The Passing Storm(80)

Rae’s stomach lurched. Has Dad paid my tuition?

With dismay, she scanned the countertops. Dirty dishes were everywhere. The mess had gone unnoticed because she’d begun avoiding the house. Lately Rae was practically living with Griffin and his family. She stayed there most evenings until after dinner. Clinging to the normalcy of the Marks household. A better alternative than dealing with her father’s erratic behavior and inscrutable silences. Sometimes he talked to himself in mumbled, disjointed sentences. One day in February, she came home from school to discover the farm’s livestock missing. The chickens, the goats—even the dairy cow was gone from the barn. Her father had sold them all. Then he’d closed himself inside her mother’s art studio for long hours and refused to answer when Rae knocked.

The house resembled a psychiatric ward, with Connor the only patient.

And Rae—left without a functioning parent to guide her through the crushing loss—was beginning to despise him.

Her temper flaring, she spied a heap of bills stuffed behind the toaster. A messy stack of neglected responsibility.

“Dad!”

Grabbing a handful, she stalked down the hallway. His bedroom was dark. On the side of the bed, his silhouette was a curved bow.

Rae turned on a lamp. “When did you last pay the bills?” She waved the envelopes before him. “Dad, you have to snap out of it! I’m sad too, but I’m not shirking my duties. Mom wouldn’t want that. My heart’s broken just like yours, but I never skip classes.”

Silence.

“What’s next? A final notice from the bank? Do you expect us to live on the street?”

Still no reaction. A pungent, unclean odor rose from Connor’s rumpled clothes.

Disgusted, Rae stepped away. “I’m ashamed of you. The least you can do is clean yourself up. Where’s your self-respect?”

The difference between typical grief and serious depression is canyon-wide. Rae didn’t understand. Until the White Hurricane, she’d been reared in a stable home with two loving parents. The sorrow engulfing her father was incomprehensible.

“Are you even listening to me? What’s the matter with you?”

Her attention swept the room, taking in the tangle of clothes strewn across the carpeting and Hester’s pitiful funeral wreath propped against the wall. When had he taken it from the cemetery? The roses had gone limp, blackened from frost. Withered petals were scattered beneath.

“Fine. Just sit there.” Her voice breaking, she latched on to her anger. “Where’s the damn checkbook?”

Her father blinked, yet his eyes remained unfocused. “Language.”

“Go to hell, Dad. If you won’t take care of us, I don’t have much choice.”

In a fury, Rae approached the dresser to search for the checkbook. She cracked open drawers, then slammed them shut. The checkbook wasn’t hidden amid the rumpled clothes, and she expelled a frustrated growl. At the sound of her anger her father crawled into bed, shoes and all. When he pulled the blanket over his head, tears scalded her eyes.

Stalking out, she brushed them away. Anger was safer. She refused to fall apart like her dad. Instead she dredged up the pithy nuggets of wisdom Griffin’s mother offered on a daily basis.

Hester isn’t gone. She’ll always live inside you, Rae. Even when it’s difficult, find the joy in living. Prepare for college. Don’t fall behind in your studies. Your mother would expect nothing less from you.

Her homework forgotten, Rae stepped into the art studio. The tang of paint clung to the air. She found the checkbook beneath a sheaf of bank statements on the table before the studio’s wall of glass. There were also three checks from art galleries—a tidy sum. The money from Hester’s life insurance policy was already deposited in a savings account in Rae’s name. Hester, ever prudent, had set up the policy years earlier.

Clearing a space, Rae paid the bills. She filled out deposit slips and made a note to transfer funds from her savings account. By the time the last envelope was sealed, a headache pounded at her temples.

Lonely and frustrated, she picked up the phone.

Sally answered. “Hi, Rae. Hold on. I’ll get my brother.”

The phone clattered down. The sounds of soft music and adult laughter drifted through the line. Griffin’s parents entertaining guests. This afternoon Winnie had been preparing canapés when Rae and Griffin walked in from school.

“Hey, babe. What’s up?” Surprise laced the greeting; it was after nine o’clock.

“Griffin, I know it’s late. Can I come over for a little while? My dad’s being weird. I need to get out of here.”

“Sure.” Happiness replaced the surprise in Griffin’s voice. “I’ll be at the door waiting.”

When she arrived, the foyer chandelier threw sparkles of light across the walls. Frank Sinatra warbled from the living room. Griffin’s parents were drinking martinis with their guests.

The intrusion went unnoticed, and Griffin led her through the kitchen. They hurried down the stairwell to the basement.

Dust swirled in the air. An old couch sat against the concrete wall. A wooden crate stood in as a side table, with a CD player on top. There was also a beanbag chair that Sally had picked up somewhere, and the mini fridge Rae had given Griffin at Christmas, before the White Hurricane upended their lives. Although Winnie Marks had decorated every inch of the main living areas, her two children preferred the jumbled crash pad they’d created together.