Mom always nods, always says, That’s a possibility. I don’t think she’s ready to let him go. I don’t think she ever will be. But it’s killing me, seeing him here, stuck in this house where he died way too young.
“I think he should be outdoors. In the world. Not stuck in a box.”
“It would have to be the perfect spot.”
“That’s what I’m going to figure out this summer.”
Dad had a bucket list of mountain bike trails across the western U.S. from San Diego to Washington State that he wanted to ride. He kept maps and a journal of ideas. He never made it to a single one, but this summer, he’s going to see them. With me. “I’ll send you pictures from each spot. You’ll help me decide.”
“We’ll see.”
“Mom. Anywhere is better than next to a gravy bowl.”
“Your father loved gravy.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” She rests her head on my shoulder. My dad was the tall one. Troy, at six-foot two, got his height. He likes to gloat over the three inches he has on me, but I got the more athletic build. We’ve had some epic wrestling matches over the years, though Troy says he’s put on muscle, so we’ll see.
I miss him. He couldn’t get back for graduation, not with the surf shop moving into its busiest season. But I’ll be out there soon.
“I love you for what you’re trying to do,” Mom continues. “But I worry about you. All by yourself.”
“I won’t be by myself. I’ll be with Dad.” A lump the size of a baseball fills my throat. He should be here. Driving his own ass around the country in the Airstream he always wanted.
He talked about it so much. A few more years and his employees would be in position to buy his air conditioning business. He and Mom would travel, and Troy and I would meet up with them in all these cool places. I didn’t know what I’d be doing—playing baseball, studying design, working on my projects—but I knew I’d be spending vacations riding bikes with Dad.
The familiar pain stabs at me. It’s like a knife is stuck deep, and every memory is a twist of the blade. It’s not just the memories that hurt. The worst pain is the memories we never got to make. The future we were supposed to have. What kind of a world is it that you can lose so much so fast?
At least I get it now. There are no promises in life. You have to live for the day and quit dreaming about tomorrow. So I’m going to give Dad the future he wanted. Then maybe I can let it go, too.
Mom rubs my back, her touch calming, as if she knows where my thoughts are. “Do you have to go this week?”
“Yeah, about that.” I clear my throat—and my head. “I’m going to stick around Phoenix until next Friday.”
“Really?” She pulls back, her face lighting up. “Does it have something to do with why you were up before me this morning?”
“I’m always up before you.” Mom is a high school English teacher during the school year, but during the summer, she teaches night classes on business writing. Her favorite things in the world are:
1. Me
2. Troy
3. Sleeping in.
(Troy has a slightly different order.)
“It’s a volunteer thing. Fixing up one of the desert trails near here.”
She stares at me like I just said I’m performing brain surgery. “You’re volunteering?”
“I’ve been known to volunteer.”
“Only if donuts are involved.”
“It’s not a big deal. It’s two weeks.”
“You’re getting up at the crack of dawn for two weeks? That’s a lot of frosted long johns.”
I grab the chair and carry it back to the table. “Sadly, no donuts.”
Her smile stretches from cheek to cheek. She doesn’t smile enough, but I don’t like the look of this one. “Anthony Adams, is there a girl involved?”
I groan. “You always think there’s a girl involved.”
“That’s not a ‘no.’”
“It’s not a yes, either.” But I can’t quite meet her eyes. “Don’t go turning this into a romance novel. It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
I can’t admit to a two-week fling. Mom might be five-foot nothing and thin as a dishrag, but she can still take me to the mat with one of her looks. She’d freak at the way that sounds—a fling. Like I was disrespecting a girl. That is not how the Adams boys were brought up. On the other hand, I don’t want Mom thinking I’ve found someone important. She keeps saying I’m too restless, disconnected—whatever that means. She thinks if I find a girl, I’ll magically settle down and get my future on track. Dad was always right on track, and that didn’t guarantee anything. “We’re just hanging out. Chilling.”
“I hate that word.”
“Yeah, so does she.”
Mom’s eyebrows lift, an invitation to tell her more. Not happening. She knew something was up last month. I’d been gone a lot and then…not. I thought I’d done well hiding it, but Mom doesn’t miss much. I finally told her there had been a girl, but she’d ended things. Like a good mother, Mom still hates the nameless, faceless girl. If she knew it was Mai and that I was seeing her again knowing it would end, Mom would be on the phone making an appointment with the counselor we saw after Dad died.
“It’s two weeks, that’s it,” I tell her. “I have to be at a campsite by Saturday morning. You know the tradition.”
“Coffee at sunrise.” She sighs. “Dad’s favorite part of camping.”
I smile as the memories flicker through my mind. All the times he had to work late and we’d leave for a camping trip so late in the day we’d end up fumbling around in the dark to set up our tent. But we couldn’t leave the next morning. Had to have coffee at sunrise with his boys and Mother Nature. I press a fist to my chest. My heart might be broken, but it still aches.
The camping trips started when I was five. Dad, Troy, and me. Mom wasn’t allowed. She pretended to be hurt, but you could tell she liked us going. She’d take pictures of us in our grungy camping clothes as every year Troy and I got taller and taller. Dad had started to get thinner in the last two, but none of us knew why back then.
Now Troy and I go every year on the anniversary of Dad’s death. Troy can’t go with me this year, but that doesn’t mean I’m not making the trip. Thankfully, the trail project finishes up next Friday. Gives me plenty of time to load up the car, head out that night, and wake up Saturday morning for bad coffee over a camp stove. Holding on to the tradition feels like another way of holding on to Dad.