Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,59

you’re feeling well now? For how long?”

“Fuck off. I’m asking you a favor, and don’t think this isn’t humiliating for me, to have to beg to stay in the house that used to be mine to spend time with my own daughters, just so your new little girlfriend doesn’t feel any discomfort.” She makes a mock-sweet face and adds, “I promise not to cause any trouble.”

“Mal . . .”

“You want me to beg? Does that make you feel like a big man? Okay, fine.”

She gets down on her knees in front of me, hands balled up together as in prayer.

“Jesus, Mal. Get up. Fine. But, listen—”

“Daylight’s burning, Mike!” shouts my dad from the living room, and I have to leave it there.

My dad is ruffling Jewel’s hair as she hangs off his leg.

“Hey, Dad. Thanks.”

“All gassed up, warmed up, Cleveland programmed into the GPS. Your mother whipped up some sandwiches for the road.”

I check my watch. Four o’clock. It’ll be the dead of night before we get there, the wee hours before we get back, assuming we turn right around and don’t stay the night somewhere.

Casey has appeared now, hair slightly damp, smelling like something sweet and floral. I check back over my shoulder. Mallory has remained behind me in the kitchen, sopping up the spilled coffee.

“Hi, Dr. Turner,” Casey says.

“Hello, dear,” he replies politely. Courtly, almost, with that little nod of his head.

I wish he’d tell her not to call him by his title.

“Angel’s napping,” I explain to my dad.

I give Jewel another enormous hug, telling her to stay warm and do her homework and that she should go to sleep like a good girl tonight. “Listen to your mom. And Casey.”

I pull Casey in for a hug, but she’s stiff in my arms. She returns the hug, but it’s with formality. For show.

“Sorry,” I whisper in her ear. “Just one more day.”

Her smile is thin as she waves at me.

I walk out of my childhood home into my dad’s huge car and into the passenger seat, with snacks packed by my mother, and wonder if I’ll ever shake off this déjà vu.

Chapter 25

Casey

I need a cigarette.

This will cause Mallory to roll her eyes or worse. I will stink. It will blacken my lungs and yellow my teeth and give me throat cancer.

But I may tear out my throat otherwise. So.

I dread the cold, though the wind appears to have subsided, as the snow is falling still heavy but now more or less straight down instead of sideways.

So I leave Angel to her nap and Jewel and Mallory to their channel flipping on the couch and step out to the front porch, which is more sheltered than the back patio.

I test the cut on my lip with my tongue. It seems to have scabbed over, so that it must look like hell but will probably not split open, if I’m careful.

After several tries to light up, my cig finally catches and I suck in, both loving and hating that pinch in my lungs that comes before the light-headed relief.

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t contact Tony again this weekend, not until I’d had a chance to decide what to do. How much to tell Michael and when. Ideally before Angel decides to let fly with my secrets.

But it’s too much to hold this all in. There aren’t enough cigarettes in the world to make this feel better. I’m a boiling pot with the lid bolted.

So I text him, as it’s safer than calling.

Dylan found. He’s fine. Thx.

Moments later, a return text: PTL—which I recognize as Tony’s texting shorthand for Praise the Lord—what happened?

Ran away. Long story.

Glad he’s OK. U?

SHE is still here. Makes me crazy.

Hang in.

I pause in the texting, finishing the last few drags of the cigarette, deciding what else to say, what I can reasonably type with my thumbs that will sum up everything.

Don’t know if M. still wants me. Want to stay. Hope I can.

Minutes go by with no response. He’s a volunteer firefighter, so he probably got called to a wreck.

I feel better having said it to someone, even though Tony may not have gotten the message yet, even though Tony is a relic from my past, a secret.

We were neighbors during my JinxCorp days. We’d get home at about the same time many nights. He was bartending and operating sound for local bands, so I not only saw him in the hallway in front of my apartment but some nights going out I’d go to