Part 1

Song accompaniment: How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm, Andrew Bird

Christine woke to a strange ringing sound coming from the other side of the room. Sitting up slowly, she realized the noise was coming from her cellphone, which she had placed as far away from herself as possible so that she'd be forced to physically get up when the phone's alarm went off. She swung her legs over the edge of her lofted bed and jumped to the ground, gasping in shock as her bare feet hit the ice cold floor—Housing had not turned the heat on in the dorms yet. She found her phone resting on top of a pile of books on child development and picked it up, more to see who had dared to interrupt her sleep than to actually answer the call. When she saw, "Dad" flash across the screen, however, she picked up immediately, wondering what could be wrong to make him call so early.

"…it seems like you're busy." Her father was already in the process of leaving a voicemail.

"No, I'm here," she said.

"Oh, Chrissy, hi." He sounded surprised to hear her voice, as if he hadn't been the one to call her.

"What's going on? Is anything wrong?"

"I'm sorry," her father said, still sounding surprised to actually be speaking to her. "I'm about to go into work and thought I'd call. Did I wake you?"

"Yeah," Christine said, stifling a yawn. "But that's ok. If you're already at work, I should probably be up anyway."

"I was thinking that too."

Christine rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Dad."

"You said it first."

"Yeah, well, I was up late doing homework and I don't have class until noon, so—"

"If you don't have class until noon, why don't you just wake up earlier to finish your work?" He was starting to sound more confident, more like the cocky, annoying dad who used to lecture her on how everyone could and should be a morning person if they just approached their lives with more discipline.

"Did you call to chastise me?" Christine asked. "Or do you have some other purpose?"

"I just wanted to check in. See how you're doing."

"I'm tired."

"Right. So, how are your classes going?"

"Good. Or, well," Christine corrected herself. She had just started student teaching and thought she should be modeling correct grammar for her students, making her more careful about her grammatical usage in all contexts. "They're going well. They're a lot of work, but I like them."

"That's good," her father said as if he were not really listening.

"You sound weird, Dad. Is everything ok?"

"Everything's fine."

"Is something going on with Carl? Do you need me to come home?"

"No, Chrissy, calm down. Everything's fine here."

"Then why are you calling me so early?"

"For starters, it's not that early. And I'm just calling to say hi. I do that sometimes."

"Yeah, but both you and Mom call and you're not so… weird," Christine said. "Oh my god, is Mom ok?"

Her father took an uncomfortably long time to answer. "Yep. Yeah. Mom's fine."

"You'd tell me if she wasn't?"

"I would. Listen, Chrissy, how are you friends? How's Melanie?"

"What's going on, Dad?"

"What's going on with you? Why are you so worried?"

Christine was always a little worried—about how Carl was doing without her home to teach him all the important things their parents weren't, about how her parents were doing without her to help mediate the tension that had been building between them over the past few years, about how the family's financial situation was faring after two years of paying for her college. She also thought that everyone should be worried at the moment. Stories about a particularly strong strain of flu were being reported in the newspapers and on the radio. There were already twenty deaths attributed to it and the autopsies of the victims had been revealing unusual things. Or something like that. The reports on the autopsy results had been murky. Christine decided not to discuss any of this with her father. She was still suspicious and didn't want to give him the chance to change the subject.

"Because you never call me like this," she said.

Her father sighed. "Ok. Your mom and I had a bit of a fight this morning. And last night. I wasn't going to tell you, but since I don't want you to worry."

Christine was relieved. This had been one of her more mundane, less troublesome worries. She was used to Rick and Lori fighting, not all the time by any means, but occasionally. It was cyclical, usually coming at some transition point in their lives, something that made her mother feel stagnant by comparison. Rick and Lori had been fighting off and on ever since Christine left home to attend college in Maine.

"Oh," Christine said. "Ok. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put this on you. And I don't want you to worry about us or be mad at your mom or anything. I just wanted to talk to someone this morning, someone other than Shane."

"'Cause Shane's an idiot."

"Shane is not an idiot," her father said. "He's known you since you were a baby."

"Those two things are in no way related."

