Three Day Summer(41)

Approaching my house, I’m surprised to see that all the lights are off. I was sure the house would be blazing, that there’d be neighbors strewn across our front yard organizing themselves for the search, and that Mom would have resurrected the nuclear raid siren. Instead, everything is still and silent and nothing but crickets greet me at my door.

I try to let myself in and am surprised when the front doorknob meets me with resistance. Locked. We never lock our doors here, and I immediately can’t help but wonder whether it’s punishment against me or a precaution against the hordes of hippies my father thinks might come barreling through.

It takes me a moment to remember there is a spare key under the doormat. It’s covered in dust and cobwebs when I find it, but I fish it out and unlock the door.

I tiptoe in, still amazed at the silence. Out of curiosity, I head into the kitchen and glance at the cuckoo clock on the wall, just in case Amanda played a trick on me with the time and it’s really ten o’clock. But nope, it’s after midnight.

I turn around to go up to my room, and am greeted by a solid wall of shadow. “Cora.” It spits out my name. I jump a mile.

The lights get switched on and the shadow becomes a fuming, squat man glaring at me. Dad.

“What,” he says in a dangerously quiet voice, “is the meaning of this?”

“Dad,” I say, my heart pounding from the scare and from the dread of what’s about to happen. “I’m sorry. Time just ran away from me. . . .”

He shakes his head. “Time ran away from you? What happened to your watch?”

Dad points at my wrist and I quickly draw my hand away. I don’t think telling him my watch died because I was skinny-dipping in the lake with a boy is going to help defuse the situation.

“It’s just been so busy,” I start to quickly say. “And then the music was so good, I just lost track. . . .”

“That. Goddamn. Music,” he seethes. “Do you really think you can use that horrible, drugged-out assault on humanity as an excuse? For coming home after midnight?”

I grimace. “No, sir,” I say. Probably best to just get this over with.

“For the rest of this weekend, you will stay right in this house.”

My eyes widen. “But . . .”

“You will help out your mother and me around the farm. You won’t leave our sight for the next forty-eight hours.”

“Dad . . . ,” I begin.

“And then maybe in a few weeks we can discuss whether you can even go back to the hospital again.”

I stare at him. “You can’t ban me from the hospital.”

“I most certainly can.”

“For coming home an hour after curfew?” I say incredulously.

“Because Bethel is declared a war zone and you’re in the trenches, enjoying the music, as you say.”

My heart rate is still up, but this time I can feel the anger that’s surging through my blood. “This isn’t a war zone, Dad,” I start out calmly enough. “Mark is in a war zone.” But then I can’t stop myself. “And do you know who are the only people trying to get him out? Those damn hippies you’re always going on about.”

“Get him out?” he counters. “By doing what? Carrying signs and getting high? Those spoiled kids who have no idea what a real battlefield is like? Or what an honor it is to fight in one?”

“I’m pretty sure Mark doesn’t think it’s an honor. Not anymore,” I mutter.

He snorts. “And just what would you know about it? Your brother is out there fighting for . . .”

“For what exactly? I’d love to know. Give me one good reason Mark is being shot at instead of being here with us.”

“For his country,” Dad says with finality. As if that should answer everything.

Now it’s my turn to snort. “What does a government halfway across the world have to do with our country?”

“For freedom. Those people . . .”

“Want him out of their country, I’m assuming,” I say in a mocking tone.

Which might be the final straw for my father. “You don’t know anything, girl,” he shouts, his dangerous whisper now blossomed into full-volume wrath. “And you should learn to shut up about things you know nothing about.”

Here’s the thing with me. My dad gets visibly angry often, but I don’t. But when I do, you can take seven times his anger and still not be able to fill up the hot-air balloon of rage that inflates inside me, just waiting to be untethered.

“NO,” I yell back. “I will not shut up. And I know plenty, Dad.” I say “Dad” all drawn out, like it’s a joke to call him that. “I know about medicine and surgery and educated people. I know more than some hick farmer from f*cking Anytown, USA, ever will.”

I stay just long enough to see his eyes widen. Then, without thinking, I push past him, and run right out the front door.





chapter 48


Michael


Janis is onstage now, and she’s killing it. It’s so dark that I can hardly make her out at all; she’s just a silhouette with big floating sleeves. But I can hear every word that she sings, every note drawn out with passion and conviction. It’s hard to believe this is the same soft-spoken person we came across at a hotel bar just earlier today.