Lone Wolf

There’s no way to convince her that just because you put half a planet between you and someone else, you can’t drive that person out of your thoughts. Believe me. I tried.

“I know why you left,” Cara says, jutting her chin up. “You came out and Dad went ballistic. Mom told me so.”

Cara was too young to understand back then, but she’s not now; she would have eventually asked questions. And of course my mother would have told her what she believed to be the answers.

“You know what? I don’t even care why you left,” Cara says. “I just want to know why you bothered to come back when no one wants you here.”

“Mom wants me here.” I take a deep breath. “And I want to be here.”

“Did you find Jesus or Buddha or something in Thailand? Are you atoning for your past so you can move on to the next step in your karmic life? Well, guess what, Edward. I don’t forgive you. So there.”

I almost expect her to stick her tongue out at me. She’s hurt, I tell myself. She’s angry. “Look. If you want to hate me, fine. If you want me to spend the next six years saying I’m sorry, I’ll do that, too. But right now, this isn’t about you and me. We have all the time in the world to figure things out between us again. But Dad doesn’t have all the time in the world. We need to focus on him.”

When she ducks her head, I take it as agreement.

“The doctors are saying… that his injuries aren’t the kind that can heal-”

“They don’t know him,” Cara says.

“They’re doctors, Cara.”

“You don’t know him, either-”

“What if he never wakes up?” I interrupt. “Then what?”

I can tell, from the way her face pales, that she has not let herself go there, mentally. That she hasn’t even let that hint of doubt creep into her head, for fear it will take root like the fireweed that grows along the road in summertime, rampant as cancer. “What are you talking about?” she whispers.

“Cara, he can’t stay hooked up to life support forever.”

Her jaw drops. “Jesus. You hate him so much that you’d kill him?”

“I don’t hate him. I know you don’t believe it, but I love him enough that I’m willing to think about what he’d want, instead of what we’d want.”

“You have a truly fucked-up way of showing your love, then,” Cara says.

Hearing a curse word on my little sister’s lips is like hearing nails on a blackboard. “You can’t tell me that Dad would want machines breathing for him. That he’d want to live with someone having to bathe him and change his diaper. That he wouldn’t miss working with his wolves.”

“He’s a fighter. He won’t give up.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe we’re even talking about this. I can’t believe you think you have the right to tell me what Dad would or wouldn’t want.”

“I’m being realistic, that’s all,” I reply. “You have to be ready to make some hard choices.”

“Choices?” she says, choking on the word. “I know all about hard choices. Should I have a total breakdown, or hold it together while my parents are splitting up? Even though the one person who’d understand what I’m feeling has totally abandoned me? Do I live with my mother or do I live with my father, because no matter what I decide, I know my answer’s going to hurt the other person. I’ve made hard choices, and I picked Dad. So how dare you tell me I’m supposed to just give him up, now?”

“I know you love him. I know you don’t want to lose him-”

“Before you left, you told Mom you wanted to kill him,” Cara snaps. “So I guess now you have your chance.”

I can’t blame my mother for telling her that. It’s true.

“That was a long time ago. Things change.”

“Exactly. And in two weeks or two months or maybe longer, Dad just might walk out of this hospital.”

That is not what I’ve been led to believe by the neurologists. That is not what I’m seeing with my own eyes. I realize, though, that she is right. How can I make a family decision with my sister when I haven’t been part of this family?

“For what it’s worth,” I say, “I’m sorry I left. But I’m here now. I know you’re hurting, and this time, you don’t have to go through it alone.”

“If you want to make it up to me,” Cara says, “then tell the hospital I should be in charge of what happens to Dad.”

“You’re not old enough. They won’t listen to you.”

She stares at me. “But you could,” she says.

The truth is, I want my father to wake up and get better, but not because he deserves it.

Because I want to leave as soon as possible.

In this, Cara is right. I haven’t been part of this family for six years. I can’t just walk in and pretend to fit seamlessly. I tell my mother this, when I walk out of Cara’s room and find her pacing in the hall. “I’m going back home,” I say.

“You are home.”

“Ma,” I say, “who are we kidding? Cara doesn’t want me here. I can’t contribute anything valuable about what Dad would have wanted in this situation. I’m getting in the way, instead of helping.”

“You’re tired. Overtired,” my mother says. “You’ve been in the hospital for twenty-four hours. Get some rest in a real bed.” She reaches into her purse and pulls a key off a chain of many.

“I don’t know where you live now,” I point out. As if that isn’t proof enough that I don’t belong.

“You know where you used to live,” she says. “This is a spare key I keep in case Cara loses hers. There’s no one in the house, obviously. It’s probably good for you to go there anyway to make sure everything’s all right.”

As if there would be a break-in in Beresford, New Hampshire.

My mother presses the key into my palm. “Just sleep on it,” she says.

I know I should refuse, make a clean break. Start driving back to the airport and book the first flight to Bangkok. But my head feels like it’s filled with flies, and regret tastes like almonds on the roof of my mouth. “One night,” I say.

“Edward,” my mother says, as I am walking away from her. “You’ve been gone for six years. But before that, you lived with him for eighteen years. You have more to contribute than you think you do.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I reply.

“That you can’t make the right decision?”

I shake my head. “That I can,” I tell her. “But for all the wrong reasons.”

I’m having an Alice in Wonderland moment.

The house I step into is familiar, but completely different. There is the couch I used to lie on to watch TV after school, but it’s not the same couch-this one has stripes instead of being a solid, deep red. There are photos of my dad with his wolves dotting the walls, but now they’re mixed in with school pictures of Cara. I walk by them slowly, watching her grow up in increments.

I trip over a pair of shoes, but they aren’t my little sister’s light-up sneakers anymore. The dining room table is covered with open textbooks-calculus, world history, Voltaire. Sitting on the kitchen counter are an empty carton of orange juice, three dirty plates, and a roll of paper towels. It’s the mess of someone who thought he was coming back to clean up later.

There’s a nearly empty box of Life cereal on the counter, which feels more like a metaphor than a housekeeping oversight.

The house has a smell, too. Not a bad one-it’s outdoorsy, like pine and smoke. You know how when you go to someone’s house it smells a certain way… but when you go to your own house it doesn’t smell at all? If I needed any other confirmation that I’m a stranger, this is it.

I push the blinking red button on the answering machine. There are two messages. The first is from a girl named Mariah, and it is for Cara.

Okay, I totally have to talk to you and your cell phone voice mailbox is full. Call me!