Christine could practically see her father reaching his fingers up to the bridge of his nose, a familiar sign of exasperation. "I just think that you should have more respect for him. He's yours and Carl's godfather."

"That is not a choice I made."

"I know that and, believe me, if I had known how strongly you were going to feel about it—and how strongly you were going to make those feelings known—I would have consulted you first. It would have saved me a lot of trouble."

Christine thought she could hear a smile hiding in between her father's words.

"So," she said. "Am I making you feel better? Giving you a different target to be annoyed with?"

"I'm not annoyed with Mom. I'm just confused."

"What are you confused about?"

"Oh, no. I didn't mean to bring this up with you."

"Yeah, but you did. You don't have to feel bad about it either. I practically made you tell me. So, you might as well tell me everything."

Christine's father never wanted to involve her in his marital troubles but he always seemed to anyway. Christine didn't mind. It made her feel useful. She was never too concerned about her parents divorcing or anything like that. Perhaps she was naïve, but she thought they loved each other too much for that. They had also been married for so long, at such a young age, that she didn't think not being married would even occur to them, whether it were the right thing or not.

"Well," her father said. "I think Mom's pretty annoyed with me right now. And I don't understand why."

"Have you asked her?"

"I can't just ask her."

"Why not?"

"That would just make her more angry."

"If something like that makes her angry, that's her problem."

"This is what I was trying to avoid. I don't want you to be mad at Mom."

"I'm not. I'm just giving you advice."

"She keeps saying that she wants me to communicate more."

"That makes sense."

Christine's father was far from the most talkative person in the world. Christine thought it had to do with being friends with Shane his whole life. Shane never had much to say, but he talked plenty, enough for both of them.

"Right," her father said. "When I try to communicate, though, everything I say makes her angry."

"And that must leave you feeling hesitant to say anything because you don't know what to expect."

"Exactly."

"I think you should tell her that."

"I can't tell her that."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. It sounds a little… weak."

"Maybe," Christine ventured. "Maybe, she's annoyed because you're not willing to be vulnerable with her."

"Why would she want that?"

"I dunno. It builds trust and stuff like that. I feel like men always think that women want them to be strong but that's not what women want all the time. Or, I mean, what would I know, but I don't think it is." Christine heard her father hold his breath for a moment when she said, "What would I know." It was as if he were expecting her to say something else. He knew she had never dated a guy before. And he knew she spend Thanksgivings and other short breaks with her "friend," Melanie. He didn't know that she had been dating Melanie for over a year, or at least, he never acknowledged knowing it. Lately, Christine thought he did know. "Sometimes," she continued. "Women want men to be really emotionally honest, even if it makes them feel vulnerable."

"I'll think about that."

"Yeah. You should. By the way, I think I should mention that Shane would never give you advice this good."

"Probably not. You're very wise, Chrissy."

"I can't tell if you're making fun of me or not."

"I'm not. I mean it. I'm embarrassed to have a daughter who's so much smarter than me."

"I don't think I am," Christine said.

As a child, she had always believed her father knew everything. As she grew up, she realized this wasn't true, but she still thought he was one of the most intelligent people she had ever met. When she was four, he had built her a bike from spare parts lying around his parents' garage and, when she had been too scared to ride it, he had affixed a tube to the handlebars and told her that as long as she ate her vegetables every meal and could prove it by blowing into the tube—he was studying at the policy academy and had brought home a breathalyzer to show Christine, so she was familiar with the concept—the bike would stay upright no matter what. He said that vegetables fueled bikes just as much as they fueled people and Christine still thought about this every time she ate asparagus, her least favorite vegetable. Thinking about it now, Christine realized that her father must have been twenty at the time, her age currently.

"Listen," her father said. "I don't want this call to be all about me. I read your paper on identity formation in toddlers."

"Oh?" Christine asked. When she was in high school, she had given her papers to both her parents to look over. Her mother's comments had always been more helpful, but, since moving away to school, she had only continued sending papers to her father, using his work email. She didn't really need his help anymore, but she liked how impressed he always was. For some reason, she never thought her mother would feel quite the same. Her mother hadn't gone to college, even though it was generally expected that everyone in her family would. She might have had some good notes on this paper, but Christine hadn't been willing to send it to her and find out. She didn't expect her father to have much to say about it—just like she wouldn't have had much to say about criminology—but she still wanted to know if he liked it.

