Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,88
could have handled all of it if there had been a real band, instead of this musty old music teacher who plays cello and doesn’t even know where the reed goes in a sax. And there are only, like, two other kids who play brass in the whole school. Both of them trumpets.
Whenever I thought of years left in that school, years left in my house with Angel and Casey fighting all the time, and Dad all worn out, and Jewel and stomachaches, I sometimes felt like my heart would explode out of my chest and I wanted to scream. Or other days it would just feel totally black, and endless.
I should have given Casey a chance, though. She might have helped.
Because now my parents are reacting exactly as I’d expected. Except my dad is keeping my mom calmer than I would have thought.
They were in here, and Dad was all, “Son, this is very serious, I wish you’d come to me.”
And Mom started crying and cussing.
So I’m grounded until they decide I’m not, which is no big deal because I have no life to be grounded from. And my dad is going to monitor everything I do online, which is no big deal because without Tiffany—and she’s got it worse than me, she’ll probably never be allowed to touch a computer again—I don’t care about that, either.
The worst part is, my dad wants to drag me to a shrink again. They got in a fight about that, right here in my room, my mom saying that’s an awful idea and my dad hinting that maybe I’m screwed up in the same way she is.
“Dad!” I shouted.
“I’m just concerned about you,” he said with his serious reporter-face.
Too many words to get out what I wanted to say then. Maybe later I’ll write him a note.
I close my eyes for the tricky part of my solo. It tumbles out like it was just waiting there for me to turn it loose. And I was thinking I wouldn’t remember it right.
I hear something over the sax, and pause, the last notes vibrating in the air.
It’s my dad, hollering for Casey.
She looks at me and sighs. She looks like she knows something coming. Something bad, but can’t be helped. She heads out the door like she’s walking the plank.
Chapter 39
Michael
Sometimes, the only order in my house comes from laundry.
It’s not exactly a manly thing to enjoy, folded laundry. Not something I discuss over beers at happy hour, not that I ever get to do that, anyway. When Mallory was in charge of laundry, we were forever having to tiptoe among hillocks of clothing, giving socks the sniff test to decide if they were wearable. I tried to keep up on it myself, but I was so tired after work, and when I did run it through the machines, it never did get folded but remained in a heap next to the machine, rendering our dressers and closets pointless.
Then Mallory moved out, and I realized, tired or not, it was my job to do. And I found time to do it, and I insisted Angel and Dylan help me, and we made it work.
Now, laundry heaped in baskets or scattered around makes me jumpy.
So I fold.
And as I fold, I suffer a pang of guilt in realizing that if I have time to do laundry now, I also had time to do it when Mallory lived here. I could have helped, at least.
I snap out a pair of my work pants and match the seams, as if to snap myself back to reality. It wouldn’t have helped. Whatever was wrong—is wrong—was far too complicated to be solved with a little laundry help.
Casey normally does this job, these days. She says it’s no trouble, she can do it while waiting for her program to compile, or whatever, or while talking to a client on the phone.
If I marry her, will she slide down the same rabbit hole Mallory did? Will I be tiptoeing through laundry piles because Casey is too “tired” to do it?
I ball up some socks and ponder the facts as I know them. She got drunk one time since I’ve known her. Once.
But it was at the worst time. And that bottle was half empty. That’s a helluva lot of booze for someone who doesn’t drink. Normally I’d blame that on Mallory, but she seemed so solid last night. Impossible if she’d been dipping into the whiskey with any seriousness.