“I didn’t mean anything by it!” Bryan said. “I was just making conversation.”
“Robbie’s been talking to the school counselor, it’s not a big deal.” Dean couldn’t understand how the mood in the car had changed so quickly.
“Dad, he ran away,” Stephanie said. “That’s a serious cry for help.”
“Stop talking about me!” Robbie covered his ears. Then, upon second thought, he opened the side door and took off running across the empty lot.
“Robbie!” Bry called. He began to scoot across the backseat to follow him, but Dean blocked him.
“You stay put,” he said, pointing a finger at Bry.
“Don’t yell at him, it’s not his fault!” Stephanie unbuckled her seat belt. “I’ll go get Robbie.”
“You’ll stay right here.” Dean barely looked at her, instead keeping his eye on Robbie, who was now heading toward the greenhouse at the far end of the school.
“I should talk to him. I know how he’s feeling. I’ve been thinking of seeing a therapist.”
“Well, that’s just great.” Dean couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“You’re against my seeing a therapist?”
“Of course not! I’d rather have you do that than come home and wallow in your misery, going God knows where at night.”
“You’re the one who should be explaining where you were last night.”
“I’m not going to apologize for going to a football game.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I saw you.” She glanced at Bry in the backseat. “I was at that bar. That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Get out of the car,” Dean said.
Stephanie shut the door behind her.
“What were you doing in a bar?”
“What were you doing? Who was that? Were you seeing her before Mom died?”
“No,” he said. “Not that it’s any of your business. She’s my friend.”
“She looked like more than just a friend.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Stephanie. You were drinking underage. You could have been arrested.”
“I’ve seen you with her before.”
“Believe what you want,” Dean said. “I’m going to go get your brother.”
Dean made his way across the asphalt toward Robbie. But he could only think of Stephanie. He never would have talked to his father the way she had just talked to him. Even after his mother left, Dean had not been so sullen — although he had certainly blamed his father for not being able to keep his mother around. Once, when his father was hospitalized for a broken leg and high on painkillers, he told Dean that his mother had cheated throughout their marriage, that she was notorious. Dean remembered that word—notorious—because it was the name of one of the horses his father trained. Dean didn’t want to be like his father, tight-lipped with secrets that slipped out under chemical influence. But how could anybody be expected to talk to their kids about suicide?
He found Robbie all the way at the other end of the parking lot. He was sitting in the overgrown grass near the greenhouse that was adjacent to the school’s woodshop. Behind him were the clouded shapes of tables, plants, and trees. He looked up at Dean. “Sorry,” he said.
“You don’t have to be sorry.” Dean sat down next to him. The ground was still a little bit wet from the morning’s dew.
“You’re really not mad?”
Dean shook his head.
“Stephanie seems mad.”
“She’s mad at me,” Dean said, “not you.”
“Why isn’t she at school?”
“What’s going on with you?” Dean searched his son’s face for some clue of what motivated him. He still had a babyish profile, round cheeks and soft, wispy hair.
“Nothing much.” Robbie plucked one of the taller grasses and began to tie it into a knot.
“There’s a lot of new kids, right? Have you made new friends?” Dean said. The middle school was large, bringing together the graduating classes of four littler elementary schools.
“Not really,” Robbie said. “Everybody sticks with the people they already know.”
“What about joining an intramural team? You could try out for soccer,” Dean said. Soccer was the only sport Robbie had ever mentioned.
“Actually, I tried out for The Wizard of Oz. They had auditions in my chorus class because they need a bunch of kids to be munchkins.”
“Wait, you tried out for the high school play?” Dean said.
“Yeah, and I got the part!” Robbie couldn’t help grinning as he spoke. “I’m going to be a munchkin — and a flying monkey and a poppy flower. And I’m singing in the chorus.”
“Okay,” Dean said. The parts sounded silly to him, more suited to Bryan, but Robbie was obviously proud.
“What’s the matter?” Robbie said. “You don’t want me to be in the play?”
“It’s not that.”
“You think I should play a sport.”
“I think you should be with people your own age,” Dean said.
“They don’t do a play in middle school,” Robbie said. “And I like older kids. I don’t like kids my age.”
“You might if you got to know them.”
Robbie shrugged. “I don’t want to play soccer. I’m not good at it. No one’s good at it. It’s boring to do something that no one’s good at. And everyone’s bad at everything in middle school. I’d rather be around older kids who know how to do things. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Dean said. He worried that Robbie’s longing for older kids had to do with Stephanie’s absence, and that his desire to playact, to live in fantasy, had to do with Nicole’s death.
“The rehearsals are pretty much every day after school,” Robbie said. “So I’ll be out of your way.”
“You’re not in my way.”
“The stage is so big,” Robbie said. “My friend Mark was in The King and I in fourth grade. He was Anna’s son. Do you remember that? He stood on the side stage, and they made it look like a boat.”
Dean had no memory of this performance. He’d accompanied his children through the world, and yet sometimes it seemed to him as if he had no way of knowing what really mattered to them.
He stood up and brushed the grass off his shorts. “Come on, let’s go home — okay?”
Back at the car, they found Stephanie and Bry listening to the radio with the windows down. Stephanie was flipping through the folder of running stuff he had taken from his office.
“You left this on the roof of the car,” she said, handing it to him.
“Thanks.” He stuffed it under his seat.
“I’m going back to school as soon as we get home.”
“Sounds good to me,” Dean said, starting the car.
He exited campus the back way, behind the middle school, so he wouldn’t have to go past the football field. He didn’t want to see the team practicing. And he couldn’t bear to observe local etiquette, honking his horn as he drove past. They would recognize his car and wonder where their old coach was going. Or maybe they wouldn’t wonder. Maybe they would just wave, and get back to their training.
Chapter 6
The next morning Dean awakened early from a disturbing dream. He and Laura were on his bed, which was strewn with Nicole’s clothes. She undressed, revealing breasts that were like Nic’s. “You’re too young,” Dean said. He meant she was too young for breasts like that, breasts that had borne the weight of three pregnancies, but she thought he was trying to push her away. She began to cry and then she became Nicole, who put her hands on his face and said, “Didn’t you want her all along?”