Sean Gandert - Lost in Arcadia: A Novel

Gideon tells me that back then dad was almost never around. And after I hit elementary school, mom was so busy catching up with work that she was mostly gone too. But I guess when we were still living in the old housewhere the door to mom and dads room scratched against their king-size mattress every time someone entered and me and Gideon shared one bedroom so that Holly could have her ownwe used to have this sort of mandated family time every week. Mom always thought the five of us didnt spend enough time together and was so afraid that wed turn out like her family that she made staying home on holidays and Friday evenings compulsory. None of our friends could come over for dinner. Dad wasnt allowed to code at the table. No to everything but the family. I dont even remember when she came up with the idea, but even dad treated these nights seriously after he came home late to an evening of family time and it resulted in one of their big, annual fights. From then on, if he needed to stay late on family nights, first hed come home, loosening his tie (Holly says he liked to call it his corporate noose) and joining whatever activity wed decided on that week without complaint. Only when family time had definitively ended would he head back to the office for another all-nighter.

Wed put on sweaters, go to the den, and pick out something to play from the game closet. The den was always freezing or sweltering, an addition to the house that had never been insulated. Holly used to say that if you stayed there long enough during the winter, like to watch all of the Saturday morning cartoons, youd lose feeling in your face and wouldnt even know that a trail of mucus was running from your nose to your chin. She liked to complain that you shouldnt be able to see your breath indoors, but mom just said that if she had a problem with it, she could always watch less TV. Depending on their moods, this would either be ignored or lead to an ugly argument.

Inside the closet was an entire story of games, some of their boxes dating back to before we were born. Trivial Pursuit from 1978, a RISK set with wooden pieces, puzzles we had neither bought nor opened. My favorite part of the closet was an entire shelf of dads old DnD books, filled with terrible black-and-white drawings of dwarves and dragons and buxom princesses. He didnt play anymore, but he didnt have the heart to sell them, so they sat there. I used to get them out to stare at them, even before I knew what they said. Below them were fantasy games, like the one I wanted to play that night, HeroQuest or something like that. But my brother was with me and he wanted to play Sorry! , which I always hated because it was all luck and no skill. The two of us were arguing, then he pulled out the Sorry! box and said that because he was older, he got to choose. According to Gideon, I grabbed at the box, and as I tried to pull it away from him, he let go and I fell backward. The top flew off, launching plastic pawns and cards into the air, primary colors cascading across the room.

Gideon says he noticed that I hadnt gotten up after falling to the carpet, and it became clear that I was struggling to breathe. He didnt know what to do, so he started pushing on my chest like they do in movies. Mom and Holly came in to see what all the noise was about, and then mom screamed for dad. Gideon says that he kept pumping on my chest and yelling at Holly to do something, but she was frozen in place, staring. Mom was on the ground comforting me and trying to clean up the mess, worried about dad slipping on the pieces.

Do something! she screamed when he entered the room. He pushed Gideon away, whod given up on the chest-pushing business and was now brainstorming how he could duck the blame. Holly cried and called 911. Dad asked Gideon what hed tried so far. Gideon said hed pushed on my chest like Bruce Willis, and dad just got pissed off.

Gideon says that dad tried another round of Heimlich-ing me but decided it was futile, so he opened up my mouth and thrust his finger down into my throat, trying to manually yank out a green pawn lodged in my windpipe. Everyone waited and waited and finally an ambulance arrived, with mom crying and Holly watching, standing perfectly still while they removed the pawn, placed me on a gurney, and put an oxygen mask around my face.

When I woke up the next day I couldnt remember anything after dad came home. I was lying down in a white bed with a pleasant humming sound in the background, looking through a plastic sheet onto a silvery roof with tubes above me. I kept lying there, staring at the roof for so long I had time to wake up again. Maybe thats why it came to mind now, staring up at nothing again, waiting for some indication that everything has worked out.

Gideon says that he and Holly were sent over to our next-door neighbors, who after hearing about the accident fed them a big meal with turkey and stuffing and all the rest, and even gave them ice cream for dessert. Gideon tells me that was the first time he tried Neapolitan and that it turned out to be a really fun evening after all until he and Holly came home and the only sound in the house was mom alone in her room, crying and crying. I guess that was the first time dad left. He just disappeared, not answering his phone or anything and no one knew where he went off to or what he was doing. He returned before I got home, and everyone pretended it had never happened, but even I knew everything had changed. After that, he kept leaving for longer and longer until one day he just didnt come back.

Twelve years later

Devon planned on spending the entire weekend in his room.

The only real exception would be attendance at the practically mandatory dinners with his mom, the two of them at adjacent corners of a battered and stained kitchen table that could easily seat eight, trying to pretend they had something to say to each other. Missing dinner was on par with smoking pot in the house or getting a large tattoo of a snake on his bicep. Autumn pretended not to care, that she was fine with the only person living under the same roof ditching her for the evening, but Devon had tested those waters before, only to discover her crying when she thought he wouldnt notice, alone in her overly large bedroom with her face planted into a pile of pillows.

Other than dinner, he was free to do whatever he wanted. That meant sitting at his computer, logged onto Arcadia.

After another interminable day at high school, Devon walked through the front door and headed directly into his room, throwing his backpack on the floor by his bed. He pulled his sneakers off with his left hand while his right navigated through a simple but powerful UI hed helped his dad beta test more than a decade ago, back when it seemed like Arcadia would never be completed. Hed be the first to admit that his room was a huge fucking mess, cleaned maybe three or four times a year under extremely specific circumstances. Autumn appreciated it if the house was tidied before Christmas, even if they werent spending the holiday at home, and when someone (almost always a semi-unknown relative) would be staying over.