After two weeks, Evan and I are in a solid routine. It starts with Santa Barbara. I take some pride that the show’s stylists—who, we were alerted today, won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for Hairstyling—do Eden’s hair like I do mine: a good solid hit of spray on the hair over the ears to keep it high off the cheeks, another blast to elevate the bangs. The rest is loose and natural. (Some part of your hair needs to move when you walk, or you look like an ass.)
“I reckon that’s it,” Evan says as today’s episode wraps. “Hey, you haven’t seen any hiking boots around here, have you?”
“No, sorry. John gets home in a couple hours—”
“John won’t know. I’m not John’s … problem.”
“Maybe Pop?”
On cue, Pop appears. “Look by the back door,” he says, handing Evan a pile of clean clothes: a folded scarf, a blue shirt with badges and epaulettes, a pair of wool socks with a red stripe, some yellowing cotton briefs that I wish I hadn’t seen. “I’ll have another load ready this afternoon,” Pop reports. I can’t help thinking about Greenie, who is the only other person I know who manages the laundry with this sort of devotional fervor. I don’t know how it started, but by the time I was old enough to notice, my dad did a load a day, folding it in front of whatever Eagles, Flyers, or 76ers game was on TV. Sometimes, when the hamper was light, my mother would lean in my bedroom door and ask, with a genuine plea in her voice, “Do you have any clothes for your father? A towel? He’s dying to do a load.” She always said that a man needs a way to feel important around the house. I guess everyone already knows that mothers are irreplaceable.
“Thanks, Pop. Just in time,” Evan says.
Pop smiles, gratified. “Well, you have your jamboree this weekend, right?”
“Quest. Right. Thanks.”
While Evan takes his clothes out to his room, I flip through a booklet he left by the TV and realize that Evan is a Boy Scout. In Australia, it’s called Rovers, but I can tell by the photos in this booklet that it’s Scouting. Based on the chart, it looks like Evan is some kind of super Rover, like an Eagle Scout, which contradicts the image I’ve developed of him as lost and underemployed but clever enough to tackle a transmission. EACH INDIVIDUAL IS THE PRINCIPAL AGENT IN HIS OWN DEVELOPMENT, it says in bold letters across the bottom of every page. In the winter, there’s something called Snow Moot. In the spring, Mudbash. What if he wants to show me his photos from Snow Moot ’91? What if he asks me to be his date for Mudbash ’92?
Back in my room, where it’s dark enough to pass for midnight, I use a wood pole to push up the plywood that covers the skylight, wincing as I wiggle the board loose. Eventually, it sticks in place, letting the light fill the room. I stand back, thinking there must be a better way, something safer and more permanent … magnets, hinges, a hook. I add this to a list of Improvements to the Tanners that I’ve started in my journal.
Hem Milly’s nightgown
Clean living room walls
Spot-clean velvet armchairs
Secure skylight cover
Forget Evan
By which I mean Don’t get sucked in. Fix what you can and get back out there to the distant shores.