Something of a Kind - By Miranda Wheeler Page 0,34

driveway. It consisted of dark concrete ridden with crumbled sections, fishing and jerky shacks off by the tool shed.

“Shortcut,” Noah explained, holding the back entrance with his foot. It wasn’t heavy, spray painted wood panels on an offset hinge.

Aly mimed a curtsy and breached the foyer, waiting as he took the front to lead her through. Gripping the screen’s handle, he swallowed, bracing himself to reveal his less-than-extravagant home.

Please let everyone be wearing pants.

Passing the back hall, they made their way through the tiny living room. A tan, fauxleather loveseat and Lee’s mustard, carpet- textured recliner were positioned around a small, wood-boxed television. The furniture was situated amongst floor lamps that probablydated back to the 70’s, or at least belonged there. Floral flesh-colored wall paper plastered the space, peeling with age and yellowed with cigarette smoke.

How they managed to kick that habit in the midst of all their problems is beyond me. Even that was too expensive.

Mary-Agnes lay on disheveled couch cushions, half pulled from the frame. Curled into a ball as much as her weight and gout permitted, she twisted on her side to stare at the ceiling, a mug slack in her hand. Lee stood over her, scratching his neck and mumbling unintelligibly.

What the hell are they doing?

The man’s face flushed as he realized he had company. Alyson stood at Noah’s side, analyzing his expression with concern. He straightened his shoulders, forcing his dropped jaw shut. “Is everything alright?” Noah asked, hesitant.

He didn’t make small talk with his parents, especially with his father. They rarely spoke beyond organizing chores and work, or defending drunken fits and making excuses for missing paychecks. This scene wasn’t right, though. It didn’t look like Lee had hurt Mary-Agnes, but this was something he only saw when venturing out of his room in early morning hours. They shouldn’t even be at the house. Lee belonged at the deck, or the fishery. Mary-Agnes belonged at the cash register or in the kitchen.

Something’s not right.

“Why? How could you bring strangers into my house?” Mary - Agnes mumbled, sounding like she had been crying or was about to. Everything about her screamed wooziness, a flagrant sign she was unstable in every sense.

I don’t want to be around when this goes down.

“Shortcut,” he muttered, tugging Aly’s wrist as they moved past them.

I don’t even want to know.

He felt like he could wake up one day and the house would be empty, Yazzie’s falling apart. The docks would have fallen into the ocean. Life would be gone, red skies and ruins. He wasn’t sure he’d care– being alone, for once, belonging to nothing and no one.

Noah didn’t know what he wanted from his parents, to be seen and accepted or invisible and released. He didn’t want whatever was waiting in the room at his back.

Cutting through the attachment from the house to Yazzie’s, the sudden hollers of an argument passed through the walls. He couldn’t tell who was speaking, or which side it was on. Confused, he exchanged a look with Aly.

Entering the diner, he sprinted through the white hall into the eating section. As she tried to keep up, Aly knocked over the heavy frames filled with pictures of the various grand re-openings over the years. He waved her off when she tried to retrieve it, wordlessly insisting she shouldn’t worry about it.

The front of the diner was in chaos, patrons raising their hands, some already walking out. With the bang of industrial pans hitting the floor, Sarah screamed, a following wail resonating through the wall. Kennedy’s voice rang back, too muffled to make out the words. The whirr of the water pipes shuttered in the wall, the room empty and silent enough for the noise to carry.

Noah ran for the doors, pushing himself up and over the counter in the same way he had yelled at his brothers for doing a thousand times. He slammed through, a stumbling mass of people following at his back.

The first thing he saw was blood – a lot, everywhere. It took a moment to realize the thick liquid was actually maroon sauce, either a marinade or a soup base, sprayed across the burgundy tiles. It steamed, splashed across the floor, running down the walls, splattered on the legs of tables. The huge pan still rolled on its side, a red-handed culprit.

Kennedy had Sarah bent over a dishwashing sink, forcing both of her hands beneath a running faucet. She sobbed in his arms, her face buried in his chest, twisted away