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laughed.
    Eventually, Claude became such a drag that even Beau admitted it was time to go home. Just as we got back, my dad appeared—with Cora. “Hi, guys,” Dad called. He was carrying two big bags.
    Beau and I said hello.
    “We brought Chinese, Big Guy,” Dad said, handing me a bag to hold while he got out his key.
    Then Cora put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry about your dog, John.” Dad had his back to me, unlocking the door. Beau shuffled his feet.
    So, I thought, Dad
did
know about Ditz. He’d just been too chicken to tell me himself. And
now
he was too chicken to face me alone. I shoved the bag into Cora’s hands and stooped for a fistful of gravel to hurl off the balcony. I threw it as hard as I could. Cora followed Dad inside.
    “So you gotta go now?” Beau asked.
    I shrugged. I didn’t want to go in there.
    “Guess me and Claude’ll go tell His Ugliness that you know Carter.” Beau snickered. “He’ll croak!”
    Claude giggled. “Uggiess oak!”
    It seemed the food had gotten cold on the way home, so Cora was in the kitchen heating it up. Dad had the TV on, of course. Over its babble, he said, “Sorry I lost my temper back there, Big Guy. It was a rough day.”
    His
was a rough day?
    I went into the guest room and called home. Liz told me they had decided to have Ditz cremated and to spread her ashes around the backyard. “Do you want us to wait till you get home? Have a memorial service together?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “You want to think about it a while?”
    How would I think about
that
? “I never should’ve left her,” I said.
    “Left Ditz?” Liz asked.
    I grunted.
    “You blaming yourself?” she asked.
    I grunted again.
    “Well, don’t. You wanna blame someone, blame me. I was there.”
    She didn’t get it.
    “Listen,” Liz whispered, so I figured Mom had come into the room. “Forget guilt. Grief is bad enough.” Then in her regular voice she said, “Here’s Mom.”
    “I miss you,” was my mother’s hello. “Isn’t it time to come home yet?”
    “Almost,” I said.
    “Have you been okay?” That was her worried-about-my-asthma voice.
    I heard Liz in the background say, “
Mom!
Give the kid a break!” Then she grabbed the phone back and asked, “How’s the Phantom?”
    I laughed. “Same.”
    “Maybe he can’t help it,” Liz said. “I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe he
wants
to be a good father but he’s just entirely clueless. That’s what Jet thinks, anyway.”
    “Dad didn’t tell me about Ditz,” I whispered. “He knew but he didn’t say anything.”
    Liz sighed. “Maybe he couldn’t think what to say. I know that sounds totally lame—no one
ever
knows what to say, and they just go ahead and say something anyway. But still, maybe Dad’s just, I don’t know, scared of you. Of us. Of doing the wrong thing. Of being a crummy father.”
    “Huh?”
    Then Liz said, “
Ooops!
Jet’s here!” and I heard the clunk of the receiver being dropped on the kitchen counter. I pictured Jet. He was so tall, he practically had to bend his shaved head to walk through our door.
    “Johnny?” It was Mom again. “Sweetheart? Are you all right?” This was her worried-about-my-happiness voice. She had a range of worry tones.
    “I’m fine, Mom,” I said, missing everything about home, but letting my voice sound more annoyed than I felt.
    We sat around the table and ate the Chinese food with the TV on. I was thinking about Liz, wondering if she felt bad for not coming to California. At least that would explain why she’d said all that junk about Dad wanting to be a good father but not knowing how, or whatever.
    Meanwhile Cora was going on and on about a cat she’d had that died. I didn’t listen too closely.
    Then Dad said a guy he’d seen that day believed that dogs are reincarnated into good solid trucks. Dad laughed, saying the guy was convinced that his Mitsubishi had the soul of his old boxer, Bub.
    So he’d talked