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  For Craig Lesley

  “EMPTY MOM”

  A car door slammed.

  I opened my eyes. I was in the living room, on the couch. I’d fallen asleep.

  Mom was home. My mom who’d been in rehab, in California, for three months. My dad had gone to pick her up from the airport, and now they were back. They were in the driveway.

  I scrambled to my feet. I shut off the TV. I glanced around at the living room to make sure there weren’t any dirty cups or dishes. My dad and I had been cleaning the house all weekend for her homecoming.

  I heard voices from outside. I felt that familiar surge of anxiety. Here comes Mom, I thought. I stepped over to the hall mirror and checked myself in the reflection. I looked like I always did: longish hair, nervous eyes, seventeen-year-old face.

  I had to go greet them. I opened the front door and went outside, into the cold suburban darkness.

  My mother didn’t look that different. Maybe a little skinnier, a little more gray in her hair. I gave her a quick hug and went around to the trunk and got her suitcase.

  I followed the two of them inside. Nobody was talking, I noticed. I carried the suitcase through the living room and into Mom’s downstairs office, where she would be sleeping.

  Dad went into the kitchen. In a cheerful voice he asked if anyone wanted coffee. I said I’d have some. Mom didn’t answer. She stood in the living room looking around at everything. She appeared sort of dazed. She took a seat at the dining room table and checked her phone.

  Dad had some pork chops out, to thaw for dinner. He turned on the stove and poured some olive oil in the big skillet. As he did, he told Mom things that had happened while she was gone. The new refrigerator was the main thing. It had a bigger freezer and two doors, which saved electricity. Also, one of our cats, Nipsy, had run away for a week but then come back. Mom didn’t really respond to any of this.

  Then Allison showed up. She was my mom’s best friend. She came in the front door without knocking, and my mom jumped up to greet her. They hugged and gushed, and then Mom grabbed her coat and they went for a walk. That left me and my dad sitting there, with the pork chops cooking.

  Mom came back two hours later. She seemed much more emotional now. She gave me a long hug, crying while she held me. But it didn’t seem like she was crying for me. It felt more like she was crying for herself, regretting all the ways she had messed up her life and probably thinking about Richard, the guy she was not supposed to see anymore. When she stopped, she cleared away her tears and talked about turning over a new leaf and making a new start, which meant she would be going to AA meetings every night and talking to strange people on the phone. She told us she’d learned certain things about herself, and she was going to be a better wife and mother now.

  Dad didn’t say anything. He put the pork chops on the table with some green beans and dinner rolls. The pork chops were pretty dried out by now. Mom didn’t want hers, so I ate it. She ate some green beans and then made herself some tea. Nobody really talked. Eventually, I said good night and went to my room and fell asleep.

  * * *

  The next day I saw Dr. Snow, my therapist, for a special visit. That was when I said the thing about an “empty mom.” It wasn’t anything I’d thought about; it just popped out of my mouth. But Dr. Snow kept bringing it up. We talked about it for the next three sessions, what I meant exactly, and what was the feeling of “empty mom.” But I didn’t have an exact feeling about it. I’d just said it. And I didn’t want her to know I’d said it either, because she’d get mad.

  So then we tried to live our normal lives, the three of us. Mom would go to work every morning at the university. At night she would go to her AA meetings and then come home and zone out in front of the TV. It was weird having her there. My dad felt it. So did I. I mean, it was better than when she was drinking, and at least we knew where she was. But Mom was bored, you could tell. She wanted to be somewhere else. It made you feel bad, like you weren’t good enough and you should be doing something that would make things more interesting for her.

  This all happened during the spring of my junior year. I was going to Dr. Snow every Tuesday and Friday, twice the normal sessions. He kept giving me things to do, affirmations to say to myself, breathing exercises to relax. But I was never big on that stuff. Mostly, I stayed after school, playing basketball or working out, avoiding going home.

  Eventually, we got to the end of the school year. My friends had various summer activities planned: sports camps, summer jobs, trips to foreign countries. I hadn’t made any plans since everything was so focused on my mom. One thing my dad and I agreed on: I needed to get away for the summer. So my dad made some last-minute phone calls. . . .

  PART ONE

  JUNE

  1

  I arrived in Seaside at dusk. The bus let me off on the side of the highway. There wasn’t an official bus stop, just a bench that said GREYHOUND on it, next to an old gas station that had its windows boarded up and a FOR SALE sign in the front.

  I was supposed to call Aunt Judy when I got there, but I’d been on the bus for five and a half hours and I didn’t feel like calling right away. It felt good to be outside, in the open air, in a place that was new and unfamiliar. I walked around on the crumbly asphalt and stretched my legs. I breathed in the cool ocean breeze.

  There was a store across the two-lane highway called the Quick-Stop. I waited until the traffic cleared and crossed, rolling my suitcase behind me. A little bell jingled when I pushed open the door. The Quick-Stop was a bit run-down: dirty floors, a sticky soda machine. The beer signs and other advertisements on the walls looked like they’d been there for decades. I walked around, rolling my suitcase up and down the aisles, looking for something to eat. They had some strange stuff in that store: rifles, bear traps, camouflage vests, every kind of knife you could imagine. There was homemade jerky and dried-out corn dogs under a heat lamp. I decided on some Hostess mini donuts and a pint of milk and went to the counter. The creepy lady stared at me while she rang me up. I stared back. She gave me my change, and I rolled my suitcase outside and stood in the parking lot and ate my donuts.

