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The soft sound of the seatbelt unbuckling was enough confirmation that Michael had successfully faked being asleep. It probably wasn’t much nine o’clock, but the sun was down, and that meant that it was time to sleep. After all, he’d spent a very exhausting day at work with Father and Uncle Henry.
They played Pirate. And he got to see how all of the robots worked.
Mum also announced that he’d be getting a little brother. Not that he particularly wanted one. Having a sister was bad enough — after all, he wasn’t an only child anymore. But he loved Lizzy anyway, because she was kind of funny.. and she kept him company when Father and Mum were at work on the weekends.
“Alright, Michael… let’s get you to bed..” Father’s soft voice penetrated the silence inside of the car, and his father, always very gentle and very strong, plucked him up and out of the back seat of the car. He heard the car door shut, though it wasn’t slammed; he definitely had Father fooled, and he was getting a free carry, all the way to bed.
“I’d say he had a good day. Don’t you agree?” Mum was still there. She sounded happy…. Mum always sounded happy. She must have been carrying Elizabeth, who really was asleep…
“I’d say so,” Father chuckled. Michael felt a hand smooth down his unruly brown hair, and he allowed himself to completely slump against his father’s shoulder. “You know, I’m starting to think Michael has an eye for art. Those drawings he did today weren’t so bad.”
“You could teach him, Will,” Mum laughed softly. The jingle of keys meant that she’d found what she was looking for in her purse, so Father started to walk toward the front door. He was a tall man and very skinny — Michael was playing asleep, but if he wasn’t, he could easily wrap his ten year old arms all the way around his father. Or, at least, he thought he could. But his arms were tucked up against his thin chest, instead, and his cheek was slouched against his shoulder.
“Maybe I will,” Father mused. “He was quite proud of them, after all. He’s informed me that he would be great assistance if we ever decided that expand on Pirate Cove.”
Mum laughed again as she put the key into the keyhole. One click signified that the main lock was undone, and a second meant that the deadbolt was opened. “Im sure he’d be just as good of an engineer. Of course, I think he’d learn anything to please you.”
“I’d rather him do what he enjoys,” Father softly said, gently patting a hand on Michael’s back. “But I’d teach him in a heartbeat, if thats what he wants.”
That was exactly what Michael wanted. To learn anything from his father. Art, robotics, computers-…. It didn’t matter! Any of it would do! Father even knew an awful lot about pirates — maybe it was a British thing, because he said that there were a lot of pirates from Britain. Perhaps Grandfather was a pirate, once… that would be a funny thought.
He’d only ever seen pictures of Grandfather. Apparently, he was afraid of aeroplanes, which was why he never came to visit. Of, that’s what Father said. But he didn’t look like a pirate…. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t, though!
The door creaked open, and he could tell that Mum turned on the light to the stairs. “Speaking of engineering, we’re going to need to turn that sewing room into the new nursery.” There was, at least, a little noticeable anxiety in Father’s tone.
“My brother will help us get everything moved around and ready. Don’t worry about it, Will. I probably won’t be doing much sewing anymore, anyway, with three little ones.” Uncle Timmy didn’t come and visit very much. Mum said he lived in Salt Lake, which was like… at least a thousand hours away. At least, that was what the drive felt like. But Uncle Timmy was cool. He drove a motorcycle and got Michael a leather jacket for Christmas, last year.
“Perhaps your mother will take some of the supplies..” Father’s chest rose and fell with a sigh. He’d stopped at the bottom of the stairs for a moment to chat with Mum, so Michael had to do his best to continue playing asleep.
“I’m sure she will. That won’t be an issue,” Mum laughed softly. “We’ll figure it out — we always do.”
“How do you feel of Evan, for a boy’s name?”
“Cassidy for a girl?”
“Perfect.”
“Perfect!”
They kissed. Gross. Michael had to do his best not to make a face. But then Mum kissed the top of his head and he heard her slowly put down her purse so that she could move Lizzie to her other arm.