"It was good," he said. "Really good. I think you could get it published."

"I'm not sure that's true."

"Don't sell yourself short. Anyway, I've got to go, but it was good talking to you. Sorry I told you about Mom and me."

"I don't mind."

"Well, I mind, but I guess what's done is done. And it was helpful."

"I'm glad."

"Ok, Shane's knocking on my window. Bye."

"Bye."

Christine smiled. She was glad her father hadn't been calling about the killer flu and she was sure he and Lori would work out whatever was really bothering them—or, what was really bothering Lori. Christine hoped she was of some help on this front. She knew her birth had messed a lot of things up for them and she liked being of use whenever possible. Her mother had always insisted on calling her "a beautiful surprise," but Christine knew she was really an "accident" and if she was going to be an accident, she'd at least like to be one of those happy ones.

Christine lay back down, intending to sleep for the hour she still had left until she saw a text from Melanie: "Pancakes at my place. Be there or be single." As she got dressed, she received a second message: "Second part's a joke, but the pancakes are dead serious."

When Christine arrived at Melanie's house, the kitchen was a mess, with batter dappling the walls like a Jackson Pollock painting. On the kitchen table, however, was a pristine stack of pancakes.

"I didn't actually expect you to come," Melanie said. "I thought you'd still be asleep."

"My dad called this morning and woke me up."

"What was he calling about?"

Christine hesitated. Since her family knew very little about Melanie, Christine didn't think it was fair to tell Melanie too much about them. The secrecy was probably unnecessary on both sides, but at least it was equitable.

"Just dad stuff," she said.

A week later, Christine awoke to a call from her mother.

"Got time to talk?"

"Sure," Christine said, knowing where this was going and finding her mother's tone a bit more ominous than her father's had been.

"I think I really messed up."

"How?" Christine asked. She hoped there wasn't an edge in her voice, even though she was feeling fairly on edge. She appreciated that her father at least kept up the pretense of not wanting to foist his baggage upon her. Her mother had never tried to pretend as much.

"I was pretty cruel to your father this morning."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He just makes me so mad, you know?"

"Because he doesn't talk enough?"

"No, because he's just so… content. Like everything in life turned out the way he wanted it to and he doesn't understand how I could feel any different."

Christine nodded even though she knew her mother couldn't see her. After Christine was born, her father had managed to achieve almost everything he wanted to, just at a different pace than he had originally planned. Her mother had not and Christine had always understood this in a way her father didn't—or so it seemed to her. Maybe it had something to do with being a woman.

"That would be frustrating," Christine said. Her voice was cold and flat but her mother didn't seem to notice.

"It is," she said. "Because I'm not content, you know?"

Christine did know but chose not to respond. She wondered if her mother realized that she was talking to the main source of her discontent, the disruptor of all her grand plans.

"I think the problems is that we got married so young," her mother continued.

"Right. Well, sorry about that."

"Oh, Christine, you know I didn't mean it that way."

Her mother's tone was so flippant, so unconcerned about what she had just said to her daughter. Christine felt her jaw clench tightly, involuntarily. Then she opened her mouth to speak.

"Then how did you mean it? Jesus Christ. At least when Dad calls he has the decency to pretend like I didn't complete ruin your lives."

"Your dad's been calling?"

Christine clutched the phone so hard she was surprised it didn't snap in half.

"Yes, that's the takeaway from what I just said. Great job, Lori!"

"No, honey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I have to go."

