Unspeakable Things(51)

It was too hot to search the rest of the property. I wrung out the hem of my clothes one-handed so I wouldn’t drip hose water and walked into the house to ask Mom if she knew where he was. I was careful not to bang the screen door and stood in the porch for a moment to listen. I figured I’d find Mom in the kitchen getting the week’s baking done, but she might be working on one of the sewing projects she took to stretch her teaching salary.

“No one.”

I stood straight, my ears at attention. Unbelievably, Dad was on the phone.

“I don’t want to discuss price.” His voice grew agitated. “No.”

A pause on his end of the line, then he spoke again, his voice strung like razor wire. “In the basement. You think I’m stupid?”

I was trapped between stepping forward and going back. Before I could make up my mind, the phone crashed down and Dad stormed into the porch, his eyes on fire, his hands clenched into fists. “How much of that did you hear?”

I opened my mouth and then closed it.

“Never mind. Let’s get back to work.”

I followed him, numb. I spotted Mom in the chicken coop as we passed, going in with a pitchfork and some fresh hay. She was cleaning it completely, the worst job in the world. The chickens would scream and flap their wings, scaring up dried chicken poop and hay dust. She’d have to haul out the dry as well as the wet hay, soggiest under the waterer and around the food, where the hens pooped as they ate. It smelled like tempera paint in there, but dirtier. Usually, cleaning it out was me and Sephie’s job. Mom must be doing it because of my hand.

I hung my head.

Dad didn’t acknowledge Mom as we passed, didn’t speak as we worked. I felt invisible to him, which was the best way to be, in my book. I was thinking about Lynn’s bedroom. She had a lock, and she was safe in there. She got to sleep on top of her mattress, not under it or in her closet.

I wanted that.

It was dangerous to talk to Dad when he was like this, though. He wore his anger like knives, and you didn’t want them aimed at you. There was a sweet spot when he first started drinking where he’d drop that armor. It was a small window, maybe half an hour where he forgot everything he’d been cheated of. He’d talk about trips we’d take or how he was immortal because he had me and Sephie and he loved us. I could make him laugh in that window. His eyes would crinkle up and his mouth would open so wide I could see the spaces left by the teeth they’d pulled in high school because his mom couldn’t afford to fill the cavities. I puffed up to twice my size when I got him to smile.

We weren’t in that honey hole now, but it must live somewhere inside him, always. It didn’t matter if I hit it, anyhow. I’d made up my mind. I would demand the same safety as Lynn, no matter Dad’s mood. I set my shoulders and cleared my throat.

“I want a lock on my bedroom door.”

Dad paused only long enough to sneer before swinging his ax into the tree. The smell of pine oozed out, the lone fir in a line of hardwoods. “If I wanted to get into your room, I’d just break it down.”

I fell into the cotton of myself, shrinking. “It’s my room.”

He swung the ax again, lacerating the wood. He would push back that jungle, inserting trails, forcing sight lines, hacking off low branches that wept garnet sap. He would remove any lick of wild jungle from our woods, one tree at a time, and put up trip wires that would let him know if his territory had been breached. He walked this world fully barricaded inside himself, and we were all his enemies. Me, Mom, Sephie, the bramble and brush.

The ax rose and fell, rose and fell, mashing leaves and bright, earthy pulp alike, the wet wood resisting and then finally giving in to his relentless punishment.

I never brought up the lock again.





CHAPTER 32

I hadn’t known I was going to visit Frank until Dad, Mom, and I took our lunch break under the basswood tree, but the impulse felt right the second it appeared. We needed to investigate what was happening to the Hollow boys. Nobody should have to live in fear all the time, not even boys from the wrong side of the tracks. I wolfed down my food and excused myself to use the bathroom. Mom and Dad would be done eating soon, but if I called Frank immediately, I could see if he was free before Dad tromped inside.

I ran to my room to grab Frank’s number and charged down the stairs, taking the bottom three all at once. I slipped the phone from the handset and dialed the four digits. I had a straight view of Dad from here. He leaned over to kiss Mom, all the dirty dishes balanced in one hand. He was being cranky with me, but at least now he was lovey-dovey with her.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Frank! It’s Cassie. Hey, do you want to go biking today?”

“Can’t. I have chores.”

“How about tomorrow?”

Dad stopped kissing Mom and began striding toward the house, chewing up the lawn with his wide steps.

Frank was taking too long to answer.

“My parents don’t want me to go out at night,” he finally said.

The screen door squawked. Dad stepped into the sunporch.

“It wouldn’t be at night. It’d be during the day.”

“Maybe . . .”

Four more seconds and Dad would be standing in the kitchen, glaring at me, asking who I was talking to, telling me I couldn’t go as soon as he knew it was a boy.