The Fragile World. Paula DeBoard Treick
going to have to call Mom for sure. There were probably five hundred water-related entries in my Fear Journals. “You know I’m afraid of boats and sharks and currents and rogue waves and—”
“No boats, I promise. Voyage is the wrong word, then. I’m talking about a road trip. You, me and the open road.” He paced to the windows, whirled around, paced back. It surprised me how young he looked, how goofy. Like his old self, I thought, and then out of nowhere: Like when Daniel was alive. But he looked a bit manic, too.
“A road trip? Dad, are you sure you’re okay? I’m serious. Do you need me to, um, be a supportive passenger while you drive yourself to the doctor or something?”
He laughed a bigger-than-genuine laugh that was not at all reassuring.
I can’t take this, I thought. One member of my family was gone forever, another lived a few thousand miles away and now my last remaining family member was cracking up—on the cafeteria roof one minute, on the couch talking about a voyage the next. I had to call Mom. This was definitely more than I could handle by myself.
“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?”
I wasn’t sure we should be going anywhere, unless maybe it was to some kind of “hospital” for a little “rest.” But they would have to take me, too, because I wasn’t going to survive for a second on my own. “Okay,” I said, slowly, preparing to hear him suggest the wilds of Alaska or a hot spring in Arizona, the sort of place that couldn’t be found on a map. “Where are we going?”
His grin was so big it threatened to split his face in two. “We’re going to Reno, to Salt Lake City, to Cheyenne...and, drumroll, please...to Omaha.”
“Omaha? You mean, to Mom?” I tried to say it neutrally, to keep the emotion out of my voice. This was a surprise, and not an unwelcome one. Maybe Dad had come to the conclusion himself that he was cracking up. Maybe Mom and I could get him some professional help.
“Aren’t you excited?”
“Dad, talk to me. Did you just get fired?”
“Fired? No. Of course not.”
“So what were you and Mr. Meyers doing all afternoon?”
“Just talking, Liv. He helped me figure something out.”
“He helped you figure out that you need to go to Omaha,” I clarified.
“I know, it’s sudden. But look—I have an entire plan worked out. We’ll take a few days to get things situated around here, and then we’ll hit the road.”
I groaned. “Dad, seriously. We have another month of school.”
“That’s what Mr. Meyers and I figured out. I can take some sick leave—I’ve got more than enough to spare. And we’ll talk to your counselor about independent study for you, just to the end of the semester. Don’t worry.” Leaning down, he put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt his warmth burning through my sweatshirt.
And then I froze, imagining that conversation with Mr. Merrill. “Dad, there’s something—”
He stopped me. “I know all about your P.E. class, and it’s okay. We’ll get it all figured out.”
I sat back on the couch, about to cry for the zillionth time today. What in the world was going on? I was failing P.E. for the second time, and I wasn’t even going to get yelled at? “Dad, come on. Why are we going to Omaha?”
“Olivia, I just—I feel like it’s time.”
“Time for what? For us to be together again, you and me and Mom?”
“Of course.” He didn’t even blink.
He’s lying, I knew instantly. Fantastic. My father was lying to me.
“Does Mom know about this?”
“Well. Not yet.”
I groaned. “And how long...?”
“Oh, four or five days, and then we’ll be there.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
But Dad was pretending not to hear me. When I stood and tried to move past him, he caught me in a big, spin-in-a-circle hug that felt phony, too. He felt like a different version of my dad than the one I’d been living with for the past few years, as if a stranger had bought a mask of Dad’s face and borrowed one of his polo shirts. When he put me down, he was red with excitement. “This is the right thing,” he whispered. “I know it.”
I didn’t believe that for a second.
But I would have been the shittiest daughter in the world to say so.
Olivia was sharp; I could feel her watching me that weekend, waiting for me to slip up, or trying to catch me off guard with her questions. But I’d made up my mind. This was the right thing, the best, the only thing. Kathleen and Olivia would be together, Saenz would be dead,and I would finally, finally have done right by Daniel.
“So, we’re seriously doing this?” Olivia asked me the next morning, after I called The Sacramento Bee to put our newspaper on hold.
“You’re not backing out, are you?” I asked.
She glared at me. “I don’t really see that as an option.”
I hauled down two suitcases from a shelf in the garage, where they had aged disgracefully since our disastrous trip to Coronado, acquiring a layer of dust and more than a few spiderwebs. It took a half hour of cleaning with damp cloths before Olivia would consider either suitcase as a viable option. Then she stood before her open closet doors, hands on her skinny hips.
I sighed. “What’s wrong now?”
“It’s impossible to pack without knowing exactly how long I’m going to be gone,” she announced.
I laughed. “Are you kidding me? I know exactly what you’re going to pack. Black pants, black shirts, black sweatshirts, black socks and black boots. Can’t be that difficult.” It was basically her uniform, as much as khaki pants and polo shirts were mine. I wasn’t sure when it had started, exactly, or where all the clothes had come from—but one morning at breakfast a couple of years ago, I realized that I was the parent of a teenage daughter who wore only black.
She glared at me. “But how many black shirts, exactly?”
“What does it matter? It’s not like there are no washing machines in Omaha.” It was better, I figured, to be vague than to tell an outright lie. Telling the truth was out of the question.
There were dozens of small details to figure out, and several major ones. It was almost thrilling to have a plan, to have a specific goal that was further than a day or two ahead, the way we’d been existing since Kathleen left. I had installed a massive whiteboard in the front entryway, and each night Olivia and I had crossed off our completed chores and added new ones. Buy cereal, take the trash out, pay phone and cable, run sprinkler in backyard. Now I was thinking beyond today, beyond this week.
I didn’t find a chance to break away until Sunday night. Olivia had insisted on coming along on all the errands I devised—an oil change, a trip to Target for a few travel necessities, a stop at the ATM. This wasn’t that unusual—Olivia didn’t typically like to be left at home, where she was convinced that all sorts of things could go wrong, like a burglar who assumed the house was empty if there wasn’t a car in the driveway, or a carbon monoxide leak that she couldn’t smell. So I had to wait until she started a load of laundry to say “Why don’t I just grab dinner?”
“Can’t you wait a bit? Twenty minutes?”
“Well, I was thinking In-and-Out. You know how that drive-thru line always takes forever.”
Olivia