Jim said nothing to him, poured himself a cup of coffee, and picked up the paper, as though Bobby weren't even in the room with him. And Johnny sat silent, watching. Johnny was still at the table with them, and he looked extremely pensive, as though he were concentrating on something. And after their father finished the paper, he put it down, and looked at Bobby, as though he'd suddenly had an idea.
“Your mom'll be back soon,” he said, as though to a lost child who had wandered into their kitchen, a total stranger. He had no idea how to talk to him anymore. Since Bobby couldn't answer, to Jim, there seemed to be no point talking to him, and Bobby knew that. There were things Bobby would have liked to say to him, but knew he couldn't. And even now that he had begun speaking to Johnny and his mom again, he knew his father wouldn't understand. “Do you want something to eat?” Jim asked, not sure what the serious expression in the child's eyes meant, but he looked as though, for once, he was trying to understand. “Have you had breakfast?” Bobby nodded his head as Jim sighed. “It's not easy talking to you,” Jim said, not suffering from a hangover for the first time in years. He hadn't had a drink in nearly two days. “Why don't you answer, or at least try to? Don't you think you could talk, if you wanted to? I'll bet you could.” He was wishing the child to talk to him, but there was not a sound from him. “You don't even try,” he said, looking frustrated as Johnny gently touched his brother's hand, as though to reassure him that everything would be all right. He didn't need to be afraid of his father. Johnny wanted to convey to his brother that everything was going to be fine.
Jim stood up then, and there were tears in his eyes, as he walked out of the room. Their lives were falling apart. And Bobby sat in the kitchen for a long time, and then went upstairs quietly, and let himself into Johnny's room. He stayed in there for a long time, with Johnny, whispering, and looking at his trophies. And then he dropped something, and a moment later, his father opened the door to Johnny's room and saw Bobby there.
“What are you doing in here? You have no business coming in here. Go back to your room,” he said sternly as tears filled Bobby's eyes, and Johnny whispered to him that he'd go with him, and not to let Dad scare him. It was going to be all right. The problem was that Johnny's room had finally become like a shrine in Jim's mind, and he didn't want any of Johnny's things disturbed, or removed.
Bobby walked silently out of the room, and when he'd gone, Jim walked slowly into the room. It was clean, everything was in order. Alice dusted it thoroughly once a week, and Jim didn't come in often enough to notice that things had been moved recently. Johnny had been spending a lot of time in his room, and going through his belongings and papers. There were photographs of him and Becky, letters, diaries he had kept as a kid. It was all still there, just as it had been when he left. And after a few minutes, Jim sat down on the bed, as tears streamed down his cheeks, and he looked around. It was five months since he'd been gone, and it was so painful seeing it just as it had once been. Johnny's varsity jacket was hanging over a chair, where he'd left it after he'd worn it the day before. Jim sat there for a long time, and then finally got up and left, and gently closed the door, and as he did, he saw Alice coming up the stairs. She knew where he had been, but said nothing.
She walked right past him into Charlotte's room, to check on her. She had just woken up, and said she was hungry and felt better. She went downstairs to eat breakfast in an old pink bathrobe, and smiled when she saw her father. She was still basking in the glow of his excitement about her game. The concussion she got afterward was far less important to her.
“How're you feeling, Charlie?” he asked, sounding hoarse from the tears he had just shed.
“Better. How ‘bout you, Dad?” There was a new light in her eyes as she looked at him. She had shared her victory with him.
“I'm okay.” Except that Alice had barely spoken to him in two days. Bobby looked at him like a stranger. And his hands had been shaking for two days since his last drink.
They all kept to themselves for the rest of the day, and at four o'clock, Jim went out. He came back two hours later, and didn't say anything to Alice about where he'd been. And she worried that he'd gone off to see some woman, as she thought he had the day before. But she made no comment when he came back, in better spirits, and she watched to see if he'd grab a six-pack. But he didn't. And instead of collapsing in front of the TV, he went outside to clean up the backyard. At dinner that night, he made feeble attempts to talk to her. Charlotte came downstairs and joined them, and she was already talking about going back to basketball practice the following week.
“Not until the doctor says you can,” Alice scolded, and by the end of the meal, Jim was deep in conversation with his daughter about her style, and how good her game had been two days before.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said, looking pleased. She had been told that more than likely she was going to be named most valuable player on her team at the last game. “Will you come to my game next week?”
“I'll try,” he said with a cautious smile, first at his daughter, then his wife. But Bobby still seemed not to exist for him. His frustration at not being able to communicate with Bobby that morning had discouraged him.
Father and daughter went off to the living room after that, and Alice and the two boys stayed in the kitchen to clean up. The threesome were talking softly, but Charlotte could still hear her mother from the other room.
“She talks to herself all the time now,” Charlotte confided to Jim, looking worried. Like her mother, she had noticed that her father wasn't drinking again that night, but she didn't comment on it.
“I think she talks to Bobby,” he said with a sigh. “I don't know how she can. It's hard talking to someone who can't answer. I don't know what to say to him,” he confided to her, and she felt a pang of sympathy for him.
“Bobby lets you know what he's thinking, if you pay attention to him,” Charlotte said quietly. It was odd, but she felt as though she were making a connection with her father, for the first time in her life. She actually believed he liked and approved of her now that he'd watched her play
“Do you suppose he'll ever talk again?” It was odd asking her, but she seemed unusually wise to him now, for her fourteen years.
“Mom thinks he will one day. She says it takes time.” Five years. And how much more? Jim thought to himself. “Johnny used to talk to him a lot. You should shoot some baskets with him sometime, Dad.”
“Does he like that?” Jim looked surprised. He had no idea what his youngest son did and didn't like, and never tried to find out.
She nodded. “He's pretty good for a kid.”
“So are you,” he smiled, and then he put an arm around her as they sat on the couch. He turned the television on after a while, and they watched a football game. And a little later, Bobby came and sat next to them. Johnny was in a chair, sprawled out and enjoying the scene with his siblings, and from time to time Bobby smiled at him. It was as though having Johnny there encouraged him to try his wings.
And when Alice emerged from the kitchen, and looked at them, she smiled too. In spite of her anger at her husband, she had to admit that things seemed to have improved. Ever since his accident with Charlotte, Jim had stopped drinking. It hadn't gone unnoticed, and she was afraid to mention it to him. But she was well aware that he hadn't had a drink since. And the atmosphere of the whole house seemed to have changed. She was thinking about it that night when she went upstairs to their room, and again the next day when she dropped Bobby off at school.