You Are Here by Jennifer E. Smith Page A

town,” Dad was saying now. “Your mother grew up in this town. She loved this place. And it’s not good enough for you ?”
    He flicked a hand through the air as if to swat at a fly, but Peter just stood there, stunned and reeling. It felt like a betrayal of some kind, bringing up his mother in the midst of an argument like this, and it caught him completely off balance.
    For as long as Peter could remember, Dad had held onto his grief with a silent and stoic determination, retaining a sorrowful monopoly on all those things that mattered, stories and memories and pictures. Because of this, Peter knew astonishingly little about his mother.
    When he was younger, he used to make an effort, a kind of pitiful doggedness to his attempts. At dinner Dad would pass him a casserole dish of green beans, and Peter would immediately demand to know whether his mother had liked them.
    “No,” Dad would answer shortly, grabbing for the salt. The same held true for carrots and potatoes, chicken and steak, apples and bananas, until Peter began to wonder if his mom had eaten anything at all. If he were to believe his father, she didn’t like sprinkles on her ice cream or dressing on her salad. She didn’t like mittens or porches, Christmas trees or the ballet, teddy bears or fresh snow. Each of his questions was always punctuated by a short “no,” and once he was old enough to understand that his mother probably had liked things like soap and flowers and socks—that his father’s answers had simply become a habit, a reflex as rote as saying “bless you” after someone sneezes—he stopped asking altogether.
    He couldn’t help feeling sometimes like he wasn’t entitled to the same kind of sadness as Dad, who had known her and loved her and laughed with her, who must have seen her make a sandwich and fly a kite and bite her fingernails and cry at the movies. He’d been witness to all those things that made her who she was, and he seemed to have decided somewhere along the way that all this was his alone to bear.
    And so now all Peter could do was stare at him, angry that he’d invoked her name like that, sharply and carelessly, throwing it at Peter like a weapon he’d been storing away. It took him a moment to collect himself enough to respond.
    “Then why do you even want me here?” he said eventually, before good sense could step in and give him a chance to turn around, to walk away, to keep his mouth shut. “If you really think that’s how I am, then why do you try so hard to keep me here? Why do you make me feel so guilty about wanting to leave?”
    Dad leaned against the desk and gave Peter a wounded look, causing him to falter and fall silent. When he spoke again, his words were quieter, more restrained.
    “I’m here now, and we mostly just ignore each other anyway,” Peter said, his face hot with guilt or regret or maybe both. “So what’s the point?”
    They stared at each other—each looking surprised to have stumbled into such foreign territory and found the other there too—and Peter thought to say more. But he wasn’t sure what was left, and before he had a chance to do anything else, Dad lowered his head and scratched at the back of his neck and grunted. It was hard to tell if he was hurt or angry or upset, and Peter thought it was probably all of these things and more.
    From downstairs they could hear Dad’s buddies laughing loudly over something in the kitchen. Peter took a small step sideways, leaving the doorway clear, and without another word—without even looking at him—Dad walked straight past him and out of the room, moving heavily down the stairs.
    As soon as he was gone, Peter sank down on his bed and rubbed his eyes. His back and shoulders ached as if they’d been throwing actual punches, not just verbal ones. He felt drained and exhausted, but also strangely relieved, like he’d been holding his breath for years and could now finally exhale.
    Near his foot was a map of Gettysburg, and