If I Stay

After Mom announced she was pregnant with Teddy, the first sign that changes were afoot was when Dad went and got himself a learner’s permit. At age thirty-three. He tried letting Mom teach him to drive, but she was too impatient, he said. Dad was too sensitive to criticism, Mom said. So Gramps took Dad out along the empty country lanes in his pickup truck, just like he’d done with the rest of Dad’s siblings—except they’d all learned to drive when they were sixteen.

Next up was the wardrobe change, but it wasn’t something any of us noticed right away. It wasn’t like one day he stripped off the tight black jeans and band tees in exchange for suits. It was more subtle. First the band tees went out in the window in favor of button-up 1950s rayon numbers, which he dug up at the Goodwill until they started getting trendy and he had to buy them from the fancy vintage-clothing shop. Then the jeans went in the bin, except for one pair of impeccable, dark blue Levi’s, which Dad ironed and wore on weekends. Most days he wore neat, flat-front cuffed trousers. But when, a few weeks after Teddy was born, Dad gave away his leather jacket—his prized beat-up motorcycle jacket with the fuzzy leopard belt—we finally realized that a major transformation was under way.

“Dude, you cannot be serious,” Henry said when Dad handed him the jacket. “You’ve been wearing this thing since you were a kid. It even smells like you.”

Dad shrugged, ending the conversation. Then he went to pick up Teddy, who was squalling from his bassinet.

A few months later, Dad announced he was leaving the band. Mom told him not to do it for her sake. She said it was okay to keep playing as long as he didn’t take off on monthlong tours, leaving her alone with two kids. Dad said not to worry, he wasn’t quitting for her.

Dad’s other bandmates took his decision in stride, but Henry was devastated. He tried to talk him out of it. Promised they’d only play in town. Wouldn’t have to tour. Ever be gone overnight. “We can even start playing shows in suits. We’ll look like the Rat Pack. Do Sinatra covers. Come on, man,” Henry reasoned.

When Dad refused to reconsider, he and Henry had a huge blowout. Henry was furious with Dad for unilaterally quitting the band, especially since Mom had said he could still play shows. Dad told Henry that he was sorry, but he’d made his decision. By this time, he’d already filled out his applications for grad school. He was going to be a teacher now. No more dicking around. “One day you’ll understand,” Dad told Henry.

“The fuck I will,” Henry shot back.

Henry didn’t speak to Dad for a few months after that. Willow would drop by from time to time, to play peace-maker. She’d explain to Dad that Henry was just sorting some stuff out. “Give him time,” she said, and Dad would pretend to not be hurt. Then she and Mom would drink coffee in the kitchen and exchange knowing smiles that seemed to say: Men are such boys.

Henry eventually resurfaced, but he didn’t apologize to Dad, not right away, anyhow. Years later, shortly after his daughter was born, Henry called our house one night in tears. “I get it now,” he told Dad.

Strangely enough, in some ways Gramps seemed as upset with Dad’s metamorphosis as Henry had been. You would have thought he would love the new Dad. On the surface, he and Gran seem so old-school, it’s like a time warp. They don’t use computers or watch cable TV, and they never curse and have this thing about them that makes you want to be polite. Mom, who swore like a prison guard, never cursed around Gran and Gramps. It was like no one wanted to disappoint them.

Gran got a kick out of Dad’s stylistic transformation. “Had I known that all that stuff was going to come back in style, I would’ve saved Gramps’s old suits,” Gran said one Sunday afternoon when we’d stopped by for lunch and Dad pulled off a trench coat to reveal a pair of wool gabardine trousers and a 1950s cardigan.

“It hasn’t come back into style. Punk has come into style, so I think this is your son’s way of rebelling all over again,” Mom said with a smirk. “Whose daddy’s a rebel? Is your daddy a rebel?” Mom baby-talked as Teddy gurgled in delight.

“Well, he sure does look dapper,” Gran said. “Don’t you think?” she said, turning to Gramps.

Gramps shrugged. “He always looks good to me. All my children and grandchildren do.” But he looked pained as he said it.

Later that afternoon, I went outside with Gramps to help him collect firewood. He needed to split some more logs, so I watched him take an ax to a bunch of dried alder.

“Gramps, don’t you like Dad’s new clothes?” I asked.

Gramps halted the ax in midair. Then he set it down gently next to the bench I was sitting on. “I like his clothes just fine, Mia,” he said.

“But you looked so sad in there when Gran was talking about it.”

Gramps shook his head. “Don’t miss a thing, do you? Even at ten years old.”

“It’s not easy to miss. When you feel sad, you look sad.”