73

I hummed “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” and lined up plans in my head like shooting-range targets. Dad needed time to recover from Tsunami Trish. I wouldn’t bug him for two, maybe three days. After that I had to get him out of the house, maybe convince him to walk the dog with me, or tell him I was thinking of going out for track in the spring and wanted him to help me get in shape. The next step would be to call his friend Tom and ask him to help find Dad more painting jobs that he could work alone. The work plan was a little vague, but I’d figure it out soon. For right now, he needed to relax and recover.

Two days after she left, I came home to find an envelope taped to the front door. Inside was a short note from Trish giving the address of the motel where she was staying and six twenty-dollar bills. I used the money to buy potatoes, onions, creamed corn (on sale, ten cans for eight dollars), bacon, bread, peanut butter, cheese, chicken noodle soup, and milk. I cooked a vat of mashed potatoes with bacon, but Dad said he was feeling crappy. Thought he might be coming down with stomach flu, he said.

That night I burned Trish’s note, then lit a candle that I’d set on a mirror on the kitchen table. Didn’t think I’d see any spirits, but figured it was worth a try. The mirror showed an eruption of stress zits that made me seriously contemplate walking around with a knit cap pulled down to my chin.

Dad wouldn’t cooperate. He didn’t want to walk the dog with or without me, even after I had given him a few days to chill. He thought getting in shape for track was a good idea, but he made excuses instead of taking me for a run. That Tom guy didn’t return any of my messages and I began to wonder how much of that story Dad told about the kitchen he painted was an exaggeration.

We argued about everything: my attitude, the weather, how to boil eggs, the size of the phone bill, the smell of the garbage. He shot down my plans and then came up with some of his own, all of them stupid. One night he said that we were going to move to Costa Rica. When I brought it up the next morning, he called me a liar and said I was trying to make him paranoid. He said I should get my GED as soon as possible so he could send me to college in January. Twenty-fours hours later, he forbade me from taking the GED, but told me to start thinking about being a nanny overseas. There were the days when he’d disappear in his head without saying a word. He couldn’t sleep more than an hour or two at a time without waking up shouting or screaming. He always apologized for that, once he calmed down.

The second semester started in the middle of all this, looking pretty much like the first semester, except with heavier jackets. They made us memorize and puke up more facts, write more useless essays according to a fascist essay formula and, above all, take tests to prepare for taking even more tests. My conscientious objection to most homework had put my grades in the toilet, but the only class I had outright flunked was precalc. Benedetti finally took pity on me and busted me down to trig.

Then came the night of the phone call.