The Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon

Author:Michael Harmon
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780375849398
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Dinner was an absolute misery-fest. Dad was deflated and silent, I didn’t have anything to say—I couldn’t say I was sorry, because Miss Mae would reach across the table and hit me with something—and Edward got tired of trying to celebrate their business all by himself. The whole night was a dud, and it was completely my fault.

Later I found Edward sitting on the front porch alone, holding a cup of coffee. I sat next to him, both of us watching the moon rise over the houses. “I messed things up,” I said.

In the darkness, his voice came soft: “Yes.”

“I’m messed up.”

Silence.

“It’s different this time, isn’t it?”

“You’re not fourteen anymore.”

“I know, but I just get so sick of the way he is sometimes.”

“I suppose that’s the way families are, you know? We’re all different.”

“I know, but I just get . . .”

He interrupted me, his voice sharper. “I know exactly what you get, Ben.”

“What, then? Tell me, because I don’t even know.”

He shrugged, taking a sip of coffee. “When I was a teenager, before I moved to Spokane, I remember going places with my dad. You know, like father-and-son things. One time, probably about a month before I left, we went to a Youth Cattleman’s party at the Grange. All the men were there with their boys, and I’ll never forget it.” He paused. “Groups and clusters of fathers and sons talked and visited, and I remember us. Just he and I, standing by ourselves by the refreshment table. We didn’t talk, standing there with plastic punch cups in our hands and this mutual feeling that one of us didn’t belong there. Both of us knew how I was by then, and so did most of the town. I think it was one last effort on his part and one dying gasp on my part to have a good relationship with each other. The kind you’re supposed to have as father and son.”

“That sucks.”

Edward shook his head, laughing softly. “Not really. My father always loved me. I knew that. I also understood that he just plain disagreed with it, and that wasn’t even bad. We could disagree. You know what was bad, though? At that party?”

“What?”

“The look all over his face that said he was ashamed. I’d never noticed it before, but that night I did, and I realized just how embarrassed he was to have a son like me.” He looked my way. “You know how it feels when a person you love feels that way about you, Ben? It’s just about the worst feeling you can have. Like you just want to shrivel up and die.”

I stared into the moonlit sky. “How can I not feel that way, then? Sometimes, when I look at him, I just wish he didn’t exist, you know? I do love him, but I can’t help it. It’s just there.”

“When my mother sent me away, I wasn’t thrown out. You probably see it that way, but it wasn’t. She knew what was best for me, and you know what? It was the best for me.

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