The Leavers

On Father’s Day, Daniel talks to Kay in the kitchen while writing a card for Peter. Kay notes that she’s always been “uncomfortable” about Mother’s Day, since she used to think she didn’t “deserve to celebrate the holiday.” “I had those doubts a lot when you first came to live with us,” she admits. Going on, she tells him that she and Peter were often “afraid of doing something wrong” when he was growing up. Daniel, for his part, doesn’t know what to say, wondering if he should “apologize or reassure her.” “Either way,” Ko writes, “he […] felt implicated, like there was some expectation he wasn’t meeting.”

Kay retrieves a folder containing Daniel’s adoption information, saying that Peter didn’t think she should show it to him. Finally, Daniel tells her he’s spoken to Polly. Forcing a smile, Kay asks if he’s going to talk to Polly again, and he says, “Maybe.” Changing the subject, Kay says that Charles called her several days ago and told her that Daniel hasn’t returned money he borrowed from Angel. When she asked Charles why he was telling her, he told her to ask Daniel. “So, I’m asking,” she says. “She must have been talking about this one time we met up in the city,” Daniel says. “I didn’t have any cash on me and I had to borrow some to pay for dinner.” Kay doesn’t believe this, but Daniel simply thanks her for reminding him to repay Angel, saying, “I’m going to go do that now, on my computer.”

Daniel passes his classes for the first term of summer school and begins the second term. Slowly, he begins to correspond with Roland, who has finally booked a show at Jupiter. He also starts recording some of his own music in the evenings. While hanging out at Cody’s house one night, he plays Cody a sample of what he’s been working on. “You’ve changed, Wilkinson,” Cody says, and when Daniel asks him to explain, he says, “In high school, you were all like—Reave me arone. You barely spoke English! Now you’re all American.” Daniel points out that he spoke English in high school, but Cody continues to mock him. “Fuck off, Cody. Fuck you,” he says, getting up to leave. “You need a drummer,” Cody calls after him. “like those guys at the […] Open Mic. They rocked.”

Peter and Kay take Daniel to a fancy restaurant to celebrate his success in the second term of summer school. “To Daniel,” Peter toasts, “for being back on the right path.” There are old paintings of Ridgeborough hung around the restaurant, and Peter points them out and explains that the Wilkinsons used to own the majority of this land. Listening to Peter talk about the family legacy, Daniel thinks about how he’s “the last of the Wilkinsons,” pondering the fact that his great-great-grandfather probably wouldn’t even have acknowledged him as Wilkinson.

The night before Daniel begins the fall term at Carlough, he stays up late working on a song on Peter’s computer. At a certain point, he gets up and walks by Peter and Kay’s room to make sure they’re sleeping. Returning to the study, he closes the door and types in the address for a poker website, telling himself that the site is probably blocked. However, the site comes up, and he logs into an account he never told Peter and Kay about, which still has $50. “He would play just one game and log out, then cancel everything,” Ko writes. Of course, this game leads to another, and another, and before long he has $300, but then he feels Peter’s hand on his shoulder.  “I knocked,” Peter says, and Daniel can’t help but watch the screen, making sure he wins the round. “All right. That’s enough now,” Peter says.

At seven the next morning, Daniel packs his things and leaves his guitar. On his way out of the house, he looks at Kay, whose eyes are “puffy from crying.” “You’re not going to ask me to stay?” he says, and she shakes her head. “I got an e-mail from Elaine,” she replies.