Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,98
you, always listening to your practices, so of course you’ll defend her.”
“Mom’s not that concerned for us. She just hates Casey.”
“Well, whatever, it’s all out there now.”
Dylan turns around. “It’s your shot.”
I line up a shot and sink the cue ball. Dylan picks it up and walks around the table, choosing his shot.
“What’s going to happen?” I ask.
“I dunno. We might have to go to court if Mom presses charges against Dad for supposedly hitting her.”
“Oh, God. He didn’t do it, and you saw her do it to herself.”
“Totally. But what if she says we made it up to take his side?”
“Shit. You know, I think she got Casey drunk on purpose.”
“She’s like a puppetmaster or something.” Dylan finds his shot, sinks the ball, starts to line up another.
“She was talking about us coming to live with her again.”
“In that dinky apartment? Great.”
“No, in a big swanky house in Forest Hills.”
“And how’s she gonna manage that?”
I shrug, not having thought that deeply about it. “I’m sure not sure that’s such a good idea, anyway.”
“Duh. But you said that’s what she wants? She’s going to try and get us back?”
“That’s what she said.”
Dylan looks up from where he’s stretched out across the table. “We could run away.”
“Ha. Smartass.”
Dylan sinks another shot. “It would help if Casey came back.”
I cross my arms and glare at him. “How does that help? And, hello? She thinks I’m a bitch?”
“Which you are. Sometimes, anyway. Dad just lost his job, did you hear that? And he’s dealing with all this crazy stuff. He’ll do better if he’s not alone.”
“He’s got us.”
“Not the same.”
Dylan’s winning anyway, so I go sink into one of the leather chairs at the edge of the room. “She probably hates me forever now, anyway.”
He shrugs. “Bet she won’t, though.”
“How would you know?”
“Because as we found out, she’s not exactly perfect herself. Not much room to judge.”
I let him go ahead and sink all the rest of the balls and stare off into the dark outside the lamplight. For months I’ve been annoyed by Casey looking like a kid, butting into my life, sucking away my dad’s attention, and then all weekend I’ve been stinging over that bitch thing . . .
I close my eyes and remember Casey, on the floor, saving Jewel from choking while my mom stood there and gaped like, well, like she was stoned. What if I’d managed to run Casey off earlier?
And then I think of my mom trying to get my dad arrested and tearing apart our living room.
“I’m going upstairs,” I tell Dylan. “I’ve gotta talk to Dad.”
Chapter 45
Michael
My father, silhouetted in the light from the gas fire in his den, taps the edge of his glass, but is otherwise silent.
After we settled the kids down to various activities resembling normalcy, after my dad checked out Jewel’s breathing and peered down her throat to make sure she was fine, after my mom started baking cookies, after I gave him a summary of the brutal events since he dropped us off at the house, my dad and I collapsed into silence near the fire with a drink. Club soda for me.
My earlier bravado in the SUV about not needing his help has evaporated. If I have to be dependent on my father for the rest of my days in order to keep my kids with me, then I’ll hand him my balls on a platter.
“I’m sorry,” my father says, staring into the fire.
“For what?” I ask, assuming he’s going to say something about not having clean sheets on the bed in my old room.
“For trying to run your life. For what I said in the car. Forget it. Take whatever time you need, and I’ll help you. And I’ll do my best to stop making you feel like shit about it.”
I do a double-take, at both the content of his apology and the curse word.
“What brought this on?”
“When you called me, you were on the brink. I could hear it. And then you told me just now what happened, and I saw your kids coming in here looking like shock victims. I’ve been holding you to an impossible standard. All this time I’ve been looking at your surroundings, your bank account, the car you drive . . . A proud man, a foolish man—after that big speech in the restaurant about not needing my help—would have done anything at all to keep from coming back here. But.” He holds up one finger, like he’s giving a lecture.