The Scent of Men
by Jordan Rossen
A month after I graduated high school, I drove across Michigan to Detroit with a suitcase full of my dad’s clothing so a police dog could use it to track his scent. He’d run away from Aspen Homestead that morning, less than two days after voluntarily—then involuntarily—getting committed. The police officer who had called me about my father’s escape said that each passing hour would make it harder for the dog to find him.
Owen Garza was the cop’s name, and he sounded masculine and handsome on the phone. He gave a laundry list of ways to locate a missing person: get the cell phone carrier to track his phone, check online credit card accounts to see if he made purchases, monitor social media to see if he posted where he was, send a recent photo to toll booth operators, and finally, follow his scent with a police dog.
The list’s thoroughness reassured me until Garza mentioned the dog. I knew, vaguely, that cops used dogs to find fugitives, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they used dogs to find people who weren’t on the lam. It made my dad’s departure seem sinister, and I wondered if the cops viewed him as a danger to others and not just himself. I pictured my father hiding in the middle of a muddy neighborhood park, hands up over his face against the blinding searchlights, dogs racing toward him and gripping his legs in their jaws.
When I told Garza about my fears, he told me I watched too much TV. The dog, he said, was a six-year-old Malinois named K9 Samson who was trained to find, not attack or subdue. He also texted me a photo of Samson’s official trooper I.D. badge. In it, Samson had one ear forward and one ear back, his tongue hung out of the side of his mouth, and he was staring at the camera with a tilted head like, “Uhhhhh, I don’t get it.” Where a person’s signature would normally be, someone had drawn a miniature paw print.
I turned to Brody in the passenger seat and showed him the photo. We’d left Grand Rapids about an hour before and were headed east on I-96. “See, Miles?” Brody said. “Not scary at all. He looks like he could be in a meme with the word derp underneath.”
“Or like he’d catch a moth and forget it was in his mouth.”
“I’m going to take him home and pet him forever,” Brody said.
I’d asked Brody to come with me because I knew the trip would be better with him, like everything was. Our sophomore World Religions teacher once said, “How can a man be attracted to another man? You should want the opposite!” And to some extent I understood because Brody seemed to be everything I wasn’t: athletic, practical, effortlessly upbeat. We’d been friends since sixth grade. In the fall, Brody would be leaving for Johns Hopkins while I attended Michigan State, and I hated to think about him going away.
This summer, we’d gotten jobs as camp counselors at the local YMCA, helping ten-year-olds rock climb and make papier-mâché masks and canoe on the Thornapple River. At least once a week we hung out in the evening and talked—about the business classes he was excited to take and the pre-law classes I pretended to be excited to take, about girls he wanted to have sex with and girls I pretended to want to have sex with. We didn’t talk about the night he spent at my house in seventh grade and how, as I was falling asleep, he kissed me on the mouth. To me, the kiss was impossibly thrilling, an act of bravery, a confession. It said, I have a terrible secret and I think you have it, too. We didn’t talk about how, whenever we spent the night that year, we’d kiss each other, press our naked bodies against each other. Or how neither of us tried anything when we returned to school in eighth grade, even though I’d desperately wanted to.
I sometimes feared my father detected something overly intimate about my friendship with Brody because he occasionally criticized him when he wasn’t around. He said he doubted Brody’s sincerity and called his manner ingratiating. “That kid should change his name to Eddie Haskell,” my dad once told me. So when he approached me in the kitchen one night, I assumed it was to complain about Brody, who was coming over soon to hang out.
“I’ve got to drive to Detroit and check myself into a hospital,” he said instead.
“What’s wrong?” I stood up from my chair as if to spring into action but then realized I hadn’t been given an assignment.
“Not a hospital—it’s a treatment facility.” My father looked like he normally did—same narrow nose and dark eyes and unruly eyebrows—but there was a new shakiness to his voice. “The place specializes in mental health. Depression and whatnot.”
“Can I do anything to help?”
“You can help by not telling anyone.” He sounded sterner than before: a return to Dad mode. He said he hadn’t told anyone else—not Aunt Reina, no one from work. “And Miles, I don’t want you to tell anyone either, not even Mom or Brody.”
I scoffed. “Like I would tell Brody.” It was, though, precisely something I would have told him. I recalled, for instance, telling Brody about my father’s last mental health crisis, the winter of my freshman year, when Dad started coming home from work looking like he’d been to war. “He needs to recharge undisturbed,” my mother had said, as though he were a robot resting in some sci-fi hyperbaric chamber. My parents were still married then but sleeping in different bedrooms, and in the evenings my mother would knock on his door with his medication and a glass of water. A few times, I watched from my bedroom door as my dad grimly swallowed the pills and thanked her. It felt like our house had become a psych ward, and in my fear and selfishness, I grew resentful.
“Why can’t Dad be in charge of his own medications?” I asked.
“He can,” my mother said. “It’s just that he’s depressed right now.”
“If he can, why do you give it to him like you’re his personal nurse?”
“Because we took vows that said ‘in sickness and in health,’ you coldhearted thing.”
In Brody’s rec room, I told him how my father looked like he’d been hit by a truck, how he wasn’t leaving his bedroom, how he was taking a cocktail of anti-depressants. Afterward, Brody hugged me, and years later I could still remember how his warm neck pressed against my ear, how I breathed in the smell of his Old Spice deodorant.
I sought that same tenderness when I told Brody I was driving to Detroit to help the police locate my father. “Don’t suppose you’d want to come with,” I said.
“When would we leave?” he asked.
“Now. I’d pick you up, and we’d leave now.”
Owen Garza was the cop’s name, and he sounded masculine and handsome on the phone. He gave a laundry list of ways to locate a missing person: get the cell phone carrier to track his phone, check online credit card accounts to see if he made purchases, monitor social media to see if he posted where he was, send a recent photo to toll booth operators, and finally, follow his scent with a police dog.
The list’s thoroughness reassured me until Garza mentioned the dog. I knew, vaguely, that cops used dogs to find fugitives, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they used dogs to find people who weren’t on the lam. It made my dad’s departure seem sinister, and I wondered if the cops viewed him as a danger to others and not just himself. I pictured my father hiding in the middle of a muddy neighborhood park, hands up over his face against the blinding searchlights, dogs racing toward him and gripping his legs in their jaws.