  * * *

  I’d been to Seaside before, visiting the same aunt and uncle, but that was four years ago. My mom didn’t like the Reillys, was the reason we hadn’t been back for so long.

  I didn’t remember much about the town. It wasn’t very big; I knew that. Across the highway you could see the Coast Range mountains. They’d been clear-cut, and the treeless spots, ragged and bald, looked like a bad buzz job. In the other direction was the Pacific Ocean. You couldn’t see it from the Quick-Stop, but you knew it was there. You could smell the salt spray in the air. And the sun had set, so the sky was turning a bright red and pink.

  I finished the six donuts. I could have used a couple more, since they were mini donuts and hardly bigger than a bite each. But I didn’t buy any more. I drank my milk and watched the cars pulling in and out of the parking lot. I felt good and relaxed for a change, since I was in a new place and I wasn’t attached to anybody or anything. Nobody knew me or what my deal was.

  I checked my phone. Aunt Judy would be expecting my call. Just a few more minutes of freedom, I thought. I watched the Quick-
Stop customers. They were mostly local people. Seaside was a pretty rough town, I could see. It wasn’t a college town like Eugene, where I lived. None of these people were professors or visiting scholars or college students. But that was okay. Maybe that made it better. Seaside was more rugged; it was a town of loggers and fishermen, more “salt of the earth” types. Maybe I needed some of that in my life.

  There were other good things: my aunt and uncle were pretty cool, as far as I could remember. And I’d get to hang out with my cousins, who would be older now. Since I was seventeen, that meant that Kyle was eighteen and Emily was fifteen. Kyle had become a serious baseball player, according to my dad. He’d been given a full scholarship to play for the Oregon State Beavers next year. I didn’t know what Emily was into. My main memory of her was she was bossy, and she always had to be the banker when we played Monopoly.

  Whatever happened here in Seaside, it would be different. And at least I wasn’t home. At least I was far away from whatever trouble might eventually happen with my mom.

  2

  I finally called Aunt Judy. Five minutes later a big blue pickup truck pulled into the parking lot of the Quick-Stop. A wide, smiling face appeared in the open window. “Hey, Nick!”

  “Hey, Uncle Rob!” I called back. I lifted my rolling suitcase and heaved it into the truck bed. I hurried around to the passenger side. Uncle Rob moved a thermos and some papers off the seat, and I slid into it. I clicked my seat belt on.

  He eased the pickup around. “How was the bus ride?”

  “It was good,” I said, nodding.

  Uncle Rob pulled up to the two-lane highway and waited for a break in the traffic. We both watched the passing cars.

  “How long did it take?” he asked.

  “Five hours,” I said. “. . . Five and a half.”

  When the road cleared, Uncle Rob pushed down on the accelerator. The big truck rumbled onto the highway. It was fun being so high off the ground and looking down on the other cars. I remembered my mom talking about the Reillys, calling them “backwoods” and “rednecks,” which was true. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, not in my mind.

  I snuck a look at Uncle Rob. He looked like a mountain man with his facial scruff and his insulated vest and his oil-stained John Deere cap. The inside of the truck smelled like men, like the woods and gasoline and leather boots. It was cool. I liked it.

  “And the bus was okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It was pretty good. Pretty comfortable seats.”

  “Which way you go? Up Highway 101?”

  “Actually,” I said, “we went up the interstate to Portland. And then over.”

  Uncle Rob nodded.

  “That was the boring part,” I continued. “Waiting to change buses in Portland. But it was okay. I walked around a little.”

  Uncle Rob drove. I tried to think of what else I could say about the trip.

  “Yeah, this one guy got on in Blanchard,” I said. “He didn’t smell too good.”

  Uncle Rob smiled. “That’s the Greyhound for you,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  This was going to be a little weird, I realized. I’d lived my whole life in Eugene, surrounded by the University of Oregon, where my mom was a professor and my dad was a research librarian. We didn’t wear John Deere caps or drive pickup trucks in Eugene. We had famous authors over for dinner. The fact that Uncle Rob owned a car wash was another thing my mom made fun of. The Happy Bubble, it was called, which my mom thought was hilarious. She always said that in Oregon, where it rains almost every day, who would go into the car wash business? An idiot, that’s who.

  * * *

  We drove along the highway and then turned right, in the direction of the mountains. We wound our way uphill, and then pulled into the gravel driveway of the Reilly residence. I remembered the house from four years ago. It had a sturdy, mountain cabin look to it. A long row of freshly split firewood was stacked along one side.

  All the lights were on, I noticed. I hoped the Reillys wouldn’t make a big fuss about me coming. My visit had been arranged at the last minute, and I wasn’t sure how much they knew about my mom, or how much trouble it would be to have me stay there.

