Turk is snoring on the living room couch, and even though I don’t hear any other creatures stirring, I go into my dad’s room. He’s sleeping. I stand and watch, and then I find myself looking for glasses and bottles, which is kind of terrible. I know he’s going to a meeting today, but part of me is worried that the conversation with Turk was too much for him, and he must have snuck a drink.

“What are you doing?” he groans when he opens his eyes and sees me on all fours, peering under his bed.

“Nothing,” I say, standing up. “Sorry.”

“I guess I can’t blame you,” he says. “But no. No booze. I promise.”

I sit on his bed next to him. The sheets are a bit sweaty, and he feels warm.

He yawns audibly. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I just …”

My brain and my heart are full. It feels like I could open my mouth and everything I ever held in there could come out, jokes or yells or tears or who knows what. I don’t know what’s first and what’s last, and I’m tired of trying to control it.

“I miss you,” I blurt. “Goddamn … Not like a week’s worth. Freakin’ … Like years’ worth. Can I just sit here with you for a bit? We don’t have to talk. I just want to be with you.”

A smile pours over his face. “Sure, kiddo. Yeah. That’d be all right.”

I smile back, then I put his hand in mine and I squeeze. I try to squeeze life into it.

“I told you I’d come back,” I say.

“Yup.”

“It was a long trip,” I say. I’m fishing for a compliment, so I stop.

“Thanks,” he says. “If I didn’t say that yet. Thanks.”

“It was nothing.”

“Yeah.” He tickles my palm with his fingers. “Sounds like a whole lot of nothing.”

I want to ask him everything at once. I want to know how he’s feeling, and what’s going through his mind. But he’s staring off into the distance, and sometimes it’s okay to not say anything. No jokes, just being together in the silence.

He finally says, “Thanks for not listening to me and doing what you did. You’re a good son.”

I look at him. His eyes are young like a child’s, and they’re weary like an old man’s, and then he smiles, and his teeth are yellowed in places. I don’t know if he’ll make it to fall, and that’s not something I can deal with. He has to be okay. He just has to. You can’t come back into someone’s life and then die. It’s just not right.

“You’re a … dad,” I say, leaving the “good” part out.

He laughs. It’s good to have someone who shares your blood, who gets your jokes and you don’t have to explain. I’ve missed that in my life. And now, at least for this moment, I don’t have to.

After breakfast, Aisha asks me if I’ll take a ride with her. I know where we’re going. She sits rigid as she drives us up Rimrock Road about a mile and then turns north, up toward the actual rim.

“Here goes everything,” she says.

The house she’s lived in all through high school is tall, thin, and built up into the rocks. It’s elevated a good twenty feet, and we have to climb some stone steps to get to the entrance. There are huge floor-to-ceiling windows on the first and second floors. We stand at the top of the steps and look up at it. The house looms over us, judgmental and stern. I feel really small standing there, and Aisha’s fear radiates off her skin as she tries to catch her breath.

Finally we march up to the bright-red front door.

Her mom answers. She’s a smallish, dark-skinned woman with Aisha’s cheekbones, and she wraps her arms around Aisha and squeezes with all her might. Aisha stands there, arms at her sides, and it’s like the air around us swirls with unsaid stuff.

“This is my friend, Carson,” Aisha says, pulling away, and her mother eyes me. “He’s been putting me up.”

Her mother gulps. “Thank you,” she whispers to me.

“Who is it?” a loud voice booms from above us.

Aisha’s mother jumps a bit. “No one.”

“Mommy!” It’s the youngest I’ve ever heard Aisha sound.

Her mom shakes her head. She puts her finger on Aisha’s lips, and she steps outside and closes the door behind her. “He’s not ready. You know how he is,” she says.

“Well, he needs to get over himself. Or else you’re not gonna be seeing me again.”

“You have to be patient with him. You know your daddy.”

“But —”

Her mother raises a finger, telling us to wait. She scurries inside and returns with a slip of paper, which she hands to Aisha. “I got a second cell. He doesn’t know about this number. You stay in touch with me, hear?”

“Mommy, you gotta —”

“He’s on a rampage,” she says. “Football stuff. This is not the right time.”

And her mother is closing the door on us.

Aisha screams, “Dad!”

Nothing.

“Dad! Get down here, Dad.” Her voice echoes in the canyon beneath the Rim. I hear it reverberate off the rock.

More nothing.

“I know you can hear me. You have to come down. You have to stop this. You don’t come down and that’s it. Hear me? … You’re gonna lose me. Forever. Dad?”

We stand in front of the door for a bit. Then we sit down on the steps, and Aisha puts her head in her hands, and she cries. I hug her and she cries some more, and then I cry too, because Aisha deserves to be celebrated by her dad. She doesn’t deserve to lose her father.

No one deserves that.

When the tears subside, we stand up, and Aisha stares at the door like she’s trying to memorize it, like she’s trying to memorialize the moment. I let her do her thing, and then she clasps my hand and we walk back down the stairs in silence.

When we get down to the bottom, she glances back at the house. We both look up, and there, standing against the floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor, is a huge, bald black man with his large arms crossed against his chest.

Aisha raises her hand to him.

He doesn’t move. I feel my heart crack.

Then he slowly uncrosses his arms, and he raises a hand back to her and places it against the glass window, and Aisha makes a noise I’ve never heard before, like a squeaky bleat, and she bounds up the stairs. Her dad disappears from the window. From a distance, I watch as the door opens, and he grabs her in his arms and lifts and hugs her, and he swings her around.

I can’t hear the words. Standing there, I realize that I may never get to know what the words are. I’m the sidekick, and this is her moment. They talk for a bit, and Aisha’s dad crosses his huge arms again and Aisha motions wildly with hers while she says whatever she says. Then she leans in and listens to him as he says whatever.

She rises onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and he puts his face in his hands and his body begins to convulse. He turns away from her, shaking, and Aisha watches, her hands on her hips.

He turns back and gently kisses her on the cheek, then he hides his face again and walks inside. Aisha is left standing alone, in front of the red door.

Just as I’m deciding to go to her, she comes walking down the stairs. I see her eyes are wet and glassy. I give her a big hug, and then we get in the car and drive off.

“Well, I suppose it’s better to know” is all she says.

Aisha takes a grief nap when we get back, and I tell my mom what happened. She listens with her hands holding her head like a vice, like she’s trying to keep her skull from exploding.

“Where will Aisha stay when we go back to New York?” my mother asks.

I shake my head. I can’t even think about that. If we go back, does that mean Dad is dead? Could he come with us? Too many variables, too many things I don’t want to imagine.