Denton Little's Deathdate (12 page)

When I first found out that my stepmom was not the woman who gave birth to me, I became obsessed with learning everything I could about the woman who did. Was she funny? Was she nice? What did she like to do? I was an eight-year-old on a mission. The problem was, my primary source of information was my father, and he gave me pretty much nothing. You'd think he would want my mom's legacy to live on, for her sons to know as much about her as possible. Not the case.

My stepmom, meanwhile, was as gracious about the subject as she could be, but she had her own blocks. I'm not sure if she was made uncomfortable by something in my dad's behavior, or worried I'd love her less if I knew more about my real mother, but however you want to slice it, neither of them was as helpful to me as I think they should have been.

Felix had spent nine years with our mom, so he threw
the occasional gem my way. It generally fell into one of two categories: Fun but Superficial (“She loved rocky road ice cream”) or Revealing but Hyperbolic (“She was so funny, Dent. Like, actually funny. I remember us laughing together for hours.” Hours? Whatever you say). I never stopped feeling like it was a betrayal that he'd been complicit in the plan to hide her existence from me until I was eight. I mean, come on! Brothers gotta stick together, right?

This is all to say that, after months of steadfast devotion to it, the mission seemed impossible, a series of brick walls. My efforts resulted in this paltry list, the sum total of everything I know about my biological mother:

Her name was Cheryl Quinn. Then Cheryl Little.

She had curly light brown hair.

She had the same smile as me. (Well, I guess I have the same smile as her.)

She was funny.

She met my dad at grad school, where he was one of her pharmaceutical science professors. Apparently, they both had instant crushes on each other. Way to be a creepy teacher, Dad.

On their first date, my dad took her to a night of beat poetry. One of the poets took her top off during her poem, and my dad got really embarrassed, even though my mom thought it was hilarious.

She prided herself on being the rare breed of scientist who enjoyed being around people as much as she enjoyed being in the lab (i.e., the opposite of my dad).

Her favorite flavor of ice cream was rocky road. (Already said that, but I want to make my list as long as possible.)

She cared a lot about making the world better, and she
was very passionate about doing things to help the environment.

The day I was born was the day she died.

And now, admittedly late in the game, I have two more bits of information to add:

Her doctor was a (weirdo) friend of hers named Brian Blum.

She wanted me, and my dad did not.

Consider my mission officially resumed.

There's so much more my dad could probably tell me, but right now I can't even look at him. He's followed me in from the kitchen and is hovering uncomfortably on the other side of the room.

It sucks that he never wanted me, but it sucks even more that he's withheld so much information from his dying son. His reticence used to be something that annoyed me, inspired a shake of the head and a roll of the eyes, but now I feel genuinely furious.

I need to talk with Brian Blum.

“You okay?” Taryn asks as I plop down next to her on the couch.

“Uh…Yeah.” I force a smile. “I am. Thanks.”

“It's your turn, Felix!” my stepmom says.

While I was in the kitchen, a game of tell-your-favorite-Denton-story seems to have spontaneously broken out. I don't think this will make me feel better; it's possible I might cringe myself to death.

Felix tells the story of a three-year-old me accidentally taking a bite out of his tuna fish sandwich, even though I had my own. I still remember that. Felix got up to go to the
bathroom, and when I looked down at the table, I suddenly thought I'd been given two sandwiches. Sweet little idiot.

Most of what people share follows this general trend—Denton the well-intentioned doofus—except for my aunt Deana's story, which is about Felix.

“That wasn't Denton,” my stepmom says.

“Oh,” Aunt Deana says. “You sure?”

Veronica is next, so I can only half pay attention to Millie's story, which seems to involve spotting me singing a made-up song about snacks as I walked home by myself one day. It strikes me as a little creepy that Millie had secretly been watching me, but the thought is whooshed away by the flood of anticipation for Veronica's words.

She begins: “Uh…can I pass?”

Oh. Burn.

“Well…,” my stepmom says.

“I'm joking, I'm joking.”

“Ha-ha, that's funny,” I say, trying to quickly rearrange my facial expression from dejected to relaxed.

“My tale of Denton. Okay, so, when I was nine and Paolo was eight, I used to love messing with Paolo. I would hide his favorite toys, rearrange the furniture in his room, add facial hair to his posters, that sort of thing. He hated it.”

“Yeah, I did,” Paolo says.

“So one day, I borrowed some pink paint from Amanda Litensky's garage—she lived a few houses down from us—and I carried this huge can all the way back to Paolo's room.” Oh,
this
story. “I have no idea how; it felt like I was carrying a small planet, but I was determined. When I got home, Paolo was in the backyard with Denton, of course,
the two of them pretending they knew how to kick around a soccer ball.”

“Hey! I'm really good at soccer,” I say.

“No, you're not,” Veronica says.

“I know.”

“So, anyway, the coast was clear. I sat down on the floor of Paolo's room with his beloved box of action figures, and, one by one, I started—ha-ha—I started dipping them into the can of pink paint. Head to toe. And then I would leave them on a sheet of newspaper to dry.”

“Such a mean person,” Paolo says.

“I remember I'd just finished pinking Wolverine—”

“Poor Wolvy,” Paolo whimpers.

“—and I looked out the window to make sure the Bonehead Boys were still playing nerd soccer, that I still had time left, but only Paolo was out there. Suddenly I hear the door open behind me.”