“…do you think he’ll take it well…?”
“Having another sibling? I think he does quite well with Elizabeth.” Father was right — he didn’t mind Lizzie. They got along well, and he looked out for her. After all, that was his very esteemed role as the older sibling, wasn’t it? Especially the older brother.
“He does,” Mum agreed, “but he didn’t seem particularly happy..”
“He’s a little boy,” Father gently said. “He doesn’t understand. Not to the full extent, anyway. I’m sure everything will be just fine — he seems to take his role as the older one very seriously, you know.”
“I know,” Mum chuckled, finally pulling her hand back from his hair. “Well.. I’m going to go and tuck Liz in for the night.”
“Alright. I’ll be down in a moment.”
Disgusting. They kissed again! Michael was right there, didn’t they know that? He squeezed his eyes shut until he felt Father turn and start to go up the stairs. He sighed when they reached the landing, and then went up the last few so that he could walk down the hallway and to Michael’s room.
Michael let him gently work off his shoes and he heard them thump against the floor, which meant that Father probably just gave them a toss. And then he laid Michael down, pulled the covers over him, and then turned to close the blinds. Though, for a moment, Father didn’t move. He stayed there with his hand on the cord that pulled the blinds closed, and he sighed again. “You’ll never know just how proud I am of you,” he heard Father say, and then felt a soft kiss pressed to his forehead. “Good-night, my boy. I love you.”
Michael would have said ‘I love you, too,’ right back. He loved his Father, after all. Mum was right — he’d do anything possible to win Father’s favor, or more of it, at least. But since he was pretending to be asleep, he had to stay quiet and stew over those words. Father was proud of him. Why? Because they’d played pirates together? Because he liked to draw? Just because…?
That was a nice thought.
There was the shuffling sound of retreating footsteps, and then the quiet clicking of the door as Father pulled it shut behind himself, and then Michael finally peeked open his eyes.
“..I love you, too,” he quietly said. He didn’t know how much ‘more than you’ll ever know’ was, but it sounded like an awful lot. “..More than you will ever know.”
~~~
Michael didn’t have anyone to unbuckle the seatbelt for him. He unbuckled it, slowly, and he pulled the keys out of his pocket. They jingled. It was a lonely sort of sound. And he looked up at the house.
It was big. And empty. And cold. And he knew, he knew that when he walked in, it would be empty. Because it had been empty for a week. Father said he was going to work, and he never came back. His car was there and so were his belongings, but no trace of him, not even in the security cameras. And so Father was missing.
He pushed the key into the keyhole and unlocked the doorknob first, and then the deadbolt. There wasn’t anyone inside that could kiss his seventeen-year-old forehead and tell him ‘hello’ after a long day, there was no one there to pat his seventeen-year-old back and say ‘good job’ after a miserable shift at work, there was no one there to brush away seventeen-year-old tears and say ‘chin up, there are better days ahead.’ There was no one except the writing on the walls: ‘It’s me’, and the pictures that he hated looking at.
He closed the door and locked it behind himself before dropping his backpack on the floor. The house was a mess. He’d practically destroyed the living room in a fit of sorrow-fueled rage the other day, and he hadn’t felt the energy to clean it up, so there it remained in an upturned pile, and not the clean and orderly way that Mum would have wanted it. So he rolled up the sleeves of his purple work shirt and he tiredly began to pick up the pieces of what he had destroyed.
He didn’t sleep much any more, he certainly didn’t sleep comfortably. He slept in a miserable, unhappy pile of blankets and cushions on the couch — he didn’t like his bed. Or his room. Not any more. There were too many ghosts there — a door that he wanted his little brother to appear in, asking for homework help, a bed that Lizzie used to claim as her own, a dresser where his mother used to fold up his clothes, and the window seat where he used to chat with Father about the things that troubled him.
