The Impossible Knife of Memory(86)

He picked it up. “What’s this?”

My shivering turned into shaking. I ripped open the top of my box and pulled out a faded blue bandanna that held two gold rings, one man-sized, the other a little smaller, and one Purple Heart.





_*_ 90 _*_

Me, pounding on his bedroom door. “Daddy, open up! Open up now!”

Me, kicking the door, screaming.

Me, swinging the splitting maul, wood cracking, doorknob breaking off, door falling backward.

(Finn’s voice in the distance. Too far away to hear.) *

The room was perfectly tidy, ready for inspection. The bed was made, one thin pillow in a clean pillowcase lay at the head, an extra blanket, folded, lay across the foot. His clothes were neatly lined up in the closet. His ancient computer had been cleaned of months of grease smears and cigarette ash. The nightstand, empty except for a reading lamp, the desk, the bureau, all dusted. I checked the closet again; the clothes were still there, still hanging, still quiet. Gun locker closed and locked. I opened it; all guns were accounted for.

I shut the closet door and stood with my back to it. From this angle, the room looked like it could belong to anyone. No, not anyone. It looked like it belonged to no one at all.

Garage: pickup truck, engine cold, not running, not pumping out carbon dioxide, no hose leading from tailpipe to driver’s window.

Bathroom: empty. No knives. No knives, no blades, no blood.

Basement: empty. No rope. No rope hanging from the I beam that held up the house, no body twisting, no feet dangling inches above the ground.

He wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room or the dining room. He wasn’t in my bedroom (he would never have done that, how could I even think it, he would not leave his body on the floor of my room, never that) so where . . .

Gramma’s room, which was Trish’s room for a little while. In there? In there?

Gramma’s room: empty. No fathers. No fathers overdosed on the bed or under the bed or in the closet. On the bed was a box. It was a big, red box that used to hold printer paper. On the box was an envelope addressed to Trish. The envelope fell to the floor The top of the box fell to the floor Inside was a photo album I’d never seen, pictures of Rebecca, pictures of Rebecca and me and him. Underneath the album were dozens of crisp, sealed, sharp-edged envelopes. Every envelope had my name on it. In the top-right corner was a date. Half of the envelopes were dated my birthday. The other half were dated December 25, and the years that followed those dates stretched for decades into the future.

This girl was crying again, and the dog was howling again because we could not find my father. A monster had my daddy in its teeth, only this time there was no blood on the floor and no footprints to follow.

Finn’s voice had been growing louder and louder until my ears were ringing and he was standing in front of me, his mouth moving faster than I could hear. He held a phone in front of my face and the words finally caught up to my ears, he was saying, “—Trish, stranded in Chicago, the storm, he hid a card in her bag, opened it, she has to talk to you—”

Into one ear, Trish tried to talk, but her teeth clacked together like pearls from a broken necklace bouncing off the floor.

Into the other ear, Finn yelled, “What should I do? What do you want me to do? Who should we call? 911? What about my mom? She’ll help. I’ll call her. And I’ll call 911. What is Trish saying?”





_*_ 91 _*_

My sweet Patricia, I can’t do it anymore. It’s not fair to make her carry my bones on her back. She has to live her own life instead of worrying about me.

You said you wanted to help. Here it is: Hayley needs you.

If she ever stops hating me, tell her how proud I am of her and how much I love her.

Faithfully yours, believe it or not,

Andy

PS—Tell her she looks just like her mother. Tell her she’s strong enough to take on the world.





_*_ 92 _*_

I lost an hour.

I closed my eyes to blink and when I opened them, there were two cops standing in our house talking into radios and phones and looking in every room, as if Dad was playing hide-and-seek. It took a few minutes to register how much time had passed and that a blanket was wrapped around my shoulders and Finn was helping me hold a cup of hot something.

I had been talking, that was clear. The cop had written down Dad’s name, his favorite bars, and Trish’s phone number. That was her voice shouting from the phone the officer held. Another cop, a woman, was copying down the information from Dad’s prescription bottles. She set them back on the table.

“Try not to worry,” she said. “Your father has only been gone a few hours. Technically, we can’t consider him missing until tomorrow morning. He probably got picked up by a buddy and is drinking in the guy’s basement right now.”

“But that letter,” Finn said.

“If I take that letter to my chief, he’ll say that it means nothing until Mr. Kincain has been gone for twenty-four hours. Then he’ll chew me out for not being on the road helping with the accidents that this snow caused.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Finn asked.

“Sit tight. We see a lot of this around the holidays, especially with vets. He just needs some time and space. Your stepmom says she’s on her way back, so I won’t call Child Protective Services, but you need to stay here.”