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I rap once on the trunk before Dad pops it He doesn’t even bother getting out of the car to give , not that I want one--just rolls down hisand lifts his arer on a ship about to set sail
"I love you," he says "I’ll call you tonight"
"Sure Me too" I slingtoward the front door The grass is overgrown and clings wetly toand the whole house looks deflated, like soo my mom became convinced that the kitchen was slanted She would line up frozen peas and show Dara and me how they rolled froht she was crazy They got in a big fight about it, especially since he kept stepping on peas whenever he went barefoot to the kitchen for water at night
It turned out Moht Finally she had soround had settled, it turned out our house leaned a half inch to the left--not enough to see, but enough to feel
But today the house looks more lopsided than ever
Mom hasn’t yet bothered to switch out the storm door for the screen I have to lean on the handle before it will open The hallway is dark and smells faintly sour Several FedEx boxes are stacked underneath the hall table, and there’s a pair of rubber gardening boots I don’t recognize, soles caked with mud, abandoned in the middle of the floor Perkins, our sixteen-year-old tabby, lets out a plaintivehimself around my ankles At least someone is happy to see me
"Hello?" I call out, embarrassed that I suddenly feel so aard and disoriented, as if I’er
"In here, Nick!" Moh the walls, as if it’s trapped there
I dus in the hall, careful to avoid the mud splatter, andDara: Dara on the phone, Dara with knees up in the sill, Dara with new streaks of color in her hair Dara’s eyes, clear as pool water, and the small upturned knob of her nose, the kind of nose people pay for Dara waiting for ive
But in the kitchen, I find Mom alone So Either Dara’s not horace me with her presence
"Nick" Moh of course she heard"You’re too thin," she says when she hugs me Then: "I’m very disappointed in you"
"Yeah" I take a seat at the table, which is piled high with old newspapers There are twoa milk-white sheen, and a plate with a piece of half-eaten toast on it "Dad said"
"Really, Nick Skinny-dipping?" She’s trying to pull the disapproving-parent act, but she isn’t as convincing as Dad was, as if she’s an actress and already the lines are boring her "We’re all dealing with enough as it is I don’t want to have to worry about you, too"
There she is, shih heels, lashes thick with , always laughing, telling us not to worry, she’ll be safe, she never drinks, even as her breath smells like vanilla vodka; Dara the beautiful one, the popular one, the problem child everyone loves--hs and takes a seat across froed a hundred years since the accident Her skin is chalky and dry, and the bags under her eyes are a bruise-y yellow color The roots are showing at her scalp For a second I have the worst, ht: No wonder Dad left
But I know that isn’t fair He left even before things got shitty I’ve tried to understand it a million tiot metal pins in her kneecaps and swore she would never speak to ain, and when Mo pills every night and waking up too groggy to go to work and the hospital bills kept co, like autuh before?
"Sorry about the estures to encompass the table and theseat, cluttered with roceries half unpacked fro and then abandoned "There’s always so ain"
"That’s okay" I hate hearing ize After the accident, all she did was say I’it over and over Like she had anything to do with it Hearing her apologize for so that wasn’t her faultthe car
Moht about what you’ll do this summer, now that you’re home?"
"What do you mean?" I reach over and take a bite of the toast Stale I spit it out into a balled-up napkin, and Mom doesn’t even lecture me "I still have shifts at the Palladium I’ll just have to borrow Dara’s car and--"
"Absolutely not No way you’re going back to the Palladium" Mom turns, suddenly, into her old self: the principal-for-one-of-the-worst-public-high-schools in Shoreline County, the hts between the senior boys and ether, or at least do a better job of pretending "And you’re not driving, either"