and not entirely welcome, pang of solidarity.
“I didn’t tell them to write that letter,” I said. “All I wanted was something to eat. Is that too much to ask?”
“And where is your money?” He hooked a scabbed knuckle into a frayed belt loop. “Didn’t Val think to leave you a little petty cash?”
Val, Valerie: I didn’t remember ever thinking of my mom by those names, despite what was printed in the funeral program and the newspaper obituary, what was carved into the cemetery marble. Coming from my father’s mouth, however, it sounded breathtakingly natural. He had spoken this name before, maybe thousands of times, and the familiarity of his tone made me wonder for the first time exactly how well I had known her.
“The money’s in a fund,” I said.
He wagged the bottle. “It’s in a fund, it’s in a fund. I know it’s in a fund, I read my mail. What about the other money?”
“What other money?”
His free hand made a clenching-unclenching gesture. “The money, the money! The money from the auction, where did that go if not into your pocket?”
I tried to remember what Claire had said. “It goes into the fund, too,” I answered hesitantly, reprimanding myself for forgetting the details of something of such importance. Impulsively I added, “And when I’m eighteen you’re not getting a penny.”
His eyes bulged at my insubordination. He backpedaled toward the hearth, hoisting the bottle.
“I don’t want your money.” He fell into his chair. The tower of books behind him swooned. “I don’t want any of this, and I don’t want you.”
“I don’t care! I don’t want you, either.”
“If we agree so damn much, then what the hell is the problem?”
“The problem,” I said, “is that Mom wanted me here.”
“But she was naïve. And so was I, agreeing to any of this.”
“By law you have to take me.”
He clutched at his skull. “I don’t want this.”
“Stop acting like a baby.”
“I DON’T WANT YOU!” The armrests popped within his grip. The bottle fell over on his lap, and only the contour kept the vodka sloshing inside. The cabin, home to nothing but silence for days, seemed to flicker in a supernatural wince.
“I leave town,” he continued in a wavering voice, his hand flapping at the door in front of him, “all the time. For work—I go out of town to work on jobs. Three days? Kid, three days is squat. Try five days. Try seven days. Try two weeks. This is how I make a living. I am forty-five years old—and to eat, to buy food, apparently to feed us both? Leaving town is what I will have to do. Tell me how I am supposed to carry on if I’ve got to be here every day to change your diaper.”
“Mom managed for sixteen years,” I said. “You leave me alone again, I go straight to Principal Simmons. He’ll have you in jail like that.”
“Jail,” my father said under his breath. “Val, how did it come to this?”
I was merciless. “You should’ve thought of that before you got her pregnant.”
The sentence twisted a knife—even I felt it. Instantly my father hurled the bottle into the fireplace. It made a dull clunk but did not break, and this impotent gesture incensed him further.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Those things are between me and Val, no one else.”
He closed his eyes and locked his chin against his chest. The black and gray bristles of his three-day scruff scraped his sternum. I saw his Adam’s apple hitch and bob.
“Jesus, settle down,” I said. “We’ll work this out. There has to be a way.”
“Jesus,” he echoed. “Val raise you religious? She always had a weak spot for that crap. If it’d been me, no way. You wouldn’t set one foot inside those places. If it’d been me—”
Resentment shot through me: “It wasn’t you.”
“If it’d been me, you would believe in no idols but those you can see and touch and lift with your hands like dirt,” he said, raising his claws before his eyes. “Val’s churchgoing worked against us from day one, and if it had been me there, your little Jesus and your little angels—”
“It wasn’t you!” I shouted. “You weren’t there. You weren’t there and we didn’t care, neither of us. I didn’t give one thought to where you were my entire life! I was just glad you were gone. And believe me when I say she didn’t care either. She didn’t miss you. She didn’t talk about you. All she mentioned