The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [117]
As if reminding the crowd of the reason for their attendance, the rear half of the house began to cave in, and Buster used this distraction to run after his parents. It was hard to see where he was going, and he was careful not to damage the camera, so expensive that his father made him name it (Carl), so he would treat it more carefully. He felt like he was perhaps running in the entirely wrong direction. He felt like perhaps his parents were also running in the wrong direction, smoke-drunk as they were. He knew this period of time well, the space between the event and when the family could safely reunite. However, this time, Annie was not with him. He was alone. His parents were together, but he was alone. He stopped, took a picture of the darkness, and then followed his instincts back to the van.
When he finally made it, his parents were waiting for him. They sat in the backseat of the van, the door open, each of them inspecting the angry pink marks on their bodies, rapidly swelling. They waved him over and he took a picture of them. “Here’s the deal, Buster,” his father began. “If someone tells you something is fireproof, what they really mean is fire-lessening. It still burns like a son of a bitch.”
“It looked really great,” Buster assured them. His father nodded in agreement, but his mother offered up a weak smile. “When you came through the woods just then,” she said to Buster, “I thought Annie was going to be right behind you.”
Buster focused on his mother, who winced in pain as she shifted her weight. The air smelled of burned hair. “I miss her too,” he said.
His mother gestured for him to come closer and then she hugged him. These were rare moments, and Buster did not let anything distract him from how wonderful it felt to share the same emotion with his mother, even if it was sadness. And then his mother began to sob. “It’s not the same, is it?” she asked.
“Camille,” his father said, but he did not continue when he saw the awful look on his wife’s face, the look of someone holding on to the edge of a cliff, knowing they are about to let go.
“The whole reason we did this was so that we could still be a family. We could create these beautiful, fucked-up things and we could do it together. Your father and I made you and your sister and then the four of us made these things. For her to not be here, I don’t know, I feel like whatever we make from here on out will be lacking. It will be missing something essential.”
Buster’s father leaned in close to the both of them. “We knew this was going to happen at some point. Either we would die or the kids would leave, but it couldn’t always be the four of us. We just have to adapt. Our art will evolve. It will become something different, something better.”
“Don’t say that,” his mother said.
“Not better, okay, that was a poor choice of words. But still rewarding.”
“I don’t know if I can keep doing this without you two,” his mother said to Buster. “I don’t know if I want to.”
Buster hugged his mother again and then said, “It’s just temporary.”
“Is that how I should think of it?” she asked him.
“We’ll go away, and then we’ll come back and it’ll be better because Annie and I will know more about what we can do, how we can help you guys.”
“You’ll come back,” his mother said.
“We’ll have to teach you all over again,” his father said.
“And then we’ll make something wonderful,” Buster said.
His mother stopped crying and stroked Buster’s cheek. “I know that’s not true,” she said, “but let’s pretend for now.”
Chapter Twelve
Having finally accepted their parents’ death, Annie and Buster were surprised to find the process of grieving to be so ordinary, so boring. Without a funeral, which they agreed was a terrible idea, there seemed no concrete way to mourn.