Chapter Sixty-Three

THE HOUSE QUAKES WITH HIS MUSIC.

I turn over in my bed, reaching for my alarm clock. It is a quarter past three in the morning, Christmas Day.

For a moment I stay there, wondering if maybe for the rest of my life the sound of Axl Rose’s voice will make me feel like throwing up. But then I hear the raised voices from downstairs, and I climb out of my warm blankets.

I sneak into the girls’ room. They are awake, huddled in the corner of Juniper’s bed, pillows lined in front of them like a shield.

“C’mon,” I say, and lead them back to my room. In the hallway I can hear that he’s yelling about his cell phone. It’s lost again. He’s been losing things a lot the last few weeks, and we always seem to face the consequences for it.

I hesitate at the door, trying to turn the lock. He broke it last year, the last time I tried to lock him out. I flick on my light and look closer. It just needs a new screw to secure the piece on the door. I run over to my desk and dump out my pencil holder. I’m sure it’s here. I swipe aside a matchbook, and there it is. The screw Joe left on Liam’s windowsill. I didn’t end up giving those things to Juniper—matches and hardware don’t really fit with her collection of marbles and feathers, anyway.

Back at the door, I line up the screw. It fits. I twist it in as far as I can with my bare hands. It isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing. It makes me feel better when I shut the light off and join my sisters in the center of my bed. I hear his footsteps on the stairs, and we stiffen in unison when a shadow appears in the line of hall light under my door.

The door rattles on its hinges, but the lock holds.

Mumbled, angry sounds.

“Stop, don’t—” Mom says.

CRACK!

The door splits along its edge, one long, splintered piece holding the lock flying off into the room, and the rest of it sagging on its hinges where it’s bent and broken. There is a flood of light, and the silhouette of a man who isn’t evil, but sometimes forgets.

“Get up,” he says.

We crawl out from behind the pillow. The girls follow me, and I follow Mom. We step carefully over the pieces of my door and the picture frames that litter the floor. We make our way into the kitchen. He holds up a copy of the Auburn Gazette. It’s turned to the page that has township news, police blotters.

The winning essay of the Auburn scholarship contest.

“You wanna tell me what the fuck this is.” He doesn’t yell this time, and somehow, that’s worse. My head throbs from the music, the adrenaline, the fear.

His eyes are wide. He throws the paper down onto the counter and reaches for a pack of cigarettes. Mom walks to the counter, lifts the paper.

My essay.

My first real publishing credential, even if my name isn’t on it.

And it might get us killed.

It is not the crows that make Auburn ugly.

It’s the complicity.

Anyone who has looked the other way.

This essay isn’t an accusation, though. It’s a love letter. For Mom. Campbell and Juniper. This is worth saving. We can do this together, if we call it by its name.

If we say, Enough.

“There’s no writer on it.”

“Fuck that. That’s you,” he says, lighting his cigarette right in the kitchen and pointing at the paper. “I know because someone on the council told someone they know, and that someone told me. There are no secrets in this town. Everyone’ll know in a few days.”

Good, I think. I want them to know.

And it’s true, there are no secrets in this town.

His anger wasn’t a secret, but somehow me talking about it is the embarrassment.

He’s opening and slamming kitchen cabinets, knocking things over.

“And you know what they’ll do next? Never hire Barnes Construction again. So congratu-fucking-lations, Leighton, you’ve ruined the family business. And where is my goddamn cell phone?” he says. “And why is it so hot in here?” He reaches for the thermostat, shutting the heat off, and starts moving around the kitchen, opening every window. Mom sets the paper down on the counter and walks over to us. She puts her arm around me.

“We’re going to bed,” she tells him.

“Not until I say you can,” he says, still moving through the living room, opening more windows.

“Go to hell,” she says, pushing us toward the stairs.

He stops what he’s doing. His eyes are dark. They scare me. It’s like he’s not even in there.

“Don’t push me tonight.” He moves upstairs, I presume to make sure the second floor is freezing, too. Mom follows, closing the windows behind him as she goes.

Barely a moment passes, and we hear a strangled cry from upstairs.

I run, hurling myself around the banister. He has her at the top of the stairs, bent over the railing backward, his hands on her throat. I’m on him in moments, shoving into him as hard as I can to get him off her. I push him into the bathroom door, and he swears at me. He charges at me, and shoves, and I slam into the banister. I hear something crack, and for a moment I’m not sure if it’s something in me.

The wood beneath me splinters, and shards stick up at every angle, jagged and broken. I try to suck in air, but the wind’s been knocked out of me, and it hurts.

A moment passes. Two. Three.

I gasp a breath.

Campbell runs across the hallway and swings her fist. It connects with the side of his head. There’s no way it hurt him much, but it doesn’t matter. He’s out of control, and he turns on her next. He reaches for her, and I scream. It’s a noise I’ve never made before in my life, and I’m on him like a wild thing, scratching anything I can reach. He releases Campbell, and I grab her and a sobbing Juniper, pulling them into my bedroom. I usher them into the armoire, and hear the sound of him pulling Mom back downstairs, and all I can think is how he’s taking her closer to his gun, it’s right there on the fridge, it would only take a moment, one second, and he could destroy our entire world.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap.

A cracking noise from the other side of my room, at the window, and when I get to it, there’s the flash of feathers in the dark as a crow flies away.

And something else.

A gift dropped onto my windowsill outside. I push open my window and reach for it, confused. Grateful.

It’s Dad’s cell phone.