Happy Families (3 page)

I just grunt, tuning out Lee’s lame attempt at a pep talk. I watch a group of event adjudicators standing together, discussing the last event and setting up for the next one. I see my sister right in the second row, scoping out the competition, her black boots
propped up on the seat in front of her. She catches me watching and gives me a thumbs-up.

Dad’s out there in the crowd somewhere. He was on a business trip, but he said he’d come straight over from the airport. Mom would have been here, but her driver called in sick this morning, so she’s one short at her catering company. The family always shows up at my events, which is more than a lot of guys can say. I know I’m lucky.

“So, you’re ready, yeah?”

I pull my wandering attention back. “Yeah, yeah, Lee. I’m ready.”

“Good man.” He slaps my back and I roll my eyes.

Lee talks up this big “go, team” thing, but it’s not about the team at all. It’s about Lee Raymond. He really wants to walk away from Medanos and be able to say he was a
somebody
here, a big man who got things done. Whatever. It’s his ego-happy moment, and it doesn’t have anything to do with me.

My eyes skate back over my SAT words and I ignore them, opting to close my eyes and focus on relaxing instead.

I like forensics. I love the watertight logic of a good argument, the clarity of a strong rebuttal. I like to think fast and talk faster, and I can see going into law like Poppy, but I won’t be some kind of single-minded jerk about it. There’s got to be a way to be a winner and still be a decent human being. Like Dad, for instance—his new job is intense. He’s in charge of building million-dollar labs for scientists and bioengineers, and he’s on the road at least two weeks out of the month. Even though he has hundreds of people who answer to him, Dad’s not on some ego trip. I respect him for that, for making time to go running or hang with us when he can. I want to be just mellow like that.

A flash of red catches my attention, and I see my girlfriend, Callista Douglas, sitting with her people. They’ve been waiting for me to look, and now each of them holds up a piece of red construction paper and flips it over. JUSTIN NICHOLAS ROCKS!! The words are in silver ink and glitter glue. My face goes into a big, stupid grin without my permission, but I duck my head, my face burning, when I hear Andre snort. I know I’m going to be hearing about my “fan club” for the rest of the year. When I look again, Callista is laughing, and my stupid smile comes back. We’ve only been dating for a month, but so far, it’s amazing.

“Your family’s here, right, Justin?” Missy looks over at me. “That lady in the white suit looks enough like your dad to be your aunt. She’s got the Nicholas nose and everything.”

“She’s not a Nicholas, unless Dad has secret relatives he never told us about.” I laugh, but the lady in the back row does look familiar. I scan the crowd, frowning. “My dad’s coming. He always wants to check out my future lawyer skills.”

Missy grins. “Better be impressive,” she warns me.

“Always.” I raise my eyebrows and try to look confident. Missy laughs and goes back to her notes. Andre looks calm and poised, in spite of his whack tie, and though I’m the only freshman, the weakest link on the team, I know I’m more than able to do my part. I get on my game face and nod. We’ve got this.

It’s not like Mom to want to go to the five-thirty service with us, but instead of pulling up to the yellow line on the curb, she drives the van around the oval and parks.

As she takes the keys from the ignition, I give her a look. “Um, Mom. You know Cory Vick’s band is doing music tonight, right?”

A ghost of her old smile appears as she straightens the collar on her sleeveless white blouse. Tugging to adjust the drape of her pale blue slacks, she says, “That boy’s drums don’t scare me, Ysabel.”

“
O-kay
.” I smirk, opening my door. “But don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. Poppy said last time he was deaf for a couple of hours after.”

“Your poppy is old,” my mother says loftily, and I have to laugh.

“I dare you to say that to his face.”

“No, thanks.” Mom’s expression is wry. She turns back to the car. “Come on, Justin.”

Justin sighs heavily and doesn’t move. He and my mother exchange a long, silent look, communicating any number of things, and then she slams the driver’s side door, walks to the front of the van, and waits.

There’s a click, then the passenger door on the far side rolls open. Long-armed, tall, and wiry, my brother, Justin, nonetheless gets out like he’s a hundred and thirty, then slams the sliding door hard enough to rock the whole van. I flinch, the sound startling new pain from the headache I already had, but Mom doesn’t move.