For a few minutes, Christine stared straight ahead, blinking away angry tears. She wanted to scream but didn't. That kind of thing did not go over well in a dorm. Still, she wanted to rid herself of whatever had just happened in some way. She couldn't tell Melanie what happened, not with her code of equitable withholding of information. She didn't really want to tell any of her other friends either, preferring to keep her college and family spheres separate. She considered calling her father but didn't want to fan the flames any further. It sounded like most of Lori and Rick's fights thus far had consisted of Lori talking and Rick listening, but she knew that if she told her father about this incident, he would be angry, probably very, and she didn't want Rick and Lori engaging in some sort of mutual shouting match in front of Carl. Eventually, she convinced herself that she was just overreacting. She wasn't a kid anymore. When Christine's mother was her age, she was being regularly chewed out by her mother for various "wrong" choices she had made, the biggest one being getting pregnant with Christine. Christine figured she should be grateful that all she had to experience was a little insensitivity now and then.

By noon, she had almost forgotten what had transpired between her and her mother. She was eating lunch with Melanie in the dining hall when she received a call from her father. At first she considered letting it go to voicemail, but she didn't want to have to deal with calling him back and decided to pick up. She apologized to Melanie and walked outside, where the cold had driven everyone away, offering her some privacy.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hey, Chrissy, just calling on my lunch break."

Obviously you're calling me, Christine thought. There's no reason to tell me you're calling me.

"You want to talk about Mom?" she asked.

"What? No. I was just calling to say hi."

Christine was incredulous.

"There's no need to lie," she said. "So, what did you fight about now?"

"Chrissy—"

Before her father could complete his sentence, Christine decided that she didn't want to hear any more from either of her parents, that it was their turn to hear from her.

"Just remember that without the marriage you wouldn't have Carl."

"Chrissy, what are you talking about?"

The fact that her father could pretend he didn't know what she was referring to infuriated Christine. Even more maddening was the possibility that he really might not know.

"I know you're both feeling sorry for yourselves that you had to marry each other so young," she said. "But you should remember that without the marriage, you would have never had Carl."

"Or you."

"No, without me, you wouldn't have the marriage. It's a different thing entirely." Christine paused. "But Carl's worth it, isn't he?"

"You're worth it too."

"Yeah, I'll believe that when the two of you stop calling me to talk about how much you hate each other."

"Chrissy, we don't hate—"

Christine hung up before her father could finish. As the phone vibrated in her hand, she realized he was trying to call her again. She rolled her eyes and shoved the phone into her largest coat pocket. Back in the dining hall, Christine shook her head when Melanie asked about the call and tried to distract her with questions about the exam Melanie had just taken. Melanie looked skeptical but indulged the questions, allowing Christine time to reflect on her conversation with her father. She may have been a little unfair, she realized, without particularly caring.

"Christine," Melanie said, calling her attention back to the present. "I can tell something just happened. What's wrong?"

"I'm fine."

Melanie raised her eyebrows and leaned forward, a signal that she wouldn't give up so easily.

"It's fine, really. Rick and Lori are just being assholes."

"How so?"

"You know, just parent stuff."

"Christine, that could mean anything. It tells me nothing."

"Yeah, I know."

That afternoon, Lori began calling. When Christine refused to pick up, she called again and then again and then again. She sent a text reading: "Call me now." Then, almost as an afterthought: "I'm sorry about earlier." Christine turned her phone over on her desk. When Lori texted again—"Call me. Very important."—Christine turned her phone off.

Gradually, she became engrossed in her reading and jumped when she heard a loud knock at her door. Opening it, she found Melanie standing there, looking worried.

"You need to call your mom," Melanie said, walking past Christine to sit on her bed.

"The hell I do."

"No, Christine, you really need to call her. She called me and left a message and—"

"Unbelievable. Dragging you into this."

"No. You need to call her. There's been some sort of accident. Your dad's been hurt."

Christine felt her heart beating painfully against her ribs. She reached a hand to her chest, expecting it to be tender to the touch, like a bruise. No bruise formed however, which Christine found odd seeing as she was being punched repeatedly from the inside.

"Is he going to be ok?" she asked.

"I don't know," Melanie said. "Why don't you call her? I'll sit here with you while you do."

Christine walked over to the bed, staring at the blank screen of her phone. When she turned it on, message after message appeared out of the darkness. She ignored them as best she could, trying to delay hearing the inevitable for a few more seconds, and dialed her mother's number with shaky hands.