Dad’s pickup is sitting in the driveway when I pull in. He should be at work. Not here. Not at this hour.
The house is dark when I unlock the door, but I can smell fresh ash. The TV flickers and I see him on the couch, sucking on a cigarette with his back to me. For a second, I think we’ve put Mom’s box in the ground again, and he won’t move from that couch for days.
“Where’ve you been?” he says, not looking up.
“Out.”
“Out?” He lifts the cigarette to his lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I wasn’t here.”
“Oh, you’re funny.” He looks at me, face in shadow, and all I can see is smoke streaming from his nostrils. “Fun-ny man.” He flicks his ash and turns back to the show.
The only thing moving is a spray of hair next to his ear, caught in the light of the television. I decide he’s done with me.
“Popcorn?” He holds up a plastic bowl. “It’s that kettle-corn shit you like.” He lowers it and nods for me to join him. “Sit down, they’re running that James Bond flick.”
I don’t move. Popcorn makes me think of all those kernels spread out on the floor of my car. Under Marion’s feet.
“Come on.” He pats the seat next to him. “I don’t ever see you. Sit down.”
I don’t go near the couch. It smells like mildew and the left seat is busted on the inside, the springs twist wrong so they poke into you. I’ve learned not to sit there. I stay away from that couch. Dad’s couch after all.
I take the recliner near the door.
“How’s school?” he asks, handing me the bowl. “You passing math?”
I scrunch a handful of the corn in my fist.
“Sure.”
I could fail math and he wouldn’t even blink.
“What about soccer? How’s it looking for state?” He follows it with a string of others. Girls. Grades. Whatever he thinks a good parent is supposed to ask.
“You ever think about going to get her? Josie,” I say, and he coughs—ash in his throat. He hacks, trying to clear it, as smoke billows against the ceiling. “I know where her apartment is.” Only that’s not really true. I visited her that one time, but she probably doesn’t live there anymore.
“It’s not that simple,” he says, stubbing out his cigarette. “She’s nineteen. I can’t force her to do something she doesn’t want to.”
I squeeze my fistful of popcorn.
“Do you even call her back?”
“Of course I do,” he snaps, glaring at me. “What kind of father do you think I am?”
He doesn’t want to know the answer to that.
“So, this—” I stand up and nod to the couch, throwing the corn in the trash. “Is this the new thing? Your schedule change?”
He slumps back and starts flipping channels.
“Maybe.” The word comes out deflated. “That going to be a problem?”
He looks small. The TV flickers and I want to ask him what happened—if he got fired or whatever—but instead I head for my room.
I flick on the overhead lights as I leave, flooding the space, and hoping he’ll yell at me.
He doesn’t.
I go into my room and flop onto my bed, annoyed that he shrugs everything off like it doesn’t matter, like if he pretends it doesn’t exist, it will go away. Only there’s a problem with wanting things to go away. Sometimes they do.
The curtains blow over my head and a light from the street makes them glow. That image of Marion standing in those woods fills my head. Her staring at the dark like there’s something in that emptiness. I saw Mom look like that. On our back porch, gripping her guitar, drinking. Not playing. Like there wasn’t any music left.
I heard the tires grinding the gravel of our driveway before I saw the lights—that morning—red and blue lights on my curtains. I almost laughed. I’d thought about calling the cops the night before, but I didn’t have the nerve. Yet here they were anyway.
The steps against the gravel were steady. Slow. Cop footsteps. Not Mom’s.
The door latch snapped open and there was a creak of hinges before those footsteps got out a single knock.
“Officer?”
It was Dad’s voice, and it was the only word I heard clearly. The rest came in a jumble, too low for me to understand. But I could imagine the lecture those footsteps were giving my Dad. Drunk driving. Jail cells. Threats about fines and reckless behavior and body bags.
We’d done this before.
The officer would tell Dad that Mom was in a cell at the station and he could pick her up. But Dad would leave her there for the rest of the day. He’d clean out the house, taking all the empty bottles to the firing range, where he’d explode them into the dirt. Once it got dark, once she was sober, he’d go and get her.
I stood in the door frame waiting to hear the clank of glass, but Dad was empty-handed when he padded down the hallway.
“You know she deserved it,” I said, imagining her in that station cell. Curled up. Hungover. I stepped into the hall. “You know that—”
Crack!
I was on the floor. Fire in my face. Erupting through my jaw.
He shook out his wrist, like it hurt, but I couldn’t focus. There was too much pain to register.
“Dad?”
It wasn’t my voice. He’d slashed out my air.
Josie’s foot came into view.
“What did you do to him?”
Stars danced in my vision.
“God, you’re just as bad as sh—”
“Don’t say something you’ll regret,” he spat, storming past her and slamming the door behind him.
Josie pulled me into the bathroom and pressed a cold washcloth to my cheek.
“What’s his problem?” she asked, her eyes bloodshot.
My face throbbed and I looked away from her, not wanting to think about her white-stripped eyes or what Josie might be coming down from. I nodded to the front door, where the officer had been. “They got Mom.”
“Figures,” she said. “She was a mess. What did you say to him?”
“Nothing that isn’t true.” A smile crept up my face. I didn’t know yet. “The truth hurts,” I joked, and she laughed, shaking her head.
“No shit.”
My cheek throbbed and I kicked myself for not finding those damn keys the night before. In the dirt. I kicked myself for not keeping her home.
“I’m glad he hit me,” I said quietly, looking at Josie to see how she’d react. But she kept dabbing at my face with the cloth.
“Better you than her,” she said finally.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She tossed the cloth in the sink and walked to the door.
“It means you know how to take it.”
Dad didn’t collect any bottles that day.