you get the money?” I protested, but they ignored me.
“No more Cowboy Bob,” Devon said. He tugged me down on the bed, and I let them pull off my socks, though I pretended to struggle when they tugged at my jeans. They had me stand in my boxers so I could try on two pairs of baggy shorts that reached below my knees.
“Volcom,” Ray said.
“Sounds like a planet,” I said, though I knew it was surfwear. I couldn’t help smiling.
“Pull them down low,” Devon said, “like this. Show the top of your boxers.”
As if I didn’t know the style.
“I got you some new boxers with little surfer men,” Isa said with a friendly laugh. “But you have to try those on yourself.”
“These shorts are way too big,” I complained.
“They’re perfect,” Isa said.
They showed me how I could fit Charlie, folded, into the wide pockets of the shorts, though he protruded out the top. They had me sit on the bed so they could put sandals on my feet.
“Huaraches,” Ray said.
“They’re Mexican,” Patrick said.
“Warachas,” I said.
“Huaraches,” Ray corrected.
Devon put a cheap straw fedora on my head that was a touch big. I pulled the front brim down to hide my scar, and he lifted it back up, at an angle.
“There,” he said. “That looks better.”
I pulled it back down.
I grew up wearing Western gear in Colorado. I gave it up for army boots and black shirts when I started smoking weed in high school. About two years ago, when Dad bailed me out of jail in San Francisco, he didn’t lecture me about how bad I smelled or how skinny I was. He didn’t ask how I’d sunk so low so fast. We didn’t talk about what drugs I’d used or how long I’d been on the streets. He didn’t know how to talk about that stuff. He called ahead and got me into Channel House in Burbank. When he drove me down from San Francisco, we stopped along the way and he bought new clothes for me: cowboy boots and hat, as if I were still in middle school.
In my cramped room, I turned around in my new clothes and walked a few paces, feeling exposed without my Western boots, my toes unprotected from chair legs. And I missed my Bandit with its stiff Cattleman crown; I hated bumping my head. But my new clothes were cooler and more comfortable. I held up my arms and stamped my feet. I liked the feel.
“He looks like a tourist,” Isa said, laughing.
“We should have gotten you Ray-Bans,” Devon said. “You still look like a geek in those big glasses.”
I smiled. “I don’t know what to say,” I said. “Thank you.”
“And this just came,” Isa said. “It’s from your parents.” Ray helped me open the box. We reached in and pulled away the Styrofoam.
“What the hell is that?” Patrick said.
It was a Braille note-taker. Small, compact, perfect. Shaped like a large book but much lighter. Not quite as long as a regular keyboard. For almost a year, I’d been trying to convince my parents to buy me one from my own account; they cost over four thousand bucks. There were eight keys on top, plus a spacebar and some function keys. Along the front, beneath my wrists as I rested my fingers on the keyboard, was a one-line display where refreshable Braille dots would pop up in a row so that I could read what my fingers had just keyed in. No monitor needed. For the first time in my life, I could take notes without turning on a laptop. I could write from and edit my notes. I could read quietly. I could feel every comma and punctuation mark.
“I spoke with your mom a few weeks ago,” Isa said. “I told her this was the one you wanted.”
The irony suddenly overwhelmed me. To receive this—after losing my job as a reporter, after being rejected as a freelancer—was too much. I had to turn away—not to hide my scar but to wipe my face.
“Tell him,” Ray said, excited. I pulled Ray to me and hugged him.
“We want you to come to Florida,” Isa said.
Not a chance, I thought. No way.
“We know about your job,” she said. “There’s no reason for you to stay.”
I was pissed suddenly—that they’d pried into my life. What right did they have? And I was insulted that they’d kept their snooping from me.
“I saw you hanging out on Sunset with those bums,” Patrick said.
“I wasn’t hanging out,” I said. “That’s my beat!”
“I called the paper,” Isa said. “They said you didn’t work there anymore.”
“Come on,” Ray said.
“I’ll go if you go,” Devon said.
Isa sat on the bed and hugged me, but I wasn’t pulled in. Where would I sit in the car—in the backseat with the kids? What if I sat next to Isa all day, feeling her thigh against mine, her hand on my leg, with all of them in the car? I imagined Patrick always controlling where we stopped, what we ate, and when we went to the bathroom. “I need some downtime,” I said. “This’ll be a good trip for the four of you.”
“I ain’t going, then,” Devon said. “You already know what I’m going to do. Just don’t be surprised.”
“Let’s eat,” Patrick said, ignoring him.
“You’re coming!” Isa said. “We’re not leaving without you.”
They paraded me to the kitchen, where Patrick served my favorite meal, chicken and yellow rice, which made me imagine Mom back in Colorado; she always gave me an early taste on a hot wooden spoon.
“I’m starving,” Devon said. He was always eating; he’d grown three inches in his nine months with us.
We dipped our heads as Isa thanked Jesus for the food we were about to eat and for keeping Daddy well in Florida until she got there in time to save him, please Lord, as he’d saved her so many times, amen.
All through dinner, Ray asked questions about the trip. Patrick described cactus standing like sentries in Arizona. Thunderstorms rolling across New Mexico mesas. The friendly people in Louisiana. The unhurried sweep of the Mississippi.
“What about Texas?” I said. As a kid, I’d had a wooden puzzle of all the states. I could name the capital of each one.
“And Alabama,” Isa said. I’d forgotten that Alabama touched the Gulf.
“We’re going to blast through Texas at night,” Patrick said. “You won’t even see it.”
“Wait until you float in the Gulf in Pensacola,” Isa said. “There’s so much salt it holds you up like a cork. And it’s so warm, when you float in that water, it’s like the womb again. Everything feels right.”
Her eagerness surprised me; she hated the beach in California, claimed the water was too cold.
“Of course it feels like a womb,” Patrick said. “It’s where you were born.”
“She was born in the Gulf?” Devon quipped.
“We’re all born in a gulf,” Patrick said.
He brought out homemade chocolate mousse for dessert, with three candles that I had to blow out before they sank.
The chocolate astonished my mouth.
“Why’s it called ‘moooooooose’?” Ray said, laughing.
“Look at this!” Devon said, smacking his lips. “It’s as black as me.”
“You’re