Unspeakable Things(74)

With my dad.

He was butt on the floor, leaning against the wall, sobbing brokenly.

I tried to swallow past my heart. Maybe he hadn’t seen me. I began backing away.

He made no move. He appeared miserable, what I could see of him, the kitchen moon pooling near his feet, his face swollen and melting. I’d never seen him cry before. I couldn’t leave him.

“Dad? Are you okay?”

A sob escaped him. I took a tentative step forward. He didn’t lunge off the ground toward me.

“Dad?”

His voice sounded like it was coming from far away. “What are you doing up?”

I said the first thing that came into my head. “I couldn’t sleep.”

He nodded as if he’d expected that, running his hand across his face. “I need to teach you the trick.”

He didn’t say it creepy. I could smell the liquor pouring off him in waves, but he wasn’t hunting me, not right at this moment. I took a deeper breath. “What trick?”

He sat up straighter, garbling his words. “Whenever you can’t sleep, take five deep breaths, pulling them all the way into your toes and holding them until you can’t stand it. Then you stretch everything, even your little finger. Even the hair in your ears.”

I smiled at this, though he wasn’t looking at me. That was something he used to say to us when we were younger. I love even the hair in your ears.

Eww! We’d say. It’s full of wax!

I still love it because I love you.

“Then hold your eyes halfway closed to the count of twenty-five, then all the way closed to the count of one hundred. Think you can do that?”

A big tear globe was swelling up in my right eye. I nodded.

“Good,” Dad said. He pushed himself off the ground but started to tip. He got it on his second try. “You don’t need me, then. I think I’ll go for a walk.”

He pointed toward the basement door. “Don’t go in there. Basements are where men hide their secrets.”





CHAPTER 51

I was nervous to head downstairs Saturday morning, but I shouldn’t have been. Dad was quiet but not mean. Mom seemed more serene than she’d been in a while. Sephie had a secret smile on her face. We did our chores. Dad even stopped to tell me that I shouldn’t worry, that Gabriel was probably already home. We cleared a trail, laid mulch in the garden, mowed.

When it was time for supper, we were all tired but seemed to be listening to the same song. That was one thing my family was exceptional at—treating each day like it was its own, disconnected from the day before. Yesterday was a bad day. This so far was a good day.

I even started to doubt the bad feeling I still carried. Gabriel probably was home. I should bike over to his house first thing in the morning.

Life was too short to wait to tell him I loved him.

Deciding that felt like the sun had come out after a monthlong eclipse. I could breathe again. We ate leftover cake and ice cream for dessert, plopped in front of the television, watching The Love Boat.

“Hey, babe,” Dad said to Mom, who was sitting at the foot of his chair eating her dish of vanilla ice cream. “I forgot to tell you that I sold a piece.”

She spun around. “Don! That’s fantastic. Which one?”

“It’s a concept right now. A giant turtle. A guy in New York wants me to make it for him.”

Mom’s light dimmed. “Is it a paying gig?”

Dad chuckled and rubbed her back. “Don’t worry. He’s giving me a thousand dollars down to cover materials.”

“Probably Sephie’s braces money can come out of that, too,” I said. I’d let the ice cream melt into the rich chocolate birthday cake, turning it damp and sweet.

“Yeah! Of course,” he said. “Sephie, how would you like that? Your dad’s art buying you the best smile in the county?”

She beamed, her perfectly fine (to me) buckers on full display. “That would be so awesome, Dad.”

“How about you, Cass? What extravagance would you like with all the money that’s going to come in?”

I held up my plate. “More cake!”

Everyone laughed. The room was loose and happy, so much so that when Dad suggested another swinging party to celebrate that they’d caught Chester the Molester, my stomach barely even tumbled. The television broke to commercial, and I turned to Mom and Dad because I’d thought of something better than cake to spend the money on: I wanted a subscription to Mad magazine. They hadn’t yet bought me a birthday present. I hadn’t asked for one because the party had seemed like plenty, but if they were handing out gifts . . .

My mouth was opening to toss out my pitch when I saw the color drain from Mom’s face like someone had pulled her plug. She was staring at the television. When I looked back, Gabriel’s mom was on the screen. She was sobbing.

At first, I thought she was happy weeping. They DID find Gabriel!

But she wasn’t joyful. She was broken.

“This has to stop,” she said, tears streaming down her face as the ABC News microphone was pushed toward her mouth. The words on the bottom of the screen told us it was a breaking news report. “We have to save our boys.”

“What’s happening?” Sephie asked.

“Sshhh.” Dad turned up the volume. Sergeant Bauer was now on-screen. I recognized the Dairy Queen in the background. The ABC News people were in Lilydale.