How long does it take someone to walk around a car? Impatiently, I shift forward, ready to walk into the church alone, but my mother reaches for my hand, and I wait, letting her hold me in place.

Finally Justin slouches toward us, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hunched and his face turned toward his battered deck shoes. Mom loops her arm in his, as if his sullen silence is an invitation, and together the three of us walk into the foyer.

It’s weird to be here. Lately if I show up to evening service at all, it’s by myself, since this isn’t Grandmama’s, Poppy’s, or Mom’s thing, and Justin hasn’t been to church now for … weeks. Since
Dad’s been gone, Mom hasn’t made a big deal out of us going, but for whatever reason, today she just put her foot down. “It’s a
family
service,” she’d said, and dragged us all with her.

We know why, of course. It’s because we’re going to Dad’s house in Buchannan, and Mom’s wrapping us both in an extra layer of God.

Which we might not need—no offense to God—if she’d
just let us stay home
.

My mother is the one making us spend our spring break on the other end of the state, out of touch with our friends and out of reach of anything real. I could put in so many hours at The Crucible with a week free of school, but no, she’s on this thing where she keeps saying, “A daughter needs her father.” Um,
hardly
. What this daughter needs is her blowtorch, thank you. Disconnected from my routine, from the steadying chaos of The Crucible, I’ll be completely out of sync with myself. In the six months since Dad’s been gone and everything’s been so weird, routine is what I need. Without it, the world is too sharp-edged, and too right up in my face, and things comes rushing toward me.

It
is
all rushing toward me. We’re flying down to Dad’s tomorrow.

Mom tugs on my hand questioningly, and I realize I’ve almost stopped walking. I pull away and cross my arms, suddenly angry with her all over again.

I hate this. I want to put this off, put Dad off, and shove spring break onto a back burner. Instead, I’m hurtling a hundred miles an hour toward this blank space in my head, a place I’ve dreaded so much I can’t even imagine it. Dad’s house. Where he now lives a life I can’t even imagine.

“Well, hey, Nicholas family! Good to see you, Justin!” Maisie
Tan, our youth pastor’s wife, beams at us at the door, where she’s standing and bouncing her baby. Justin just grunts and barely acknowledges her, which doesn’t dim her sunny smile. A moment later, he jumps and twists away from my mother, looking irritated. She must have poked him in the ribs. She has this
thing
about greeting people at church and is not above giving us little “reminders” when we forget.

To prevent a “reminder” of my own, I quickly wave at Maisie and enter the sanctuary while Mom slows to chat. I glance back and flinch from the compassion in Maisie’s face as she squeezes Mom’s hand and says something I don’t quite hear.

Ugh
. I turn away, rubbing my arms to erase the goose bumps. “Maisie knows,” I mutter to Justin, feeling exposed and betrayed. “I guess Pastor Max told her. So much for confidentiality.”

My brother doesn’t look at me. “Mom told her.”

I look back and shoot my mother an angry look. “
What?!
Why?”

Justin, having used up his fund of words for the hour, ignores me. He moves into the back row and drops to the pew like his strings have been cut. I know Mom won’t let us sit back there, so I keep going, all the way up to the third row on the left, which is where we always sit.

We’ve attended Church of the Redeemer my whole life, so I know just about everyone, not that I feel like talking to anyone today. People wave and chatter around me, and I sit and hope for invisibility.

“Ysabel.” Sherilyn appears at the end of the pew. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Crap
. I look up and smile vaguely, hoping she doesn’t sit down. “Hey, Sherilyn.”

“So, how’s life?” She leans forward a bit, her expression friendly and concerned.

“Good, good. Everything’s great.” The lie spills from my mouth and falls flat.

For a moment, Sherilyn stands with her hands in her pockets, staring at me. My face burns, first with shame, then anger. Why can’t she just leave it alone? The awkward pause lengthens, then Sherilyn clears her throat. “Great. Glad everything’s okay. Guess I’d better find a seat. Good seeing you.”

“Yeah. See you.” I wrap my arms around my middle, hoping to squeeze away the sick emptiness that threatens to overwhelm me.
At least Sherilyn doesn’t know
, I comfort myself.

