Tigers, Not Daughters - Samantha Mabry Page 0,5
sisters eventually just went with it.
“Dad’s not in his room,” Jessica declared, entering the kitchen and pinning her name tag to her shirt. “Mrs. Mata’s outside, Rosa.”
The horn sounded again, and Rosa blinked, like she’d briefly forgotten where she was.
“I can’t find my keys,” Rosa said. “But you’ll be here all day, right, Iridian?”
“That’s the plan.”
Rosa fluttered away, out of the kitchen and through the living room. Once the front screen door clicked shut, Iridian turned to her older sister. Jessica’s work uniform consisted of a blue collared shirt and khakis, and it was obvious she’d gone the extra mile that morning to try to offset the unflattering clothes she was forced to wear. Long, loose curls fell down past her shoulders. She smelled like burned hair and aerosol. Her eyes were rimmed with black pencil, and her lips were painted a deep plum color.
“There’s cereal if you want some,” Iridian said.
“Did you hear me? Dad’s not in his room. He won’t answer his phone, either.” Jessica paused. “I’m worried about him—because of today.”
Because of today.
Iridian knew, despite how hard she might hope, that this Sunday wouldn’t be like all the other Sundays. That was because this Sunday was June ninth, a year to the day her sister Ana had fallen to her death from her window. Iridian had woken up sick in her sadness—even if sadness didn’t come close to describing the deep, persistent gnawing that she felt. Emotions were hard for Iridian. She liked to read about them in books, but hated when they crept and settled in her own bones. They made her edgy. They made her sweat. Over the course of the last year, she’d convinced herself she’d gotten really good at ignoring them, brushing them aside, dodging them like a car swerving around a dead animal in the road.
“Dad stayed out.” Iridian swallowed a mouthful of now-soggy chocolate globes. “He probably met some fine lady last night and—”
“Stop.” Jessica put up her hand and then snatched her car keys off the kitchen table. “I get it. Just let me know when you hear from him, alright?”
Once Jessica was gone, Iridian finished the last of her breakfast, drank the milky dregs, and put the bowl in the sink. Upstairs in her room, she climbed under the covers, then reached under her pillow for her favorite book, The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, which she was just starting again even though she’d already read it over a dozen times. The paper cover had fallen off and was now rubber-banded to the rest of the pages. Iridian could practically recite entire paragraphs by memory, especially the sexy parts between Rowan and Lasher, the ghost that, for centuries, had plagued the women of the Mayfair family, women who also just so happened to be witches.
It was the greatest book ever written.
Bleary-eyed, Iridian looked up to her doorway. She could’ve sworn she heard someone coming up the stairs and calling her name, but no one was there. She blinked and then glanced at the clock on her nightstand. It was 2:05 in the afternoon. She’d been reading for over four hours. Her right arm was asleep from the elbow down because she’d been lying on it weird.
The front door opened with a high, quick whine.
“Iridian! Iridian!”
It was Rosa. She was shouting. Something was wrong. Rosa never shouted. Iridian bolted down the stairs and saw her sister standing at the front door.
“It’s Dad,” Rosa said breathlessly. “In the street.”
Iridian pushed past her sister. She was out of the house and running—across the front yard; across Mrs. Moreno’s yard, where the water from the sprinkler was creating little suspended prisms in the sunlit air; down the sidewalk; under the shady canopies of the oak trees; and then out into the middle of the street. Down at the intersection, there was a jumble of cars facing every which way.
Iridian’s heart lurched, then sank. She was thinking, There’s been a wreck. Her dad must’ve been out drinking. Less than a block away from the house, he must’ve run his truck through a stop sign and into another car, or a couple of cars, or