6

It was two in the morning when I finally gave up on sleep.

I had spent the last half hour listening to my father toss and turn in his huge bed across the hall. Another, kinder me might have tried to convince him that I wasn’t completely losing my mind and that everything was going to be all right. Unfortunately, I am not another kinder me. I am just regular shitty me. And, even in the best of times, I have serious doubts about my own sanity and whether anything can ever truly be all right.

Also, my dad sleeps in the nude.

So, there you go.

It had taken him two full hours to come up to my room after Grace was gone. From what I could tell, he just sat in the driveway before that, talking on his phone. Probably with my mom. My back-assward life is the only thing that keeps them in contact anymore. If they didn’t have my many problems to discuss they probably wouldn’t even speak to each other.

Which is a little sad, particularly because my father has been slow to move on from the divorce, even though he squandered her money and generally acted like a selfish dick-nose during the latter part of their marriage.

Anyway, after Grace drove away, he eventually entered the house and walked upstairs one painstakingly slow step at a time. Then, as far as I could tell, he just stood outside my room, sighing. He didn’t knock. He didn’t try the knob. It was hard to tell, actually, how close to the door he was.

He had the habit, like a sulking child, of shutting down completely when something was wrong. It would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating. I felt the familiar anger this time, but it was quickly smothered beneath the sadness and shame I’d been nursing since I jumped in the lake. Eventually, after what seemed like a thousand hours, he stepped closer and cleared his throat.

“Um . . . Tessie?” he said.

He paused, waiting for a response. I provided none.

“So, I wish I could . . . um . . . understand what’s going on here. But, since I don’t have the faintest notion, and you aren’t really being . . . um . . . generous with the details, I feel like I’m just kind of powerless, you know?”

I knew he was dying for a sign I was there, but I couldn’t bring myself to give him one. I didn’t know what to say.

“Here’s the deal,” he said after another substantial pause. “Your mother is not coming back early from India.”

I thought I heard a sad laugh.

“She’s there with . . . him. And I guess they’re too busy bending their bodies into Lotus poses to be bothered with anything happening at home. Instead I’ve been given instructions. I’m supposed to drive you back to school tomorrow, and see that you finish the year. Your mother has made it clear that dropping out isn’t an option in this family.”

When I swung open the door, I nearly bashed my father in the face. As it turns out, he had been standing pretty close. He jumped back, and his expression looked somewhere between startled and angry.

“But you dropped out,” I said.

“We’re not talking about me,” he said.

“Also we’re not a family anymore,” I said.

I looked at his hands. He appeared to be holding a plate of food.

“What’s that?”

“I made you macaroni and cheese,” he said. “With two cheese packets. The way you like it. Or, you used to, at least. You know . . . um . . . when you were a kid.”

I stood looking at the plate for a moment, the pile of neon orange noodles. It looked both absurd and delicious, and for a moment I thought I might break down and let everything out.

Dad was always my confidant when I was a kid. Usually unemployed, he used to pick me up from school each day, searching me out in the crowd of tiny beings. On the long walks home, I’d narrate my entire day, and he’d nod as if every detail was fascinating. Really? You fed the hamster an entire grape? Then, if he was in a good mood, we’d stop to get Coke Slurpies from 7-Eleven and compare brain freezes.

But, we weren’t really pals anymore. Now he was the guy who stole from me and ruined the later portion of my childhood with his self-obsession. I just reached out and grabbed the plate from his hands.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

He stood there blinking at me for another few seconds, then he spoke again.

“Tess, I have an opportunity,” he said.

I looked around the hallway.

“What? Here?”

He shook his head.

“I got a phone call earlier. From out of state. I guess the guy hasn’t heard about what happened in Nantucket yet with the . . . you know . . . dog explosion—”

“What kind of opportunity?” I interrupted.

“Well,” he said. “The kind I specialize in.”

I took a bite of macaroni.

“It’s a job and, financially speaking, I need to take it.”

He cleared his throat.

“So as far as I can tell, I have three options. One is to leave you behind and just go . . . do this job. But, after this morning, I just don’t think that’s going to be . . . um . . . possible. The second is to insist that your mom cancel her trip and come get you, but that doesn’t seem to be realistic either. So then there’s the last option, which is . . .”

“Who died?” I asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“You said it’s a job, and your job involves the dead, right? So who died to make this golden opportunity possible?”

He chewed his bottom lip.

“Well,” he said, “Sargent Bronson died.”

“Who’s Sargent Bronson?”

My father looked for a moment like he might break into a laugh. But when he spoke it was in a flat, even tone, as if what he said next was perfectly normal. And who knows, in his warped world, it probably was.

“Sergeant Bronson,” he said, “is a racehorse.”