Page 55 of Our Crooked Hearts
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The suburbs
Right now
I stepped inside, dripping. When I walked into the kitchen there was a pop can and a sweating bottle of vodka on the counter, and my dad leaning against the sink gripping one of our dishwasher-scarred plastic tumblers. His face was so tense he looked like a stranger.
“What’s going on with you and Billy?”
I stayed on my side of the room, as far from him as I could get. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Answer me.”
“No,” I said. Starting soft, then rising. “You answerme.What are you and Mom keeping from me?”
He eyed me, head at a tilt. “What are you talking about?”
I heard what he was really asking: What do youknow? “I found the safe,” I told him recklessly. “You should hide your passwords better.”
My father crossed the room in two predatory strides, his posture so altered I flinched back against the wall. He saw it and checked himself, freezing in place.
“You opened it?” His voice was strained but steady.
I bobbed my chin. “And you know what I found? Stuff that belonged tome.”
He blinked at me. Then he breathed out slowly.
“Your cigar box,” he said, a little shaky. “Right. Right. We can talk about that. But I need to know why you went snooping in the first place.”
“I’ve got a better question. Where is she, Dad?” My voice wobbled, broke. “Where the hell is Mom?”
His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “I don’t know.”
“This isn’t okay.” I spoke with conviction. “The way she is, the way she just took off like this, it’s notnormal.”
“Don’t get hung up on normal. Everyone makes their own normal.”
“We have nofucking normal.” My voice spiraled to a shriek, each inhale was sharp as a pin. He moved in to hold me, but I threw up an arm. “Dad, I need her.” The words burned. I hadn’t meant to say them. “I’m so sick of pretending I don’t need her.”
“I need her, too,” he said levelly. “But she can only do what she can do.”
“That is not acceptable. That ismessed up.”
His eyes brightened with tears, but his voice didn’t change. “Your mom is an extraordinary person. She has unusual boundaries. That’s something that predates you. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Unusual boundaries?Dad, please. She’s a witch.”
He put a hand over his eyes. When he pulled it away he was older.
“Oh, my god.” I drew back. “Oh,shit.”
Even after everything, I guess I’d still believed he would deny it. The reality of it sank into my skin, scribbled like scrimshaw over my bones.
“She was going to tell you.”
I laughed. “Right.”
He moved closer and this time I let him hold me, keeping my arms at my sides but resting a cheek on his shirt. “I’m worried about her,” I whispered.