When I told Garza about my fears, he told me I watched too much TV. The dog, he said, was a six-year-old Malinois named K9 Samson who was trained to find, not attack or subdue. He also texted me a photo of Samson’s official trooper I.D. badge. In it, Samson had one ear forward and one ear back, his tongue hung out of the side of his mouth, and he was staring at the camera with a tilted head like, “Uhhhhh, I don’t get it.” Where a person’s signature would normally be, someone had drawn a miniature paw print.
I turned to Brody in the passenger seat and showed him the photo. We’d left Grand Rapids about an hour before and were headed east on I-96. “See, Miles?” Brody said. “Not scary at all. He looks like he could be in a meme with the word derp underneath.”
“Or like he’d catch a moth and forget it was in his mouth.”
“I’m going to take him home and pet him forever,” Brody said.
I’d asked Brody to come with me because I knew the trip would be better with him, like everything was. Our sophomore World Religions teacher once said, “How can a man be attracted to another man? You should want the opposite!” And to some extent I understood because Brody seemed to be everything I wasn’t: athletic, practical, effortlessly upbeat. We’d been friends since sixth grade. In the fall, Brody would be leaving for Johns Hopkins while I attended Michigan State, and I hated to think about him going away.
This summer, we’d gotten jobs as camp counselors at the local YMCA, helping ten-year-olds rock climb and make papier-mâché masks and canoe on the Thornapple River. At least once a week we hung out in the evening and talked—about the business classes he was excited to take and the pre-law classes I pretended to be excited to take, about girls he wanted to have sex with and girls I pretended to want to have sex with. We didn’t talk about the night he spent at my house in seventh grade and how, as I was falling asleep, he kissed me on the mouth. To me, the kiss was impossibly thrilling, an act of bravery, a confession. It said, I have a terrible secret and I think you have it, too. We didn’t talk about how, whenever we spent the night that year, we’d kiss each other, press our naked bodies against each other. Or how neither of us tried anything when we returned to school in eighth grade, even though I’d desperately wanted to.
I sometimes feared my father detected something overly intimate about my friendship with Brody because he occasionally criticized him when he wasn’t around. He said he doubted Brody’s sincerity and called his manner ingratiating. “That kid should change his name to Eddie Haskell,” my dad once told me. So when he approached me in the kitchen one night, I assumed it was to complain about Brody, who was coming over soon to hang out.
“I’ve got to drive to Detroit and check myself into a hospital,” he said instead.
“What’s wrong?” I stood up from my chair as if to spring into action but then realized I hadn’t been given an assignment.
“Not a hospital—it’s a treatment facility.” My father looked like he normally did—same narrow nose and dark eyes and unruly eyebrows—but there was a new shakiness to his voice. “The place specializes in mental health. Depression and whatnot.”
“Can I do anything to help?”
“You can help by not telling anyone.” He sounded sterner than before: a return to Dad mode. He said he hadn’t told anyone else—not Aunt Reina, no one from work. “And Miles, I don’t want you to tell anyone either, not even Mom or Brody.”
I scoffed. “Like I would tell Brody.” It was, though, precisely something I would have told him. I recalled, for instance, telling Brody about my father’s last mental health crisis, the winter of my freshman year, when Dad started coming home from work looking like he’d been to war. “He needs to recharge undisturbed,” my mother had said, as though he were a robot resting in some sci-fi hyperbaric chamber. My parents were still married then but sleeping in different bedrooms, and in the evenings my mother would knock on his door with his medication and a glass of water. A few times, I watched from my bedroom door as my dad grimly swallowed the pills and thanked her. It felt like our house had become a psych ward, and in my fear and selfishness, I grew resentful.
“Why can’t Dad be in charge of his own medications?” I asked.
“He can,” my mother said. “It’s just that he’s depressed right now.”
“If he can, why do you give it to him like you’re his personal nurse?”
“Because we took vows that said ‘in sickness and in health,’ you coldhearted thing.”
In Brody’s rec room, I told him how my father looked like he’d been hit by a truck, how he wasn’t leaving his bedroom, how he was taking a cocktail of anti-depressants. Afterward, Brody hugged me, and years later I could still remember how his warm neck pressed against my ear, how I breathed in the smell of his Old Spice deodorant.
I sought that same tenderness when I told Brody I was driving to Detroit to help the police locate my father. “Don’t suppose you’d want to come with,” I said.
“When would we leave?” he asked.
“Now. I’d pick you up, and we’d leave now.”
*
I spotted my father’s blue Taurus in the Aspen Homestead parking lot and pulled in beside it. Garza was parked in the employee lot behind the building, and a staff member escorted me and Brody through the center’s long hallways to get there. On the drive down I’d wondered what the center would look like. Part of me figured it would be rundown, not unlike most of Detroit, but “Aspen Homestead” also had a dreamy and woodsy-chic quality, like the title of a Bob Ross painting. Now, though, as I wheeled Dad’s suitcase through the halls, past the front office and the cubbies that stored the patients’ cell phones, the center looked completely generic—the cramped exercise room, the patterned armchairs in the lounge—like it could be anything anywhere: a treatment center in Detroit, a Motel 6 in Albany, a community college in Phoenix. I had the disconcerting feeling that my dad could be anywhere as well—not just somewhere else in Detroit, but in another state, or another country, even.
Garza beckoned us to the parked police SUV and introduced his partner Lenore Friedman. I shook their hands and peered down at the dog, whose head was up, alert, both ears back. He didn’t look silly or confused anymore. “Officer Samson, I presume?”
“You presume correct,” Garza said.
Samson’s resolve of purpose mesmerized me. He had a silver police badge connected to his collar, and I could tell it was heavy and metal—the real deal—not the chintzy plastic ones on a kid’s Halloween costume. He seemed, let it be known, like a very good doggo.
We turned our attention to the suitcase, which I lifted into the trunk. I’d begun to think of it as something to protect and cherish. I pressed my fingers against the plaid top, clasped the handle where I knew my father’s hand would have clasped. I thought about how my mom had made sure he’d taken his medication, and the more I thought about it, the more I believed I was the only one who could save him. “I wasn’t sure how much you needed,” I said, flipping open the cover. I was embarrassed suddenly by how much I’d brought. I leaned over and breathed in my father’s scent—a mix of citrus detergent and the mint aftershave he wore as cologne.
“Any undershirts?” Garza said.
“I got undershirts,” I said, as if I were selling fake Rolexes. “I got pillowcases, I got blue jeans.”
“Let’s try the pillowcases and shirts,” Garza said.