  Uncle Rob went in first. I followed behind. We made our way through the living room and into the kitchen. As soon as we entered, Aunt Judy came running over. “Nicholas! Look at you—you’re all grown up!” She gave me a big hug and did the looking-me-up-and-down thing. Uncle Rob stood there, grinning. Then this pretty girl got up from the table and came over. I wasn’t sure who she was, but I looked closer into her face and realized it was my cousin Emily. “Hi, Nick,” she said. She shook my hand and retreated back to her seat.

  “Nicholas, you must be starving,” said Aunt Judy, drying her hands on a towel. “Did you get a chance to eat anything?”

  “Just some mini donuts.”

  “We’ll fix you up,” she said, getting some stuff out of the refrigerator. But then she stopped and smiled at me. “It’s so nice to see you. We’re so glad you’re here and that you’re staying with us.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Judy,” I said.

  Uncle Rob took off his hat and got himself a beer out of the fridge. But then—maybe remembering my mother’s problems—he put the beer back and got a Pepsi.

  “I’m sorry Kyle isn’t here,” said Aunt Judy. “He’s very excited you’ll be here for the summer. You know he’s going to Oregon State next year on a baseball scholarship.”

  “That’s what my dad told me,” I said.

  “You should have been here this spring,” said Uncle Rob. “He set the high school strike-out record for the entire Coast League.”

  I nodded and acted impressed.

  Uncle Rob opened his Pepsi and drank some of it. Emily was sitting at the kitchen table looking at her phone. Aunt Judy offered to make me a sandwich. “What would you like, tuna fish? Or better yet, how about a grilled cheese and some tomato soup? Doesn’t that sound good?”

  “That sounds great,” I said.

  “We are so glad to have a little time with our favorite nephew,” said Aunt Judy, going back to the refrigerator.

  Uncle Rob nodded and smiled and drank more Pepsi.

  I stood there awkwardly, nodding along and being properly grateful. I tried to think of what else to say, but I couldn’t come up with anything. I looked over at Emily, hoping she could help me out. But she didn’t look up from her phone.

  * * *

  The inside of the Reilly house felt like an old ship. The hallways were narrow, and the floorboards were warped and crooked. Maybe because of the sea air? I didn’t know.

  They didn’t have a guest room, so I would be staying in the basement. My aunt and uncle took me down there. Since the house was on a hill, there was a window and a basement door that led outside. Aunt Judy had made the bed up with fresh sheets and blankets. There was a little bookshelf to put stuff in. They had decent Wi-Fi, so that was good. There was a large stand-up freezer on the other side of the room and an exercise bike that looked like it had never been used. The washer and dryer were down there too, which Aunt Judy apologized for. I told her it was okay, I liked falling asleep with a dryer going.

  Uncle Rob showed me how the lock on the basement door worked. The three of us went outside for a minute. Since it was dark now, the stars were out, and the air smelled delicious, like a mixture of the ocean and the forest and burning campfires. It was cold, though. That was something my dad had warned me about. On the coast it stayed cold, even in summer.

  Uncle Rob went back upstairs, and Aunt Judy stayed a little longer and helped me put away my clothes. I didn’t have much: a pair of Levi’s, a couple shirts, a hoodie, a thick wool sweater, and my North Face parka. I had a couple books, including Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, which was my summer reading for AP English. This was supposedly a good book for writers to read, and it was short, so, hopefully, I would get through it by the end of the
summer.

  After that Aunt Judy went upstairs. So then I was by myself, which was a relief. I continued to settle in. I found an outlet and plugged in my phone. I lay on the bed and looked up at the wood beams and pipes above me. I had a strange feeling then. Like, I knew my aunt and uncle loved me and would be super nice to me, which was great, but really, why was I here? This was a beach town, a tourist town. It kind of didn’t make sense. And all the time my dad and I were discussing it, we made it sound like this was what I’d wanted all along. But it wasn’t. I came here because of my mom. Because my dad and I were afraid of what might happen, of what she might do. It was like, even when she wasn’t doing anything, you had to think about her, you had to account for her. She was always having an effect on you.

  I rolled over and tried not to think about it. I was here. I would have to make the best of it. And it was the beach after all. Maybe I could meet some girls. Maybe there would be some fun parties. It was all about your attitude—that’s what Dr. Snow always said. It was up to you if you wanted to be happy or not.

  3

  I saw my cousin Kyle for the first time the next morning. He was eating breakfast at the kitchen table when I emerged from my basement room.

  He looked a lot different. He was tall and thick, like a grown man, except that his hair was dyed blond. He looked like what he’d become: a star baseball player with a full scholarship to college. He was still nice, though, and polite. He made room for me at the table and asked me about my school and what sports teams I followed and other things about my life.

  Uncle Rob spoke up. “So your dad said you might want to try some shifts at the Happy Bubble this summer?” he said.

  I nodded that this was true. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

  My dad had recommended this since there wasn’t anything else to do in Seaside. I’d make a little money, and if I didn’t work there, I’d just be hanging around the house, and the Reillys would think I was a spoiled rich kid. So we figured I better do it.