Page 8 of Center of Gravity

“I guess that’s better than the alternative.” The alternative were the days when my dad felt so terrible that he didn’t bother running his mouth, just lay in the bed in the darkness.

I sat at the table, one hand splayed over the fan of bills, the other tugging at my lip ring.

“Your dad keeps hoping one day you’ll tug that thing all the way out.”

I knew she was trying to get a smile out of me, so I gave her the best I could.

This was what I’d learned over the past six months, though: sadness wasn’t a steady state. It came and went like a shitty guest, showing up to sucker punch you, then vanishing again. And we weren’t even close to the finish line yet. I thought about Mrs. Ware and Rob. If or when the time came, how badly was I going to fall apart?

Mom glanced at me again, then turned off the burner and walked over to brush her lips across my forehead.

“I know, I know. ‘We live around it, not in it,’” I said, parroting her favorite mantra.

“I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to tell you that you’re a good kid and remind you that one day it won’t be like this anymore.”

I knew she meant that to be comforting, but all it really meant to me was that my dad would either be dead or my parents would be the kind of broke they’d spend the rest of their lives trying to recover from.

Dad joined us for dinner,which meant he must have been feeling better. We hadn’t always done family dinners. Before he got sick, we were all running in different directions. Dad was constantly gone, trying to get his garage off the ground. I was in the dorms in the city and Mom and Lainey ate in front of the TV. Once I’d moved back in, we’d all started sitting down together again at Mom’s insistence.

Dad put his napkin in his lap but made no move to start eating. Growing up, I’d gotten used to seeing his hands smeared in grease, the nail beds stained black. I still couldn’t get over how clean they were now. Mom would always complain, but I’d bet she’d give anything now to come across a grease stain on her good towels.

“I wrote a letter to Hamburger Helper today,” Dad said. “Told them they need to put up a plaque in honor of your mother for keeping the business afloat.”

Mom gave him an imperious arch of her brow. “This isn’t Hamburger Helper. It’s a recipe I found on Pinterest, and you’re just going to push it around your plate, anyway.”

Dad gave her a weak grin.

“Hamburger Helper is soooooo passé,” Lainey said, and we all stared at her. Typical highlights from her vocabulary included: grody, sick, stupid, no way, sweeeeeet.

“How do you even know that word?” I asked. Much less use it correctly.

“Heard it in a song.” She lifted her shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “It means totally gross in case you don’t know.”

“I did not,” I lied.

“Listen,” my dad said, pointing the end of his unused fork at her. “There’s only room in this house for one smart person.” He paused for effect. “And that’s me.”

“Not if you die.”

Buzzkill. Mom sighed. Dad put his fork back on his napkin and met Lainey’s hard stare with a pensive expression. It was hard to tell how my dad was going to react these days. He’d changed since the diagnosis. Less filter on his mouth, more brutal honesty, and he tried to keep morbid moments to himself, but sometimes they crept out. Lainey, likewise, had gone through her own subtle change. Right after he was diagnosed, she’d been scared and sad, but lately it’d morphed into this kind of challenge where she’d bring up Dad’s illness all the time, and often out of the blue. Mom said it was her way of processing.

I looked between the two of them, trying to judge which direction this was going to go, but Dad’s expression had shifted to one of amusement. “That’s true,” he said after a moment. “But I plan to be reincarnated as a dictionary. That can speak.”

“What’s reincarnation?”

“It’s the idea that after you die you’re reborn as something or someone different.” Mom glanced at Dad, something passing between them that I couldn’t understand.

Lainey chewed on that, then said, “Then I’m coming back as Maxi Starr.”

“Oh God, you can do better than that.” I wrinkled my nose.

“Is that the girl—?” Dad waved his hand around vaguely.

“That singer who did the thing with the giant teddy bear and the videotape that—” Mom supplied, making a face.

“She’s got horses and her own farm.”

“And maybe herpes,” Dad said.