Mom plates our Thai food while Mitch and I put the groceries away. She sets up the TV trays in the living room and carries the food out there. “Get it while it’s hot,” she says. “The pantry stuff can wait.” She turns on Disney+.
Mitch shoots me a look. Moana, he mouths.
I shake my head and sit on the couch. “Thanks for the food, Mom. This looks great.” A twinge of guilt goes through me thinking of Ash in the tent with a bagel and a sweet but smelly dog.
“Didn’t feel like cooking.” Mom navigates to the Because You Watched recommendations. Moana and Ralph Breaks the Internet are both listed. She chooses Moana.
I don’t look at Mitch. I can feel his stupid smug grin trying to smack the side of my head. While I eat, I keep checking my phone, hoping next week’s forecast will change.
“Daniel, why the sudden interest in the weather?” Mom asks the third time I refresh the page.
“Birds,” I say without thinking. I miss when she used to call me Danny. “And squirrels and stuff. We should put out food for them. It’s gonna get really cold. They’re tiny and they lose body heat fast.”
Mitch laughs like scissors snapping on empty air. “You’re worried about squirrels now? You seriously need to grow a thicker shell.”
Mom smiles too, like she’s privately laughing in her head. I fake a laugh like I know they’re right, I’m being sensitive again, I should forget it. I should worry about normal stuff like grades and girls and school shootings and our family falling apart. Pretend Daniel doesn’t bother me even though it feels like she’s telling me to grow up every time she says it.
I push the rest of my food around until the part where Moana’s grandma is on her deathbed. I’ve seen this dumb movie twice and cried both times when she died. I take my food to the kitchen and cover it with foil, pretending I don’t hear Moana’s grandma giving her the shell thingy. I put my food in the fridge and go back to my room.
I spend twenty more minutes looking for Tina on social. It occurs to me that maybe she’s checked in at the vet, or posted a photo taken there, so I go to Dr. Snyder’s business page. But so many people have checked in there it’s useless.
If I knew what part of town she lives in, it would be easier. But this whole city-suburb metropolitan area has like three million people. She could live anywhere.
I keep searching until I’ve narrowed the list of Tina Martins to three. One has a flower profile photo, one has a cat, and one has a sunset. Then I create a Facebook account and message each of them: Hi, it’s Daniel. I hope everything is OK with your daughter. What should I do about the dog? I can’t keep her. Please answer quickly. Thanks.
I don’t know how it’s possible to have insomnia when I’m this tired. I can’t stop looking at my cartoon snore and thinking about Ash in the tent by herself. I was there alone last night, but it was my choices that led to that. Now she’s roped into my drama.
On the other side of my bedroom wall, I hear Mitchell watching debate videos on his laptop. Fiona, captain of the junior debate club they’re in, is arguing about climate change. I close my eyes and focus on the sound. She’s taking her usual tactic of mixing passion for her argument with facts and evidence.
She’s so good at it. Mitch is good too, but he’s cold and calculating. Like a giant blorp of data comes out of his mouth. But Fiona can make you believe. Make you care.
I need to be more like that. To use my emotions like a tool, a source of information, instead of having them spill out everywhere and take up all the air in a room, then leave me drowning in guilt for overreacting. I mean good lord, crying in the cafeteria? I can’t blame Mitch for giving me crap about that. Or Cole for sighing and turning away like he was sick to death of it. You always make everything about you, he’d said. It’s my birthday you forgot. I’m the one who’s mad. And now the subject is right back to you and how bad you feel.
Maybe losing him would be easier if he was wrong.
But he’s not.
It’s still dark when I wake up, too early to text Ash. I check Facebook—no responses—then quietly slip into the kitchen and put some food in a plastic bag for her: an apple, a block of cheddar, a piece of the Italian bread Mom brought home last night.
Mom comes in while I’m tying the bag shut. She’s wearing her pajamas that have Joy from Inside Out on the shirt. “Morning, honey,” she says. “You’re up early.” She sets her laptop on the table, then wraps an arm around my shoulder and kisses the side of my head. She used to kiss the top where my cowlick is, but now I’m taller than her. Which I’m totally not used to yet. “You feeling better? You’ve seemed so tired this week.”
“I’m okay. Thought I’d help out at the kennel. It’s always extra busy on Saturday mornings.” I’m not lying; I do want to go, after I check on Ash. A high school kid comes in to feed and walk the dogs, but he’s always glad when I show up to help because he can get through everything faster and leave early. Then I get the animals all to myself for a while.
“You know you can talk to me, Daniel. About whatever. Dad. School. Girls.” She glances at her laptop.
“I’m fine. Do you have to do work stuff?”
“Unfortunately.” She’s a project manager at an ad agency and often has to finish the week’s tasks on Saturday morning. “That’s why I
