SUNDAY // APRIL 9

37.

They were arguing again, my parents. I was supposed to meet Jack, but in order to get to my car, I would have to go downstairs, where they were currently screaming at each other.

Me: Sorry, I’m going to be late

Jack: Everything okay?

Me: Tell you later

I sat in my closet to wait it out, the small, dark space always a comfort, but I could still hear them. Dad was yelling about some work thing he needed Mom to go to.

“I told you,” she said. “I can’t. I have back-to-back surgeries that day.”

“It’s three weeks away. You can’t possibly know what surgeries you have yet.”

“I don’t have to know which surgeries I’m going to have to know that I’m going to have back-to-back surgeries because I always do. I’m the head of neuro. I always have surgeries.”

“It’s just a two-hour lunch thing. You can’t take a few hours off? Or use a personal day?” he said through gritted teeth.

“No.” Her voice was deadly calm, her answer final.

“Let me get this straight. So when you need me to spend a night sucking up to donors and board members, it’s nonnegotiable, but when I need you for two fucking hours you can’t make it.” He was exasperation, she was anger. These were roles they’d played for years.

“I don’t know how many times I have to explain to you that while you’re off crunching numbers or whatever it is that you do all day, I’m off saving lives.” These were all words she’d flung at him before. This was an old argument.

“Fuck you,” he said, and I flinched, curling more into myself.

My name is Remy Tsai.

I am seventeen years old.

This won’t last forever.

It worked, a little.

“Fuck you and your bullshit,” he said. “I’m sick of your self-righteous posturing.”

They went at it some more. He called her cold, she called him unsupportive. He accused her of lying, she accused him of adultery. Finally, they wound down, with him driving off, her going to the downstairs office.

They didn’t want each other anymore but they couldn’t let each other go.

Me: Leaving now, be there soon

Jack sent me a picture of him and Lola with big smiles, and I felt a little better. He was already outside with Lola, talking to a woman who had to be his aunt.

“Hey,” he said when I pulled up. He walked over and greeted me with a kiss to the cheek before finding my hand with his.

His aunt waved us over. “Call me Diane.”

“Hi, I’m Remy,” I said.

“Oh, she’s so pretty,” she said to Jack, and I blushed.

“I know.” He smiled.

Then his aunt laughed warmly and patted him on the shoulder. “Have fun.”

“Sorry about that,” Jack said when he was in my car, though he seemed at ease. He reached back to clip a doggy seat belt to Lola’s harness and gave me directions to an access point to the Chattahoochee that had hiking trails.