“Nice of you to call,” his mother said.
He always forgot how she used to drive him out, too. Her words were a more slippery kind of assault, sliding out of his memory more easily than his father’s actual blows, sliding in between the ribs of that younger Adam when he wasn’t paying attention. There was a reason why he had learned to hide alone, not with her.
“I missed you at graduation today,” Adam replied evenly.
“I didn’t feel welcome,” she said.
“I asked you to come.”
“You made it ugly.”
“Wasn’t me who made it ugly.”
Her eyes glanced off him, most of her vanishing at the first sign of active conflict.
“What do you want, Adam?” his father asked. He was still staring at Adam’s clothing, as if he thought that it might be what had changed. “I don’t guess it’s because you’re begging to move back in, now that you’re all graduated and fancy and driving your boyfriend’s beemer.”
“I came to see if there was any possibility of having a normal relationship with my parents before I leave for college,” Adam replied.
His father’s mouth worked. It was hard to tell if he was shocked by the content of Adam’s statement, or just by the fact of Adam’s voice at all. It was not a thing that had been heard often in this room. It was perplexing to Adam how he had regarded this as normal for so long. He remembered how the neighbours used to turn away from his bruised face; he used to think, stupidly, that they said nothing because they thought he had somehow deserved it. Now, though, he wondered how many of them had huddled on the floor in front of their sofas, or hidden in their rooms, or cried beneath the little porch in the bitter rain. He felt a sudden urge to save all these other Adams hidden in plain view, though he didn’t know if they would listen to him. It struck him as a Gansey or a Blue impulse, and as he held that tiny, heroic spark in his mind, he realized that it was only because he believed that he had saved himself that he could imagine saving someone else.
“You were the one who made this impossible,” his father said. “You’re the one who made this ugly, just like your mother said.”
He seemed petulant to Adam now, not fearsome. Everything about his body language, shoulders curled like a fern, chin tucked, indicated that he would no sooner hit Adam than he would hit his boss. The last time he had raised a hand to his son, he’d had to pull a bloody thorn out of it, and Adam could see the disbelief of that moment still registering in him. Adam was other. Even without Cabeswater’s force, he could feel it glimmering coolly in his eyes, and he did nothing to disguise it. Magician.
“It was ugly way before then, Dad,” Adam replied. “Do you know I can’t hear out of this ear? You were talking over me in the courtroom when I said it before.”
His father made a scornful noise, but Adam interrupted him. “Gansey took me to the hospital. That should’ve been you, Dad. I mean, it shouldn’t have happened at all, but if it had really been an accident, it should have been you in the room with me.”
Even as he said the words that he’d wanted to say, he couldn’t believe that he was saying them. Had he ever talked back to his father and been certain he was right? And been able to look him right in the eye the entire time? He couldn’t quite believe that he was not afraid: His father was not frightening unless you were already afraid.
His father blustered and put his hands in his pockets.
“I’m deaf in this ear, Dad, and that was you.”
Now his father looked at the floor, and that was how Adam knew that he believed him. It was possible that was the only thing Adam had actually needed out of this meeting: his father’s averted eyes. The certainty that his father knew what he had done.
His father asked, “What do you want from us?”
On the way over, Adam had considered this. What he truly wanted was to be left to his own devices. Not by his actual father, who could no longer truly intrude on Adam’s life, but by the idea of his father, a more powerful thing in every way. He replied, “Every time I can’t tell where someone’s calling me from in a room and every time I smash my head into the side of the shower and every time I accidentally start to put my earbuds in both ears, I think about you. Do you think there can be a future when that’s not the only time I think about you?”
He could tell from their faces that the answer to this was not likely to be yes anytime soon, but that was all right. He hadn’t come with any expectations, so he was not disappointed.
“I reckon I don’t know,” his father replied finally. “You’ve grown up into someone I don’t like very much, and I’m not afraid to say it.”
“That’s fair,” Adam said. He didn’t much care for his father, either. Gansey would’ve said I appreciate your honesty, and Adam borrowed from that memory of polite power. “I appreciate your honesty.”
His father’s face indicated that Adam had just illustrated his point perfectly.
His mother spoke up. “I’d like you to call. I’d like to know what you’re doing.”
She lifted her head, and the light through the window made a perfect square of light on her glasses. And just like that, Adam’s thoughts flashed along time, his logic following the same channels his psychic sense used. He could see himself knocking, her standing on the other side of the door, not answering. He could see himself knocking, her standing around the back of the trailer, holding her breath until he was gone. He could even see himself calling, and the phone ringing as she held it in her hands. But he could also see her opening the college brochure. He could see her clipping his name out of a newspaper. Putting a photo of him in his smart jacket and nice trousers and easy smile on the fridge.