My father died on my eighteenth birthday. No, that's not quite right. He actually died one day before my eighteenth birthday. Just three minutes before - one hundred and eighty seconds short of the clock striking midnight, making me an adult and allowing me to leave it all behind.
My birthday was on the last Sunday in March. I didn't have school that week because of spring break, so a group of us drove to the States and stayed at the Holiday Inn in Fargo for a couple of nights. Janie drove us in her red Camry, and then she charged the rooms to her dad's credit card. Janie had turned eighteen in January and her parents had buckets of money and gave her the car for her birthday. It had a secret compartment where we hid mickeys of vodka and rum because we aren't old enough to buy it down there.
Back in December, Janie told me to get a passport. It'll be easier to cross the border that way, she explained. So, the next day I went to the little photo store at the mall and they took pictures of me not smiling and then I sent in all the paperwork. My sister, Trill, had done the same thing two years ago, so I knew what to do. She hasn't left Canada though. She said it was just in case she wanted to travel someday. She really meant in case she needed to travel someday, but Trill was being nice to me because she didn't want me to worry. And she didn't want to leave me unless she had to.
When we got back from Fargo, it was already April and the rent was due. I'd been the one to pay the rent on our house for the last two years, so I went to the locked drawer of the desk my father kept beside the broken washing machine in the back entrance, and counted it out. My father never knew I was the one paying the rent, or that I even knew about the thick manilla envelopes of hundred-dollar bills that came from my grandfather's estate. Trill said that Auntie Doris had been the one to hand over his share in cash. They all knew my father didn't believe in banks. Maybe he thought elves were paying his bills because he never talked about it. And the landlady didn't ask any questions when I knocked on her door and handed over the money. She just mumbled something about it being late with one of her menthol cigarettes flopping from her lips like a dead fish. Then she counted it and closed the door.
When I got back, I sat at my father's desk and figured out exactly what was left. There was enough for May and June rent, and still some left to rent a half-ton moving truck and put down a deposit on an apartment across town. I called Trill and asked if she wanted to live with me, but she said she couldn't leave Ian just yet. He needs me, she explained. I'm sorry, Jude. You know I'd leave if he could manage without me.
She sounded sorry. Trill always sounded sorry. Probably because she was.
It's funny how easy everything was to take care of. Maybe that's because I'd been doing so much of it already - working part-time and buying my own food and signing my father's name whenever I needed to. I guess I don't need to buy all those cans of Chef Boyardee and bags of black licorice now, I told Trill. She nodded and I could tell she was thinking the same thing about the rolling papers and tobacco that she'd been delivering to him three times a week. I could have been the one to do that too, but that kid at the smoke shop wouldn't sell to me without ID. I told him he barely looked fifteen and he was probably working there illegally, but he just smirked and flipped me off.
Trill and I forged a bill of sale for our father's car so I could register it in my own name, and then we packed up his things and dropped them outside the big double doors of the Salvation Army. After that, we walked through the house throwing away the rest of him - the overflowing ashtrays and the stained coffee mugs and the shoelaces that he tied into knots until they formed a lumpy sphere. And then I wrote up the two-month notice that the landlady needed and signed my father's name.
I go to Janie's house a lot now. There's noise there. She has three little brothers and two dogs and a cat and I like that better than the quiet. Sometimes, if I'm there late, her parents will ask it I need to call home and then I remember I'm still in high school with people who don't live like me. I excuse myself for privacy and mumble something into the dead phone about where I am and when I'll be home just in case her parents can hear me. Then I smile at Janie and her family in their paisley living room and tell them how much my father appreciates their hospitality and they smile back and tell me I'm always welcome. I've known Janie for three years now and she's never once been to my house. She met Trill and Ian at the mall once and Trill told some story about how I jammed a dime up my nose when I was four and we all laughed like our childhood was funny and totally normal.
Trill's happy that I'm getting my own place. She said it'll be good for me just like it was good for her to move in with Ian. She said she'll help me pack, but it won't be hard because most of the furniture belongs to the landlady anyway. We're going to find a new couch from the thrift store. I told her I want a blue one.
Graduation is two weeks away. There have been a bunch of meetings and some forms that needed signatures. I asked the guidance counselor if I could just sign for myself now since I was eighteen and she nodded and smiled with her big horse-teeth and patted me on the back and I think she said congratulations or something like that. It was weird.
