Even now, Ephram is a little frustrated with his father. Delia's crying, and he hates that, and his mother isn't laughing, and he hates that even more.

Of course, he's done his own share of not-laughing, and getting his pillow wet with snot and tears and misery, because he really misses Dad. He always did, of course, spent years of his life hoping that he would show up *this time,* that he would remember something without Mom reminding him, that these things would happen and that Ephram wouldn't just remember all the times before when they didn't.

Now, though, there isn't any hope left because he's too old to think that maybe Dad will come back, after the crash, after the funeral, after he missed Ephram's recital one last time.

And he's frustrated, because he wishes he didn't have to think that way, that he could be as honestly heartbroken as Delia, who watches their mother like a hawk as if she might be next.

Ephram does too, treasuring every second of her depression, the fact that she keeps forgetting to make dinner and doesn't always know what happened to the laundry. Because that's the worst part--Ephram's lucked out, somehow, because he only has one parent, now, and she happens to be the one he really needs.

He feels guilty for thinking it, and angry at his father for not being more loveable. It's not like he was *never* there, he reminds himself constantly, but always wonders right afterwards if it's a lie, if he's trying to make the past better now that the future can't be.

There's no way he can avoid lying to other people, though. The girls at school--his Gwen Steffani, and girls he's never met--are nice, and tell him how sorry they are, and that he must miss his father very much. He agrees, and spends as much of his time as possible with manga characters who aren't interested in making him feel better, but do it anyway.

He felt the same way hearing his dad's surgeon friends give speeches at the funeral, telling them that he had a gift, that he performed miracles, and Ephram can't help feeling that they're talking about someone else. His father, their miracle worker--he can't make them one in his head, not least because he never really knew either one of them.

The way his parents were together was the same, because Mom loved him more than anything and he never quite got *how.* There was something he hadn't seen, that the rest of the world did, and now he'd missed his chance forever.

So he really doesn't understand why his mother misses her husband so much, because--the list of blame is still there in his mind, even now--he's a lousy father, and he hates her parents, and he cheated on her once. Maybe more, and she still loves him, and can't find her way back to the way things were before, when she and Ephram were friends. Now she's just a mother, who is determined to do a good job, but doesn't much like it. Ephram can't be like Delia, who sits in her lap and pets her when she cries, he can't, because he can't even imagine that kind of pain, much less go anywhere near it.

It's the lack of her laugh, of her smile, more than anything, that reminds him what he should be missing.