Everything Else in the Universe by Tracy Holczer

Author:Tracy Holczer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2018-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

16

a monsoon carp

Lucy couldn’t stop thinking about Dad’s arm. When she closed her eyes, she saw the misshapen and puckering red scar and wondered if it was supposed to look that way. But Dad didn’t say anything about his arm, or getting mad at her. He just went to bed early that night, closing the door on her unasked questions.

Through the thin walls, her parents argued in angry half whispers. Mom angry with Dad for yelling at Lucy. Dad angry at Mom for getting a ride home from Richard. Dad not wanting Mom to work anymore. Mom finally yelling that she liked her job and wasn’t going to be told what to do. Sometime later, long after Lucy should have been asleep, the front door slammed shut. The house became eerily still and quiet. So still and quiet, she could hear the loud ticking of the second hand on the clock above the stove around the corner.

Lucy needed to know which one of her parents had left, even though she was sure she already knew, and so she tiptoed out of her room and stood in front of her parents’ bedroom door. There was a wedge of light underneath that she’d grown used to over the months Dad had been gone. When she got up in the night to use the restroom or pour herself a glass of water, she saw the light under the door and knew her mom was still awake. Reading usually, but sometimes she’d hear her cry. Mom didn’t like to cry in front of anyone, especially Lucy, because they were Chin-Up Women. They were Stiff-Upper-Lip Women. On those nights when Mom cried, Lucy would sit quietly outside the door, keeping Mom company, even if she didn’t know it.

She didn’t sit outside the door this time.

“Oh, Lucy. I’m sorry if we woke you,” Mom said.

“I wasn’t asleep.”

Mom patted the bed beside her, and Lucy crawled in. Mom put her arms around Lucy and held her close. “Dad is having a hard time. We’re all having a hard time.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Lucy said.

“There’s nothing for you to do.”

But Lucy couldn’t accept that. There had to be something. Something out there in the giant world, some therapy or medicine. Some combination of things that would help Dad through all this.

“Will he come back?” Lucy said.

“Oh, sweetheart. Of course he’ll come back. You know how he walks to clear his mind. Why would you ask something like that?”

“No, I mean, will he come back to us? Will he ever be the way he used to be?”

“I have to believe he will.”

Lucy wanted to tell Mom about the Mac and Cheese men. That she was worried there was something she might do, or even worse, something she should be doing that she wasn’t, that might drive Dad away instead of drawing him close.

“Maybe you should quit your job,” Lucy said. “What if he doesn’t want to be married to someone who works?”

She looked up at her mom.

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