How We Fall (14 page)

94

Kate Brauning

“That’s illegal, right?” Claire asked.

“Of course it is,” Dad said. “Intentional destruction of property.”

Uncle Ward ran his hand through his hair. “Do you have any idea who would do this, son? Some kid from school?”

Marcus stood up. He frowned, but his eyes were more worried than angry. His dark hair was damp and stood up all over; he’d probably just gotten out of the shower, which meant he’d slept until noon. Not unusual for Marcus on a Sunday. “Maybe the Harris basketball team, if school weren’t out for the summer. But I quit playing last year, so they don’t care about me anymore.”

The Manson-Harris school rivalry was nothing new.

“We’d better call the cops,” Aunt Shelly said. By “cops” she meant octogenarian Sheriff Whitley. He’d bend down, say “Yep, them tires is cut alright,” we’d get a police report for the insurance claim, and that would be about it.

Aunt Shelly was one of those people who, if there was nothing in her life to freak out about, felt she must be overlooking something. Cancer-causing foods, non-SPF chapstick, high fructose corn syrup, margarine, first-person-shooter videogames, and treated tap water dared not be in the presence of her children, or else suffer the wrath of a vegan-raised ex-New Yorker.

Uncle Ward pulled out his cell phone and stepped away from the driveway to call the sheriff.

“If it was the Harris basketball team, Will would know.”

Chris said. “I can ask him if he heard anything.”

“That must have been a big knife,” Mom said.

Marcus looked a little pale, but Claire was watching me suspiciously, so I just stood close to him. She was on “get Jackie over Marcus” patrol now, and I’d get away with nothing while she was here.

95

How we Fall

“Nothing else is damaged?” I asked.

“Nope. But tires are expensive.” He exhaled.

“You should wait out here with me and your parents,” Dad said. “The sheriff will have questions. But everyone else can go inside. We don’t need a crowd.”

I followed Mom and Claire and Chris inside. Of all the stupid things to do to someone. This made no sense. Marcus didn’t have enemies. None of us did. The local farmers thought we were a bit strange and a little too “city,” but they had no real problems with us that I’d ever heard. Occasionally Dad even did free legal consulting for them to be neighborly.

The sheriff pulled up half an hour later. He stood in the driveway talking to Marcus, and then while he talked to the parents, Marcus pulled out his phone and texted someone. I sat at the kitchen table watching my phone, waiting for it to vibrate, but it stayed silent. Marcus kept texting.

Mom sat across from me, telling Angie, Chris, and Candace not to worry. Chris didn’t look particularly worried, but he rarely looked like he felt any emotion beyond skepticism. So unlike Marcus.

I walked over to the coffee pot, chose the largest mug from the cupboard, and filled it two-thirds full. I added a packet of hot chocolate mix to my coffee—intentionally using the mix—

and poured in several tablespoons of Kahlua. My mom raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything when I pulled the container of whipped cream out of the fridge and heaped the mug.

Another reason my parents were unusual: she raised her eyebrows at the whipped cream, not the Kahlua.

A bowl of homemade whipped cream usually waited in the fridge, ready to pile on strawberries, peaches, or whole-wheat waffles. Aunt Shelly declared at least once a week that laziness outweighed the desire for junk food in adolescents, so having an easily-accessible cancer-free dessert option around was 96

Kate Brauning

improving household health. To Aunt Shelly, all preservatives equaled cancer. All it meant to me was I could put both cocoa mix and whipped cream in my coffee.

Mom smiled at me licking whipped cream from my fingers.

“Why the heart attack in a mug?”

“No reason.” Because, unlike my life, I could make it exactly how I wanted.

I stole my mom’s straw out of her coffee and put it in mine because I was getting whipped cream on my face. She pulled the mug over to herself and took a drink, then wrinkled her nose. “Oh, hon, that’s too sweet.”

I reclaimed my mug and drank half before admitting she was right. Claire took it from me and I let her keep it.

Marcus and the rest of the parents came in as Sheriff Whitley pulled out of the driveway. “He thinks it wasn’t targeted at Marcus in particular,” Uncle Ward said. “His truck was closest to the road. Probably some bored kid on a dare.”

