Love in the Time of Serial Killers(65)

“No cinnamon brown sugar?” Conner asked, then shrugged as he opened a packet of strawberry frosted and popped them in the toaster.

“Whoa, look at you,” I said. “Actually toasting your Pop-Tarts. How nouveau riche.”

“I’ll have you know that we made enough on-time payments that the electric company took us off their EZ-Pay plan,” Conner said. “It’s ACH all the way now, baby.”

“I thought you had that glow about you.”

“But seriously,” Conner said, taking his breakfast from the toaster with the corners pinched gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. “You don’t toast yours? You know they’re made to be toasted, right? It says so on the box.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Mom didn’t really like me snacking too much,” I said. “So if I did, it was usually something quick snuck into my room.”

“Oh.” He seemed to think about that for a minute. Then, as if we’d been debating the topic and he needed to make one final point, he said in a burst, “That’s the main reason I picked to live with Dad, you know.”

“Because he let you have the run of the toaster?”

“Because he’d let me do whatever,” Conner said. “You remember how he was. If I’d wanted to go to Busch Gardens with my friends, Mom would’ve wanted to know who they were, who their moms were, had I cleaned my room, did I have my own money saved because she wasn’t about to give me twenty bucks for food, and on and on. Dad didn’t care. I think he was relieved if I was out of the house, or playing video games all day, or whatever, as long as I didn’t bother him.”

I did remember that about our father. It had been one of the most paradoxical things about him, in a way. He could be the most generous person; he wanted you to have everything you’d ever wanted. But if those wants pushed some invisible boundary he didn’t want you to cross, that’s when he could get cold, and angry, and mean. Eat all the marshmallows you can stomach. But if he reaches in the bag and there’s none left, he’ll lose his mind.

“Well, ironically, Mom did get a little looser once she met Bill,” I said. “New lease on life or whatever.”

“True.” Conner had had the opportunity to see a little of that when he’d come over every other weekend per the custody arrangement, but of course it hadn’t been the same. We’d spent at least one of those days playacting as a Family, filling our time with board games or mini golf or, once, a Pink Floyd laser light show that must’ve been Bill’s idea. There had been some legitimately fun times, but it also felt like we were always doing something, like we never had time to just talk and be.

It was going to be a long day if a sugary breakfast snack was already causing this much self-reflection. Conner went to take a bite, recoiling when he got too much of the hot filling at once.

“It’s like watching Icarus fly too close to the sun,” I said, shaking my head. “Come on. Let’s go see what we’re dealing with.”



* * *





?ALL THIS TIME I’d built up my father’s room as the great white whale, and it turned out that it was just . . . stuff. Some personal stuff, for sure—clothes I remembered him wearing, bills and other paperwork, old Auto Traders that still had faded pencil circles around cars he’d probably never planned to buy. But a lot of it was junk that could easily be stuffed into garbage bags.

I surprised myself by being sentimental enough to set aside one of his flannel button-up shirts, a blue plaid one I’d bought him one Christmas. I wasn’t naive enough to assign any significance to the fact that he still had it hanging in his closet—it had been the ultimate practical gift, after all, and my father was never one to throw much away. But hanging on to it seemed like the right thing to do, and I waited until Conner was on the phone with Shani to fold it up and shove it to the bottom of one of my suitcases in my room.

“Sorry your proposal last night didn’t work out,” I said once I came back, seeing that he was off the phone. “Did you talk to the guy yet about getting a refund?”

“I didn’t have to,” Conner said. “He actually sent it right to me through the app with a message that if I hadn’t proposed by New Year’s, we could try again.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “New Year’s could be cool.”

Conner shrugged. “At this point, I’m starting to think I should just drop to one knee when she gets home from work one day and do it right there in the apartment.”

The low-key approach I’d been advocating since the beginning, but something about seeing my brother so dejected made me swallow my usual anti-romantic sentiment. “Maybe give yourself a few weeks to think of something. And if you can’t think of a good idea—or the moment just feels right—then I say go for it.”

There was a knock at the front door, and I had a brief jolt of my usual Judgment Ridge before I realized that it was probably Sam. Sure enough, there he was, holding a cardboard carrier with three coffees.

“Hey,” he said, leaning in to give me a quick kiss that made my toes curl. I still wasn’t used to casual affection like that. It felt more dangerous than the sex, in a way. “I saw Conner’s car here and I figured . . . sorry, I didn’t know how you guys took your coffee, so I just grabbed a bunch of creamers and different kinds of sugar.”