Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,100
where I hear my mother singing out that cookies are almost ready.
I’m not hungry, though. Instead I go looking for my coat, pulling my car keys out of my pocket as I head for the car.
Chapter 46
Casey
The car quickly becomes too warm, so I reach over and flick off the heat. Michael takes the hint and shuts off the engine.
He pulled in at the Sixth Street Park, facing a bright metal modernist sculpture as tall as a house, and beyond it, the Grand River in its smooth shiny blackness.
I tip my head back on the seat, the aftershock of my hangover and the fresh beer making me want to sleep.
Michael told me right away about Mallory’s freak-out, and Dylan’s defense of me. That bit about Dylan would have made me smile if anything could right now. Michael had been driving, and watching the road, so I guess that’s why he wasn’t looking at me, but now that we’ve stopped, he still hasn’t.
“You picked me up,” I finally say. “So, what?”
“An apology doesn’t really cover it.”
“Cover what, exactly?” I stare out ahead at the dark so that I almost see shapes and faces. Maybe it’s fog, or mist. Maybe my mind is playing tricks. Or I’m going crazy. Is it contagious?
“I didn’t thank you for . . . saving Jewel. Not that I ever could, adequately. I mean . . . God.” He smacks his steering wheel. “I’m pathetic.”
“I know,” I tell him, still staring out over the river but not seeing it. I can picture my brother leaning on a couch, the last time I saw him before the big fight to defend my honor.
“You know I’m pathetic? Thanks.”
“I know you’re grateful, and you have no words. I further know that Mallory did something to you, made you weird and distrustful of everyone. That if you don’t supervise every thing every minute, it will all fly apart. And you think you’re right, because you walked around the block and look what almost happened.”
“But didn’t.”
“Right. Didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I reply automatically.
“Anything. The drinking. Your real name even.”
“I hate my real name.”
“Edna’s not so bad.”
This causes me to jerk around in my seat. “What?”
“I peeked at your driver’s license.”
I slouch in the seat and cross my arms. “Should have known a reporter couldn’t stay out of my wallet.”
“Well, you’re gonna love the next part then. I ran a background check on you.”
“Fuck.”
“You were going to move in with me. I couldn’t have someone around my kids I didn’t know anything about. And you didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t ask, either.”
“Would you have told me, then?”
“Touché.”
“Okay. But you still haven’t answered me. Why wouldn’t you tell me yourself?”
The car still feels too warm, too close. I jump up and shove open the door, slamming it behind me. Michael jumps out of the car, too. Maybe he thinks I’m going to walk away again, maybe he wants to tackle me, and it’s true, part of me wants to run run run as fast as I can. Can’t catch me . . .
But I’m so tired. I trudge only to the metal railing next to the river, brushing off the day’s blizzard snow into the dark water, which hasn’t had time to freeze. In the reflected city light I can see an oily sheen over the river. He joins me at the railing, hands in his pockets, also looking at the water.
I turn to face him. The tall lampposts in the park behind us give everything a soft glow, like candlelight. Brighter than I would like. “You wouldn’t have loved a girl like me.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“Come on! You remember that big speech about how you’ll never again date someone who drinks? And you were so relieved I didn’t? Every chance you got after that you told me how great it was that I was so unlike your ex, and all the time I wasn’t. And the bitch of it is, it didn’t work, anyway. You want to know why I left you that letter, why I almost walked out Thursday morning? Because you stopped talking to me about a baby, about a wedding, about anything at all that didn’t have to do with field trips and new school shoes and homework. And you let Angel talk to me any way she wanted, and you never stood up for me.”
“Angel’s been through a lot . . . ,” he says, trailing off.