It's. Nice. Outside. (20 page)

“He's staying with me.”

“Not the way you're driving. Come on, Ethan.” She extended her hand.

“No.” I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “He's staying with me. We're fine. He wants to stay with me, don't you, Ethan? Don't you want to stay with me?”

“Yes!” Ethan looked at Mary who still had her hand out. “No!” he said.

Mary moved over a few feet, positioning herself between my van and me while I tightened my hold on Ethan and tried to think things through. Having a shouting match in a parking lot with my ex-wife, the woman I was still very much in love with, the woman I was secretly hoping to woo back, was another scenario I had not envisioned in my Overall Plan.

“Could you please move?” I tried to get around her, but she blocked me, arms folded across her chest.

“What's going on? What are you doing?” It was Karen. She and Mindy had somehow materialized and, along with Mary, formed a circle around me. I was surrounded by grim-faced women in large round sunglasses.

“Why. Mad?”

“He won't let Ethan go,” Mary said.

“So you're kidnapping him?” Karen asked. “So we're doing that now?”

“I'm not kidnapping anyone.”

“So let go of him. Give him to us.”

“Sun. Out.”

Cornered, I bared my fangs. “You know, I can't tell you how disappointed I am in all of you. Look at us!” I stopped and waited for a response but got nothing. Everyone stared back at me, jaws thrust forward. Finally I said, “You think this is easy? I want to do this?”

“Don't do it then,” Karen said. “Mom, you can stop him.”

“She doesn't want to stop me because she knows I'm right.”

“We need to talk about this some more, John,” Mary said.

“Why are you flip-flopping? We just talked about it last night! We've talked about doing this for years! We're through talking, finished with it!”

“You're forcing this decision,” Mary said. “We need more time.”

“I'm not forcing anything!”

“Hey, Dad, chill out,” Mindy said.

“Poo-poo!”

“Don't tell me to chill out.”

“Poo-poo
bad
.”

“Let's stop someplace and figure it out,” Mindy said. “That's all we want to do. We shouldn't drive any farther until we discuss everything. We didn't get a chance to last night. And you ran out of the hotel this morning—you escaped. We just want to talk, Dad.”

Under normal circumstances, I would have welcomed her conciliatory comment, agreed to talk things through, but I was in a bad, angry place, a place without reason.

“Talk? Talk? If you wanted to talk this morning, how come you went out and got rental cars?”

Mindy shrugged. “Fallback plan.”

“We can't even sit in a van together, much less talk. And there's nothing to talk about anyway. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do. There's nothing to discuss. We're doing this. I'm doing this. I'm not making you two come. It doesn't matter to me if you come.” I looked solely at Mary. “I don't care if you come either. I'll send you the forms. You'll sign them, I know you will. You know this is the right decision.”

“I'm not signing anything.”

“Yes, you will.” With that, I grabbed Ethan's hand and pushed past my family.

*   *   *

I have never been good with anger, never knew what to do with it, and I was angry now. The names of towns flew by, but I had no interest in exploring. I had no sense of where I was and made no attempt to calm down.

When you had a child like Ethan, bitterness was a constant temptation. It was always there, scratching at your door, trying to lure you to dark places. Over the years, I had done my best to resist its call, but many, many times I succumbed and allowed myself a good wallow. I was knee-deep in a serious wallow now, I knew that, but made no effort to pull myself out.

“I'm doing this for you,” I said to Ethan. “I know you don't understand, but I am.”

I pressed the gas and switched lanes, Mindy and the others following close. When I made an abrupt move around a car, they all stayed right with me.

Ethan remained oblivious, transfixed at first by the Etch A Sketch and later by my phone, which, unlike his unusable one, had lights, buttons, sounds.

I drove faster, the van pulsating. In that moment I wanted to lose my family, leave my life behind. I wanted to escape, literally and figuratively. The girls, Mary, Ethan. It was more than anyone could bear.

Sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, eighty. I gripped the wheel with two hands and sped on.

