Unspeakable Things(59)
Dad’s eyes grew hooded and then cleared. “When?”
“Just now. Dang dog. But it didn’t get me.” Better the mutt take the heat. Dad already didn’t like him.
Dad seemed to swallow that story, because he changed the subject. “We’re going to town.”
“You and Mom?” His stillness was alarming. Had Goblin called after all and told on me for trespassing? Did Dad know the dog story was a lie?
“You and me. I have some shopping to do. We can grab Sephie on our way back.”
My eyelid twitched. I didn’t want to drive to town with Dad in this mood, but I didn’t see a way out. I cleared my throat. “Let me put my bike away first.”
It was a tense drive. The only bright spot was that Dad had put a shirt on, though he hadn’t changed out of his holey jean shorts. The road raced by underneath the VW van, visible through the hole in the passenger-side floor, its grays and blacks accented by a gash of white when Dad veered too far to the right.
Even with Dad’s mood, I always found the road passing under me exhilarating. It reminded me I could go anywhere when I got older, explore bottomless blue-green oceans, climb icy snow-capped mountains, drink tea with monks. The irony of being reminded of the size of the world through a hole in the floor of a rusted-out van was not lost on me.
We pulled into town without saying a single word to each other until Dad hit the first stop sign. “I’ll drop you off at the library.”
My blood fizzed with joy. I’d finished Flowers in the Attic last night. “Thanks!”
“You’ll have half an hour.”
“What’re you going to do?”
His knuckles grew white on the steering wheel. “I have a meeting.”
“With who?”
“With none of your business.”
I hopped out of the van in front of the library, situated in the center of downtown Lilydale. I slammed the door closed behind me, only mildly unsettled at the idea of Dad at a meeting. Thirty minutes later to the second, I stood outside the library clutching four new hardcovers. I held them like treasure because they were. The rain had stopped, but the sidewalks were worm soup. I stood there for ten minutes, but no Dad.
I shifted my weight from foot to foot. A little girl exited the Ben Franklin across the street, gripping her dad’s pinkie finger with one hand and a Jolly Rancher Stix in the other. I could tell what flavor it was because of her corpse-green lips. Stix were the popular candy now, and a lot of kids ate them on the bus, either green apple or fire flavored. I’d wanted so bad to taste them, but I was no beggar. I squeezed my books tighter. I wished I’d brought money with me. There were so few candies I’d gotten to taste. Sephie and I liked lemon drops and root beer barrels and bridge mix only because that’s what our grandparents had out when we visited.
The girl and her dad walked down the street. When it came time to cross, he picked her up, but he moved too fast and she dropped her candy. The bright green fell into a rivulet of water heading toward a storm drain. She screamed, but he wouldn’t let her retrieve it. They disappeared around a corner.
I found myself walking toward the dropped candy. A feverish need to taste it had overtaken me. I forced myself to step past it, toward the Ben Franklin door, my eyes trained on the sidewalk. Maybe I’d find some money that someone dropped. I’d only need a quarter. Or maybe I could go in the store, and a fresh, slick stick of candy would slide right into my pocket, and I could take it home with me, savor it in my closet along with one of my new books.
I had the cool Ben Franklin door handle in my hand, my stomach churning from the fish smell of rain-swollen worms, ready to step in and get some candy one way or another, when the door to Little John’s opened, emitting raucous noise and a thick plume of cigarette smoke.
Dad stepped out, Sergeant Bauer behind him. The sergeant was wearing street clothes. They shook hands and clapped each other on the shoulder; then Dad marched toward our van parked on the opposite end of the street. I charged back to stand in front of the library, which is where Dad found me.
That night, when I heard the sharp snip of him clipping his nails followed more quickly than ever by his step on that bottom stair, I knew it was my fault. I’d brought bad luck all day, first with Clam at the river, then Goblin. It made sense Dad would follow. But he didn’t know that my writing was preventing him from reaching the top of the stairs.
He tried to make it past the sixth step, farther than he’d ever gotten, but my pencil flew across my journal and every word pushed him back, spinning a word web thick as a brick wall.
When I penned the last word, I tasted sweat on my top lip from the exertion of writing it. The house was silent. Dad stayed on that sixth step for years, it felt like, before my words finally worked. He shambled back down the stairs and to his room. I could feel each of his footfalls like the heartbeat of the house.
I made up my mind then and there that tomorrow, I’d tell Mom what was happening.
Dad had said that we should never tell what happened at our house, that no one in the outside world would understand, that tattling would be the worst thing we could do to him.
But Mom wasn’t in the outside world.
She was family.
CHAPTER 37
I woke up in the closet with a crick in my neck. A flutter ran along my wrists. Maybe I would get to return to sleeping on my bed tonight. Maybe after I told Mom that Dad had been coming up the stairs after she fell asleep, that would be enough for her to leave him! I shot out of the closet, tore through the fuzzy morning air, and nearly ran into Sephie outside my door.