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Dad was right, even if he danced around saying it aloud. Everything I tried in all these years amounted to nothing. And I had to start coming to terms with it.
SIXTEEN
Tyler
Most of our house appeared unused. The upper floor got no attention from Dad other than preparing my room. It was visibly dusted, with fresh linens on the bed, and my things were displayed neatly on shelves and other surfaces. Our photos together here and there. A framed photo of me and Sebastian when we were seven. Two boys hugging each other with toothy smiles and glimmering eyes. Outside my room, the house seemed still, asleep. Dad used little more than the downstairs bedroom, kitchen, and the living room. In fact, he was barely using those beyond the necessities. After work, he retreated to the garage, building his train set with such iron focus that knocking on the door wouldn’t get you admitted. He simply heard nothing when he was in his bubble.
I stepped into the garage from the side door connecting it to the main hallway in the house. Dad’s back was turned to me. He had his conductor’s hat on, and a brush dipped into red paint, meticulously adding details to a tiny piece of metal he would glue onto the front of the new locomotive.
I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and watched. He wasn’t slouching like he tended to when he was face to face with someone. There was nothing timid about him now. He was fully in control of what he was doing and aware of the immensity of his project.
The garage was a world of its own. He no longer pulled the car in. There was no room for the car. Instead, he turned it into a universe populated with the people he dreamed up. Or so I imagined. It was hard to tell what was going on in his head sometimes. I remembered the episode when he disassembled the entire project and dragged bags upon bags out to the curb. He’d given up on the trains for a long time before returning to them.
I supported it. They were therapeutic in a sense, although they weren’t therapeutic enough. And now that he was seeing a real therapist, I double-supported his evening occupations.
I was about to clear my throat to announce myself when he spoke. “Don’t just stand there, Tyler,” he said in a gentle voice. Sometimes, when I was a kid, the gentle voice was scary because it followed his more melancholic episodes. It was like he would try smoothing the fright away by being extra sweet with me, so the two twined together and became inseparable in my heart. “Come and see.”
“I heated up lasagna,” I said.
Dad looked at me over his shoulder, the brush held still in his hand. “Would you mind if we ate out here?”
“Sure.” I hurried to bring out the plates, forks, knives, a stack of napkins, and a pitcher of water with two glasses on a tray. We set up an impromptu dinner table next to the main part of the world he had built.
Seven feet by twelve, the miniature universe dominated the room. After I placed the food on the cleared work table, I held my hands on the small of my back and examined his work. The smell of food made my mouth water, but my eyes were glued to the fascinating project that had occupied my father’s time for years.
I couldn’t lie. It was impressive. Far superior to the one he had tossed out in bitter disappointment, this was beyond a simple train set. It was geography and urban planning and pure craft. Train tracks circled around the world, connecting the town and the villages no matter the obstacles. There were two bridges with train tracks, crossing a small river, a viaduct that led into a tunnel through the immense mountain, and an elaborate central station where he could control the tracks. Powered by batteries, the trains could actually carry different loads, and each was unique to a village.
My arms moved around and crossed on my chest. It was the detail of the town and the villages that truly took my breath away. On a less steep side of the mountain, there was a small train station, and around it were houses with land and people and cattle, mining equipment of an age long gone was scattered around.
Dad had added hidden wires into the tiny houses with LED lights in various colors. Flicking a switch, he could bring the world to life. Flickering flames and lights would flood out of the tiny windows.
“You should have seen it this Christmas,” he said. “I put fake snow all around.” He whistled down. “Cleaning that up took me longer than putting the damn thing together.” A laugh followed.
The color work was striking. There weren’t two houses that were the same or a figure that was identical to another, aside from the McAdams twins, who’d built their houses next to each other to match and stood proudly in their little yards. They were identical, save for the clothes they wore and one had a mustache.
Dad sat down and wiped his fingers on a rag, then sliced a bit of lasagna, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. “Mm. This is delicious, Tyler. When did you learn to cook?”
I laughed. “I found it in the freezer, Dad.”
“Oh. That’s right.” He nodded as he chewed, pondering that. “The pills. They make me forgetful.”
“Give it time,” I said. It was an old conversation we’d had countless times. He wasn’t complaining and I wasn’t pushing it. The dosage changes made his thoughts fuzzy for a little while. It would pass.
“Of course,” he agreed in a rough voice. His hair was a little shaggy, his face shadowed with a two-day stubble, and his mustache only slightly overgrown. He’d trimmed it recently, I could tell. “I wasn’t sure what to get,” he explained. “So I got a bit of everything. Frozen stuff’s the easiest.”
“It sure is,” I said, enjoying the food despite it being a quick-bake fake. It was delicious even if it wasn’t nutritious. After a short silence, I decided to say it. “You seem better.”
Dad made a surprised expression and smiled. “I am. Way better. Haven’t felt this good in years.” He tapped my knee firmly. “I’ll tell you this: I’m glad I’m doing better when you’re here.”
“I’m glad you’re better regardless,” I said, and we grinned at each other.
I’d had a lifetime of practice when it came to reading someone’s emotions. I could do it based on nothing more than a sideways glance or an eerie calm. Maybe my dad wasn’t the world’s greatest dad, but he was mine, and I loved him. He’d done his best, which was all that mattered, and we’d gone through the rough times without letting it all crash down around us. We still had each other.
Even so, being raised by him meant I’d developed a sixth sense when it came to people’s moods and feelings. I could see what others felt almost easier than knowing what I felt. Case in point were my growing feelings for Sebastian. I hadn’t been aware of it for years until it suddenly all felt perfectly clear to me. Understanding myself was a much tougher job than understanding what troubled those around me.
So I couldn’t shake off a sense of premonition when I returned to my room and there wasn’t a text from Sebastian. There was nothing. I’d dropped a line asking him how things were and his silence was louder than if he’d said things were fine.
Just as well as I had learned to sense my dad’s moods, I had learned to sense trouble over there. It was hard to remember a time when Sebastian was with his family and didn’t end up feeling like shit.
