The Impossible Knife of Memory(10)

The pickup, a 1982 Ford F-150 XL with a five-liter, smallblock, V-8 engine, was going to outlive us both. Some days he’d clean and fiddle and fuss over it like the future of the world depended on it being able to shift smoothly and not overheat.

“You should be working on the rig instead.” I nodded in the direction of the half-collapsed barn. The cab of his eighteen-wheeler had been parked there since the day we moved in. “You’ll never get the price you’re asking if you don’t.”

“Selling it as is.” He grabbed a wrench from the tool bench and slid back under the pickup.

I found the other creeper next to the trash can and rolled under the front end next to him. The smell of gas, oil, rust, and coolant relaxed me a little. The half-ton of metal above us kept us safe from everything out there. I took a deep breath and the knot in my stomach loosened.

“Another great day at school, huh?” he asked.

“Hardly,” I said. “Did you play football with Ms. Benedetti’s brother?”

“I played basketball.” He wiped the grime off a nut with his rag. “Lou Benedetti. Haven’t thought about him for years. Big kid, so uncoordinated he could barely walk. Spent most of his time on the bench.”

“You love football. Why didn’t you go out for the team?”

“Because your grandfather wanted me to,” Dad answered. “Get me a quarter-inch ratchet, will you? Ten-mil socket.”

I rolled out, found the right wrench in the tool chest, rolled back under and handed it to him.

“Why were you talking to Ms. Benedetti?” he asked. “Math?”

“She said I should ask you about partying at the quarry.”

“Boring story. Great bonfire, couple of arrests, and one knocked-out tooth. I didn’t do it, by the way.”

“Doesn’t sound boring to me.”

“There’s a lot of stories about that place. Most of them are bullshit, but a couple kids died there. Not at our party. That’s why it was considered boring.”

“Ms. Benedetti called your work number. Whoever she talked to said you quit.”

The wind blew a few dead leaves under the truck. Dad’s mouth tightened. The shrapnel scars along his jaw glowed like a fragments of bone in a bed of cold ash. “What did you tell her?”

“Did you quit or did they fire you?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

His tone of voice meant that the discussion on that topic was officially closed, but he was wrong. The difference between walking out or being kicking out meant everything. Moving back here and getting a job was supposed to keep the crazy away.

“Why was she calling me?” he asked.

“Something about a Veterans Day assembly,” I said. “I forgot the other thing.”

Trish.

Saying her name out loud would be like giving him a cool, sweet glass of antifreeze to drink. It would go down with no trouble, but after a few hours, he’d get a headache and start breathing hard. His legs would cramp up, his eyes would stop working, and he’d slur his words. His organs would shut down, one after another, and he’d die all over again.

“That’s not much help,” Dad said.

“Something about paperwork,” I said. “She said she’d come here to talk to you about it if you don’t want to talk on the phone.”

“She always was a pain in the ass.” He let the loosened nut drop into his palm and removed the bolt. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

Crap. “Then I need a favor.”

He sighed and turned his head to look at me. “What?” “We didn’t have a teacher in-service today.”

I waited for a response. He looked back up at the engine and applied the wrench to the next nut.

“You have to call the attendance office,” I continued. “Tell them I had a doctor’s appointment.”

He whacked the nut with the handle of the wrench.

“Please, Daddy?”

A few flakes of rust landed on his face. “You promised, Hayley. We came back here so you could go to school.”

“We came back so you could get a normal job. And keep it.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“It is the same subject. You quit. Why can’t I? Let me take the GED and I’ll start online classes in January.”

“What, you’re going to be my babysitter now?”

I didn’t answer. He hit the frozen metal with the wrench over and over, rust raining on his face. The clanking sounded like a cracked bell getting ready to break into pieces.

“Well?” he demanded.

I had to change the angle of attack so he didn’t feel like I was disrespecting him.

“It’s not about babysitting you,” I said, “it’s about saving me. That place is awful. They have lockdown drills in case of a terrorist attack. Do you really want me to spend every day in a place like that? Making me go there is cruel and unusual punishment.”

The stubborn nut finally moved. He cranked it a few times with the wrench. “Spare me the Eighth Amendment.”

“I’ll make you macaroni and cheese every night for a year if you let me quit.”

He spun the nut off the bolt with his fingers. “Nonnegotiable.”

“I’ll start tonight,” I said. “Mac and cheese and mashed potatoes with bacon.”