I dug into the suitcase and pulled them out. Garza offered them to Samson, who forcefully sniffed. He took a long time, as though it were his version of memorizing a complicated sentence in a book. I felt a lump form in my throat, but rather than swallowing it away, I let it press against my Adam’s apple. I wanted discomfort, a physiological manifestation of my sadness.
“I’ll call you if there are developments,” Garza said.
“Wait,” I said. “I thought we were going with you.”
“I was afraid of that. The thing is, you’ll slow us down.”
“We can help spot him in a crowd,” Brody said.
Garza looked at Friedman, who shrugged. “It’s a free country,” she said, “but if you get in our way, we’ll arrest you. It’s that simple.”
Samson took us east. He walked in a crazed zigzag, repeatedly lifting his nose in the air rather than keeping it pressed against the ground like I had assumed he would. It felt haphazard, almost chaotic, and he often pulled so hard on the leash that it was hard for Garza to control him.
“Dog’s broken,” a guy yelled from the other side of the street and burst out laughing.
“Your dad ever done this before?” Garza asked as we waited at a crosswalk for the light to change.
“No. At least not that I know of.”
“I wonder why now,” Brody said. “Maybe it’s because you graduated and are moving away. Empty Nest Syndrome.”
“Michigan State is an hour from Grand Rapids. Not exactly worlds apart.” But I had wondered the same thing. When my parents divorced two years ago, my mother moved into a renovated brick colonial that made our family home, a crumbling Queen Anne, feel immediately gloomy, decrepit even—the creaking floors and the banister’s thin spindles, dark and knobby, like the legs of a newborn giraffe. In the upstairs hallway, my father had replaced some of the artwork taken by my mother with baroque mirrors, and when I saw him look at his face as he walked by, I thought of a parakeet viewing his reflection like a new mate.
“Whatever happens, you’ve got a friend in me,” Brody said now, like that Randy Newman song. He put his arm around my shoulder.
I thought it was at least possible that Brody felt about me the way I did about him, even though I tended to go through life clumsy and mildly chagrined. We both liked theater and participated in stage crew with a seriousness that seemed to unnerve the director. We had a dependable circle of friends, but we’d spent most of high school as a unit, jointly feeling somewhat underappreciated, the difference being that Brody was more que será, será about it.
I peered at Brody’s round face and imagined running a hand through his brown hair, tracing a line from his forehead down the space between his plucked eyebrows to the end of his pointy nose. For years, I’d only been able to admire Brody surreptitiously, and sometimes it felt like my heart would jump out of my chest and go berserk, like that cartoon frog singing Hello! Ma Baby. I’d gotten aroused recently watching Brody sing the dumb camp songs, put sunscreen on his small ears, and even, once, instruct campers on an obstacle course.
I asked Garza about the power of Samson’s nose.
“It’s like this,” Garza said. “You walk into a room and smell soup. A dog walks into the room, and it smells three carrots, two stalks of celery, the chicken broth.”
We passed Palisade Nail, Dollar Tree, a thrift store with a gigantic sign that said “For Adult Rehabilitation.” He needs to rehabilitate undisturbed, I thought. We’d been walking for about an hour, and the straps of my sandals chafed the tops of my feet.
“I have a question,” I said to Brody. “When you think of my dad, what sort of person do you think of?”
“A Grand Valley professor.”
My father had worked as a freelance journalist, and it was true that now he taught courses at Grand Valley. “No, I mean personality-wise.”
“He’s smart and nice? He always cheered at your basketball games and then read the newspaper in between quarters.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what you want the answer to be.”
“Me neither.” I’d asked myself that question all day, but everything I came up with felt inadequate. He was well-read and loving, gray-haired and broad-shouldered. He liked baseball and musicals, and he ate a lot of quinoa salads but had a weak spot for the four-piece chicken tender meal at Popeyes.
We turned a corner, and I got a whiff of a rotten egg smell that worsened the farther we walked, evolving into something like wet compost and dead fish. “We’re near a waste transfer station,” Garza explained. “Trucks dump garbage there, and the county transfers it to a landfill up north.”
When we arrived, Samson paced along the edge of the aluminum-sided warehouse, pulling the leash so hard it choked him. This is where I’ll find him, I thought. I was sure of it. And I was sure, too, that my dad wasn’t hiding out. He’d killed himself, and his body had somehow made its way here. I prepared to see Samson unearth it, a stiff hand jutting out from under some garbage.
Friedman talked to a security guard who was parked out front and who unlocked a heavy side door. Inside, I could feel the garbage in the air, sticking to me. The smell made my eyes water, and the sheer amount of garbage was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was more than a pile; it was a mountain. It was big enough for there to be peaks and cliffs.
Samson charged ahead and made his way up the hill, Garza gripping his leash and following precariously behind. I stepped onto the start of the incline. It was surprisingly solid, so I took another step and slowly hiked the garbage.
“This is going nowhere fast,” Garza said. “Samson got a whiff of an old cheeseburger or something. It happens sometimes—he’s still a dog.”
“Should we look a little longer?” I said. “We just got here.”
“Trust me—we won’t find your father on these premises.”
“How do you know?” I took another step, nudging a loose detergent bottle, and it bounced down until it hit the floor. “Let’s keep searching.”
“Let’s not,” said Garza, who was already making his way down, holding Samson by the scruff of his neck. Samson’s subdued expression seemed to convey he knew he’d screwed up.
I felt my chest tighten. I had the urge to upturn every bag of soiled diapers. I would look all night. “Dad?” I shouted. “Dad! Where are you?” I took another step up the hill, which had gotten rockier and harder to maneuver. I picked up a heavy garbage bag in the spot where Samson had been and tried tossing it a few feet away.
“If you don’t stop dicking around, I’m going to arrest you for obstruction of justice,” Friedman said.
“Good, arrest me.” I lifted another heavy garbage bag out of the way, then another, but as I reached for a third, the mound of garbage under my feet collapsed, and I lost my balance. I fell backward so that I was looking up at the far-away steel ceiling, preparing my body to tumble down and smash onto the cement floor. Except Friedman, who was near the base of the garbage, lurched forward and managed to catch me without losing her own balance. She grabbed hold of the back of my neck, not unlike how Garza had grabbed Samson, and walked me the rest of the way off.
“When we say stop, you stop, got it?” She’d seized me by the shoulders and was yelling in my face.
“Got it,” I said and tried not to cry. “I screwed up. I’m sorry.” I looked at Garza, said sorry to him too, and then looked at Brody, who was staring down at the floor the way you do when you want to spare someone the shame of witnessing them getting yelled at.