But the couch was turned over. So, he had to pull it back up and fix the cushions and fold the blankets and resist the urge to lay down right then. But he had to eat — he couldn’t lie down. He had to finish picking things up. And… he had to call Uncle Henry.
There wasn’t anyone else in the world that would care about him. He knew now why Father always said Grandfather hated flying — Grandfather and Grandmother simply disapproved of their son’s choice in a wife, and so refused to visit. And Mum’s parents had died. Uncle Timmy would probably help… but why bother an uncle he only ever saw at Christmas?
He stared at the green rotary phone for a long time before he finally dialed Henry’s number. Listening to the phone ring was about the most anxiety-inducing sound… because how many times had he dialed for Father and listened to it ring through before he realized that no one was ever going to answer that phone….? Much to his relief, though, the phone was answered.
“Hello, this is Henry Emily.”
The tiredness in Uncle Henry’s voice was enough to make Michael feel like he needed to hang back up. But he steeled himself, because… who else could he turn to? Lost in his thoughts, he forgot to speak, which prompted another tired:
“Hello? Hello, hello?”
“Hi, Uncle Henry..” Was that his voice? Goodness, he sounded horrible, and he didn’t even realize it. He blinked hard and reached his hand up, his seventeen-year-old hand that should have been playing a video game or doing homework, and he wiped away his own tears.
“Michael?”
Henry didn’t sound tired anymore. His tiredness was replaced with the very alert concern of a father.
“Michael, what’s the matter? Are you sick?”
Was he sick? He didn’t feel sick. He… didn’t really feel much of anything, except the welling of tears in his leaking eyes. He sniffled. “F-..Father is gone.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Father is-.. is go-..gone… an-..and they don’t know w-..where h-he is. They found h-his car an-and-.. b-but-”
Wow. He hadn’t ever heard his own voice shake like that, and it was almost enough to scare him. He was gripping the phone so tightly that he was afraid it may break, so he forced himself to loosen his grip.
His palm was sweaty.
“Michael, are you at home?”
“Mm-..mmhm..”
“Stay right there. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Stay right there. I’m on my way.”
“O-okay..”
Why did his eyes have to leak like that..? It was such a strange sensation… the burning and fullness in his eyes before tears spilled over the bottom lid like an overly full cup. He hung up the phone, and he sat for what he could say were the longest fifteen minutes of his life.
Ten minutes in, he realized the door was locked… so he dragged himself back to the door and unlocked it. Thirteen minutes in, he started to wonder if Henry was really coming, fifteen minutes in, he was starting to think he wasn’t. Seventeen minutes in, he questioned if it was traffic… but come on. Traffic? In Hurricane? Eighteen minutes in, the doorknob jiggled after a brief knock, and Henry Emily invited himself in to the half-picked up living-room mess that Michael had defeatedly sat down in the middle in.
Michael glanced up at him, his violet-blue eyes all red and puffy, one of them a still-healing black eye. The bandage over his nose was loose and coming off — so much for trying to heal it. He’d wiped his nose a few too many times, and it was sore and red and still running.
He didn’t even see Henry cross the room before he felt arms around his seventeen-year-old shoulders, a hand on the back of his head, brushing back hair from his clammy forehead.. “It’ll be okay,” Henry said.
But it didn’t feel okay.
“They’re all gone,” he found himself sobbing, his eyes buried in his Uncle’s flannel shirt. “He’s gone. He left me-..”
“And now I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Michael. I’ve got you. And I’m not going. I’m not going to leave you.”
Those words, even if they were well-meant, felt empty. Because hadn’t Father said the same thing? ‘I’ll always be here for you’? And where was he, now? He was gone! There wasn’t a single trace of him anywhere!
He could barely hear over the blood rushing in his ears… he could barely feel a kiss pressed to the side of his head. But it was almost like deja vu to hear: “I’m here now. And I love you more than you’ll ever know. I won’t let anything happen to you.”