A few weeks ago, my boss got me to start waitressing instead of bussing tables now that I can serve booze, and after graduation he said I could work full-time. You'll make good money, he told me, staring at my boobs. I didn't care that he liked my boobs. The other girls told me that's how to make the best tips anyway. Then he told me that he could take me full-time now if I wanted to blow off school. But I didn't want that. I wanted to graduate. Trill had her diploma, and she was going to use it to go to community college someday, maybe become an administrative secretary or work in human resources. Trill thought I'd be good at that too. I can hlep you get a job, Jude. We can work together! Maybe, I told her. Maybe when Ian doesn't need you so much, I said. But Trill didn't hear me.
Sometimes I worry that someone will find out, and so I start asking Trill all the questions that bang around my head. What if someone tries to reach him? One of his siblings or someone from the old job that he stopped going to when Grandpa died? Would they call me? What would I say? Just don't answer your phone if you don't know the number, Trill told me. And don't give anyone your new address. Her voice sounded thick, like black molasses.
Then Trill said something about the government. She said that sooner or later they'd try to track him down - taxes or unpaid bills or something - but she was sure that would take time. I told her that by then Ian would be okay enough for Trill to leave and we could go live somewhere else. We'd both have our diplomas and I'd have money from my tips and we could move somewhere far away where no one knew us anyway. I told Trill not to worry too much, and that I wouldn't either. She nodded.
Sometimes, when we're not worrying too much, we're forgetting instead. But that can be harder.
It was Trill's idea to go out to the cabin the day before my birthday. I'm not sure why, it was usually our father who demanded trips to the little shack that our grandfather had built decades ago, and then abandoned. It only had two rooms and there were holes in the walls where mice and frost got in. My aunts and uncles must have forgotten about that cabin because my father was the only one who seemed to know about it. The first time he drove us out there was the same day we watched our grandfather's casket sink into the cold, hard ground. I only got to eat one lemon slice at the hall before we were told to get in the car. No one ever questioned my father. Not me or Trill. Not his siblings. No one.
Trill and I hated all the times our father took us there, so I didn't know why she wanted to go. We usually just wandered around in our coats and blankets from the car and watched our father sit in the old green chair and smoke his hand-rolled cigarettes. He always had a bottle with him too, so after a while he'd get tired and his eyes would roll around in his head and then we could take the keys from his hand and walk him to the car so Trill could drive us home. One time I drove even though I hadn't gotten my license yet, and at first I got lost in the dark.
Why do you want to go to the cabin? I asked Trill that Saturday. But she just shrugged and told me it was fun to pretend to be a bear so that I would scream and then she elbowed me in the stomach. You're almost eighteen, she said then. I want to do something with you before your trip. And anyway, Dad told me to buy him some more whiskey, so might as well.
I didn't want to go, but I didn't tell Trill. It wasn't really fun for me to sit on the old couch with the mouse poop while Trill walked around and around in the dark yelling at our mother for leaving. She always told me I had to stay in case our father dropped his cigarette and started a fire. Sometimes I wanted to be the one to walk around outside and yell too, but since Trill was the only one who remembered our mother, it made more sense for her to do that.
The sun was almost down when we got there that day. As soon as he was in his chair, our father told us about the time he had to kill his dog just like the boy from Old Yeller. He told us that story a lot. Then we sat on the floor and ate Pringles and granola bars and I tried to forget about how cold I was. After a while, his eyes started to disappear like they always do and then Trill said we should go sit in the car to warm up. She told me that it was fine this time, that he wouldn't drop his cigarette and start a fire and that we shouldn't have to freeze just because of him. I almost asked her again why she wanted to come. But I didn't.
I guess that's when I fell asleep. Trill was in the driver seat running the car and talking about Ian and I must have closed my eyes because the next thing I remember is seeing Trill through the window of the cabin squeezing a pillow to her stomach and shaking. The clock on the dash said 11:57.
I went inside and Trill looked at me and then we both looked at the chair. It was still and my father's hand was hanging over the edge and his head was folded over onto his chest. Trill looked at me again and then she looked at her watch and told me we should go. That felt like a good idea, so I followed her to the car.
We drove for a while and then Trill started whispering things in the dark. Jude, she said, you're eighteen now. You can do what you want. No one can take you away anymore. You can get your own place and make your own life. She paused and squeezed the steering wheel tighter and leaned forward like she wanted to jump through the windshield. Jude, she whispered even quieter, he disappeared years ago. Everyone's forgotten about him. No one even needs to know.
We drove quietly for a long time after that, and then I told Trill that I still had to pack for Fargo. She squeezed my hand and turned off the gravel road onto the big highway.
Happy birthday, she whispered.
© 2022 Shirley Hay