“You could have hurt yourself,” Friedman said, finally letting go of me. “Goddamn.”
“Hurt himself?” said Garza. He snorted. “He could’ve killed himself.”
Garza beckoned us to the parked police SUV and introduced his partner Lenore Friedman. I shook their hands and peered down at the dog, whose head was up, alert, both ears back. He didn’t look silly or confused anymore. “Officer Samson, I presume?”
“You presume correct,” Garza said.
Samson’s resolve of purpose mesmerized me. He had a silver police badge connected to his collar, and I could tell it was heavy and metal—the real deal—not the chintzy plastic ones on a kid’s Halloween costume. He seemed, let it be known, like a very good doggo.
We turned our attention to the suitcase, which I lifted into the trunk. I’d begun to think of it as something to protect and cherish. I pressed my fingers against the plaid top, clasped the handle where I knew my father’s hand would have clasped. I thought about how my mom had made sure he’d taken his medication, and the more I thought about it, the more I believed I was the only one who could save him. “I wasn’t sure how much you needed,” I said, flipping open the cover. I was embarrassed suddenly by how much I’d brought. I leaned over and breathed in my father’s scent—a mix of citrus detergent and the mint aftershave he wore as cologne.
“Any undershirts?” Garza said.
“I got undershirts,” I said, as if I were selling fake Rolexes. “I got pillowcases, I got blue jeans.”
“Let’s try the pillowcases and shirts,” Garza said.
I dug into the suitcase and pulled them out. Garza offered them to Samson, who forcefully sniffed. He took a long time, as though it were his version of memorizing a complicated sentence in a book. I felt a lump form in my throat, but rather than swallowing it away, I let it press against my Adam’s apple. I wanted discomfort, a physiological manifestation of my sadness.
“I’ll call you if there are developments,” Garza said.
“Wait,” I said. “I thought we were going with you.”
“I was afraid of that. The thing is, you’ll slow us down.”
“We can help spot him in a crowd,” Brody said.
Garza looked at Friedman, who shrugged. “It’s a free country,” she said, “but if you get in our way, we’ll arrest you. It’s that simple.”
Samson took us east. He walked in a crazed zigzag, repeatedly lifting his nose in the air rather than keeping it pressed against the ground like I had assumed he would. It felt haphazard, almost chaotic, and he often pulled so hard on the leash that it was hard for Garza to control him.
“Dog’s broken,” a guy yelled from the other side of the street and burst out laughing.
“Your dad ever done this before?” Garza asked as we waited at a crosswalk for the light to change.
“No. At least not that I know of.”
“I wonder why now,” Brody said. “Maybe it’s because you graduated and are moving away. Empty Nest Syndrome.”
“Michigan State is an hour from Grand Rapids. Not exactly worlds apart.” But I had wondered the same thing. When my parents divorced two years ago, my mother moved into a renovated brick colonial that made our family home, a crumbling Queen Anne, feel immediately gloomy, decrepit even—the creaking floors and the banister’s thin spindles, dark and knobby, like the legs of a newborn giraffe. In the upstairs hallway, my father had replaced some of the artwork taken by my mother with baroque mirrors, and when I saw him look at his face as he walked by, I thought of a parakeet viewing his reflection like a new mate.
“Whatever happens, you’ve got a friend in me,” Brody said now, like that Randy Newman song. He put his arm around my shoulder.
I thought it was at least possible that Brody felt about me the way I did about him, even though I tended to go through life clumsy and mildly chagrined. We both liked theater and participated in stage crew with a seriousness that seemed to unnerve the director. We had a dependable circle of friends, but we’d spent most of high school as a unit, jointly feeling somewhat underappreciated, the difference being that Brody was more que será, será about it.
I peered at Brody’s round face and imagined running a hand through his brown hair, tracing a line from his forehead down the space between his plucked eyebrows to the end of his pointy nose. For years, I’d only been able to admire Brody surreptitiously, and sometimes it felt like my heart would jump out of my chest and go berserk, like that cartoon frog singing Hello! Ma Baby. I’d gotten aroused recently watching Brody sing the dumb camp songs, put sunscreen on his small ears, and even, once, instruct campers on an obstacle course.
I asked Garza about the power of Samson’s nose.
“It’s like this,” Garza said. “You walk into a room and smell soup. A dog walks into the room, and it smells three carrots, two stalks of celery, the chicken broth.”
We passed Palisade Nail, Dollar Tree, a thrift store with a gigantic sign that said “For Adult Rehabilitation.” He needs to rehabilitate undisturbed, I thought. We’d been walking for about an hour, and the straps of my sandals chafed the tops of my feet.
“I have a question,” I said to Brody. “When you think of my dad, what sort of person do you think of?”
“A Grand Valley professor.”
My father had worked as a freelance journalist, and it was true that now he taught courses at Grand Valley. “No, I mean personality-wise.”
“He’s smart and nice? He always cheered at your basketball games and then read the newspaper in between quarters.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what you want the answer to be.”
“Me neither.” I’d asked myself that question all day, but everything I came up with felt inadequate. He was well-read and loving, gray-haired and broad-shouldered. He liked baseball and musicals, and he ate a lot of quinoa salads but had a weak spot for the four-piece chicken tender meal at Popeyes.
We turned a corner, and I got a whiff of a rotten egg smell that worsened the farther we walked, evolving into something like wet compost and dead fish. “We’re near a waste transfer station,” Garza explained. “Trucks dump garbage there, and the county transfers it to a landfill up north.”
When we arrived, Samson paced along the edge of the aluminum-sided warehouse, pulling the leash so hard it choked him. This is where I’ll find him, I thought. I was sure of it. And I was sure, too, that my dad wasn’t hiding out. He’d killed himself, and his body had somehow made its way here. I prepared to see Samson unearth it, a stiff hand jutting out from under some garbage.
Friedman talked to a security guard who was parked out front and who unlocked a heavy side door. Inside, I could feel the garbage in the air, sticking to me. The smell made my eyes water, and the sheer amount of garbage was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was more than a pile; it was a mountain. It was big enough for there to be peaks and cliffs.
Samson charged ahead and made his way up the hill, Garza gripping his leash and following precariously behind. I stepped onto the start of the incline. It was surprisingly solid, so I took another step and slowly hiked the garbage.
“This is going nowhere fast,” Garza said. “Samson got a whiff of an old cheeseburger or something. It happens sometimes—he’s still a dog.”
“Should we look a little longer?” I said. “We just got here.”
“Trust me—we won’t find your father on these premises.”
