1 Levi, Seventeen Years Old

Mom was worrying again. Feelings of guilt began to creep in given I didn’t feel bad about her worries.

She said I was abandoning her, but I tried my best to make her see that wasn’t the case. The cell phone hung loosely to my ear as her voice filled with an unnecessary but all too familiar fear. Mom worried about everything too much, creating mountains out of molehills. My aunt, Denise, always told Mom that her thoughts were the leading cause of her failed relationships. “That’s why things didn’t work out with Kent, Hannah. You pushed him away,” she scolded. “That’s why you never go on dates, Hannah. You’re an emotional rollercoaster who fears intimacy.”

Denise had been married for two years now, so I guessed that made her a relationship guru.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Levi.” Mom sighed into the receiver. She blamed herself for me being in Wisconsin, but it was my choice to come spend the year with Dad. I hadn’t seen him since I was eleven, and I had this crazy idea that if I didn’t try now for some kind of relationship with the guy, then I would never truly know my father. Plus, Mom needed her space. I needed my space.

After being homeschooled all my life, it had gotten to the point where she treated me like I was her other half. She hardly talked to anyone else except for Denise and me.

“You’re no good for my big sister, Levi Myers. I know you’re her son, but you’re no good for her,” Denise always told me.

“I’ll be fine, Mom.” She didn’t say anything else, but I imagined her nervously tapping her fingernails against the closest surface while she sipped watered down coffee. “Really, Ma.”

“Okay. Well, if he gets too bad you’ll stay with Lance, right? Or you’ll come home?” She paused. “You’ll come home if it gets too hard, okay?” We both knew that wasn’t really a choice. I was no good for her and her mental health. Hopefully I would be better for Dad. I nodded as if she could see me, and she continued talking. “So where are you now?”

“Waiting for the city bus to take me into town.”

“City bus?”

“I guess Dad’s car isn’t working.”

A few curse words slipped from her tongue, and I smirked at her obvious distaste for the man. It was hard to imagine that at some point they might have been in love. I didn’t know much about Dad, and the things I knew, I’d learned from Mom. I used to visit him for a week during the summer up until I turned eleven. He used to send birthday and Christmas cards with money and a Post-it note with a short message. Nothing big, just a small note saying happy birthday or Merry Christmas. I still had all of them in a shoebox.

Then one year it all stopped. He told Mom it was best if I didn’t visit anymore, never really giving an explanation. My goal for this whole year with Dad was to find out the answer to why he stopped our visits and his letters cold turkey. I was going to do everything in my power to try to figure out what happened between us.

“I’m going to call Lance and have him pick you up.”

“No, Mom. He’s at work. It’s no big deal.”

Lance was my uncle, Dad’s brother, and the only reason she allowed me to come spend the school year with Dad. He’d helped me convince Mom that this visit could be good for all of us. He’d promised to keep an eye on me.

I didn’t need Lance to look out for me, though. I wasn’t a kid anymore and had seen enough chaos throughout my life with Mom to be able to survive a year with my father. I’d learned quick how to grow up and be a man when Mom and I didn’t have one around.

Leaning against the bus stop pole, I dropped my duffle bag before setting my violin case on the ground. “It’s fine. The bus is pulling up right now, anyway,” I lied. She would’ve kept me on the phone for much longer than I wanted to talk. “I’ll call you later, all right?”

“Fine. Call me later. Or I’ll call you. I’ll call you, okay? And, Levi?”

“Yes?”

“I love you till the end.”

I echoed the words she’d been saying to me for as long as I could remember. She had a strange love for The Pogues’ song “Love You Till The End” for some reason, and all my life that one song played in our living room at least once a day.

The whole bus ride to Dad’s I wondered what kind of music played in his house.

I was betting it wasn’t The Pogues.

* * *

The closest the city bus could get me to the town Dad stayed in left me with a twenty minute walk. It was fine, really—except for the darkening clouds overhead. It started to drizzle about halfway through, so I hurried my pace, using an awkward speed walk/slow run movement.

When I finally made it to Dad’s, I saw his car resting in his front lawn. The hood was banged up, one headlight was broken, and he hadn’t bothered to close the driver’s door. The front porch had a flickering light that hardly attracted any flies or moths. There was a lawn chair in the yard that looked like it had been sitting there since 1974 and a half eaten TV dinner was lying against the brownish grass.

The best thing that could’ve happened to his lawn was the rain falling overhead.

I stepped onto the wooden porch, which squeaked and whined every time I made the slightest movement. There was a good chance it would fall apart just from my body weight.

The black door was swung open, so I didn’t bother to knock.

“Dad?”