Real Life by Kitty Burns Florey

slowly, saying, “Ooh—oh, my God,” their laughter bubbling up and then subsiding and coming again and, finally, with deep sighs, ceasing.
    Hugo heard them pass the joint again, heard their breath stop and then start with a whoosh. Rose said, “You be careful at your goddamn job, Phinny. You joke too much. You’re too reckless.”
    â€œI can take care of myself,” his father said. “Just tell me what about the kid.”
    â€œHe can stay here. Permanently, I mean. What’s one more?”
    His father let out a sigh. “That’s a load off my mind.”
    They said some more things. Rose said, “As long as you come and see him. You know he’s crazy about you.”
    His father said, “I love the little guy, Rose.”
    Rose said, “He’s a good boy. I wish mine were more like him.”
    But Hugo didn’t listen very hard. He knew all that, what was said and what was left out. He knew Rose liked having him there; he knew she even loved him, probably, better than her own children; he knew his father loved him; he knew too that Rose loved his father, that his visits made her happy—she hummed and sang for days before his father arrived and cried after he left. He knew too that all this love being passed back and forth amounted, somehow, to emptiness.
    His father said, “I’m proud of the kid, Rose.” But Hugo knew that too. His father had made a fuss over his last report card—took him out to McDonald’s for supper and gave him five dollars, and when Shane forced him to hand over two his father made Shane give it back. Called Shane a little shit. He knew his father was proud of his schoolwork—stupid schoolwork, any dope could do it, except Shane and Monty, who always flunked everything. Hugo knew he was smart, and that his father liked it that he was. Big deal.
    What he hadn’t known was that his long dream of being with his father—forever, together, permanently—wouldn’t come true. He had thought staying with Rose was like (she was sending him to a Catholic school) purgatory, where you waited to get into heaven. A better purgatory than the one waiting up in the sky (or someplace), which was just like hell but not permanent like hell. There was Rose, whom he loved, and Starr, whom he usually loved. And Tiger the dog. And Shane and Monty, who could be nice once in a while, and then they all had fun together. But it was purgatory all the same because heaven wouldn’t be until he went to live with his father. And now there would be no heaven. There would only be these visits.
    Hugo sat on the step and tried to make it better. Maybe his father would visit more often, at least, and stay longer. Maybe he would even take him on trips, like the one to New Jersey. That had been years ago but maybe now that it was settled, the load off his father’s mind, maybe there would be more, the two of them going off in the car together: small heavens because there definitely wasn’t going to be a big one. And maybe it wasn’t as definite as it sounded. Maybe his father’s job that they thought was so funny wouldn’t work out. Other jobs hadn’t worked out. Maybe then his father would get a job where it didn’t matter if you had a kid dragging at your heels, like he could be a carpenter or a bricklayer and Hugo could hand him tools and pack the lunch box.
    The voices inside were silent. Rodney stopped crying. The locusts sang sizizz, sizizz, sizizz . Tiger the dog came running up the driveway from whatever he’d been doing in the woods, and flopped down on the step beside Hugo. Hugo imagined his father and Rose sitting on the sofa together, dozing, leaning against each other. He would go in, eventually, and sit there with them until they woke up and then he would help Rose get supper. He wondered if his father would leave after supper or stay all night, if they would go for a walk before it got dark,