“How do you know?” I took another step, nudging a loose detergent bottle, and it bounced down until it hit the floor. “Let’s keep searching.”
“Let’s not,” said Garza, who was already making his way down, holding Samson by the scruff of his neck. Samson’s subdued expression seemed to convey he knew he’d screwed up.
I felt my chest tighten. I had the urge to upturn every bag of soiled diapers. I would look all night. “Dad?” I shouted. “Dad! Where are you?” I took another step up the hill, which had gotten rockier and harder to maneuver. I picked up a heavy garbage bag in the spot where Samson had been and tried tossing it a few feet away.
“If you don’t stop dicking around, I’m going to arrest you for obstruction of justice,” Friedman said.
“Good, arrest me.” I lifted another heavy garbage bag out of the way, then another, but as I reached for a third, the mound of garbage under my feet collapsed, and I lost my balance. I fell backward so that I was looking up at the far-away steel ceiling, preparing my body to tumble down and smash onto the cement floor. Except Friedman, who was near the base of the garbage, lurched forward and managed to catch me without losing her own balance. She grabbed hold of the back of my neck, not unlike how Garza had grabbed Samson, and walked me the rest of the way off.
“When we say stop, you stop, got it?” She’d seized me by the shoulders and was yelling in my face.
“Got it,” I said and tried not to cry. “I screwed up. I’m sorry.” I looked at Garza, said sorry to him too, and then looked at Brody, who was staring down at the floor the way you do when you want to spare someone the shame of witnessing them getting yelled at.
“You could have hurt yourself,” Friedman said, finally letting go of me. “Goddamn.”
“Hurt himself?” said Garza. He snorted. “He could’ve killed himself.”
*
We left the landfill and walked west, halfway back to Aspen Homestead. I was too embarrassed to speak, too embarrassed to look at Brody. We stopped at a park so Samson could pee and drink some water from a fountain. I sat on the fountain’s edge, slightly away from the others, and took off my sandals. The skin underneath the straps had been rubbed raw, and my blood had seeped into the leather, dyeing the straps a darker, dirtier shade of brown.
“We have to try again,” Garza said after Samson had finished.
Friedman let Samson take another whiff of the undershirts, which she’d carried in a heavy plastic bag. Samson plunged his snout into the bag, stuck his nose in the air, jumped up on Garza like it was all a game, and off we went, zigzagging away. At first Samson took us east again, toward the landfill, but then he turned right so that we were slowly, chaotically going south.
Samson took us to the Amtrak station, and as we walked through it, I scanned the crowds. Dad, I said to myself, trying to will his existence into the room. Dad, Dad, Dad. Samson led us through the dimly lit concourse and up the stairs to the west-bound platform. When he got to the edge, Garza had to grab his collar and command him to sit to keep him from jumping down onto the tracks. “He could be anywhere at this point,” Garza said, resigned.
“Maybe he took a train back to Grand Rapids,” Friedman said. “I’ll check the schedule and contact Grand Rapids PD.”
“I’m going to the waiting room again to see if I can find him,” I said. Downstairs, I began walking around the long wooden benches, but when I saw a sign for the bathroom, I went inside. I waited my turn for the sink, splashed cold water on my face, then sat in a stall and put my head in my hands. I wondered what my dad might have been feeling. Fear, maybe. Or a sense of abandon. A mix of regret and relief. I read my father’s last message, which he’d texted after arriving at Aspen Homestead: “Signing off for now.” At what point after checking in did he decide he needed to leave? I knew his phone was still in the storage locker, but I called his number anyway and listened to his voicemail voice: hardy but soft. I sent him a text: I love you. Seeing the message appear in our text conversation felt eerie, gratifying but in a dangerous way, like I was tempting fate or playing God.
I sent another text, I love you more than life itself, which was something my father used to tell me when I was a little kid. I found the sentiment unnerving rather than comforting; it seemed risky to love someone more than life. I’d also felt burdened by the responsibility that the expression seemed to place on me. Don’t die, or else.
Electricity pulsed through my fingers and chest. Are you alive? I wrote in a new text. We think you killed yourself. And: If you did, I’ll hate you. And: I’m at the hospital because I tried to kill myself. Unit E by the north entrance. And: I hate you more than life itself. A drop of sweat fell from my right armpit. I scrolled through the string of texts, surveying the damage. Where are you? I wrote in a new text and then left the bathroom.
Three benches down, I spotted him.
For a moment I froze and stared. He had on an orange polo shirt, one of his favorites, and was sitting alone, his head hanging down like a man forgotten. I glanced around for Brody or the cops and realized they must have gone outside already. Good. I wanted the chance to talk to my father alone.
“Dad,” I said when I’d approached.
He lurched a little in his seat. He looked, somehow, both pained and happy to see me. I didn’t wait for him to respond—I couldn’t. I hugged him tight and felt my eyes well up with tears.
“Dad, what on earth are you doing here?”
“Treatment wasn’t going to help,” he said.
“You can’t know that already. You were only there for two days. Not even.”
My father shook his head, like he was disappointed in me for having the nerve to bring that up. His bloodshot eyes and stubbly face reminded me of how he looked the winter of my freshman year, and I longed for my mother to be here to take control of things, even if neither he nor she would have wanted her to come. “How’d you know I went to the train station?” he asked.
“I didn’t.” I told him about the phone call from the police, about driving to Detroit with his clothes, about Samson tracking his scent. “The cops are here to take you back. Everyone thought you ran away because you were planning to kill yourself.”
He began to cry, and I understood it was true. I felt like I might throw up, and I felt more ashamed than ever before—ashamed of him and of me, of my obliviousness to how unwell he was. I tried not to, but I couldn’t block suicide scenes from flashing through my mind: my father hanging himself in our basement, leaping from the midspan of the Ambassador Bridge, jumping in front of a Detroit-bound train.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. I held my dad’s clammy hand, leaned my head on his shoulder. I breathed in his scent, though he didn’t smell like the usual mint aftershave and citrus detergent. Instead he smelled almost sour, like milk beginning to go bad. Maybe it was never about the mint or citrus. Maybe Samson had smelled my father on some molecular level, smelled a scent that was unique to him, like a fingerprint or DNA. The feat made Samson even more special and made my father even more special, too, more special and more precious.
And yet the more I allowed the relief of finding my father alive to settle into my bones, the more assurances I wanted him to make. I felt entitled to them, certainly, given what he had put me through.
“Promise me you won’t ever kill yourself,” I said.
