Black Bird of the Gallows(33)

“The other night you didn’t seem so eager.” A flush creeps up his neck. “I’m not trying to be nosy. I just— I’m your father,” he says, because that explains it all.

“He’s a neighbor. Maybe a friend,” I say. “I don’t know yet.”

It’s all I’ve got. I don’t know what’s “going on” with Reece. And I won’t until he tells me the truth about himself.

“Okay.” Dad’s shoulders relax. “I’ll go get ready. You put some boots on—real ones. Not those things you wear to school.”

Right. Real boots. He means the sassy, zip-back number he bought me for Christmas last year. They’re white with pompons, but I’ll wear them.

I reopen the iPad’s browser and scroll through the local news. The headlines alone make my skin crawl. Violent incidents are increasing in Somerset County, with Cadence appearing to be at the epicenter. The county jail is extraordinarily busy. So are all the area hospitals’ psychiatric units. Ordinary, everyday people are having full-blown psychotic episodes. There is a petition going around to have the drinking water tested again. The whole county gets water from Lake Serenity, which used to be a river that ran through the valley. It was dammed and a hydroelectric plant put in, but it borders Mount Serenity. Tom isn’t the only one worried that waste from the past mining activities may have contaminated the water.

Test away. The water’s not causing it.

Tucked very tiny, at the very bottom, in the “Our Environment” section, is an article on how the bee population seems to have come out of hibernation early this year. It’s one paragraph. No comments at the bottom. I doubt anyone has even read it.

But there it is. The bees. That’s causing it, and no one would believe me if I told them. Not my dad. No one.



We walk through the ice-encrusted snow, which breaks like thin glass under our feet. I wear the white boots. And the matching down ski jacket. Had to pull the tags off the jacket, but I must admit, it’s warm. My dad looks like a Macy’s ad in his black double-breasted cashmere coat, leather gloves, and Burberry scarf. So refined. In contrast, my mother was all long, wild hair with wilder eyes. Cigarettes and tattoos. Dad catches my expression and raises his brows.

“What?” he asks.

“I just don’t see it—you and Mom, that is.” I gulp down cold air. “You’re like, different species.”

Dad tries to hide a smile. “Your mom and I met at a Lollapalooza concert. She was sitting up on some guy’s shoulders, arms in the air, blond hair everywhere. She was so beautiful. I was living on a friend’s front porch at the time. Unemployed, with a few bad habits I will never discuss with you.” He raises an eyebrow. “So you see, I wasn’t always so respectable. I caused Grams and Grampa many sleepless nights.”

I can’t imagine him that way at all. “So what happened?”

He smiles, full and wide. “You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, thankfully. And the realization that sleeping on Egyptian cotton was preferable to my buddy’s nasty couch.”

My tongue is heavy in my mouth. “But you lost her. She couldn’t do”—I sweep my hand back toward our house—“this.”

Dad lifts up a pine branch for me as we pass from our lawn into the wooded buffer between our property and the neighbors’. “Your mom was a true free spirit. Too trusting. Selfish. Unstable. But not…destructive. That came later. I’ve spent too many nights wondering why we were always on again, off again and why she took that bad turn after you were born. It crept up on me, on her, and nothing could fix her. The drugs were more than an addiction. There was no way to separate her from them.” He spreads his hands, drops them. “The truth is I didn’t lose her. I never had her.” There is no sadness or reproach in his voice. Just fact.

The words bump through me, scraping raw spots, touching secret, hidden bruises. “I never had her, either.”

Dad puts an arm around my shoulders. “You have me.”

I shove my hands under my armpits and force a grin. “Grams and Grampa are proud of you now.”

His brows go up. “They said that?”

“No,” I admit. “But they did say your car was pretentious.”

“Hmm.” He scratches his chin. “That’s progress. Maybe I should trade it in for a new model. A red convertible.”

“Grams would die,” I say with a giggle. We cross onto the Fernandez’s property laughing, but immediately sober as we step onto the wide driveway. No one has been outside yet today. The untouched snow glistens like a sheet of diamonds. My gaze catches on the unused doghouse in the backyard. Two crows perch on the peak, watching us in silence.

“Been seeing more crows around lately,” he says. “This must be part of their migration or something.”

Or something. I give the crows a knowing look before we slog up the steps to the front door. They are not just birds, but he wouldn’t believe that, either.

Dad glances down with a grimace. “I should have brought the snow shovel. Could have at least dug out their steps for them.”

I roll my eyes. “A teenage boy lives here who’s perfectly capable of such manual work.”

The door opens at the first knock. The woman answering the door is so beautiful, so vibrant, Dad and I both back up a step. Her black hair flows in loose waves past her shoulders. Her figure is a curvy hourglass, and her smooth skin fairly glows. All I can think is, wow. I want to look like this when I’m, you know, old.