The Impossible Knife of Memory(67)

He said, “Breakfast,” set a plate with toast on it on my desk, and left.

The crusts had been cut off the toast. He’d spread a little butter and a lot of honey.

“Thanks,” I said. “What are you going to do today?” But he was already gone.

Trish paused at my door like it was an ordinary morning, like she might remind me about a dentist appointment or tell me I had clean clothes in the dryer. The sight of her filling up my doorway, as if she belonged there, as if everything was fine, we were all just fine in the morning—it chased me out the door without a jacket, without my books, without a bite of toast.

Finn’s car had no windshield wiper fluid and we were surrounded by trucks without mud flaps spraying road gunk on the windshield, plus his wipers were worthless. We had a stupid argument and I made him pull into the gas station and buy a gallon. When I realized he didn’t know where to pour it, I yelled at him and did it myself. And then he yelled at me and said I should chill, but I knew he was upset about the stupid newspaper so I didn’t let it bother me too much.

We were so late we missed first-period lunch. I went to the library, grabbed a book from the new fiction table, and read in during class for the rest of the day. If anyone said anything to me, I didn’t hear it.

After the last bell rang, the final injustice was that I had to ride the bus home again because Finn had to lifeguard. It seemed to me that anyone who needed a lifeguard to make sure they didn’t drown shouldn’t be allowed on a swim team, but when I said that to Finn, he gave me the “whatever” look and stalked away.

*

The driveway was empty and the house was still when I got home. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept more than a couple of hours at a time, and the sun had warmed the living room and the next thing I knew I’d been asleep for hours and the house was dark and I was hungry. I stumbled to the kitchen, opened a can of chicken noodle soup, and put it on the stove. Someone had taken the fossilized toast out of my room and put it on the kitchen table, right below the calendar that hung on the wall, still showing the month of September. I threw out the toast, untacked the calendar, and flipped it to November.

That’s when it finally dawned on me that the shitty day I’d endured was the day before Veterans Day. I looked around and realized that I did not know where my father was. I turned off the stove.

I won’t get upset , I thought. That would be silly. Maybe he went to the grocery store for milk. There was no reason to worry. Maybe the truck needed a new oil filter. Maybe he decided to drive into the Hudson River. Or he offered to take Trish to work and drove them both into the Hudson River. Maybe he went for a walk and flashbacked and he was lost somewhere walking point on a patrol through a valley of insurgents.

I shook the thought out of my head.

No, no, no. He went for milk.

Still, I checked. The guns were locked in the safe. Ammo locked in its own storage box.

I sat on the couch with Spock. One deep breath. Another. Shadows were trying to turn into monsters. One more breath. We’re fine. He’s fine. The furnace kicked on, blowing the smell of stale cigarette smoke out of the curtains and across the room. I’d give it an hour; one minute past and I’d call the police, though I wasn’t sure what I’d say to them.

Fifty-five minutes later, the front door opened. Trish walked in first, her face pale and eyes red. Dad followed a few seconds later. He glanced at me, then turned his face away, but not fast enough. He walked down the hall to his bedroom without a word.

“What happened to your eye?” I called after him. He slammed his door.

“What did you do to him?” I asked.

“He did it to himself.” She sat in the recliner and hugged

her knees to her chest. “It was supposed to be a date.”

I fought the urge to throw her out the door. “Did you punch him in the face?”

“No, the bartender did.”

“You took him to a bar, tonight of all nights?”

“Can I tell you what happened before you start with the accusations?”

I nodded once.

“We were supposed to meet at Chiarelli’s at five,” she said. “I was only half an hour late. He’d gotten there three hours early. By the time I walked in, he’d bonded with a couple of losers over the Giants defense and bourbon. He didn’t want to eat in the restaurant anymore. I ordered pizza, but he said he wasn’t hungry.”

My stomach started to hurt.

Trish sighed. “The bar got crowded. Andy’s new friends left and he went quiet, not wanting to talk, but determined to stay there. It was the first time I’d been in a bar since I joined AA. I must have drunk a gallon of ginger ale.” She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “Anyway. I left to use the restroom. Everything was fine when I walked out.”

“And when you got back?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“The bartender had him in a headlock on the floor. Andy thought some guy was staring at him, insulting him. They got into it and the bartender tried to break it up. Andy turned on the bartender, who was half his age and twice his size. By the time the police got there—”

“They called the cops?” I interrupted.

“This wasn’t a biker bar at two in the morning, Hayley. This was a nice restaurant, filled with families who wanted dinner, not a show. Yes, they called the cops.”