ll stay here with your mother, kids. It’s temporary.” His voice is so flimsy and I notice for the first time how thin his hair’s getting as he stands and leaves the room.

Jude gets up and walks over to Mom, looking down on her like she’s a beady little beetle. “How could you?” she says out of clenched teeth and makes her own exit, her hair twisting and winding angrily across the floor behind her. I hear her calling for Dad.

“Are you leaving us?” I say/think, rising to my feet. Because even though Dad’s leaving now, Mom’s already left. She’s been AWOL for months. I know this and I can’t look at her.

“Never,” she says, grabbing my shoulders. I’m surprised by the strength of her grip. “You hear me, Noah? I will never leave you and your sister. This is between your father and me. It has nothing to do with you kids.”

I melt into her arms like the traitor that I am.

She strokes my hair. It feels so good. “My boy. My tender boy. My dream boy. Everything’s going to be okay.” She repeats how okay everything’s going to be again and again like a chant, but I can tell she doesn’t believe it. Neither do I.

Later that evening, Jude and I are shoulder to shoulder at the window. Dad’s walking to his car carrying a suitcase. The rain’s wailing down on him, stooping him more and more with every step.

“I don’t think there’s anything in it,” I say, watching him toss the piece of luggage into the trunk like it’s filled with feathers.

“There is,” she says. “I checked. One thing. A drawing of you and him on some weird animal. Nothing else. Not even a toothbrush.”

These are the first words we’ve exchanged in months.

I can’t believe the only thing Dad took with him is me.

That night, I’m in bed unable to sleep, wondering if I’m staring at the darkness or it’s staring at me, when Jude opens the door, crosses the room, and gets in bed next to me. I flip the pillow so it won’t be wet. We’re lying on our backs.

“I wished for it,” I whisper, telling her what’s been tearing me up for hours. “Three times. Three different birthdays. I wished he would leave.”

She turns on her side, touches my arm, whispers back, “I once wished for Mom to die.”

“Take it back,” I say, turning onto my side. I can feel her breathing on my face. “I didn’t take it back in time.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Grandma would know how,” she says.

“That’s a load of help,” I say, and then out of nowhere and at the exact same moment, we both burst out laughing and can’t stop and it’s the gasping snorting kind and we have to put the pillow over our faces so Mom doesn’t hear and decide we think Dad being kicked out of the family is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to us.

When we settle back into our selves, everything feels different, like if I turned on the light we’d be bears.

The next thing I know, there’s a shuffling of motion and Jude’s sitting on me. I’m so surprised I do nothing. She takes a deep breath. “Okay, now that I have your undivided attention. Are you ready?” She bounces a few times.