“No,” my father said plainly, and the quick rejection of my request rattled me. “I’m in too much pain. If this were physical pain, you wouldn’t want me to suffer like this.”
“If this were physical pain, I’d want you to get treatment and stay until the doctors released you.”
“Fine.” He sounded for the first time more petulant than tortured, and I felt a surge of resentment.
“Do you want to apologize at least?” I said.
“No. Do you?”
“Me? I’ve been trying to track you down all day.”
“You didn’t have to. I didn’t ask you to do that.”
My dad cried harder now, hard enough for a boy across from us to stare. I looked at the boy, then back at my father. I fixated on his reaction to being found, to my having searched, and hated him. The hatred came so swiftly that it took my breath away. I wanted to give him a warning, a threat, to hurt him the way he’d hurt me. Was I being a coldhearted thing? Whatever.
“It’s true you didn’t ask me,” I said, “but isn’t it nice I cared enough to do it? Who else do you have who cares about you like that?”
“I understand.” He wiped a tear from his face onto his baggy pants.
“You can pass the point of no return with me, like you passed the point of no return with Mom.”
“I understand.”
“And the next time, I won’t look for you, not out of resentment, but out of indifference.”
“I said I understand!” he barked. “But what you don’t understand is that I feel like I’m falling apart.” He was glaring at me with such rage that I thought he might punch me in the face. Instead, he began to shriek. “I’m falling apart! I feel like I’m falling apart!”
I felt my eyes grow wide, and I could sense that everyone near us was watching now. I couldn’t look away either. A grown man, my father, was breaking down, and I was seeing it in real time. His pain tore at my chest, but as heartbreaking as the display was, it was also hypnotic. Snot leaked out of his nose and into his trembling, wailing mouth. His contorted face, wet with tears, looked like it was melting. The intensity of his grief frightened me too much to try to comfort him or walk away. I just sat, watching.
Garza and Friedman appeared, having pushed through the crowd that had formed, and yanked my father up and escorted him out of the station, one on each arm, with me in tow. Outside, Brody was standing near two squad cars with flashing lights, and I realized the cops must have spotted me talking to my father and radioed for the cars before making their move. Friedman led him into the back of one and got in the passenger seat. Garza hopped in the passenger seat of the other, keeping the door open just long enough for me to see Samson standing in the back, wagging his tail.
“Did those cops take your dad?” a man said to me, after they’d sped off. “Are you a minor? Did they take your dad? I’m an attorney. I can help.”
The man seemed almost manic in his desire to assist, and it felt oppressive somehow. “I don’t need your help,” I said. “I need you to fuck off.”
“We have to try again,” Garza said after Samson had finished.
Friedman let Samson take another whiff of the undershirts, which she’d carried in a heavy plastic bag. Samson plunged his snout into the bag, stuck his nose in the air, jumped up on Garza like it was all a game, and off we went, zigzagging away. At first Samson took us east again, toward the landfill, but then he turned right so that we were slowly, chaotically going south.
Samson took us to the Amtrak station, and as we walked through it, I scanned the crowds. Dad, I said to myself, trying to will his existence into the room. Dad, Dad, Dad. Samson led us through the dimly lit concourse and up the stairs to the west-bound platform. When he got to the edge, Garza had to grab his collar and command him to sit to keep him from jumping down onto the tracks. “He could be anywhere at this point,” Garza said, resigned.
“Maybe he took a train back to Grand Rapids,” Friedman said. “I’ll check the schedule and contact Grand Rapids PD.”
“I’m going to the waiting room again to see if I can find him,” I said. Downstairs, I began walking around the long wooden benches, but when I saw a sign for the bathroom, I went inside. I waited my turn for the sink, splashed cold water on my face, then sat in a stall and put my head in my hands. I wondered what my dad might have been feeling. Fear, maybe. Or a sense of abandon. A mix of regret and relief. I read my father’s last message, which he’d texted after arriving at Aspen Homestead: “Signing off for now.” At what point after checking in did he decide he needed to leave? I knew his phone was still in the storage locker, but I called his number anyway and listened to his voicemail voice: hardy but soft. I sent him a text: I love you. Seeing the message appear in our text conversation felt eerie, gratifying but in a dangerous way, like I was tempting fate or playing God.
I sent another text, I love you more than life itself, which was something my father used to tell me when I was a little kid. I found the sentiment unnerving rather than comforting; it seemed risky to love someone more than life. I’d also felt burdened by the responsibility that the expression seemed to place on me. Don’t die, or else.
Electricity pulsed through my fingers and chest. Are you alive? I wrote in a new text. We think you killed yourself. And: If you did, I’ll hate you. And: I’m at the hospital because I tried to kill myself. Unit E by the north entrance. And: I hate you more than life itself. A drop of sweat fell from my right armpit. I scrolled through the string of texts, surveying the damage. Where are you? I wrote in a new text and then left the bathroom.
Three benches down, I spotted him.
For a moment I froze and stared. He had on an orange polo shirt, one of his favorites, and was sitting alone, his head hanging down like a man forgotten. I glanced around for Brody or the cops and realized they must have gone outside already. Good. I wanted the chance to talk to my father alone.
“Dad,” I said when I’d approached.
He lurched a little in his seat. He looked, somehow, both pained and happy to see me. I didn’t wait for him to respond—I couldn’t. I hugged him tight and felt my eyes well up with tears.
“Dad, what on earth are you doing here?”
“Treatment wasn’t going to help,” he said.
“You can’t know that already. You were only there for two days. Not even.”
My father shook his head, like he was disappointed in me for having the nerve to bring that up. His bloodshot eyes and stubbly face reminded me of how he looked the winter of my freshman year, and I longed for my mother to be here to take control of things, even if neither he nor she would have wanted her to come. “How’d you know I went to the train station?” he asked.
“I didn’t.” I told him about the phone call from the police, about driving to Detroit with his clothes, about Samson tracking his scent. “The cops are here to take you back. Everyone thought you ran away because you were planning to kill yourself.”
He began to cry, and I understood it was true. I felt like I might throw up, and I felt more ashamed than ever before—ashamed of him and of me, of my obliviousness to how unwell he was. I tried not to, but I couldn’t block suicide scenes from flashing through my mind: my father hanging himself in our basement, leaping from the midspan of the Ambassador Bridge, jumping in front of a Detroit-bound train.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. I held my dad’s clammy hand, leaned my head on his shoulder. I breathed in his scent, though he didn’t smell like the usual mint aftershave and citrus detergent. Instead he smelled almost sour, like milk beginning to go bad. Maybe it was never about the mint or citrus. Maybe Samson had smelled my father on some molecular level, smelled a scent that was unique to him, like a fingerprint or DNA. The feat made Samson even more special and made my father even more special, too, more special and more precious.
