yeah, and some dog that had gotten itself stranded in a flood got saved. Big deal. Like that made everything else better.
There was a knock on my door.
“It’s time,” Echo said, looking in.
“Right,” I said. I got up and followed her to the table.
Barry was in prime form. As we all sat down for a meal of mashed potatoes (apparently the Parkers had mashed potatoes every night) and frozen fried chicken, he didn’t waste any time launching into a sloppy rant against Mitch, who he pretty much just referred to as “that bastard.”
Apparently Barry had gotten into a fight with “that bastard” and had been sent home early—not before, of course, making a pit stop at the liquor store. None of us really said much throughout all this, though Sheila made feeble attempts to tone him down now and then.
Listening to the whole thing, I felt more embarrassed for Barry than afraid. At one point he practically broke down. Desperation flowed from him, tainting everything.
“I tell you, Sheila, he just doesn’t understand,” he said.
“Mmm,” Sheila agreed.
“I’m just trying to make things better there. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”
“I know, dear.”
“I have a system, goddamit!”
“I remember you telling me. It’s a good system.”
“Damn right it is. Only that bastard is too much of a numbskull to realize it. And then he gets pissed off at me because he’s too stupid to understand.”
“He certainly is.”
“That’s what I tried telling him today.”
“Oh dear,” Sheila murmured.
“And what does he do?” Barry went on, oblivious. “He sends me home. Says he’s going to dock my pay. Says I’m on thin ice. Like I give a shit.”
But I could tell he did. And he was worried. And that’s what he was really pissed off about.
Echo could tell too. “May I be excused?” she whispered while Barry paused to take a breath and another swig of his drink. He’d barely touched his food. Neither had she.
“Sure, Echo,” Sheila jumped in.
“Wait,” Barry barked.
Echo, who had just started to stand up, froze.
Oh God, here we go, I thought. Looking at the faces of Sheila and Echo, I could see they were thinking the same thing.
“You didn’t hardly eat a goddam bite,” he said, looking at Echo’s plate
“I’m not hungry,” she said. From the looks of things, none of us were.
Barry frowned. I could see the little drunken wheels turning in his head, trying to decide where or how to direct his anger. Sheila seized the opportunity to step in.
“Go ahead, sweetie,” she said. She turned to Barry. “Echo’s got a lot of homework for tomorrow. A big project. I told her before dinner started she could be excused early.”
Good one, Sheila, I thought.
“Fine,” Barry growled, and the rest of us sort of breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thanks, Mom,” Echo said, and finished standing up, bumping her plate in the process. The plate jumped forward and collided with her full glass of milk. I watched the whole thing unfold, a little chain reaction of disaster. It was as if everything immediately went into slow motion, just like on TV, with the glass tumbling over and a cascade of milk washing across the table and spilling into Barry’s lap. For a second after it happened, we all stopped and stared.
Then, the explosion.
Barry jumped up, dripping milk from the waist down.
“You little brat,” he yelled, “you did that on purpose!”
“No!” Echo cried, stepping back as both Sheila and I froze at the table.
“Goddamit!” Barry cried, wiping at his pants with a napkin. It was a futile gesture—he was already soaked through—and he was just sober enough to realize it. He threw the napkin aside, picked up his plate, and slammed it down on the table, where it shattered into a dozen pieces.
Echo, meanwhile, had slipped around the table and was almost out of the kitchen when Barry spotted her. Before I could do anything to distract him, he jumped toward her.
“Get back here and clean this up,” he shouted as she darted away.
Suddenly it was Saturday night all over again. There was Barry, banging on her door, threatening. Then, from the other room, I could hear the door opening and slamming, and muffled shouts and Echo crying. Once again Poppy began tearing around the house, yelping. And there was Sheila, at the table with that deadened look, picking up the pieces of a broken plate.
“Go in there,” I hissed.
She looked up at me with a sort of dazed expression.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Do something.”
She sort of shook her head