“Unless it’s one of the neighbor kids, which I doubt, someone drove a long way for a prank,” Mom said. “And cutting tires isn’t like toilet papering a house. That’s aggressive.”

“Could be revenge for something,” Dad said. “Maybe someone didn’t like my legal advice. Maybe something I advised on turned out badly.”

Aunt Shelly shook her head. “Let’s hope that’s all it is and this is the last we hear of it. Kids—Chris, look at me—no one goes outside after dark for a few days. We’ll keep the outside lights on. We’ll lock the main windows and the doors at night, so don’t unlock them once the house is shut up. And tell us if you see anything strange, okay?”

At least she wasn’t handing out tasers, rape whistles, and pepper spray. She must be mellowing out in her middle years.

She and Mom had gone head-to-head a few times, and it was a good thing, because living by Aunt Shelly’s rules would kill me.

97

How we Fall

Particularly the one that required her children to track their television time on the kitchen wall chart.

“Speaking of strange,” I said. “I found a tent when I went running this morning.”

“An abandoned one?” Mom frowned.

“Someone’s living in it. Down by the creek. There were clothes and stuff.”

“Could be a poacher. Across the road?” Dad asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think he’s been there very long.”

Dad ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t handle stress well—half the reason he quit working for the firm and we moved. “Okay. I’ll go check it out.”

“Oh, Cliff, have lunch first,” Mom interrupted. “I think everyone needs to sit down and eat.”

Dad sighed. “True. Okay.”

“Do you want coffee?” Mom stood up. “I’ll get you some.”

“Oh, I’ll get it. How long till lunch?” Dad asked.

Aunt Shelly opened the oven. “Ten minutes. Chris, get the salad from the fridge? Angie and Candace, the table needs set.

Texting every minute isn’t necessary, Marcus. We need the water pitcher and the wheat rolls.” Aunt Shelly’s meals might sound normal, but the lasagna was eggplant lasagna, the salad would have tofu and bean sprouts, and the rolls probably had flax seed or something in them.

If Aunt Shelly ran this house, my soul would shrivel up and die.I glanced at my dad. He looked more rested now than he ever had in California, but he still had deep lines around his eyes. The coffee pot was right next to me, so I poured him a mug and stirred in two spoons of sugar. He liked it black.

“Oh, thank you, sweetheart.” He took the mug from me.

“Good thing coffee is a natural beverage, right?”

“Definitely.” I glanced at Marcus as we sat down at the table.

98

Kate Brauning

He’d shoved his phone in his pocket to help set the table, but he pulled it out and started texting again.

“No phones at the table,” Candace said in a sing-song voice.

Aunt Shelly raised an eyebrow, looking around for the offender.

Marcus put his phone away and poked her in the ribs.

“Snitch. Not cool. I thought I was your favorite.”

Candace passed him the salad. “You are. But I have to be fair. I told on Claire, too.”

There were times when I enjoyed the tattle-tale stage that followed Candace turning nine.

“So, we need to get those tires replaced, I guess,” Uncle Ward said. “What do you have for spares?”

“Well,” Marcus set down his fork. “I have one. It’s just a donut, though. It won’t work for long.”

“You’d better call Riley’s, then. You can use my truck to pick them up Monday. We can cover it so you don’t have to wait on the insurance check. This wasn’t your fault.”

Judging by the crabby looks on the twins’ faces, they weren’t too happy about the eggplant, either. Nate wailed and shov-eled his off his plate onto the table. “Hey, hey—don’t do that.”

Marcus took away his fork and scooped the mess back onto his plate. Nate grabbed a handful and dropped it onto the table again. Gage watched him, then deliberately picked up a handful of his own lasagna and dropped it on the floor. “Mom,”

Marcus said, “this may be too much of an acquired taste for the twins.”

She sighed. “Can you get them some peanut butter bread?”

“Sure.” He stood up and walked over to the pantry.

I’d heard Marcus complain about the twins maybe a handful of times since they were born. I loved them, of course, but I didn’t have the patience he did. Maybe because they weren’t my siblings.

He never seemed to mind watching them, washing their 99

How we Fall

hands, cleaning up their mess, or answering their million toddler questions. But he did mind, sometimes. I knew he did. He just knew if he didn’t do it, it probably wouldn’t get done.