And yet the more I allowed the relief of finding my father alive to settle into my bones, the more assurances I wanted him to make. I felt entitled to them, certainly, given what he had put me through.
“Promise me you won’t ever kill yourself,” I said.
“No,” my father said plainly, and the quick rejection of my request rattled me. “I’m in too much pain. If this were physical pain, you wouldn’t want me to suffer like this.”
“If this were physical pain, I’d want you to get treatment and stay until the doctors released you.”
“Fine.” He sounded for the first time more petulant than tortured, and I felt a surge of resentment.
“Do you want to apologize at least?” I said.
“No. Do you?”
“Me? I’ve been trying to track you down all day.”
“You didn’t have to. I didn’t ask you to do that.”
My dad cried harder now, hard enough for a boy across from us to stare. I looked at the boy, then back at my father. I fixated on his reaction to being found, to my having searched, and hated him. The hatred came so swiftly that it took my breath away. I wanted to give him a warning, a threat, to hurt him the way he’d hurt me. Was I being a coldhearted thing? Whatever.
“It’s true you didn’t ask me,” I said, “but isn’t it nice I cared enough to do it? Who else do you have who cares about you like that?”
“I understand.” He wiped a tear from his face onto his baggy pants.
“You can pass the point of no return with me, like you passed the point of no return with Mom.”
“I understand.”
“And the next time, I won’t look for you, not out of resentment, but out of indifference.”
“I said I understand!” he barked. “But what you don’t understand is that I feel like I’m falling apart.” He was glaring at me with such rage that I thought he might punch me in the face. Instead, he began to shriek. “I’m falling apart! I feel like I’m falling apart!”
I felt my eyes grow wide, and I could sense that everyone near us was watching now. I couldn’t look away either. A grown man, my father, was breaking down, and I was seeing it in real time. His pain tore at my chest, but as heartbreaking as the display was, it was also hypnotic. Snot leaked out of his nose and into his trembling, wailing mouth. His contorted face, wet with tears, looked like it was melting. The intensity of his grief frightened me too much to try to comfort him or walk away. I just sat, watching.
Garza and Friedman appeared, having pushed through the crowd that had formed, and yanked my father up and escorted him out of the station, one on each arm, with me in tow. Outside, Brody was standing near two squad cars with flashing lights, and I realized the cops must have spotted me talking to my father and radioed for the cars before making their move. Friedman led him into the back of one and got in the passenger seat. Garza hopped in the passenger seat of the other, keeping the door open just long enough for me to see Samson standing in the back, wagging his tail.
“Did those cops take your dad?” a man said to me, after they’d sped off. “Are you a minor? Did they take your dad? I’m an attorney. I can help.”
The man seemed almost manic in his desire to assist, and it felt oppressive somehow. “I don’t need your help,” I said. “I need you to fuck off.”
*
It was dark by the time Brody and I got back to Aspen Homestead. Garza had texted me during the walk. My father had been readmitted and was moved to a different room with added safety measures, which I assumed was bars on the windows and a door that locked him inside. He said the staff was expecting me to stop by the front office, but when I got to the parking lot, all I wanted to do was leave. I thanked Garza over text and asked if he’d thank Samson for me. He’s a very good officer, I wrote. A very good boy.
We drove to a Wendy’s, and I bought Brody and me twenty dollars worth of junk. It was ten p.m. when we finished. “Are you really up for driving the three hours back to Grand Rapids?” Brody said.
“We could get a hotel room and leave tomorrow morning.”
“My idea exactly.”
The first hotel I called was booked, but the second had some vacancies. “Except we only have rooms with one king-sized bed,” the woman said at the front desk.
I looked at Brody.
“I don’t give a shit,” he said.
I bought us two toothbrushes and a toothpaste from the vending machine, and we went to our room. “Brody,” I said, putting my hand out for him to shake. “I owe you for coming with me.” I thought I sounded like an idiot, like I was trying to be an adult and failing miserably.
“Get out of here with that.” Brody opened his arms and hugged me, and I allowed myself to enjoy it.
I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Brody went in after me, and when he came out, he stripped down to his boxers like it was nothing. It had been a year since I’d seen him shirtless, and I registered the differences in his body—the thicker build, the trail of hair under his belly button. His smooth shoulders were the same, as was his slightly muscular chest. My desire in this moment was both sexual and not sexual—I wanted to feel his nipples and his heart beat.
I took off my T-shirt and shorts, and we threw the gross top blanket and beige comforter onto the floor. I flicked off the lamp, and we both got under the sheet.
“I’m tired and wired at the same time,” I said.
“I’m just tired,” Brody said. His eyes were already closed.
I didn’t speak or move, hoping to hear or feel Brody’s hand or leg shifting toward mine. After a few minutes, I turned toward him, his face illuminated somewhat by the streetlight filtering through the sheer curtains. He looked asleep—his head tilted down, his chest rising and falling with slow breaths. I peered at his eye lashes, the curl of his right ear. I swallowed and leaned closer, just as Brody had done to me years before.
As if on cue, Brody spoke. “You know what was crazy?” he murmured. His eyes were still closed, and he was speaking so softly that it almost sounded like he was talking in his sleep.
“Everything that happened today?” I said.
“That was crazy,” Brody said. “No, I meant what we did in the seventh grade, during sleepovers. It’s been hard for me to bring up.”
“Me too,” I said. “But, I mean, it wasn’t that crazy.”
“I wanted to bring it up before we went to college. To apologize or whatever.”
“Apologize for what? I participated.”
“But I started it. I don’t know. I was so horny in seventh grade I would have hooked up with a tennis racket.”
I didn’t say anything for a long time because I wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally, I just said, “I wouldn’t have.”
“We’re different in that way,” Brody said. We lay in awkward silence, and when Brody talked again a few minutes later, his speech was slurred, his breaths heavier. “Love you, Miles. Glad your dad’s safe.” Soon his jaw went slack, and I knew he’d really fallen asleep.
I flipped my pillow over and laid my head on the cold side. Maybe we would have other conversations about what we did, but this one seemed clear enough. Brody had no obligation to me, obviously, not in that way, but since when did that make anyone feel better? My eyelids grew heavy, and I could detect my thoughts becoming incoherent. I wondered about the fall, about who would call the police if I were to go missing and whether they’d do it quick enough for a dog to track me down.
