The Impossible Knife of Memory(59)

When our alarms went off, we staggered downstairs and woke up Topher and Gracie. Finn dropped me off at the bottom of my driveway and watched as I keyed Trish’s car on my way to the front door. I snuck in the house without waking up the dog, crawled under my covers with my clothes on, and fell back asleep just as I was getting ready to cry.





_*_ 62 _*_

When I finally rolled out of bed that afternoon, they were watching football in the living room. Trish was curled up in the recliner, rocking slightly back and forth, a thick book in her lap and hideous reading glasses pinching the end of her nose. Dad sipped a beer on the couch. A half-eaten sub rested on the table in front of him, and the dog was sprawled at his feet. An ugly, wooden cuckoo clock hung on the wall above his head, ticking loudly.

“Look who’s up,” Dad said.

I pointed to the clock above the couch. “Where did that come from?”

“Trish found it in the basement,” he said.

She looked at me over the top of her reading glasses. “You look tired, Lee-Lee. Did you get enough sleep?”

Without any warning or asking for permission, my eyes teared up again. I should have ignored Finn. Should’ve walked to the bus station and gotten on the first bus without looking back. Spock rolled over and whined for a belly rub. When Trish looked at him, I wiped my face on my sleeve. Not that I was going to tell her, but she was right. I needed more sleep to deal with all of this, to deal with the bite of the blade, the ripping sound, and the flood . . . she handed me the pen and I signed my first library card and they let me take out eight books that I could read as many times as I wanted . . .

. . . the snip of scissors and the smell of the glue, chaining one loop of paper to the next, red, green, red, green to hang on the tree . . .

. . . rows of M&M’s laid on the scratched kitchen table, her trying to teach me that multiplication and division could be fun . . .

Trish looked up at me. The light from the window was behind her and made it impossible to read the expression on her face. Focusing on the shadows made it easier . . . she threw an ashtray at him and he ducked and it exploded into an ice storm of glass . . .

. . . finding her passed out on the couch with a stranger, both of them missing clothes . . .

. . . the sound of the door slamming the last time she left

to lock down the memories that kept trying to seep out.

Trish held up her book so that I could see the cover. “The new Elizabeth George. Do you like mysteries?”

Spock whined again and thumped his tail. He could smell the bullshit, too. Trish was already acting like she lived here. If I ran away, she’d make him fall in love with her again and God knows how that would end this time. But if I stayed and she stayed, I’d have to kill her and murder was still illegal.

Dad and Trish exchanged one of those grown-up looks that meant whatever happened next, I wasn’t going to like it.

He turned off the game and cleared his throat. “We need to talk.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, heading for the door. “I’m going to mow the lawn.”

“Not yet,” Dad said.

“Please,” Trish added.

I stopped. Crossed my arms over my chest.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Dad scratched his head. “Should have told you she was coming, I know. I tried to the other day when we were shooting hoops, but I got distracted.”

Trish rocked faster. The recliner started to squeak.

“And I’m sorry I lost my temper last night,” he continued.

“Well,” I said, “as long as you’re sorry, I guess that makes everything better, doesn’t it?”

“I screwed up, okay?” Dad cracked his knuckles. “You weren’t exactly on your best behavior. Anyway. Trish needs to stay here.”

Trish jumped in. “Only for a week or so.”

“No sense in her wasting money on a hotel room,” Dad said.

“What about the pig barn down the road?” I asked.

The squeaking recliner sounded like a mouse caught in a trap. They exchanged another annoying glance and my last nerve snapped.

“Don’t look at her like that!” I yelled.

“Hayley, please,” Trish said.

I whirled around. “Shut up!”

“Hayley!” Dad said.

Trish shook her head. “Give her some space, Andy.”

“Give me space?” I echoed. “Did you learn that from a fortune cookie?”

“You can’t have it both ways,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“You tell me to shut up and then you ask me a question. You can’t have it both ways. You have to choose.” She pushed the reading glasses into her hair. “I’m an nurse now, Hayley. Got my degree. I’m up here for some interviews. Andy offered me a place to stay, as an old friend, nothing more.”

“Just as a friend,” Dad repeated. “She’s staying in Gramma’s room.”

I hoped Gramma’s ghost heard that. I hoped she was gathering her dead lady friends together to haunt and terrorize Trish. Maybe she could get Rebecca to help, along with the Stockwell family and everyone else from the graveyard, hundreds of dead people to crowd into the bedroom, Gramma tapping Trish’s shoulder and politely suggesting that she get the hell out and leave us alone.