Ryan sat quietly in the back of Matt’s truck. He was painfully aware that Patrick was trying to talk to him, but Ryan wasn’t listening. He figured that when someone had headphones in, others knew that talking was futile. In the teenage world, there was some vague notion of respect in the sense that headphones meant ‘Don’t talk to me’. Maybe it wasn't as clear to adults.

It wasn’t like the headphones were playing anything though. Not even plugged in, actually. The long white cord dangled down from his ears and led the end into his pocket. His pullover was too big for Patrick to make out the outline of a phone, so he couldn’t have known it wasn’t plugged in.

“I can’t believe she wouldn’t tell me,” Matt smacked his hand against the steering wheel halfheartedly. Patrick decides he’s getting nowhere talking to Ryan, and turns back around in his seat to console Matt.

Andy is looking directly at Ryan. It’s like he knows everything Ryan is thinking, because Andy signs, “Just plug your headphones in for real.” Like it was that easy. It wasn’t. Ryan didn’t like not knowing what was going on around him.

He knew he gave off that spaced-out vibe but that was on purpose. A defense mechanism, he knew. Ryan always knew what was going on, even when people thought he didn't.

“Andy, vocalize. I can’t read signs when I’m driving, and there shouldn’t be any secret conversations. I’m your big brother, and Patrick is…” Matt falters halfway through the brother speech. “Patrick is your soon-to-be brother-in-law, so just say what you want to say.” Matt finishes. Andy thinks on it.

Big brother and brother-in-law. Nothing makes him more uncomfortable. But what really grinds Andy the wrong way is the ‘say what you want to say’. No one ever says what they want to say. Not in Ryan’s experience, and not in Andy’s.

When their sister came out as trans, no one in Dilly said what they wanted to say about how wrong it is. When their older brother came home from college a liberal atheist vegetarian, no one at home said what they wanted to say. When Matt introduced Patrick to his mom and dad, they did say what they wanted to say. They let him have it. Told him that Matt was their last hope for a normal adult son. They told him what a failure he was, what a faggot he was. So maybe it was better that no one said what they really wanted to say. Maybe, saying what you really thought would only make it hurt more.

“Say what I want to say, huh?” Andy asks. Ryan shakes his head because he knows what Andy is about to do. But nothing is going to stop Andy from the full-on argument Matt brought on himself. “Say what I want to say? I want to say that it’s your fault. I want to say that it’s Daniel and Jamie’s fault for driving dad to drink. I want to say that had you all never said what you wanted to say, we’d never be in this situation! So, if we’re being completely and perfectly honest with each other, Ryan and I are seventeen. Dad’s dead, and this is mom’s second round of chemo because the cancer came back. We have nowhere to go when shit hits the fan. But I think it’s better if I don’t say anything, because what I want to say hurts. So, is that alright with you, big brother?”

Silence. Stone cold silence.

Ryan squeezed his hands together in a nervous tick the way he always did. When Andy noticed that, he felt bad for upsetting his brother. Ryan didn’t want his brother to walk on glass around him, but the fight was making him anxious.

It seemed that only a few beats of silence passed before they arrived at the hospital in the city. Mom was waiting on a bench just outside with a puke bucket in hand. She did look terrible. With no hair to speak of, and enough wrinkles on her face to rival the Grinch, their mother had taken a turn for the worst.

Ryan tried to block out Andy’s voice in his head. ‘Dad’s dead, and this is mom’s second round of chemo because the cancer came back.’ They’d really be helpless then. Well, maybe not. The two of them turned eighteen in January, and Ryan was sure the only ones still left in the will were him and Andy. Not that it was fair- the estate should go to all five of them. Except it won’t, because life isn’t fair.

“This is going to be the worst hour of my life,” Matt gripped the steering wheel with both hands when the car shut off. “Which is just inviting the universe to make it worse.”

“Haha, that rhymed.” Patrick laughs and slaps Matt on the back. “It’s going to be fine. Come on guys, let’s go in.” He unbuckled and got out of his seat.

Ryan noted how Patrick seemed to take care of everyone in that moment. To make Matt smile, to make all the others relax because such a stupid joke could be told at a time like this. Ryan liked how the man used his words. If Ryan could speak that way, he’d never hold back.

There was this nagging sense in the back of all their minds. What if it wasn’t really their dad? They still needed the body identified in the morgue, so the I.D. wasn’t for certain, right? Perhaps it was all just a formality, and they knew it was Philip Shawford all along. But Ryan and the others couldn’t help but hold out hope.