When I awoke, it was a little before six a.m. I checked my phone—no texts or missed calls from Aspen Homestead or Garza, thank God. I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I got up, took a shower, and put on my clothes. Brody was still asleep, so I sent him a text: Getting coffee. Text me when you wake up.
Without traffic, the drive felt relaxing. Office buildings and car dealerships sat between the street and the Detroit River, but occasionally I caught glimpses of the water, the sun glinting off of it, mist rising up and away. I turned right and drove through downtown. When I saw a Starbucks I decided not to stop, and it wasn’t long before I saw signs for the train station. I bought a coffee from a street vendor, then went inside and sat on the bench where I’d found my father. The wood was cool and felt good on my calves.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Soon I heard the thrum of an approaching train, the hiss and screech of its brakes. I listened to passengers step off the train and onto the platform. It sounded like there were more people than I would have expected at this hour because I heard a lot of different voices. I heard a guy say, “Home, stinking home,” and a woman say, “I look like death warmed over.” I imagined getting absorbed into the small crowd, disappearing in the middle like a magic trick.
With my eyes still closed, I made a to-do list in my head. I would call Aunt Reina and tell her what had happened and where things stood. I would plan a time to visit my father at Aspen Homestead and ask the doctors how I could help when he was released. I’d figure out a way to delete those texts I’d sent before he had a chance to see them.
My mind wandered to our conversation at the station, the way my father broke down, his helplessness and fear. I would’ve given anything for him to promise he’d never kill himself, but I also realized I wouldn’t have believed the promise anyway. Not fully, at least. Who could promise a thing like that? Who out there was confident enough in their future happiness to promise a thing like that?
We drove to a Wendy’s, and I bought Brody and me twenty dollars worth of junk. It was ten p.m. when we finished. “Are you really up for driving the three hours back to Grand Rapids?” Brody said.
“We could get a hotel room and leave tomorrow morning.”
“My idea exactly.”
The first hotel I called was booked, but the second had some vacancies. “Except we only have rooms with one king-sized bed,” the woman said at the front desk.
I looked at Brody.
“I don’t give a shit,” he said.
I bought us two toothbrushes and a toothpaste from the vending machine, and we went to our room. “Brody,” I said, putting my hand out for him to shake. “I owe you for coming with me.” I thought I sounded like an idiot, like I was trying to be an adult and failing miserably.
“Get out of here with that.” Brody opened his arms and hugged me, and I allowed myself to enjoy it.
I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Brody went in after me, and when he came out, he stripped down to his boxers like it was nothing. It had been a year since I’d seen him shirtless, and I registered the differences in his body—the thicker build, the trail of hair under his belly button. His smooth shoulders were the same, as was his slightly muscular chest. My desire in this moment was both sexual and not sexual—I wanted to feel his nipples and his heart beat.
I took off my T-shirt and shorts, and we threw the gross top blanket and beige comforter onto the floor. I flicked off the lamp, and we both got under the sheet.
“I’m tired and wired at the same time,” I said.
“I’m just tired,” Brody said. His eyes were already closed.
I didn’t speak or move, hoping to hear or feel Brody’s hand or leg shifting toward mine. After a few minutes, I turned toward him, his face illuminated somewhat by the streetlight filtering through the sheer curtains. He looked asleep—his head tilted down, his chest rising and falling with slow breaths. I peered at his eye lashes, the curl of his right ear. I swallowed and leaned closer, just as Brody had done to me years before.
As if on cue, Brody spoke. “You know what was crazy?” he murmured. His eyes were still closed, and he was speaking so softly that it almost sounded like he was talking in his sleep.
“Everything that happened today?” I said.
“That was crazy,” Brody said. “No, I meant what we did in the seventh grade, during sleepovers. It’s been hard for me to bring up.”
“Me too,” I said. “But, I mean, it wasn’t that crazy.”
“I wanted to bring it up before we went to college. To apologize or whatever.”
“Apologize for what? I participated.”
“But I started it. I don’t know. I was so horny in seventh grade I would have hooked up with a tennis racket.”
I didn’t say anything for a long time because I wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally, I just said, “I wouldn’t have.”
“We’re different in that way,” Brody said. We lay in awkward silence, and when Brody talked again a few minutes later, his speech was slurred, his breaths heavier. “Love you, Miles. Glad your dad’s safe.” Soon his jaw went slack, and I knew he’d really fallen asleep.
I flipped my pillow over and laid my head on the cold side. Maybe we would have other conversations about what we did, but this one seemed clear enough. Brody had no obligation to me, obviously, not in that way, but since when did that make anyone feel better? My eyelids grew heavy, and I could detect my thoughts becoming incoherent. I wondered about the fall, about who would call the police if I were to go missing and whether they’d do it quick enough for a dog to track me down.
When I awoke, it was a little before six a.m. I checked my phone—no texts or missed calls from Aspen Homestead or Garza, thank God. I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I got up, took a shower, and put on my clothes. Brody was still asleep, so I sent him a text: Getting coffee. Text me when you wake up.
Without traffic, the drive felt relaxing. Office buildings and car dealerships sat between the street and the Detroit River, but occasionally I caught glimpses of the water, the sun glinting off of it, mist rising up and away. I turned right and drove through downtown. When I saw a Starbucks I decided not to stop, and it wasn’t long before I saw signs for the train station. I bought a coffee from a street vendor, then went inside and sat on the bench where I’d found my father. The wood was cool and felt good on my calves.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Soon I heard the thrum of an approaching train, the hiss and screech of its brakes. I listened to passengers step off the train and onto the platform. It sounded like there were more people than I would have expected at this hour because I heard a lot of different voices. I heard a guy say, “Home, stinking home,” and a woman say, “I look like death warmed over.” I imagined getting absorbed into the small crowd, disappearing in the middle like a magic trick.
With my eyes still closed, I made a to-do list in my head. I would call Aunt Reina and tell her what had happened and where things stood. I would plan a time to visit my father at Aspen Homestead and ask the doctors how I could help when he was released. I’d figure out a way to delete those texts I’d sent before he had a chance to see them.
My mind wandered to our conversation at the station, the way my father broke down, his helplessness and fear. I would’ve given anything for him to promise he’d never kill himself, but I also realized I wouldn’t have believed the promise anyway. Not fully, at least. Who could promise a thing like that? Who out there was confident enough in their future happiness to promise a thing like that?