The Impossible Knife of Memory(45)

And then what?

Despite my best intentions, I was beginning to understand how my dad saw the world. The shadows haunting every living thing. The secrets inside the lies wrapped in bullshit. Even Gracie’s box of mints was beginning to make sense.

“Excuse me?” a voice said. “Can I sit here?”

I turned to say no, but he was already sitting down.

Finnegan Trouble Ramos.

I opened my mouth, but he put his finger on my lips.

“Shh,” he said. “Please. Let me say this before I chicken out again, okay? First, I’m sorry I didn’t call or text you or show up this morning.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple dropping down and bouncing up like a basketball.

“I really like you, Hayley Kincain. I want to be with you as much as I can. I get that it’s weird at your house, scary maybe, and your dad can be a jerk. You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to, but it kills me because you are so beautiful and smart and awesome and I don’t want anything to be scary for you, I just want—”

He paused for a breath.

I reached out and put my hand at the back of his neck; I pulled myself close to him and I kissed him until everything that hurt inside me melted into a pool of black water so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom. As long as I was touching him, I wouldn’t drown.





_*_ 49 _*_

So. That.

Right?

That feeling in your stomach when you hear him whistling off-key, down the hall. That way your heart trips and then hammers against your ribs when he sees you and he grins like a little kid at the top of a steep, shiny-hot slide. Call it hormones, an early-stage bacterial zombie infection, or a very pleasant dream I was experiencing; I didn’t care.

I liked That.





_*_ 50 _*_

Two days later, I came home to find that the hood of Dad’s pickup was warm and ticking, like he’d just pulled in the driveway. I opened the door to check the odometer. Twenty-three miles had been put on since I left for school.

“Hop in!” Dad called from the garage.

His cheery tone of voice made me suspicious. “Why?” He stood up, holding a hand pump and a basketball. He bounced the ball once and grinned. “Got a surprise for you.”

I hesitated. Since Sunday, he’d been quiet, but not sober. “Are you okay to drive?”

He laughed. “I’m running on coffee and sweat today, nothing else.” He bounce-passed the ball to me. “It’ll just take a couple minutes. Get in.”

I didn’t notice the paint until we were on the road: two shades of yellow and a dark blue dotting his forearms and knuckles. He had paint on his shirt and jeans, too. He sang off-key with the radio, his breath smelling of mint gum, his hands steady on the wheel and gearshift. I was beginning to see a pattern. After the bonfire argument, he’d made nice and taken me to the cemetery. After his ax-murderer bit in the garage and the fight we had about it, here he was acting happy again. Well, happy-ish.

My phone buzzed. It was probably Finn, but I didn’t take it out of my pocket. I didn’t want to trigger Angry Dad again.

The song ended and an obnoxious commercial for a used-car dealer came on. Dad turned the radio off.

“I ran into Tom Russell in the grocery store.” He took a deep breath. “He was buying carrots.”

I had no idea where this was going. “Were they on sale?”

He turned left and stopped along the curb in front of a small park I’d never seen before. The swing set was empty. A couple of old people sat on a bench watching dogs chase tennis balls that they tossed onto an empty basketball court.

“Didn’t notice,” Dad said. “The point is that Tom’s a contractor. Small jobs mainly: roof repair, gutters, painting, that kind of thing. Anyway, he was buying carrots, like I said, and he recognized me from high school. We got to talking and one thing led to another, and it turned out he’d had a guy not show up for work today.” He pointed to a small house with green shutters across the street from the park.

“Voilà.”

“Voilà?”

“I painted the kitchen and the laundry room in there. Only took five hours. Tom paid me cash, everything under the table. Not too shabby, huh?”

His face lit up with real excitement, not the kind that comes in a bottle or a bong. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him like this. “That’s fantastic, Dad.” “I thought you’d like hearing that.”

“Tell me more,” I said. “Is this going to be a part-time thing? Full-time? Did you know any of the other guys?”

“I worked alone,” he said. “Had tunes playing and the windows open. It was a good day, princess.”

“What time does he want you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Your buddy there. The guy who hired you.”

“Tom?” He turned the key enough to glance at the time, then took the keys out. “Said he’d call if something else came up.” He picked up the ball and opened the door. “We haven’t shot hoops in forever. C’mon.”

It took him a long time to find his rhythm. I fetched the balls that clanged off the rim and bounced off the backboard. For about ten minutes, he made one shot for every five he took.