are borrowed.”
“No problem. I’m just reading them and taking notes.”
“Just like you borrowed my screwdriver set to change a battery in your clock radio? Or how you were just borrowing my Rolling Stones collectible records when you bought that infernal record player at a garage sale, not knowing what condition it was in?”
I was a child, I wanted to say, but I knew better. If I argued, Walter would come up with a dozen more examples of my irresponsibility. According to him, I was the king of making stupid decisions. It didn’t matter that most of the incidents had taken place long before I’d even hit puberty.
“I’ll be careful.”
The look on his face said he was doubtful. I couldn’t do anything right in Walter’s eyes. Despite having been a pretty decent and well-rounded teenager, all he’d seen was an annoyance. If I did ten things right, he’d focus on and complain about the one thing I’d done wrong.
Mom would lift me up, and Walter would tear me down. It was a vicious cycle I’d lived with since he and Mom had gotten married.
Sufficiently deflated, I ate without engaging in conversation. Mom glanced my way a few times, sadness radiating from her eyes. Walter talked with Jakobe about hockey tryouts and school, listening while my brother raved about this new console game coming out and how it would make an awesome early Christmas present. Not once did Walter ask me how university was going.
As much as I loved my mother and brother, being home hindered my usual bubbly and happy spirit. I couldn’t find it in me to keep smiling and stared at my food, pushing it around my plate as I counted the minutes until I could excuse myself, grab the newspapers I needed, and leave.
“Jake, you can help me clean up the kitchen,” Mom announced when brunch was over and she was collecting the dirty dishes off the table.
Jakobe groaned.
“Jake needs to work on his homework,” Walter declared. “Skylar’s here. He can help you.”
“Sky is a guest.” Mom’s tone was biting, and she held Walter’s gaze, waiting for him to argue.
“It’s fine, Mom. I’ll help. I don’t mind.”
Jakobe slinked away as fast as he could, a look of relief on his face. The minute he was back in his room, his music pulsed through the walls. I’d have bet a month’s paychecks he was flipping through that magazine and not doing any schoolwork.
Walter didn’t care. He excused himself, went to the kitchen to refill his coffee, and vanished back into his office. If I was home, he wanted no part of it.
When Mom tried to apologize, I waved her off. “It’s no big deal.”
“It is.”
“Let it go. I don’t mind helping.”
I found an upbeat playlist on my phone and set it on the counter so we could listen while we cleaned. My bad mood vanished with a little “Uptown Funk,” and Mom and I found a groove, dancing and laughing, hip checking and singing as we cleaned the dishes.
One song bled into another, and I savored those few minutes with Mom, watching her try to keep up with me, her cheeks rosy and her smile bright.
When we were almost done, Walter marched into the kitchen, complaining about the infernal racket and telling me to turn it off.
Before I could retort, Mom shooed me into the garage to find the newspapers, kissing my cheek and telling me she loved me. Again, Walter had managed to kill my buzz.
I tugged my earbuds from my pocket and put them in, cranking my infernal racket to wash away the bad juju and reinsert the good.
I sang under my breath to Britney Spears while sorting through boxes, scanning the dates Walter had marked on the sides. They went back years, all of them organized in his typical, OCD fashion.
A quick search on my phone told me when Morgan Atkinson had been arrested and when his trial had gone to court. I focused on those dates, sitting on the cold cement floor as I opened box after box, rooting around inside and looking for any and all articles mentioning the Kingston Strangler.
There were several articles that had been printed in the days and weeks following his arrest. Initially, he’d been suspected of having killed four men. Several months later, the hype had died down, and I couldn’t find anything mentioning his name. When Morgan Atkinson’s case had gone to court, over nine months after his arrest, things blew up in the media again.
By that time,