Doug began to strum his ukulele and mumble some lyrics he was working on His brother was almost finished high school and was already taking driving lessons He and Danny used to be best buddies They used to go to movies and build forts Doug even used to call him Dannio Then his brother didn’t want to hang around together anymore He stayed in his room listening to weird music and drawing pictures All his pictures were of cars crashing or buses crashing or trains or planes or spaceships crashing There was always lots of flames and blood Danny’s parents said the pictures were brilliant expressive and honest and they stuck them up on the walls When he wasn’t drawing Doug was making up songs on his ukulele They were mostly about cars and planes crashing too and how even while crashing he could only think about some girl or other When Doug’s friends came over they did pointless stuff like stare at the covers of old vinyl record albums Or they would lie on their backs on the floor and look up at the ceiling Danny remembered all this now because he wondered what Doug was thinking What his parents had just said made absolutely no sense They might as well have been talking in Serbian or some
other language he didn’t have a clue about So let me get this straight Doug said pulling a stick of gum from his pocket and folding it into his mouth You’re getting a divorce No no absolutely not Danny’s father said quickly That’s not it at all We are not getting a divorce We’re not even separating Your mom and I love each other Did you hear me We’re just going to live apart For a year Or maybe two You know how much we’ve always valued our creativity Danny’s mother said Your father and I have dreams Artistic dreams We want to pursue them before it’s too late Before we’re too old Those dreams are taking us to different places for a while You understand the need to fulfill yourself After all you both have dreams too Doug you want to be a songwriter Doug rolled his eyes And Danny you want to be an actuary I never said that My teacher did because I’m good at math I don’t even know what an actuary is The point is his father said we want to be good role models for our two great sons We want you to know that you can be whatever you want And the best way to show that is to do it ourselves Right Sheila
That’s right Tell us again what you’re going to do said Doug snapping his gum Your father wants to be an opera singer in New York City And your mother wants to move to Banff Alberta and bake cheesecakes I don’t even know where Banff is Danny complained his voice rising It’s out west in the Rocky Mountains his mother said It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world You can see bears You can slide on a glacier So we get to live in New York and also in Banff Doug said I guess that’s cool That’s right said Danny’s father You’re going to live with Mom during the school year And you’ll spend the summer and holidays with me In Banff you can go skiing every day I don’t know how to ski Danny said It’s a great opportunity to learn And New York has theater and music and anything else you could want You are two very lucky boys Your friends are going to envy you Won’t they Sheila I’ll say We figured that you would understand Doug
You’re the creative one like your dad and me Danny we knew it would be a little harder for you You’re the level headed one in the family It’s not your fault that you’re not creative like the rest of us But you have my painting up on the fridge Danny said The sunset that I did at school Sunsets are cliché Doug muttered strumming his ukulele again To a common-sense person like you his mother went on this might seem very impractical But dreams are not practical Danny Vincent van Gogh wasn’t practical Bob Dylan wasn’t practical His parents leaned forward as if that would help him understand Danny said nothing He was trying to take in what he had
