And that’s when I saw the humor in the last few days. Eric would’ve found it all funny, I was sure of it. Me stealing his stupid truck. Heath Hall mask on the dash. Jackson squirting me. Slurpees and muddy feet and kissing. And last of all, me unable to put it all back together, sleeping in the truck bed, prying off the bumper. It was all very funny. I’d had an adventure with my brother, in a way, and I wasn’t sorry for it. I was happy about it. It wasn’t a good time to laugh and I was sure half the reason for this reaction was sheer exhaustion but I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

Thirty-Eight

Mom was so good at the disappointed face. Like she had practiced it in front of the mirror hundreds of times to make it just perfect. I had just gotten my laughter under control when she pulled out the face and that thought sent me laughing again.

“Are you on something? Have you been drinking?” she asked.

I was never going to stop laughing if she kept saying stuff like that. I tried to think of something sobering. Death. My brother’s death. But again, that only made me smile as I thought about dancing on his grave. He was morbid.

I had come up with a five-minute speech that I was going to have to cut to five seconds because of my hysterics. “I took his truck. I was mad at you for missing my award ceremony and I couldn’t tell you that.”

“So you took your anger toward me out on your brother’s truck?”

Her anger was the perfect medicine for my laughter. It stopped immediately. It stopped because she didn’t have the right to be angry. I did. I got to be mad about this not her. “Yes, actually.”

That surprised her. I could tell because she stuttered at first, unsure of what to say. “Well, that’s . . . you . . . there will be consequences for this.”

I thought about my shoulders, pretty sure there already were consequences for this. That thought made me even angrier. Was my swimming career over? Had I damaged them permanently this time? I stood and went to my bedroom.

“Don’t walk away from me!” she yelled after me.

I retrieved the award from beneath my bed, went back, and dropped the envelope at her feet. “That’s the last one of those I’ll probably get. I’m glad you wanted to see me win it.”

Her anger seemed to fade as she stared at the envelope. Finally, she bent down and picked it up. “What is this?” she asked after she took it out.

The small square showing the distinction was missing so I took the envelope from her, dug it out, then handed it to her.

She scanned the words.