Sylvia will come by and visit you, he said. She’ll stay the night if you want.

No way, I told him. There is no way I’m living with Sylvia.

I feel—it’s just that I’m not—you know. She can—I just can’t—with you—you’re at that age when a woman—

I am not living with fucking Sylvia!

I’d never sworn at my father before. He was crying, and now so was I. There was nowhere to hide.

I just called her. She won’t live here. She’ll just check up on you so you’re not alone. She loves you, Sara.

She loves everybody. She loves a fucking blade of grass.

Please stop swearing. I can’t stand what’s happening to you.

Nothing’s happening to me!

You used to—He didn’t finish, but I knew what he was going to say.

I went and splashed some water on my face. When I turned back to him, he said, Come here. Let me braid your hair.

No, he didn’t say that.

He said, I’m leaving now.

I could feel dampness on his skin, and I couldn’t tell whose tears were falling onto my skin. I buried my face in the denim of his overalls. I held on to his small body with both of my hands. He tried to back away but I wouldn’t let him.

Darling, he said. You used to be like me.

What he really meant: You used to be like me but since you’re lying in the garden, loose-limbed and sighing, you’re more like your mother, that nymphoheartbreakertraitor, Everly.

Steam clouds on the window. I watched him walk away.

I waved, but he didn’t see. He climbed into the driver’s seat of our old mud-streaked stolen van.

You probably think my father’s to blame for all the trouble I got into. But I would never blame him for what ended up happening to me.

At least my father cared about something other than getting drunk or buying a Trans Am, which is more than you can say about most people in Victoria. And besides, girls my age were always getting by. In Africa, weren’t girls my age rulers of their tribes? In New York, weren’t they models with their own busy careers? In Victoria, weren’t they managers at McDonald’s? Whatever, lots of girls my age were getting by.

I thought maybe I should have a big house party like all the Mount Drug kids do when their parents go away on holiday.

Maybe I’d invite Heather and China here, and we’d have a big sleepover. Heather would whisper about the burnouts. China would scream about the sailor. And I’d tell them about my lover in the garden. My lover, the dirt.

Except, at that moment, I didn’t really feel like seeing China or Heather ever again.