"What about loyalty to the community and the other stuff like that?"
"All that stuff they teach you in school?" He snorted. "They have to teach you that, Charles—their job is to make you fit in. But loyalty to the community means one thing when the community is seventeen thousand people and quite another thing when it's seventeen billion. The global community is too vast, Chigger. It's out of control. Who do you think goes out to the stars? People who are satisfied with the way things are? Or people who are so dissatisfied with the constraints on their lives that they're willing to put up with colossal hardship so they can have a chance at something better?"
For the first time in a long time, Dad sounded like he cared about something. But I still wasn't sure.
I think Dad could see it on my face, because he stopped himself and said, "Think about this another way. Where do you think you'll be in five years? In ten years? In fifteen years? What is it you want to do most? More than anything else in the world—this world or any other? What do you want, Charles?"
"I don't know—" I started to say, but then I saw the look in his eyes, the desperate look that I hadn't seen since the day he'd moved out of the house and tried to say good-bye to us kids. I hadn't said to him then what I'd wanted to say ever since. I almost said it now. But I swallowed hard and looked away. My throat was starting to hurt. Kids don't know how to think about these things or make these kinds of choices. Why do grownups push us into these conversations? Finally, I just blurted, "I just want to be someplace where people treat each other nice. Whatever that's like."
"That's a good wish, Chigger." He put his hand on my shoulder. "I want the same thing too. Especially for you. Because you're the only son I've got who loves the music as much as I do."
I turned around and stared at him. I never knew he'd noticed.
"I see you with the earphones pressed to your head. I notice what you're listening to. I'd love to talk to you about the music, the way we used to. But there's this wall between us now. Just know that I love you, Charles. I want you to have the best life you can. Please don't hate me so much. I'm trying so hard—"
That did it. The tears flooded up into my eyes and I fell into his arms, sobbing. And I finally said it, after all these years: "Daddy, please don't leave me. I'll be good. Please don't leave me again!"
He held me for a long time, and finally he whispered into my ear, "I want to be here for you, son. I really do. Just please give me a chance."
I wanted to say yes to that. I really did. But I couldn't. Not yet. First I had to know that this time wasn't like all the other times.
INTROSPECTION
It wasn't just a choice between Earth and the stars, because that's a no-brainer. That part was easy. The hard part was that Dad was asking us to choose between him and Mom.
Mom wasn't bad. She was just angry all the time. And if we went back, things wouldn't be much different—just more of the same, probably worse. Like that time I stayed out in the hills too late. I was afraid to go home because I knew I'd get yelled at for not coming home, but I didn't want to get yelled at, so I stayed where I was, but I knew I'd have to go home sometime, and the later I stayed the worse the inevitable yelling would be. So I only stayed out until hunger and cold outweighed my fear. This time, though, the yelling would go on forever. I could hear Mom already. It'd be like that phone call, only I wouldn't be able to switch her off.
One thing I knew: me and Weird and Stinky, we were a family, no matter what. We had to stay together. Except that Weird wasn't going to go back, and Bobby couldn't go back by himself—so it was sort of up to me to decide what was right for both of us.
And if I went back without either Bobby or Douglas, or without both of them, what would Mom say? She'd probably blame me. She'd bawl me out three times over, once for me and once each for Bobby and Douglas. And I'd probably have to listen to all the stuff she wanted to tell Dad as well, except he wouldn't be there to listen, so I'd have to stand in for him too.
And I really didn't want to listen to any more of her angry rants about Dad—or anyone. I was getting awfully tired of all the ranting, no matter who it came from. And that was sort of what clinched it for me. I could think of all the reasons why I shouldn't go with Dad, but I couldn't think of any reasons why I should go back to Mom.
But even if I could sort everything else out, there was still the fact that in my own way I did love Mom, and if I was never going to see her again I was going to miss her badly. This was going to hurt. A lot. And probably in ways that I still hadn't realized yet. There were a lot of good things about Mom: the way she made spaghetti and the way she laughed when one of us kids said something really funny and the way she said "attaboy" when one of us did something good. Dad was right, Mom wasn't a bad person, and we shouldn't think of her that way—even if it would make leaving easier. Because we'd probably end up feeling a lot worse in the long run.
I guess what I really wanted was just to be able to say good-bye to her. And have her say it was all right for me to go. Except I knew she would never say that. So I couldn't say good-bye to her, could I? And that was the part that really hurt. Because I would be trading the part of me that was incomplete about Dad leaving for a new part that would be incomplete about me leaving.
And that brought me back to that same old thing again, the one that always bothered me—how do grownups deal with this stuff? From the evidence, not very well.
Grownups are supposed to be able to think things out so that they can always do the right thing. But the more I thought about this, the harder it all became.
Maybe nobody ever really grew up at all. Only their bodies. But inside, they were all still as spoiled and whiny as Stinky.
What I wanted to do was get on my bike and ride out to the hills to one of my thinking places, where I could just sit and look at stuff and listen to my music and watch the sun edging toward the western hills. That's the other problem with elevators. You can't get out and take a walk when you need to.
So I went downstairs and stood on the scale again to see how much I weighed now. Not as much as before. Less than thirty kilos already.
While I was standing on the scale, staring at the numbers, not really seeing them, Mickey came by and saw me. "You okay, Charles?" he asked.
"Yeah," I grunted, not really wanting to talk to him. I didn't know how to treat him anymore.
"Something the matter?"
"Yeah. You. Why'd you have to go and ... you know, with my brother?"
Mickey squatted down to look me in the eye. "That's between him and me, kiddo."
"Well, maybe you think so. But I think it's really screwed up my family."
"It has, huh?"
"Yeah."