Since Dad’s family was from the area originally, most lived nearby. Those that had to fly or drive in from farther away had found places to stay, either with family or at budget motels advertising free cable and a pool. The McCarthy clan were a thrifty lot, after all. At the house, my bedroom was still painted the same electric blue I’d painted it during my sophomore year of high school.
My first night back, Mom and I ate dinner together alone, a pasta dish from a local restaurant that had opened nearby in my absence. The next night, Zoe and Trisha ate with us, and Aunt Kathy did too. Mom and Aunt Kathy made dinner that night. The baked chicken had been left in the oven too long and came out dry and tough. We all did our best to convince Mom that it was great, but she left the table with tears in her eyes.
“I can’t do anything right,” she said as she disappeared down the hall.
Zoe and I looked at each other, unsure which of us was supposed to go after her. Aunt Kathy got up before either of us.
“I’ll take care of this; you kids stay here. Eat before the food gets cold.”
Mom came back to the table a few minutes later, her eyes dry but red. She acted like nothing had happened, telling Trisha a story about the time Zoe was eight and made a pact with all of her friends to show up the next day wearing red. By the following morning, Zoe had forgotten and was the only one of the group to show up at school not wearing the correct color. Zoe had come home that day in tears, threatening to run away to Alaska if Mom made her go back to school.
“Why Alaska?” Mom stopped to ask. Zoe shrugged. “There must have been a reason,” Mom said. “Kids don’t think about going to Alaska for no reason.” “That was a long time ago, Mom. I don’t remember. Maybe I saw something about Alaska on TV.”
After dinner, as Zoe and Trisha washed the dishes and Mom and Aunt Kathy sat and watched the news, I stepped into Dad’s study. This is where he would go when he needed some time alone; he would smoke a cheap cigar while reading a hard-boiled crime novel or a mystery. He spent whole weekends in that study, absent from our lives just as if he were on a trip to Indiana to buy a load of rubber snakes. I looked over the small bookcase in there, tracing the spines of the books with my fingers. There was a stack of old newspapers on a small table. A shelf held about two dozen collectible shot glasses; if I remember correctly, Dad’s favorite was the one with the White Sox logo printed on it. I never understood the thing with the shot glasses. As far as I knew, Dad never drank.