‘But, about Mom . . . ’ I tried again now, needing him to understand. ‘She’s not going in to work. She’s not doing anything these days. She just lays there, or watches TV.’
‘I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ Dad insisted, as if he hadn’t heard a word. ‘You just focus on your own plans, you must have a lot to get ready. Did you find out your dorm assignment yet?’ he segued smoothly, suddenly upbeat again. ‘We were looking at the brochure again, just the other night. The campus looks great. And if you can’t make it out for Thanksgiving, we’ll come visit in the spring, after the baby comes. You’ll want to meet your brother. Rochelle can’t wait.’
I listened to him chatter happily about college courses and their latest pre-natal visit, and wondered how he could be so oblivious. It seemed cruel, callous even, to go from dismissing Mom’s agony to sharing news about his own new life without even pausing for breath. But if there was one thing I’d learned in the months since his leaving, it was that my father was gifted with a breathtaking ability for denial. It was as if he’d created a shield around himself, and all the damage and hurt and pain simply slid off, never piercing him the way it sliced through the rest of us.
‘I should go.’ I cut him off, unable to listen any more. ‘I don’t want to keep you.’
‘It was great talking to you, sweetie,’ Dad said, unaware of the crushing emptiness that settled around me, the empty house, and the fear of that closed bedroom door. ‘Don’t worry so much about your mom, I’m sure she’ll be fine.’
There was a voice in the background, her voice, and then the line went dead and he was gone.
I sat, not moving, for another minute. Then I forced myself to change clothes and head back down the stairs to the kitchen. I turned on all the lights in the house, until the rooms were filled with a warm golden glow; twisting the old-fashioned dial on the radio until I found the country station again, playing songs I recognized from years ago. I took out the trash, and ran the dishwasher; fixed soup, and a plate of buttered toast, and a pot of hot tea.
I left a tray by Mom’s bed and then ate alone in front of the TV, flipping through stations of endless noise and laughter, quiz shows and reality scandals. None of it distracted me from the silence upstairs, or the life that my father was living in a house a thousand miles away.
Ethan’s face rose up in my mind: the eagerness of his smile. The curiosity in his gaze.
I felt a restless itch and bounced up again. I found my work jeans, crumpled in the laundry – the napkin folded up in my pocket.
I smoothed it out. Ethan’s handwriting was firm and sure: his phone number dark on the page.
I hesitated another moment, and then I dialled.
I waited on the front porch, a little nervous, and wishing I wasn’t. Ethan arrived on the stroke of seven, just as promised. He pulled up to the kerb in his pick-up truck, but when I got up to climb in, he shut off the engine and came down to open my door.
‘Thanks,’ I murmured, surprised by the old-fashioned gesture.
‘Always.’ Ethan grinned. He’d changed his shirt and taken a shower, his hair still pressed damp against his scalp. ‘You look nice.’
I was only wearing a top and jeans, but I still felt a tiny rush at his compliment. I blushed, climbing up into the cab of the truck and letting Ethan close the door behind me. I looked around, taking stock as he crossed back around to the driver’s side. The front seats were swept clean, but behind me, there was a crumple of fast-food wrappers, spare sweaters, loose change.
It struck me suddenly just how little I knew about this guy. He’d breezed into town, an outsider, and now I was sitting in his truck, trusting him to take me where he said we would go. Everyone here knew everyone else, but he was a stranger. A blank slate.
And I was one too.
The thought was strangely reassuring, after months of ducking questions and avoiding the sympathy on everyone’s faces. Ethan wouldn’t know a thing about my family’s history, or the sadness lurking behind my front door. I could be anyone I wanted with him tonight.
I might not even have to lie to him at all.
‘Hartley OK?’ he asked, naming the nearest town with a movie theatre, about thirty minutes away. He started the engine and casually reached to rest his hand on the back of my seat as he turned and reversed out of the drive.
‘Sure.’ I reached for the stereo tuner, but then saw it was hooked up to his iPod with a snaking wire.
‘Here, take your pick,’ Ethan passed me the handset. I scrolled through, glad of the ice-breaker. Now we would chat about music, talk about our favourite bands and confess the weird, uncool songs lurking in our collections. I could do that, easy and inconsequential.
‘But you’ve got to promise not to judge me,’ he added with a grin.
‘You’ve got some guilty secrets?’ I teased.
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
I glanced across and saw a dark, solemn glint in his eyes. Then Ethan laughed. ‘No, I’m just messing with you. I’m an open book, nothing much to hide.’
‘Not even your love for Blakely Ray?’ I smirked, landing on a list of songs by the latest teen pop star craze.
‘What? She’s crazy catchy.’ Ethan protested. Other guys might have gotruffled, but he just laughed when I set one of the songs to play, lip-synching along with faux sincerity. ‘C’mon girl, get into it!’
‘OK, OK, you win!’ I laughed and changed the track, and then guitar chords were drifting, light and gentle, out through the open windows into the crisp evening air. I turned my head to watch the world slide past, Haverford quickly receding behind us as the highway snaked past the modern development on the outskirts of town, then into the wide open bleed of woods and fields, ramshackle ranch houses dotted behind overgrown hedgerows.
I breathed in, and felt the sharp knot in my chest ease, just a little.
‘Where did you move from?’ I turned my head back to Ethan, finding him idly tapping the steering wheel in time with the music. He drove with an ease I envied, his broad shoulders relaxed, one elbow resting out the window.
‘Columbus,’ he replied, shooting me a brief, rueful grin. ‘Then before that, Chicago, Atlanta, we did a few months in Nashville my junior year . . . Dad moves around a lot for the business, and Mom doesn’t like us all to be apart for too long.’
‘How was it, moving around so much?’ I studied him carefully, looking for some sign of conflict beneath the casual smile.