The Far Empty by J. Todd Scott

practice it with me, even though I’ve been taking it since the fourth grade.
    My mom tried hard to pick it up as well, always listening to her Rosetta Stone in her little Ford Ranger—the one I drive now, since my father kept it, just like that Kohler tub. We used to have days when we were allowed to talk to each other only in Spanish, at least outside my father’s earshot. If I wanted something, I had to start each sentence with
quiero
and go from there, and I used to write down all sorts of phrases and questions that Amé would sometimes translate for me. I memorized the lines and stumped my mom all day withthem, making her look up the words in the small Berlitz she carried for the occasion. She would laugh, flipping madly through her dictionary, trying to repeat and remember what I said.
    Te quiero y te extraño y nunca te olvidaré.
    I love you and I miss you and I’ll never forget you.
    •   •   •
    I’ve known Amé for over three years now. We’re more than friends but a lot less than something else. She’s forever keeping me at arm’s length, but never quite letting me go. She’s got problems with her family and there’s that mess with her brother. We both carry holes in our lives, and maybe that’s all that draws us to each other, even if I want to believe it’s more than that.
    I think I love her, despite all the parts of her I never really see, but I’m no different. There’s so much we don’t show or tell each other, so much I guess we don’t dare say out loud.
    Amé, Ms. Hart, me—just like this goddamn town, we all do a pretty good job of holding our secrets close.
    •   •   •
    After Ms. Hart’s first day, Amé and I were sharing one of her cigarettes and I mentioned our new teacher, thinking out loud. I suspect my father knows Ms. Hart a little, met her once, but I’m not sure. As I talked, Amé turned her head sideways, her big silver hoops defying gravity, and blew smoke in my face. That was the end of the conversation. But then there’s the second thing that happened—the most important thing. The body Deputy Cherry discovered at Indian Bluffs.
    •   •   •
    My father came home the night after Deputy Cherry found the body, and didn’t say anything to me. I was in my room doing homework and he walked past my open door without a word. I am never allowed to close my door. He walked down the hall to his room but didn’t turn on any lights or wash his face or brush his teeth. There was no movement at all. It was like he walked in there and disappeared. I waited an hour, let the house grow dark, and then I did what I’ve long practiced: I crept down the hallway to spy on him.
    In my house it’s important at all times to know exactly where my father is and what he’s doing. As always, his door was cracked open as well. Not because he follows his own rules or cares less about his own privacy, but because he wants to hear clearly what I’m up to. Besides, he has nothing to hide. Not in his own home and not from his own flesh and blood.
    There’s a spot I stand in, as silent and still as him, where the hallway forms a T. From that point I can see right through the door to the headboard and the top third of his bed; clearly visible is the cherrywood nightstand my mom bought in El Paso, with a cream-colored lamp on it. The same King James Bible is always there and the same empty quartz glass, dry and dusty as the desert around Murfee. The books and glass are props—things a real, living, breathing person might have if they slept in that room.
    I can also see the old Rowan Cheval antique bronze mirror in the corner. It’s a full-size standing mirror, one of the few things my mom brought with her to Murfee, and I still remember her in front of it, brushing the desert dust out of her long hair or just pulling it up, all while seeing me over her shoulder, trapped in the glass.
    Sometimes when I’m spying and the moon is right, when the entire room is pale and