Adi Alsaid - North Of Happy

I’m holding a stack of T-shirts in my hands, transfixed. Then I remember Felix’s stack of notebooks.

He kept track of every day of his travels and would send me each filled-out journal for safekeeping. I drag my nightstand over so I can reach the top of my closet, where I’ve been storing them in a cardboard box. I think I know why this restaurant feels familiar to me.

The notebooks are mostly in Spanish, the rare English word marked by stray accents, as if Felix wanted to bend it to his preferred tongue. It takes all my effort not to thumb through each notebook, to not get lost in Felix’s adventures. He never bothered to date them, but I always marked down what day I received them. I know the entry I’m looking for, can recall the words as if I was there too. It was about a year ago, when Felix was in Israel. He’d saved a bunch of money while living on a kibbutz for a while and had treated himself to a nice meal, at a fancy restaurant called Mul Yam.

I usually believe the best meals are to be found in home kitchens , Felix wrote. This time, I was wrong. Below, he’d listed restaurants he wanted to eat at in his lifetime. A few of them had been crossed out with blue or black or red ink. I don’t allow myself to think of all the ones he didn’t get to, but my suspicion was right. At the top of the list is Provecho.

The show comes back on. I’ve been watching scenes like these so often the last couple of years. Chef Elise walks down rows of planted herbs and vegetables, rallies her troops, the kitchen comes alive, mise en place, the guests arrive, twinkling lights on the patio.

It might be a simple coincidence. There are constantly reruns of this show, and there’s a good chance Felix watched this same episode years ago. But it feels like so much of a sign that I look for Felix in the screen, some acknowledgment that this is his doing.

I pull my rain jacket from the closet, though I don’t really know what the hell the weather will be like, just that the island is near Seattle and Seattle is rainy. I fold the jacket neatly on top of the other clothes. My heart is pounding.

I’ve never acted impulsively in my life. Felix got all those genes. It feels like I’m borrowing his disobedience, like I’m stealing something, acting Unlike Myself. But that doesn’t keep me from putting a knee on the suitcase to force it closed.

In my parents’ room, a safe is hidden behind a shoddy fortress of clothes. The combination is easy to remember; every time Mom and Dad are on the same flight, Dad sits me down with a list of instructions on what to do just in case . I grab a few hundred dollars, both my passports, the emergency credit card that’s in my name. I use my cell phone to buy a plane ticket and then call a cab, ignoring the slew of missed notifications on the screen.

My hands are shaking and sweaty. I can’t believe how easy it is to feel like I’m in control.

I use the bathroom before I go. It’s when I’m washing my hands that I hear the awful sound of the front door opening. Mom’s voice rings out first, fraught with worry, “Carlos?” I look at my reflection in the mirror and can almost see the back wall. All my edges are blurred. I take a deep breath, open the door.

Mom looks instantly relieved that I’m home. Dad, not so much. “What happened? Is everything okay?” She gets close, like she’s inspecting me for bodily harm.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dad asks, noticing the suitcase propped up by the door. He shakes his head, and then calmly removes his suit jacket and folds it onto the little table at the entrance. “Before we get into that,” he says, pointing at the luggage, “you’re going to apologize for leaving like you did. That was embarrassing.”

I know that this, at least, is not an unreasonable request. But I can’t find the words to acknowledge it. These talks with Dad always feel like trickery, like everything he says is a trap waiting to snag me.

Mom puts a hand on Dad’s forearm. She tries to whisper something, but he interrupts: “He can speak for himself. Just apologize, Carlos, and then we can talk about whatever it is you think you’re doing.”

I think: I can’t do this anymore . I think: I’m barely even here . I say: “I have to go, Dad.”

The words come out like a whimper. So, I’m not stealing all of Felix’s personality traits, then. Felix never whimpered.

At least the words are out there. I wait an eternal moment for Dad to respond.

Dad sighs and, almost under his breath, says, “Great, another son who doesn’t know how to apologize.” Then, louder, he says, “Fine, I’ll bite. Go where?”

Mom’s already tearing up a little, like she knows exactly where this is heading, like she’s getting déjà vu and knows already how this ends. Dad slams the wall with his open hand, repeats himself: “Where, exactly, are you going, Carlos?”

I stare Dad down, trying not to whimper again. “I have to get away from this. It’s not what I want,” I say. “The internship. Everything.”

Dad leans back against the door, crosses his arms over his chest. “No me digas.” You don’t say.

For a wild moment I consider confessing, telling them about Felix, how I still see him but I feel like I’m the one who’s gone. His death made ghosts of both of us and I just want it to stop. I search for more words but end up looking at the floor.

“So you’re running away,” Dad says. He’s got a bit of a smirk on his face, like this is some argument that can be won. “Just like your brother did.” He full-on smiles now, uncrosses his arms, un-leans from the door, moves out of the way. He picks up his jacket, walks past me and toward the bedrooms. “A lot of good it did him,” he says.

Then the intercom buzzes; the taxi’s here.

“Sorry, Mom,” I say, pulling up the suitcase’s handle and rolling it out the door. I don’t want to acknowledge what Dad just said.

She follows behind, stepping into the elevator with me. I keep my eyes on the floor counter above, watching the numbers light up like a countdown. 15...14...13...

“He’ll cut you off, like he did with Felix,” Mom says. Being American, she’s a little more direct than Dad. “He may not show how much he was upset by your brother leaving, but believe me, he was. You leaving too? It’ll kill him.”

7...6...5...

I can smell her perfume, something floral she’s worn forever.

“Just tell me where you’re going.”

It’s not Mom’s fault, but I can’t bring myself to say anything. I don’t want to lose my nerve.

The doors ding open. Mom doesn’t follow me out, but she holds her hand out and keeps the doors from closing. “I won’t tell your dad. I promise.”

Our doorman comes over, all smiles, to grab my suitcase. I want to just rush to the taxi, but leaving Mom is harder than storming away from Dad. “Just tell me you’re coming back,” she says. There’s a tear in the corner of her eye, just waiting there on the precipice, and it’s what I say next that will determine if it tumbles down the edge.

I look from her to the car, and I know that it’s not too late to stop this and turn around. Tell them what’s going on with me, open myself up to their help. “I just need to do one thing,” I say, finally. “For Felix.”

“One week,” she says. I’m not sure if it’s a plea or a question or a command. The tear, thankfully, doesn’t fall. I might have stayed put if she cried.

I nod and then rush to greet the taxi at the door.

Slam the trunk, slam the door, if only the taxi driver would peel out and leave rubber trails on the asphalt.

I break free.

CHAPTER 3

AIRPLANE SANDWICH

1 pseudo-croissant roll

2 slices highly processed ham