It’s bad enough having Pastor Max know about Dad, but I can’t believe Mom talked to Maisie, too. I thought I could be normal at church at least, and pretend like nothing had changed—everybody knows Dad travels a lot for his job, so people have gotten used to not seeing him much. Now I find myself wondering if I’ve been fooling myself. How long has Maisie known? Do both the pastors know? Do the elders? Does everyone?

Fortunately, the panicked circling of my thoughts is disrupted by Justin and Mom arriving to shove me further along the bench. As I scoot over, Cory’s sticks tap together, Karissa, Paul, and Brianna start playing their guitars, and the music kicks off.

The band is loud and fast and energetic, and I’m grateful for the distraction. It’s easier to be part of a force of voices, a wall of sound singing out with everyone else, than to deal with the spew in my brain. I do my best to just focus on the words of each song and sing. And when Cory starts off a pretty decent cover of Third Day’s “Sing a Song” and urges us to our feet, I’ve actually, for
the moment, managed to set everything else aside. Even Justin’s tapping his fingers on the back of the pew in front of us.

Karissa and Brianna lean in and sing harmony, totally into the music and happy, and I’m glad for them. A lot of the older members of our congregation couldn’t deal with Cory wanting his band to play for regular services. For a while, there were a lot of church board meetings and drama, and people took sides. Dad was one of the people who really pushed for the five-thirty service to be less formal and basically
younger
. When the band plays, I always realize how much I miss him.

When Mom’s shoulder gently bumps mine as she turns to greet the people behind us, I don’t think anything of it, except to glance to my left to see if it’s anybody interesting.

When I see the familiar long-fingered hands on my mother’s shoulder, shock seems to suck all the air from the room, and a soundless explosion goes off in my brain.

Dad?

Jaw slack, I stare at him—and then all the blood in my body seems to drain down to my feet. Dizzy, I turn away, hot and cold and shaky.

Dad.
Here
.

I grip my brother’s arm and shake it. He gives me an irritated look, then looks again, his face worried as he studies mine. “What—”

“Dad,” I hiss, jerking my chin to indicate his position.

Justin’s eyes widen, and he begins to turn, then stops himself. He pulls away from my arm. “I’m out,” he mutters, and moves down the pew. I clutch his arm again and squeeze.

“No!” The music stops right then, so I only mouth the word
“wait.” I pull my brother’s arm and make him sit, whispering, “Where can you go? If you leave, he’ll follow you. Or Mom will.”

Justin sucks in a shaky breath, and I see him stop himself from turning around again. He scrubs his hands over his face and sits forward, his elbows on his knees. “God,” he mutters, and I hope he’s praying. I know I am.

They did this on purpose. We haven’t seen Dad in three months and were expecting him to meet us
tomorrow
, at the airport, in a town where we don’t know anyone.
Why is he here?

On the platform, the band is really getting into it, but all I can do is sit and wonder if people will look at my father and be able to tell. Is it obvious? If I look at him again, will I see that he’s … changed?

Suddenly the denim skirt and T-shirt I’m wearing seem too thin as shivers crawl over my skin. Has everything changed? Is he going to spend the week with us?

Where’s he going to sleep?

The music is quieting down to the hushed, reflective tones that mean it’s almost time for prayer, and for Pastor Max to give us one of his famous ten-minute sermons—which is another reason I normally like the five-thirty service. As Pastor Max heads for the pulpit, Maisie wheels the stroller filled with their sleeping son up the middle aisle and slides in at the end of our row. She smiles over at us, but I can only manage a grimace as my heart clutches in dread. Probably she sees herself as sitting with us for moral support. What
I
see is that our way out of here is now completely blocked. Mom on one side, stroller on the other, and Pastor Max just starting the last ten minutes of the service.

We’re
stuck
.

I have no idea what the sermon is about. All I know is when Cory taps his drumsticks together to count time for one last song, Justin abruptly lurches to his feet and heads for Maisie’s end of the pew. Maisie moves the stroller, and I make an abortive motion to rise, but feel my mother’s fingers clamp down on my wrist.

“Five more minutes,” she says in my ear. “You can wait that long.”