Free Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler Page B

kitchen. Never leaving the last word to chance, she tosses a casual "Bitch!" over her shoulder and disappears upstairs.
    " That went well." Aunt Jayne wipes her hands on a dish towel and takes the same route as Frankie, slamming her bedroom door.
    After a few moments of silence, me still looking at my plate, Uncle Red moves to clear the table and apologizes.
    "This trip, we just thought -- ah, forget it. I don't know what to say, Anna. I'm sorry." He crinkles his eyebrows to keep his own tears back. It's really bad when dads cry. My whole life I've only seen my dad cry twice -- once in the hospital and then at Matt's funeral. No matter what Matt and my dad said -- dads are supposed to be the strong ones. That's probably why Red has so many lines on his forehead. All the hurt goes up there to hide.
    He apologizes again and excuses himself upstairs, leaving me alone in the kitchen with the big, sad whale.
    What are you cryin' about? the whale asks. He wasn't your brother.
    I wait until there's no sound coming from upstairs before heading up with my best-friend face to find Frankie. When I don't see her in the yellow room with the twin beds -- the room she always had as a kid and would be sharing with me on this trip -- I know there's only one place she can be. I walk to the end of the hall farthest from Red and Jayne's room and open the old oak door that Jayne asked us not to disturb, heading up the narrow stairs to the attic room.
    Frankie is facedown on the double bed, crying quietly into the soft white pillows where her brother slept every summer but the last. Hours earlier, she was at Breeze, larger than life with her virgin piña colada and freshly applied mascara. Now, hiding in the blue-gray room with its dusty ocean view, she's a pale, broken flower that makes my heart hurt.
    I wish more than anything that Matt was here, that he was laughing with us in his old attic room, that it was all some big mix-up at the hospital like when they give people the wrong babies.
    "Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Perino? This is Peg over at Mercy General. I was shredding some old files and found some discrepancies. Yes, you know how these things happen. In any case, about a year ago, due to a paperwork snafu, we inadvertently gave you someone else's bad news. Turns out Phillip was the one who died, not Matt. Matt's been living with a family in Toledo. Yes, I've called them, too. They are flying Matt home tomorrow. No hard feelings, right? You know how these things happen. Buh-bye."
    I put my hand on Frankie's back until the sobs go quiet and her breathing becomes long and even.
    An hour later, we hear Red and Jayne head downstairs and out the front door, closing themselves in the car and setting out down the long driveway. Certain the house is empty, Frankie and I scrounge the kitchen for something to eat.
    "I can't believe she just freaked out like that," Frankie says, pulling a fresh Diet Coke from the fridge. "And Dad didn't even say anything!"
    "I don't think he knew what to say, Frank."
    "I think they're gonna split."
    "What do you mean?" I ask. "Like, tonight?"
    "No. I mean split up. Divorce."
    "What are you talking about? Your parents are fine. They're just adjusting to the first night back since -- well, it's just hard for them." And you.
    "Please," she says above the shhhhhp of her soda can opening. "At home, they don't even sleep in the same room anymore."
    "But I've seen them."
    Frankie shakes her head. "They say good night and close the door, but Dad sneaks down to the den when he thinks we're asleep. As if I can't see what's going on."
    Fear and sadness squeeze my insides as I replay my recent overnights with the Perinos like a movie, scrutinizing every frame in slow motion for a hole in the plot. Red put his hand on Jayne's knee the night they told us about going back to California. Did she wince? I've seen them close the bedroom door as they wished us good night. Now I imagine them getting into their fake bed together. Lying next to each