We weave through it. Thankfully, Dad is nowhere to be found, either asleep or buried alive under all his crap. It’s not like he’s violent or mean or anything. He’s just . . . unpredictable. When he’s feeling good, he’s in the restaurant. He’s visible. He’s easy to keep track of. But on the days he doesn’t come down, we never know what to expect. We climb those stairs after the end of our shift knowing he could be standing right there in the kitchen, long-faced, unshaven, having surfaced to eat something for the first time since yesterday. And rattling off the same guilt-inspired apologies, day after day after day. I just couldn’t make it down today. Not feeling up to it. I’m sorry you kids have to work so hard. What do you say to that after the tenth time, or the hundredth?
Worse, he could be sitting in the dark living room with his hands covering his face, the blue glow from the muted TV spotlighting his depressed existence so we can’t ignore it. It’s probably wrong that Trey and Rowan and I all hope he stays invisible, holed up in his bedroom on days like these, but it’s just easier when he’s out of sight. We can pretend depressed Dad doesn’t exist.
Tonight we breathe a sigh of relief. Trey heads into the cluttered bathroom, its cupboards overflowing with enough soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and toilet paper to get us through Y3K. Thank God our bedrooms are off-limits to Dad. I peek into my tidy little room and see Rowan is sleeping in her bed already, but I’m still wired from a long day. I close the door quietly and grab a glass of milk from the kitchen, then settle down in the one chair in the living room that’s not full of stuff and flip on the TV. I run through the DVR list, choosing a rerun of an old Sherlock Holmes movie that I’ve been watching a little bit at a time over the past couple of weeks, whenever I get a chance. Somebody else must be watching it too, because it’s not cued up to the last part I watched. I hit the slowest fast-forward so I can find where I left off.
Trey peeks his head in the room. “Night,” he says. He dangles the keys to the meatball truck, and when I hold out my hand, he tosses them to me.
“Thanks,” I say, not meaning it. I shouldn’t have agreed to only ten bucks a week, but I was desperate. It’s not nearly enough to pay for the humiliation of driving the giant balls. “Where’s my ten bucks?”
“Isn’t it only eight if one day is a holiday?” He gives me what he thinks is his adorable face and hands me a five and three ones.
“Sorry. Not in the contract.” I hold my hand out for more.
“Dammit.” He goes back to his room for two more dollars while Sir Henry on the TV is flitting around outside on the moors in fast mode, which looks kind of kooky.
Trey returns. “Here.”
I grab the two bucks from him and shove all ten into my pocket with my tips. “Thanks. Night.”
When he’s gone, I stop the fast-forward, knowing I went too far, and rewind to the commercial as I slip the keys into my other pocket, then press play.
Instead of the movie that I’m expecting, I see it again.
It flashes by in a few seconds, and then it’s gone. The truck, the building, the explosion. And then back to our regularly scheduled programming.
“Stop it,” I whisper. My stomach flips and a creepy shiver runs down my neck. It makes my throat tighten. I pause the recording and sit there a minute, trying to calm down. And then I hit rewind.
Ninety-nine percent of me hopes there’s nothing there but a creepy giant hound on the moor.
But there it is.
I watch it again, and I get this gnawing thing in my chest, like I’m supposed to do something about it.
“Why does this keep happening?” I mutter, and rewind it again. I hit play and it all flies by so fast, I can hardly see it. I rewind once more and this time set it to play in slow motion.
The truck is yellow. I notice it’s actually a snowplow, and the snow is falling pretty hard. It’s dark outside, but the streetlamps are lit. The truck is coming fast and it starts angling slightly, crossing to the wrong side and going off the road. It jumps the curb spastically and jounces over some snow piles in a big parking lot, and then I see the building—there’s a large window—for a split second before the truck hits it. The building explodes shortly after contact, glass and brick shrapnel flying everywhere. The scene cuts to the body bags in the snow. I count again to make sure—definitely nine. The last frame is a close-up of three of the bags, and then it’s over. I hit the pause button.
“What are you doing?”
I jump and whirl around to see Rowan standing in the doorway squinting at me, hair all disheveled. “Jeez!” I whisper, trying to calm my heartbeat. “You scared the crap out of me.” I glance back at the TV with slow-motion dread, like I’ve just been caught looking at . . . I don’t know. Porn, or something else I’m not supposed to look at. But it’s paused at a sour cream commercial. I let out a breath of relief and turn my attention back to Rowan.
She shrugs. “Sorry. I thought I heard Mom come up.”
“Not yet. Not for a while.”
She scratches her head, the sleeve of her boy jammies wagging against her cheek. “You coming to bed soon? Or do you want me to stay up with you?”
Her sweet, sleepy disposition is one of my favorites, maybe because she can be so mellow and generous when she just wakes up. I suck in my bottom lip, thinking, and look at the remote control in my hand. “Nah, I’m coming to bed now. Just gotta brush my teeth.”