Everything Changes

worthwhile.”
    Norm nods and looks at me. “Why aren’t you at work?”
    “I’m taking some time off,” I say. “A mental health day.”
    “And you’re accomplishing that by getting high?”
    “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
    “Where are you going?” Norm says to Matt, who is making a show of throwing on his worn jacket.
    “I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “Anywhere but here.”
    “Can’t we just talk, son?” Norm says plaintively.
    Matt stares at him, eyes wide and angry, then storms over to him with so much force that for an instant I’m certain he’s going to hit him. Instead, he stops right in front of him, fists clenched at his sides, his face contorted in rage. “Fuck you, Norm,” Matt spits at him. “Fuck you. My life is shit and it’s your fault. It’s your fault I had to deal drugs to buy a goddamn guitar, it’s your fault I can’t keep a girlfriend for more than a month, it’s your fault I can’t look people in the eye or say what I really feel.”
    “Matt,” I say.
    “Shut up, Zack. You know I’m right.”
    “I’m still the only father you’ll ever have,” Norm says weakly, holding his hands up defensively.
    Matt’s smile cuts his face like a razor. “You’re just the sperm donor, Norm,” he says, heading for the door. “That’s all you were ever good for. Fucking sperm.”
    Matt storms out the door and Norm looks at us, red-faced with chagrin. “Jesus,” he says. “If I’d have known I was going to get beat up on like this, I would have worn a helmet.” He looks at the door and makes a snap decision. “Matt!” he calls, and tears out the door after him. We listen to the two sets of footsteps running down the stairs, and then Jed leans back on the couch, craning his neck to see out the window. “Wow,” he says to me, collapsing back on the couch. “For a heavy guy, your old man sure can move.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” I say, heaving myself off the floor and heading for the stairs. I’m still woozy from Matt’s stale ganja, and when I trip over my father’s discarded duffel bag, it’s all I can do to keep from falling on my face.

    It’s eight p.m., which means it’s one a.m. in England, a fact that only occurs to me after they’ve put me through to Hope’s hotel room. “Hey, baby,” I say.
    “Zack?” she says, her voice groggy and slurred. “What the hell?”
    “Did I wake you?”
    “Of course you woke me,” she grumbles. “It’s the middle of the night.”
    “Sorry about that,” I say. “I thought you might be jet-lagged.”
    “What’s wrong?” she demands.
    “Nothing. I just missed you.”
    That pisses her off. “You had plenty of time to call me earlier, if you missed me so much. Why weren’t you at work?” She has not fully committed to consciousness yet, and her voice is muted and irregular as she slides in and out her slumber.
    I almost tell her about having walked out of work. About how empty and demeaned I’ve been feeling there, and about wanting to do something that will actually mean something to me, that will actually make it worth answering when people ask me what I do. Hope will be sympathetic, I have no doubt about that, but she won’t appreciate the timing of my vocational crisis, coming as it has in the midst of our engagement, at the merging of our lives. She’ll worry about my potential future earnings, about my abilities as a long-term provider, about our chances for a
New York Times
wedding announcement. She’ll talk around it for a while, but ultimately, the need to help me fix things will get the best of her. She’ll insist I meet with her father, and next thing you know, I’ll be a Vice President of Bedpans, walking the carpeted halls of Seacord International in suits and braces under the watchful, controlling glare of my father-in-law, bearing the hateful mark of nepotism upon my forehead, disregarded out of hand as the old man’s loser son-in-law.
    “I’m just a little under the weather,” I say.
    I can hear the rustling of sheets, the drag of the telephone on the nightstand. “Zack, is everything okay?”
    I sigh. “It’s just been a little crazy here, with my father and all.”
    “Have you been spending some time with him?”
    “A little.”
    “That’s nice,” she says through a long yawn. “I’m going back to sleep now, okay?”
    “How’s London?” I ask, suddenly lonely.
    “Call me when I’m awake and I’ll tell