*   *   *

In the parking lot of the truck stop, Mindy staged another ambush, this time with her car. She swung so close to me that I had to jump back, spilling some of my coffee.

“Watch it!”

She lowered her window and peered over the top of her sunglasses. “This isn't funny anymore.”

“Mindy! Hello! Hello! Hello!”

“I'm not trying to be funny. That's your job.”

“Mom can't keep up.”

“Where is she?”

“Where. Mom. Be?”

“She's in front of us now. She missed the exit and pulled over onto the shoulder. She's waiting for us.”

“Where's the other one?”

Mindy pointed at Karen's car at the far end of the parking lot.

“Hey, Ethan,” she said. “Do you want to come with me? We can get pickles.”

“Yes!”

“Knock it off,” I hissed.

“Pickles!”

“Don't try to bribe him; don't do that. Just leave. I can take Ethan and do this myself. Even though I'm such a bad father, even though I'm such a pathetic, self-absorbed, whiny drunk, I can handle it.”

“Mom has to sign the papers.”

“Trust me, she'll sign them.”

Mindy raised her window and drove off.

*   *   *

About an hour later, inside a North Carolina visitors' center, Karen accosted Ethan and me by the maps.

When he saw her approaching, Ethan jumped up and down with excitement, almost dropping the can of Sprite I had just bought him. “Karen! Karen! Karen! Karen!”

“Funny running into you,” I said.

“You're an asshole, Dad.”

“Please try to watch what you say.” I wiped Ethan's mouth with the back of my hand, then returned to the large wall map that confirmed that we were just a few miles from Virginia.

“You're a selfish person,” she said.

“
I'm
selfish? I'm the one who takes care of him. I feed him, I bathe him, I wipe his ass. And
I'm
selfish. You know, you could come visit him more often.”

“You're going to get us all killed!”

“No one is getting killed, okay, so cut the drama!”

A young overweight mother wearing plaid shorts and pushing a stroller stopped and stared at us. This was not surprising, since Karen and I were more or less shouting at each other.

“Is everything all right?” she asked in a soft Southern accent.

“Everything's fine,” I said.

Karen pointed at me. “He's taking my brother to an institution!”

I looked wildly at Karen, then back at the woman, and felt compelled to explain. “It's not an institution. She's wrong. It's a home.”

“It's an institution,” Karen said. “He's dumping him!”

“I'm not dumping him. Stop saying that.”

“Yes, you are!”

The woman's eyes bounced back and forth between Karen and me before settling on Karen, who apparently appeared more sane.

“Do you need help? Should I call the police?”

Karen fell silent, as if considering this option. “No,” she finally said. “But he's taking him to an institution, and we're trying to stop him.”

“It's not an institution!” I yelled. “It's a home and it's very nice!”

Ethan jumped up and down. “It's. Nice. Outside!”

The woman hurried off.

“Where. Mom. Be?”

“Where's your mother?” I asked.

Karen took off her sunglasses and stepped close to me. “What do you care?”

I took a step back. “You're right; I don't. Tell her she should go home. All of you should. I can do this alone. I don't need anyone's help.”

“You're right. You're the only one who cares.”

“Sometimes I think I am. You couldn't move away fast enough. Ethan has always been my problem, always. You and Mindy check in when it's convenient.”

“You're his father,” she said.

“Sprite! More!”

“That's why I'm doing this. I know what's best.”

“We all deserve a say.”

“This is my decision.”

Karen stepped close again. “You know,” she said in a surprisingly even tone. “Ethan is part of all of us.” When she said that, her bottom lip began to quiver with what I could only assume was anger because, as I have noted, Karen never cried.

“So? What's your point?”

She searched my face with her blue eyes, looked away, then looked back at me.

“And just in case you've forgotten,” she said. “Just in case you don't remember how things were, we were there, Dad. We were there with Ethan and you and Mom.” Her eyes were reddening now, and when I saw that, when I realized my queen bee was starting to crumble, something began to break inside me.

