One of the cousins that I barely remembered wanted to involve me in a conversation about real estate. Knowing less than nothing about the subject, I made an excuse to get out of it.
I started feeling a bit overwhelmed by the obligation of accepting condolences from blood relatives, the little smile, the ‘thank you for coming’, the assurances that I was okay, really, I was all right. I took refuge in Dad’s study. Sitting in his chair, I looked around the room and tried seeing it as he must’ve seen it: as a refuge from the obligations of being a sole breadwinner, a place where one could find a moment of relative quiet from a house with children in it. After a long week walking the streets of the city, hustling and selling, this was the place he came to sit and read or to listen to the Sox game. The study was his sanctuary, his Fortress of Solitude.
Someone walked by the closed door of the study; they were laughing about something. I got out of the seat and walked to the window looking out into the backyard, moving the curtain aside to let in some light. Fat beams of sunlight illuminated the small room, the shot glasses on their shelf sparkling like oversized diamonds. A squirrel went dashing across the yard, paused in some overgrown grass, and then climbed up the big tree in the backyard that Dad was always promising to build a swing on but never did.
The back screen squealed open and screeched shut, depositing Trevor into the backyard. I watched him pace back there for a minute. He seemed agitated.
“Fuck!”
I heard him through the closed window. The back door was in the kitchen; when I walked through the kitchen, I saw Mom sitting at the table in there, a bewildered look on her tired face. She didn’t look at me. When I went outside, I found that Zoe was already out there with Trevor. He was pacing the yard like an angry bull.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “I’m trying to figure that out,” Zoe said. “What did she think I was going to do?” Trevor said. “Is that what she thinks of me?” “We don’t know what you’re talking about, Trev,” I said.