Matt shrunk out of the car and made eye contact with his mother. It was clearly not a happy look on their mother’s face. Mary Shawford believes with all her heart that Matt shouldn’t be with a man, and she will never hide that.

“Hi, mom. Good to see you again,” Matt scratched the back of his neck. Ryan tried not to look interested in anything they were saying. He failed.

“How dare you come here?” Mary Shawford spat at them. “Boys, get away from them! I thought I told you to go to school and take the bus home?” She yells angrily at Andy and Ryan. Andy obeys quickly and obediently. He’s like a sheep being herded by a wolf, no questions asked.

Ryan remains standing by the truck with his unplugged headphones in his ears. He lets his eyes wander out in the parking lot and glaze over. He knows how to put on a front. How to make it seem that he can’t possibly be thinking anything. His mother used to coo at him as a young child when he did this, ‘must be thinking big thoughts’ or ‘such a dreamer, just like me’. He misses the days when things were so simple.

“Ryan Cooper Shawford, get over here this instant!” His mother yells at him. She points her finger at the ground like she’s summoning a dog to come to her feet. The energy and the yelling make her queasy though, and Mary buries her head in the puke bucket.

It is a few moments before she re-emerges. By then, Ryan has made up his mind. Matt will come with them.

Before his mother can say anything more, Ryan grabs Matt by the wrist and pulls him forward. Matt stumbles a bit, and figures out what Ryan is planning. He tries to get out of Ryan’s grip, but it's tight and determined. They march past their mother, and on towards the hospital entrance.

“Ryan! You can’t bring him near your father! Ryan!” Their mother continued to yell from behind them. Matt just kept on walking beside Ryan. Andy and their mother ran to catch up, and Patrick shouted from his truck.

“I’ll be waiting here when you get back!” Patrick’s voice had a knowing laugh in it as he waved to them. Ryan couldn’t explain why he liked Patrick. Maybe it was his confident attitude. The way he seems to make everything okay. If Matt’s father really was on that cold slab in the morgue, Patrick would know exactly what to say to him. Ryan didn’t know what to say.

Andy argued that no one says what they want because it hurts. It hurts everyone. And while that might be true, sometimes saying something is better than saying nothing. And yet, when it comes down to it, words always fail Ryan.

The hospital showed them to the morgue. There was a lot of waiting. Ryan tries to ignore his mother’s death glare. His glazed over look would only get him so far. Sooner or later, she’d punish him for disrespecting dad’s wishes by bringing Matt here.

But Ryan knew that she wouldn’t make a scene in a public place like this. She couldn’t, not without hurting her own reputation. Mary Shawford was nothing if not polite and mindful in the eyes of others.

After signing in, the mortician took them into the cold freezer room. The cold metal slabs were depressing and it smelt like rancid Clorox cleaner. Ryan wrinkled his nose at the smell.

Matt stayed back by the door. Ryan didn’t question it. It was Matt’s choice to come see their father on one of these cold metal slabs or not. Ryan wondered if maybe he was respecting his father's wishes by staying further away. When they said wishes, they really meant that one time their father screamed at Matt to never come near them again. To leave and never come back. He had been fairly drunk, Ryan remembers.

The mortician pulls back the white sheet to reveal their father's face. Only it is more pale and cut up than before. It was too early to really know how the car accident happened, but anyone who knew him would assume it was alcohol. Or drugs. Or maybe even both.

The purple lips on his face were unsettling. Ryan remembers all the times his father has yelled at him, smacked him, chased him from the house. He was mad, just like his brothers and sisters. But not as mad as he was at his mother for letting it happen. When he beat Matt so bad he couldn’t move, where was mom? When he smashed a bottle and chased Ryan around with the sharp end at five years old, where was mom? When he punched Jamie in the face, where was mom?

Ryan sobbed quietly, and turned his head away. He wants to feel sad for his father’s death. He wants to cry because he won’t ever get to see his dad again. But all he can feel is angry. Angry about all the pain he caused, but more so at how much pain his mother didn’t stop.

But then Ryan hears Matt crying. And it’s not anger in his eyes like it is in Ryan’s. It’s sadness. Pure, unquestionable sadness. And then they are all crying. Mom and Andy too.

Whether for anger, or sadness, they all stood in that morgue together to cry over his death. Their father’s death.