“Karen.” But it was too late; she was through the doors and gone.

“Why. Mad?”

*   *   *

Back in the van, I forced myself to remember things I had forced myself to forget.

Karen was standing next to me that day the neurologist called to tell us the official result of the MRI. (“We confirmed the initial reading. He has global brain damage.”) I remember her asking, “What's wrong, Daddy?”

That day in the supermarket, when Ethan gagged so badly that he threw up in the crowded checkout lane in front of Mindy and Karen.

That day in the Six Flags parking lot when he refused to get out of the car so we had to go home. Mindy cried the whole way back, Karen's arms around her.

That day he fell to the floor at Mindy's grammar school graduation and refused to get up for an hour.

That day.

That day.

That day.

There were hundreds of them, thousands of them. Every day was a that day. For me. For us.

I squeezed the wheel and checked on Ethan, now sitting in the back. He was quietly eating a bag of potato chips, sipping a Sprite, oblivious to the drama, his “Why. Mad?” detector switched off. I glanced at Stinky Bear in the passenger seat, eyes all-seeing, picked him up, and pressed him close to my cheek.

What happened to you, happened to all of us,
I heard him say.

This hasn't been easy on anyone,
he said.

They were there,
he said.

Then:
She's right. Ethan is part of all of us.

“Okay,” I said out loud. “All right.”

I moved my foot over to the brake, began to slow. Eighty-five, eighty, seventy-five, seventy, the anger seeping out of me, a trailing, noxious fume.

“All right, okay.” I put Stinky down and switched into the right-hand lane, waiting for my family to catch up.

*   *   *

“So,” I said to Mary. “Another quiet day on the road.”

We were standing at Taylor's, a crowded restaurant off the interstate, waiting for the girls, when I started in on my not-very-rehearsed-but-nonetheless-sincere apology. I figured I was going to spend the rest of the evening saying I was sorry, and I wanted to get a jump on things.

“I'm sorry for the way I was driving. That was stupid. This whole thing has gotten out of hand. I'm very sorry. That's not like me, you know that.”

Mary didn't immediately respond. Instead she picked up a menu and started to read. After a minute she said, “Next time you have a nervous breakdown, try not to do it in a speeding car.”

“I'm sorry.”

“We'll talk when the girls come. Have a drink. It's been a long day for everyone.”

My relief was tinged with confusion. I'd been bracing for a good beatdown, if not a hard punch in the stomach. “I am sorry,” I said again. “About everything. I didn't handle any of this right.”

“I. Starving!”

I massaged Ethan's shoulders. “Yes, we'll eat, we'll eat.” While Mary continued to scrutinize the menu, I allowed myself a peak around Taylor's. It was classic supper club: dark and small, clean and homey. Large framed photos of a sturdy-looking, alpha-male-dominated family in various acts of sport—hunting, fishing, skiing, but mostly hunting—hung on pine walls. There was a formidable salad bar in the middle of the place, deer heads and antlers on the wall, and a small but inviting bar in the back. “Place looks kind of neat. It has a motel too. Maybe we should just stay here tonight.”

Mary finally put the menu down and glanced around the restaurant. “Fine,” she said.

“Pee-pee. Now.”

“I'll take him,” Mary said. “You've had him all day. Come on, buddy. I'll wait outside while you go.”

“No, it's all right. I got him. Let's go, dude-man. Come on.” I led Ethan to the men's room and, after he was done, thoroughly washed his face and hands and kissed him on the top of his head.

“You've been a good guy today. Thank you. Everyone else has been bad but you. Even I've been bad. I've been very bad. But you've been great.”

“Shut. Up. Idiot.”

“You should have told me that earlier. Would have saved me a whole lot of trouble. Come on, let's go.”

When we returned, all three women were sitting at a table by a window with checkerboard curtains. I paused, approached tentatively. Mary's benign response notwithstanding, after the Great Chase, I wasn't sure how I would be received.

I gave everyone a sheepish wave. “Hello.” Karen and Mindy didn't look up from their menus.