Everything You Are(29)

This morning, there’s no bottle, and Mom is making sandwiches, and Allie feels in the pit of her stomach that something even more horrible than the accident to Daddy’s hands has happened. Mom’s back looks strange, her whole body stiff and un-bendy, and she doesn’t turn around when she says, “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“Fine,” Allie says, but it’s a lie. What Daddy calls her spidey senses are all quivering. Her body feels hot. Something is wrong, but she’s learned that asking Mom questions when something is wrong is not a good idea. Trey, shoving past her into the kitchen, has yet to learn this truth. He bounces across the floor, Tigger style, and clatters into a chair.

“Is Daddy sick again? Why aren’t you sleeping? Can I have Frosted Flakes?”

Allie holds her breath, waiting.

Mom doesn’t turn around, nor does she answer the important question.

“No to the Frosted Flakes. I’ve made oatmeal. Allie, would you dish some up for your brother, please?”

Allie stretches up on her tiptoes to reach bowls from the cupboard. Gets a big spoon from the drawer. Mom clatters knives around way too loudly for the requirements of sandwich making. The cheese falls onto the floor—smoosh.

But she doesn’t pick it up, just braces both hands on the countertop, head bent, and stands there. A choking sound comes out of her, and she turns and fast walks out of the kitchen. She keeps her head down, but Allie sees the tears, anyway.

“Is Mom okay?” Trey asks. “Where’s Daddy?”

Allie doesn’t answer. She carefully spoons the oatmeal into his bowl, and then her own, even though the smell of it makes her throat do little warning spasms. She turns off the stove, something she’s learned to watch for when Daddy is cooking because he forgets, and then carries Trey’s bowl to the table.

He looks down at the thick goop in his bowl, pokes at it with a spoon. “Yuck,” he says.

“Eat it.”

“You eat it.”

“I have to finish our lunches.”

“Can I put sugar on it?”

“I don’t care.” Allie isn’t sure if Mom will care or not, but she thinks it’s more important to keep Trey from throwing a fit. She picks up the cheese and wipes off the bits of dirt and fuzz stuck to it, then slices it and lays it on the bread. The hot, prickly feeling spreads from her belly into the rest of her body.

Mom still hasn’t come back when the sandwiches are done.

The bedroom door is closed. Allie knows not to bother Mom when she’s sleeping. Everything is okay, she tells herself. Mom’s just tired. Maybe Daddy went on a trip. He used to travel lots with the symphony. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe his hands are better and he’s playing the cello and that will make him happy again . . .

But he wasn’t happy and he wasn’t traveling. He was just . . . gone. Without a word of explanation or a goodbye, and now he’s standing in the kitchen with a bowl of oatmeal. She turns and bolts for the door, away from him, away from the oatmeal, away from her mother’s absence and Trey’s museum of a room and the freaking cello music that haunts her whenever she’s in the house.

She takes her car, driving just below the speed limit, over checking the mirrors, her foot riding the brakes. When she parks outside the coffee shop, she takes a deep breath of relief, waits for her heart rate to settle before going inside. Ethan is there, waiting to meet her, same as he has every day since their trip to Whidbey Island.

“Thought you weren’t coming,” he says with a smile that spins her heart in her chest.

She shrugs, then gets in line and orders a latte with double shots of caramel. Her mother’s voice pops into her head, unwelcome and uninvited.

“That’s not breakfast, Allie.”

“Well, you’re not here to care, are you? So shut up already.”

“What are we doing today?” she asks to silence the clamoring of the guilt.

He leans across the table and kisses her. “I have an idea,” he says, holding her gaze.

“Tell me.”

“It’s a surprise. Let’s go.”

Excitement and expectation rise unexpectedly to the top of her grief, and she catches herself looking forward to whatever he’s got planned.

Today’s ride is short, though, and ends in the parking lot of a run-down motel. When Ethan kills the engine, her heart sinks and she doesn’t get off the bike.

This is what she wants, she reminds herself. When Ethan saved her from school the very first time, she’d been ready to have sex. Now, she’s in love with him. Over the last week, he’s been her everything. But this motel, the pavement full of cracks and potholes and trash, the faded sign, feel like discordant music.

Ethan takes off his helmet. Gets off the bike. Allie sits still, swallowing down something that tastes like disappointment.

“Here?”

“Does where matter?” He bends down and kisses her. His lips warm hers, ignite a heat low in her belly that spreads out into the rest of her body until all of her skin is awakened and her brain shuts off its arguing.

“I want you,” he whispers, his lips tracing a line of pleasure from her ear to her collarbone. Allie lets him take her hand and lead her into the office. It smells of old cigarettes and body odor and dry rot. The clerk’s eyes take liberties with Allie’s face and body, making her uneasy, but Ethan puts an arm around her waist and pulls her close against him. He pays cash. The man gives them a key.