The Impossible Knife of Memory(64)

Every time I stepped out of the house, I looked up, expecting to see a bomb or a meteor hurtling toward us. It was just a matter of time.

More zombies clawed their way out of the ground while I was waiting for my health status to turn green. I paused the game and stared at the screen, trying to find an escape. My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn’t think I would make it.

Trish walked into the living room, zipping up her jacket. “I’m going to the grocery store. Do you need anything?”

I put down the controller. “I’m coming with you.”

Trish threw out a few questions in the car, pretending that she cared about my life: did my face still hurt, was Brandon Something a bully to everyone or just me, was I going to play any sports, did I have friends. She asked about Gracie, said we should invite her for dinner one night. She asked if I had signed up for my SATs, and if I wanted her to talk to Dad about anything for me.

Blah and blah and nosy none-of-your-business blah. I didn’t show her the shortcut that would have saved us ten minutes. I texted Finn and when he didn’t answer, I pretended that he had.

*

At the store, I stayed a few steps behind her, waiting until she had a cart, then grabbing one for myself. In the fruit-and-vegetable section, she picked over the heads of lettuce until she found one that met her high standards of lettuceness. Then she went through the same routine choosing bananas, apples, broccoli, and cucumbers. I scanned the prices to figure out what cost the most, then piled boxes of raspberries, gourmet salad dressings, and a couple of bizarre-looking organic things grown in Central America in my cart.

In the meat department, she picked out hamburger and pork chops. I loaded up on steak and packages of buffalo sausages. I skipped the bakery and went to International Foods where I selected canned lemongrass shoots, curry-flavored almonds, and dried baby crabs, among other things.

An announcement about tasty ways to turn tuna into a terrific treat interrupted the Christmas music. Trish passed me without a word on her way to cereal and crackers.

I hit the jackpot in the fish department: lobster, shrimp, and a couple of small jars of caviar. I had about five hundred dollars’ worth of food in my cart and there were still three aisles to go.

I turned into coffee/tea/creamers and ran right into Trish’s cart.

“I’m not paying for any of that,” she said, looking over my bounty.

“I know,” I said, wanting to kick myself for having been so obvious.

She pushed past me. I followed so close behind that when she slowed down to take a box of chamomile tea off the shelf, my cart rammed into the back of her legs.

I braced myself for the explosion, but it didn’t come. She tossed the tea in her cart, quickly maneuvered around a couple of old ladies and the guy restocking the condensed milk shelves, and took a right at the end of the aisle. The old ladies slowed me down, but I found her in frozen foods, comparing labels on two kinds of burrito.

She put both burritos in her cart and closed the freezer door. “How long do you plan on acting like you’re five years old?”

Here we go.

“Until you leave,” I said. “He’s broke, you know. The house is falling apart and he can’t keep a job. He gets high now, too. There is no money for you to steal.”

“Roy told me to come,” she said. “That’s the only reason I’m here. He’s worried about you both.”

“You suck at lying,” I said. “You talked to my guidance counselor long before Roy showed up. He didn’t tell you anything.”

“Why do you think Roy visited you guys in the first place?” she asked.

A man driving an electric cart squeezed between us.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Andy started emailing me six months ago, right after you two moved here,” Trish said. “At first, it was friendly, which was more than I deserved. Around August, he started to sound desperate. Wrote some weird stuff. I forwarded the email to Roy and it bothered him, too. He was already planning the hunting trip, so he tacked on a day to stop at your house. When he told me what he saw, I quit my job.”

“Sure you did.”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “I haven’t had a drink in twenty-seven months, Lee-Lee. Twenty-seven months, three weeks, and two days.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I don’t blame you for being mad at me,” she went on. “What I did was inexcusable. I am so, so sorry that I left you. It was the worst thing I ever did to another person, worse than what I did to Andy, because you were just a kid. We can’t go back and fix that. I came up here to see if I could help because I still love you. Both of you.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“I don’t think you realize how serious this is,” she said.

“You show up for a couple of days and suddenly you know everything?”

“Can you stop being childish for one minute?”

I gripped the handle of my cart.

“He’s scaring me,” she continued. “Not like he used to. I’m not afraid he’s going to hurt me. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself and I think you are, too.”

“He was doing fine until you showed up,” I said.

“We both know that’s a lie,” she said. “When you’re ready to start dealing with the truth, you let me know.”