Dessert was only a Sunday thing, and of course Aunt Shelly served whipped cream over berries. Thankfully, blackberries and whipped cream were in a much superior category of food than tofu and eggplant.

“We have Chris and Angie to thank for the blackberries,”

Aunt Shelly said. “They picked them yesterday.”

“Thank you, Chris and Angie,” Marcus and I chanted.

“Yeah, whatever,” Chris said. “I ate half of them already.”

“Well.” Dad pushed back his chair. “Shall we go see that tent, Jackie?” He stood up and put a hand on Mom’s shoulder.

“Be back in a bit.”

I carried my plate to the sink and followed Dad out the door. “So this is down the road, by the creek?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I didn’t see my dad a whole lot, since he spent most of the day in his office, but on weekends he tried not to work.

That was one rule Mom insisted on making, and Dad had been pretty good about it since we moved.

He started the truck and backed out of the driveway. “Dad,”

I said, “did you date girls besides Mom?”

“Of course I did. Why?”

“I asked her why she married you, and she was vague.”

He grinned. “You did, huh? What’d she say?” When my dad smiled like that, it took ten years off his face.

“She said, ‘lots of reasons.’”

He laughed and I raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he said. “Inside joke. I had a few girlfriends before her, but she hadn’t dated anyone seriously before me. She was a choosy woman. Still is.”

“Why did you marry her, and not one of the others?” Everything was so mixed up with Marcus. There was a sliver of a 100

Kate Brauning

chance that I could talk myself out of believing I was in love with him. I didn’t have much to compare it to, so maybe this horrible sick feeling was something else.

“Oh, the usual things, I suppose. She challenged me. And we weren’t just dating—we were good friends too. I knew whatever I did with my life, I wanted it to be with her.”

Damn it.

He glanced at me sideways. “So. Your aunt thinks you’re seeing some guy.”

I froze. It took a minute for me to get words out of my mouth. “What?”

“She says you weren’t at the pool the other day when you said you were. I guess she checked. She says she overheard you arguing with Claire this morning about some guy, too.”

I adjusted the shoulder strap on my seatbelt. Thank God Claire had insisted we leave before talking about the rest of it.

“I’m not dating anyone.” Breaking up was the opposite of dating.

He rested his hand on the gear shift. “If you ever are, we want you to feel like you can bring him to the house. If he’s important to you, we’d want to meet him.”

No. No, they would not. “I know.”

“Well, don’t hide him just because he’s some pierced, tat-tooed punk skater or whatever they are now. After your sister’s boyfriends, I’m all prepared to handle that.” He winked at me.

I almost grinned. “I’d tell you if I was dating someone.” And normally, I would have. I wanted my parents to like the guy, and think he was good for me, and ask me nosy questions I could roll my eyes at. All the normal things other girls got to have.

He smiled. “I figured you would. And I don’t care whether or not you were at the pool, as long as you’re being safe.” He pulled the truck to the side of the road.

Aunt Shelly must have only heard scattered words of what 101

How we Fall

Claire said to me, or she’d know exactly what was going on. The fact that she’d nearly discovered us made my skin prickle. If she was being that nosey, we definitely had to end it.

We climbed down from the truck. “It’s in the trees, over by the creek.” I walked in the tire tracks of crushed grass over to the trees, but halfway there, I stopped. “It was right there.”

The grass was mashed down where the tent had been, and the protein bar wrapper still fluttered in the creek, but the tent was gone.

Dad stepped on a rock part-way into the water and fished out the wrapper. “Well, I guess that solves our problem. Probably just some kids having a camp-out.”

So there had been a tent in the field. That was no reason to be worried or suspicious. I shouldn’t have made a big deal out of it.

Between Ellie’s backpack, Claire’s ultimatum, and my dis-covery of how screwed up my brain was, I wasn’t seeing things straight. I had to do something. Get out of the house more.

Anything to distract myself and take a step back.

Dad headed back to the truck. “So Shelly’s just being overly concerned? There’s no guy?”

I climbed into the truck and closed the door. “Nope. There’s no guy.”

102

The house was quiet when we got back. The twins were down for a nap and the rest of the cousins were doing the dishes, Marcus supervising. When parents cooked, kids did the dishes—