I don't think I've ever heard Veronica talk this much at one time about anything, let alone about me. There's excitement pulsing beneath everything she says, her dimples bouncing around like fireflies, and I can't help but smile, in spite of the fact that I can feel Taryn looking at me, wondering why I'm grinning like an idiot.

“And there's Denton standing in the doorway, confused, while I crouched at the window, totally frozen. The can of pink paint was sitting there, big and obvious next to the pink action figures.” I remember that image so clearly, how my first thought was that it looked like a tiny aboveground pool and a small squadron of pink men lying on their backs, tanning. “I was caught red-handed. Well…pink-handed. And Denton was like, ‘I came to get us some shin guards.
Paolo says we don't need them, but I think we do.' Which was also hilarious.”

“It was getting dangerous!”

“Sure it was, Denton.” It was. “And I see Dent taking the whole scene in, putting two and two together, and I'm getting ready for him to sprint into the backyard to tell Paolo, but instead he gives me a sly look and says, ‘Ninjas.' And I was like, ‘What?' And he was like, ‘You're making them all into pink ninjas. This is so cool.' Which made me confused for a few moments, like,
What? No, I'm painting my brother's action figures pink so I can ruin them
. And I was even more confused—like, shocked, even—when he got down on the floor and started helping me dip the action figures in the paint.”

“You helped?” Paolo says, horrified.

“Wait, wait,” Veronica says. “The point is, I could tell Denton obviously knew I wasn't making pink ninjas, and he was just trying to spin the whole situation in a cool light to help out his best friend.”

Oh. Wow, no. I really thought we were making pink ninjas. Like, honestly, to this day, that's what I thought happened. Probably shouldn't say that aloud.

“Which, of course, was not a good enough spin to convince Paolo that I wasn't just trying to destroy things he loved, but it was a valiant effort.” Out of my peripheral vision, I notice that Taryn is texting. “And that was the first time I thought Denton might have the hint of the slightest potential to be kinda cool.” Though this can barely be considered a compliment, it's accompanied by a sweet look from Veronica. I smile back, a little goofily, and I feel Taryn's eyes on me.

“I didn't think he was cool,” Paolo says. “I thought he was an idiot. They painted my shin guards pink, too.”

“Ninja guards,” I mutter. Once we started, I got really into the pink ninja thing.

“Anyway,” Veronica says. “That's my story.”

And she smiles at me once more.

I smile back.

And then I turn and smile at Taryn.

She gives me the ol' face-is-smiling-but-eyes-are-not.

“What?” I say.

She shifts her weight away from me on the couch. Everyone in the room is watching, including Veronica. “It was a fun story.”

“Okay,” I say. “Great, then.”

“Yes, great,” my stepmom interjects. “So next, and last—but not least!—is Grandpa Sid.” He snores from his big chair. “Hon, you wanna wake your dad up?”

“No, hon, let's let him sleep,” my dad says. “It's so late.”

“I think he'd want to tell a story at his grandson's Sitting, don't you?”

“I'm not entirely sure that's true.”

As my dad and stepmom debate the merits of waking up Grandpa Sid, Taryn and I detour from the main conversational highway onto a bumpy little side road, which, honestly, I would have preferred to avoid. Rocky patches of private conversation aren't my favorite.

“You said you love me.”

“I do love you.” I try to wrap my arm around Taryn, but she wriggles away.

“So why are you looking at Veronica over there with googly eyes?”

“I wasn't,” I say, but even I'm unconvinced by my delivery.

“Why did you show up here with Paolo and Veronica? Were you guys all hanging out or something?”

I flash back to an image of Veronica at my knees in her underwear.

“No, no, not at all.”

Half paying attention to the scene across the room, I see that my dad has won and Grandpa Sid has been granted permission to continue sleeping. The Denton story game thus concluded, people begin to shuffle around us, but we hold strong on the couch.

“It's okay if you were,” Taryn says. “I'm just curious.”

“Sorry to interrupt, hon,” says a grating voice, “but we have to get going. Tiffany's tired.” Aunt Deana gives me a quick, emphatic kiss on the cheek. “We love you, and we'll miss you.” She speaks the Language of Obligatory Things to Say, with little detectable emotion underneath.

“Oh, sure, love you, too. I, uh…” I want to say something more meaningful. Instead, I look to Tiffany. “Probably never been up this late, huh?”

She rolls her eyes and heads to the front door. Sweet goodbye. So sad I won't get to see her grow up into a hideous lady-beast.

Uncle Andre looms up behind Aunt Deana and puts out his hand for a shake. “Bye, buddy,” he says as I stand up, and his massive bear paw envelops my tiny hand. He gives me a wink that seems all out of context, more
You're gonna get laid tonight
than
Goodbye forever, nephew
.

“Bye, Uncle Andre. Take care.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles as he heads out. “Thanks, Rocky, bye, guys.” He calls my stepmom Rocky.

As they leave, I'm reminded of what a unique little trio they are: they all have the same deathdate. It's not for another thirty-eight years, but still. Will all of them be in the same car accident? Same natural disaster? Victims of the same lethal virus spreading across the US? Or—and this is my favorite—a crazy shoot-out between those three during their Sitting, which ends with them (and maybe others) lying bloody on the family room floor? I realize that's not the kindest fate to imagine for family, but it'd also be pretty badass, the three of them in their family room, caught in a Tarantino-style web, Tiffany's gun trained on Deana, Deana's on Andre, and Andre's focused squarely on Tiffany. One of them moves to wipe a bead of sweat off an eyebrow, the others freak out, and
BLAM!